Brown sugar soda

I'm still exploring new ways to augment plain seltzer water, and I've found another one that I like.

Cane sugar soda's all the rage with the kids these days, right? 

But it's hard to bother with adding flavor to ANYTHING, let alone bother to make proper infused simple syrups from scratch, when I'm tiiiiiiiiiiired. It's also hard to justify BUYING flavored syrups when I don't want to spend $5. Especially when I really DON'T want to have to leave the couch to go to the store. I'm not home sick today because I'm in great health, okay?!? Okay?!? Okay. 

... Okay.

So instead of spending time and effort on much of anything, I decided to just try using  brown sugar instead, to make myself an Italian cream soda.

And I liked it! Brown sugar is delicious.

Here's what I did:

Seltzer water.

Brown sugar.

Maybe a little half & half.

Whipped cream, I guess.

Now, the sugar and water's enough right there. You can just stop and it will be fine.

But the half & half helps give that Italian Cream Soda taste, and gives it an extra boost against heartburn. Useful, right? And I figured that if I was going there already, I might as well top it with whipped cream. I probably shouldn't have, because it overpowered the light molasses flavor in the sugar. But it's what I did.

And I will do it again.

WATER YOUR CATS

Seattle had a little heat wave this summer. It reached temperatures as high as "maybe a little cold for summertime in Maryland." Like 78-85F. 

But as a region where most people (including me) don't own an air conditioner, this was still pretty freakishly hot. Hot enough that I had to actually start thinking about hydration.

My two cats, like many cats, just aren't very "into" water. They're still pretty healthy in spite of this. They eat wet canned food twice a day, so they do get at least a little moisture regularly, and they do have fresh water available in case they actually want it.

But I worry anyway.

So I decided to start mixing extra water in with their meals, so that the quantity of water is maybe about equal in volume with the actual food. This mix gets stirred up before serving enough that the cats have no choice but to treat it like stew, and down the water with the food. (My husband has backed this play, and also adds water to their food when he feeds them.) They lick their dishes clean every time, and in the process they end up drinking considerably more water than they used to.

The upside is that they've looked significantly more spry and comfortable than they did during Seattle's last heat wave.

The downside is that now they both drool a little when they're happy. 

I'd worry that maybe we've overwatered them, but they otherwise seem to be in much better condition than they did before we started this. Still. If I'd known that they'd blossom into droolers, once they became hydrated enough to spare the moisture...

Cornbread-Roasted (Almost Chicken-Fried?) Tofu

This was the best idea ever. I know I say that a lot, but I really mean it this time. This was the Best. Idea. Ever.

I was roasting a sweet potato, obviously (like people do), and I was like, "Hey, you know what? I could roast more than one thing! This is a pretty big oven!"

So I got out a little baking dish, made a runny paste of canola oil and white flour in the bottom (about 1/5" deep), arranged slices of extra firm tofu in it, sprinkled cornbread and Penzey's Ozark Seasoning (dude) on top, and just threw it on another rack while the sweet potato did its thing. Probably at 425F for an hour.

I took the tofu out when it was as browned an awesome as it is in the photo, and after it had cooled enough to eat, I ate it faster than I could actually photograph it. But there's still enough left in the picture that you should "get the picture."

I could stand to swap out cheese for something that's reminiscent of cheese, at least some of the time, to help slow down my consumption of animal fats a little. Cholesterol, whaaat? (Ugh.) But I still require oily, squishy foods that are high in protein. This one raises the stakes by being quasi-breaded in cornmeal, and by being as oily as a roux that substituted liquid for extra oil. Oh, heaven.