A blog of musings, experiences and morning coffee…
I just made a 16-bean soup that is perfect for a 40-degree (or colder) winter day. It is really pretty fast to make – cooking times range around 2 1/2 to 3 hours for the beans to be perfectly cooked.
16 Bean Soup ala Carlanne
Servings=10
Total time=3 Hours
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.
Continue reading “Winter warmth – cheese & bacon potato soup”
Safeway delivered 4 huge russet potatoes a couple of days ago. They look like they are this year’s crop, at least. I decided with one I would make a soup. With another I will be making Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes) and the other two I am going to dice up and dehydrate for the coming winter. We can’t eat four huge potatoes before they go off so drying is my go-to method for preservation (although freezing comes in second, only due to space in the freezer which is full to the brim from our summer gardening bounty). I admit I am looking forward to just cooking with all the yum-licious foods I have been preserving since last Spring. However, I am growing weary of the preservation jobs. Continue reading “Creamy Potato Soup”
A few years back we started discussing the retirement options. We decided I should take social security at 62 while Mike continued to work. After he reached 66, we began to revisit the questions again. Since most of his work is performed as a contractor (i.e., not FTE) in 6 to 60 month gigs, it is easy to put off the retirement decision each time a contract expires and a new one starts. Continue reading “Retirement leads to more questions than answers”
I used to sell our possessions on Ebay when we either grew tired of them or they no longer were useful. I had an excellent online reputation and sold an amazing number of items of technology, tools, clothing, bric-a-brac, nostalgia, antiques – you name it nothing was sacred. If we were tired of a possession, I sold it so we could buy a new item. I won’t say I made a profit but the way we looked at it, we had the use of an item until it no longer was useful. Then someone else got the joy of owning it. Continue reading “Possessions – positively memorable or evil reminders?”
When we went to Sintra, not long after our arrival in Portugal, we wandered the village, looking at the houses, homes, Airbnb and shops near the train station. I was not as on top of my game as I would have liked in order to be able to enjoy the town. But I was hungry and thirsty. We had a late start on the day as well. Continue reading “Sabot Lucky Burgers – an afternoon in Sintra”
The city was actively engaged in preparations for the big festival on June 12th. We could feel it in the air, in the streets and in the shops and restaurants.
At the top of my bucket list for this trip was a visit to Cascais. It is fairly simple to get to, but we took the long way to the train station (on foot via the cobblestone sidewalks – a tough one for my sense of balance). We got sort of lost a couple of times. The easy way was to go to the Rossio subway station and take the green line to Cais do Sodre where we switch to the train to Cascais. But we walked. Eventually we reached the western waterfront of downtown. Google and the GPS said we were there, but we could not seem to find it.
This whole time of our vacation, all the festivities seem to be leading up to the 12th of June – St. Anthony’s day of honor. I have been reading up on this since we came here not knowing about it. St. Anthony of Padua (12 th Century) is the patron saint of Lisbon. He was originally from Portugal but spent most of his life in Italy. However, the Portuguese are proud of his heritage.
We decided to stay in town and eat at our favorite Tapas restaurant. The festival would go on until the wee hours of Sunday morning though it would not bother us. We could hear it and feel the thump of the music in our apartment, but when we close our windows they are very tight against sound.
