Food Friday: Busy Early Morning Things!

 This morning I started early on getting things done since I need to be free later in the morning.  Things turned out successfully, which is always a pleasing start to the day.  To make this morning successful I had to start last night!  

To make almond milk you need to soak one cup of almonds in water overnight.  I remembered to put the almonds soaking before bed, a real plus.  This morning I drained and rinsed the nuts then put them into the blender with 5 cups fresh water.  They blended for 90 seconds then were strained in a very good nut milk bag.  The link is to the nut bags we bought.  They are SO MUCH BETTER than anything I have used before. I can certainly recommend them for people who are sick of straining nut milk through cheese cloth, paint strainer bags, dish towels, and any number of other not-so-hot options.  I love these.

Earlier I had seen a recipe in the email from #LifeIsNoYoke for making orange juice in the blender so, since I found a package of 6 medium navel oranges in the "almost gone by" shelving at Piggly Wiggly, I decided to give this a try.   The recipe called for 1/2 cup water, 4 peeled oranges, 4 pitted dates, and 1 1/2 cups ice cubes.  I blended this for a minute then poured into a quart jar.  It is a little pulpy for me, but does taste okay.  Dear One will probably love it since he is all for pulp, for some unknown reason.

The orange juice ingredients are in the blender ready to go.  I DID remember to pit the dates.  A very good thing all around!

This is the orange juice ready to be bottled up, then consumed at some point in the future. I presume Dear One will have a slug of it when he returns from his bike ride.

When making almond milk there is always leftover almond pulp.  In the past I have dried it in the dehydrator, ground it up, and used it as almond meal in recipes but this time I left the pulp from two times making milk in a sealed container in refrigerator.  Last night I hauled it out and made a recipe calling for almond pulp, oatmeal, maple syrup, flax meal, and cinnamon. Oh!  And chocolate chips.  You cannot go wrong with chocolate chips!   The pan of mixture needed to bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes.  I put it into a silicon loaf pan and baked it a little longer since the pan made it a little thicker than the recipe called for.  

Instead of leaving these bars out to cool, I put it in the refrigerator overnight to "firm up", but mainly to keep the lovely fragrance hidden from the nasty miserable ants that come a-running any time I leave anything on the counter overnight.  So maddening.  We spend a ton for ant eradication every month but somehow the ants have not gotten the message yet that they are not welcome...

Here is a picture of the orange juice, almond milk, and the chocolate chip almond pulp bars.  They do not look that appealing, and, honestly, they are not great, but they are edible which I can say in all truthfulness as I ate some of the scraps that fell off the bars.

Another Busy Morning: Organizing This Time

Are you able to make a plan to get organizing and just go for it?  Well, I am able to do that sometimes.  Lately organization has taken a back seat to getting things done that were pressing.  Or seemed pressing at the time.

This morning I was souped up about making Christmas cards.  Before we left the mission in Portland I went to Dick Blick's Art Store.  While there I found a masking fluid pen.  That really caught my interest and I instantly grabbed it and put it in my small shopping basket...small because much of the great stuff at Blick's is more costly than I would like.  So, I purchased it.  And brought it home.  Well, sent it home. Then put it on the truck to come south.  I thought it was with my art things.

This morning the need for that masking fluid pen came to the top of my list of things to do NOW.  So I started going through boxes and bins in the workroom.  This time, instead of just pawing through things, I made new homes for a mammoth amount of stuff...and tossed some things that did not make the trip to Vermont and then to South Carolina in very good shape.

At one point Dear One looked in on me (perhaps he was thinking we ought to have breakfast sometime before 11 AM, which was the time he looked in) and asked what I was doing.  He did not actually say, "Looking for something?"  but I know that was in his heart.  This is not a new thing: something is missing and I go crazy until I find it.  Finally, around 11:30, I finished all but one of the containers, which, from the top view, seems to have yarn and fabric in it.  Since the frisket pen did not turn up, I went to our best friend, Amazon, and placed an order. It should be here on Saturday.

Actually, as I just turned around in my chair to look at the shelving unit, I realize I am not as lily white as I stated above:  there is the bin of mission things still needing to be installed in my mission journal, a bin of thread and other sewing things, and two smallish bins of wool yarn and knitting needles.  It is possible that the small frisket pen is in one of those, though I don't know why it would be.

Something I did NOT find which I was also looking for:  the big slug of Butterick, Simplicity, McCalls, and Vogue dressmaking and crafting patterns I thought I had brought south. I must have given them away.  Oh, well.  I can always re-buy, except with the closest Joann store an hour away in each direction, it is not too convenient.

Maybe we can go over to the Cayce Joann after the temple in two weeks.  Assuming I allow myself the luxury of that pattern purchase.  I have decided I need a new temple bag.  I want to make one of a pretty quilted fabric that has a zipper that zips all the way from bottom to bottom and which is in a zipper tape at least 8 inches wide.  When we were at Joann the last time, I did look at patterns.  There is not a pattern for exactly what I want so the chances of making a nice temple bag is not very likely to happen.  I have not seen what I want already made up.  And I am probably too cheap to buy it if i do find it because "I can always make one".

Even with all this work, and even more chitter-chatter, I am not ready to post a picture of the workroom.  It really is still in no kind of shape, though there is much more floor space than there was.  Some day!

PS . We did eat breakfast a little after noon...French fries in the air fryer and chocolate chip cookie pieces...and the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers.