DAY TWO HUNDRED OF COOKING COURSE

 Today is a momentous day. I am celebrating my 200th day of my cooking course. In just over one year I cooked 200 days of the cooking course. I have cooked about 53 dishes through this course in 200 days. Some of the dishes take multiple days. Like the croissants took two days. 

Today I baked a vegan savory sweet potato strudel. It has a yogurt topping. It is simply delicious. It has quinoa, red peppers, parsley, and sweet potato. It was so good I ate two pieces for dinner. The topping really makes the dish. It is slightly lemony. 

It was a whole day adventure making it. 

I had a zoom with a woman from the arthritis group I am in. She was just diagnosed and I thought getting some perspective might help. I wish someone had spoken to me when I was first diagnosed.  I was convinced I was going to be in a wheelchair in 10 years. I let her know she was not alone and that what she sees now is not what the world would be like in 10 or 15 years in the future. There are new medicines every few years. New breakthroughs. I told her she needed to be kind to herself now and figure it all out. 

Today my annual ornament showed up. Yay! Only it wasn't the ornament I ordered two days ago, it was an ornament I ordered about a month ago. I forgot I ordered an ornament and when I looked in my email I didn't see a receipt, so I ordered another one. So this year we will have two ornaments!! Luckily the second ornament was inexpensive and 50% off. 

That was basically my day. 

Until tomorrow...

NEW PHONE SYSTEM IN PROGRESS

 A few months ago I decided I wanted to cut the cord on my second phone line for my business but I still wanted a phone in the house. I thought cellphone but I needed a phone with longer term battery life than a cellphone offers. Sometimes I am on 2 hour phone calls and sometimes cell service can be difficult. I researched all types of VoIP, to Google to other types of phone systems. I settled on a VoIP system. I got it about two weeks ago and I installed it today. I now have to wait a few weeks for my phone number to be ported over. I get to keep my phone number. I just have to wait. 

I decided that I need to finish the puzzle that I started on March 26, 2020. I am tired of having a card table in my living room. I moved the puzzle from place to place on the felt mat it is on. I don't know why I decided to start a 1,500 piece puzzle. I started a vegan cooking course and everything else fell by the wayside. It is time to finish this puzzle.

Until tomorrow...

CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENT

 I decided not to bake today. I had a lot of work to do and I was meeting with a consultant at 5pm. I didn't want to get part way through and get stuck. This next recipe can not be stopped part way through. I will see about doing it tomorrow. I am trying to get a lot done.

I am updating a website that needs to be fixed.

That is basically my whole day. 

I ordered our annual ornament for the Christmas tree. Every year we (me, Lucky and Sunny) get an ornament to hang on the tree. I was a little late purchasing the ornament this year. I hope it gets here in time to hang on the tree. I like to have all my yearly ornaments on the tree front and center. This year's is not as exciting as other years but as I said I was late and begs can't be choosers. It will be nice and has the year and our names on it. That is what matters. 

Until tomorrow...

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS GROUP MEETING

 I had my Rheumatoid Arthritis Group meeting tonight. I haven't attended for a few months because I haven't gotten the link to attend. Tonight's meeting was a virtual holiday party. First we introduced the new folks. Then we did an ice breaker: where do you want to go for a holiday vacation? or what kitchen appliance would you be? Then we played a game of RA/Holiday Jeopardy. Then we swapped holiday recipes and talked. 

It was nice to be around others who have RA and know what I am going through. I brought up the problems I have been having with my medication. Others talked about being new to the RA world. 

Lucky and I took a walk to the post office today. 

Until tomorrow...

DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETY-NINE OF COOKING COURSE

 Vegan Croissants!  I finished the croissants and they are amazing!  After 5 hours of work yesterday laminating and rolling and rolling the dough, I had 2 more hours of rolling and cooking today. The outside is flaky and the inside is soft. I made eight croissants. I gave two to my neighbor and I ate one. If I ever make you croissants, you are a special person.

Besides my work, I made croissants. That was my day. 

Until tomorrow...

DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETY-EIGHT OF COOKING COURSE

 I don't have a photo of my baking today because it is chilling in the fridge. I spent my day with a rolling pin and dough rolling out the dough. Over and over. Roll it out, put it in the fridge, roll it out, put it in the fridge and over and over. Instead of baking it today, I took a break and will bake it tomorrow. 

I took two pieces of the apple strudel and two spinach pies to my neighbors. I hope they like them. 

Last night. Well, it was a night with little sleep. Poor Lucky had another tummy episode and it went on until 4 am. The poor baby was so miserable. I am going to call the vet tomorrow and make sure she is okay. 

That was my whole day rolling dough. 

Until tomorrow...

DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN OF COOKING COURSE

 Okay, here are the photos of my cooking from yesterday. I made Vegan Blitz Puff Pastry Spinach Pies. 

Don't they look delicious?  They are so good.

Today I made an Vegan Apfelstudel. Have you ever seen a grown person lick a plate clean? If you haven't, you should have been at my house this afternoon. I baked my first Apple Strudel and it came out fantastic. It was so good in fact, I licked my plate clean. 

 

 First, the apples🍎 were soft and warm. I used Craisins (dried cranberries) instead of raisins to give it a tartness. Not strudel realness, I know but I love Craisins. The chopped almonds gave it a bit of a crunch. The outside of the strudel was so thin and crispy that the minute my fork touched it, it cracked. It was sweet and tart and luscious. Then add on the Vanilla Sauce (the little pink bowl in the photo). OMG! The hits kept coming. It was creamy and oh, so vanilla. I swear if I eat another piece I will be in a strudel coma. But I hear the strudel calling out to me. Ich bin hier...

Besides doing Christmas cards the only other thing I did was follow around a little sick dog. Yes, her tummy was acting up again so she was walking around the house being miserable. Poor little doggie. 

Until tomorrow...

DAY ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SIX OF COOKING COURSE

 YES! I am back to the vegan cooking course!  I don't know if you are excited but I am. First, I wanted to take a little break from the pressure of the cooking course (I'll explain later) and the there were all sorts of tech problems. Why I wanted to take a break? I wanted to take a break because for just under 12 months I completed fifteen chapters of the cooking course. I should probably count the number of dishes I cooked but if it helps I have over 380 food photos of the food I cooked. Now not all of them are from the cooking course but I would say 98%. So about a dish per day for a year. Some of you will say, I cook dinner every day big deal! I get that. But those days that I cooked/baked; I made things like vegan sushi and then I made dinner. It was a lot of cooking/baking. I needed a break. I was tired of the pace not the cooking/baking. I was also holding down a very part-time job. Plus I did a lot of baking and cooking the week of Thanksgiving.

Then before Thanksgiving I had some tech problems with the program that had nothing to do with the actual program but with my gift cards that were not working. I had two gift cards and for some reason both of them didn't work. One was for one month and one was for one year. It took a bit of time to work it all out and I didn't want to get in the middle of a recipe and have my access turned off so I waited until the problem was fixed. It was fixed this week and I am ready to go. 

Today I made Vegan Blitz Puff Pastry Spinach Pie. They are cute little individual spinach pies. They taste so good I ate two of them right out of the oven. They are the savory opposite of the Pasteis de Nata - Blitz Puff Pastry with Vanilla Custard. These would make a great appetizer or party snack. 

 I would have a photo here but Blogger is having problems inserting photos. I will post it tomorrow.

I took a walk today to post a bill. I should not have done it because I should have rested my knee. 

Until tomorrow...

COOKING COURSE DISASTER AVERTED

 I finally got the situation with my cooking course sorted. I have another year to cook to my heart's content. Which is good because I am so looking forward to making croissants and baklava and strudel. I think a strudel for Christmas would be nice! Then the chocolate course!  I can't wait. Then cheese and bread. So much to learn!

I planned out the Pastry Essentials chapter today. I also planned out my Christmas cookie baking. I had to calendar it all out with the work I have to do. I am a planner. I make lists. It soothes me. 

Lucky and I took the second longest walk we have taken in a long time. Lucky gets so mad when we get home. She stands at the bottom of the front stairs and won't come up. She wants to walk more. I need to take it easy on my knee for now. 

I started taking Orencia again so I hope it will calm down the pain in my knee. I think using the stool to give Lucky her meds is helping the most. Squatting was really not good for my knees. It reminded me of when I was playing softball and I was the catcher and how my knees hurt. 

That was pretty much the day.

Until tomorrow...

CHRISTMAS CARDS AND COOKIES

 Just another day of getting things done. I put my photos in my online Christmas cards and ordered them to be delivered. Over the weekend I took the photos and I am excited. Two of them would not shrink in the program so they aren't exactly the way I wanted them but I gave up after 40 minutes of fiddling with it.  Sometimes I have to learn that good enough is good enough. 

I had no time to cook today. Plus today was the day that my cooking course end and last night I tried to enroll for another year but there was a glitch. I contacted them and they said they would fix it. I didn't want to get started with a recipe and have it stop in the middle. Instead I researched vegan cookie recipes for Christmas. I figure I am going to make some cookies for my neighbors like every year. 

I did all that and a lot of work. 

Until tomorrow...