Lately, I have regained my interest in buying things that can be reused.
While still in the States, most anyone that knew me knew I abhorred the total waste to which we, as a society, have become desensitized. Disposable plastic bags, plastic bottles, cans, boxes, Kleenex, ziplock bags, just to name a few.
So, a few months ago, I ordered close to two dozen pretty, decorative, washable handkerchiefs, online, from EBay and have started using them, just the other day. Reusable silicone sealable bags, reusable BPA free plastic locking containers for food storage, reusable glass bottles, smaller sized for my kombucha. Hopefully, little by little, I can reduce our carbon footprint.
I forgot to mention the reusable, washable “cotton” pads. Each pad can be used and rehashed 1750 times. Incredible. They are pretty stiff when you first pick them up, but once moisture is applied, they act just like the disposable kind. Next up, the reusable cotton swabs.
If you are interested in finding out more about the reusable items just mentioned, I believe I found the website on Instagram, called Last Object. Obviously, you can find them at lastobject.com. Hope you give some of the items a try.
Until you do, please, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Isn’t he just the sweetest little guy you have seen lately? He is such a good baby. When he cries, which is rarely, he sounds like a large cat. Pretty funny. Gabi is enjoying him as well. We all are.
He weighed 2.525 kilos at birth, and seems to be doing just fine. He is getting used to his mommy, trying his best to get the hang of nursing from her breast, but is not always successful. I told Liz that he will get the hang of it, given a bit more time. In theory, he had 3 more weeks to go, but the Ob-Gyn at the hospital said she needed to deliver when she did. They are both doing well, and we hope, and pray, that continues.
However, he does have a good pair of lungs on him. In fact, last week, I was asked to give Liz an injection of Dexamethazone 8mg., prescribed by her physician, to strengthen Brandon’s lungs. I do believe it worked. Not to mention the fact that she said it was the most painless injection she had ever had. Once a nurse……
I will keep you all posted as he/they continue to stay here, with us. While we see how he does, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
I am going to find out from Liz, or Jesús just how much he weighed, but he looks to be much the same size as our daughter, Elisha, was when she was born. She weighed only 61 ounces, or 1.71 kilos. Brandon looks about the same. Still with all of the small hairs on his face, just like she had. It is like looking back in time.
When he cries, he sounds like a large cat, though he’s really just a wee small bairn. Yes, I am almost finished listening to the entire Outlander series.
He is nursing well, not terrific, but he’s learning. I will post photos as I can, but currently he is deep inside a cocoon of blankets. Down here, that is what they do. I have never seen the like before, but this is what they are used to doing. So be it. Liz’ mom, Alicia, is here, to help her, for the next 3 weeks.
Not much else to tell you, except they, and we, are all doing well at present. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
By the time most of you read this, Brandon will be born.
He is due to come in to the world around 9:20-9:30 today. Now. Right now.
Jesús and Lizbeth told us last evening that she will be admitted to the hospital at 7:00am; that she will give birth by cesarean section at 9:00am. By the time most of you read this, he should be a beautiful healthy baby boy. I will let you know tomorrow his stats. PLEASE! Pray for Jesús and Liz as this, their third baby, comes into the world.
You may recall that last December, Liz delivered a still born baby girl, Lupita. Now, she is going to deliver a beautiful boy, whose name will be Brandon, having nothing whatsoever to do with the pseudonym being give to the current President of the United States: Joseph Biden.
This little guy will be what he will be; and we will help him, and them, in every way possible in the coming years.
When we have a photo of Brandon, I will post it. But, please, say a prayer for Liz and Jesús. The medical facilities here are not the same as in the US. Things are very different here. We can’t go to the hospital to see her, or the baby; only Jesús can go. Liz’s mom, Alicia, will be here tomorrow, at some time. Even she can’t see Liz, her only daughter.
Until we get Liz, and Brandon home, here, with us, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Hi. My name is Diana, and I am an Instagram add freak.
Do not hate me; I am doing this so you don’t have to spend your hard earned money on the things advertised on that particular app.
Recently, I purchased a couple of kitchen “time-saving” devices, which have been delivered in the last few days. I will post just what they are, and how well they function- for me.
The first thing I have a photo of is this little mincer; you turn it, then turn it the other direction, and, it minces your garlic into lovely little pieces; 5 seconds, tops.
Tiny little garlic clove.
Yah. Well, that I am going to give a 4 out of 10, but only for a very small garlic clove. When I use it this weekend, for our pizza weekend, I’ll let you know if I think it worth the money. Here is what a very small piece of garlic looked like, after putting several small pieces back into the apparatus, after being flicked onto the counter.
Not bad.
Is it worth the however much it cost? As I type this, I’ll say Yes. I absolutely hate chopping, or pressing garlic. There are very few things that I do not like to use my burgeoning knife skills on, but garlic is at the top of the list.
This one actually works well.
Next thing: I bought one of those punching slicers, the one that slices on the angle, collects in a small container underneath, and can change from julienne to slices with the turn of a couple of tabs. Love it.
Lastly, I bought the best handheld slicer, julienne, grater on the market.
Not quite the truth. I haven’t tried the top blade, but the second two have worked fairly well. The middle one sliced semi hard cheese into nice thin slices, and the bottom one grated softer cheese quite nicely.
The top two blades are designed so you are able to go both directions to slice or grate your product, getting things done a little faster, if that’s your need. The bottom one only grates in one direction.
Would I buy any of those things again? Probably. These, however, we will take to our family in Los Altos, and, if they are interested, give them a bit of ease in their food preparations. They prepare everything by hand, and almost nothing from cans, boxes, or bags.
Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
For the entire time I have been writing on this blog site, since August of 2019, I have not used contractions.
Why? I am not 100% sure, but I believe that I felt it was necessary to convey my thoughts, and insights with respect for whomever would be reading them. It is easier, I must say, to type an entire word versus a contraction of two words. That said, I believe that I may be done with the practice. I am not 100% sure.
I do not talk without contractions, so why have you read what I am thinking without using them? I am curious to know it using contractions would be bothersome to any of you following this blog? Please, let me know one way or the other. I will, if it is decided thus, to use the ‘ more often.
Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Let me know what you think about contractions. Please.
We have found a video on YT that shows exactly how to make a QC pizza: read Harris Pizza.
We kept the Harris Pizza place afloat in Bettendorf, IA the last year, or so, that we lived there. Large sausage and mushroom. Twice a month. Do not get crazy with the ingredients; keep it simple.
Last week, I checked out what we needed to make a decent tempura batter, and found that we only needed a malted barley syrup, so I ordered that. It was delivered the other day. Today we discovered that the QC pizza requires malted barley syrup for the crust. Score!!!
Tomorrow, we are “supposed” to go to Costco, as both of our families need milk, and toilet paper. While we are there, I will check out the fresh(ish) mozzarella, and the tomato purée, as that is all we need to make a real Quad Cities pizza. I can taste the pizza as I watch the video. Amazing.
We cannot get Harris Pizza, or anything close to Harris Pizza here. Heck, we cannot even get pizza with tomato sauce on it. So, next weekend, I am going to make a sausage and mushroom Harris style pizza, here, in our own little kitchen. You will have to come back, and see if I got the deed done. Until then,
Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
It has just started raining, and thundering. I have not seen any lightening yet; that would be the trifecta.
It has been forecasted to rain for the past several days now, but, nothing. Very disappointing. Now, the whole apartment smells like fresh, and clean, like the rain. Besides wet soil, my favorite odor, rain is my next favorite. Listening to the rain on the window sill, or spattering on the window, is a sound like no other; hypnotic.
Last year, I decided that June through August seemed to be the rainier months, but this year, who knows? Maybe it will start in April instead.
I can hear the thunder rolling in the distance, so peacefully. I used to be able to open the front door of the house, stand under the roof of the porch, to feel, hear, and watch the rain, the lightening and the thunder. Now, by the time I could get downstairs, and out the double locked front door, the whole thing would be gone. Done. Over.
There is always the next storm. I wait with eager anticipation. In the meantime, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
The New York steaks are now ground beef, and vacuum sealed, in the freezer.
One thing we have not been able to find here, is tender, juicy beefy beef. We have tried Costco, Walmart, (formerly Superama), Soriana, Sam’s Club, Justo, and, most recently, meat.me.mx. None of them have a decent cut of steak. I believe we are destined to have only distant memories of thick, hot, buttery, juicy, beefy rib eye steaks.
Until we can find someplace, where we can buy decent beef, we are going to have to continue to learn new ways to prepare chicken, fish, and pork. Not such a bad position to be in. All three are relatively inexpensive, and quite flavorful, not riddled with thick, gnarly gristle. Who wants to eat 1/3 gristle with occasional tough beef? Not us.
As chicken, and pork are the main animal proteins available, we will have to just get used to it. Done. Onward.
Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
What have I been busy doing, you ask? Let me show you.
First, let me tell you that we received our first meat order from meat.me.mx this morning. I cannot wait to taste everything. Well, everything being 1 1/2 kilos of 80/20 ground beef, and 1 1.2 kilos of ground pork. Once they both thaw out, I am planning to mix them, equally, then vacuum seal them, and find a spot in our already stuffed freezer.
Before that can happen, however, I have requested Jesús and Liz come down, each with a shopping bag, and help reallocate said freezer items to their space, upstairs. They just came, took about 5 kilos of chicken, 6 pork chops, a kilo of bier brats, 6 pieces of tilapia, and some veggies. Now, I can relax, and breathe again.
Back to the meat. We also bought 2 1/2 kilos of New York steak, but not already cut into steaks. It is not large enough to be considered a primal cut, but it appears to be worth 4 or 5 steaks cut to about 4 cm. thick. (I am going to stop doing the conversions.)
Our first order from Meat.me.mx. I hope the flavor is such that it will not be the last order.
The other day, I spent some time cutting off the stems and leaves from 3 separate hands full of Italian basil that I had ordered, on 2 different occasions, from Justo™, one of my latest favorite apps. It was quite tedious, let me just say, and I hope not to have to do it again, anytime soon. That said, I gathered the leaves up, put them into a ziplock bag, reusable, of course, and put them in the freezer. Today, I transferred them to a vacuum sealed bag, in which I left quite a bit of space at the top to reseal the bag as I use some of its contents.
Before: three bunches of basil.During. After: you can see the leaves through the bag.
Let me see, what else have I been doing? Oh, I had 8 poblano peppers delivered yesterday afternoon, but could not get up the energy to deal with them, so today, I spent a couple of hours getting rid of the seeds and veins, and roasting them in the big oven, along with 2 beautiful yellow bell peppers. After they cooled down, I peeled the skins off each one, and vacuum sealed them. They are now ready to be used when needed.
I also spent a small amount of time dividing up a huge leek for freezing. I have never seen such a large leek, except down here. They do not sell leeks with the 1” or so diameter, no. They are about 3” around and 2 or more kilos in weight. Let me show you.
Obviously the top end of said mammoth leek. The base. The yield.
I think I will order a few kilos of potatoes, and make some potato with leek soup. Sounds yummy. I will be able to use up some table cream that I have in the fridge. Win, win.
In the meantime, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones. Consider carpooling with fellow employees.
