Munchie Monday: Sunflower Seed Cheese!

 We were going to attend a party for some dear friends who had returned to the area for a too-short visit. I had wanted to make the Sunflower Seed Cheese recipe I had found a while ago.  (I always feel called upon to use my friends as guinea pigs...which thoroughly distresses Dear One but friends will tell you the truth about things.)

This recipe comes from Sam Turnbull at "It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken".  She has some really yummy recipes.

Vegan Sunflower Seed Cheese

Author: Sam Turnbull • It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken

2 cups raw unsalted sunflower seeds, soaked in a container of water overnight, and drained and rinsed before using.

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1/4 cup refined coconut oil...be sure to use refined or your "cheese" will taste like coconut which i did not want

1 1/2 Tablespoon white miso paste

1 teaspoon granulated garlic

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Add all the ingredients to a food processor and process until the mixture is very smooth.  Scrape down the sides several times to make sure every bit of mixture is smooth.

Place plastic wrap into a bowl or mold of your choice.  I used two mini springform pans which worked perfectly for the recipe.  Smooth the top then cover with the remaining plastic wrap.  Place in the refrigerator for at least overnight.

When ready to use, place on a plate with crackers or whatever you want to spread it on.  We used Wasa Crispbread

You will find that this "cheese" softens pretty quickly when you take it out of the refrigerator, so use it up!  It tastes pretty good.

Sadly, I did not take a picture of the two wheels of cheese before serving it.  This is the last of it...

Food Friday: New Experiment

 A couple of days ago I was watching YouTube and found a video called Nutmeg Notebook with Tammy and Tom.  Tammy was making a chopped salad.  I had a chopped salad at Subway once and was not impressed.  When I saw Tammy's salad, I could only think it was a good idea.

So we had chopped salad for supper tonight.

What I put together for this salad:

2 small bags Spring Mix
a handful of baby carrots
2 stalks celery
1 mandarin orange
1/4 of a pink lady apple
a few slices of red cabbage
a few dried cranberries
a handful of pumpkin seeds

1 cup cooked oat groats, cooled (the groats cooked in the Instant Pot--started with 1/2 cup groats and 1 cup water)
some poppyseed dressing

This is the leftover chopped salad. I put it into the refrigerator. I expect tomorrow it will be nothing but mush but we are trying.  Foolishly I had eaten a sandwich about an hour before supper so I could not eat very much salad, though I did eat more than Dear One, in case we were in competition!  Which we are not. 

My mind is pretty much set on going back to salads for two meals a day and oatmeal of some sort for the other meal.  This salad had a commercial salad dressing but in future we will probably used our flavored balsamic vinegars.  We have raspberry and maple on hand.  Honestly, I used the poppy seed dressing because I wanted Dear One to eat the salad and I know he likes that dressing.  Next time though...!

In fact, I am thinking of ordering one of the bowls Tammy was using from Holland Bowl Mill.  I called them yesterday.  The bowls will be back in stock Monday.  I am going to transfer money from my savings account so I will be ready first thing Monday.  The chopper comes with the bowl!  That is really nice.  I had ordered an OXO chopper, a two-bladed affair. It DID NOT WORK!!  So disappointing.  I pulled out the chopper from Dear One's mother that you use to make waffle fries.  That worked okay but I am looking for a high grade one to come with the bowl and will REALLY work.

By a fluke I saw that Chef AJ was Live on Instagram tonight.  She was talking with a very healthy-looking girl who has been eating raw foods exclusively for some time.  She lost 70 pounds and has beautiful skin.  I would not mind my skin looking up.  Plus weight loss is always in the back of my mind.  

Two days ago I joined (late!) a swim challenge at the YMCA.  We are to swim 15 miles in April.  Well, I managed 0.51 mile the first day, yesterday I had a bad belly and could not swim, and today I swam 0.64 mile.  Do you think I will make the goal in the fifteen days left when I can swim?  No, me either, but I am going to give it the old college try!  For the first time I swam in the cold pool...81 degrees. It was really lovely.  The warm pool is always 89-91 degrees....

Today when I had been swimming for 47 minutes my right knee began to call my name.  I decided to keep going for a while to see if it would ease off.  After three more laps my left leg developed a very nasty cramp and I became vertical in the water trying to knead the cramp into oblivion.  I still had almost a whole length to go to get back to the ladder to get out of the pool. (That is the bad thing about this pool--ingress and egress are rather rugged for this very, shall we say, large and awkward, older lady?!  I was not sure I would be able to get out of the pool when I got in.  With both legs giving me fits, it seemed impossible.  HOWEVER, Heavenly Father knew I needed help to get out of the pool so by the time I managed to make my way to the ladder the pain in my knee was only a shadow of its early unpleasantness and the cramping was totally gone.

As a chaser, I went over to the warm pool for about six minutes--until all the people who had made reservations for that pool started arriving.  It really was nice to warm up a bit, even though I was not that chilled.  Not like the pool I used in Vermont which chilled me to the core and took hours to warm me up afterwards.

One other nice thing about this swimming today, besides the exercise and the hopefulness for reaching a goal:  tonight I am almost totally certain I will sleep well!!!

Flowering Plants Everywhere You Look

 One of the wonderful things about spring, probably anywhere you live, is the glorious display of flowering plants.  Every day when I go to swim at the YMCA I walk by this beautiful tree.  I think it is a dogwood.

Today when I came out of the facility, not only did I stop and look at this lovely display, but some little birdie up above me sitting on the roof was singing the most glorious tune. I should have thought to bring out my phone and record him or her song.  Instead, I surprised a young man entering the Y by having a little chat with the bird.  The boy may have thought I was nuts but the bird kept up singing.  I loved it.

Garden 2021: FLOWERS!!!

 Last year a kind friend gave me some irises that had not produced any flowers at her house but seemed like they were nice and healthy.  I told her I thought that irises needed to have their "knees" on top of the ground so they could breathe and that this would help them bloom.

Well!  I took them home and planted them all- buried deep!  What a hypocrite!  Well, not really a hypocrite but I thought they at least needed to be buried deep enough so they would live through the summer and winter. I thought I could excavate them this spring.

Last week I was backing the car out of the garage and stopped suddenly!  Look what I found:

So very exciting!  AND they are deep true purple, not the light purple-y blue I have seen so often.  I really love them.  I am so grateful to D for her generosity.

Strawberries in March!!!

 Last Wednesday we were at the temple.  On the way home we stopped at the Cottle Strawberry Farm because it appeared as if they were open.  THEY WERE!!

We bought a big box of that deliciousness.  When we got home I washed the whole box, capped them, ate some, then put the rest in the refrigerator in a glass half gallon jar so that they would be very visible to everyone who lives in this house. (Sometimes things go in the refrigerator and seem to disappear...according to Dear One!)

You can see that we have had them on our cereal several days and also have handful-ed them several times.  They are so very sweet and delicious this year.  Last year we got some that had very little flavor.  I am inclined to purchase some berries from the farm near us...but I will wait until these are used up.  No point in having too many in the refrigerator.  I am so trying not to make jam...because of the sugar.  So far, so good!

Munchie Monday: Cereal Mixture

 Oatmeal has become a constant in our diet/breakfast.  I have already talked about eating dry oatmeal with chopped grapes mixed in.  The other week we did not have any grapes so I put oatmeal in the bottom of the bowl then dumped in a small amount of the mixed lightly sugared cereals that Dear One favors.  With a little homemade almond milk on top, it was pretty good.

Today I did the same but added some fresh from the field strawberries.  Quick. Easy. Tasty!

This is one of those meals where I could say, "Try it.  You will like it!"  Some things lately I have not been so happy with but this is definitely healthier than many cereals and tastes so good.

Food Friday

Sometimes you fall into a yummy dish without even planning it!  Today was one of those days.

All day there was something going on...I left really early, went to a diabetes class, tried to get a simple no-polish manicure but that salon was filled so I tried a different salon.  It only took a very few minutes at the second salon so there was too much time to hang around in town before swimming so I went home.

When I was home I started tidying the kitchen which was screaming at me to stay home and take care.  Well, at least my inner tidy person was screaming finally, so I really went to town on the surfaces.  There was a big bag of chopped kale I had purchased at the "past expiration date" produce rack at Piggly Wiggly a few days ago and realized that if I did not do something with it, the 99 cents I spent on it would be wasted.

Kale, the whole bag, plus 3 cups of water went into the 8 quart Instant Pot.  It had been previously on a long-term cook at 58 minutes so I said, why not let it go?  Then I went swimming.

When I got home after a good long swim and a haircut, we had time enough left to eat before going to the temple with a couple in our ward. SO...since I had not really made breakfast just announced what was available in the kitchen I decided I should do a little something for a supper for Dear One.  I was going to make him a sandwich but saw we still had one of the Bubba veggie burgers left and a bun, so I put the two of them together in the microwave then put on catsup, mustard, and relish.

When I came back to the island I decided to eat some of the kale.  It was cooked within an inch of its life, just the way I like cooked kale to be if I am not having it perfectly cooked for just 8 minutes.  THAT kale is like candy...you cannot stop eating it!  Anyway, this 58-minutes-under-pressure-then-2-hours-and-23-minutes-on-warming kale was ready to eat...

The mustard and relish were still on the counter so I thought, "What the heck?!  Why not try it?"  I remembered my friend Ruby telling me about cooking collards with relish so...I put a good squirt of dijon mustard and probably a tablespoon of pickle relish on the kale, mixed it up and ate it. IT WAS SO GOOD!  So good that when we got home after 10:00 PM I made another big bowl of it and ate it all.  I never eat after supper on a good day and then only a tiny snack.  The kale was really eating.  So good. 

 Now it really late and my eyes are blearing over.  Time to go to bed.  And man, is my tummy
happy. I hope it is still happy in the morning...

You can't really tell anything from the picture but the condiments are in there plus the thick tough stems that always come in those big bags of chopped kale.  By pressurizing the heck out of the stems they are soft and delicious.  No waste there...!