Author: iagardener55

I’ve taken my sourdough starter out of the fridge after 4 months, have fed it once, 48 hours ago, and this is what it looks like.

And that’s just after one feeding. I can’t wait to see what it looks like next week.

I’m looking to make 2 loaves of bread; a sandwich loaf for both of us, and an artisanal loaf for moi. I can always make croutons with what doesn’t get eaten, right?

I also fed the kombucha, so now all I need to do is find the bottles I bought with the twist on caps. They can’t be far.

Until next time, stay safe.

Update: my starter developed a mold infestation, so I had to get rid of it. Fortunately, I had dried a batch in 2021, so I took a few pieces from the jar, and fed it with flour, and boiled/cooled water, and it’s coming back alive in just a few hours. Let me show you the dried sourdough.

2nd update: I found my jars, washed them, filled them with mango pieces, and they’ve been on the counter since the 9th of Nov. Let me show you.

I’d rather not.

That said, I remembered, recently, that over the past 2-3 years I’ve been printing out recipes that I’d like to try making, but haven’t. Yet.

I had put the notebook away in the pantry, in a plastic tub, and had forgotten all about it. The other, while I was in there looking for Heaven only knows what, I happened to see the tub, on the floor, and could make out the notebook inside.

It wasn’t difficult to see, it’s so big. But, as I said, I had forgotten its existence.

This evening, I retrieved it, and started looking through it. My enthusiasm has been rekindled to try finding recipes that I’ve been wanting to try.

Here’s what I’ve done so far.

I have my work cut out for me, for the foreseeable future that is. I now have to find the round punch hole protectors, and the 3 hole punch. They’re here somewhere.

In the meantime, going through all of those will refresh my memory, and help me with my weekly menu prep. (That’s been going really well, BTW.) Our food wastage has been cut back to almost zero.

Until next time, stay safe. Try to be happy as well.

I’m knitting a new pair of forearm warmers.

By the time I post this I’m sure I’ll be done with them, and probably wearing them. Here’s what the first one looks like.

The first one took me about 2 days, or more like 4-5 hours, mostly because I kept loosing how many rows I’d knitted. Duh!!!

So, as I was nearing the end of the cake of yarn I had, I decided to try counting the rows. As I was knitting, I wrote the pattern on a piece of paper, so I kind of had an idea where I was. I wanted to be as sure as possible so I could duplicate the other warmer.

The end with the different stitches is the end that is closest to my fingers. It was just to lightened things up, design wise.

I stretched the warmer over my quart water jar, a Ball jar to be specific, so I could see through the stitches in order to count the rows more easily.

Yes, I have several row counters, but when knitting in the round, I’ve no place to put it except on my tray, having to pick it up at the end of each round, and change the number. With only 36 stitches in the round, I knit fast enough that I kept forgetting.

Anyway, it worked. As you can see, 1 done, and 1 to go.

Until next time, stay safe.

A few of the things I’ve been missing lately

that have begun to grow.

Family is always first, and goes without saying, but there are so many other things that I’ve taken for granted.

Such as:

OUR GARDEN. Growing things, unique, and normal, was always something I enjoyed. We shared our bounty with family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. The taste of any vegetable taken fresh from the garden was magical.

The sound of a lawnmower cutting grass.

The smell of the grass that was cut.

Northern bird song.

Children playing.

A telephone ringing.

A big, beautiful kitchen, where we could both be in it without elbowing each other.

Hot water from every faucet. Immediate hot water from every faucet.

Safe drinking water from all of those faucets.

Familiar streets, shops, spoken English.

Crickets, and yes, even cicadas!

Four seasons. Here we have 2, maybe, 3. I’m not really complaining as we have fresh vegetables all year long, not just in the summer.

Snow, and snow covered streets. (I would have enjoyed watching a large snowstorm knowing I didn’t have to go to work the following morning). Snow in the trees, covering dead leaves and sleeping branches. Everything in black and, white, making the colors of Spring all the more beautiful.

That’s just a start of the list. I’ll have more in the future, but for now,

Stay happy, and healthy.

This is how our dinner turned out.

How was yours?

I served us both the same amounts, as per the above photo, and both plates were cleaned.

Later, we’re going to have a small slice of pie after I whip the cream, and powdered sugar. Here’s the pie.

Not bad for my first “from scratch” pie. Hope it tastes as good. I’ll let you know.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy.

Update: I made a whipped cream for the pie, but discovered that the cream had turned. I bought a new box of heavy cream for whipping that was vegetable. It turned out deliciously.

Our celebration yesterday was small compared to years past.

We used to celebrate with a 15-20 lb. turkey, a ham, sweet, and white baked potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, glazed carrots, scalloped corn, cranberry sauce with whole cranberries, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and dinner rolls.

Yikes!!!

This is how we did it this year. All scaled down for just the 2 of us, with minimal extras.

I’ll let you know how this all turned out another day.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with family, and friends.

Until next time, stay happy, and healthy.

I’m actually starting to cook pretty good, well, “better” food lately.

Using my weekly menu planner, I’ve made Mac and cheese with SPAM; liver, and onions with basmati rice, and mixed veg.; the best chile con carne I’ve ever made; roasted salmon with leftover basmati rice, and mixed veg.; the list goes on.

The following week I made enchiladas with a beef/pork mix, diced new potatoes, shredded carrots, and onions, and rice on the side. Tonight we had chicken tikka masala, with spiced basmati rice. It was delicious. Not the curry sauce I was expecting, but that will come next week. I hope.

For the rest of the week I’m planning on Albóndigas en salsa roja, and left over rice. I’m hoping to make a tortilla soup with enfrijoladas for Thursday, with fish tacos, beans, and rice for Friday.

Each time I read, and follow a recipe I take the opportunity to make it my own, cooking “by the seat of my pants” as my husband calls it. Improvisation is what I call it.

A really good curry sauce, if I can get that right, will be the first pinnacle in my new journey.

I’ll let you know how this continues.

Until next time, stay safe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Our prayers have been answered.

Sometimes I have to go forward a few steps, then backwards a bit farther in order to appreciate what I already have.

Does that ever happen to you?

The other day, I was watching several episodes of Sorted Food on YT, and decided I needed to get out the cheap slicer/ dicer I bought on line several months ago, because it could cut up our Russett potatoes into French fries without much work expended.

Instead, I cut up a quartered purple onion to make pickled onions. It was terrible. The pieces were jagged, horrible little things that were not at all what I wanted. I washed, and dried it, and put it back into the “give away” box, where it belonged, and had been for months.

I then got out my amazingly sharp mandolin, which I had also purchased last year sometime, and cut up the other purple onion that I had into beautifully thin, symmetrical rings, and added them to the pickling jar. What a difference.

I, unfortunately, didn’t grab the guard until the moment after I thought “I really should be using the”, (pause for affect), guard. Of course I cut my finger! My hand, which was wet from adding the first half of the beauties to the jar, slipped off of the onion just as I was starting to think the word guard. Duh!!!

Lesson learned.

Until next time.

Be safe, be healthy, be happy.

El día de independencia de México de España; the day of independence of Mexico from Spain.

It took 11 years for Mexico to be free of the hold that Spain had on the people here. It was not a continuous, day in, day out sort of war, but more of battles here, and there. The effect was the same though; almost 1 million Mexican soldiers were killed, along with thousands of innocent civilians.

The celebrations started at 10am, with a series of jets flying overhead at 11am. It sounded like they were about a meter above the condo, but Ivan assures me it’s just the sound of them passing farther away, bouncing off all of the buildings in the neighborhood.

The jets flying overhead reminded me of the July 4th air shows of the Blue Angels in Bettendorf, Iowa, where we used to live.

The condo, however, is eerily quiet today. I’m guessing that folks are out, and about, with family members, enjoying their day off of work. We’re enjoying the peace, and quiet. 😉

Until next time, stay vigilant. That’s how I’m ending my posts for the next little while; stay vigilant. It encompasses all of the other things I used to say.

Stay vigilant.

You probably know it as parchment paper, but did you know that it’s reusable?

I found out that bit of information several years ago, but didn’t know if any of you knew it, so, now you do. The above piece I used when I made a delicious dinner of liver with caramelized onions recently.

The above piece of paper was where I had put the liver once it was seasoned and breaded. It was bloody, and had bits of flour with seasonings on it. I washed it in the dish pan with hot soapy water, rinsed it, and hung it up to dry.

The above photo is what it looked like the next day, after it was completely dry. It was back to its crispy state, and ready to be reused, washed, and repeated until it was either burnt beyond reuse, or torn in pieces.

I’m going to use it soon on at least one of the following biscuits: old fashioned, using the recipe as seen on the back of the Clabber Girl Baking Powder can, or the KFC biscuits, as seen in the 2nd photo below. We can’t get Clabber Girl Baking Powder down here but do have access to BP that works just fine.

I have tried, once, maybe twice, to make a decent biscuit but have yet to do so. I feel that, as a fairly intelligent person, I should be able to read either of these recipes, and come up with a good tasting biscuit. I’ll let you know when I try again, how they come out.

Until then, stay safe.