One step forward, two steps back?

 Divided and repotted my golden pothos- this may have been a mistake. You see, the plan was to use these cool new moss poles I got off of Amazon (degenerate spaceman store), but I may have fried the roots in the hot summer sun when I was laying them all out to repot. 

I used my cool new potting soil what has fish stuff in it, so here’s hoping that it will all settle down eventually. I just had to pull a dozen or so yellow leaves off this morning so that was depressing.

So I haven’t wound them up the moss pole yet because I’m sort of waiting so I don’t stress it out more. Bah. 

Anyway, having plants is like a dance, sometimes messing about with them makes them flourish, and other times you should have just sat on your hands. Sometimes I wonder if people who neglect their plants almost have better success than I do, but a) I usually focus on my failures (stupid brain) and b) I have decided that whether I am killing my plants with love or not, I truly enjoy pottering about with them so much that it’s worth it- the ones that can stand it will survive.

We’ll that’s about it, I keep stealing plants from work (shhhh, don’t tell) (just kidding, I ask) (mostly) and eagerly awaiting propagation results from that, and I keep dreaming of ordering $60 worth of plants off of Amazon (stupid immunosuppression keeping me from plant shopping irl!) but not doing it because I’m worried they will fry in transit in this exceptionally hot summer weather we’re having…

I was especially looking forward to the local plant sale but it got cancelled due to weather (which never transpired).

The unperks of being a worker

 Aaaaaaah!!! I do not have time to take care of all my plant children!

Working has cut into my plant playtime (Note: I am not really complaining about having a job here lol).

TBH it’s probably good/better that I do not continuously stare at my plants, willing them to grow faster… I complained to a friend that my houseplants were growing too slowly and she said I should get a garden! Probably true, especially here in MN where the growing season is short and everything just bursts from the ground!

But I bought some fancy dirt off of Amazon and some pots and they are just sitting there, waiting! And I know my Cebu blue pothos has roots growing out of the bottom of its pot!

We went up to the cabin over the weekend and part of me really wanted to stay home just so I could have a chunk of time to really get into the zone with my plants, but when I came back, really, everything was fine and there was some new growth on a few of my plants I’d been worried about.

So I guess I will learn some balance and patience about finding time to take care of my plants, and slowly we will adjust to a new relationship that works.

My new bebe

 Today I went and picked up a new plant baby!

Actually two!

I have decided to actively ‘grow’ my pothos and philodendron collection (as I seem to be able to keep them alive) and so when I saw a cool philo Brandi available locally I was excited! Especially since I missed the plant sale here in town.

There was a mini monstera too but someone else had dibs on it. The seller was kind enough to give me 3 fantastically rooted silver scindapsus too!

Crazy plant times

It’s Spring and that means my green thumb is itchy!

I scored some really nice plants recently and upgraded my plant areas in my home!

I’ve been inspired and so I think I’ll start sharing here again, this time about plants.

centrepullball 

Oh Midwestern Winter

Oh Midwestern winter, you do nothing for my photo skillz.

Here we have Smokin' Red Beans and Rice from the pressure cooker. It was a good dish, altho' the beans were a tad underdone. It seems like every time I make something in the pressure cooker, one aspect of the dish is off. If it's not the beans, it's the rice, if the rice is done, then the beans are a little, shall we say, al dente. Although I did have fun the other day putting in 8 C of chopped winter root veggies and pressure cooking them and when I opened the lid, ta dah! they were, like, 1/4 of their former mass.

here's the Smokin' Red Beans and Rice recipe...

3/4 C red beans, soaked overnight
3 T veg oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 large red pepper, diced (I just used some frozen roasted red pepper I had in the freezer 'cause I'm thrifty like that)
1 C Minute Rice
1 can diced tomatoes
1 3/4 C veg broth
1 t thyme
1 t adobo in sauce

Saute garlic, add everything else. Bring that sucker up to pressure, then keep it at pressure for 10m (next time I'll try 15m see; underdone beans). Allow pressure to drop naturally. Add salt and tabasco sauce as needed.

I will really try this one again, because it's! all! in! one! pot! so, it's almost like a casserole, and you know how much I like my casseroles, or as they say here in Minnesota, hotdish.

On the reading front, well, to my shame I am still working through Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. I cannot believe I have been reduced to reading such dreck. It is, however, great for just reading a few pages right before bed and not getting hugely engrossed in. Man, I should be reading Murakami or something. Geez.

Ah, little blog, how I have neglected thee...

Ah, little blog, how I have neglected thee...

was it the two year old, who, every time I sat down at the computer, wanted to climb up into my lap, severely interfering with my typing?

was it the uninspired 'get-'er-done-quick' meals?

was it a tad too much of volume after volume of 'in a series' sci fi/fantasy?

Who can say?


The above picture is one meal that stands out in the desert of pasta + sauce + veg/rice + sauce + veg that has been the modus operandi around here as of late...

I won't post the particulars, but it was penne pasta, glued together with a fake cheeze sauce, tediously vertically aligned in a spring form pan and baked, topped with sauce and fake mozzerella cheeze and sprinkled with dried parsley.

truly epic.

perhaps if I had used, you know, the flat ended kind of pasta, what's that called? instead of one that was cut on the diagonal. But who knows?

and what of all the reading that has surely transpired during this long blog drought? Well, the one that stands out was "Ship of Destiny" by Robin Hobb (yay!, a woman writer!), the last in a series 'The Liveship Traders' which I began, in my mind, to call 'Ship of Density' because, lo, truly, it took. me. forever. to finish. Bedtime would roll around and I'd think to myself, "Better get to reading 'ship of density'!".

I read the Harry Potter series somewhere in there and loved it.

Well, folks, that's all I've got for now, but I will try posting more often, especially as a)I'm still reading and b)I got a pressure cooker for Christmas and I'm inspired to cook again.

Summer of Juvenile Fiction

Welcome, welcome, so good to see you back...

Oh no, wait, that's me!

Ah well, today I bring you the best of July-August for your viewing pleasure...



A while back I read about caramelizing onions in a slow cooker somewhere on Metafilter and I just had to give it a whirl (see here for more tips)... and yay, it worked! Whee! So I turned them into soup, which you see above and is totally anticlimactic. But I WILL be using them on my next pizza (more on that later).


Here is a blueberry grunt which photographed terribly but was pretty good. It was a little tart, as I recall, but I think that was the berries we used which were from last summer, really late season blueberries (think apple picking time) so they, as a berry, were just tart. I followed the recipe here and veganized it, of course omitting the whipping cream at the end.


And here is my new favorite thing! Whee! I used follow your heart vegan cheeze, mozzarella flavour, and my new favorite pizza dough. Yummy! I made it again recently, and just used 1/3 of the block of cheeze so now I can eek out three pizzas from one block of (fairly expensive) vegan cheeze! Yay! And in all truth, the pizza using the third of a block of cheeze was better anyway, used some fresh veggies from the farmer's market that I sauteed up and nom, nom, nom!

Pizza Dough

1 C warm water
2 T yeast
3 1/2 C flour
1/4 C vital wheat gluten
1 t ginger
1/4 C oil
2 t salt
2 T sugar (or honey if you're a beegan)

Mix water and yeast and let sit 5m until dissolved.
Mix in olive oil, flour, salt and sugar.
Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, approx. 10m.
Place in oil coated bowl and turn and flip dough so it is coated.
Cover with plastic wrap or a wet towel and allow to rise until doubled, around 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Punch down dough, divide in half and let sit 10m (you could freeze one half here if you don't want to make 2 pizzas- that's what I did and I made breadsticks with it for spaghetti another day).
Place pizza stone on rack in lower third of oven. Preheat to 450 degrees for 30m to 1 hour (I scoffed at this initially, but the second time when I made it, I let the oven preheat for more like an hour and the crust came out crisper!).
Flatten dough to 1/2" thick and 10 - 12 " wide. Go easy, if it starts to get wierd, let it rest (and you, too) for 5m. Then start again, patting and stretching.
Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal and put pizza crust on it.
Make dents using your knuckles, then brush with oil and let rest 5m.
Top with toppings and slide pizza onto baking stone (if it doesn't slide, add more cornmeal).
Bake 10 - 15m.


And here is what we had for supper last night-

Chickpea and Broccoli Macaroni

I must have been channeling my winter self or something, because this is a *gasp* casserole (yes, I turned on the oven, I am a masochist) and *gasp* it uses frozen broccoli. I should have gone to the farmer's market and bought fresh broccoli (wears hairshirt).
Anyway, this was good! Yay! I will make it again, fo' sure.

I made it just like the recipe, except I was all like, what's up with the 3/4 t ?!?! So I bumped the salt, garlic powder and paprika up to 1 t. Talk about taking a walk on the wild side, baby! Also, I used pasta water for the sauce, because my husband was not home yet with the soymilk. It turned out fine. Really good, folks. Definitely put this in your 'to make' pile. I can't wait to make it again, this time with soymilk and maybe even frying up the chickpeas with some garlic and onion. Yuuuum!


So, this has been the summer of juvenile fantasy fiction. I read "A Wizard of Earthsea" which was really good, read the next two after that.

I also read Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonsinger" or whichever one is the first in the series. Dragonsinger, dragondrums, dragonmaster, dragonrider... eventually the series will reveal 'Dragonaccountant' or 'Dragonhairdresser'. I have read the 'harper's hall' trilogy. The first was pretty good, then they were okay.

When I've run out of library books, I've been slowly working through LOTR. So good.

Next up, I am thinking about tackling the Harry Potter series. Yes, I am that crazy. Don't you think that would be a good way to end the "Summer of Juvenile Fiction"?

I Despair!

Heya peeps! Long time no blog!

Well, maybe it's best this way... you are spared the innumerable combinations of rice/pasta with a bit of tofu/fake ground meat/tvp and a somekindof sauce made usually with nutritional yeast.

I bring to you my 'best hits' of the summer, thus far!


First up, the magnificent breadstick! Ooooh, ahhh!

Marvel at it's uniform brownness and the sparkly bits of salt atop it's crest.

Truly, it is a wonder.

Ahem. No, really, though. It was good! Yay! I think I just googled 'olive garden breadstick' and this is what I came up with (after wading past all the nutritional info sites, oh, yeah, and all the sites telling me how to make breadsticks using a frozen bag of bread dough- d'oh! yah, right.). So anyhow, I really liked these and the baking time is less 'cause you've cut up the dough and stuff and I added my seekrit ingredients the second time around (pic above) and got even better results! Hoorah!

Breadsticks

4 C flour
2 T sugar
2 t salt
2 t yeast
1 1/3 C water
1/2 C vital wheat gluten (opt- seekrit ingredient)
1 t powdered ginger (again, optional, secret ingredient)

1 T melted Earth Balance
1 t salt
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t oregano

Oil 2 baking sheets.
Mix first group of ingredients in mixer, then knead for a few minutes.
Divide dough into 16 (I use my digital scale for this, because I am a nerd) and roll into breadsticks, placing them on the baking sheet once you've rolled them out.
Cover with a damp teatowel and let rise 45m.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Melt butter and brush onto breadsticks.
Mix the salt, garlic powder and oregano and sprinkle the tops of the breadsticks.
Bake 15m.

See? Easy! You can make these if you have maybe an hour before supper and then all you have to do is make spaghetti, but you've really fancied it up here with the breadsticks and everyone will be like, wow.

Next up is a few pictures of my new favorite 'spice blend' for 'Indian' food. See how I used those little quotes there? That's because spice blend sounds so fancy, yes? And quotes make anything better. Also around the word, Indian? That's because I'm sure an real Indian cook would scoff. But hey, me likey. Scroll down for the recipe. Below you see fried chickpeas and tofu with tomatoes and below that you see fried chickpeas and silken tofu with tomatoes and freshly wilted, or is that wilted fresh, spinach. It was fresh spinach, freshly wilted, anyhow. Sooo good.


This 'spice blend' originates from this recipe... the only thing I changed was to drop the chili garlic paste and replace it with paprika, 'cuz my family are wusses.

2 cans garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 can diced tomatoes
2 T oil
1 T fresh grated ginger
1 t onion powder, cumin, garam masala, salt
1/2 t coriander, tumeric, garlic granules
1/4 t paprika

Fry the garbanzos in oil until browning. Add ginger and spices. Add the tomatoes and spinach if you've got it, mix until well heated. Serve over rice. Tada!


And finally, here is the piece de la resistance (that is wholly incorrect, I'm sure)- strawberry shortcake!! I found the recipe on the intarweb and now alas, I cannot find it again. Ah well, besides, I changed it up some, so there. Soooo goooood! Go, pick some strawberries, now! Make this tonight!!



Strawberry Shortcake

2 C sliced strawberries/1 quart strawberries
2 T sugar

2 C flour
2 T sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t cream of tartar
1/4 t baking soda
3/4 C soymilk
1 1/2 t apple cider vinegar
1/4 C canola oil

Oil two baking sheets.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Slice strawberries, sprinkle with sugar, mash up a little with a fork and set aside to allow juices to release.
Add apple cider vinegar to soymilk, whisk a little and set aside to sour.
Mix dry ingredients well.
Add soymillk and oil and gently mix.
Spoon 6 mounds onto baking sheets.
Bake 15m until golden.
Remove to racks and cool.
Top with berries and serve.


Well, so now for the reading...
I finally got my hands on a copy of "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" and it was a really good read! Lots of engaging stuff in there about culture and aging and love. I couldn't put it down! I was so tickled because I hadn't been able to get it from the library (not in the system) and so I had just relegated it to the 'books I can't get ahold of but have come highly recommended'- thanks Mallika!. This category also contains "The Mysterious Benedict Society" btw. ANYWAY I was making my semi-frequent stop at my local bookstore to see what they had on the free to members prerelease shelf and there it was!! Whee!

Again, you are treated with my 'best of' reads here, suffice it to say I would give myself a headache if I tried to remember and list all the books I've been reading, but one that stands out, dun, dun, DUN! is "Treasure Island". Yes, that great classic of old. Aaaaand, get this. I read it online!

Here's the story- I checked it out from my library, from the children's literature section, mind you, and it was some terrible bastardized version! Ptoooey! Oh, it was awful. I cannot even say how awful it was. They gutted out all the interesting asides that make the characters spring to life and I couldn't even bear to read past a few pages when I threw it down in disgust. Yes, folks, it was that bad. OMG, srsly, if this pap is what they are giving our children to help smooth it down their throats, I despair. End rant.

Okay, that's it for today. Have a lovely day!

Glazed Over.

Ooooh man, sorry for the blog neglect!!

But here I am, safe and sound again...

Here's a little number I like to call 'The Perfect Sloppy Joe'. I'd make it every day if I could get away with it...

No, seriously, you know I've been honing in on my perfected sloppy joe and I think I've finally found it!

So here goes, do not faint at the amount of brown sugar!

1 C red lentils, (uncooked) rinsed and drained
1/2 C TVP reconstituted in 2 C boiling water (do not drain)
1 - 2 C water
1 onion, finely chopped
1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T oil
1 can tomato paste
1/2 C brown sugar*
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 T italian seasoning
1 T molasses
2 t salt
1 heaping t paprika
1/2 t mustard

Saute onion and garlic in oil in a large pot. Add spices, salt, sugar, tomato paste, molasses and apple cider vinegar and mix well. Heat until fragrant.
Add lentils and TVP, including the water from rehydrating the TVP and mix well. Add 1 C water and cover and bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until lentils are tender (30m or longer, depending on your lentils). Add more water by 1/2 Cfuls as needed.

*that's a lotta sugar! you could reduce this (obvs) and I think I may next time, to 1/4 C. But it WAS really good....


And here is another quick supper that was sort of improvised that turned out well.

I call it 'Tofu and Garbanzos Over Rice'. Because that's what it is! Yay!

1 can garbanzos, drained
1 1/2 carrots, shredded
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
1 pkg extra firm silken tofu
1 C frozen peas
1 t cumin
1 t salt
1/2 t ancho chile powder (or some other spicy something you like)

In a large (pref cast iron) skillet, fry up those chickpeas. Really fry those puppies. Then add the spices and salt. Then add the garlic and fry for a bit, then the garlic. Add tofu and peas and mix it all up, letting the tofu get coated in all the spicy goodness and the peas get hot. Serve over rice. Ta da!

Well, let's see. After finishing "The Stand", I read some filler books that I had laying around the house. Some good, some okay, all fine.

"Wesley the Owl" good with a little woo at the end there. But fun to read about an owl (win!) and wacky biologists.

"The Storekeeper's Daughter" kind of preachy (ha) the author obviously thinks we should all be Amish, really. Don't ask how I have this book.

"Summer World" by Bernd Heinrich is interesting and I love to learn about nature but I sort of glazed over about half way through. Good intentions of finishing, though.

"The Elephant Keeper" this was a reader's copy or prerelease or whatever and I enjoyed it. An interesting story with some cool thinking about animals. Lame ending, though. In my opinion.

Oh, and I can't forget "The Fairy's Return" by Gail Carson Levine! I am a big fairy tale geek and I guess this shows it. Having read "Ella Enchanted" and enjoyed it I risked picking this up at Goodwill (actually I didn't remember the author or that she'd written Ella Enchanted or anything, I just saw 'fairy' in the title and skimmed a page and thought it looked good. Thanks, subconscious!). Anyway, these are fun, although it does give me pause to discover that she is allied with Disney... I just have this reflexive 'ewwww' reaction. Oh well.

That's it! Gotta get my hands on something else to read!!!

Kind of Drippy.

hey, yo.

wow, lots of foodstuffs for you today!

first up (above) we have some yummy pasta with sauce.

do you ever do this? where you mix it all up together and let it cook up hot? kinda reminds me of a cafeteria...

i used some fancy pants spaghetti sauce from the coop (no corn syrup) and doctored it to my taste. turned out pretty good!

2 T oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 t oregano
1 t salt
1 t italian seasoning (remember to crush those spices up between your fingers, folks)
splash balsamic vinegar
1/4 t ancho chile powder

Saute onion, then garlic in oil. Add spices, vinegar and salt. Add sauce. Simmer for a bit while your pasta boils.
Mix up with your pasta and serve hot.

oh, man, this was good! of course, everything was fried, so what do you expect?

1 can garbanzos, drained
1 1/2 carrots shredded
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
1 pkg water pack extra firm tofu
1 t cumin
1 t salt
1/2 t ancho chile powder

Heat your oil in a large cast iron skillet over med high heat. Add your garbanzos (watch out, those garbanzos can spit!). Stir around and add salt and cumin and ancho chile powder. Add the garlic in there and then the carrots. Keep stirring on high heat.
Lower heat and add the tofu- I boiled the tofu for ten minutes, as is my standard operating procedure these days (I think it makes it firmer), then cut it into cubes- stir around until tofu is hot and spicy too and then serve over rice! So good!


I made bagels again, this time with 3/4 C whole wheat flour replacing one of the cups of flour. I also added 1 t of cinnamon, just to mix it up a little. They turned out good (a little chewy, but good).
Here is an old favorite- Taco Ring! I think I got this originally from Fairly Odd Tofu Mom... I used the reduced fat crescent rolls and they weren't as insanely addictive tasting, but still good.

2 cans reduced fat crescent rolls
1 package Boca 'ground beef'
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 C minute rice, uncooked
1/2 C frozen corn
1/2 C salsa
1/2 C bulk dry uncheeze mix
1 T oil
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced

Take yer crescent rolls out of the frig.
Let 'em sit.
Meanwhile, boil up 2 C of water in your microwave safe dish in the microwave and then, slowly (I mean, add a few grains rice, first, to make sure it's not superheated) add rice. Let that sit.
Heat oil in a large pot, saute onion, then garlic.
Add Boca.
Add uncheeze, salsa, pinto beans and corn. Add rice. Mix well and heat on medium heat, covered.
Meanwhile, take a baking sheet and oil it well.
Lay out your crescent roll triangles with the points facing outwards. You will overlap the wider ends on the baking sheet, leaving a circle approximately 6" in diameter in the center.
Put 1/4 C of the bean mixture in the center of the base of every two triangles. Wrap the two triangle ends over the mixture and press them together with the dough in the center.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20m.
Cut into 8 wedges and serve with salsa, vegan sour cream and sliced black olives.

This was just some hot buttered pasta with tofu and fingerling potatoes. Sounds just like what it is- made the pasta, boiled the fingerlings right along with the pasta, boiled up some silken tofu, then cubed it then sauteed it with garlic and Earth Balance and added the pasta and potatoes in there too. Served with a side of green beans (from a can!) seasoned with sumac and salt. Nice and filling.
And here is the ubiquitous spicy peanut sauce spaghetti. It was pretty bland as I didn't add any ginger or basil or even cumin, oh well.

1/2 C peanut butter
1/4 C soysauce
1 t salt
1/4 C brown sugar
splash rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic

Blend. Thicken on stove (you can see I didn't thicken mine enough or drain my pasta enough- the sauce is kind of drippy). Mix with spaghetti. Yum, supper.


So, I finished The Stand with a side detour into "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".
Okay, first off, don't read the unabridged version of "The Stand". I mean no disrespect to the King, but whoah. That was long.
SPOILER America sure loves it's sacrificial heroes, doesn't it?
Long on dread and short on action, NOTHING HAPPENED until way into the book, and then it was sadly disappointing when the bad guy turned out to be a straw man- or was he? Dun, dun, dun. I may try to read "It" some day, but I think after that, I'll be done with Stephen King.

The P & P & Zombies was fun! Don't go into it expecting a super ton of zombie action- I mean, it was there and all, but it sort of strangely ended up as an accompaniment to everything else. Funny, yes. A whole new thing, no. But that's not what it's meant to be.

I got "American Psycho" from the library. Hm. I have a hard time reading books where the goal is so obviously to make me ?hate? the protagonist... we'll see.