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Plants and Food are Life Now
I didn't feel good at the start of the week.
No, it's not covid. It's probably the coconut milk in that curry to be honest :p
Or maybe it's stress built up over time. That's a thing.
I still got through my day all right. There are some changes happening at work that seem kind of...unexpected. I can't say anything about it, confidentiality and all, just that the nature of the work is going to be different. I hope it'll still be enjoyable. Nuff said.
Is it weird that I already know what I want to make for dinners over the weekend?
One day blends into another, and even at the start of my work week it feels like time is short.
I woke up on Friday to the news about Trump & wife finally catching the covies.
I'm not a person who can wish a complete stranger dead, and I won't wish that on Trump & fam.
However I think that when you tempt fate, quite often karma is right there to give you a swift kick in the ass.
Posturing and bravado only make one look like a fool in the end.
Death comes for us all. There's no reason to pretend otherwise.
But what do I know.
We'll see what happens. A lot of people seem to think he's faking it, but Trump's administration aside I don't think the hospital would go along with someone faking an illness. And if they do it's time to look at Canadian citizenship.
On Saturday night Jameson and I watched a YouTube video of people making Taiwanese peanut candy. It looked SO GOOD. I felt stupid, I forgot how much Jameson likes peanut brittle (his favorite candy bar is PayDay!)
Not only that, I have seen these candies before! Of course they won't be as fresh and soft as they would be freshly made like in the video, but it's the next best thing. The Asian grocery is on my route home and I knew exactly where to look.
These are for him, but we both tried a piece of the powdered peanut biscuit. It was crunchy but also light and sweet, very very tasty! I had the pleasure of watching my bf's eyes roll back in his head as he took his first bite haha. It's the little things. We can't travel and explore right now, but we can experience new foods and cultures at least. Very grateful for the Asian grocery!
In fact, we had another surprise experiment later in the week. A little less "cultural".
Not sure if y'all have heard, but Brach's has released a "turkey dinner" candy corn.
Yes, EEW. Definitely gross. And yet. The urge to try it was so strong.
En route to and from work I stopped at every Walgreens along the way (Walgreens is the only store carrying it) and was unable to find it. Everywhere I went it was sold out. After checking online I realized that only one Walgreens in Orlando had it in stock, and it was on I-drive, a notoriously touristy area of the city.
Well, whatever! I was there the very next day when they opened the doors at 7am. And they only had two bags left!! Sheesh!
After work I drove home and we cracked them open.
That same day I welcomed two new plants into my little "garden".
While checking messages during a short break at work, I saw that someone was having a plant sale not ten minutes from my work!
I used my lunch break to rush over and check it out. They had a lot of exotic plants, most of which I wasn't familiar with. But they also had a nice selection of carnivorous plants, which if you were following me in my circus days you know that I propagated venus flytraps for several years while traveling the country. They died when I moved to Florida, because I underestimated how hot Florida is in the summer.
Anyway, I couldn't resist picking up a beautiful little flytrap with deep red coloring in the "mouths".
And they had sundews as well! Not the Florida-native pink sundew, which I would have loved to have but it's illegal to sell them.
These were some common green type, but still super adorable and must-have. I bought them and raced back to work just in time.
Since it's October these plants will go into dormancy soon, so maybe it was stupid to buy them. But, too bad. It's stupid to buy everything I've bought this week. Life is short y'all.
The rest of my week was fairly normal. I had some leftover mango from the curry I made last week, and some bananas that were just coming ripe, so I bought a can of pineapple and threw them all in the blender. I added a little ginger for warmth and brightness, and a chocolate mint leaf from my garden just for decoration. Tada! Banana mango pineapple popsicles! They're probably my final popsicle creations of the summer.
Here are all the popsicles I've made this year: mint mojito, strawberry watermelon, peaches n' cream, key lime pie, honeydew lemongrass coconut, matcha fudgesicle, and banana mango pineapple. I'm excited to try more flavor experiments next year!
Tuesday I worked from home, Jameson too. He tried to make some adjustments to his studio desk with some 2 x 4's, but unfortunately it didn't work out and he ended up pretty frustrated. The news of Eddie Van Halen's passing did nothing to improve his mood. We picked up some groceries together and spent an otherwise quiet night at home. While he chilled out with some video games I got to work prepping some top round for the sous vide! I want to try making French dip beef sandwiches.
I wanted one two-pound roast, but Whole Paycheck only had one-pounders so I ended up with two one-pound steaks instead of a roast. Hopefully that won't change the recipe much. After searing I deglazed the pan with some cheap red wine and once it cooled, blended it with some beef broth and a bay leaf and poured it over the beef. Then I set the sous vide to 133 degrees and slowly lowered the meat into the water. It'll cook all night, for 12 hours or possibly more.
The next morning the meat was looking pretty good, I felt it was tender but not "mushy" so decided to leave it in the sous vide until dinnertime. Why not. In the meantime I got to work pickling some radishes to top the sandwiches. I mixed vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and a bunch of spices on the stove until it reduced a bit, then poured it over the radish slices. Yum!
Since the house smelled like vinegar I also went ahead and descaled the teapot ;)
The rest of Wednesday was pretty chill. It's super hot and humid here again so neither of us felt like going outside. I had a brutal headache anyway, probably from the barometric pressure bouncing all over the place this week. Jameson played Doom and I wrote letters and filled out my ballot.
When it came time to cook dinner I pulled the steaks from the sous vide. They were in there for about 20 hours! I dried them off and seared them a second time.
Cutting them open revealed a beautiful pink middle.
I would have liked them even more rare than this, next time I'll set the temp a little lower. But for my first attempt at steak in the sous vide I think it turned out fantastic! While the steak was resting I poured the wine and broth from the sous vide bags into a pan on the stove and reduced it along with some carmelized shallots, rosemary, thyme, and garlic.
I sliced the steaks and layered them onto demi baguettes, put a piece of provolone on each, and put them under the broiler for a few minutes to get things nice and toasty.
Topped with the pickled radishes and some watercress, served with the fragrant au jus, we enjoyed some really awesome sandwiches for dinner :)
I was glad to make these because I learned two new cooking techniques: sous vide tenderizing, and pickling! I like learning new things!
By the way, yes I'm aware that I post a lot of food pics and cook a lot of food. I get a lot of people asking how I'm not fat, especially at a time when the gym's not open. Everyone is different so I can't say that what I do would work for others, but here's what I do:
I know it's kinda blurry but you get the idea. This is what I ate on Wednesday.
I knew that I was having these sandwiches for dinner, so I adjusted my meals for the rest of my day to make sure I didn't go too far over the number of calories that's right for me to maintain my weight. These are only estimates, and I likely did eat more calories than this tracker estimates. But using a tracker allows me to at least ballpark it so that I'm not eating WAY too much, or too many unhealthy foods, in one day.
I know a lot of people who fill their bowls with cereal in the morning, and consider a full bowl of cereal to be a serving.
But if you read the nutrition info on your favorite cereal, you will see that a serving is usually less than one measuring cup.
A typical bowl for soups or cereals holds about two cups of cereal.
If you're filling your bowl and considering it to be "one serving", think about how many calories that is.
Honey Nut Cheerios are a popular cereal in the US. A serving is one cup, 140 calories and 24% of your daily sugar.
If you are filling your cereal bowl, you're eating 280 calories and 48% of your daily value of sugar, not to mention the milk.
I'm just trying to point out the difference between what we may visualize as "one serving", and the calories we are actually eating without realizing it. This is what calorie tracking helps you to do, to be come aware of how many calories you are eating and help you to make adjustments and find balance.
Anyway just throwing that out there because of the "How are you not fat?" comments and questions I've gotten this year :P This is how!
On Thursday I drove to downtown Kissimmee to give my friend Colleen a plant I bought for her at the plant sale. The last time I saw her we were both in the circus. We chatted for a bit and she showed me all of her plants (she's become a succulent plant queen!) and gifted me a snake plant which I'll probably keep in the house. It was good to see her if only for a little bit.
After that I drove over to my local Supervisor of Elections to drop off my ballot.
I received it by mail but decided to drop it off in person since I was in the area and also just why not. It's early and there are no lines. I found the ballot box easily and slipped mine inside. All the drama about voting by mail or ballots not being counted or whatever, honestly it's ridiculous. If you request your ballot early enough you'll receive it way before the deadline. If you follow the instructions and fill it out completely and sign where required, using your actual signature, and then turn the ballot in BEFORE the deadline, your ballot will be counted. I mean if you can't be bothered to register to vote with FOUR YEARS notice, I don't know what to tell you. If you don't bother to read the instructions and as a result your ballot doesn't get counted, that's too bad but there's no one to blame but yourself. It's not a conspiracy, it's your irresponsibility. Stop making excuses and just vote.
After that little trip I made my way home, had lunch, prepped my breakfasts for the week, and did a little prep for dinner while Jameson had a work meeting. When he was done we went for a walk. The weather is hot again unfortunately...when will Fall really come to Florida??
When we got back I started on making dinner. I made some basic oven-baked turkey meatballs, and "Steezy mac" from the Cooking Comically cookbook. This is a recipe I usually avoid because I'm lactose intolerant, but I found lactose-free evaporated milk! Yay! It's a super easy recipe, you just boil the noodles and toss them in a little butter, then add the evaporated milk and some beaten eggs, followed by cheddar, havarti, and parmesan. Topped with toasted Ritz crackers, it was creamy cheesy goodness.
And yes, I calculated for this too ;) I reduced fat from other meals so that I could enjoy a full serving of this mac and cheese tonight. Worth it!
After dinner Jameson taught class while I practiced steno, then we relaxed in front of the tv.
It was another Groundhog's Day weekend: sleep, eat, cook, look at plants, chores. The days blend together.
This is kind of sudden, but I want to say it because it's how I feel.
At this time of year, I tend to think of all the things I've lost.
Fall is my favorite season, so it's hard that my mother passed away during October (Fall was her favorite season, too). It's hard to open my facebook and see memories from two, five, seven years ago, photos I took as the train rushed through the rustling woods and snaked around a pristine lake, of a home I'll never see again and a life I could only live once. It hurts. It still hurts, years and years later, it hurts so much that I still can't look at my circus blog at all, even though I know I should maintain it for others to enjoy. It's the same reason I rarely look at my mother's pictures, or the few mementos I have of her. It hurts.
But this is my favorite time of year. Where I'm from, the air gets clean and cool, the trees rustle quietly in promise of even quieter days to come, blanketed in snow. And in my memory a train rushes through the woods intent on a sparkling city, and a gentle hand touches my shoulder to wake me for church on Christmas morning. It hurts every Fall, to feel what I've lost. But I treasure it.
No, it's not covid. It's probably the coconut milk in that curry to be honest :p
Or maybe it's stress built up over time. That's a thing.
I still got through my day all right. There are some changes happening at work that seem kind of...unexpected. I can't say anything about it, confidentiality and all, just that the nature of the work is going to be different. I hope it'll still be enjoyable. Nuff said.
Is it weird that I already know what I want to make for dinners over the weekend?
One day blends into another, and even at the start of my work week it feels like time is short.
I woke up on Friday to the news about Trump & wife finally catching the covies.
I'm not a person who can wish a complete stranger dead, and I won't wish that on Trump & fam.
However I think that when you tempt fate, quite often karma is right there to give you a swift kick in the ass.
Posturing and bravado only make one look like a fool in the end.
Death comes for us all. There's no reason to pretend otherwise.
But what do I know.
We'll see what happens. A lot of people seem to think he's faking it, but Trump's administration aside I don't think the hospital would go along with someone faking an illness. And if they do it's time to look at Canadian citizenship.
On Saturday night Jameson and I watched a YouTube video of people making Taiwanese peanut candy. It looked SO GOOD. I felt stupid, I forgot how much Jameson likes peanut brittle (his favorite candy bar is PayDay!)
Not only that, I have seen these candies before! Of course they won't be as fresh and soft as they would be freshly made like in the video, but it's the next best thing. The Asian grocery is on my route home and I knew exactly where to look.
These are for him, but we both tried a piece of the powdered peanut biscuit. It was crunchy but also light and sweet, very very tasty! I had the pleasure of watching my bf's eyes roll back in his head as he took his first bite haha. It's the little things. We can't travel and explore right now, but we can experience new foods and cultures at least. Very grateful for the Asian grocery!
In fact, we had another surprise experiment later in the week. A little less "cultural".
Not sure if y'all have heard, but Brach's has released a "turkey dinner" candy corn.
Yes, EEW. Definitely gross. And yet. The urge to try it was so strong.
En route to and from work I stopped at every Walgreens along the way (Walgreens is the only store carrying it) and was unable to find it. Everywhere I went it was sold out. After checking online I realized that only one Walgreens in Orlando had it in stock, and it was on I-drive, a notoriously touristy area of the city.
Well, whatever! I was there the very next day when they opened the doors at 7am. And they only had two bags left!! Sheesh!
After work I drove home and we cracked them open.
Flavors clockwise from top are: green beans, ginger glazed carrot, stuffing, sweet potato pie, roasted turkey, and cranberry sauce.
Sweet potato pie was the only one that could be called “good”.
The cranberry was the most disappointing, it was like an artificial and overripe raspberry flavor, no tartness at all. Jameson’s favorite Thanksgiving food and he was not impressed 
Most accurate award goes to the stuffing, we could not BELIEVE how disgustingly accurate it was! I could taste the gravy! 
Runner up for accuracy was ginger carrot, it really did have carrot flavor (you can get freaking stuffing and carrot flavors into a candy corn but not cranberry, really Brach's? Lol!)
The green bean was just odd, we agreed that it tasted neither like green beans nor like anything else we could think of.
And the turkey was by far the most disgusting, it somehow did have a “roasted meat” taste!
Yeah it was mostly gross and weird...but also fun and amusing 
That same day I welcomed two new plants into my little "garden".
While checking messages during a short break at work, I saw that someone was having a plant sale not ten minutes from my work!
I used my lunch break to rush over and check it out. They had a lot of exotic plants, most of which I wasn't familiar with. But they also had a nice selection of carnivorous plants, which if you were following me in my circus days you know that I propagated venus flytraps for several years while traveling the country. They died when I moved to Florida, because I underestimated how hot Florida is in the summer.
Anyway, I couldn't resist picking up a beautiful little flytrap with deep red coloring in the "mouths".
And they had sundews as well! Not the Florida-native pink sundew, which I would have loved to have but it's illegal to sell them.
These were some common green type, but still super adorable and must-have. I bought them and raced back to work just in time.
Since it's October these plants will go into dormancy soon, so maybe it was stupid to buy them. But, too bad. It's stupid to buy everything I've bought this week. Life is short y'all.
The rest of my week was fairly normal. I had some leftover mango from the curry I made last week, and some bananas that were just coming ripe, so I bought a can of pineapple and threw them all in the blender. I added a little ginger for warmth and brightness, and a chocolate mint leaf from my garden just for decoration. Tada! Banana mango pineapple popsicles! They're probably my final popsicle creations of the summer.
Here are all the popsicles I've made this year: mint mojito, strawberry watermelon, peaches n' cream, key lime pie, honeydew lemongrass coconut, matcha fudgesicle, and banana mango pineapple. I'm excited to try more flavor experiments next year!
Tuesday I worked from home, Jameson too. He tried to make some adjustments to his studio desk with some 2 x 4's, but unfortunately it didn't work out and he ended up pretty frustrated. The news of Eddie Van Halen's passing did nothing to improve his mood. We picked up some groceries together and spent an otherwise quiet night at home. While he chilled out with some video games I got to work prepping some top round for the sous vide! I want to try making French dip beef sandwiches.
I wanted one two-pound roast, but Whole Paycheck only had one-pounders so I ended up with two one-pound steaks instead of a roast. Hopefully that won't change the recipe much. After searing I deglazed the pan with some cheap red wine and once it cooled, blended it with some beef broth and a bay leaf and poured it over the beef. Then I set the sous vide to 133 degrees and slowly lowered the meat into the water. It'll cook all night, for 12 hours or possibly more.
The next morning the meat was looking pretty good, I felt it was tender but not "mushy" so decided to leave it in the sous vide until dinnertime. Why not. In the meantime I got to work pickling some radishes to top the sandwiches. I mixed vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and a bunch of spices on the stove until it reduced a bit, then poured it over the radish slices. Yum!
Since the house smelled like vinegar I also went ahead and descaled the teapot ;)
The rest of Wednesday was pretty chill. It's super hot and humid here again so neither of us felt like going outside. I had a brutal headache anyway, probably from the barometric pressure bouncing all over the place this week. Jameson played Doom and I wrote letters and filled out my ballot.
When it came time to cook dinner I pulled the steaks from the sous vide. They were in there for about 20 hours! I dried them off and seared them a second time.
Cutting them open revealed a beautiful pink middle.
I would have liked them even more rare than this, next time I'll set the temp a little lower. But for my first attempt at steak in the sous vide I think it turned out fantastic! While the steak was resting I poured the wine and broth from the sous vide bags into a pan on the stove and reduced it along with some carmelized shallots, rosemary, thyme, and garlic.
I sliced the steaks and layered them onto demi baguettes, put a piece of provolone on each, and put them under the broiler for a few minutes to get things nice and toasty.
Topped with the pickled radishes and some watercress, served with the fragrant au jus, we enjoyed some really awesome sandwiches for dinner :)
I was glad to make these because I learned two new cooking techniques: sous vide tenderizing, and pickling! I like learning new things!
By the way, yes I'm aware that I post a lot of food pics and cook a lot of food. I get a lot of people asking how I'm not fat, especially at a time when the gym's not open. Everyone is different so I can't say that what I do would work for others, but here's what I do:
I know it's kinda blurry but you get the idea. This is what I ate on Wednesday.
I knew that I was having these sandwiches for dinner, so I adjusted my meals for the rest of my day to make sure I didn't go too far over the number of calories that's right for me to maintain my weight. These are only estimates, and I likely did eat more calories than this tracker estimates. But using a tracker allows me to at least ballpark it so that I'm not eating WAY too much, or too many unhealthy foods, in one day.
I know a lot of people who fill their bowls with cereal in the morning, and consider a full bowl of cereal to be a serving.
But if you read the nutrition info on your favorite cereal, you will see that a serving is usually less than one measuring cup.
A typical bowl for soups or cereals holds about two cups of cereal.
If you're filling your bowl and considering it to be "one serving", think about how many calories that is.
Honey Nut Cheerios are a popular cereal in the US. A serving is one cup, 140 calories and 24% of your daily sugar.
If you are filling your cereal bowl, you're eating 280 calories and 48% of your daily value of sugar, not to mention the milk.
I'm just trying to point out the difference between what we may visualize as "one serving", and the calories we are actually eating without realizing it. This is what calorie tracking helps you to do, to be come aware of how many calories you are eating and help you to make adjustments and find balance.
Anyway just throwing that out there because of the "How are you not fat?" comments and questions I've gotten this year :P This is how!
On Thursday I drove to downtown Kissimmee to give my friend Colleen a plant I bought for her at the plant sale. The last time I saw her we were both in the circus. We chatted for a bit and she showed me all of her plants (she's become a succulent plant queen!) and gifted me a snake plant which I'll probably keep in the house. It was good to see her if only for a little bit.
After that I drove over to my local Supervisor of Elections to drop off my ballot.
I received it by mail but decided to drop it off in person since I was in the area and also just why not. It's early and there are no lines. I found the ballot box easily and slipped mine inside. All the drama about voting by mail or ballots not being counted or whatever, honestly it's ridiculous. If you request your ballot early enough you'll receive it way before the deadline. If you follow the instructions and fill it out completely and sign where required, using your actual signature, and then turn the ballot in BEFORE the deadline, your ballot will be counted. I mean if you can't be bothered to register to vote with FOUR YEARS notice, I don't know what to tell you. If you don't bother to read the instructions and as a result your ballot doesn't get counted, that's too bad but there's no one to blame but yourself. It's not a conspiracy, it's your irresponsibility. Stop making excuses and just vote.
After that little trip I made my way home, had lunch, prepped my breakfasts for the week, and did a little prep for dinner while Jameson had a work meeting. When he was done we went for a walk. The weather is hot again unfortunately...when will Fall really come to Florida??
When we got back I started on making dinner. I made some basic oven-baked turkey meatballs, and "Steezy mac" from the Cooking Comically cookbook. This is a recipe I usually avoid because I'm lactose intolerant, but I found lactose-free evaporated milk! Yay! It's a super easy recipe, you just boil the noodles and toss them in a little butter, then add the evaporated milk and some beaten eggs, followed by cheddar, havarti, and parmesan. Topped with toasted Ritz crackers, it was creamy cheesy goodness.
And yes, I calculated for this too ;) I reduced fat from other meals so that I could enjoy a full serving of this mac and cheese tonight. Worth it!
After dinner Jameson taught class while I practiced steno, then we relaxed in front of the tv.
It was another Groundhog's Day weekend: sleep, eat, cook, look at plants, chores. The days blend together.
This is kind of sudden, but I want to say it because it's how I feel.
At this time of year, I tend to think of all the things I've lost.
Fall is my favorite season, so it's hard that my mother passed away during October (Fall was her favorite season, too). It's hard to open my facebook and see memories from two, five, seven years ago, photos I took as the train rushed through the rustling woods and snaked around a pristine lake, of a home I'll never see again and a life I could only live once. It hurts. It still hurts, years and years later, it hurts so much that I still can't look at my circus blog at all, even though I know I should maintain it for others to enjoy. It's the same reason I rarely look at my mother's pictures, or the few mementos I have of her. It hurts.
But this is my favorite time of year. Where I'm from, the air gets clean and cool, the trees rustle quietly in promise of even quieter days to come, blanketed in snow. And in my memory a train rushes through the woods intent on a sparkling city, and a gentle hand touches my shoulder to wake me for church on Christmas morning. It hurts every Fall, to feel what I've lost. But I treasure it.