Munchie Monday: Quick, Easy, Mostly Tasty Supper

Today we were back home. Well, we got home later on Saturday actually. It was quite a weekend. After a great time with my sister, her husband, and two of her sons celebrating Thanksgiving.  Today I decided on quick and easy for supper.  This is what I did--

Pulled out the large Instant Pot (8-quart).

Pulled out the 3-quart Instant Pot liner bowl.

Placed 2 cups of mixed rice (white and brown together since that is how they were in the bin...) in the 3-quart Instant Pot bowl along with 2 cups of water.

Put the trivet in the 8-quart Instant Pot bowl with 2 cups of water.  Placed the 3-quart bowl with rice and water into the large Instant Pot and set timer for 28 minutes on HIGH.  And set it going.  Went about my business.

Twenty-two minutes after the rice timer went down to zero I remembered I had rice cooking...so I checked it out.  It had not quite returned to base so I expired the steam and pulled the bowl out.  Perfect rice!  Not burned.  Not gummy. Not hard.  Not chewy.  Just right.  For me, anyway!

At this point I pulled out our double boiler steamer pot that came from my mother's "waterless cookware" set she bought, probably in the 1980's. (I cannot remember the brand but it was so good that I still use it!) I love this steamer and use it many days each week for all kinds of vegetables.  

Into the top pot that has all the holes I placed a big charge of frozen peas, frozen white corn, and one diced sweet onion and let it steam for 10 minutes.  I did not think the onions would pass muster with Dear One at that point so I let the steam go for another minute then shut off the gas under the pot and left the cover alone so the onions would cook just a bit more.

When I thought the vegetables were cooked I dumped them into the rice pot and stirred them well.

To serve, I offered Braggs Liquid Aminos, some General Tao sauce from the store (not very good), and the butter dish.  I allowed the eaters to stir whatever they wanted into the rice and vegetables.  It was good.  Dear One was happy and I felt good about quick and easy.

Munchie Monday: Thanksgiving Pies Plus Skin Update

 It is time again for baking pies for the Marines at Cherry Point...the ones who need to be on base for Thanksgiving.  My sister and her husband and one or two others make way over 100 pies for the servicemen and women.  It makes me happy to help.  PLUS... I get to see my sister who I miss tremendously.

Here are the first pies out of the oven and the next batch ready to go in.  It is not too onerous since I bought frozen pie crusts.

These are the first eight pies.  I plan to make two more and call it good.  I only have ten boxes to store them in for the trip to North Carolina...so ten is all we will do.

My toll house pie recipe is as follows:

In a stand mixer bowl place 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and 3/4 softened butter (only use butter-no other kind of grease unless you like a nasty flavor).  Turn the mixer on and let beat until very very smooth, at least five minutes.  Add two eggs that are at room temperature and beat again until smooth.  Add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and mix.

Stir in 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.  When well combined, pour into a 9" deep dish pie shell.  Bake in a preheated 325 degree F. oven for 50-60 minute.  The top should be nicely browned.  If the pie jiggles, I would leave it in the oven another 2-3 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool completely before cutting.

SKIN NEWS

Well, on Friday I went back to the doctor to have the suture removed and to learn the diagnosis.  I had a fun time knitting in the waiting room for an hour then a nurse (at least I suppose she was a nurse) called me back in and told me I have "serious eczema" and after she pulled out the stitch she gave me a prescription and sent me on my way.  Surprising.

Well, it is good to have a name for the discomfort.  It really is getting better. At least the nighttime itching has mostly stopped.  Now it is other things that keep me awake or wake me up, just like so many other people.  Oh well, I do often get a lot of knitting done in the nighttime hours. I have started watching knitting podcasts on the tv while I knit.  I have finished all the Fleece and Harmony episodes and now have started Fruity Knitting starting at Episode 1.  Those are both wonderful podcasts.  I love the knitting, I love the chat, and I love all the other things they post.  Fleece and Harmony Mill is located on Prince Edward Island.  If we still lived in Vermont I would want to go up and visit them!

I am so grateful to Judy Tucker for getting me on to Andrew and Andrea at Fruity Knitting! #givethanks

Thursday Thoughts: Weight Loss Strategies

 Something has come to me very recently.  Dear One sometimes tells me that my middle name must be oblivious.  There is certainly a great deal of truth to that!  How some ever,  I think I have learned something about weight loss.  Finally.

This week has been completely hectic.  Part of it has been church work, part of it has been Christmas knitting, part of it has been test knitting. Part of it has been housework even!  Most days have been so busy I have had little time to sit down to eat.

Thought #1 about losing weight: Keep your hands and body busy all the time.  No time to cast about the kitchen looking for things to eat.

Thought #2 about losing weight: Get up in the morning and the very first thing you do, finish projects you should have finished yesterday or some time earlier in the week.  Such as sorting, folding, and putting away three loads of laundry that have been smiling at you for days.  There is nothing like getting a job done, doing it well, and then seeing empty spaces so you COULD take a nap if you wanted to.

Thought #3:about losing weight Have a plan for meals.  Actually execute that plan.  This way you are not casting about the kitchen (again!) for untoward amounts of time.

Thought #4: about getting healthy! Get rid of the Halloween leftover candy bags immediately.  Like...have someone come take it away.  Of course, being cheapskates, AND having a candy monster in the house, we have not done that.  So it is there tempting, tempting, tempting those who don't want to be tempted.

Thought #5:  This is probably one of the most important thoughts: DO NOT MAKE BREAD TWO DAYS IN A ROW NO MATTER WHO MIGHT NEED IT!  It is impossible to walk away from hot bread and a dish of butter.

For myself, my plan every day is to get up, weigh myself, check, my blood glucose, check my blood pressure, record all these things. (Doctors ALWAYS ask about all these numbers when I go, so...why not indulge them and keep track myself?!) After these things, I spend time reading in the scriptures then writing what I learned and what personal revelations may have come to me.  After that, I can get rolling on the day.  These are all good things.

On days when I follow these things with the activities above, real progress is made on many fronts.  I have recorded these thoughts for myself but also for anyone else who might benefit from them, and would welcome other "thoughts" to help us all gain good health and well-being.

The (Floral) Gift That Keeps On Giving!

 Last year my sister brought us some beautiful chrysanthemums.   I just loved them.  There were three big pots.  Eventually they wore down and seemed to die.  Very late in the season Dear One and I talked about whether or not they might revive in the spring, so I planted them in the ground.  (I did keep the pots because I might want pots for something come the new season...!)

Well!  Such good news.  Two of the plants made it through the winter and had very nice rich green leaves this spring.  A few weeks ago I noticed that not only did they have nice green leaves, they ALSO had a zillion buds!  Could it be that we would have a floral display this fall, too?!

YES!!  WE DO!!  So very nice.

Dear One thought that having two plants was not the thing...that for aesthetics we should have three plants.  He suggested a yellow-blooming chrysanthemum.  SO...I went to Lowes because they always have a ton of flowers there.  Well they DID have a ton of flowers there. I asked one of the ladies near the check-out if they had any chrysanthemums there.  She said, "I don't know what that is..." or something like that.  When I said "mums" she did know.  A worker about 20 feet away had heard my question and said there were "tons of mums" in the garden center so out there I went.

The first person I saw actually working with plants was addressed with the same question, "Do you have any yellow chrysanthemums?"  "What do you mean?"  OH, mums!  No, they have been gone since way before Halloween."  

Oh well, maybe next year!

An Annoying Rash

 Today I am tearing my hair!  And have been for a week.

A little history/build-up: Two weeks ago on a Friday our bishop invited Dear One to meet with him. I thought I knew why he would want to talk with us: I thought he might invite us to serve in the temple again.  As it turned out I was totally wrong.  He talked with us both for a while then invited me to serve as the head of the women's organization at Church.

On that same day I noticed a small red bumpy rash on my face. Since then the rash has spread to my arms and fingers, my neck, my chest, my abdomen, my thighs, and on one knee.  This rash is EXTREMELY itchy...thus the need to pull out my hair!  I called the doctor the following Monday who could see me on Tuesday.  Didn't think I could wait that long.  Well, I did wait.  He looked it over and did not have an immediate diagnosis so he took a biopsy which necessitated a stitch since he opened my skin pretty wide or deep. (I could not watch so I don't know what he actually did, but there is a stitch there.). He prescribed an ointment to help with the itching. When I went to the pharmacy they did not have it in the size that was required so I had to wait another day.

Twice a day I put the goo on my skin and it helps a little for a little while.  BUT the rash is growing.  

The results from the biopsy will not be available until Friday when I get the stitch out.  I have looked at lots of skin rashes online and cannot figure it out myself...of course, with my lack of medical training, it is ridiculous that I thought I might be able to come to know what it was.

Anyway, has anyone any experience with this sort of rash?  It is driving me nuts.  I am going to check with the doctor tomorrow to see if I can up the frequency of dosage of the ointment...

PS:  I am thinking that Heavenly Father has a sense of humor...to allow me to get a rash on my face just before receive a calling in the Church where I need to stand in front of a wonderful group of women on a regular basis!  It makes me think of the Apostle Paul who had a "thorn in his side", which I am now wondering if it was an itchy rash....

Of course, now I can have a little more understanding of the health problems that others have and more compassion.

Munchie Monday: A Favorite Meal

 A quick and easy meal, and one of my favorites, is bean burritos.  When we went to Costco recently we purchased a bag of flour tortillas.  We have plenty of dried refried beans that we obtained quite a while ago from the Church's Home Storage Center.  We store them in 5-gallon pails with Gamma Seal lids, which, by the way, I just found locally at the Tractor Supply Company!  They cost a little more there than they do online, but there is no added shipping fee.

This afternoon Dear One was reading on the back porch.  He asked me if I was serving supper today.  Good question.  I was not particularly hungry so I could have passed on it but I remembered those tortillas and the lightbulb went on.

The recipe is so simple.  To make enough for four burritos I put 1 cup boiling water in a saucepan and added 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic, 1/2 teaspoon granulated onion, and 1 1/2 cups of the dried refried bean flakes.  After stirring them all together well, and with the water still boiling, I then put the cover on the saucepan, shut off the heat, and removed the pan from the burner.

After ten minutes I removed the cover from the saucepan and stirred well.

Now comes the fun!  While the beans were rehydrating I finely diced half a sweet onion, sliced some iceberg lettuce, got out salsa and shredded cheese from the refrigerator.  After heating the tortillas in the microwave for 35 seconds, they were ready to turn into burritos.

For a change I decided to let each of us make our own.  Which we did. Then we sat down at the table, blessed the meal, and had a nice easy relatively healthy supper.  Dear One added cheese to his burrito.

This is my burrito: tortilla, beans, chopped onions, sliced lettuce.  After folding it up, deliciousness!

Family Friday Tales: Sledding Accident

 Once upon a time, a long time ago...probably about the winter of 1956...there was an accident on our farm.

As children we had the run of the farm.  Our parents were dairy farmers with a growing family.  At that point my older brother and I and our next younger brother were old enough to go sliding by ourselves in the winter.  Our house sat at a nice flat spot after a longish straight road.  The road then curved sharply and went on up the hill to the neighbors' house about three-quarters of a mile above us.

We loved to go up that road a little bit, turn around and throw ourselves onto our sleds and race down the hill and turn down onto the  flat in front of the house.  This worked pretty well for those of us with the long sleds, but the younger brother had a half-sized sled so he was forced to sit up on it and steer the mechanism with his feet, unlike our older brother and I who could yank on the steering mechanism with our hands.  There was nothing like the exhilaration of lying on our bellies on our sleds, steering with all our mights as we careened down that hill with the wind in our faces, and sometimes a little bit of ice crystals that whipped up from the sled in front of us.

This sledding and steering  worked very well.  Until one day!  One day, the day in question, E was sitting on his sled after hauling it up quite a way up the road toward the neighbors' house.  He sat on the sled and came barreling down the road.  He was going too fast to turn the sled enough as he approached the house.  He ran into a grease fitting on the front  of the little green Jeep that was parked in front of the house. He hit just right so he was not blinded but did have a scar ever after on his eyelid.

Older brother and I had already come to a stop and had turned back up the road in time to watch the debacle.  Fortunately there was only blood involved.  The accident did not stop the sledding.

Thursday Thoughts

Years ago I was at Grammie Corwin's house.  We were eating a meal together, though I do not know why. I don't remember that being a regular occurrence.  At one point she said, "You need to chew your food."  I guess I was just smashing the food up enough that I could swallow it.  She even sang me a little song to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

"Chew, chew, chew your food gently through the meal.
The more you chew, the less you'll eat, the better you will feel."  

I always thought that was a nifty little song she had made up just for me.  Come to find out, she was ahead of her time!  (Sadly, I did not take her advice until very recently!)

This week, or sometime recently:it is hard to keep track of time anymore, things move so fast-- I was listening to a health webinar.  I may not have the details entirely correct, but the essence is accurate.  The scientist doing the speaking said that there are so many good nutrients in the cells of the food we eat. In this case I think he was speaking of sulforaphane which is an important nutrient found in broccoli.  He said that there are several parts that make up sulforaphane but they are in different cells.  If you chew your food, you will break those cells open and the parts of the sulforaphane will mingle together and give you the important benefits that our bodies need for optimal health.  When you just mush up the food in your mouth and swallow it quickly, because you are in a hurry or maybe you don't like the food, well, you do not get the full benefit of that food.

So...Grammie knew some important things, even if she did not know why.  This webinar makes me more conscious of how to eat.  Often we just gobble our food, leave the table, and get on with other things.  In retrospect, that is a poorly-thought-out practice. I guess with was not thought out at all.  

Another area for immediate reformation...!

 

2020 Garden: Final Sweet Potato Harvest!

 Yesterday I went out to harvest the "big" sweet potato bed.  It was kind of fun.  I yanked up all the vines and moved them to the place where we had the zucchini plants this year.  In the spring I will add dirt to that pile which I hope will have composted away over the winter months.

Here is the five gallon bucket of potatoes as I brought them up to the garage.

This view of potatoes are on the trunk of the car.  You can see how huge they are. I am betting that the one on the far right is five pounds and the one next to it close to five pounds. So amazing at their size. 

I cannot wait for them to cure so we can eat them.

Test Knit Finished: Hearth Hat

 Test knitting is an enjoyable past-time usually.  This is a test knit I wanted to do because I saw the test knit for this pattern in fingerless gloves. I LOVED those gloves, so when the hat pattern was available to assist the designer by test knitting it as a hat, I jumped at the chance.

This is a toddler sized hat knit in Patons Classic Wool worsted on 3.5 mm ChiaoGoo needles.  ChiaoGoo needles have become my favorite needles.

The talented designer is Victoria Marchant Knits.  We should look forward to other designs she creates!

Munchie Monday: Failed Pancakes If You Can Believe It!!

 Dear One loves fat fluffy pancakes.  We went to Costco one day last week.  He saw Kodiak Pancake and Waffle Mix on the shelf, remembered our missionary days, and thought it would be a great idea to get it.  Okay, we got it.

Here you see it was Kodiak Cakes not Kodiak Pancake and Waffle Mix, but I bet you grasped what I was talking about....

This morning I made up the pancakes after he returned from his bike ride.  He had eaten a toasted English muffin before his ride so I was not rushing around to make breakfast.  Instead I was working on Christmas knitting, which is coming right along, by the way!

When I pulled out the Kodiak box I noted it called for 1 cup of mix and 1 cup of milk of any kind.  Or maybe it said water.  Be that as it may,  we had nearly half a gallon of buttermilk in the refrigerator from something I made a couple of weeks ago.  Dear One is the one who purchased a half gallon of buttermilk.  We buy it by the pint in Vermont. It appears that people in the South like their buttermilk!!

So I put 1 cup mix in a bowl with 1 cup buttermilk and stirred it up in great shape.  It was quite thick.  Surprisingly.

Here was the first pancake cooking in our non-stick pan.  It just sat there. Very sludgy looking.  Eventually I flipped it over.  I had a good idea that it was not cooked all the way through.  A little later, after cooking three more like this, I started pulling them apart.  They just slid apart as easy as pie. The center was DEFINITELY not cooked.  

At this point I stopped cooking from the bowl and started pulling apart the raw-in-the-middle pancakes and flipped them raw side down into the pan.  They cooked up pretty well.  At least I thought they were okay.

Now for the final bad idea...I added about a half cup of water to the batter in the bowl, stirred it a little bit and cooked two more pancakes. It looked more or less like "real" pancake batter.

Here it is in the pan and looking a little more like a real pancake.  I thought all would be well.  Since it had enough popped bubbles in the top, I decided to flip it.

Here you see the great flipping job!  The pancake pleated on the pan.  Nice!

As it happened, Dear One was not enamored of these pancakes  for some reason so I had to eat some or throw them out. I hate wasting food so you guessed it, I ate three of the nasty things.

Next time---no buttermilk!  In fact, next time I think I will make muffins instead!

Family Friday Tales: The Tale of the Birthday Party

 Our father was a great story-teller.  We loved his stories.  He saw things around him and turned them into lessons for "us kids" and often made us laugh.  Today's story made us laugh.

This is the story:  there was a man in the neighborhood when our father was a boy.  This man was apparently fairly popular.  When he arrived at a pretty good age, there was a large birthday party planned for him.  If I remember right, the party was held in the church hall so it could accommodate all the people who wanted to attend and congratulate the gentleman at arriving at that age.  I don't remember what it was but it strikes me that he was 70 years old.

Someone made a wonderful huge cake for him, which I believe was cooked in a large dishpan.  By saying that you know this story took place many years ago.  I don't know of anyone in this day and age who has a metal dishpan capable of being used in the oven to bake a cake...the dishpans we use are all plastic.

Anyway, it came time for the presentation of the cake with all its candles.  Someone, or maybe more than one person, put a match to all the candles.  The gentleman inhaled a huge breath then blew with all his might to blow out all those candles with one breath.  At the end of his "blow" his false teeth landed right in the middle of the cake.

This was a story our father told us with much mirth and appreciation for the funny things that can happen to a person.  I think that story is one of the reasons that I try to take pretty good care of my teeth...!

Halloween at Our House

 Dear One is such a good man. He thought we should dress up for Halloween for while we sat on our porch ready to hand out candy to passers-by.

Here he is:

Can you guess his costume?  Yes, you are right!  He is the conductor on The Polar Express.

Yep!  There she is: the witch!  One little child on the sidewalk was heard to say, "Look at the cool witch!"  That made my day!  As you can see by the basket of roving, I was sitting there spinning wool yarn while the kids came and went.  I managed to finish one bobbin which was half full when I started. Since people were still coming when it was getting dark, I put on another bobbin and spun up another bit. It is now ready to roll the next day I go out to spin,  

My plan to spin every day after supper has hit the skids.  I think I was only able to spin two days last week, including Halloween!  Maybe I can do better this week.  Too many things pulling me this way and that, but I REALLY want to spin up all the fiber in the fiber closet.  This is especially desirable since I moved ALL the fiber things, including most of the fabric, into the closet when I was on a cleaning binge last week. I need another week of all-day-cleaning-binges to get that workroom whipped into shape. I am thinking of giving away some of my precious 'stuff'.  We shall see.  If I am not using it and there is way too much anyway, well, someone else could benefit from it...At least I guess they could.

Fall Decorations...

 Years ago our tiny granddaughter, G, was visiting our home near a major holiday.  She said, "Grammie, you should decorate your home."  That had never crossed my mind.  We had a holiday meal.  The house was more or less orderly depending on when you checked. Everyone seemed in good order.  SO...I did not see the need.  Since then I have done some small amount of decorating.

The nice Children's Librarian at our county library has a Saturday "Crafternoon", or she did in happier days.  A few weeks ago she inquired of former attendees if we would like to receive a bag with crafty things in it to work on at home. I was all it.

This is what she sent: ten strips of paper for each size, two brads for each size, a green pipe cleaner and a green leaf for each size.  Also instructions!  We were supposed to get a tea light to put inside.  Being lazy and cheap, instead of a tea light I put in a cereal bowl in the big pumpkin and a dessert dish in the small pumpkin and filled them with candy.  You can see that has been a popular idea!

Munchie Monday: Superfood Green "Juice"

 When we were on our mission in Oregon one of the sisters in the mission office told me of a beverage she used for her breakfast every day.  It was made up of several items.  Two of these items were packets of Amazing Grass Green Superfood and Emergen-C.  Both were available at Costco, so we purchased quite a few. (One of them was scheduled to go off their shelves so we did stock up! 

As it happens, I only used it a few times before we completed our mission and came home.  I sent the packets home in our many (MANY) boxes to catch up with us when we finally settled somewhere.  

Because it was so long since I had made "the real thing" with all the ingredients the sister used, I have forgotten all those other ingredients so I just use one pint of filtered water, 1 green superfood packet and one Emergen-C packet.  I blend in the blender with a few ice cubes.  Every time I decide I needed more ice cubes!  

This stuff does not taste amazing but it really does taste okay.  Especially when cold!  I have learned that it is better to make this in a blender than in a shaker bottle!  Trust me.

Don't ask me what you are seeing in background.  I have no idea...except for the butter dish which should really be washed and put away since butter is not really on our diet at the moment.  Too tempting.  How I love butter!