Some one has to do it

One of my clearest memories is flipping thru a photo album and seeing photos of my father running.  Not just running but RUNNING.  Short shorts, no shirt or only a vest, sweat beading…Running.  His sport was track and field in high school and then earned a scholarship to college for his excellence.

Third from the right, front row is my father with the rest of the 1969 University of North Texas Team (photo from the digital archives of the Yucca, the UNT yearbook)

I know that his running continued through his time in the US Marine Corps too…though that may be an understatement considering how much running those corpsmen/women do…far too much for the dead!  Anyway, I know that there is at least one photo I remember of him racing in a USMC singlet, most likely a battalion ‘team’.

I also know that there was more than once when I was growing up that I wanted to go run with him and he never let me.  I was always hurt by this leaving of me behind but I justified his doing so because I was a)not long legged like him, b) not in shape to run with him, c)any other reason I could convince myself of.  I don’t know that he ever knew how much I really wanted to run with him.

In 7th grade, I ‘joined’ the middle school track team and signed up for the 3200m (2 miles).  Because, you know, my father ran long distances so I can show him how much I am his daughter and make him proud of me and he can come to my meets and be proud of me…yeah.  After a week or so of ‘practice’, we had our first meet and I ran…for about 200yds with the pack and then had to walk because I gave myself such a horrible side stitch and was THAT ill-prepared for the race.  I also broke one of the rules of running by staying in the inner lane as I was lapped and lapped and lapped again.  I was so embarrassed and only saved by two things #1: My family wasn’t there to see my abject failure.  More specifically, I mean my father; and #2: One of the guys, G, an 8th grader who had already ran the race, who I barely knew from passing in the hall and at the door to band class, re-entered the track with me and encouraged and wheedled me to jog along with him for the last 2 laps.  He stayed with me the entire way and pushed me to keep going.  I don’t think that I ever could have thanked him enough.  I would still send him a card today if I knew where he was.

After that fiasco, my knees were hurting so much for the next week that I didn’t return to practice again and didn’t actually attempt to run until just a few years ago when wholeheartedly embarking on my weight-loss/health building journey.

I found my passion.

After years of saying that I hated to run and that it wasn’t for me, turns out that it was all along.  Which is pretty funny considering my sister has always hated running.  Weird because she LOVED soccer when in High School but she always said that she hated the running part.  She said that about hating that part in Volleyball too, even though it was just the warm-ups.  My brother, K, just professed to me yesterday that HE too dislikes running.  While talking to him the other day he declared ME to be the runner of my fathers children and promised to cheer very loud and be very proud of me.

Why would he cheer and be proud of me?

Because in 204 days and some odd hours from today, I’m going to start running in a big race.

SisuGirl is now Registered
for Honolulu Marathon.

I have a training plan, I have races along the way to keep me going and I have a goal.  That and some good shoes.

Here we go.

PS: To my HS friends: I was serious about sending G a card.  If you know where I can find him, please let me know!

Sharing Perfection

Oh this project…

I bought this fiber back when I begun spinning and what a lucky purchase it was.  I had seen it on Etsy and messaged the dyer to see if she would dye it for me.  I learned 2 things from this exchange.
#1: You always should ask because the worst they say is no.
#2: You always should ask how much if you haven’t seen the original listing.
I was a little shocked when the bill came but chalked it up to learning and the cost of cashmere.

I would do it again instantly if I found another listing that sang to me the way this did.
This beautiful fiber came out of its packaging every few months to get pet and admired and then put away as I realised that I was no where near the spinner I needed to be to delve into this gorgeous stuff and give it its due.
After I finished Intentions, I needed a break from BFL and thought that, after all this time of spinning consistantly, it was time to get in there…and it was.

The fiber spun as from a dream and the colours were beyond my hopes. 
The plying was perfect and preserved those colour repeats that I wanted to hold on to. 
The knitting was more bliss as I began a simple shawl with a 3 stitch garter edge with a YO and then YOs next to the spine stitch before YO next tot the other garter edge.

It worked up beautifully.
As I got to the end of my ball, I thought that simple lace faggoting would be the perfect way to finish.

It is.

I worked until I could feel the end was nigh and began my cast off with JSSBO.  I knew it would take a good deal of yarn so saved myself what I thought would be perfect.
I was close.

6 stitches close.

There was weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Ask M.  There was cursing too.
Lucky for me, I was binding off in the brilliant line-green section of yarn and I just happened to have some lime green yarn that is a very nearly perfect match.  You can’t tell unless I point it out to you.
The blocking was magical, as it always is, and the simple lace is perfect.

I wear this scarf/shawl often and it is the project that I stick into my bag daily if I don’t wrap it around my neck  before leaving.  The cashmere and superwash merino couldn’t have been a more perfect blend and this project is sheer perfection in every possible way.

Interesting habits

We ALL have them.  Its those little things that we do that make us, well, us.

My newest quirk is a little hard to explain.

Well, actually, its easy to explain, just harder to Explain.

Those things?  Yeah, those are part of my new daily habit.  Unsalted Kerrygold butter, MCT oil and locally roasted fair-trade coffee.

The special butter is for various reasons.  You can read about the nutritional value of grass-fed butter vs. grain fed here, here and the importance of good butter here.

MCT oil takes a bit more explaining because I bet many people aren’t familier with it.  MCT stands for Medium Chain Triglyceride Oil, basically a fat that doesn’t have a long chain of fatty acid esters of glycerol.  It is found most commonly from Coconuts and Palms (Coconut and Palm oil are both MCTs)  There are lots of articles out there that extoll the virtues and uses of MCT oil in the athletic community, bodybuilding community and the low-carb (Adkins) community.  This blogger wrote a fantastic post with lots of links to studies regarding MCT oil and its usefullness.  I HIGHLY suggest taking a look if you are interested in more information.  I don’t care about the use of MCT for bodybuilding and I love rice, flavoured pasta and potatoes far too much to ever think about low-carb anything.  The BIG upside for me is that MCT’s are not digested by the liver or bile salts in general, they are absorbed directly and can be put to use in the body.  As someone who no longer has a bile concentrator in my body and who has been suffering with the digestion of nearly EVERY form of dietary fat, just let me tell you what a godsend discovering this has been for me.

You could also use coconut oil if you don’t have or want to try MCT oil.

So now we see the addition of the third and final ingredient:  My own Port Townsend roasted coffee.  Made in my fantastic vintage Regal Poly-Perk.

Yes.  I am blending the coffee, MCT oil and 2 tablespoons of butter together.  On High.  For 30 seconds to a minute.

This is the result:  Creamy, frothy and perfectly hot, thanks to the speed of the Vitamix.

How does it taste?

Well, thats where my quirk gets quirkier.

Its amazing.  Creamy, smooth and perfect.

And this coming from someone who has ALWAYS had at least 2 sugar packets in a regular diner cup or at least 2 tablespoons of Coffeemate in her home-brewed mug.  For years I have been saying that my concession to “fake” food was Coffeemate but no longer.  I don’t need the sugar and don’t miss it.  As for the flavours, I have tried vanilla and almond extract and both are lovely additions.

Before you wrinkle your nose at the idea of butter and an oil in your coffee, stop and think.

Do you take cream/half-n-half/milk in your coffee?  Butter is simply whipped cream.  Or over whipped cream, depending on your POV.

Oil?  If you put Coffeemate/International Delight or ANY other non-dairy creamer in your coffee, you already are putting oil in yours.  A highly processed oil and most likely a trans fat.  Mine is simply better for you.

Now for the big question:  WHY?

Because I figured I had nothing to lose when the nutritionist at work told me about it.  She told me that drinking this “Bulletproof Coffee” helped her feel full while she was IF-ing and/or low-carbing.  Considering that I often fast by accident (get ‘too busy’ at work for lunch and go for 10+ hours), the idea of something that would help give me energy without a sugar crash or processed food binge was very appealing.  Let me be very clear though:  I DO try to eat and have healthy choices around if I take the time to eat them.  I just have no sense of time and it passes me by without me being aware until I am ‘starving’ with an hour before I get to go home and make dinner.  With the sun shining these past few days, I have totally taken my lunch breaks and enjoyed the sun, and the lunches, immensely.  I don’t generally skip meals on purpose.  Just usually.  On accident.

However…for the past week, this coffee has totally carried me through from 8am to 3pm with NO hunger and complete ability to resist the candy and snacks that have been out tempting me at work.  I feel alert, boundless energy and really enthusiastic about life in general.  Granted, this could be due to the increase of Vitamin D but I’m going to give the coffee its due.

Interested?

Do your own research like I did.  There are tonnes of blogs about different peoples trials of buttery coffee.  There are just as many articles out there about the benefits of grass-fed butter and just as many of those about MCT oil and Coconut oil.

Think I’m nuts and that this is just another fad in the food world?

Possibly.

If you discount the yak butter tea that has been drunk in Tibet and China and Bhutan so long that it has “Traditional” in front of ‘recipe’.

I just know it works for me.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Dye-ing to show you, Part 2

Sometimes what you really need in your life is a jump start.  For me, this project is my jump start back into blogging so I hope you enjoy it.

For me, one of my favourite holidays has always been Easter.  The promise of spring, the joy of hunting for our Easter Baskets that were expertly hidden, the pretty new dresses all were part of it, yes, but there was something else:  The Easter Tree.

When we lived on Craw Drive, there was a forsythia bush outside the first house we lived in and it was HUGE.  Not just kid huge, like that thing you think was SO BIG but really turns out to be small once you get to be full size, but really big, like big enough that we had multi-kid ‘forts’ underneath its branches.  I clearly remember my mum going and cutting some branches from that bush as it started to bud and bringing them inside to put into water.  The warmth of the house would push those buds into bloom and we would have beautiful spring yellow blooms on the table. Pussy willows sometimes would be a part too and their soft little paws I remember with fondness.

But there was more.  We would decorate those branches with Easter ornaments too.  Some were store bought…like the wooden bunnies pushing wheelbarrows, bunnies holding flowers, fuzzy chicks…but the ones that I remember best are the hand-made marbled eggs.  My memories of making these are vague at best.  I remember being in a garage, most likely in Cali, with newspaper and coffee cans on the floor (which was odd because I don’t remember coffee being drunk in my house at all, only tea), my mum and friends and dipping eggs into the cans.

Thats it.

But, Oh, these eggs.  Beautiful.  Marbled and shiny with the enamel paint.  Tender and delicate and one of the special joys of unpacking those Easter decorations.

Last year, when I started buying duck eggs at the Port Townsend Farmers Market from various sellers, I started thinking about how else I could use these beautiful eggs and it wasn’t a far leap to thinking about marbling them.  The leap was figuring out HOW to do it.  As I said, I didn’t really have a clear memory of the process.  Lucky for me, my Mum came to visit at the end of February.  Unlucky for me, we bought the wrong kind of enamel paint so we couldn’t do it!

Fast forward a few weeks.  Yesterday I stopped at the local art supply store and bought the right kind of paint and today I got to dye-ing!

Step 1: Assemble the cast of characters.

Blown Eggs.  Here are some of the duck eggs but in another box there are more duck and also 6 quail eggs too…

Bucket with water…Drying box, skewers for swirling, paper towel for wiping…And, of course, the enamel paint!

I used Testors enamels that I got at my local art store.  You MUST use these type (small bottles) of enamel paint/model paint, NOT the “enamel paint” you can get at JoAnns or Michaels in large bottles with the acrylics.  They are different.  If you can clean up with soap and water, it isn’t the right paint.  See the note at the end.

Step 2:  Prep the eggs for dipping.  I wiped the eggs with the alcohol to clean them of any residue so the paint will stick better.  I then threaded the eggs with pipe cleaners to make “handles” as well as holders for keeping the eggs up while drying.  I used full sized cleaners for the duck eggs and half sized for the quail eggs.

Now the fun part!

Step 3:  Float the paint:Black and Silver shown here.

Step 4:  Swirl the paint:

Make sure there are NO pockets of paint after the swirling because this will mean drops of paint on your egg.  You can see the paint pockets in the above photo…those little round dots of silver?  Yeah, that you want to avoid.  I swirled a bit more after the photo but I liked the look with the smaller quail eggs.

Step 4:  Get your egg…Step 5: Dip your egg straight down…

This is when the paint sticks to the egg.  If you look carefully, you can see that the paint has stuck to the egg under the water.  A better photo of this is on the next step.

Step 6:  Wipe the surface of the water free of paint.  This is important because you will be lifting the egg up again, obviously, and if you bring it up thru more paint, that paint too will stick and muddy the marbling.  Do you see how the paint is on the egg under the water?

Step 7:  Voila!

Step 8:  Place egg onto the drying box and admire your handiwork!  Play with the colours and have fun!  Swirl more or less, use only 2 or all your colours…

 

I had a great time!

Step 9: Allow eggs to dry in a safe, animal-free, minimal dust place for as long as it takes for them to dry.  This may be a few hours to a few days, depending on the humidity of your area.

There will be a Step 10 in a few days…threading and hanging, but right now the eggs are drying, safe in the guest room!

An Important Note:

Enamel paint is not water soluble.  I feel silly mentioning this since obviously it isn’t because it floats on the water to marble but this is important when it comes to clean up.  You need more than soap and water…in fact, soap and water won’t do anything for you at all except give you clean, paint filled hands.  And a ruined manicure.  Plan ahead.  Wear gloves if you’re smart!  Unlike me…

The best thing to use to clean up is mineral spirits.  However, I didn’t think that far ahead.  But I did have nail polish remover.  The good stuff with acetone and that’s the key here.  The non-acetone stuff will leave you with still paint-filled fingers.  So a little rubbing later, I was the proud human with…slightly still stained fingers.  What had I missed?  The oil.  Mineral spirits or Turpentine, is made from petroleum.  With the nail polish remover, there was no oil to help the removal of the paint.  I washed my hands to get rid of the nail polish remover and then I used a finger full of my favourite coconut salt scrub (coconut oil and salt, nice and simple), rubbed briefly and…

Voila!

Team Jamie/ Clan Fraser middle

Team Jamie/ Clan Fraser middle

Originally uploaded by knittingfisher

Team Jamie/ Clan Fraser

Team Jamie/ Clan Fraser

Originally uploaded by knittingfisher

Processed

Remember these photos?

 

This was the fiber that I scored on Freecycle: 2 llama, 2 alpaca and 1 random surprise sheep fleeces from an animal rescue in this area.

In order of photos: Bags o’ Fiber, Alpaca #1, Alpaca #1 close up, Llama #1, Llama #2, Me with llamas 1 and 2.

Now, most of the llama that you see in the photos with me in it above was far too fragile to be processed, sad but true.  This happens when animals aren’t fed properly or on a regular schedule and aren’t treated right because the stress has an impact on their hair growth.  But, that beautiful chocolate brown?  Oh baby, it was super soft even when dusty and dirty so I divided it from the other colours and told Barry (of Taylored Fibers) that, if anything, I wanted him to process this in particular.  He looked at it and thought that it would be OK and, if that was what I wanted, would try it.  Best. Decision. Ever.

The alpaca I picked through to get out the vegetation and de-haired (that long, string-y looking thing in the 2nd photos).  Just like the chocolate llama, so, so soft and I knew that it would be a beautiful roving once that lighter cream tips were mixed with those beautiful milky coffee patches.  Holy. Alpaca.  Its so pretty and so very soft.

What you don’t see is that in the Alpaca #2 bag, which just went to Barry on the 15th, there was a random sheep fleece as a surprise!  The most surprising part was that this fleece wasn’t completely loaded with VM and actually was in very good shape.  When I had Barry assess the Alpaca #2, the sheep fleece just fell out of the bag and I was thrilled that it was something not only salvageable but a great find to boot.  The crimp is lovely and with a 3-4″ staple and soft enough to be close to skin worn, this turned into a perfect white roving.

Take a look at my beautiful new roving:  From L to R: Alpaca (4), Sheep (3), Llama (2)

 

 

 

You can really see the creamy colour of the alpaca when compared to the bright white of the sheep.

And this perfect milk chocolate of the llama?  Heavenly.

All told, I have 24.3 oz / 1.5 lbs of llama, 39.75 oz / 2.5 lbs of sheep and 47.3 oz / 2.95 lbs of alpaca.
And there is more wool coming within the month from Barry, both sheep and alpaca.

 

You must excuse me now.  I need to revel in my luck of finding such a grand find for free and start spinning my wheel so I can get this beautiful ITW August club

off my wheel and start with one of these beautiful natural wools.  Which to choose becomes the new conundrum!

Fiber Farm Tour: Day 2

On the final day of the 4th Annual Olympic Peninsula Fiber Farm Tour, I visited Compass Rose Farm and their Icelandic sheep.

One of the first things that grabbed me was the colours of the sheep.  Not just black, brown, grey and white but all types of shades that comes from different breeding.   Light brown, dark brown, brown-black, red brown, tan, carmael, brown with white/grey/black/different brown spots grey, silver, grey-black, white white, off white, white with brown/black/grey spots, black with white/brown/grey spots, black-brown, black black…the list goes on and on and on…

And, just for MORE variety, there were two guard llamas looking on.  Yes, guard llamas.  And, just as their sheep are different colours, they are too!

I had a wonderful talk about the sheep themselves and breeding practises in the US versus Iceland (for multi-coloured wool here vs meat and milk there) and the practises of Compass Rose Farm.  It makes me so glad to hear that breeding for colour and fine-ness are hand in hand for them.

After talking sheep for a while, I then looked around a bit more and admired their garden and plants and realised that I really like their set-up with the chip lined pathways…

but kept being drawn back to the animals.

It was a wonderful visit.  They also have bees, though I failed to photograph their 3 hives.  Like most of the farms that we visited, these lovely folks have chickens too, 4 different breeds, and I had to buy some eggs.

 

And yes, since you asked, some wool DID follow me home.  There was a beautiful black for Mike, much more black than the dark grey (dark brown) Romney we found yesterday but with enough character for me than I won’t feel like I’m spinning into an abyss.  26 ounces (1.625 lbs) in 2 bumps.

And a cinnamon tweed for me:

36 ounces (2.25lbs) in 2 bumps.  It was love at first sight and no, I’m not sorry at all that there is barely any room in the spare room wool room.  If I could have still fed my family and bought the rest of the cinnamon tweed, I would have.  Granted, if I had bought it, I would have needed less fiber to clothe us but I didn’t think it would be in our best interests.

All in all, this has been such a stellar weekend.  The weather has been lovely, the people super friendly, the animals beautiful and the fiber abundant.  While at Taylored Fibers, Barry showed me the rescue/freecycle llama, alpaca and random breed of sheep wool fleeces that he had washed and was ready for the carding machine in the next few weeks.  With glee I gave over the Shetland and two other alpaca fleeces and should have those in 6 weeks or so.  I am so very excited about getting started spinning all my new lovely wool so the real question becomes:  Which do I spin first?  Suri Alpaca? Jacob?  Romney?  Icelandic Black or Cinnamon?

So many choices came into being this weekend, we shan’t speak of the beautiful colours that are already in the stash or coming from the ITW club.  While I’m selling my Ladybug this weekend, I am sorely tempted to get another wheel so I can have multiple projects going at once!  Wouldn’t it be smart to have two though?  One for natural colours, one for those beautiful dyed woolies?  Makes sense to me!

Not a Festival but…

This weekend is the Fourth Annual Olympic Peninsula Fiber Farm Tour and I can’t tell you how excited I have been waiting for it to arrive.  Last year, I was all excited about going and then I didn’t have a job so no real money for fiber…but this year there was no problems what-so-ever.

Mike and I started our tour with a stop at Metro Bagels for our Chai (regular for him, soy for me) and bagels (plain bagel with jalapeno cheddar cream cheese for him, parmesan bagel with sun-dried tomato and garlic cream cheese for me).  We have a tradition of starting out our explorations with a breakfast from them and haven’t seen any reason to stop yet!  Everything goes better with chai and bagels to begin with and today was no exception.

We arrived at Ananda Hills promptly at 10am and spent over an hour talking and walking around there, admiring the tomato hot house, the guardian dogs with the chickens, seeing the Shetland sheep hiding in the hills and right outside the barn door, and talking for a long time with J and C, the amazing people who own and run the place.    I don’t think we could have had a better start to our day than visiting with them!

Next we moved on to Spring Hill Farm and their beautiful Romney sheep.  I loved seeing all the variations in the colours, especially how it looked when blended!

Out to Quilcene we went and onto Jacob’s Fleece where we met the lovely JG and her flock of Jacob sheep.  Talk about colours!  They have such a distinctive look and I must say, I have a ‘thing’ for critters with spots so they really appealed to me.

Finally for today we stopped at Taylored Fibers, home of the Taylors and their fantastic fiber processing business in addition to seeing their Chevoit sheep.  I had quite a lot of alpaca to drop off for processing as well as something else that I’ll show you in a moment, but what I was really looking forward to doing was meeting Judith MacKenzie.  She was lovely and I hope that someday I’ll be able to take a class with her.  Fiber people are just some of the best people there are, I swear its true.

Because we had to head home for a delivery, there is one more farm to visit on the tour and we’ll see them tomorrow.  We had a fantastic day visiting the sheep and their farms and their owners and I can’t wait to do more tomorrow.

One last thing…did you think that I could visit sheep and shepherds and not bring home souvenirs?  Nope, me neither and that would be why I brought my checkbook.

From Ananda Farm, I found a perfect Shetland in multiple shades of brown.  In a world where historically colours have often been bred out in search of the “perfect” white, I can’t tell you how excited I am.  Actually, I can:  Excited enough that I forgot to take a photo of the bag ‘o fleece before I handed it over to Barry Taylor and only have the sample of the locks that I pulled aside for myself!

So perfect!  Before washing/carding: 3.5lbs

From Spring Hill Farm:  2 bumps of Dark Grey Romney, 15.75 and 15.25oz = 31oz (1oz shy of 2 lbs)

Now, in the direct sun, you can see that they look MUCH more brown…but with myself casting a shadow:

Quite a bit more grey.  Mike picked this out for himself so I am already plotting a project with him in mind!

From Jacob’s Fleece, 9.2 ounces of a true “grey”, if anything with spots can ever be truly one colour or another!

Jan was spinning some of this herself and I just loved the tweed-y way the colours were blending.

I also picked up 2 ounces of pure heaven in batt form from Karen Rose of Rosebud fibers, a Port Townsend local company.  I was powerless to resist and you can see why:

At Taylored Fibers, I dropped off my lovely new Shetland to be processed…along with 2 alpaca fleeces.  One was a 3+ pound cria fleece that I had been lucky enough to A) find on freecycle, B) be the first person to respond to the posting, C) have 2 years of growth, not the normal 1 and D) have Judith MacKenzie look at it just prior to me handing it over for processing and nearly have her swoon.  She laughed and was enthralled and could have knocked me over with a feather when she told me that she had bought some alpaca fleece recently that was nearly exactly like this…for $65/lb.  Seriously.  I knew that it was something special, so fine and long and just lustrous but now I’m even more excited about it!

The second was a birthday present from my amazing sister J.  She went to a fair in MI and walked thru the shearing and showing barn where alpaca fiber was on display.  After looking around and feeling and talking to people, she made a purchase of 3 pounds of cream alpaca with a gorgeous crimp to it.  It has a 2-3″ staple and is so lovely.  I feel so lucky to have such a thoughtful sister!

All told, I have…a LOT of fiber now.  Alpaca, llama and wool that were an amazing find from freecycle, alpaca from my sister, Romney, Shetland and Jacob from local sheep AND some lovely brown from Friday Harbor sheep that I cannot, for the life of me, remember the breed!  I have satisfied my want for natural wools for…most likely the rest of my life.

And tomorrow I get to visit Icelandic sheep…and THAT will be it.  Really.

Self-Inflicted

What do all these foods have in common?

1) They are all yummy.

2) They are all foods that I like.

3) They are all in season and available at my local farmers market.

4) They are all in the same family: Nightshade Family

Some people have problems when eating those foods in the nightshade family and sadly, I am one of them.  From experience, it is the alkaloids in the nightshades that causes my arthritis to flare and my sore hands are the testament to that.  What does this mean?  That I seriously limit my intake of the three foods above and also eggplant…off-season.  While I lived in Alaska, I had nary a ripe tomato so while they are available in the market or from my own plants, I indulge during the season and deal with the stiffness and soreness in my hands.  The most difficult part of it all?  That I am 31 and have arthritis.  Darn that perfect genetic storm of Nana and Grandma!

In honor of my sore hands, I give you a recipe that I created yesterday:

Stuffed Pepper Soup aka Sore Hands Soup

1 onion, diced

1lb mild Italian sausage

2 sweet peppers, diced

1/2winter squash, your choice, diced

1 14oz can stewed tomatoes

water

Bay leaf

Vegetable bullion cube

2 cups cooked rice

 

In a large pot, warm a small amount of olive oil over low and slowly cook the onion to brown.   Add sausage and cook completely.  Add peppers and squash and heat to slightly softened.  Add can of tomatoes and 2 cans of water, bullion cube and the bay leaf.  Cook over medium for 1 hour to let flavours marry.  Turn off heat and add rice, stirring to mix and let sit for 10 minutes to soften rice and warm thru.  Serve and enjoy!

We LOVED this lunch and, despite my sore hands today, I’ll have the leftovers for my work dinner tonight…with a Ibuprofen/Acetaminophen chaser!