Brrrrr!

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The past few days have been more like the biting cold weather of late December or January.  Just two more days and the sun will shine again and six more days until I head for shorts and T-shirt weather.

Other than packing up Tulip and knocking off all the icicles, I am about ready.  I just hope none of the plumbing has frozen.  Steve didn’t want to winterize Tulip and so we have been running heat in the RV and keeping the water heater going too.  We are probably going to have a huge electric bill.

On another front, I’ve been trying to like kale for two years now and just couldn’t stand it.  I finally found a way to cook it that makes all the difference in the world.   Sauté a whole onion until nicely browned.  Did you know you don’t need oil to cook onions?  Just add little bit of water now and then to keep them from burning.  Then I took the kale leaves off the stalks and added them to the onion along with minced garlic, salt and pepper.  Sauté another 5 minutes or so until the kale is wilted.  Then serve the kale over roasted butternut squash, or roasted cauliflower florets, or spaghetti squash.  Pioneer Woman had the recipe on her website last week and I have made it twice because it is so yummy.  It’s also good with some citrus flavored rice vinegar sprinkled on the kale.

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I am always on the lookout for recipes that are easy, tasty, filling, vegan, nutritious, AND with very few calories.

Getting Into Higher Gear

There’s not been much to write about lately (unless you want to hear about all the foods I’ve been dehydrating) but now I’m picking up a little speed towards getting ready for the trip.  This morning I noticed that the peso exchange rate was pretty decent so I exchanged some money to get started with.  I normally like to buy all my peso’s in the ATM machines in Mexico for the best exchange rate but even Wells Fargo’s rate today was better than any I received last year. 

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Then the last two weekends Steve and I worked on getting Tulip a little prettier looking.  The awning still had remnants of the tropics (bird doo-doo and jungle slime) so we scrubbed the top and the underneath and it looks nice again.  Unfortunately we just can’t get Tulip’s shine back from sitting in the sun too much.  I wonder if there is a way to renew the fiberglass finish.  We had some fiberglass repairs done in Puerto Penasco, Mexico two years ago and the finish was absolutely perfect so maybe they can do the whole RV?  Have to check on that. 

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Tulip will get serviced this week and Molly Dog will get groomed.  My haircuts on her don’t last long and her hair needs to be a little shorter if I take her to Mexico with me – which I am pretty sure I will.  I still need to investigate what preventative medications she should be on and also dehydrate more dog treats.  I found that dehydrating her treats makes them hard like the dog biscuits from a store vs. the oven left them soft.

Oh and one other tidbit:  A couple from Arizona with a motor home like Lynne’s and mine will be joining us on the journey as far as Mazatlan.  We will be triplet Skinnie Winnie’s all in a row.

Good Intentions Led Astray

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My daughter Lauren visited today bearing a gift of many calories from Marigold bakery. This was possibly the most delicious piece of cake I have ever had.  The cake part has ground nuts in it topped with a rich cream frosting.  Maybe the fruit counter balanced the decadence underneath?

What is funny is that I ordered a vegan raw food cookbook that had arrived just 1/2 hour before Lauren came.

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Mimi Kirk is 75 years old!