The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

Stackable Mason Jars are my New Fave for Sous Vide

I have been slicing pork chops into strips and cooking them in 16 oz mason jars in my Wancle Precision Cooker.  So good, and clean-up is a breeze, especially in the new stackable jars which are wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.  

 

I put spices, salsa, chopped onion, peppers, and a little vegetable stock in the bottom and cover the jar with a leak-proof plastic lid.  

 

My preferred temperature is 140°F which is conveniently the same as poached eggs. Perfect for soft breakfast tacos.  These can be made ahead and reheated 15 minutes in the same container. 

 

 

 

I Should Change the Name of this Blog

It is time for me to install roll-out drawers in yet another home, but this is not an ordinary home, it is my "Forever Home."  Modest, but it has a view and a yard and a fence all the way around to keep the neighborhood dogs at bay.

I had not yet met some of the people I love today when I started this blog.  

 

Nothing in my life is empty any more.  Some of the things that fill my life with joy today had not been invented yet when I started this blog.    

 

One such thing is the waterless and bagless sous vide cooker.  It is such a life-changing invention that I (who like to eat, but had always loathed and detested cooking) cannot help blogging about it.  

 

So I am changing the name of my gardening blog to Growing in Water and Cooking in Air.

 

 

A Wonderful Day Trip

Who would have thought It's chunk of rock could just fall off this huge monument.   If you like to travel on bumpy dirt roads, going to see Giant Rock near Landers, California makes a nice day trip.  For the less intrepid, however, the roads to the Integratron are paved.

 

 

 

This Keypad is Worth Looking Into

MessagEase is a revolutionary keyboard that I am learning to love because it helps me multitask on my smartphones and tablets.

Here is a screengrab showing me using it to compose this post.

Please note typo on screen grab is not repeated in post.  Correct spelling is MessagEase.

 

It is easier to see, easier to navigate, faster,  flexible, can use my stylus (Note8, Note9, S7+, Bamboo?) and it has MACROS.

There is a steep learning curve, but for me very much worth it, and they have a seperate app with fun learning games to get new users up to speed and guage our progress.

Nuts About Smoothie Bowl Maker

I have been using my new Ninja Smoothie Bowl Maker just about non-stop ever since Iot it.  My favorite is chocolate cherry made with frozen bing cherries, heavy cream and dark chocate, but I also blend frozen peas in it for a fresh from the garden taste.

 

Some people do not approve of eating frozen peas raw, but I eat raw peas fresh out of the garden whenever I can get some, so why not?  I never missed a day due to illness in 12 years of public school and ate raw eggs, too, ever since childhood. Lately I see more and more people stating that there is no problem with eating raw eggs although for a long time the practice was shunned.  Emma Morano, however, lived past 117 years of age and attributed her longevity to eating 3 raw eggs every day.  Interestingly, to me at least, she worked in a Jute factory for some time.  

Jute is one of my favorite plants to grow, and I blog about it on my other blog called Ann's Air Gardens.

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Notezilla is BACK!!

Conceptworld has recently come out with a new version of their brilliant app, Notezilla 9.  I love almost everything about Notezilla and when I switched to doing most things on Samsung phones and tablets instead of Windows computers, I sorely missed it, and "way back when" I just was not able to synch correctly (not only with Notezilla, but with almost everything).  At that time Samsung's excellent Notes program was pitiful, so for years I pounded on the desk and whined about having "lost" my beloved Notezilla.   I should add that the Samsung Notes app has improved so much in recent years that it is mainly why I purchased 2 Samsung S7 + tablets instead of more notebook computers for daily use.

Still!  Notezilla is back and improved and synchs great with all of my tablets and phones.  Note that the Android version does not have popups, nor do the images fit inside the notes, but notifications work fine (love that they go not only on the status line but by email!) and the obligatory pictures appear as attachments, no problem synching from the cloud.  

Above is a screen grab of a Notezilla Note from my Android Note 9 phone.  This Notezilla note contains a link I saved to view later.  It is a video on using pick up sticks in weaving.  Now, as I watch the video as an overlay to my Notezilla note, I can reposition and/or pause the video and make notes as I view.

Conceptworld has the best support I have ever seen, with the possible exception of TableNotes which is another of my favorite Android Apps that more people should know about.  Notezilla is well worth the modest annual subscription fee, and they provide discounts to loyal long term subscribers.  I really cannot say enough about how much I like ConceptWorld and their excellent Notezilla 9 app.

COMPLIANCE NOTE:  No, I was not paid for this post.  I just wanted to share a really good thing with everyone.

Seedless Strawberry Jam

 

6 small jars shipped in huge box with nothing to protect them. Well, anyone can make a mistake, but the Amazon Marketplace seller Blue Stars was very accommodating when approached for restitution.  I am glad because this is an excellent product and I have it on subscription.

 

I use this jam to flavor home made ice cream, which has fewer additives and less sugar than the commercial stuff.  It improves the viscosity and adds flavor without the seeds.

Rocks Rock!

)(Sugilite (aka cybeline) is my new favorite gemstone, right up there with Amazon Jade (aka Amazonite). I bought this tasteful little ring on Etsy for an incredibly attractive price.  The semi-precious gemstone is a sphere, and the wire holder allows the stone to make skin contact.  Sugilite is rare in that it is not found on every street corner and in that it is lesser known than other crystals, but what is most rare about it is the wealth of benefits attributed to it.  

Whole Lemon Ginger Shot

With Sugar.  Yes, sugar!  The plain kind that feeds my kombucha.  Normally I would have used Birch Sugar, but this is the cheap stuff, plus one small lemon and a diced chunk of peeled fresh ginger, blended in the Ninja IQ.  How much sugar?  Enough to make it possible to sip, but not enough to take the tartness away.  I want to taste the lemon!

 

This is about an ounce of ginger lemon goodness, not counting the ice.  

I have finalized my House Kombucha recipe.  I use 3 jugs with stainless steel spouts and a drip tray.  The first jug is 1:3:3 parts (1 bag Jiaogulan Gynostemma Pentaphyllum,  3 bags Green Tea, and 3 bags Black Tea, which comes to 7 regular sized tea bags) of tea steeped, strained and mixed with 1/2 cup plain sugar.  The second jug is 6 bags of Roibus (Red Bush Tea) and 1/2 cup sugar. Roibus is naturally sweet, but it needs the sugar to ferment.  

After it is all fermented, I fill a glass 2/3rds full with 1/3 of the mix, 2/3 of the Roibus, and the rest of the glass with ice.  I add sprigs of fresh cinnamon cloves and/or spearmint and/or rosemary and whatever fresh edible flowers happen to be blooming in my garden.  

The Gynostemma is pricey at about 33 cents/bag, but by just using one bag per liter of booch, I get some incredible added nutrition without distorting the flavor of my blend.  

 

 

 

A Pretty Cover for my Art Scraps

I am envious of people who can keep their art supplies cleanly and neatly organized.  It seems I either have time to draw or paint (usually not!) or I have time to organize my tools (usually not this either), but every now and again I make another valiant attempt to get it together.

 

 So I made this tiled design to decorate the envelope I will use to store drawings I am attempting.  

Pictures I drew of male and female star tetrahedrons (Light Bodies) are on my drAnn's Art blog here.

Increasingly we are seeing items online about how to program one's DNA for wellness using geometrical shapes.  

I had a horrible geometry teacher in HS.  She completely ignored all the girls in the class and only made eye contact with the boys.  That notwithstanding, I found geometry interesting and wanted to take another class in it.  Life being what it was back then, I did not have an opportunity to take the 2nd year of geometry as it was a choice between that and Intermediate Algebra.  At the time I was highly grossed out about being forced to take Algebra twice, but it turned out well, as I aced the math portion of my college entrance exams and being a language major got exempted out of all college math.  I did, however, take some math courses as electives.  Wish I had had room in my curriculum to take more.