"Its A New Day. Expect Great Things".
WEATHER UPDATE:
Need I say it?
Its HOT!
The month of July is characterized by gradually falling daily high temperatures, with daily highs around 91°F throughout the month, exceeding 98°F or dropping below 83°F only one day in ten.
The air conditioning is working really well. Yah!
***If you are hiking or enjoying the outdoors, DON'T FORGET TO STAY HYDRATED!***
***If you are hiking or enjoying the outdoors, DON'T FORGET TO STAY HYDRATED!***
Outdoors Yard Updates
Its a battle with the ants and grasshoppers again this year. I have to say that the corn meal works. However, the ants just show up with a new mound in a different location. So, its a never ending battle. Im very sad because the giant ivy plant I got from Plant World was recently eaten by ants. Also, the grasshoppers are enjoying the front yard lawn. Didnt see that coming. Thats nature for you. One month things are going fine and the next month ants and grasshoppers show up to take over the yard.
Sci Fi Movie of Interest.
Okay, the neighbors with the yapping little dogs have gone mad. Possibly from the heat. They spent a week digging a big hole in the back yard and then put up a very nice pool. Currently, the water does not look very good and it smells really bad too. I sure hope they figure out how to take care of their new pool. I sure hope they have not seen me taking pictures of their yappers and pool. They probably think Im a Mrs Kravitz. LOL.
My other neighbor Chuck has came up with the idea of feeding the neighborhood cats and birds together in his front yard. Its just morbid, the cats catch and eat the pigeons. That is so wrong. Anyways, the pigeons were resting above my driveway and pooping all over the driveway and my truck. I love pigeons but not the poo. So, with a bit of research, I discovered that pigeons do not like snakes. I put a rubber snake in the driveway. The pigeons now poo over Chucks house and not mine. LOL.
That's Amusing:
I posted the above picture of Tingley Beach because I was telling a friend about the first time I experienced the misleading "Tingley Beach". It was around 1990, my eldest daughter Sarah was in the grade school. New to Albuquerque, one morning, we put on our swim suits and loaded up the car with our beach gear, drove across town and turned into the Tingly Beach entrance, only to be very disappointed, as there was no beach and just rocks and dirt. That's right for some odd reason at that time there was no beach. It had been closed for decades. Years later, the city did invest and have since made giant duck ponds. Still no swimming at Tingley, only for the ducks and fish. I found an old picture of the beach and posted it for amusement. Its from this reading on the Duke City Fix Blog. A Sunday Poem. 
PET UPDATE:
The Grands are training Missy to not be afraid of them by giving her special tuna treats on her cat scratching station. The rule is that Nana does not give the treats to her and only the Grands. This has led to some confusion for poor Missy. She loves those treats and comes in crying for them but the Grands are not around to give them to her. Today, she was standing on her two back legs crying, "Give me a treat!" and it was very hard for me to turn her away. Sooooooo, Nana snuck her a treat. LOL.
Sharing Bookmarks
This would be very exciting to see on the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. LOL!
Interesting Collection of Chinese Inventions
Weird Videos
I confess. I watched them.
Interesting. Very Interesting.
Whacky Balloon Art.
Chile for Breakfast
I have been cooking a lot and I have been avoiding using the oven because its been so hot outside and I want the house to stay cool. Lately, my favorite meal has been breakfast as I have been making pancakes, waffles, tofu scrambles, hash browns, red chile sauce and faux cheese. Living in New Mexico has caused me to come under the influence of indulging in eating a lot of chile for breakfast. LOL. I make vegan breakfast burritos, tofu scramble rancheros, or vegan chile rellenos. I had to go vegan on the Southwestern food because southwestern traditional foods are VERY fattening. New Mexicans tend to fry everything and put lard in everything. So some recipe adaption has to be done or you will carry the extra 10 pounds.
Low Fat Rellenos Batter: Mix 1/4 cup plain soy or rice milk with 1 cup flour. Add some salt and garlic powder to taste. The batter should be thick enough to stick, but you still need to be able to move your whisk around. Adjust the mix as needed.
I use faux cheese or avocado to fill the rellenos and pin them together with tooth picks. I dip and broil the rellenos on parchment paper in a toaster oven. You can choose to fry the rellenos the tradtional southwestern way. Heat 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a skillet. Set the fried chiles aside on a paper towel to dry-off the excess oil. Smoother with red chile sauce and drizzle with some of the faux cheese sauce that has been thinned with water or soy milk. Rellenos are best served with rice and beans. Red Chile Sauce and Faux Cheese found at Nana's Top Recipes.
I love easy breakfast burritos. Who doesn't? Lately, I have also been making socca which is a southern french recipe for a type of flat bread.
Socca Batter: 1 1/2 C. water, 1 C. chickpea flour and 1 tsp.salt. Let set in fridge for 1 hour. You ladle the batter into a hot non stick skillet making a thin style crepe. If you are short on time for rolling out tortillas then Socca is great for any meal and very nice for quick breakfast burritos. I fill my soccas with tofu scramble, hash browns, green chile and faux cheese. Yummy. I do not use oil in my socca batter but many recipes do include it. I just do not care for the extra added fat. The more you make the soccas the better they will turn out. Practice makes perfect.
Easy Tofu Scramble
This would be very exciting to see on the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. LOL!
Interesting Collection of Chinese Inventions
Weird Videos
I confess. I watched them.
Interesting. Very Interesting.
Whacky Balloon Art.
Chile for Breakfast
I have been cooking a lot and I have been avoiding using the oven because its been so hot outside and I want the house to stay cool. Lately, my favorite meal has been breakfast as I have been making pancakes, waffles, tofu scrambles, hash browns, red chile sauce and faux cheese. Living in New Mexico has caused me to come under the influence of indulging in eating a lot of chile for breakfast. LOL. I make vegan breakfast burritos, tofu scramble rancheros, or vegan chile rellenos. I had to go vegan on the Southwestern food because southwestern traditional foods are VERY fattening. New Mexicans tend to fry everything and put lard in everything. So some recipe adaption has to be done or you will carry the extra 10 pounds.
Low Fat Rellenos Batter: Mix 1/4 cup plain soy or rice milk with 1 cup flour. Add some salt and garlic powder to taste. The batter should be thick enough to stick, but you still need to be able to move your whisk around. Adjust the mix as needed.
I use faux cheese or avocado to fill the rellenos and pin them together with tooth picks. I dip and broil the rellenos on parchment paper in a toaster oven. You can choose to fry the rellenos the tradtional southwestern way. Heat 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a skillet. Set the fried chiles aside on a paper towel to dry-off the excess oil. Smoother with red chile sauce and drizzle with some of the faux cheese sauce that has been thinned with water or soy milk. Rellenos are best served with rice and beans. Red Chile Sauce and Faux Cheese found at Nana's Top Recipes.
Use less liquid to make the cheese sauce thicker for stuffing the chile rellenos. By the way this faux cheese sauce does taste like cheese because the nutritional yeast gives it the cheese flavor. You could also buy vegan mozzarella cheese and use that for the chile rellenos but I find this faux cheese recipe is better.
BONJOUR SOCCA
BONJOUR SOCCA
I love easy breakfast burritos. Who doesn't? Lately, I have also been making socca which is a southern french recipe for a type of flat bread.Socca Batter: 1 1/2 C. water, 1 C. chickpea flour and 1 tsp.salt. Let set in fridge for 1 hour. You ladle the batter into a hot non stick skillet making a thin style crepe. If you are short on time for rolling out tortillas then Socca is great for any meal and very nice for quick breakfast burritos. I fill my soccas with tofu scramble, hash browns, green chile and faux cheese. Yummy. I do not use oil in my socca batter but many recipes do include it. I just do not care for the extra added fat. The more you make the soccas the better they will turn out. Practice makes perfect.
My favorite How To Video on Making Socca.
You know, I really like The Baking Chin's
spoofs on Julia Child as he bakes for us. Ian cracks me up.
Socca is really good for pizza crust!
Easy Tofu Scramble
- 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
- 1/2 cup diced green pepper
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bunch spinach, rinsed
- 1 pound firm or extra firm tofu, well pressed and crumbled
- 1/2 tsp soy sauce
- dash of turmeric
- salt and pepper to taste
