Food Friday: First "Real" Meal

Today when we were bringing boxes in from the garage we struck pay dirt!  There was the box which had the kitchen things from Oregon! Bonus! I was so happy to find them, unpack them, wash them, and now use them for supper!

We had a box in the freezer called "Gardein Teriyaki Chicken Bowl" or some such thing. It was food for one.  While I am committed to eating less food, I wanted more than that sized serving. So, since my bowls that I use for an extra insert into the Instant Pot were in that same box,  I decided to cook  some rice to add to the "bowl".  I cooked a pound of rice with the same volume of water in the Instant Pot for 22 minutes on HIGH pressure. I let it reduce pressure naturally for 10 minutes then removed from the pot. It was just the way I like it.  Well, actually, I like it with soy sauce or Bragg's Liquid Aminos, neither of which we have yet, so not exactly the way I like it, but the texture was nice.  (I am hoping not to fill up the kitchen to the gunwales, at least, not right away, so I have done very little shopping.  PLUS I want to see all the stuff I think I sent from Portland before buying possible duplicates.)

To add to the rice, I cooked a bag of peas and carrots in the double-boiler which also showed up today.  Double bonus.

After the peas and carrot were cooked, I tossed in the frozen Teriyaki Chicken Bowl (not real chicken but it sounds good), then chopped three hard-boiled eggs I had cooked in the IP earlier this week.  I brought this conglomeration, together with 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, to a boil then plated it up.  It tastes kind of blah with no soy sauce and the seasoning for only one person but I think if we throw on a little sea salt we can pretend that it tastes good...

LAST DIY Project. I Hope.

After putting together the beautiful maple butcher block table that will be my desk upstairs, we started working on putting together the TV stand that required assembly.  There were no mean words or faces or loud breathing.  It was a very hard job.  I do not want Dear One to have to do such a thing again.  When we go furniture hunting I want to see what a similar project, already assembled and delivered would have cost to see how much his time was worth. I did try to help but did not do much.

Three hours, one smashed and bloody finger, and multiple resolutions about future DIY projects later, this is what we have:

Pretty nice and just the right size and shape for the television.  Now for some recliners?!

Now It Starts All Over Again!

We are in our house.  So great.  Sleeping in our own bed again.  So great.  Garage full of full boxes.  Maybe not so great.  Except that they are not outside getting rained on or snatched.

You can more or less see that the garage is COMPLETELY full.  I think we will be having a yard sale soon.  Sad.  We shall see.

So far we are bringing into the house one box at a time.  Because I was dying to get my table/desk put together, I searched yet again for Dear One's bucket of tools this morning.  Hooray!  I found the bin.  Soon after that we went upstairs and put the table together.  So nice.  Tomorrow I am expecting a file cabinet to arrive. I am hoping the delivery guy will help us get it upstairs.  But if not...well, we continue to do hard things.  It weighs 97 pounds...

This evening after supper (still nothing exciting, just salad and sandwiches, though Dear One ate a couple of leftover pieces of pizza...) I brought in a "Kitchen"/"Store only on top" box.  In it were our glass measuring cups and a beautiful green bowl I found beside the road a few years ago in a pile of "free stuff".  DIL A had done a FABULOUS job packing these items so they arrived in perfect condition.  (I mention this because 1.  I am so grateful for her loving care and 2. Not everything did arrive perfectly.  My very old and well-loved platform rocker, for example, had a bit of a rough life...mostly, I think, when it was being removed from the trailer.  Fortunately Dear One was able to put it back together and I have spent several pleasant hours knitting in it and thinking happy thoughts.)

Every day a little bit of work and progress is being made. 

We are looking forward to Friday evening when the ward leadership is having a Newcomers'  Potluck.  We are to bring a side dish. I cannot for the life of me decide what to make.  It may be as boring as a salad because that will be vegetarian for the solid vegetarians among us.  I would actually like to make a fabulous vegan side dish but cannot think of what to make with the few tools we have so far unearthed.  And I do NOT want to go get the right tools since I know they exist somewhere in the garage. Oh well.  Into every life a little rain must fall...

First South Carolina Knitting Project!

On Sunday when we were leaving Church from the Stake Conference broadcast we found a tripod in the foyer with the announcement of a baby shower to be held on Tuesday.  I thought it might be a great way to meet some of the sisters in the ward.  When the Elders’ Quorum president came to help us with the unloading last night, he brought his wife.  I took a deep breath and asked if would be out of line for me to attend the shower.  She thought it would be a great idea.

So…I thought I would take a baby washcloth I had previously made but which needed the ends woven in.  When I went out to the garage today to work on boxes, I saw the cotton yarn box which was just barely within reach so I pulled it off the pile.  There was a beautiful ball of Lily Sugar n Cream in the Country Stripes color-way.

A pair of size 4 straight Boye needles were in a third box (the last of my work for the day!!) so I took them and cast on 29 stitches.  For a pattern I did a simple moss stitch.  I think the washcloth for the baby boy turned out pretty well.

 The background is Bob's great-grandmother's oval marble table that safely made the trip from the upstairs in Vermont to the cellar in Vermont to the UHaul trailer in Vermont and into the "breakfast nook" (actually just an empty spot in front of the sliding glass doors onto the back porch/deck...) which will be the first time it has actually been used for anything besides a lamp and other storage.

We still don’t have internet active at the house so I will need to go to the church to send this post…

We Are In!!!

Well, actually the house is ours.  We are not actually in as in not all our stuff being installed but we are waiting for the truck to come with our UPack trailer.  Hopefully this week.  Current seating is stair steps, bathtub edge, toilet seat, and if we won’t mind sweating like a pig, the two wicker chairs we bought for the back porch are pretty nice.  

We did get a bed for the guest room though we had to stay in the motel an extra night until the bed could arrive. (I was NOT interested in sleeping on the floor even one night!!!) It is very comfy.  Last night I slept really well.  Tonight, well, I woke up just after 11 PM and it is now 3:30 AM.  One of the drawbacks of taking a much-needed Sunday afternoon nap, I guess.  (Yesterday was nightmarishly long and exhausting. Just about finished off my hips, knees, legs, and feet walking around on cement at Lowe’s, Food Lion, and other places…! Nearly four hours of non-stop cement walking.  Too much for my poor benighted body.  Hope not to do it again.  At least not soon.)

We are cooking in the Instant Pot that arrived on Saturday and expect to have “fried potatoes” for breakfast.

At the moment I am writing this we have no internet so I will go over to the church later to send this.  NEWS FLASH!!!  Church is only two minutes away!  Isn’t that the best!

We have a nice pond on our back line and even in the middle of the night I am hearing a few frogs.  Such a happy sound.

This white heron entertained us for a while on Sunday afternoon.

If any of this sounds negative, sorry. It is not meant to be. Things are wonderful.  And I kind of like the empty house.  I had a dream before we left Vermont that had me sitting in the garage here going through boxes and building a big pile of things to throw away!  That may be more accurate than you might think.  These days planning for the space and thinking about what the next chapter in our lives should include—well, it is using up the brain cells!  In a good way.

Addendum to the previous:  We called UPack.  They say they will bring the trailer sometime between 12 noon and 5 PM today.  The young missionary elders may have time to help us unload later on.  That will be great.

Also, as you can tell, I was able to connect to internet at the Church parking lot.  So nice.

More soon!

Food Friday: Tofu Sticks

Since I planned to make spring rolls I thought I would make a "protein source" to insert into them. 

One block extra firm tofu cut into sticks about 1/4 inch thick and across the block short-wise.
Bulgogi sauce

Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, or use parchment paper if you have it conveniently to hand.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the tofu sticks on the pan with plenty of room between.  Brush with bulgogi sauce.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Pull out of oven and turn over.  Brush with more bulgogi sauce.  Bake another 20 minutes.  Let cool completely then use in spring rolls.  Try not to eat them all up instantly.  After all, they are for the spring rolls...

Be sure to list the sticks as "protein source" when someone asks you what is in the spring rolls.  NEVER say tofu or no one will eat the nice spring rolls.  Trust me.

These are the spring rolls.  One caution:  they are much better the first or second day.  After that the rice paper toughens up and they are not so fun to eat.  Well, maybe that is a good thing.  Food as fun is probably a bad idea.  Food as fuel, much better idea.  Over-filling the tank with that fuel has very bad effects on the tank after a few, or many, years! 

Canine Friends in North Carolina!

We stopped at my sister's home on the way back to South Carolina.  Her two miniature Schnauzers, Minnie Mouse and Heidi and her son's probably mixed breed dog, Gideon, met us with happy barks.  When we arrived at the end of June these guys went crazy barking up a storm when we showed up at the door.  No, they did not bite, but is was to be thought of...!

Here are Heidi and Minnie resting beside me on the  couch.  You know they are quite vigilant and concerned about our safety because you can see the ears are still half way at attention.  Cute little girls! 

Heidi seemed to adore Dear One who was available for constant backrubs.  When Dear One stopped the massages, Heidi lifted up her head then reached out a paw as if to say, "Hey!  What gives"?  I am still here waiting...!"