Livingthedreamwithdiana.com

I’m using my backpack.

I walked to Walmart today to buy a few things I thought I could carry back in my pretty rattan basket. I bought a small jar of coconut oil, 225g, a half gallon of milk, a quart of heavy cream (for butter), a 200g package of celery cut into 5” sticks, a 500g package of prunes, 2 ripe bananas, 4 of our version of Yukon Gold potatoes, and 2 bunches of flowers. (The flowers I bought from the small flower seller outside of Walmart. It’s where I buy my flowers on the occasion I want cut flowers). Holy Toledo it was heavy. 😑

So, as I said at the beginning, next time I’m going to wear my backpack. In fact, tomorrow I’m going to walk to the Banco Santander to pay my gas bill, ($170 MX, $10.07 USD. After I do that, I’m going to walk across the street to Wild Fork and buy a brisket, possibly a steak as well. I’ll be starting both in the sous vide machine, finishing them in the oven, and spanking hot griddle respectively.

While I cook both of those meats this weekend, It’ll be a toast to my beloved, as it would have been his 73rd birthday, not to mention the 1st anniversary of his passing. He loved eating both of those meats, as do I so it’s the only thing I can do this time around.

Until next we meet, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: I didn’t buy either of those cuts of beef which was a good thing. the basket was already too heavy. I bought a whole chicken breast instead.

My forever bread.

For now, at least. 😉

I have seen this sourdough bread recipe, a recipe by Lisa Bass from “Farmhouse on Boone”, that uses the sourdough discard. I have ignored it for about 2 years as I rarely have the amount of discard that she uses in the recipe. She makes bread a few times a week as she, and her husband now have their own basketball team worth of children.

Anyway, this recipe uses 250g sourdough discard, as I mentioned already, so I had to make that amount of starter in order to make the bread. It was so worth it that I have to show you how it turned out.

Isn’t that a spectacular looking slice of bread right there?

I was looking for a vehicle in which to use the surplus of milk kefir whey that I had been reserving from each batch of kefir I’ve made recently, and this was the perfect place for it. Instead of the water called for in the recipe, I used the whey. The change it made in the luxurious feel of the bread I can’t describe.

I also have to say that it looks exactly like her thumbnail on the recipe itself. It has the structure I want, holds together when toasted, now I have only to test it this afternoon for lunch on how it manages when grilled. I’m excited to try it.

My next loaf will be using this same recipe however, I will substitute a portion of whole wheat into the mix. I can’t wait.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Today is the first day I am back to wearing my leggings by Satina.

Those, and my bamboo long sleeve tops by Piko. I have had my tops, both short sleeves in summer colors, and long sleeves in fall, and winter colors for many years, and the leggings for the last 4, or 5 years. Ivan actually bought me my first pair of these leggings because he thought I’d like them, and would good in them. He knew me better than I knew myself. I like them so much I now have 7 different colors of them. They’re soft, stretchy, and easy to wash, and dry.

Along with the rain, understanding it’s rained every evening since the end of June, now we have the temperature dropping as well. In the morning it’s about 57º F, and rises only to about 70º-75º F on good days. Rest assured, on the days it gets up to mid-70’s, I’m back in my shorts, and spaghetti strap tops.

Ok by me. I have enjoyed every day of the sunshine, the heat during my walks so I’m ready for a bit of cooler weather. Soon I’ll be complaining about how cold it is, and that I need to use the space heater while I’m at my desk.

It’s always something with me, isn’t it?!? 😉

Anyway, that’s it for today. Stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: a very happy birthday to my son Joshua this weekend. Many more.

I absolutely adore homemade butter.

I discovered the ease of making it today, trying first, to make it by shaking heavy cream in a quart jar. That was abismal to say the least. I shook the jar for 20 minutes, and the cream had only changed from white to off white, but only just.

I gave in and put the cream in my KitchenAid mixer. Starting out with the whisk attachment, I started whisking it on a medium-high setting for 10 minutes. That produced only a lovely whipped cream. Go figure. 🤣

I will admit that it does take 15-20 minutes to go from a lovely whipped cream, to an even lovelier soft, creamy butter.

Not only did I get this lovely butter, but I also got a cup of rich, thick buttermilk. I’m going to add it to my next loaf of bread.

If you’ve never made butter from whipping cream, and have a stand mixer, I encourage you to try it yourself. The flavor is amazing, and so very different than what you buy in the store. This, I have decided, will be the easiest change I make this year.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Try it. You’ll like it. 😉

I made homemade pasta today, for the second time .

I have made pasta once in the past but it was meh. 🫤 It didn’t turn out the way this batch did. It was so easy, I’m debating whether I’ll ever buy pasta again. I don’t eat much pasta, so I’m not sure about the above statement. TBD.

The beginning of

These.

These 4 lovely little piles of goodness have all been frozen, then vacuum sealed in individual packages, just waiting for me to take one of them out, and make it into something special.

I’m probably the only one of you that doesn’t make their own pasta on a regular basis, but now that I know how easy it is, I think it would be foolish to not do it on a regular basis.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I have been enjoying the great taste, not to mention the health benefits of milk, and water kefirs for several years now.

Kombucha too. I haven’t had anything like a soda for at least 5 years, and don’t miss it even a little bit.

I have what I call my “fermentation station”, which holds my kefirs, kombucha, and sourdough starters. I try to keep them all about an arms length away from each other so as to not cross contaminate each other. Let me show you.

The water kefir “mother” (**See note) ferments are on the top shelf, left. The kombucha “mother” is on the countertop in the corner. The quart jar is the milk “mother”kefir while the small bottles are second fermenting, (adding additional fruit flavors) to both water kefirs, and kombucha.

A morning of making water kefir second ferments. I add the pineapple, once it ripens, to the small bottles then add the kefir that’s in the large glass measuring cup. It sits on the counter for a few days, until it starts to bubble, then into the fridge.

If this is something you’d be interested in trying, let me know. I’ve got lots of useless, and possibly helpful information on how to’s, and how not to’s.

**Note: the “mother” indicates that both kefirs on the counters have their grains in the jars, which is what changes the water, and milk during fermentation into an amazing jar of goodness. You can read all about this transformation on Google. The second fermenting is when, having previously removed the grains to make new batches, I add fruit, whole, or juiced to the already fermented liquid in their individual bottles.

Until then, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

Post script: Never forgetting the horror of this day in 2001. Ever.

As many of you know, I walk, most days, around the park across from the condo.

Well, along the park is where I start my walk, however, now that my foot is completely healed, thank you Jesus, I have been walking at least 2k most days. Not just around the park anymore, but around the neighborhood. That includes the many streets on either side of the building, though I try to keep within a descent distance, just in case I would need help for whatever reason.

I do walk in the street however, and I’ll show you why. At my age, 71, I’m really not interested in falling, and requiring any type of extended health care, thank you very much. Besides, when walking around the park, it smells so badly of urine from everybody’s dogs being brought there to do their business. Yuck.

I said I’d show you why I walk in the street, and here is why. Living in the city, with wall to wall living spaces, there are trees every where one looks. There are multiple reasons for said vegetation, none of which I’ll talk about here, (that’s why we all have Google 😉), but, suffice to say that with trees come roots. And it’s the roots that are causing many of the sidewalks to bulge, and break up.

This is a perfect example of what happens when trees are not cut in a way that is quite common here, and in Europe, called pollarding. The tops of the trees are cut to about 15 ft high, which keeps the roots from expanding very far. In my walks, I’ve noticed that those areas that pollard their trees, the sidewalks remain straight, and flat. However, even with that, many driveways are heading down to a garage that is below street level, also causing uneven sidewalks.

For me, it’s just easier to walk in the street. I say a prayer every day that I walk asking God for “encouragement, endurance, energy, inspiration, motivation, safety, and stamina”, in that order, every time. (It’s alphabetical so I can remember all of the things I ask Him to do for me. 😉) So far, He’s helped me with each of my requests.

So, now you can understand a little better why I do some of the silly things I do, but falling on a walk just holds no appeal for me.

How about you? What do you do to take a bit better care for yourself that may make others think you’re a bit odd? Let me know. Maybe I can do that too.

Until next time my lovelies, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I’ve gotten rid of the herbs I was growing.

They just didn’t work out for me, and I got tired of beating myself up about their lack of growth. I don’t have a Southern exposure, so they only got reflected light, not the bright, continuous light they required. That, and with the rainy season having started the end of June, they just didn’t grow as I wanted them to.

In fact, I’ve changed the location of almost all of my plants, having distributed them throughout the apartment as the app I use, PlantIn, has suggested. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

In reality, it should help 90% of them to thrive as I thought they all needed to be fried in the reflected light from the neighboring building. Oops.😬

So far, so good.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

I didn’t get many responses to my plea for anyone that reads my nonsense to please leave me a message saying so.

I’m not going to let that deter me from my path however. I do, very much, enjoy typing my thoughts onto these pages, so much so that I don’t think I’ll stop again; only take short staycations. Occasionally.

Having said that, I want to thank each of you for showing up, and reading what silliness I get up to in the space of my days. It means a lot to me, as I’m hoping you know.

I will endeavor to, once again, let you folks know what I get up to, any changes that happen, as they happen, and share anything you’d like me to share, (read recipes, patterns, that sort of thing😉).

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.

By the way, just because I’m not posting anything at the moment doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about things, and typing them.

One thing that might interest you is that my subscription to Evernote, that I’ve had for almost 10 years, was due to renew this week. Well, you probably don’t care a whit about my Evernote subscription, but let me explain. I decided to open the app, which I hadn’t done for quite a while, to see what I could find.

What I found were some old photos I had downloaded while back in the States, before moving here.

You’ll be happy to know that they are all there, well, most of them, saved for me to show you, over time. The ones I’m most proud of are all of the ones from the garden I had, that encompassed our entire backyard. We had an old wooden swing set under which I planted lettuces, carrots, lots of springtime veg. I even brought home the outer wrappers from the sterile instrument sets we used at work. (Remember, I’m a retired RN from the Operating Room, determined to find another use for the wrappers instead of throwing them all into the landfill. I’ll show you.)

I definitely miss having that garden, but, as I told my sisters, it helped me become the natural food freak I am.

If you stay with me, you’ll read about lots of the different natural foods I make myself; kefirs, kombucha, bread, butter, jams, to name a few. I find it so much more flavorful when I have complete control over what I’m putting into each food item, and knowing that the ingredients I buy I have sourced to be the best, most natural ingredients I can find here in Mexico City. I’ll have even more sources once I get my BMW back to rights.

Until that happens folks, stay happy, and healthy in the Lord.