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Sometimes It Snows In April

Larissa

Amid all the Corona virus scare Omar brought home a cold from work. He came down with it last Saturday and was very ill for his birthday. As it is his nature to be generous, he is feeling better and I now find myself with the horrid congestion and aches and pains and sneezes of this spring time ailment. I don't think it's the wretched COVID-19, but who knows. For those reasons I've quarantined myself and Omar is only venturing out when neccessary for provisions. I am continuing my interviewing process for the open positions and projects here on the Ranch, but I'm not shaking hands with anyone and keeping a good distance out of doors. It's been a few days now and I shouldn't be contagious anymore anyway...but like I said, in the spirit of human kindness I am keeping my distance from other humans as much as possible right now. Oh well. It's not like I spend that much time with other humans anyway...it just means I'm a bit more house-bound for the time being. But, it's not like I don't have anything to do.


A couple days ago I completed the first painting in this year's series and I have second one started. We'll see how it goes. I'm pleased with the experience of the first painting, though I have some aesthetic issues with the final composition. This can't be helped, however, without compromising the process and technique. The image simply is what it is and I accept that. It will be interesting to see how all the images relate to each other once they are all finished on Easter. I will post images of the completed series then. For now, you will just have to wait to see.


Yesterday I also wrote the 4th Chapter of this year's Novella: Patent Leather Gene. Chapter 4 is called: Sometimes It Snows In April and you can read it here. Whenever I write it's hard to not loose myself in each character as I develope and discover them. I think this year's finished novella is going to be very relateable for many people.


This past week I was also excited to find and try a new ground meat substitute at the market. This past week I found a new (to me) product by Beyond Meat.

It was a great success. Beyond Meat is by far my favorite company for beef or pork substitute products. Quorn is my favorite for chicken substitute. Anyway...I used the Beyond Meat to make a good old standard, Stuffed Peppers.

Not too bad! Actually, they were pretty darn good. Add the fact that I used the Instant Pot to cook them and the recipe is even more amazing. 

So, this is how I did it...

INGREDIENTS:

 

2 large sweet red bell peppers washed with the tops cut off and seeds removed

1 large shallot minced

1 package Beyond Meat plant-based ground

1 egg

1/2 cup uncooked white rice

1 jar diced tomatoes

4 large button mushromms minced

1 broccoli stalk minced fine

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 tube concentrated tomato paste

herbs & seasonings to taste: corriander seed, salt, black pepper, granulated gilroy garlic, onion powder, oregano, sage, parsley, bay leaf

DIRECTIONS:

In a large mixing bowl I combined the shallot, Beyond Meat, egg, uncooked rice, mushrooms, broccoli, bread crumbs, cheese, salt pepper, corriander seed, garlic oregano, sage, and parsley. Then I used the mixture to stuff the peppers. I had enough left to also make two large meat-less balls. If I had baked these in a dutch oven I would have par cooked the rice first, but since I was using the Instant Pot I knew to leave the rice uncooked. Also, I had the broccoli stem left over from having made steamed broccoli crowns earlier in the week as a side. I like to save the stem and use it in soups or as a "sneaky" way to add more veggies to dinner like in this recipe. The trick to using ingredients like broccoli and mushrooms in this dish is to mince them very fine so they become invisible in the meat-less stuffing. So, once the peppers were stuffed I placed the pepper caps flat in the bottom of the Instant Pot and nestled the stuffed pepper onto the pepper ring. It was like a make shift stand for the pepper in the pot. Then I placed the two meatballs on either side of the peppers. Over this I squeezed in the tube of tomato paste and poured the jar of diced tomatoes. Then I added the bay leaf, some granulated garlic, onion powder, salt and pepper to the tomato sauce. In addition I added half a jar of distilled water then popped on the lid and pressed the meat/stew button on the Instant Pot. Forty seven minutes later we had stuffed peppers! In the past when I made this dish with ground beef it would take me an hour to prepare and all day in the slow cooker to cook. This version took under 20 minutes to prepare and forty seven minutes to cook. That's just over an hour from ingredient to table. Hot damn! The texture was great and the flavor was really good. I will do this one again for sure but next time I'll be sure to pick up four peppers instead of two.


So...in the news I have seen a bunch of crazy stuff going on. UCSC and the greater UC education system in in chaos. What else is new. The whole thing is busted, but I doubt California is going to take any real steps to actually fixing what the problem is. Californians culturally don't seem to be into fixing such things. They instead choose to pass the buck and attept to use bandaids to fix broken bones. No. I did NOT vote in favor of using money from the general fund to fund schools. That's NOT what the general fund is for. We need to fix the property tax issue in California. That will help everyone. Sigh. 


Then I saw an article about Marie Osmond deciding to not leave any of her fortune to her children, but instead leave it all to her charity organization. Good for her.  Good. For. Her. I approve and agree with her reasoning.


Oh! And on the nuclear front everyone seems to be looking at the real possibility of new and more stable nuclear sollutions to global energy woes and that is a good thing. I just wish the US would catch up to everyone else and stop this inane push for solar as our savior. The mining of titanium is just as destructive as mining for coal and solar can be dangerous. I'm not saying solar is never a choice, it's just not the super clean green choice folks want everyone to think it is. 


Oh! And did anyone hear who won the Libertarian nomination this time around? I was going to go observe the vote count again this year, but instead came down with this yucky cold. I guess I'll just have to Google it. Well...back to it. I have a few things to do before I can just take the rest of the day easy. A nice pot of soup will be a good balm and hopefully by tomorrow more of this congestion will have cleared up...or maybe I'll get sicker and die. Either way, hope you are having a nice Lent so far. 




 

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