The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

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.  

 

Idyllwild and Lake Hemet

 

Idyllwild and the other Mt San Jacinto attractions are about 10 degrees cooler than the flatland towns below, more in the winter when there is snow.  

The water in the lake has been low, but it is still pretty, with fish jumping up into the air and ducks swimming along the water's edge.

I took these pictures on a Wednesday and planned to have lunch after, but was surprised that almost all of the nearby restaurants were closed.  After an intensive search I found one that was open, but closing in ten minutes.  They graciously found us a table anyway and provided good food and attentive service.

 

Parking near the Lake is free with a forest pass.  There are restrooms, benches, and picnic tables.  During the last week of September the weather was perfect for visiting this area.  

 

 

 

 

 

Mourning Babies

Here are the two fuzzy babies that the Mama and Papa mourning doves took turns raising in a nest in my tiny west garden in July.  The first few days after the eggs hatched the parent dove's feathers fluffed up and out to completely cover the tiny babies, but day by day a few fluffy feathers started showing and then a pair of eyes.  In a few days they will have flown away.  

 

Mourning Dove Hatchlings

Cannot see them yet:

The mourning doves have been taking turns sitting on their eggs for about two weeks now, and after they hatch it said the babies will become visible in 4 or 5 days, and then the babies and their parents will all vacate the nest in about 12 days.  This is my first time seeing this so it is kind of a thrill.

A Green Pepper and a Red One

I will wait until this one turns red before picking it to eat. 

 

This one is ready and will go in my omelet tomorrow. 

Busy in the Garden

Despite humidity and triple digit heat all this week, I have been very busy in the garden

There is so much to learn and my latest fascination has been with Common Chicory. which I featured in today's NoteDex recipe card.

 

 

Another chicory recipe I'd like to try would incorporate it into a salad with orange vinaigrette and roasted walnuts tossed in maple syrup. 

 

Amazing Air Radishes

Veggie Stock

The purple air radish (raphanus caudatus) pods turn green when cooked and taste more or less like green beans. 

I like them in egg-drop soup  with edible chrysanthemum and Sugar Ann Peas, as well as my yellow pear tomatoes which  overwintered in the carport. 

Beware of the Name Magilla Perilla aka "Balmagpurp"

I have been extolling the virtues of Shiso on my gardening blog of late, and wanted to put a note here, too, that there has been some confusion about Perillo/Shiso vs Colleus both being called Beefsteak Plant.  It is an important distinction because one is an aromatic culinary herb that can be used as a wrap, in soup, in salad, or to make wonderful tea, whereas the other may or may not actually be toxic (or hallucinogenic), and is, in any case, decidedly not tasty.

If you want to get really lost in somebody's blog, try looking just about any plant you can imagine up on The Belmont Rooster, which is now the first place I go to find information about a plant that is new to me, or one about which I have a question.  I just did that.  I saw some pilea plants that dearly wanted to come home with me from the market just yesterday.  So I did a search for "Belmont Rooster Pilea" and this page came up:

Artillery Plant

The second photo down on that page shows the little Pilea cushioned between 2 bricks to keep the wind from blowing it over.  I can relate to that since high winds knocked a few of my huge air radish and tomato plants over yesterday despite their having been tied down.

 

Recipe Cards

Here is a screenshot for the NoteDex android app which is a database for 3x5 notecards.  Although the program is still under development, I am getting some use out of it.  

After reading a recipe on a blog called Fork to Spoon, I decided that I would try a variation of their oven-baked style oatmeal prepared in an air fryer.  I had read another blog which suggested mixing egg with oatmeal to make a sort of pancake that could be cooked on a griddle and then presumably reheated, but for some reason I just could not make myself try it as much as the writer said it was good, quick to prepare, and healthy.  However, the Fork to Spoon recipe claimed my attention because of the strawberries.  

I simplified the recipe, and on the back of my card listed how much of what went in as liquid ingredients (which I blended all together instead of layering the fruit, and then as dry ingredients (simply stirred together in the bottom of a bowl).

The front of the card explains that after pouring the liquid ingredients over the dry one, we wait 10 minutes or so, then stir and pour into paper muffin cups before baking at 320F for 10 minutes in an air fryer.  Clicking on my photo will make it large enough to read.

This is oatmeal, with less sugar than a muffin.  It is soft and moist, but it holds together well enough to eat out of the paper cup, so there is no dish to wash.    The egg adds nutrition, but is not noticeable in the oatmeal.  

According to Fork to Spoon, after baking these will keep in the refrigerator for a few days or can be frozen and then taken out the night before to thaw in the refrigerator before doing a quick reheat in the morning by microwave or air fryer.  Truly a grab, eat, and run food, and it tastes just like oatmeal.