Livingthedreamwithdiana.com

I am still here, plugging away, but having just a bit of sluggishness from this computer. Several weeks ago, maybe longer, I do not recall, “someone” spilled cranberry juice on the keyboard. We got it wiped up quickly, and, used my hair dryer to finish drying it, but the poor thing has never been quite the same.

I Googled how to clean sticky keyboards, so I tried Isopropyl Alcohol, as suggested. That seems to have eased things a bit. Onward, and upward.

I have been up to my chin in bread baking recently, now that I have a beautifully active starter. I am baking bread every other day, sometimes daily. My sister-in-law, Mayra, is kindly sending me the baking supplies that I recently ordered from King Arthur Baking Co. I will then have four bread pans, of the same nine inches by four inches, enabling me to bake several loaves at the same time. This will save me time, and, money, in the long run.

I have discovered, recently, that I can make one loaf of bread, using instant yeast, which allows it to rise quickly, and make one loaf on my sourdough culture, which takes several hours to rise, all on the same day. And, with only one loaf pan. Am anxious for the new pans.

Right now, I am buying my flour online, as none of the stores, here, have the organic flour for which I am looking. (I do not want to take a chance that Customs will keep it at the border, as you cannot ship food products across the border anymore. Bummer).

The bread is turning out very nicely, however, and, I am very encouraged by that. I am going to start venturing out into the world of sweet things, like small cakes, pies, quick breads, etc.

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

Post script: you may be interested to know that I removed, and cleaned, and successfully replaced the return, the right shift, and, the space bar keys. They are, once again, fully functional. Yay me.

Post script two: Vote. Find a ride, if you need one. Find a carpool, and ride with them. Do what you need to do, but VOTE. There is NO excuse, other than a life threatening illness, God forbid, so get out there and VOTE. If you do not vote, you can have NO OPINION on the results.

When it rains, it pours.

The other day, we were at the auto repair shop, and, Enrique and I were waiting in the BMW for Ivan to finish talking to the guys about the Mercedes sensors. All of a sudden, E gets out of the car, after popping the latch for the hood, goes around the front of the car, and tries to open the hood.

When I looked up, I saw steam coming from under the hood, so I got out to help. E was unable to get the unfamiliar hood latch opened, so I reached around to do it. We both saw, immediately, that there was a spray of water coming from some sort of container, squirting onto something that was rotating.

I whistled at Ivan to get over here quickly, and E told him to bring Luis, the shop owner. Both came over, turned off the car, and said we had a hole in the overflow reservoir for the radiator.

Whew. What a miracle that we were outside their shop. What if……?

So, Luis is resetting the sensors, and we should be on our way soon. This time, however, we will still be in the Mercedes, leaving the unsuspecting BMW for a sleepover in the shop. Hopefully this will not cost an arm and leg.

Until we find out the cost, and the repair is completed, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

I am, once again, amongst the living, and on our way to have someone check the sensors on the Mercedes.

You may recall that we got new tires for it a few weeks ago, and, ever since then, the sensors have kept telling us to have them checked. Ivan has been unable to find anything wrong with the vehicle, having used his scanner, nor has he been able to clear the warning. So, back to Autofix we go.

At this point, however, I will use any excuse to get out of the condo, since I am finally out of the bathroom.

In theory, we are also going to stop at Costo, then Sam’s Club, then Toks, for lunch.

Unfortunately, I have not had the time, or energy, to finish my most recent sourdough sandwich bread loaf. It is rising, slowly, in a very cold refrigerator, at home. That should give it a deeper, richer flavor. Time will tell.

Until I can get done with that, and get it delivered, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and, protect your loved ones.

Well, I have found two bread recipes that work well for me in this altitude; Joshua Weissman’s (Youtube) Supermarket Bread recipe, and a Sourdough sandwich bread recipe by baking-sense.com.

I feel that I have tweaked Joshua’s recipe enough that it is really now my recipe, and, it is delicious. I have made only two loaves of the sourdough sandwich loaf, actually, the second loaf is doing a slow rise as I type, but I have made only one small adjustment. It calls for applying an egg wash to the crust before baking it, but the crust came out too hard, so I will not be doing that again. I will, however, butter this crust when it comes out of the oven. That should give it a nice, soft texture that even Ivan can chew.

Not much else to report today. No contractor, or workers in sight yet. So, while we wait for them, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and, protect your loved ones.

What kind of nurse does not even have a package of Lomotil in her home, you ask? A retired nurse that no longer has close medical ties in her community any more, that is who. And, now, that is me.

I do want you to know that Ivan brought me my consumé yesterday; gone in a heartbeat. He also brought me Fruit Punch Gatorade. Amen for that stuff. PLUS, I found the last of my Loperamida, (Lomotil), that I needed while we were in la Ciudad Victoria last year, getting Ivan’s paperwork sorted out. That was a fun trip we will not soon forget, I can tell you.

So, hopefully, I will stop this incessant running to the bathroom every hour, my belly distended beyond my thirteen months pregnant belly before the diarrhea. One can only hope.

Ivan bought some pancita (stomach) at Costco the other day, so we can make a trial batch of menudo before the holidays. We made a batch while still up North, and, it was delicious. For those of you that enjoy menudo, I will include a recipe when we perfect it. For those of you that do not care for menudo, ignore the recipe. Better yet, try it with someone who knows how to enjoy it.

What I really want to tell you about the aforementioned pancita is that, normally, when purchased, one needs to bring it home, and spend hours, sometimes days, cleaning this stuff. Not when purchased at Costco. It has the faintest smell of bleach, which has been absorbed into the fat of the pancita. No problem as we will be cleaning all of the fat off of the pancita, removing the fat, and then, cutting it into its one and a half, by one and a half inch squares. We cannot wait.

We have never seen this selection of the cow cleaned so well, prepped for us so nicely. While we get busy perfecting our recipe, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover you mouth, and, protect your loved ones.

I am so bummed. I cannot shake this session of “the revenge”. It has been five days now, and I cannot eat anything! Believe me, I have tried.

The day before yesterday, I tried a poached egg on dry toast. No good. Yesterday, I tried mashed potatoes. Nope. Did not work. I tried Kombucha. I cannot really say if that did anything one way or the other, but, so far, nada.

Let me tell you that this is not the way I wanted to drop a few pounds. At this point, however, I will take whatever works.

Ivan, and Enrique, went to do some shopping, (I do my best cleaning when I am by myself), as I managed to sweat through a bit of light housework; nothing too strenuous. I absolutely have no energy left to do much, but sit. I told him they should go out for lunch, but, to let me know where they were going, so I could pretend I was able to eat something, too. Unfortunately, for me anyway, he did not tell me they were at Toks until after had they left. I would like to have ordered a large bowl of chicken broth to go; they make the best caldo de pollo. Yum.

After texting him, he said he would buy me a consumé somewhere in the mercado, and bring it home. I cannot wait. I am not hungry, really. I just know that I have not eaten, and, cannot eat, ergo, I should be hungry.

Luis, and Martín are coming back sometime this week, to continue work here, so I am going to suck it up, and make them, each, a loaf of bread. The one I made the other day for E, turned out beautifully. I am going to stick with that recipe for awhile.

While we wait for the consumé to arrive, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

Post script: the caldo de pollo was indescribable. It had a bit of rice, and a small leg of chicken. It is my next quest to make a caldo that rich. Life sustaining.

Sorry. I slept through most of day 170 and 171. Fever, chills, muscle and bone aches, plus, and not to be forgotten, lovely diarrhea. Not sure from what, but I can tell you that I am glad that has passed. Well, all but the diarrhea, that is. On to happier subjects.

I want to tell you about my new Apple AirPod Pros. They are amazing. I can listen to a book while making Kombucha, or doing laundry, or making the bed, all without having them yanked out of my ears, having gotten caught on any silly little protuberance in my vicinity. That is so annoying, not to mention, occasionally painful. The Pro version has little silicone buds that keep the pods from falling out of your ears, are (supposedly) waterproof, and are very comfortable. Worth every dime, in my estimation.

Well, I am experimenting on different bread recipes, and, I think I have come across, what could be, a winner. I have taken the recipe from Joshua Weissman, on Youtube, but made a few modifications. Unfortunately, I forgot to decrease the amount of liquid used when I added an egg. (Adding an egg, as just mentioned, causes the dough to become very wet, and sticky, and difficult to manage.) Then, I forgot to do the slap, and fold technique, to beat a portion of the air out of the dough. (You really only need to do this with a wet, or high hydration dough.) Consequently, when baked, it leaves a rather annoying tunnel, usually running right through the center of the loaf. And, unless you want to make a whole loaf of eggs-in-the-nests, it is difficult, though, not impossible, to make a sandwich. And, I sure as heck do not want to give it to someone who is expecting a beautiful loaf of bread.

After a few minutes of online research, I discovered the tip about, if adding an egg, you must decrease the amount of liquid. Normally, this would mean that you put the egg in the measuring cup first, then add the rest of the required liquid. I use the metric system of weighing my ingredients, so I checked on the King Arthur Baking Company website, and found that a typical egg weighs fifty grams, so I am golden. I think if I make that small change, I will not have such a wet dough that will require it being beaten into submission. Well, at least I hope not. A lot of incredibly important information in so little time. (I wonder if the youth, now a days, has any idea how long it would take, how arduous a task, getting that information would have been to obtain, without the internet?!)

I am off to try putting this information to practical use. I will return, eventually, to let you know what happened. Until then, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover you mouth, and, protect your loved ones.

Usually, I have a pretty relaxed, easy going, retired persons attitude, so very few things annoy, or bother me. However, one of those things that does, is watching that evil little wheel, in the middle of my computer screen, when the internet is slow.

You know the symbol I mean- that never ending circle that continues to turn, and turn, and turn, and turn, and turn, until you are so hypnotized by it that, when it stops turning, you have no recollection why you were even on the site to begin with.

I just spent the previous several minutes watching the ever turning circle while waiting for a video to load. Since it still has not loaded, I thought I would write a post about it.

Ok. Now that I am done ranting; oh, as a side note, my husband got his Macbook back from the “cleaners”, so I got this one, (I used to call it “mine”), back from him. It has been so long since I used it, I had to go back over all of the little tips, and tricks, that I used to take for granted.

I must say, that is so much easier, and faster, for me to type on this than my smaller appliances. The others are better suited for when we are out and about, not here in the condo. Turns out I can type pretty fast, and with astonishingly few mistakes. The funniest thing, though, is I am way too comfortable with touch screens, and this one does not have that. I am forever trying to move things around on the screen with my fingers. Muscle memory, that is all that is. Only problem is that I have more muscle memory than brain memory these days. Hah!

I was going to go back to the rant, but instead, I will tell you about my bread baking plans. Hope that is ok with you.

Tomorrow, I am going to get up, and make my first, but, certainly not the last, loaf of soft crusted sourdough bread in my newest acquisition- a pullman pan. It is a bread pan with a lid that, when the bread dough rises, it becomes a square, more accurately a rectangular, loaf of bread, like you buy in the store. That way, until Ivan can chew things more easily, I can cut off the crusts when making him a sandwich, and use that for my croutons.

Of course, I will let you know how it turns out; do I not always do so? Until that happens, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and, protect your loved ones.

Bread baking is going really well. I am baking for family, mostly, and, so far, everyone says they enjoyed it. It is so hard for me to be comfortable with this! I do not want anyone to say they liked it if they did not!

So far, I have made two loaves of ciabatta, and three sandwich loaves; all much better than in the past.

The sandwich bread is so tender that even Ivan can eat the crust. Success.

We took a loaf to la Doctora this morning, after Ivan’s follow up appointment. She was excited to receive it. She does not have time to make homemade bread. I do.

But, until I can find the perfect loaf, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.

I have got to tell you that the second batch of Kombucha I made was dynamite. We are both drinking at least one bottle, sometimes two, every day, and enjoying every drop.

We have decided, for us, for now, a mix of pineapple, and blueberries, is our favorite flavor. The next batch we are going to venture into the world of fresh ginger. We like ginger ale well enough, but neither of us has done any cooking, yet, with fresh ginger. Should be interesting. We will be doing more in future, as we got our new wok. Yay.

I have always used pineapple as the base of our Kombucha, because it has so much natural sugar, necessary for the second round of fermentation. The Kombucha will not develop carbonation without sugar to feed the SCOBY. It becomes just a flat flavored tea. Yuck. Does not interest us.

The bottle does not have to explode with carbonation, and, really should not explode, especially if it has been refrigerated. As I said, in the earlier post, once it is cooled down, the carbonation is present, but not explosively so.

I wish you could taste the flavors yourselves. Well, actually, you can. Go to the grocery store, and buy a bottle. They are usually three to five dollars a bottle. Homemade Kombucha, after the initial cost outlay for the few necessary supplies, the usual cost is pennies per bottle. If you become a Kombucha fan, consider it an investment. Plus, you get tons of probiotics as a result. No loser here.

Well, that ends my thoughts for the moment. Who know when, or what, will cross my mind for the next post? Certainly not I.

But, while I try to think of something, you all have your routine. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and, protect your loved ones.