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The Daily Grind
Sep. 28th, 2015 11:27 pm~ I cleaned out the kettle today. It hasn't been long since I last boiled vinegar in it, which is how I usually clean kettles, but tea started tasting weird again so I looked up the specific instructions that came with the kettle. Turns out you're supposed to mix water, lemon juice, and baking soda, then let it bubble away for about 45 minutes. So I did that instead.
And when I poured out that water? It looked like I'd just actually made tea in the kettle. It was a horrible shade of brown, and all that was apparently just from the usual; buildup of minerals and stuff that you get from boiling tap water so often. Very disgusting! I'm glad I cleaned it, because all I can think of is that the scaling on the metal and the buildup of stuff was just getting into the water I use for my tea, and I was drinking it, and ugh, no wonder my tea has tasted a bit weird lately!
~ It's very windy right now. It's blowing right at the front of the house, which always makes the door the separates the entryway from the rest of the house get squeaky, even when it's closed. When I first moved here, I thought it sounded like mice in the walls, but none of the cats seemed to care, and eventually I figured out it only happened when it was windy. Something to do with the draft because the front door doesn't seal well and the entryway isn't insulated. Just another one of those sounds you get used to after a while, I suppose. I hear it, but it's stopped registering as a sound I might need to care about.
The rustling leaves in the trees is louder, though. That sound really makes me think that autumn is well and truly here!
~ I started rereading A J Jacobs's The Know-It-All. Because I could. I decided that responsibility reading can go hang itself for a few days, and I'm going to read what I want until the end of the month and nobody can stop me. Which means I'll probably start rereading A Year of Living Biblically right after I'm finished with this one. Both are good books, and I like his writing style and his humour.
~ I made some banana "ice cream" with some cheap bananas I got recently. A nearby grocery store often has great markdowns on their slightly off fruits and vegetables, which is great if you want to be creative with cooking and use things up pretty quickly. I got a bunch of 5 bananas for $0.49 (that's the price for a marked down bunch, no matter how many are in it), and it made about 1 litre of pureed banana to freeze.
No matter what I add to it for flavouring (peanut butter, Nutella, homemade fruit syrup), that price is far less than any commercial ice cream I can buy, and is healthier for me because aside from added flavouring, the only ingredient is banana. No added sugar or preservatives, very low fat, and unless you can't eat bananas for whatever reason, it's a suitable treat for just about any diet a person could be following.
I'm not sure I did it right, though, because all the recipes I see talk about freezing the banana and then blending them, whereas I blended the banana and then stuck it all in the freezer. I guess I'll have to see. If this batch turns out okay, I'll stick to it, because there's more room to store a bunch of bananas on my kitchen counter than there is in my freezer. If it doesn't work well, I'll freeze the bananas first next time and try again.
~ I also made a slow-cooker chili, again doing the thing where I put all the ingredients in there before bed, then wake up to a delicious-smelling supper. I almost never use ground beef for chili anymore, instead using cut-up pieces of stewing beef, because I can often find better deals on stewing beef than I can on ground beef. It tastes just as good. This batch turned out milder than usual, probably because my spices are old and need to be replaced, but it was still pretty good, and now there's plenty of food that I just need to reheat whenever I'm hungry. And that always makes me happy!
And when I poured out that water? It looked like I'd just actually made tea in the kettle. It was a horrible shade of brown, and all that was apparently just from the usual; buildup of minerals and stuff that you get from boiling tap water so often. Very disgusting! I'm glad I cleaned it, because all I can think of is that the scaling on the metal and the buildup of stuff was just getting into the water I use for my tea, and I was drinking it, and ugh, no wonder my tea has tasted a bit weird lately!
~ It's very windy right now. It's blowing right at the front of the house, which always makes the door the separates the entryway from the rest of the house get squeaky, even when it's closed. When I first moved here, I thought it sounded like mice in the walls, but none of the cats seemed to care, and eventually I figured out it only happened when it was windy. Something to do with the draft because the front door doesn't seal well and the entryway isn't insulated. Just another one of those sounds you get used to after a while, I suppose. I hear it, but it's stopped registering as a sound I might need to care about.
The rustling leaves in the trees is louder, though. That sound really makes me think that autumn is well and truly here!
~ I started rereading A J Jacobs's The Know-It-All. Because I could. I decided that responsibility reading can go hang itself for a few days, and I'm going to read what I want until the end of the month and nobody can stop me. Which means I'll probably start rereading A Year of Living Biblically right after I'm finished with this one. Both are good books, and I like his writing style and his humour.
~ I made some banana "ice cream" with some cheap bananas I got recently. A nearby grocery store often has great markdowns on their slightly off fruits and vegetables, which is great if you want to be creative with cooking and use things up pretty quickly. I got a bunch of 5 bananas for $0.49 (that's the price for a marked down bunch, no matter how many are in it), and it made about 1 litre of pureed banana to freeze.
No matter what I add to it for flavouring (peanut butter, Nutella, homemade fruit syrup), that price is far less than any commercial ice cream I can buy, and is healthier for me because aside from added flavouring, the only ingredient is banana. No added sugar or preservatives, very low fat, and unless you can't eat bananas for whatever reason, it's a suitable treat for just about any diet a person could be following.
I'm not sure I did it right, though, because all the recipes I see talk about freezing the banana and then blending them, whereas I blended the banana and then stuck it all in the freezer. I guess I'll have to see. If this batch turns out okay, I'll stick to it, because there's more room to store a bunch of bananas on my kitchen counter than there is in my freezer. If it doesn't work well, I'll freeze the bananas first next time and try again.
~ I also made a slow-cooker chili, again doing the thing where I put all the ingredients in there before bed, then wake up to a delicious-smelling supper. I almost never use ground beef for chili anymore, instead using cut-up pieces of stewing beef, because I can often find better deals on stewing beef than I can on ground beef. It tastes just as good. This batch turned out milder than usual, probably because my spices are old and need to be replaced, but it was still pretty good, and now there's plenty of food that I just need to reheat whenever I'm hungry. And that always makes me happy!
