My first Souper cube! And other random tidbits

I tried my frozen soup

I told you I tried freezing a single portion of the gnocchi soup I made, using my new Souper cubes.

I purposely froze only a single serving because it's safer to experiment with a small sample. One never knows when an experiment will go poorly, after all. 😉

Here's my cube of soup:

And here it is after being reheated:

It turned out quite well! The gnocchi were just fine (which makes sense, since they're pretty dense) and the celery, which I'd wondered about, was decent. The celery texture was a slight downgrade from the fresh version, but nothing terribly significant.

Sooo, next time I make this soup, I am 100% going to freeze some portions for future packed lunches, or just an easy solo meal for me at home.

(I used a recipe like this, but subbed hot Italian sausage for the chicken.)

Why freezing makes produce soft

I think I have mentioned something about this quite a while ago, but here's the main reason fruits and veggies suffer texture-wise after freezing/thawing: water expands when it freezes, and when the water inside the produce freezes and expands, it breaks the cell walls.

When the frozen produce thaws, it goes soft because it lacks the structure the cell walls once provided.

You can combat this effect by removing some of the moisture before freezing. Sautéing is one way to do this, and I'm guessing that's why the celery, onion, and carrots in my soup fared pretty well.

Also, produce that is less watery tends to freeze and thaw a little better; for instance, mango handles this much better than watermelon. 😉

I gave away my OTC colonoscopy meds

I still had 23 Dulcolax tabs and a bunch of Gas-X, and I have no use for these post-colonoscopy. Sooo, I listed them on a Facebook group, and luckily two other people on there were having a colonoscopy with the same prep instructions.

I had enough for both people, so my extra meds are being put to good use. 😉

(OTC = Over-the-Counter. It was too long to put in the heading!)

Why I love Snoopy

Yesterday, a couple of people asked what the story is behind my love for Snoopy. Honestly, there's not a whole lot to the story; I just have always thought that he is so very cute!

I also love his little relationship with Woodstock (the second cutest Peanuts character).

My first introduction to the Peanuts was probably the comic strips in the newspaper when I was growing up, and we had some pretty old, yellowed paperback Peanuts books. I also remember getting some Peanuts VHS tapes from the library as a kid and watching them when we were sick.

The newer iterations of Snoopy are my favorite for cuteness, though; the vintage Snoopy shape is less round and thus less adorable.

For whatever reason, Snoopy has become quite popular of late, and you can find Snoopy merchandise of all sorts. For the record, though, I loved Snoopy even before he became so very popular. I am an OG Snoopy fan!

The funny thing about this is that I am not at all a fan of real dogs (I'm so sorry, dog lovers!) Snoopy is my exception. 😉

I do have a question for you guys: when Snoopy is depicted like this, on my hoodie, is that little black marking near his mouth his tongue sticking out? Or is it a bit of his ear on the other side?

These are the important questions of our day, obviously. 😉

Weigh in on my Snoopy question or on any other topic in this post!