Tag Archives: drying herbs

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, California, camping, cancer, cooking, Uncategorized by

A nice walk this morning and no one was there but us. Sweet! This last week we had some new people show up which is fine, it’s very nice walking early.

Yesterday I did some errands in town. I had my knives sharpened at the grocery store and while I was there, I picked a few things I needed like a red onion. Based on the few things I bought and the prices, I wonder how long Bel Air will stay in business, especially with the new Costco 15 minutes away.

From there I went down to the pet bookstore and was looking for more Craig Johnson but no luck. I might peruse eBay and see if I can get a few there. I picked up a few Sue Grafton, which I’ve read about 100 times but still like them. I found a fun cookbook from a restaurant in Brooklyn called Spuntino.

It’s a fun book to look through and I might make their basic marinara sauce. I checked on Amazon and they have the canned tomatoes they use called Valla from Italy. After we’re back from Tahoe I’ll order some. They also recommend using white pepper which I thought very interesting so I’ll do Amazon for that too. They had a good recipe for gnocchi which didn’t look too hard so I may try my hand at that.

Today I’m going to Anytime gym and that’s it. When I get home I need to mop the floors and tidy the house so it’s ok for when we’re gone. No cooking today and I don’t have a plan for dinner yet. Maybe an omelet with some greens.

I dried another batch of oregano so I think I’m done with drying herbs. BTW, the cilantro did come out smelling like cilantro. I don’t know how it’ll be in cooking but it did dry ok.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, camping, cooking, Lake tahoe, Myeloma, simple foods, Uncategorized by

I guess my daughter brought home a cold from work this week and now I have sniffles and a runny nose. It’s not terrible but still, my head feels like it has cotton in it. I’m not sure I’ll go to the Auburn gym then. I did walk this morning so at least I got some exercise in. This is probably the first time I’ve had a minor cold in maybe 3 years. I do get seasonal allergies which is what we all thought my daughter had but then by the next day you could tell it was more like a cold.

I want to swim tomorrow so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how I feel then. I have Velcade Thursday so I don’t want to push it.

Yesterday I started drying oregano in the dehydrator, which still needs at least another day. I plan on doing a few batches as I use quite a bit of oregano in cooking. Then I’ll move on to thyme. I wish there was a way to keep cilantro but it doesn’t dry with any flavor, I’m not sure why exactly. I just looked up drying cilantro and it says you can and it will keep its flavor so I think since we have so much I’ll do ie batch to test it out. I recall I dried it in the oven and not the dehydrator so maybe that was the problem.

I decided not to go to the gym since I don’t want to be blowing my nose and then using weights:( I really dislike seeing people do this so I don’t want to be one of those people.:)

Yesterday I made a pot of minestrone for dinner it was quite good except the reason I was making it was to use up the zucchini we had and of course, I forgot to put in the zucchini. So maybe I’ll make a zucchini bread. My son brought up a dozen Noah’s bagels and they are delicious. He lives right near one so that will be fun for him. ( and us).

Our cooler weather is moving in and today looks like temperatures in the 70’s so we won’t need to use coolers. I think it’s supposed to be like this for the next week or so. Tahoe may end up cooler than we thought but we’ll be fine. We have the heater in Rubi. This is a shorter trip than we’re used to, only 3 nights but it’s a start. Then in June, we’re there for a week.

Five on Friday

Posted in budgets, California, camping, cancer, Gardening, home stuff, travel by

I decided to not go with Frugal Friday today as it seems this has been an expensive week. It’s not daily stuff but more like the bigger things. Both DMV’s for the Rubicon and Chevy are due and it sure seems as if they are almost double what they were last year. Then our AAA membership will be due next week and that’s gone up. There is one other bill but I can’t remember right now. Oh, wait, it’s not a bill but I added on the camping trip to SeaCLiff in the fall on the CC and that was almost $500. SeaCLiff is the campground right down the beach from New Brighton but it is right on the ocean and double what New Brighton is. It does have full hookups so that’ll be nice. Anyway, that took the credit card up I’ll pay that in a few days. So lots of bills. The regular groceries, gas, etc is all okay.

I had my doctor’s visit yesterday and all is good. I’ll see him again in 2 months. There is nothing too much to discuss, but he’s always very attentive and asks about my issues( diarrhea, sleep, etc). After that, I headed up to the new Trader Joe’s.

I went to Trader Joe’s to get some snacks like corn chips, crackers, and salad stuff. I picked some wine, half and half, juice, some frozen things, and frozen fish. Last time I bought a piece of frozen salmon and it was really good so this time I picked up some ahi tuna to try. B went to Costco because they had a patio cover on sale. It was normally $159 and it was $40 off , so a very good deal. We have to have something over the patio as the sun in the summer blasts that area and we can’t eat outside unless there’s a cover. In the past, we’ve used the shade triangles but after a while, it just looks tacky. So this is a good thing.

We’re on a high wind alert and high fire danger today. It’s warm out @ 80 but it’s the dry wind that is potentially a problem. B did anchor the new patio cover with stakes but we might need to do some sandbags as well. Everything is drying out due to the wind. We try to keep the areas around the house green as a fire block but that means watering the yard.

Today is a home day with pottering around the house and yard. I want o clip the herbs and get started with drying. In our climate, oregano, and thyme are year-round plants but parsley, cilantro, basil, and tarragon are annuals. So I want to dry a good amount of each.

Here’s one of the cool rocks we picked from the beach. Lots of fossils and two cool holes. I try to always look for rocks with holes in them, not sure why.