Author: iagardener55

We went to the dentist, again, this past week. I had a cracked molar that broke off the last time we were in Los Altos

It was around the holidays, if you will recall. While out on Jesús’s father’s property, he roasted some fava beans on the fire, and gave us each one. It was not something I knew anything about, so, when I tried to chew it, without, first, breaking off the shell, it broke my tooth. I did not realize it until the next morning when the broken piece came out while I was eating breakfast, however.

Anyway, la dentista removed the rest of the tooth, made me a temporary crown, which she will exchange for the permanent crown when it is made. So nice not to have that hole in my tooth. I really do not like holes in my teeth.

We are on our way to Costco, and Soriana again today, to finish up buying what we need. Here is what we bought yesterday.

Before we went to store, the fridge was almost empty. Now, we have no room for anything else, until we start dividing this up with our family, and friends.

Below is a photo of the lettuce we bought, see photo number two above. It is organic, with the roots wound up around the base of the lettuce head.

I put cling film around this plastic bowl, cut three squares in the top, unwound the roots, and put them in the water. (I circled one of the larger openings on the left, there are two, the second across from this one, and the smaller one at the bottom, in the next photo).

The finished product. The third, smaller square, is to add water as needed. I cannot wait to see if I can sustain them.

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

Yay! We are actually outside the condo. The sun is shining; the temperature is a moderate sixty two degrees, and we are loving life.

And on our way to the grocery store. Our list of produce is over half of the list. We are out of everything perishable. Not to worry; we are going to the bank to get some money and will be that much closer to rectifying this situation.

I was so excited this morning- we got up at seven twenty, showered, had coffee, I fed the sourdough, watered the plants, and put on some makeup. I cannot remember the last time I wore makeup. My face was always so puffy and bloated from drinking. Now that we have stopped that, my face is getting better. I am still overweight, but, hopefully, not for much longer.

Today I am restarting my exercise routine with a few HIIT minutes of what is called tabata. It is only a few minutes, once, or twice, daily, and is a bit intense.

While I wait, patiently, for results, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

I got around to making a new batch of kombucha the other day. Only had canned pineapple, and not much of that even. We shall see how it goes.

I did remember to leave the portable heater in there so the fermentables are all going along swimmingly. I am going to try to stagger my kombucha batches, maybe two weeks apart. We shall see on that front as well.

The starter that I fed twice yesterday, and now, twice again today, raised to its full rise, and held there for six hours. What a win. Tomorrow’s rise should be at least that good, maybe better. Time will tell.

Tomorrow I am going to try my hand at fermenting some cabbage and carrots, to make a sauerkraut. That should be ready to eat with a couple of weeks. Cannot wait to see how it turns out.

While we wait on sourdoughs rising, and kombucha fermenting, stay happy, stay healthy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

This batch of sourdough has got to be the strongest yet. It is not ready to bake bread yet, but it is getting there; quickly.

I will post a series of photos, taken throughout today, and show you what I mean. It will show you the starting point, at one o’clock pm, the rise, until three thirty pm, when I removed the lid to see the top of the starter, but when I set it back down on the counter, it completely collapsed. I stirred it with a SS chop stick, and set it back on the counter. The rest of the photos show its progression back to the height of being double in volume; from three thirty, until just now, at six pm. Cannot wait to see how strong it will be by the end of the week. Here are the photos.

I will continue to feed the starter twice a day for the next few days, and go from there. Until then, you already know what to do. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

I have told you, in previous posts, about the sausages we get, from Simply Sausages ™️. It is the only decent sausage in town.

In an attempt to unburden our freezer of its glut, I have been pulling out the sausages we purchased last year, and cooking them. Let me tell you about the flavors.

The other day, I made a sausage called Chistorra, a type of breakfast sausage, I think. It was good, different than a chorizo sausage, less spicy.

Then I made a different sausage called Bierwurst; again, very tasty. Yesterday I made the best sausage yet; a Classic Bratwurst. I have made two sandwiches of this, combined with pickled purple onions, and spicy whole grain mustard. Oh, my gosh. The combination was incredible.

I keep trying to find interesting combinations to include the pickled onions, because I made them several months ago, from one large onion, thinking YKW would eat them too. Alas, he does not care for them at present. They are pickled, so they should be good for awhile. They taste great.

Never have I had such an incredible flavor combination. I wanted to eat more of them. I have no more to make. Alas, I will need to purchase more, I suppose.

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

Post script: happy twentieth birthday to our first grandchild- Isaac. Forever in our hearts.

I have decided that I will, probably, (how is that for a decision?) I will stop naming the days of quarantine, and start actually naming the subject matter, like I did in the beginning. I have to think about this for a bit.

Good news. My sourdough starter taught me a significant lesson yesterday. It showed me that I have been doing it all wrong. Go figure! I thought I needed to make five hundred milliliters of a healthy starter, in order to make bread. Not so.

Two, maybe three, years ago, I bought an online course from Mike Greenfield, called SourdoughU. Mike is one of the sourdough people I trust with advise; he, and his brother, Josh, are also Kombucha guru’s. I really never had the time to watch the course, what, with work, the grandkids, and then, my father in law coming to live with us.

Now that I am retired, however, I have gone through the course twice, and plan on a third. There is so much information that I did not understand, but now I do. A new advance in my sourdough journey. Yay!

On a separate note; I have been “plagued”, if you will, no pun intended, with two new, yet, different ailments. A week ago, I started with a left lower quadrant abdominal pain that grew worse until this morning. As the esteemed diagnostican that I am, it felt like, what might have been, an ovarian cyst. Was it? Who knows. We no longer have a physician to call upon.

The other, poor me, is, again, what I believe to be arthritis, in the ring finger, the metacarpophalangeal joint, of my left hand. You can search that, if you want; it just means the joint of my left ring finger that joins my finger to my palm. I have arthritis in several of my knuckles, at, what is called the distal interphalangeal joints, for sure; as do most older people. But never have I had such pain in that joint. It is hard to grasp a glass, or make a fist, without significant discomfort. Again, poor me.

All things considered, with my obesity, and growing really old pains, Ivan and I have made a pact; he will go outside, with me, to ride our bikes, or walk around the park, in return for doing things with him. I have agreed, whole heartedly, and cannot wait to begin.

Until said time of mutual agreement, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Ok. I confess. I have done absolutely nothing on my to do list. But I did do this.

I cleaned the stovetop. I know, it seems trivial, but trivial is all we have these days.

Hopefully, you remember that I bought covers for the stovetop several months ago. (Actually, I bought two more eight packs, because, you can never have enough of a good thing).

In the photo above, the covers are on the second side. I have already used the first sides, and have turned them over. I was going to use new ones, these were so dirty, and full of grease splatter, but I decided to soak them in boiling water, from the electric water kettle. I used a couple of drops of Dawn, (that we had delivered for one leg, and one arm), and soaked them for about ten minutes. I, then, scrubbed them, rinsed and dried them, then, put them back on the stove.

After that, however, I fed my lovely sourdough batches, and remembered that I need to feed them for at least three or four days, so they are strong enough to double their volume in two hours, before using them to make bread. Well, here is what I have tonight. Mind you, the other photo, the other day, was lovely, but the batches are not strong enough to raise dough as well as I need. Take a look.

Both of these quart jars show you a three hour rise. I am getting the rise I need, just not quite fast enough. It will take another few days of feeding, and that is fine with me. The healthier the sourdough is, the better the bread will be. It smells heavenly.

I do think, however, that some of the lack of a speedy rise is because of the temperature in the condo. It is about sixty to sixty seven degrees Fahrenheit on any day. Right now it is ten o’clock pm., and the temperature, in the condo, it sixty seven degrees. That is why I have the jars covered with a dish towel.

Yes. We have a laser temperature probe. Get one. It is amazing. Point, and shoot. Get a digital readout of anything within a few feet distance. I can check the temperature of the kombucha, the sourdough, a steak on the stovetop grill. I can check the temperature of fish cooking in a pan. They are not expensive, but save you overcooking a luscious piece of fish, steak, chicken; you name it. Here, during the time of quarantine, no one can afford to over cook, or under cook, anything they are making for their loved ones.

Well, we are going to try to get out tomorrow, to the store, to restock our perishables. Who knows, though. All we can do is try. Until then, mis amores, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

You would think that by now I would have made some progress in my “to do” list. Alas, I have not.

Tomorrow, however, may prove more fruitful. Not sure. One can only hope. Soon, however, I will need to trim my fingernails, because I keep making stupid mistakes when my nails touch keys on the computer that I did not want them to touch.

I am, actually, waiting for the starter(s) to ripen so I can make some more bread this week. It has been months since I made bread, even longer for the sourdough.

I am not sure, really, how well the population here, appreciates sourdough; the dark, hard crust, the large bubbles in the middle, the smell.

I enjoy it because it is what I am used to. Here, however, the bread is usually soft, blonde, without much scent, other than yeast. What I propose is a dark, hard, crispy crust, almost burnt looking. It will have very little of the starter smell; actually, it will smell almost burnt, not yeasty.

It will have large holes in the middle, be able to be cut into lovely slices, for sandwiches, or, for dipping in olive oil, and spices; to be enjoyed by those that appreciate crusty bread.

The bread I made, before moving here, was delicious. It was not appreciated by everyone that ate it however. That is okay with me. Not everything I do is appreciated by everyone- not even YKW. He tries to eat the bread I make, but, really, he smells it, and says how good, or bad, it smells. Thankfully, it usually smells good, even excellent. That works for me.

When we get out of bed tomorrow, I will attempt a couple of loaves of bread, and, maybe, apple squares. Who knows. Until then, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

We have seen, on the internet, that many states have been having another record breaking amounts of snowfall, and bad weather, in general. We hope this finds all of you well, and in good health, and happiness.

This is a follow up of sorts, to keep you in our loop, so to speak. I have not done any of the things I thought I was going to do today, but, gosh, with my busy schedule, I will try to fit them in tomorrow, and/or the next day. Not sure if that will be possible with all of the many things we have planned. Not.

Our friend, and concierge, Jesús, went out today, and bought us thirty six eggs. Milk was delivered yesterday, late afternoon, and, bread delivered Saturday, so, for the moment, we are good. Well, almost.

What I really need is cottage cheese. Here, though, only a handful of stores sell, or even know what cottage cheese is. I think the stores that do sell it have a more expat American clientele than others.

What I did do, however, was make another batch of egg bites. For this batch, I defrosted some bierwurst sausages, from Simply Sausages™, removed the casings, cuz YKW cannot bite through them, and formed them into “burgers”. I grilled them on the stove, crumbled half of one into the blender, added about a cup of grated Gruyere cheese, (too much), four eggs, half an egg shell, twice, of milk, about a teaspoon of Italian seasonings, S&P, and gave it a whirl, on low, for about thirty seconds. Added that to the egg mold, covered it with the lid that came with it, and put it in the IP, (a cup of water on the bottom), on steam, for ten minutes. I let it cool down, naturally, for another ten minutes, then, released the pressure manually, took them out and let them cool, lid off, for another five minutes. After they cooled a bit, I flipped them out, onto a plate, as you see them. In less than thirty minutes you can have fourteen of these cooked, and ready to eat. (You stack two of the egg molds in a six quart IP.)

So, as I said, I made another batch of egg bites; this time, without the cottage cheese. Take my word that you do not want to make them without cottage cheese. It adds such a light texture to the bite that is definitely lacking using only milk, cheese, and eggs. Will I eat them? Of course. For five dollars a pair, of course I will. Someone has to.

We are hoping to get to the store tomorrow, to stock up on supplies, our staples, (cottage cheese) but who knows. Until we get there, and back, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

This is what I found this morning. How could you not want to do something with this living stuff?

While I have you here, this is what I have done with the recipe book. Let me know what you think.

The book is divided by large folders titled American, Asian, Indian, Italian, and Mexican. Then each specialty is subdivided by Beef, Bread/Pasta, Chicken, Pork, Rice/Sauces/Soups, and Seafood. Some of the subs have very little in them; and some are bulging. Very few of them have I made yet, mostly the egg bites, and goulash. We really enjoy goulash.

We are thinking that we will start out making things in the Asian folder first. There are still a few ingredients we need to purchase, however, we have yet to find the Oriental stores, here in town. And, who knows if they are even open. Well, it will be a fine time, driving around the city, looking for the stores. Yay. An adventure!!

I will post photos of any, and all accomplishments, as soon as I accomplish them!!!

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