Posted by terrepruitt on December 7, 2018
Oh my! It is Christmastime already! How did that happen so fast? Whew! Well, I was nowhere near ready for it and so I have been absorbed in decorating and getting ready for all of the beauty of it for the last couple of days (weeks?) and I have ignored so many things and people (sorry) and I am still not feeling ready and/or organized. But here is one sweet thing for my Friday Photo.
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: Christmas, Christmas ornament, Christmas time, Christmas Tree, Friday Photo | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on December 3, 2018
Perhaps you saw my post where I wanted to make pumpkin soup, but I didn’t see any pumpkins in the store except for Japanese Pumpkins or Kabocha Squash. Well, I had never heard of them so I wanted to see what they had to offer, nutritionally. Here is what I found:
Kabocha Squash
Nutrition Facts per 2018 Nutritionix, I couldn’t find it on the USDA website.
Serving Size: 1 cup (245g grams)
Calories 49
Total Fat 0.2g grams
Saturated Fat 0.1g grams
Calories from Fat 1.5
Cholesterol 0mg milligrams
Sodium 2.5mg milligrams
Potassium 564mg milligrams
Total Carbohydrates 12g grams
Dietary Fiber 2.7g grams
Sugars 5.1g grams
Protein 1.8g grams
Vitamin A 19%*
Vitamin C 4%*
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
I think it is good and can be used in the place of a sugar pie pumpkin when making soup or just roasting it to eat. I think it would make a good replacement for a pie because people say it is sweeter than a pumpkin, but I don’t know because I do not make/bake pumpkin pies nor do I eat them so I don’t know if it would be a good substitute.
I just had a butternut squash tonight and I don’t know that I would agree with the information I am seeing on the internet about kabocha squash being sweeter. I would have to taste them both side by side to decide. If you were to ask me right now I would say the butternut squash is sweeter. But I did not eat a lot of Japanese pumpkin when I had it. I just barely took a taste because I wanted to see if it would work in the soup. I didn’t cook it exactly like I do/did butternut squash. But still it was not that different. I would say I do not agree with the internet information. It could be the skin. Perhaps the skin on the kabocha squash makes it less sweet. I don’t know, but butternut squash is so sweet.
Do you like butternut squash? Do you thing you might try a Japanese Squash?
Posted in Food, Vegetables | Tagged: Japanese Pumpkin, Kabocha squash, pumpkin soup, roasted squash, sugar pie pumpkin, sweet squash, winter squash | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 30, 2018
I have explained before, I think, that I take selfies with my cats to send to my husband sometimes. Yeah I did, because I remember explaining how bad I am at selfies. Well, this is further proof! This is Nessa in her tower and I managed to get my eye! I am sharing this picture of our cute little girl for today’s Friday Photo!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: cat tower, Friday Photo, Nessa, selfies, selfies with cats | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 28, 2018
I love burning candles. I love the flicker of the flame. I actually like to SEE the flame. I have not been impressed with the electronic candles. The “flames” “flicker” was not very good. I had purchased tea lights but I don’t think I have used them but once because they don’t really give me the atmosphere of a real candle. Then there are the ones, I’ve seen them mostly as pillars, where you don’t even see any type of fake flame. It is just a glow within the “wax”/candle. Those are even less of what I want when I light a candle. For my birthday I received a large set of electronic candles. I looked at them and thought, “Hmmm. I don’t really like electronic candles.” But I took them out of the box to give them a try. Usually I keep the box for everything, but this one I put in the recycle right away and I am wishing I would have kept it. At least I have the instruction booklet. I like these ones.
The candles I received are Mirage electronic candles. Since I threw my box away this is a picture from the internet.
These electronic candles have a fake “flame” on the top of each pillar. It is just plastic in the “shape” of a flame. But there is a little bobble in the candle that moves and it makes the light flicker. To me it is much more like a real flame. Plus, the little bobble make a noise and while it is not exactly like the noise from a flame it reminds me of it.
Also these are controlled by a remote control. So instead of me having to pick up each candle and flip a switch on the bottom to turn them on and off, I just press a button. They don’t always ALL go on at once, but that is ok, I just keep pressing the button until the go on. The same with off. They also have a programmable timer which I didn’t pay attention to the first time I used them and my husband said, “Your candles are broken. I came in and they were on in the middle of the night.” They can be programmed to turn on every day at the same time. That happened the first couple of times actually, because I had activated the timer using the button on the bottom of the candle.
There is also just a timer on the remote control where you can turn the candles on for 5 hours or 10 hours.
The one issue I have with them is the fact that each candle takes four double A batteries. That just seems like a lot to me, but . . . . the batteries came in the box with the candles, so that is nice. And we have been using them pretty consistently for about two and half months and they are still working.
I realize these might not be new to some since they have probably been around for some time . . . but I like to share things that I think are cool even if I am “late to the party”.
I was thinking the these might be a great Christmas gift. As I consider them a great birthday gift that I received.
I love burning candles, but when it is hot I don’t like to have the flame add to the heat in the house. And I had not liked any of the electronic candles I had seen before. So I am really enjoying these candles. Since it is winter we turn them on PLUS light a real candle so we have a lot of hygge. But with these candles we can have a sense of hygge in the summer, too!
Do you like electronic candles? Do you have any?
Posted in Misc | Tagged: amosphere, burning candles, electronic candles, flame flicker, flickering flame, hygge, Mirage candles, remote controlled candles | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 26, 2018
Last week I decided to make pumpkin soup for Thanksgiving. Ever since our dads died we don’t really do Thanksgiving. My husband’s siblings are off with their kids and I don’t have any siblings. So we do our breakfast in Capitola – although we might have to actually eat breakfast somewhere else before going to Capitola as this year nothing was really open for full breakfast – and then we just eat whatever for dinner. Last year I didn’t even think to plan anything for dinner and I think we ended up going to Chavez market to get burritos. This year I decided to make pumpkin soup. The problem with that is pumpkins are gone from the stores by Thanksgiving. I sort of expected that, but I was HOPING there would be some, but there was not. I am very thankful for cellular service and Google – while standing in the store I decided to try something else. I was thinking any type of winter squash would work, it would just be squash soup. There was this not-so-attractive-green-pumpkiny looking thing and I looked it up and it is actually called a Japanese pumpkin. So cool. I decided to try the Kabocha squash.
As I said the Kabocha squash is also called a Japanese pumpkin. Wiki also said that it is even sweeter than butternut squash. I thought this was great as it would help cut down on the bitterness (although the Roasted Pumpkin Soup 2.0 recipe took care of that). The store also didn’t have any heavy cream so I got half and half. I thought that would be good too, since the kabocha squash is said to be sweeter. The half and half would be less sweet than the heavy cream so I was confident it would all work out fine.
Well . . . let me tell you, that Kabocha squash is SUPER difficult to cut. The skin is very thin, but it is super tough. It was a challenge. Not impossible, but way more time consuming than I had planned. I had planned to hop in the kitchen cut up the Japanese pumpkin and throw it in the oven then have time to do other things, but no, it was tough.
I roasted it with Milanese Gremolata olive oil, salt, and marjoram and it came out lovely. It is a very good squash.
Using it for the pumpkin soup was fantastic. It worked out great. I used the skin and all in the soup. I just roast it and then put the chunks in the blender. Now I know that I can get two sugar pie pumpkins and a Japanese pumpkin over the Fall Season. So that means one or two stuffed pumpkin dinners and/or making pumpkin soup one or two times.
We ate pumpkin soup for four days and we were actually sad last night to finish it. It was very good. Oh . . . . I did add a cup or two of broth each night when I heated it up. It got VERY, VERY thick. So I mixed in a cup or two (depending on how much I was heating up) to help thin it out.
Now you know you can make pumpkin soup with a sugar pie pumpkin or a Japanese pumpkin. Or perhaps you already knew that. Did you know about the Kabocha squash?
Posted in Food, Vegetables | Tagged: beach, Capitola, Japanese Pumpkin, Kabocha squash, pumpkin soup, roasted squash, sugar pie pumpkin, Thanksgiving | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 23, 2018
We went to Capitola to have breakfast on Thanksgiving as we have done the last three years. Nothing was open for a full breakfast, but we got coffee and a burrito (John) and a bagel (me) at Mr. Toot’s. I had never been there so I was happy. It was a GORGEOUS day. We had just gotten a bit of rain and that helped wash the air of the smoke that we have been having from the fire that was almost 200 miles away.
We had a nice time. It was so beautiful I took a bunch of pictures I have to share at least one for the Friday Photo.
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: beach, breakfast, Capitola, Friday Photo, Mr. Toot's, ocean, Thanksgiving | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 21, 2018
There are so many different ways to practice yoga. I like to try different things aside from taking classes. I have applications on my devices, I’ve moved along with Youtube videos, I have created my own routines, I have just done what comes to mind, and I have practiced other ways. I recently purchased Yoga Dice. It is a fun way to do some poses. There are so many ways you can use the dice. Each dice has five poses and their related chakra on it. There are seven dice which you can just shake in the tub then roll out.
I have been rolling out all the dice and then arranging them in the order I want to do each pose. Then I do all the poses then roll them again. I do this several times to end up with an hours worth of “routine.” When it lands on the chakra I just roll that dice again so it will be on a pose.
In addition to the poses on each dice being related to a chakra the poses are also split up into types of poses. So one dice is Sun Salutation Poses, one is standing poses, one is balancing poses, one is seated, one is forward bends, one is back bends, and one is core poses. So you could decide to just do one or two types of poses and only roll those dice. You could also decide which dice to roll uses the chakra.
Really, there are so many ways to use the dice it is quite fun. It is just another way to put together poses to get a yoga workout in, another way to practice. I like to use the dice because then I don’t really have to think about what poses to do. The way I have been doing it there is a little thinking as I need to arrange the dice that I have rolled into a sequence that makes sense for me, but you don’t even really have to do that if you want.
As I said, there are so many ways to practice yoga it is up to you if these dice would be something you would like to do. I like it as it is just another way to practice. I will probably end up posting again about how to use these dice because the possibilities just seem endless.
Can you imagine all the ways you can use this dice?
Posted in Yoga/PiYo/Pilates | Tagged: chakra poses, roll a yoga routine, yoga dice, yoga poses, Yoga Practice | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 19, 2018
Have you ever listened to an audio book? Ha, as I was typing that I realized they used to be called “Books on Tape.” Anyway, have you ever listened to one? What do you think about “reading” like that? I like it. My husband recently decided to download an app and join the club . . . or whatever, however it works. He has been listening to audio books. He is running and walking a lot so he enjoys listening to books as he gets his run/walk in. We used to listen to books on tape. It is cool now that the book is just in the phone and there is not lugging a bunch of tapes or even CDs around. AND that we can both listen to the book at the same time. I enjoy listening to audio books, but I do need to rewind sometimes when my mind wanders. I was just remembering two stories about when we used to listen to books on tape a long time ago.
One time my husband and I were driving home from a dance competition in Fresno. It was the last day so there was a lot of us leaving the hotel at the same time. We had gotten in the car and stared listening to the book right away. A couple of weeks later we saw a friend of ours that had attended the competition and she asks us how we are doing. We say we are fine and she makes a comment something like, “Oh good, because you guys looked like you were fighting when we left Fresno a couple of weeks ago.” My husband and I didn’t know what she was talking about so we asked her to explain and she said she had seen us and waved trying to get our attention but we both had serious looks on our faces and I was staring out the passenger side window. We had to stop and think, then we realized we had been listening to a book and it was one of those serious scenes and we had both been concentrating on it and going through whatever emotion the story had elicited. It was so funny. She was relieved to hear we had just been listening to a book.
The other story I think is related to the same series. We used to listen to a book series. I was listening to it first. We would check it out from the library and then one of us would listen to it and then the other. This was before we were married – as was the Fresno incident – and I listened to the book on the way to my husband’s (well, boyfriend, at the time) house. When I arrived at his house I was at a point in the book where something important was about to be revealed so I sat in my car to finish listen to that part. Well, it was a sad part. One of the main characters we loved had been killed and the story revealed it by having his lover – the main character – find his face – not his head, just his face! – discovered in a refrigerator or cabinet (I don’t remember which). But I was so sad. I sat in my car trying to collect myself. But I couldn’t sit there all day. So when my husband (boyfriend) opened the door after I knocked he took one look at me and said, “He died, huh?” I was teary-eyed so he knew right away. That wouldn’t have happened if I would have been actually reading a book because I couldn’t have read it on the way over. And with the audio books available on phones, we don’t have to wait for the other one to be finished with the cassette tape or CD. Now-a-days we can listen to a book at the same time in different locations, we don’t even have to be together.
These to stories always make me laugh. And I always share them with people when the subject of audio books comes up.
So, have you ever listened to an audio book? Do you like to listen to books? If you do listen to books, do you ever have to rewind it because you missed a portion of it?
Posted in Misc | Tagged: Amazon, audible, audio books, books on tape, dance competition, Fresno, FreZno | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 16, 2018
Ooooo! Don’t you love it? I do! It is an art tile that we bought in Napa, but it was made in China. It can be hung, propped up, and/or used as a trivet. Guess what I am doing with it?
My flower tile for today’s Friday Photo.
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: art piece, art tile, decorative tile, flower, flower tile, made in China, Napa, trivet, wall hanging | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 14, 2018
We recently went on a trip to Napa. Napa is famous for producing wine. It is amazing because it is one of the smallest wine producing areas in the world. We like to go every once in a while and do some wine tasting. It had been about three years since we last were there. The plan was to visit wineries a couple of days and downtown a couple of days. We had a driver so that we could both do the wine tasting at various wineries. We had a good time. When we go, we like to stay close to downtown so that we can walk to it and visit all the shops and also do some wine tasting at the wine shops and tasting rooms. But, I don’t know that we will do that the next time we go because it seems like the quaint little shops are gone and it basically is a bunch of expensive boutiques now. We didn’t even go into any of the stores, except for the one that is a part of the Square One Tasting Bar. There is a counter in the store and you can sip and shop at the same time. In addition to wine and stuff Napa Valley Olive Oil is in there. They have flavored olive oil and flavored vinegar. Ooooooo! So yummy.
We took our time drinking our tastings and so I was popping over to the olive oil/vinegar side and grabbing some bread and oil and vinegar. There were so many, I can’t even tell you. I tasted probably about seven or eight and I didn’t even scratch the surface it seemed. I did find a new oil that I am in love with.
It is Milanese Gremolata Olive Oil. It is so good. I had Milanese Gremolata before at Italian Restaurants. They bring a dish with olive oil and Italian flat leaf parsley, minced garlic, fresh lemon zest in it. When I dip the bread in I try to get some of the Milanese Gremolata on the bread. But this olive oil is infused with the flavors. There is nothing floating in it, but it is so flavorful I just can’t get over it. I have been using it on everything.
I put it on our pasta and used it in my pumpkin soup. I think I am going to have to get a subscription for it. It is so good.
I also got two vinegars from them. It was difficult to decide, but I kept it down to just two. One was one that the wine shop person recommended I try. She was right, it is so yummy. I got Tangerine and Cranberry Pear.
These three things are going to be working their way into all of my cooking.
Do you like flavored oil? Do you like flavored vinegar? Do you have a favorite?
Posted in Food | Tagged: Cranberry Pear White Balsamic Vinegar, downtown Napa, Milanese Gremolata Infused Olive Oil, Napa Valley Olive Oil, pumpkin soup, Tangerine Balsamic Vinegar, wine country | Leave a Comment »
