I worried throughout our long, dry summer about our
trees in the front yard. They're very tall and skinny and it seems like drought conditions could make them more susceptible to losing branches, or worse, falling over. I haven't done any research or anything, that's just a feeling. Well, I'm not worried about it any more. According to
Garrett's weather station that's mounted on our house, we've had over five inches of rain in the last week. It was pouring this morning which made it pretty easy to choose yoga. But first, I had some cooking to do.
First up, my next batch of granola. I've made it several times, and have never tried any variations on it before. Sometimes I think about adding dried fruit or something, but haven't. I threw a little vanilla extract into the wet ingredients this time, but don't taste a difference.
![20151209_085721]()
This recipe, like so many other Forks Over Knives recipes, is the maximum amount you can easily make. The ingredients completely fill the largest standard size mixing bowl, and it's quite challenging to stir it all together without making a huge mess. Then the mix completely fills two cookie sheets. It's nice, though, because the finished product fits nicely into two of the largest reusable containers I have on hand, and I don't have to make any more for weeks.
![Forks Over Knives Banana Almond Granola]()
Once it was done enough that I could set the oven timer for another ten minutes and just leave it in the warm oven, I went to Safeway to pick up stuff for Stew. I already had lots of carrots and celery, so I was after stew meat, onions, and potatoes. I had onions and potatoes in my basket, and found when I got to the meat section that they hadn't put the day's meat out yet. It was almost 8am! I decided if I couldn't get everything I wanted there that they didn't deserve any of my money, so I put my stuff back and went to QFC. Thankfully, they had everything I needed.
I followed
this recipe, only instead of beef broth, I used my homemade vegetable broth, because I need to get in the habit of using it whenever possible and replenishing my supply regularly. It was ok. I've made much better stews using jars of slow cooker sauce, but I wanted to make it without a shortcut. Extra Worcestershire and some aminos didn't do much to help, but we both added chipotle Tabasco and I had a little sour cream in mine. It was nice with our additions. And I found a really good cheese and onion flat bread to serve with it.
The best part about stew is the second time you serve it and add more stuff. I found some cans of diced tomatoes with roasted garlic, and I'll put at least one in, as well as some frozen vegetables like peas and corn. It'll be great.
I had a pretty fun afternoon as well. I needed to go to Total Wine in Lynnwood, so my coworker and her husband met me at
Katsu Burger for lunch. I had a Tofu Tokyo Classic with wasabi slaw and nori fries. I barely made a dent in the fries, but don't mind that I didn't finish because I wanted to try both of those side. Nori sprinkles on fries is such a great idea. Trust me if you ever go there, they give you enough for two or more people. I liked Katsu Burger, but I don't make it down to Lynnwood often and there are tons of other restaurants to try. I'd definitely pick up takeout from them if they open an Everett location.
But that's the thing about Everett. It's a decent-size city but there's a lot of stuff you have to go to Lynnwood or Marysville for. And that's fine. I can drive and I'd much rather live here than either of those places.
It's been a while since I needed a "schmupdate" post, which I do on days where I have nothing specific to talk about, so there's a huge backlog of cat pictures over at flickr. And now is not the time to address that backlog. But here's a cute picture of Sam posing the way Steve usually does.
![Sam copying Steve"s signature pose]()
And a quick programming note. Some days, I'm not in the mood to type out my post, so I'll do it the next morning and backdate it for the day before at 11:59pm. :)
