The Urban Gardener (V-2021)

Covid-19 caused us to tuck into our home and not really go out at all.  While Hubby had an outpatient surgery scheduled for January 2021, that was the only risk we had to take since lockdown.

In 2020, for Mother’s Day, Hubby insisted I should not cook.  We went into “Old Town” to a known restaurant (eaten there a number of times pre-Covid) and ordered a “to-go” Chicken Caesar salad.  Not saying the restaurant is no longer a favorite, however the salad was seriously lacking in quality, taste and pretty much anything else you can think of (wilted, tasteless and unappealing visually). Continue reading “The Urban Gardener (V-2021)”

Coleslaw & Dressing Like Mom’s

I love coleslaw but I have always taken the “easy and fast” way out with it, buying bottled coleslaw dressing or a coleslaw “kit” in the bag. Now I am a convert – yes, it took maybe 15 minutes to make this coleslaw dressing (and yes, I purchased a 14 ounce bag of shredded green cabbage, carrot and red cabbage, so I cheated a little).

Here’s my version of this recipe – a mash-up of several I have tried but none of which ever added up to my expectations. This one pleases my taste buds enormously.

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Romance and/or Travel: the journey or the destination?

Travel.  The word can bring forth thoughts, memories, feelings.  Yet, it is just a word.  A six-letter word.  Looking up definitions for such a word, I found many variations.  As a verb, travel was defined as early as the 1300’s:

travel  (v.)

c.1375, “to journey,” from travailen (1300) “to make a journey,” originally “to toil, labor” (see travail). The semantic development may have been via the notion of “go on a difficult journey,” but it may also reflect the difficulty of going anywhere in the Middle Ages. Replaced O.E. faran. Travels “accounts of journeys” is recorded from 1591. Traveled “experienced in travel” is from 1413. Traveling salesman is attested from 1885.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

 

Sometimes the romantic travel of our lives seems just like this definition – travail.  Finding a soul-mate seems even harder than finding comfort in economy/coach class airline seats.

TSA CheckpointThe good thing is that  airline travel is a temporary thing, whereas the saga of finding a soul-mate seems to last a lifetime.  Given  the difficult journey of finding someone to enjoy spending time with, maybe one would be better off standing in the TSA line for the rest of their lives.

A new twist on tuna salad

Xterra Foldable TreadmillHubby and I have been needing to reduce calories.  We do not spend as much time on the treadmill as we did before he went back to work.  We try to get our minimum 7500 steps – preferring to make it to 10,000 steps on our Fitbit watches. But it doesn’t always happen.  After taking off 40 pounds during the Covid-19 lockdown, I did not like that in the past 6-9 months I have gained back 10 of those hard to lose/lost pounds. Continue reading “A new twist on tuna salad”

Lemon Vodka Shrimp Scampi

Lemons and VodkaThis is a recipe I concocted from about 5 different recipes, none of which appealed to me. I took one ingredient from here and one ingredient from there and, voila!  my personal version of shrimp scampi. Cheap vodka is ok because the alcohol cooks off before serving.  We like to be skimpy with the pasta since we are working on trimming calories for weight control (hence angel hair or thin spaghetti).

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Charming

Have you ever thought about the word, “charming”? I recently began ruminating on the word. Dictionary.com describes the word as an adjective:

Charming – adjective

pleasing; delightful.
using charm; exercising magic power.
One of the interesting words of this description is “power“.
Charm: to act upon (someone or something) with or as with a compelling or magical force.
One of the things I was thinking about is how it seems to be a male descriptor. After all, Cinderella, Snow White, what the heck, the wicked Witch of the West, were never described as “charming”.  But Prince Charming was most sought after…..
Prince Charming is a fairy tale character who comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress and must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell.

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Our COVID-19 lockdown: gardening-cooking-exercise, Part 1

COVID-19 changed our lives, and yet, those changes were already happening. My husband and I adopted an austerity program when we returned from Lisbon in June 2019. Several reasons led us to this program – a desire to retire permanently with more travel involved was a main reason.  Home improvements (including upgrading kitchen appliances & a major bathroom renovation) was another. Continue reading “Our COVID-19 lockdown: gardening-cooking-exercise, Part 1”

Stuffed Mushroom Caps

Stuffed Mushroom Caps
Stuffed Mushroom Caps

Having received 24 ounces of rather large white button mushrooms, I took 10 of the roughly 20 mushrooms and made a great little afternoon snack for my husband and I.  The stuffing can be made of pretty much anything you have in the refrigerator as long as you stick to one or two basics: softened cream cheese and bread crumbs.

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Winter warmth – cheese & bacon potato soup

For my first experiment with this soup, I used both diced and sliced dehydrated potatoes.

Backstory:

I had received a free ten pound bag of Russets in the fall of 2020. With just the two of us, that was more than we could eat before it would go to ruin. So I bought a dehydrator and got to work.  The mandolin is helpful with slicing of vegetables. I made the potato slices 1/8th inch thick.  The dice was roughly a quarter inch dice.  In order to keep the potatoes from turning an off color, after slicing and dicing, I put them into a pot of boiling water to which I had added the juice of a half of a lemon. They stayed in the water about 4 minutes. Then, with a spyder ladle, I lifted them out and into ice water to stop the cooking.  Then I drained them thoroughly and patted them dry before putting onto the shelves of the dehydrator.  It takes about 6 -8 hours to dehydrate the 6 shelves of potato slices at 165 degrees Fahrenheit. I then loaded the potatoes into quart mason jars and used a Food Saver type machine with a “wide-mouth” jar device to seal the jars. Then into the pantry they went.

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