April 1st

A very healthy smoothie, some candles and pop tarts!

So this is day 25 of my quarantine from work. While it is nice not working graveyards for a bit, I do miss routine and getting lots of physical exertion at the bakery. So everyday I’m going on a walk and counting my blessings. Spring has sprung here in Seattle and the air feels somehow cleaner without all the extra people out. My walks are getting longer everyday.

While on a walk last Sunday, I passed an herb shop. Not the trippy herb, but pretty much every other herb they had on their walls of jars and jars. For a moment I felt like I was in Diagon Alley buying ingredients for potions class! I did pick up a couple sachets of somethings I wanted to experiment with. The first I’ll share today; spirulina powder.

Spirulina is an algae that has apparently been around since for-e-ver, is 60-70% protein and contains calcium, iron, magnesium, and vitamins A, E, and K. It’s basically one of those under-researched but highly promoted super foods where small studies support this and that. It’s also going into my belly. Via blackberry smoothie.

Say hello to my little friend, the Very Shitty Blender. Like the old bar back who has been at this joint forever and isn’t going anywhere, she gets the job done but not without complaining very loudly. Plus none of her other buttons work anymore. Two functions. On and off.

So into our regretful shredder of things go some blackberries, ginger, bananas, and kiwis. And we blend blend blend. Mostly cause I wanted to see how purple it was before adding the spirulina powder.

Spirulina, by the way, smells weird. Strangely savory and has almost the same meaty musk as that of a mushroom. The dank smell of health. Yum. Luckily it’n not terribly strong, and that’s why I added so many juicy tart blackberries! And then the yogurt to smooth it all out, and honey to taste. And our result is a tasty, sweet, grey goop. I promise I will post something eventually that has some actual structure to it. But for now, more glop! 🙂

Next I cleaned some old jars out of the fridge. Not a lot of it was good to consume, save a raspberry preserve jar. So what was I to do with jars and jam? Obviously make candles and pop tarts.

The candles were a patience project for sure. But I tell you, I think I found true peace at 1am sitting atop my bar stool at my stove with a double boiler set melting pure beeswax. I was about three bong rips in, warm steam was puffing gently up and around my face carrying the scent of fresh honey up my nose when I thought, “maybe I’ll just marry for money and do this everyday.” Put a pin in it.

The last project to cleaning out the fridge was pop tarts for those raspberry preserves. a stick of cold butter met its match with my cheese grater and some flour, salt, and cold water. Voila pie crust!

Rolled out some rectangles, spooned the preserves in and top with another rectangle. Crimped with fork and poked some holes in the top and popped them in the fridge to get that butter hardened up again. Then they baked at 360ish for about 20(?) min? I cant remember. I know I wanted them par-baked so I could put them in the toaster oven like real pop-tarts. And I was facetiming with my dad at the time and had a timer going to check every 7 minutes. So here they are!

And here’s a picture of one that I had to eat just now because I realized I didn’t take a picture of the pie crust layers. I used my hands to make this pie crust too, besides the cheese grated butter. This has homemade lemon curd on it 🙂

These were some nice projects to keep me busy for a couple of days, but soon I’ll get some meals going. Once the fridge is empty again…

Cheers!

-Rieu