Same Old, Same Old...

Well, I think my comparatively good attitude about the pandemic and Stay-At-Home-Orders has basically worn off.  It has been 42 days since the schools closed, 41 days since JP began socially isolating in our home, and 38 days since I was laid off.

I keep trying new things to help pass the time.

I sewed some reusable "swiffer" dusters.

I colored for a while.

I keep trying new recipes.

These are No-Bake Breakfast "Cookies."  They seem to be a hit around here!

Microwave 3/4 c peanut butter and 1 T honey for 30 sec and mix well with 1/2 t vanilla.  Stir in 3/4 c rolled oats, 2 T chia seeds, 2 T sesame seeds, 1/4 chopped nuts, 1/4 c mini chocolate chips, 1/4 c craisins.  Scoop with 2 T scoop and form into balls and place on parchment lined sheet pan.  Press slightly to flatten.  Cool in refrigerator for 1 hour to firm up, then store in sealed container in refrigerator. 

I keep making homemade yogurt.  Here is my breakfast of champions yesterday:  homemade Greek-style yogurt with fresh berries, No-Bake Breakfast "Cookie", and Butterbeer Latte.

I just keep hoping that there's a light at the end of this extremely long, dark tunnel!

What are you doing to keep despair at bay?

Earth Day 2020

We have spent some time on the past few Earth Days picking up trash down by our creek, and this year is no different.

I found this sneaker doubling as a planter.

Here are some other things that I found recently - just walking around the property:

Indian Pipe - this is a wildflower

Devil's Urn - this one is a fungus.

This little guy was in my flower bed!

L and I walked around a bit in the woods and cut grape vines.  Some of them were so large that we had to use a chainsaw!  The trees should grow a bit better without the vines strangling them this year.

Did you do anything for our Earth today?

More Cleaning

While I was on a roll with the cleaning, I decided to clean out the refrigerators.  After all, it's been more than 6 months since they had a good clear out and wipe down.

Two sparkling refrigerators later:

Puzzled

For the last several years, we have been setting up a table behind the couch during the winter where I put together puzzles.  Sometimes other people help me.

For the past month, JP has been using the table to eat at, so that he can remain more than 6 feet away from us, so my puzzle days are done for the year it seems.

Here are a few that I put together this year:

This one was a free gift from Shutterfly that I recently received.  Isn't it sweet?

Spring Cleaning

Today I decided give the entire house a good cleaning - the tree house that is.

I have to do this every spring, as a myriad of bugs make there way in there over the winter and die.

I dusted, swept down cobwebs, washed the floor, shook out the cushions and rugs, and the blankets and curtains are currently in the dryer after being washed.

Everything is thoroughly febreezed and aired out.

It's ready for a tea party I think.

Comfort Food

It froze overnight - blasted my young asparagus out there.  I cut it off, even though it was flopped over, and we ate it in Pasta Primavera for dinner - delicious.

JP has been trying to keep the house heated by using only the woodstove downstairs and circulating air with the whole house blower.  Until it warmed up upstairs, I thought I might bake something to help with the heating up.  I googled "comfort food cookies" and came up with a snickerdoodle skillet cookie, and it is definitely a keeper!

Remodel

JP has had a project of his own going on for several days.

He has been self isolating in the guest room and bathroom downstairs for 3 weeks now.  However, if he were to get COVID 19, he should not come out of the room.  Since the guest room and guest bath are side by side, he decided to put a door between them.

The girls helped to tear down the dry wall.

I held up the door and the trim today while he nailed it in.  Then I found some carpet scraps and cut a piece to fit where the wall had been.

It still needs painting and filling in nail holes, but that can be done after the social distancing thing is a thing of the past.  (When, oh when will that be???)

Three Hours Well Spent

J worked on a special project of her own on Saturday.

She printed out pieces of a picture, and put them together on a big piece of cardboard.

In the end, she had a life size picture of  Timothee Chalamet to keep in her room

Afterwards she said, "Well, that was 3 hours well spent!"

Happy Easter!

The girls begged to have an Easter Egg hunt today, so we still had one.  It was a beautiful day to be outside - temps in the high 60's and sunny.  I had mowed the grass the day before, so it wasn't too shaggy.

L hid some Pup-peroni filled eggs for Stella as well.

We had turkey and dressing for dinner, and L made a key lime pie from scratch.  It was delicious!

It Doesn't Always Work

I've had a pretty good run of new recipes working out for the past couple of weeks, but reached the end of that road last night.

I decided that now was as good of a time as any to try my hand at creme brulee.  I have been meaning to try this for years, but have been intimidated.  So...I made creme brulee.

It was beautiful and delicious.

I was left with 5 egg whites, so I decided to make lemon meringue cookies.  I have a go-to meringue cookie recipe that I use when I have egg whites on my hands, but I thought I'd try something different.

They looked nice...

...but tasted...not great, and the texture was terrible.  Fail #1.

This morning, JP and I decided to make corn meal mush for breakfast.  It is a Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast staple, but I don't make it very often because I have to constantly stir very thick, molten mush for 15 minutes straight.  It wears out my arm and I get burned from the hot mush bubbling up.  I decided to try making it in the rice cooker this morning - easy peasy.

Fail #2:  it took a LONG time to cook, and was lumpy and gross.

While the mush was cooking, I thought I'd try a new coffee drink to go with it, so settled on a Snickerdoodle Latte.

Fail #3, all over the microwave.

Not planning to try any more new recipes today!

Beans, Beans, the Pandemic Fruit...

When we were stocking the pantry over a month ago, ahead of the pandemic, we bought a big bag of dried beans.  We do eat a lot of beans, especially since J is a vegetarian, but I don't typically cook them from dried because I have a terrible problem planning meals ahead - I do pretty good planning everything else though.

I forgot to soak the beans last night (again), so I tried the "quick soak" method today:  cover the beans by about 1 inch with water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes.  Cover, remove from heat and let soak for 1 hour.  Drain beans and then cook as normal.

This seemed to have worked!  I had this pot of pintos simmering (with tomatoes, onions, garlic, chili, cumin, salt and pepper) for about 3 hours, and they are tender, creamy, and delicious.

Back before Christmas, J's friend was like the bean fairy, leaving dried beans in random places.  I found several in my car, and my purse, and recently some came through the washer.  I planted them, and they have been growing on my window sill for months.

They have been looking much worse for wear lately, because they need more room to grow (and actually 2 of them died, I'm sorry to say), so I planted them outside in my flower bed this morning.  We got a good rain after that, so hopefully they will survive and thrive out there to create more beans for the pandemic!

Caribbean Feast

J has been asking for over a month if we could make a Caribbean Feast.  Finally last week she sent me a link to the video she had seen, and we attempted to make a Caribbean Feast.

Keep in mind, the video shows about 4 main dishes, along with fried plantains and roti.  I spent 2 hours cooking, and was able to make the Jerked Lentils, Naan (instead of roti) and the fried plantains.  First of course, I had to make Jerk Seasoning.

In any case, it was delicious.  Let me know if you feel adventurous enough to tackle the whole feast!

Here is how I made the Jerk Lentils, (Rachel Ama's recipe on line did not include directions.)

Jerk Lentils

1/2 large red onion, diced

1 T fresh ginger, grated

3 sprigs of thyme

2 spring onions, coarsely chopped

4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 T maple syrup

1 1/2 T jerk seasoning

1-14 oz can of diced tomatoes

4 c vegetable or chicken stock

1 lb dried green lentils (rinsed and picked through)

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent, then add ginger, garlic, and jerk seasoning and cook for another minute.  Add tomatoes, stock, lentils, maple syrup, green onions and thyme, and season well with salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until tender, 30-45 minutes.

Making Masks

Now that it is recommended that we all wear masks in public, we are in a position of needing masks.  JP could bring a couple home from work, but I don't want to ask him to waste precious PPE that could keep him safer at work.

I decided to make some for our family.  I have lots of scraps of colorful fabric, and I like this pattern from JOANN - it includes a layer of interfacing, making them even less permeable, which I thought was important.

I did alter the pattern just a bit - moved the elastic down 5/8 inch from the top edge and created a tube that I could slide a pipe cleaner into.  This makes the top edge adjustable and helps keep glasses from steaming up.

I made a half dozen today for my family, but if I can pick up some more elastic, I would like to make some more to donate where needed.  They are fully machine washable and reusable.

** ADDENDUM:  After making all of these masks, JP pointed out that they are impermeable.  This actually counteracts the entire point of wearing the masks, which is the FILTER the air - you should be able to breathe THROUGH the mask, not have air come in and out around the edges.  I went back and removed the interfacing from these, and they work more appropriately.  So, IF YOU USE THIS PATTERN, DO NOT USE THE INTERFACING.  Two layers of fabric is really all the CDC is recommending.

Barista Goals

We don't have a Starbucks in our little town, and I wouldn't frequent the place if one actually did.  However, I have a sweet tooth, enjoy my legal addictive stimulants (aka coffee), and have fun trying new things.

Last night I happened to see a video about making Dalgona Coffee.  Apparently, it is the thing that EVERYONE is making during this pandemic - a cloud of fluffy coffee piled on top of milk.  I tried it this morning, and I was amazed that these 4 ingredients make such a fun cup of coffee!

Dalgona Coffee (makes 2 servings)

3 T instant coffee granules

3 T sugar

3 T hot water

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix on high speed with a hand held mixer until mixture forms soft peaks.  Fill a glass with 3/4 c of cold milk and dollop coffee mixture on top.

A couple of weeks ago, I found this recipe for a Harry Potter inspired Butterbeer Latte.  I made a couple of changes to the recipe:  I add a pinch of salt to the butter and brown sugar.  After adding milk and warming it all up, I add a teaspoon of instant espresso granules, froth it well and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Are you all trying any fun coffee recipes now that we're not supposed to leave our houses?

Wash Your Hands!

With the Stay-at-Home orders in effect, and things like hand sanitizer being in high demand and not easy to obtain, I decide to make my own.

I followed this "recipe", but also read through recommendations by WHO and the CDC.

Some important things to note:

- Be sure that the equipment that you use to measure and mix are clean, you don't want to be "cleaning" your hands with something that is contaminated.

- It is important to use at least 91% rubbing alcohol, because in order to be effective, the concentration of the final product needs to be greater than 60% alcohol.

-  In the formulation from WHO, they added a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to kill any fungal spores that may be present on your equipment or aloe vera gel, so I did add about a teaspoon to my mixture.

- This mixture turned out very liquid-y, which is fine with me - makes it easier to apply everywhere quickly, but just be advised that it IS NOT a gel.

- Of course, the BEST policy remains actually washing your hands frequently with soap and water!

Green Thumb?

I made 50 little pots out of newspaper (both recycled and will be biodegradable) and L helped me plant seeds.  We have tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, summer squash, zucchini, peppers, basil and parsley planted.

My hands got a little discolored from the newsprint.

Hopefully the garden will be ready to plant them into in a few weeks!

Are you planting anything this spring?

One of These Things is Not Like the Others...

Which of these pear trees doesn't belong?

I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo or not, but the tree in the foreground looks different from the others lining my drive.  It's not quite shaped the same, and it isn't blooming.  For years, I've blamed this on the fact that I've had to replace a number of these trees over the years, and I always fill in with another Cleveland Pear tree, courtesy of our local neighborhood Big Lots store.

Last Spring, however, we got a few blooms on this tree.  Lo and behold, later in the summer, we actually got a few pears growing on the tree too.

In early September last year, I was able to pick my pear harvest.

Now I know that somehow, Big Lots sold me a different kind of pear tree.  I don't mind so much because it is alive and actually produced fruit, which is something that none of the very expensive fruit trees in my now defunct orchard have never done.

This year, the tree is COVERED with flower buds, so I have high hopes for an even better pear harvest this year...IF we can get to them BEFORE the critters.