Author: iagardener55

My sister Martha texted me the other day to see if we have been watching the Olympics.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to watch them “live”, but, after her text, we discovered that we could see certain events on YouTube.

Most pointedly, the young, twenty two year old, skater from México, Donovan Carrillo. I found some of the events he had skated in and was duly impressed.

He has been skating since he was a small boy, usually at the skating rink in a mall not far from his home. He has, however, moved, with his coach to a larger city, and is skating on an Olympic sized rink.

He is also, we have been informed, the first skater from México to perform at the Olympics in thirty years. We are all very proud of this young man, and the difficulties he has experienced, to get to where he is today.

He will not earn a medal this time, but, maybe, in one of the future Olympic Games, he will. Who knows? Only time will tell.

Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Today, I made not one, but two tres leches cakes.

The first one, unfortunately, I forgot to add the egg whites. I was supposed to beat five egg whites to soft peaks, then add one third cup of sugar, mixing thoroughly, adding to the flour mixture. I baked the aforementioned mixture, (without required egg whites) which rose about an inch, and even poured the sweet milk mixture over it, thinking it was all that. Yuck.

Then, I reread the recipe, and discovered that I was supposed to beat the egg whites to soft peak, add the sugar, then fold them into the flour mixture. Really??

I squeezed all of the sweet milk out of the first cake, (the tres leches) into a bowl, re-made the blasted cake, the right way, and poured all of the sweet milk over the corrected cake.

It is cooling in the fridge overnight, to be covered with a whipped cream topping, sprinkled with powdered cinnamon, and served with fresh sliced strawberries; tomorrow.

Let me just show you a bit of the work I went through. (Really; read the recipe totally before you start.)

This recipe required that we have sweetened condensed milk available; nope. We have evaporated milk, but not SCM. So, I made my own. Labor intensive? Yes. Satisfactory for use? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

This is what the first cake looked like, without the egg yolks folded in, but, soon, the tres leches were poured over it.

After I drowned the cake with the sweet milks, and reread the recipe, (it just did not look right), I let the above cake rest, then, squeezed all of the milk from it, reserving the milk mixture, until I could figure out how to use it for the second attempt. (Really, I did not want to think about making another batch of SCM.)

So, four, or five hours later, I finally, made the cake, with egg whites, and it came out exactly as I thought it should. I poured the “reserved” milk mixture over it, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the refrigerator, overnight, to be covered, tomorrow, with whipped cream, and powdered cinnamon.

While we wait to see what it turns out to be, here is what my bread looked like.

I gave this one away, but made another one that was just like this for us. It is delicious, soft, smells amazing, and toasts like you want. I cannot wait to grill a sandwich; well, I have to wait for some more tomatoes before I can grill a sandwich.

While we wait for tomatoes, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Happy birthday to my younger sister Nancy. Many, many more sweetling.

By high gear, I mean I am in high gear. Last night, before bed, I combined three different flours, and amounts, added eighty percent of the total volume of flour in the form of water, to form what is called an autolyse. The mixture will sit on the counter, covered, of course, overnight. It is simply the combination of flour and water, at this point. It was discovered (by someone, in the past, I have no idea when), that doing this, and waiting forty five minutes minimum, up to twelve, or fourteen hours, it made the rest of the process of sourdough bread making much easier in several ways that I will not go into at the moment. You are welcome.

In the morning, I will feed my sourdough starter its required, equal amounts of flour and water, then wait for five hours, after which time it will have at least doubled in size, and height, and be ready to use.

After said five hours, I will combine both mixtures, along with two percent salt, and begin what is called the “stretch and fold”ing of the bread dough. There is no kneading with this S&F technique.

So, besides that, I have sorted, washed, and am now soaking a kilo of black beans, to be cooked, probably, tomorrow morning/afternoon. I have washed rice, ready for tomorrow, and will be making both corn and flour tortillas, tomorrow, or the next day.

S&F is done every thirty minutes for two, up to three hours; until gluten bands are formed, and remain strong. After that, it will rest, covered on the counter, for another several hours, depending on the heat in the kitchen. After that, it is on to getting it ready for the banneton, used to shape the dough after it is formed into a circular, or, oblong loaf. By that time, it will probably be too late in the day for baking, so they will rest, contained in a plastic bag, overnight in the fridge, to be baked on the third day. I cannot wait. Fresh sourdough bread. I will post a photo, regardless of the results.

Why not? What else do I have to do? When the baby comes, that will be a completely different story. For now, I will do what I can. Until then,

Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

It is the little things, I say, that can make, or break, or, as in my case, be broken.

There is a small cog at the end of the front brush of my now-five-years-old Shark ION MultiFlex DuoClean vacuum cleaner. Needless to say, the brush will not turn without said cog, therefore, said vacuum cleaner will not pick up items from the floor with the same ease of use it did before the stupid piece broke while I was cleaning it.

I got the whole vacuum spotless the other day, (it comes apart so easily), then noticed the silly cog, actually, just a small piece of said silly cog, on the floor. Not knowing what it was, much less of its importance, I did what I normally do; I threw it away.

As I was attempting to reassemble the disassembled parts, I noticed the cog was not complete. Noting the rest of the cog still on the vacuum head, I removed it, to look at it. To my chagrin, I found that it looked just like the smaller piece I found on the floor, and discarded. Well, that is just great!

Fortunately, however, I found the discarded piece, and have spent the last two days gluing my fingers to it with Gorilla Glue gel. That stuff, by the way, is amazing. Each time I tried to replace it to the roller brush, then the vacuum head, it broke; and, it broke again; then, this last time, it broke into three complete pieces, not just two.

Enough, I say. Enough.

Amazon.com.mx., as usual, is here to help. Next week, I will be delivered of a new brush head, complete with silly little cog, and two each of the three filters that need to be washed periodically. All for the low price of $598. Pesos. Ha. Gotcha. That is about $30 USD. (TYJ)

While I patiently wait for the aforementioned items, I will ask that you stay happy, stay healthy, and, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Woohoo! Ivan bought another 12” screen for my 12” iPad Pro. Remember? The one that I pushed off my tray, in the bedroom, accidentally, several months ago?

He is going to replace it with a new one. How cool is that?

I cannot wait because, for ease of use, better visualization, etc., this is a much better iPad than the 11”.

I know how that sounds; “why can’t she be happy with what she has?” I am, really. But when these two are the only means of paying bills, communicating with others, searching the www for anything, and everything, I want the better of the two; the 12”.

Ok, so I can use my phone, but, what if? What if I misplace it? Or break it? Or it is stolen? Then what?

Nothing, really. I would buy another phone. But, as none of those things is going to happen, I want him to repair the face of the iPad that I broke. He is so good with computers, it probably will not take him any time at all. He is watching multiple videos on YT to make sure he has the procedure down pat, and off we will go.

He has replaced several faces of iPhones, before we left Iowa, and a couple of iPad mini’s, but never a 12”. They appear to be a bit more complex than the average Apple anything.

You should hear the birds singing. Just now, I heard a beautiful song, only lasting a few seconds, but it took my thoughts away from my broken screen for a moment.

Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Not really.

I just erased all of my northern “Take out” apps from this computer. It was awful. McDonalds, gone. Texas Roadhouse, gone. Starbucks, Olive Garden, Chili’s, Old Chicago Pizza; all gone. Burger King, and Pizza Hut we have here so they can still be used; I just have to change the site to Mexico. Chick-fil-a, gone. There were a couple more, but I cannot remember, (after about thirty seconds), what they were. Duh!

The places I will be mentioning are all places we could order from online, then pickup. Score!!!

Some of them we really enjoyed- Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom, was just up the hill from our house. We could order the best hamburgers, and fries, on line, drive up the hill, and pick them up. Brought them home, and ate them in the kitchen, at the island. We enjoyed every single bite. In fact, Juan was living with us then, when we discovered how good their burgers were, and he enjoyed them with us. (I could do real physical damage for a decent hamburger.)

Texas Roadhouse. Do I need to say anything else? Really?!

Chili’s- not the best but certainly not the worst. Quick service too, as I recall. (That should give you pause for concern 😉

Olive Garden- who can honestly say they do not enjoy the salads, shrimp scampi, the different pastas? A bit pricey for pasta that we can now make at home, but, as I was still working full time, it was a very pleasant assist.

Starbucks- woohoo, they introduced me to the unbelievable Egg Bites, while I was conferencing in New Orleans, 2018. They charged, (and still do!) $5 for two golf ball sized bites. I do not charge anywhere near that much. I make them, in my Instant Pot to this day. Change up the recipe every time I make them, depending on what is in the fridge. They are definitely worth the effort. Just watch a few videos on YT, or check out different recipe websites, and voila; egg bites in your kitchen. And much less expensive than Starbucks.

Well, so much for online food orders; here, they are a thing of the past. Oh, you can call in an order to most restaurants here, even order online, but few deliver to our area. Why? I am told that it is because we are a condo, and there are too many condos in the area; too many false calls, I suspect. It is probably best that they do not. I would never learn how to cook if food was delivered.

Now that I am learning how to make corn and flour tortillas, (not nearly as easy as you would think), I am going to try pizza soon. Also, if we can find a good grade of meat, I will venture into the realm of the burger. Juicy, flavorful, savory, textured, did I mention juicy? I already have a terrific bun recipe that I have made several times, so that is a no brained. I just have to be able to cook a decent burger on the cast iron comal. I will let you know how it is going.

While I am learning, you stay happy, and healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

That, dear reader, is called the sun.

It is that warm, yellow light, covering us in all its warmth, with a hit of vitamin D.

Since we have been back from vacation, a week now, we have kept to ourselves, not needing to go outside for anything really. Lord knows, we have enough food to feed a small nation.

Today, however, we need to buy some perishables, so we need to go to the bank to buy some money. With the beautiful weather, we are both walking at a somewhat slower pace than normal, each enjoying the sun, and fresh air. Through our masks. Ugh!

Eggs, tomatoes, chiles, onions, and garlic are on the docket for today. Cannot cook without them. Do not want to cook without them.

Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

We are blessed; that is all there is to it.

We have a couple of wonderful people that we call friends, but they are more than that; they are family.

You know who they are, and a pair of more honest, loving, forgiving people we have never met.

We knew, within hours of meeting them, that they were, as I said, honest, loving, and most of all, forgiving. We are not perfect people, Ivan and me, but we are, for the most part honest, forgiving people.

No, I will not tell you that the blouse you are wearing makes you look like a lowlife; well, maybe I would tell you, but not like that. I would find another way, a different way to say it. You look like a slut comes to mind, but that probably would not be good either, would it?! No. No. Nope.

Forgiving. Let us look, briefly, to that. Recently, we were, to our shame, asses to them, but what did they do? They came down here, talked to us, got to the heart of what was the problem, and, when we thought they would leave us, hate us, no, they forgave us. They agreed that what had transpired between us was not good, however, as family, they still loved us, and, even better, as I said, they forgave us.

Happy days.

Please, take care of yourselves, and your loved ones. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.