chinese kale - garden to table

It has been windy! Since my hoop garden was not exactly expertly constructed the wind tends to take up the plastic, so I've been trying to remember to recover it in the evenings. It was nice a sunny out today so I went out and took the plastic the rest of the way off of the garden so it can get some sun I just have to remember to cover it up again tonight. The garden still seems to be doing well. The Chinese Kale I planted seems to be thriving and I needed lunch so I picked some of the kale leaves...

Lunch:

rice

tofu - I like it when it's a little crisp so I put some olive oil in a pan, cut up the tofu and put it in the warm oil until it was golden and tossed it with salt and garlic powder

kale - I put a little toasted sesame oil in a pan with chopped garlic and ginger, half a spoonful of chili paste with garlic, soy sauce, kale, once the kale was cooked I added the juice from half a lime and chopped and added some mint

treat

I have been trying not to spend money. When faced with a problem this morning - being out of coffee - I had two choices, buy more beans or buy a cup. I decided on option number two (although I'll still need to get some beans for tomorrow) because sometimes it's also nice to be able to treat yourself and it's a warm day for this time of year. Even with some rain our I can sit on the new deck and still be dry!

tag it

It's getting to be that gift giving time of year again and one of the things I always forget is gift tags so I decided to make some of my own. I have a little gnome who looks festive so I took a photo of him. I removed the background from the photo and then dropped it into a word processing program. I set up 8 tags per sheet and kept them simple, the gnome photo, To & From fields and then Happy Holidays note at the bottom. After printing I cut the tags up and made a hole to thread apiece of ribbon to be able to tie them to presents. I also made a few designs that were just holiday pictures on the front and space to write on the back. I posted them in my etsy shop.

blue skies

With the days being more dark and gray I'm already thinking about blue sky days. I realized that I have a lot of photos of blue skies so I decided to go through them. When looking at them I got an idea for a card set to add to my etsy shop. I picked four blue sky days, one to represent each season and will be a set of 12, 3 of each of 4 designs. I have a little more work to do but hope to have them up soon.

pet photography

Since I got to play with Finn again today and discovered yesterday that he does a lot of napping I decided I would use some of my time with him today to do some photography practice. By the end of my time with him I'd taken about 500 photos. Thank goodness for digital photography! And thank goodness for puppy naps because it's hard to capture him playing when he moves so fast but napping he's easier to capture.

Finn

Some friends of mine were going out of town for the weekend and asked if I could feed and play with their puppy during the day for a few days, so of course, I said yes! The puppy is only about 12 weeks so he is cute and cuddly but not really trained yet so it was a bit of an adventure.

The big thing I learned today was that the puppy likes to put everything in his mouth! Walking him was an adventure because he wanted to pick up everything and he kept wanting to stop and play with sticks and flopping down in people's yards. Thankfully it's easy to get his mouth open and get things out of his mouth so he doesn't eat them.

Latin Inspired TV Dinner

When I babysit a few nights a week there is dinner waiting for me in the fridge at the house. I decided I would try to get better and leaving a new twist on TV dinner at home for my partner so I can cook something for lunch and have some of it ready for him when he gets home.

Today's cooking...

Arroz con gandules, frijoles negros y chili rellleno

To make the rice:

saute 3 pieces of bacon (cut into small pieces)

1/2 of a spanish onion (cut into small pieces)

saute for a few minutes

Add 1Tbl of each of the following;

sorfito

parsley flakes (because I didn't have cilantro)

garlic powder

oregano

add 1/2 Tbl of each of the following;

ground cumin seeds

paprika

add 1 tsp chipotle chile pepper

salt and pepper to taste

Add 1 1/2 cup rice (I used brown)

stir together to coat the rice

add I can green pigeon peas (Gandules verdes)

Add 3 cans (using pigeon pea can) water

cover and cook until water is absorbed

Black Beans

let sit in a pot of water overnight

drain, rinse

Add

onion

garlic

poblano pepper tops (4 peppers used for chili relleno)

bay leaves

cumin

salt

pepper

tablespoon olive oil

water

cook until tender

I also made chili relleno and had some left over brussel sprouts, then I plated it on a pie pan, so it just needs to go in the oven to be reheated.