happy new yeap (with lentils)

 

Happy 2025!

A friend dropped by on New Years Eve to share a glass of sparkling peach bellini.

Cheers!

You will notice the vintage champagne glasses with the old Griggs Music logo.

I was given two of them way back when I worked for the store.

I don't use champagne glasses all that often, but it's nice to have a couple for occasions.

Boxed up Christmas and stored it away for next year.

Organized and packed away.

It's now Mardi Gras season, so I put some beads up to add some sparkle.

I'm not into the FunkoPop things and don't buy many toys anymore, but

I had to get my own Tiny Dave Matthews!

Found at the Gorge Crew merch website.

Ain't he sweet? Complete with eyebrow.

Busted out my cooking skills, as much as they are, and cooked up

the Tofurkey roast. Used a bag of the frozen green beans that I had

spent way too much time preparing this summer for the green bean

casserole, and mashed up some potatoes.

Turned out okay. Not my best holiday meal, but tasty enough.

I realized I need to boil the green beans before using them in anything.

They cooked up okay in the oven, but could have used some extra time

to soften up a bit more.

I don't do a major cook like this very often. A few times a year.

My regular cooked meals for lunch are fairly simple recipes that

don't require multiple steps or weird ingrediants.

Then the bird and I had some quality time.

Playing fetch, in her bird way. She drops the ball, I pick it up and

give it back to her. She drops it again and seems to delight in watching

me go after it to return it to her.

Alejandro had his Christmas outfit removed. He looked cold, so

I used this blanket fragment as a shawl.

If you're cold, they're cold. LOL

Made my own iced coffee. Tasty!

Will need to keep some concentrate in rotation now.

While I was at the library, looking for a DVD copy of Gremlins,

(because I wanted to watch it and it wasn't on any streaming service that

was either free or one I already subscribe to) and I found this book in the

new book section.

Kenny G's autobiography!

I just finished reading the Lou Reed biography, so before I start in

on the waiting stack of to be read books, I checked this out.

Should be good. 

This weekend has been all about sifting through my lists and 

the house inventory to get the year organized.

At least the first three months.

Paying off a chunk of debt is priority number one for the first

half of the year. By then I should have a better grip on the rest of the year,

and a lighter debt load will make that possible.

January is always tough for me.

Last year I made more of an effort to just accept the boringness and

relax into the quieter part of the year.

Read through books on the stack, catch up on movies,

get some sleep and get to the gym regularly.

So, that's the plan for this January too.

Try to get some extra practice time in too.

Need to lay into some fundamentals to clean up some lax technique.

Ran across this recipe a couple weeks ago, grabbed a screenshot

and decided to make it today.

The ingredients. Fairly inexpensive stuff.

I used the lentils I picked up on the Trader Joe's run, two sweet potatoes,

an onion. I had a tube of ginger paste hiding in the cupboard, and picked up

the coconut milk, coconut oil, minced garlic, vegetable broth, and spinach at Aldi.

The recipe calls for kale, but Aldi didn't have kale, only spinach.

I didn't feel like driving all over town to find kale, so I decided

the spinach is good enough as a substitute.

speaking of the ginger paste.

I got it in a Try the World box, a lot of years ago, and had

never opened it. So it was still sealed and supposedly okay to eat.

Unfortunately, it's all in Japanese, so I tried out the Google lens function

on my phone and it provided a translation! Neato!

Apparently, it does need to be refrigerated after opening.

The recipe asks for grated fresh ginger, but as that step was

a bit too much for me, it was worth digging into the cupboard for the paste.

Also, I got the jar of minced garlic because I am not at all

experienced with mincing fresh cloves of garlic.

If you have a problem with that, I guess you can just complain to 

the squirrels in the park, because I'm not listening. 

All the aromatics, liquids and sweet potatoes.

The lentils were steamed already, so they didn't need as much cooking time.

I added them with the spinach at the end and let them all cook down in the final ten minutes.

Checking in on the progress.

Added salt and pepper to taste, and some chili powder

and red pepper flakes for some extra heat.

The finished stew.

Pretty good, if I may say so myself.

And I have enough lentils and other ingredients leftover to cook it again next week.

Will need to get a couple more sweet potatoes and another can of coconut milk.

Along with the leftover Tofurkey meals, my meal prep is done for the week.

So, am now sitting here, sipping on what's left of the Oat Nog (with added rum)

and dreading the long work week ahead.

We'll get through it though.

Go make some soup.

It'll make you feel better.