Friday Night Photos #121

There are weeks where I only take one or two pictures and then there are weeks where I take what seems like six week's worth in a seven-day period. Today, I happen to have a lot of pictures! So I'll get right to it...

Joey sheds REALLY badly about twice a year, and this is one of those times. This was after using the FURminator brush. The pile of fur is almost as big as he is!

This is just when I was working on the puzzle in the garage. I have a lot more of it done now. I really like going out there and putting the puzzle together, so I may do another when this one is done. 

These next two pictures were taken on two separate occasions--Chick LOVES Joey and he does his best to hang out with Joey all the time. Chick likes to cuddle with him and lick his face. It's so sweet!

When I got back from my most recent run, I found this on the front stoop waiting for me. I miss this! Jerry used to do it all the time when I was running regularly, particularly in the summer.

I was putting away laundry in my bedroom when I glanced up and happened to see this deer directly across the street on the dike. We see a lot of wildlife, and it's not a first to see a deer in front of the house, but it's very rare!

On Mondays, Jerry has started playing softball (he's SO excited). His team needed one more player on Monday, so Jerry asked Eli. I was surprised Eli wanted to, because he didn't know anyone, but he agreed. He had NEVER thrown or hit a softball in his life, hahaha. He's a fantastic baseball player, but I was a little worried about how he'd feel playing softball. Thankfully, the guys Jerry plays with are super fun and aren't the slightest bit competitive.

Jerry wanted Eli to practice hitting for a few minutes before the game, so Jerry pitched to him (it's slow-pitch softball). Eli missed the first 10 or so pitches! I explained to him that softball is different--you have to time the arch in the pitch and he's not used to that. Once he hit it a couple of times, though, he didn't miss any of them. He'd gotten the hang of it, thankfully!

Eli did great at the game and the guys wanted to make him a regular player--so they ordered him a shirt and now he'll be playing on Mondays, too!

Some of the guys Jerry works with (not the "cool" ones) argue with him that mental illness doesn't exist. They tell him that if you feel depressed, you just have to "be happy". He knows how passionate I am about mental health, and he's told them I'm bipolar, but they just don't really believe it's a thing. So, I wore my Bipolar AF shirt--which I guess would be passive-aggressive, haha. It just really bothers when people say that mental illness doesn't exist. 

I'm still on a sewing kick. I just made a pair of bell bottoms with several denim patches and I LOVE how they turned out! I like the color of the jeans, especially with the contrast of the gussets (there is a gusset in the front and in the back to make the "bell" bigger at the bottom. I think I like them with the gusset in the front of the leg more than when I've done it in the side.

My patchy jeans--hand sewing the patches is perfect to do before bed while watching mindless TV.

I didn't buy this, but it caught my eye at Goodwill--I couldn't figure out what the pattern on the shirt was. It was a handmade shirt (made really well, actually). Once I took the close-up photo, I finally could see that they are cyclists! I think so, anyway.

We're celebrating Noah's graduation tomorrow at my parents' house and I planned to put together a picture board or two. I had no idea how many pictures I would need, so I started going through photos of Noah on my computer and favoriting several per calendar year since he was born 18 years ago. Those several added up to MANY more than I thought--305 to be exact.

Since the photos have to be 4x6 size to avoid getting cropped when printing, I had to go through and manually crop them down to a 4x6 ratio. The only problem was that I couldn't crop a lot of "extra" space out when editing on the computer (it would mess up the ratio). So, I ordered all the 4x6 pictures after digitally cropping them--I figured that once I got them, I could crop out the useless edges with scissors. Then the pictures would be much smaller and I'd be able to fit more than I thought on the poster board. (Obviously I wouldn't be able to fit anywhere near 305, but I'd rather have too many than too few to work with.) This is what 305 photos looks like:

I narrowed them down, cropped the "for sures", then started narrowing THOSE down. I asked Noah to go through them and take out any he didn't want and to add any from my "reject" pile. Then, I Tetris'ed the pictures the best I could in order to fit the most "yes" pictures on each board. I don't know how many I wound up with, but you can see there are quite a few. 

Jerry and I played a couple of new games recently. I absolutely love this one called Decipher (I found it at a garage sale). For anyone that enjoys the Wordle, you will probably like this game. (It's old, though--released in 1972!) It's kind of like a combination of Wordle and Battleship... which sounds weird, but you have to guess the other persons word by process of elimination while they are trying to guess yours. I wanted to link to the game on Amazon, but it's not there--bummer. I don't know where you can you buy it now.

This is Jerry making fun of me when I try to get a picture of our game. I lean back in my seat as far as I can, and push my head back as far as possible to try to get more in the picture. And apparently, my face looks like this, haha. We were playing a card version of Life, here. (It was okay, but not as fun as Decipher.)

And finally, here is one more sewing project. I liked the shirt on the left, but wasn't crazy about the bottom--I like shirts that have some sort of elastic or band on the bottom. As for the hoodie, I loved the fabric but I didn't like that it said ALOHA on the front. Sooooo...

I decided to combine the two! I removed the hood and the bottom band from the hoodie, and then sewed them onto the other shirt. I really love "new" shirt and it fits great!

Okay, and that's all I've got. Have a great weekend! xo

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Three Things Thursday: Attraction

I have a million topics in my head for Three Things Thursdays, but when it comes time to write them, I just can't think of the three things to write about each topic. Today, I asked Jerry and he said I should do "3 Things I Hate About You"--meaning "you" as in people in general (not a hateful post, but in a fun way). I feel like I've written too many negative things lately, so I decided to do Three Things That Attract Me To You.

By "attract", I don't mean romantically (or even physically). I just mean in general--strangers or friends--people that have attractive qualities. So here goes... three things that attract me to you...

1) Good listeners.

This is HUGE for me. If I was to write a list of the best attributes people can have, being a good listener is at the top of the list. It's such a general term, though... what makes someone a "good listener"? These are my thoughts:

*They don't get a far-away look in their eyes when they are "listening"--you can tell that they are actually absorbed in what you are saying.

*They aren't thinking about what they are going to say next rather than listening to what you are speaking at the moment. (This reminds me of a sign I saw recently and I liked it so much that I wrote it down:

"Don't listen to reply. Listen to understand."

*They aren't distracted by their phones. This is probably my biggest pet peeve--I think it's so rude to be on your phone when in the company of others! It's rare for me, but I've been guilty of it before--just last weekend, I was at a get-together and Jeanie called me and was really desperate for some help formatting a PDF to send to her realtor--she and Shawn just sold their house to move up north--and I would have felt terrible making her wait until the next day (which is when it had to be emailed by). So, I spent some time working on that. I did feel very rude, though, and I normally wouldn't have done that.

*They don't turn everything into a story about themselves when you are trying to say something.

*They make you feel like what you have to say is important (whether they think it is or not).

*They don't interrupt or talk over you.

There are probably more I could list, but these ones are important to me. My love language is "quality time"--this includes feeling heard and listened to and like what I have to say is important. I'm a quiet person in general, and I really don't like it when I finally start to say something and get interrupted.

Truly good listeners are few and far between. The first person that comes to mind for me is Becky (Luke and Riley's mom). She has all of the qualities I've listed above, and she has this way of making you feel like you are the most important person in a room full of 100 people. Since meeting Becky and observing her listening skills, it made me want to be a better listener--so I've been consciously working on it continuously.

I had no idea what picture to use here, so this is just a pic of Becky and me

2. People who perform random acts of kindness to strangers and *don't* share about it on social media.

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I'll witness a very sweet interaction strangers--maybe it's as simple as buying a coffee for the person in the drive thru lane behind them, or writing and hiding anonymous KIND notes for people to find, or cutting your neighbor's grass when they have a busy week. I absolutely love people who have compassion for others, even strangers (and especially animals!), and they help others by second nature--they don't have to think about it and they certainly don't have to tell people on social media.

(I really can't stand it when people take videos of themselves giving money to homeless people or paying for someone's entire cart full of groceries or something like that, and then posting it to social media. Sure, maybe it's a "feel good" thing to do, but that kind of defeats the purpose. I think it's exploiting the people who didn't ask for that.)

Anyway, doing something kind for someone else (a stranger or a friend) can cost absolutely nothing and there is something so *good* about people who choose to do something nice without worrying about what they will get in return.

3. People who are kind and good to public service workers.

I'm talking about restaurant staff, hairdressers, customer service in stores, cashiers, and jobs like that. Noah has a job at Lowe's and he spends most of his shift loading heavy bags of mulch into people's cars/trucks. You would be amazed at the number of people who get mad at him for taking too long or who yell at him for not having the kind/color they want, etc. It's ridiculous! He's working an entry-level job that is full of sweat and heavy lifting--be nice! Be patient! (Loading mulch isn't even technically his job--it's a courtesy for those who need help.)

One thing I will never understand is how people can be so mean--especially to strangers. And especially to strangers who are just doing their jobs! When I see people being exceptionally nice to service workers, it warms my heart. I've worked as a server (in several different restaurants), a hostess, a pharmacy technician, a cashier, a bagger/cart collector, a video store clerk, and probably a couple of other service jobs. Having experienced how terrible people can be, I take extra care to be kind and respectful to service workers. I have a ton of respect for them--the patience you have to have to deal with rude customers is mind-blowing.

Back to the point of this, when I see someone treating service workers with extra respect and kindness, I think it speaks volumes about that person.

Eli at his restaurant job, clearly screwing around ;)

There you have it--three things that I find attractive in people. There are some personality traits that speak a LOT about someone's whole personality (such as the one I listed above). Of course, this isn't always true, but it has been in my experience.

If any of these three things applies to you--thank you! Whether it's with words, money, or time, you're doing a great service and possibly making a big difference in someone's life!

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Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 108

I'm going to (try to) keep this on the short side. I'm working on some things for a small party we're having for Noah's graduation. We had given him a choice whether he wants to have a graduation party or money to travel after school. Noah was thrilled and chose the money, because he really didn't want to have a graduation party.

My mom is traditional and she wasn't happy that Noah wasn't going to have a party, so she said she would do one at her house. Noah requested that it be JUST family. So, we're just going to have a small brunch at my parents' house on Saturday. I've been going through pictures to try to narrow down almost 19 years' worth of photos of Noah. I have about 50,000 on my computer, so there is a LOT to go through. I'm editing them now, which will likely take the rest of the night. I just want to make a poster board of photos from throughout the years.

Anyway, on to a quick weigh-in...

I was at 142.6, which is down from 143.4 last week. My body has been hanging out roughly at this weight for a while now! I know that it's not my ideal weight because I haven't been eating ideally. (And I don't feel my best at this weight.) A couple of months ago, I was only a few pounds away from the top of my "happy" weight range. Now I'm at 7.6 pounds away. That's still not a LOT, but I should have gotten there for sure by now.

I'd really like to start working on my emotional eating. Every time I've seen a therapist, the reason I usually decide to go is because I want to figure out WHY I'm eating when I'm not hungry. Or why I just feel the need to self-medicate when I'm stressed or depressed. I didn't have a traumatic childhood that I can remember, so I'll need to really dig deep to try to figure the issue out, if there is one. 

Anyway, I think I did pretty good this week! My diet wasn't terrible. I ran twice since last week. I was hoping to run yesterday but something weird happened to my feet after my last run. I felt 100% fine during the run--no problems at all--but a couple of hours later, the heels and outer sides of my feet started hurting SO BADLY that I could barely walk.

The first thing that I thought of was that maybe I need new running shoes. When my shoes get old, the sides of my feet start to ache. When I checked the miles on my shoes, though, I've only run 150 on them. I usually get 350-400 miles out of my shoes.

My feet gradually started feeling better, and today they feel about 90% back to normal. I really hope it was just a freak thing that happened, because I've finally getting back into running (and I'm excited about it) so I'll be super bummed if this is some sort of injury. I'm thinking it's not an injury, because it's bilateral; I'm just not sure what could have caused it because I don't think I did anything differently. 

(After writing that, it just made me realize that I was also working on the 2,000-piece puzzle on the day I went for a run. It's on a high-top table, so I stand on my toes a lot. My calves were killing me for a couple of days after I first worked on the puzzle! But anyway, maybe that's what caused the problem with my feet.)

I'm going to try to go for a run tomorrow, and hope for the best as far as my feet go. For next week, I'd like to work on not snacking after dinner--at all. A "small snack" always turns into a large snack. In the fall, when I had to eat dinner so late because of cross country, I had no problem going to bed without a snack because I was full from a late dinner.

Overall, I had a good week and I'm hoping for the same next week!

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Deep Thoughts With Jerry #19

I just got done prepping dinner (chopping veggies, measuring spices, etc.) because Jerry is going to make his Beans & Greens (my very favorite comfort food). While I was prepping, he was writing this post; and now I'm putting the post together while he cooks dinner. I'm excited to eat it! (I also find it so random that Beans & Greens are one of my favorite foods; I'd never even tried the dish until last year.)

Anyway, here is Jerry with his "deep thoughts" for the week...

One of Katie's readers sent her a link to some new ice breaker questions for me so I figured I would give it a shot. Here we go:

According to you, what is the most mind-numbingly dull movie ever made?

Look, I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, maybe, but you have to hear me out first. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was dull AF. And it's not because the story was bad; the story was fantastic. The acting is great. The visual effects are top notch.

The runtime of 9 hours and 17 minutes combining the 3 movies consisted of 8 hours and 50 minutes of the characters walking around. Each one of these movies could've been knocked down to 2 hours and it still would've went on for far too long. Being the dork that I am, I would still sit through these movies to catch the great story part of them all. And, I love the Amazon series if that helps me keep my nerd card. Very story driven and keeps me completely engaged. 

Would you rather sit through a Star Wars marathon, a Lord of the Rings marathon, or a Harry Potter marathon?

Given the previous statement concerning LotR, I have sat through and watched them all. Just the first three though, not The Hobbit. It is well documented that I have sat through two Star Wars marathons--one with Noah when The Force Awakens came out and another with Noah and Eli in Chicago when Rise of Skywalker came out.

That last one was awesome to do with the boys and we were in the theater for over 22 hours. I've seen the Harry Potter series; I just broke it up through a couple days. With all that being said, I would do the Star Wars marathon again in a heartbeat. Star Wars just holds a special place in my heart.

How would you spend $50,000?

This could either be a really selfish answer or a very practical one. Selfish answer first, I would buy a truck for myself. I've always wanted a really nice truck. Everyone is driving them now, just not me. I'm patiently waiting, it'll happen one day, just not now. Katie has always said that as soon as the house is paid off, she wants me to go out and buy any truck that I want. If all goes according to plan, that should be in less than two years.

Now, for the practical answer... I would pay off car loan and house. After that, whatever is left would go to home improvements such as new siding and windows. Boring, I know. But, I truly love the idea of not being under the weight of some debt and the freedom it brings could be a huge game changer for everyone in the house. 

Do you believe in ghosts?

Absolutely, to a certain extent. I have a story. When I was a kid living in California, maybe 6 or 7 years old, I woke up in the middle of night and saw a face and torso floating at the top of my doorway. I hid under my covers and peeked my head out to see if it was still there and it was. After a couple times of doing this I fell asleep.

When I woke in the morning there were gum balls all over the hallway floor from the gum ball machine my dad had on the top of a cabinet. I explained the experience to my parents and I don't remember their reaction. It wasn't until years later when we moved that I saw the face again. This time it was at my gram's house. It was on a picture that was hanging on her wall and it was of my uncle Joe. I had never met my uncle Joe; he died before I was born.

I've heard my dad talk about stories from his childhood, a lot involving my uncle Joe. But I had never seen his face. Ever. No pics, nothing. I'm not sure if my dad believes me to this day, but I saw what I saw. Some 35 years later I can still recollect the experience like it was yesterday.

What TV reality show is your guilty pleasure?

Katie and I love watching the relationship shows. Usually our commentary on the shows consists of talking about the unnecessary drama the people start, and laughing at just how ridiculous people can be. It also makes me happy to know that I don't have to be part of the dating scene, I've already caught my trophy wife. If I ever had to go back out and date I don't think I could. Our latest show was "90 Day Fiancé". We just finished up the first season and now it's on to the second. There are so many seasons of the show, we figured it had to be good, right?

What is your favorite Happy Hour drink?

I think I've only been part of a Happy Hour once, and it was when I went to run the Indy 500 Half Marathon. The hotel we were staying at had Happy Hour the day we arrived and while everyone else was getting mixed drinks I stuck with my beer. I'm not too keen on the mixed liquor drinks because they can be too good, and can quickly lead to a bad night and a horrible hangover. 

What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic?

I need people. I need interactions with real, flesh and blood people. Not a text, not an email. Has to be in person, even to hear their voice. There comes a point when you're just answering an email or a text and you're kind of forgetting the face of the person you're responding to. Everything just becomes so impersonal.

After the pandemic, getting together with friends has been few and far between. We have a group chat where we just stay connected but we can go days or even weeks between hearing from each other. In the fall, I had to call each one of them individually to deliver some pretty shocking news, something you couldn't just say via text. Hearing their voices was such a relief and made the news a little easier to deliver and it reignited our friendship. That's when I knew that I needed people. 

Do you think technology improves our lives or destroys them? 

Kind of a broad question. It really depends on what you're talking about. Social media is the absolute worst thing to ever be invented. It has transformed into this fear mongering, hate spreading beast where you can say anything you want to people without ever seeing their face. It's brought out the worst of humanity, it's completely changed our way of life for the absolute worst. It's toxic and I despise it. The world was a better place before it and now we can't put that genie back in the bottle. (Can you tell I'm kind of passionate about that opinion?)

MP3s... just off hand, completely changed my life for the better. Long gone are the days of flipping though my books of some 1,000 discs looking for the artist I want to listen to. Just pull it up on my phone and I'm on my way. It's so convenient. If you would've told me 30 years ago that in the future I could pay $15 a month and have access to any song I want at any time on this little device that also serves as the ultimate connection to the world, I would've thought you were crazy. We had just gotten into compact discs and that seemed so futuristic when it came out. Now, that shit's in museums all over the country, along with the rest of my childhood. LOL

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RECIPE METHOD: Shredded Seitan

Seitan (pronounced SAY-tan) is one of those "weird vegan foods" that I swore I'd never cook. I had absolutely no clue what it was until I attempted to make it for the first time. I learned that making seitan is more of an ART than anything else--getting the texture and the taste right is a lot more difficult than I thought.

First, if you don't know what seitan is, I'll explain in a very tiny nutshell: Seitan is a vegan meat alternative that is made out of vital wheat gluten. Vital wheat gluten is what is left when you remove *everything* but the gluten from wheat flour. Gluten holds things like dough together and makes things stretchy (think pizza dough). This is what vital wheat gluten looks like:

It looks like flour, basically, but it's "springy"--which sounds odd until you see it for yourself. Anyway...

All seitan has one common ingredient: vital wheat gluten. But there are a million recipes out there for different flavors and textures of seitan. You can make it taste like pretty much whatever you'd like, based on what seasonings you use. Depending on what you add to it, you can get all sorts of different textures. Usually, the recipes involve adding some sort of protein (like tofu or beans), lots of seasonings, and vital wheat gluten. The only other thing you need is a blender or food processor.

I tried what felt like ten billion recipes for seitan and something was always off. Each time, though, I learned something else I might be able to tweak for next time. When I mentioned this several weeks ago on my blog, someone asked for the recipe--and naturally, I forgot to share! However, I made some seitan today, so I took pictures for the post.

This recipe for seitan is meant to replace shredded chicken. I tried so hard with other recipes to get the shredded texture and it just wasn't happening. This recipe is where it finally came together for me. Then I tweaked it to my preferences in taste and method. This recipe isn't from one source, although the basis of it comes from this video on YouTube by Green Beets Kitchen. That is how I made it before I started tweaking things.

Below is the recipe as I make it... including my changes. This is how Jerry and I like it best!

(Here is a PDF copy if you'd like to print it!)

First, the ingredients:

480 mL water

2 Tbsp. miso paste

1 tsp. salt (or ¾ tsp. salt + ¼ tsp. msg)

2 servings vegan “chicken” bouillon powder (2 cubes, 2 tsp. paste, etc. I use 2 Tbsp. of this homemade vegan powder)

2 tsp. garlic powder

1 Tbsp. onion powder

½ tsp. white pepper

20 g. nutritional yeast

1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

1 Tbsp. neutral flavored oil

70 g. pea protein isolate powder

230 g. vital wheat gluten

Notes about ingredients:

Since seitan can be finicky, the difficult-to measure-ingredients are listed by weight--which makes it much more consistent. (I love when recipes list ingredients by weight!)

About the msg (monosodium glutamate)... I know it's a super "frowned upon" ingredient, so it's definitely not necessary here. However, after reading quite a bit about it a while ago, I decided to give it a try in this recipe. The point is, though, it's optional.

The vegan "chicken" bouillon... this can be vegan bouillon cubes or paste or powder. For this recipe, you just want two servings of it. I use 2 Tbsp. of this homemade bouillon powder by Plant Power Couple. (I use that powder for everything, by the way! I don't put the turmeric in it, though, just because of the color--it makes the seitan very yellow, which is off-putting.)

Pea protein isolate is literally just pea protein powder--I bought a big bag of it on Amazon and it was pretty cheap (especially considering we make this seitan all the time). The same with the vital wheat gluten--I buy big bags on Amazon (I use Anthony's brand for both of them, as well as nutritional yeast and several other products).

A note about appliances:

Most recipes call for use of a food processor to make seitan. I got rid of my food processor when I got the Ninja "all-in-one"-type system. I use the Ninja--I use the metal blade for the first part of the recipe and then the dough blade to finish it.

However, you can use whatever you have, as long as the motor is strong enough to hold up to the dough. I even used my KitchenAid stand mixer to knead the dough before! (It takes much longer, but I'll write about that later.) For this post, I'll refer to the appliance as a blender, since that's what I'm using.

Okay, on to the method of how I make the "perfect" shredded seitan...

First, just add all of the ingredients *except for* the pea protein and the wheat gluten to the blender:

1) Before blending; 2) after 30 seconds I scraped down the sides; 3) after another 30 seconds.

Then, you add the pea protein (don't add the gluten yet). This is what it will look like after blending with the pea protein:

Finally, add the vital wheat gluten to the blender:

(I switched out to the dough blade at this point. If you want to use a heavy duty stand mixer, you'll want to put it all in there now. If you're using a food processor, just make sure you don't overheat your machine. That goes for all appliances, really.)

Now comes the monotonous part. Blend on high with the gluten for 60 seconds. It will look like this:

60 seconds of blend time.

Let it rest for 5-10 minutes; this gives your motor a chance to calm down and it gives the gluten some time to activate (and become "stretchy"). After the rest, blend again--for 45 seconds. It will look like this:

1:45 minutes of blend time.

Rest the dough again, 5-10 minutes. Then blend on high again for 45 seconds. It should look similar to this:

See on the bottom right, how it's starting to look stretchy? 2:30 minutes of blend time.

Keep repeating this process--45 seconds on high, 5-10 minutes rest...

3:15 minutes of blend time

4:00 minutes of blend time

4:45 minutes of blend time

That last picture, the one that was 4:45 minutes of blend time, is what the texture should look like when it's ready to move to the next step. It will be very sticky and stringy. It'll feel like soft taffy, and you'll see individual striations/fibers when you stretch it.

(Note: Be careful not to let the blender get too hot--it will start to steam the seitan, and you don't want that! Just be patient and let it rest as often as needed.)

In this picture, you can see the comparison between just 45 seconds of blend time. If you stop too early, and it doesn't look like the ball on the left, then the texture won't be shreddable. You want it to look like the ball on the left:

Once the dough is ready, divide it into two portions:

Working with just one ball at a time, form it into a long rope (the longer the better; don't let it break, though!).

Once you have a long rope, grab a small bowl and add some water to it. Using your fingers, just barely glaze the rope with water to make it slippery (don't douse it with water, but you don't want it to be sticky for this next part).

Next, starting in the middle of the rope, tie a knot (the same kind of knot you would use to tie your shoe--very simple):

After that, tie another knot, directly on top of it, as close as possible:

Continue tying knots, dipping your fingers in the water as needed, until you reach the ends. Tuck the ends into a crease. You'll have a very odd-shaped ball:

Give it a gentle press together on all sides. Then lay it on a piece of parchment paper:

Tightly roll the ball in the parchment paper, then roll up the ends to seal:

Once it's wrapped in parchment, set it on a long piece of aluminum foil. Beginning at one end, roll it up just like you did with the parchment paper. Wrap as tightly as you can, but be very careful not to let the foil rip on the folds of the parchment:

Once you wrap both loaves, place them in a steamer basket. Cover and steam gently (a very gentle simmer) for one hour and forty five minutes. 

Carefully remove them from the steamer basket using tongs and place them on the counter to cool:

Allow them to cool at least one hour. Open while still warm for an easier time shredding (or you could place them in the fridge overnight before opening). This is what it will look like when you open it:

Kind of like a loaf of deli meat. To shred it is kind of fun! Just hold each end and twist in opposite directions. The loaf will start to pull apart at the "seams" (where the knots met):

As you "unfold" the rope, you can pull off the skin. (It tastes fine in my opinion, but it's not as shreddable.)

Once you have the skin removed, you can pull the seitan apart into smaller shreds:

Isn't it crazy how much it looks like meat?! And it was made from flour, basically.

What do you do with it? You can use it anywhere that you would normally use shredded chicken or pork. My family really likes it with barbecue sauce for a super fast meal (when we have the seitan already shredded in the fridge). It reminds me of pulled chicken (but I don't get grossed out, wondering what I might bite into, hahaha).

Anyway, THAT is how Jerry and I really like our seitan. We continue to try new recipes, but this one is our go-to. The biggest key to remember is: The texture MUST look like shiny, stringy taffy before dividing into ropes in order to get the shreddable texture.

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