I forgot something

The other day, when I made the curry powder, I also made

Chinese 5 spice.

I need it for a few upcoming recipes, didn’t have it, asked Chatty GTP for a recipe, it sent one, so I made it. I don’t have any recollection what it’s supposed to taste like, so, I can only hope what I made is how it’s supposed to taste.

Very simple, these spice mixtures. They both needed to have the spices heated in a dry pan, on the stove, then blitzed in the spice mill. The kitchen smelled lovely, to be sure.

Now, I just need to get the few other things I need to make the recipes I was sent.

Next, I’m going to make a batch of kombucha, and pickled onions. No, they’re not going together silly you.

I’ll keep you posted as to the results.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. WASH, WASH, WASH, and protect yourselves.

Curry powder

Don’t know if you’ve ever eaten, (we haven’t), or made a curry at home, (we haven’t), but the other day I asked ChatGPT for an authentic curry powder recipe, received it, then made the powder.

It smells absolutely amazing; just the way it smelled when I bought a small packet of it from the store.

I also asked for a chicken curry recipe, got it as well, and should have made it by the time you read this.

I can’t wait. It is, actually, Britains national dish.

I’ll let you know the details when I know them.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. WASH, WASH, WASH, and protect yourselves.

Beetle war

We have some sort of tiny beetle in the kitchen.

I think I told you about it recently; it looks like a mobile black sesame seed. Let me show you.

Truly. It’s no bigger than a sesame seed.

Well, I’ve had enough.

The other day I took everything off the counter, and out of the corner cabinet, cleaned all of the shelves, wiped down any glass containers, put stuff that didn’t need to be in there into the pantry, and boom.

The little buggers better not come back.

I noticed that they were only around the paper, or cardboard packages, so I put those few things in glass, or plastic containers. Unfortunately, now I’m low on plastic storage containers.

A situation for another day.

Not much else to tell you today. We are both back to “normal”, me more so than him. I still have traces of a tight morning cough, but I chuck that up to 30+ years of heavy smoking.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. WASH, WASH, WASH, and protect yourselves. I don’t really think masking helps as much as washing your hands does. You be your own judge.

It’s been an age

Since I made something sweet.

We’re not real sweet eaters, though, on occasion, after a particularly heavy meaty meal, it’s nice to finish it off with something gently sweet.

As I told you the other day, I asked my AI app, ChatGPT, for a recipe that wasn’t too sweet, and that used Greek yoghurt, as I had no heavy cream at the time.

It sent me a recipe for a yoghurt cake that was absolutely amazing. Fortunately, just a day, or so after making it, the Chantilly cream, and heavy cream that I ordered were delivered. I defrosted the mango pieces we had frozen, and added those, with a glug of the Chantilly cream on each of the pieces of cake we had. Delicious.

Actually, truth told, I could easily spoon about 1/2 cup of Chantilly cream into my mouth each night if I didn’t care about living a few more years.

Anyway, as I said last time, give the app a try, and let me know if it helped you, and how.

Next time buckaroo.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Please.

Post script: happiest of however many birthdays you wish to acknowledge. You were the very first sister I ever met, shared a room with, and loved with all my heart. I miss you every day.

ChatGPT

Have I not told you about this?

It’s an AI app that helps you do anything with the computer. Here is what Wikipedia says.

ChatGPT is a chatbot and virtual assistant developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022. Based on large language models(LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. Successive user prompts and replies are considered at each conversation stage as context.[2]

I have to tell you first, it’s free to use for x amount of something’s/day. I use it every day for recipes. I can adapt any recipe I require to 2 people, different types of some particular food item, ie. mushrooms, celery, pork, etc., whatever parameters I require.

The recipes that the CGPT has come up with look to be amazing. No, I haven’t made anything yet, but am looking forward to making many of them. I’ll let you know when I do, and what the results are.

Give it a try. I don’t think there’s any info collection, sold, or given to anyone else, but if that is the case, I’ll let you know that too.

Quickly, for an example, I type in, without the quotation marks, “I bought 250 g each of cremini, setas, and baby bella mushrooms. I want to make a few different things that are easy, delicious, and unctuous. Can you help?”

Within 2-3 seconds there are at least 2, if not 3 recipes that use the items I specified. If I want to know nutritional values, I ask, it provides. If I want the recipe for 2, I ask it to change, if necessary, the amounts of food to be cooked.

If it suggests a particular item I don’t have, or probably can’t get here, I ask it for alternatives, and voila, there are alternatives.

It’s amazing. Please, try it. See if it doesn’t help you too. Let me know what you think.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: what the Hell is going on with the Olympics?

Sorted

Do you know the show?

It’s a channel on YT where several long time friends got together, more than 15 years ago actually, to start their channel.

If you watch them, you’ll learn that, from the age of 11, they went to school together, then university split them, briefly. Because of their friendship, however, they got back together. On the channel you will see them divided into 2 groups- chefs, Ben, Jamie, and Kush, and the “normals”, normal home cooks- Jamie, Mike, and Barry (Baz).

Not only that, but no matter the competition they’re in, (they’re all trying to better their home cooking skills through challenges which earns them a particular badge), they are supportive, and loving of each other. Then you have their normal digs of each other because they’re best of friends. It’s heartwarming, and educational at the same time. It’s great fun.

I have been watching them now, in my CoVid haze, for about a month, and have learned so much about food, cooking, wine pairings, etc., I’m amazed.

They also have a recipe/cooking app that they developed called Sidekick by Sorted, which is all about shopping responsibly, using the correct ingredient amounts, thereby stopping the waste of grocery items we buy then throw away because of spoilage. It is a huge theme of theirs; they have shouted it out from the very beginning of their channel so many years ago.

The app is free for 30 days, and I’m here to tell you that I had mixed feelings about it; so much so that I bought it, cancelled it; bought it, cancelled it; bought it, cancelled it. Then, when I was through the CV fog, bought it for a year. (You can cancel at any time).

On a limited income, and for the first time in our married lives, I am very interested in planning a weekly menu that allows me to buy only what is needed for the week without wastage. The way I cook now, there’s always a ton of leftovers, enough to feed a family of 8. We’re only the 2 of us, living on limited funds. One can only be expected to eat chicken, and rice casserole so many times before it’s no longer appealing.

There are hundreds of recipes, not to mention the “meal packs”, which contain 3 recipes that use similar grocery items where the perishable items are entirely used up by the third recipe. Nothing goes to waste. Not only that, but you put in the number of servings you want to make of any recipe, and it generates the shopping list accordingly. What????

I’m still on my 30 day free trial, but I’m here to tell you that, if I do this correctly, we can be eating food from all over the world, trying new, and exciting dishes, all within our budget, and without waste.

Check these guys out. They’re great. Entertaining as well.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

We’re going back

To the US Embassy.

It’s that time of year.

Every year at this time I have to let the SSA know that nothing has changed in my life; I am still alive, and I’m still living in the same place.

I receive the form every year, around the 6th of July, noting that it was sent the 6th of June, and have until the 6th of August to complete, and return, the form to Pennsylvania.

Seriously?

As we’ve not mailed anything, much, to the US, we have no idea how long it takes to get a letter of such significance delivered to the appropriate authorities. Therefore, we make our annual pilgrimage to the Embassy, handing the form directly to the Embassy representative at the entrance of the Embassy building.

Last year it cost us $280MXN, total, for the round trip, via taxi, so I’ll include the cost this year, round trip, as a comparison.

This time we asked the driver if he would wait, and return us to our apartment, and told him we would pay him a bit more if he could/would wait a moment. All I had to do was hand in the forms to someone at the gate at the entrance to the Embassy.

As the intelligent man he was, he drove around the block, Ivan in the back seat, and came back for me as promised.

I have to tell you, though, that from the moment I gave the young lady our papers, I felt several moments of fear, and abandonment.

I went back to where Ivan, and the driver said they would be waiting but

They were gone.

They weren’t there.

They weren’t over there, across the street.

They were no where.

Where were they?

The driver said “we” were to meet him the next block over, turn left, and we’ll meet on that corner.

When I was standing there, I felt confused; which way was the way I was supposed to go? This block? The block over there?

Ivan wouldn’t leave me here, alone. He wouldn’t do that.

Calm yourself.

Ivan won’t leave you. He/they will come around the block soon, and find you.

They aren’t here because the policía said they needed to move from the spot, where they left you off, so that’s what they did. They drove around the block.

I walked to the area where they dropped me off, and waited where they could see me.

Within minutes, we saw each other.

It took less than 30 minutes to get home.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: the taxi ride, with the wait, was, in reality, $158 MXN each direction; totaling $316MXN/$16.68USD. We parted ways having given him $400 MXN/$21 MXN. A good transaction done.

Oh, here we go

The building is moving in that horrible way it does just after all of my Apple products scream at me that there’s been an earthquake detected.

I don’t know if you remember me saying during prior quakes, but the movement of the building, from the onset to the final seconds, makes me so nauseous that I feel very close to vomiting.

As I do now, as I’m typing this.

The dogs in the buildings combined, are all howling, but everything else is dead silent.

Ok. It’s over. It’s done.

For now. Going back to what I was doing.

Have a great day!

True confession

I feel compelled to confess that, a few weeks ago, when buying our monthly groceries from Costco, I added a stray potato to one of our bags.

I did. I’m only marginally ashamed, but, there you have it.

The russet potatoes we have been receiving are huge. Nothing like we used to get in the States. Let me show you.

These potatoes are at least 6” long.

That is a salad plate, for sure, and you can also see the peeler. These 2 bags of potatoes are all like that.

In the bin, where the potatoes were being stored for sale, there were several stray, neglected, lonely potatoes, just sitting on top of the bags. I picked a few up, put them in bags that were obviously of less weight, and repositioned the plastic tie attempting to hold the bags closed.

After having done several of these, there was one left, so I put it in one of our bags, as compensation for all of someone else’s work I had just done.

Great rationalization, don’t you think?

The 2 bags are home with us, and I just made hamburgers, and fries with the one in the above photo. Believe me, it was big enough for both of us to be full.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: on one of the French chateau renovation channels I watch on YT, mom sent her 2 daughters to the US to visit family for a couple of weeks. Just before the flight from France, she, and her oldest daughter developed CoVid. They were both sick, in bed, for 10 days. Don’t give up your vigilance. It’s still out there, just waiting for the unsuspecting, and undisciplined.

Homemade soup

I made my first, ever, pot of homemade roasted red pepper, and tomato soup a few weeks ago now.

Ok, so mine didn’t look exactly like that.

It was delicious though, as we both agreed. The recipe was so easy to follow, though I did do just a touch of tweaking. After blending everything once cooked, I passed it through a sieve to give it a creamier texture, and added a swirl of cream to the top just before serving, leaving off the basil. We didn’t have any fresh.

After roasting the tomatoes, and onions, which were in imminent danger of spoiling, due to the extreme heat, I roasted chicken parts for some chicken soup to be made in the next few days.

FYI- If you ever make chicken soup from scratch, be sure to roast your chicken pieces first. The depth of flavor is completely different. I season them just as I would if we were eating them as the main protein of our dinner. Then, I remove the skin, (and eat it; cooks treats), before adding the shredded chicken to the soup.

I have to tell you that “cooking by the seat of my pants”, as my husband likes to say, is getting much easier these days. I’m fairly sure it’s because I’m not hungover all of the time, and having a bit more educated palate.

I’m doing my best to teach my tastebuds different, yet tasty combinations, and trying to keep them in the forefront of my memory.

We’ll see.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.