Cooking adventures

If you have read any of my mis/adventures in the kitchen before you might suspect what is coming.
Yesterday I decided to make peanut butter fudge, I had made it several weeks ago and all went well, so I expected no problems with this venture. But, not so good, it crystallized, so I tried cooking it again.  This time it was runny so I put it in microwave for a few more minutes. It was still partially crystallized so shoot what to do?????
Light bulb goes on, what about that vanilla brownee recipe, what about using the fudge for the sugar, it already had the walnuts in it, so I went for it. It’s in the oven baking now so I will add in the results here when it’s done.

My second mis this week: this time it was cinnamon rolls. I started the dough that I’ve made a dozen times before and after 45 minutes it only rose a tiny amount, (apparently I killed the yeast) so what to do. I decided to go ahead with the “rolls” which now became a doughy gob with cinnamon, walnuts and so on, striated throughout like some sort of marble cake and into the oven it went, what will come out? Results, it was very thick and tough , but slightly edible, however I could not eat more than a tiny bit. I tried in vain to think of a recycle for this but have not come up with anything.
So if you were me would you give up cooking, stick with frozen food, eat out, what? LOL

Re-Reading Seth, Oversoul Seven ~ What I’ve Learned

Part I

I started reading Oversoul Seven again a couple weeks ago, slowly at first then in the last week I really sped up and finished the first book and on to the second.  This time I decided to mark out passages that I wanted to remember, so I merrily made my way though the book, outlining my way and boy did I (re)discover some new/old things and some important truths that seem to carry a lot of weight in the grand scheme.  So bang, an opportunity came just today to put my new/profound insight and/or method to work.

First, here’s a short outline of what I learned anew:

All of time is living, active and changeable.

In the past, present and future, there also resides a past, present and future in each one of them.  That in itself implies that all of the past,  present and future can be changed.

How to effect the change that you might desire in the past, present or future?

This is how I think it can work:

You go back in time to each of the places that were decisive, forks in the road, unpleasant times that shaped the you that you are now, the times you wished you had done or said more, the times you walked away or stayed to long;  and you change it.

Use the you that you are now, with all your wisdom, love and understanding and change the forks, the paths, the people, the times, the events, all of it, change it to be as you would wish now.

Imagine yourself with a loved one during a disagreement, paint the scene with love and imagine you solved the problem without a fight, that you ended it with loving and caring.  Imagine that you didn’t go on that date that set you down a path with a partner that would send your life careening towards destruction.

Now don’t expect that this will actually physically change the present time frame reality, (people will not disappear or appear) but rather that it adds a new layer and dimension to that which Became and especially that which became you. 

Be your wise future you that realizes just in time this is not the way I really want to go.  Then go on to paint each encounter, each unpleasantness, each angry and hurt felt moment with loving energy and right activity.

Adventures in Cooking and Eating

Hi Everyone.

I’ve been trying to write something about food and eating for weeks now and couldn’t get it in my head how to write it, so I guess I shall plunge on in and try.

I have a picky stomach and digestive system, sometimes on and sometimes off, mostly off kilter.  So it’s hard for me to buy, cook and eat food as I struggle to find things that I will be able to eat and so on.

During one conversation with shirlstars, she suggested I try tapioca pudding.  It had been a long time since I tasted tapioca so I thought it sounded great and a few days later I was at a store and found the pudding section.  first thing I noticed, the raw tapioca was $4.99, next to it a mix was $1.69 so I chose the mix.

Later that night I decided to make the pudding and I chose the microwave version.  I can hear your shouts of “no, you didn’t.”, trust me, I can hear them and I thought about it when I began.  Next I chose a 2 cup glass measuring cup, oh and yes I did give a moments thought to will it be big enough, but I quickly stilled that thought by deciding I would stand at the microwave and moniter the whole thing….what could go wrong.  Did I mention that said pudding required 2 cups of milk.

Everything went fine, for the first 8 min. or so, it was almost done and I hit the one minute button, and went to sit at the computer fully believing all would be well, as it was only 1 min.

After only 30 sec. I heard bubbling, squishing and popping.  Yep, you guessed it, the whole mess had boiled over and what a mess it was.  At the bottom of the measuring cup there was a teeny, tiny 1/2 cup left, I did eat it and it tasted pretty good, but most of the globules had settled to the bottom so it was a little gummy.  Oh so, so much for something to please the tummy.

Anyway I would love to have any suggestions for things to cook that may be pleasing to an erratic stomach, ….recipes appreciated.

Open Thread, Readers please post

(Update: I added a ratings ability to the site, check it out, it’s for the articles as well as comments.)

I’ve noticed recently from looking at the stats for this site that quite a lot of you out there are coming to this site and staying for longish periods of time.  I would like to invite you to join in our conversations.  Those of us who post here and author material did not know each other till we met on one blog or another, some here and through our conversations have come to know a bit about each other.  We would like to know a bit about you the gentle reader as well and we would like to hear whatever thoughts  or stories you may have to share.

You know we all had a first day and a first post on a blog.  so start here, pop in and tell us about you.

So what’s going on with your day or life?

The History of the Village

Welcome to Village blue.

I decided today to write the history and the provenance of this site.

First let me tell you a bit about myself.  I have always felt myself to be a writer, started in early childhood and really blossomed in my 40’s , (I am 66) and actually spent 10 years of my life writing full time and over time, in fact all the time.  I wrote about 5 books, 100’s of pages of poetry and many and various other types of writing, including plays, and short stories.

I never tried to publish anything, although I always wanted to have something published.  Be that as it may, in 97′ our house burned down and I lost most of my writings, except for one box that had been stored in another place.  This is when I stopped writing.  I had been going at it for years, had amassed a great volume of work and pffft it was all gone.  Of course that was before I got a computer and years before I was even able to publish on the internet.  But at that time I thought, what is the point if it could all be lost in minutes.

Fast forward to 2003, 2004, when under George Bush this country was going to hell in that old handbasket, and I started to go to political websites and eventually got very involved in two sites, Booman Tribune and Daily Kos, the giant of all blogs.  During that time I wrote countless articles for posting and  thousands of comments.  Halaluya I was back into the writing game again and how.

Those years were great fun, we were all fired up, writing like crazy, sharing our points of view and sometimes there were fights.  The fights amongst the foks at those site could go on for days and weeks and sometimes months and they left most of us mentally if not physically drained.  At one point after a pretty intense discussion with another blogger I said I have to get away from this and start a site where we can talk about anything but politics, a place where we can cleanse our souls.  There are other things in life said I to myself and I have to have a place to spend my time where I can be restored and refilled.

Hello fellow villagers

Hi, yes it’s me and I finally found a reason to write again.  It’s a long story and I will try to make it short.

Recently I was delighted to discover a web site for a high school I went to in the 50’s and one which is very dear to my heart.   Also delighted to discover my sister was involved in the website unbeknown to me.  So time churned on and I received the following email from the site:

Starting today we are going to feature links to “member” web sites/pages. This is a trial feature. We will look at, and approve links submitted by members to their personal, or business sites/pages for inclusion in our listing.

So great I thought, I will have them include a link to this site and sent off email, it was subsequently posted.  Then2 days ago I received an email from my sister saying, the administrators of the HS  site said mine was not connected to the school and was therefore removed.  Keep in mind that other links on the site were for a tarp sales company, a novelist and a glass artist.  None of which were connected to the HS in any way, other than they had been members of the same school.

Is everyone Ok

Hey don’t force me to write something here, lol.  So I am curious to know especially if Whisel is ok, since this is the longest time since she has written here.  Please let me know and also Scribe were you able to log on after I fixed it for you.

Ok, I  guess I will have to write something bigger than this so I will plan on it for the afternoon.  Meanwhile a very good and wonderful day to you all.

Sour Dough Breadmaking, Antidote to Politics

Getting through both conventions has taken a toll on me and I bet on a lot of you folks. What to do to get through the long days. Well, last week I started to bake bread. Not that I need bread, not that bread is on my diet, but rather that I needed something constructive and fullfilling, (No pun intended), and baking fills that bill.

First I started with regular white bread dough with some calamata olives and garlic cloves. Oh that was good and I made several more loaves. I then started to run out of yeast and not living within walking distance of a purveyor of yeast, I decided I needed something I could count on to be there when the need arose, thus I settled on making my own sour dough.

For sour dough you make a starter, which is yeast, flour and water, which you let foment for days before combining with more flour and water, then more fomenting to make a sponge.
The sponge is then the basis for your bread and the unused sponge is then combined with more flour and water to make more starter. Yeast can be added to the origional starter, but not required as there is natural yeast in air and flour. For mine, I did add yeast as I wanted to rush the project a little.

If you are interested in making sour dough bread here is the excellent site I used.

So I’ve had a great time baking, baking and more baking. Giving away and freezing, and then more baking. I’ve make fry bread, bread sticks, flat bread and rosemary and olive oil (my favorite). I am just now awaiting the fomenting of the sponge so I can make more bread today.

One note of caution, be careful of the amount of bread you eat as I found out the hard way. One day this week I ate quite a bit of my bread combined with quite a bit of homemade humus and I had a very bad case of indigestion and heartburn. So I am now more careful in limiting the amount consumed and planning on giving away more.

So what kinds of food have you been making and please include any recipes. I got my humus recipe from google searches as I do most of my recipes. I would also like to hear of any cost saving recipes you may have. Making your own bread for example can cost less than a dollar a loaf, depending on the cost of your flour.

Walkabout with me

This is so cool, just made the slide show and then I was able to load it right onto the site from there.

So I took these pics on Friday as I walked slowly around my place, so you can see the plant  abundance I am living with and share with me the wonderful feelings plants can bring..

This is how I pictured my place to be when I first moved here 2 1/2 years ago with nothing but a few plants and bare walls surrounding me.  I dreamed of my trailer being covered in vines and it’s well on it’s way now with my lovely morning glory vines now reaching the roof.

Trains, they are on a comeback

I was so happy to read in the Washington Post this morning, a great article about the resurgence of trains in this country, and that is both passenger and freight. This follows a conversation Shirlstars and I had last week about our hopes and dreams that there would be a comeback of trains. Then we reminisced about what a role trains played in the development of this country and opening up the west and allowing for easier communication between those who moved on west and those left behind in the east. Then in the great heyday of Hollywood, all the stars traveled by train, from coast to coast and points in between. Many movies of the 40’s and 50’s took place on trains, not to mention Murder on the Orient Express. I have to ask you is there anything more romantic than travel by train.