I have found me a home

I love Tucson. I love the weather and the attitude and the people and the grit. It's old west meets modern democratic party politics, with a heavy dose of Mexican and Native American culture and a laid back charm. I love our sprawling ranch house that's older than we are, and I love our views from the patio every night.

Summer's storms are passing now. The nights are getting cooler and my very favorite time of year is here. Fall in the desert. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and that's why you'll find me here - the old pueblo.

working on Labor Day!?

I made my poor sweet husband work over Labor Day. We have this unused corner of our laundry room (corner pictured above) and it drives me crazy that the space wasn't being used for storage. After all, our laundry room is right off our kitchen, so we could be using the extra room as a pantry.

I came up with the hairbrained idea to install shelving against two of the walls and dragged David to Lowe's (or the Home Depot, I forget - aren't they the same?). We purchased three 72" long, 12" wide shelves, as well as tracks and wall-mount kits for the tracks.

Here is my nice husband cutting the shelves to fit the area.

And here was our first problem - the big wall has pocket door that hides inside. When David went to make a hole for the screws to mount the tracks to the wall, he hit the door. Below, you'll see the hole in the wall and the resulting hole in the door.) That meant the screws that came with the wall-mounting kit were going to be too long to use. What to do, what to do.

I found some drywall screws and other assorted screws in the garage. We decided on the screw on the left. (The screw that came with the kit is on the right.)

We went to work installing the tracks and placing the shelves where we wanted them.

And after a total of 2 hours of work, look at all that beautiful storage! Now my Rice Chex (gluten free!) can have a nice cozy place to hang.

I might cover the shelves in contact paper so they are easier to see (wouldn't want to put an eye out), but overall, I am thrilled.

goat cheese

If you live in the Old Pueblo, you've got to try goat cheese from Foot's Hold Dairy. They are set up every week at the Sunday morning farmer's market at St Phillips Plaza.

We like the creamy, light fromage blanc crumbled over brown rice and grilled veggies

and the deliciously tangy chevre with honey-soaked dates on crackers (gluten-free for me - these, from Costco). I'd show you a picture of the chevre but it didn't last long around here.

And my favorite part of this wonderful, local goat cheese (besides the fantastic flavor)? It's affordable ($6 for 4 oz) and you get 50 cents off your next jar if you return your cleaned glass jar after you use it.

YUM.

gluten free banana bread

WOW. This bread is fabulous. It's even better than the banana bread I used to make - and that stuff was made from wheat flour. I'm telling you - this is better.

The bread is made from a mix made by Mindy of Miracle Munchies.

If you live in Tucson, stop by the farmer's market at St. Phillips Plaza on Sunday mornings and pick up a bag of the mix. If you don't live in Tucson (too bad for you), you can buy the mixes on her website.

Thank you, Mindy, for making such a wonderful mix for me to enjoy. (Even my skeptical husband has been eating the bread and raving about it all weekend.)

PS I subsituted half a cup of lite applesauce for the oil and added about 1/4 cup walnuts. This stuff is heaven.

Big News!

I got the job!

watermelon gazpacho

In the spirit of our clean out the fridge and pantry week, we recently made watermelon gazpacho. Well I shouldn't say we - I should say David.

He diced up half a watermelon, added in maybe half a peeled cucumber, a few tablespoons of red onion, a couple of roasted red peppers (we didn't have any fresh ones in the house), one hot chile pepper, about 1/4 fresh basil, a big drizzle of vinegar (we used both balsalmic and apple cider), drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Pop it in the blender in two installments, then add additional seasoning to taste. (Ours needed an extra drop of vinegar.)

Since our chile pepper came from my boss' garden, we didn't know how hot it would be. Turns out, it was very hot. Luckily, the cool temperature and flavors worked well with the heat. Next time I'd use less pepper - maybe half of one.

This gazpacho is interesting because it doesn't taste too much like watermelon. It's similar to tomato gazpacho but it's got a cooler and slightly sweeter taste. I will definitely be making this again.

If you need a point of reference (I know my measurements leave something to be desired), this recipe is very similar to what we did.

Chicken stir-fry with black bean sauce

Image from foodservicedirect.com

Um... yeah. This black bean sauce is REALLY SPICY. I'm no spice wimp and I could barely eat my dinner. Let me explain how it all happened...

I'm trying to find more Chinese, Thai, and Indian recipes to make for dinner since they are typically gluten-free (think curries over rice, pad thai with rice or bean noodles, etc).

And in our continued effort to eat only what's in the pantry, fridge, and freezer, I concocted an idea to make chicken with black bean sauce stir-fried with bean thread noodles (sometimes called cellophane noodles or glass noodles) for dinner. I have some bean thread noodles I picked up at the 17th Street market. Asian ingredients are easy to find there and cheaper than the grocery store. An 8 oz bag of bean thread noodles was $1.69, but I saw many varieties for even less.

Most of the recipes I found for black bean sauce stir-fry called for a couple of tablespoons of black bean sauce, thinned with some chicken stock and whisked with cornstarch. So we used about half of the jar pictured above, a can of chicken stock, and about half a tablespoon of cornstarch. We stir-fried some veggies, then added diced chicken breast, then the sauce and the bean thread noodles after soaking them in hot water for about 90 seconds.

WHOA. It was REALLY spicy. Next time I'd use about a tablespoon of the black bean sauce. I guess we should have tasted it, especially considering it is called "Black Bean Sauce with Chilli."

Maybe next time I'll learn and try a recipe like this one or this one.