#240 Nomad Diary. 24-30 May 2025. Full Week in Penticton, BC at Month-long Housesit with Bailey, Allie and Ollie. My Crab Stuffed Mushroom Recipe.
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| A Deer Resting Inside Our Fence at Our Penticton House Sit Saturday. 24. We stayed in all day. We cooked three nice meals with our protein, fiber and good fat ‘macro ratios’. Darrell is resting from his exhaustion from this eye treatment in Seattle on Wednesday. I feel as though I’m needing rest too. I did laundry and painted a little with my watercolors. Darrell cut the grass and did some weeding. The cats hung out in their usual ways. They act like we’ve always been here. Not all pets treat us so comfortably. They also understand boundaries and respond to no’s and hands to keep them down off the counter when they look like they are getting ready to jump. |
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| Quinn (4 yrs+9 mos old) in Brazil Wearing the T-Shirt We Sent to Him via His Dad |
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| Ollie Getting a Foot Rub |
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| Pork Chops with Mushrooms and Skillet Browned Veggies at Our House Sit House. |
Sunday. 25. Today we had our morning routine. We are two hours earlier than central time and we watched facebook live for our Capshaw church of Christ in Limestone county, Alabama. We enjoyed the Bible class that I’ve been engaged in for the quarter. Darren is teaching Revelation and today was chapter 12. Then there was a worship service with singing, communion and a sermon. We enjoyed the time together. I went for a fairly long walk up the mountain and back. The weather is picture perfect today. A large doe came into our fenced yard and layed down in the small patch of grass. She stayed longer than an hour! Jeremy and Andrea and Quinn called from Brazil. Andrea is working for a local Brazilian chocolate company as a marketer! It’s all in Portuguese! She’s that good at her second language! She makes commissions off of her sales. She made her first couple of sales this week. Darrell and I napped on the patio. I did some more painting and blog editing. The sun is up earlier than 5am and is still up when we go to bed between 9 and 10pm. The daylight hours are crazy long! I’m feeling better this afternoon, but I also know this anxiety can come in waves with low and high tides!
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| View from Our House Sit in Penticton of Okanagan Lake |
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| At Our House Sit with Our Homemade Crab Stuffed Mushrooms and Wedge Salad. |
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| Darrell on the Catio at Our Penticton House Sit. The Cats Front to Back: Allie, Bailey, Ollie. |
Monday. 26. Morning call with my friend Laura for an EPT session trade. After dinner, Darrell is feeling good to go for a walk. We decide to walk up our mountain and we go to a street that is about 5 tiers above ours. The view is spectacular. The houses are quite new and look pricey! We walked back down to our house for about 30 minutes total. We sit outside in the front of our house in the shade. We visit and discuss some of our thoughts about our nomad living and our tempo and our ideas for how we live.
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| Granddaughter Esther in Alabama (1yr + 9mos) |
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| Owen in Alabama on Call (3yr + 8 mos) |
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| Out Walking in Town Next to Okanagan Lake Front. |
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| Garden Next to Okanagan Lake in Penticton |
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| Sculpture at Okanagan Lake, Penticton, B.C. |
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| Out for a Walk Near Our House Sit. Far View of Okanagan Lake |
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| Me and a Tree in Penticton |
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| Beautiful Sunset Seen from Our House Sit |
Thursday. 29. A rainy and cooler morning. I did some housekeeping this morning: vacuuming and dishes- of course. Darrell has been doing the morning cat feeding while I’m in charge of the litter robot. Today we have had discussions about our annual finances and how that’s going well. We’ve also talked about a couple of things that I’d like to do in town: the Maritime museum and an artisan bakery, and another trip or two to the huge thrift store, and the Saturday farmer’s market.
Friday. 30. Harder morning workout today! It felt good to do it! (nomad notes) My mind feels so much better today! Two walks up the hill/mountain we are living on. Second walk was with Darrell. Cooked pork tenderloin for our breakfast meat. I spent hours typing up my crab stuffed mushroom recipe! Eric requested it and I made it for him.
Nomad Notes. My friend Laura and I studied and have been working through this ept profession as colleagues for years. More than a profession, we walk together as friends with faith in God and in God’s written word and working in and through us. EPT is unusual because it’s considered a profession, but it works with the mind, memories and thinking across a lifetime. This is where the term or experience of a profession doesn’t always fit well for me. For me and others: EPT has a profound effect and ability to analyze and to change feelings. It helps with growth. It helps with awareness inside self to identify disconnections and to reconnect the inner mind’s awareness. Once the connection is made through coordinated client and practitioner work, then the client/person begins growing with this connection that is now possible to flourish in new ways. It’s a useful tool to bring awareness and light to thinking. It is an amazing growth tool. It can address issues of forgiveness, boundaries, past learning versus new learning, self-love versus love for others, action, depression, conflicts with responsibility, perpetual negativity, bad habits, good habits, etc. All of these and more can cause problems in faith, growing and self-awareness to God’s recorded truths and eternal evidence. Now Laura and I are both retired. We also have other family ties and friendships that have made us lifetime friends. Laura always has pets and moved from Kansas to Tennessee near her siblings who have all settled closer to each other for their retirement years. When Darrell and I go to Alabama, Laura and I each drive to meet up for lunch one or two times.
I’m curious about what has caused or triggered my current days of anxiety. I am thinking that it could be my use of methylene blue since last fall, and the fact that a couple weeks or more ago, I ran out of my supply. I just got my new bottle and began taking it on Saturday.
Exercising regularly for 13 years did not start easy or feeling good. It’s still challenging, but it feels like a good challenge now. In the beginning, it was hard for me to smile and agree that I liked this. It has been so wonderful to do morning workouts with Darrell through the years. We are not equals in the process of pushing personal fitness levels, but having this long held agreement has turned better and better for me and for us. Darrell encourages me and I encourage him. Sometimes the encouragement is seeing him accomplish a move he couldn’t do but now he can! When I see that, I am encouraged to keep trying myself. One of the moves I only began to do last year. He’s been doing it for years ahead of me. I’m so happy that I can do it now! I also have enough experience to know that it’s okay if I lose some of my ability because of an injury or whatever. I can start where I am and work on building from where I am. I have regained strength and balance more than once through my years of doing DDP each morning. It’s such a wonderful habit now that it feels great to me. I tell myself how good this feels and I keep on going.
My EPT session was on Monday. By Friday my mind, my conversational ability and my memory is greatly improved!
This week I went through my clothes and made a stack of items to donate. It’s basically like cleaning my very small closet! Lol.
Sherry’s Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
I have combined recipes for successful, non-soggy mushrooms.
This recipe is easy to make, but also has a lot of details. I’ve shared what I’ve learned so far, so that you get a great result!
Good to know before you begin:
*This recipe is baked and served warm from a hot oven. Left-overs aren’t as good, so most foodies say.
*I made my crab-cheese filling a couple days ahead and stored it, covered in the refrigerator until time to bake.
*The first time I made it, I cut the recipe in ½ and baked it the same day using 6 large mushroom caps. It was ½ our dinner as it was so filling! Now that we’ve eaten these 3x, we’ve had our fill to the max! I would totally make little mushrooms for a party appetizer!
*I’m pretty sure you have to use solid block cream cheese either full or low fat. Don’t use the fluffy whipped stuff.
*This recipe is like making a crab cheese ball and then adding it to raw mushroom caps, baking it until it’s melty and browned and serving it while it is still warm, fresh from the oven.
*Like any cheese ball, make it your own. While you are mixing in ingredients, taste it and see if it’s what you like. Add what you like. There are a gazillion ways to vary your crab cheese filling!, hot sauce, spicier, cheesier, more crab, smoked cheese, hot peppers, add a touch of butter, etc.
*You can eat the crab cheese ball cold. It’s a cheese ball.
*My first try, I used canned crab, the cheapest I could find that looks like little shreds. My second try, I used canned crab and imitation crab (refrigerated). Next time I make this I will use up my remaining imitation crab only. (I’ve never bought fresh lump crab meat or pursued learning about it.)
*This baking method worked great for me: I had a baking sheet with edges. I generously covered my baking sheet up the edges with parchment paper, making creases in the paper at the edges and corners of the pan, to catch the mushroom water and make cleaning up easy; On top of the parchment paper I put a wire rack (like a cooling rack) to set the mushrooms on while baking.
*Preheat your oven to 400 F while you get your mushrooms ready to go into the oven.
*Only prepare what you think you will eat. You are on your own with left-overs! Lol.
*I used the large brown ones as they were available. The caps measure about 1 inch deep and about 2 inches in diameter. I made 6 at a time, storing the filling in the fridge for another day.
*I used a cookie scooper tool to dip out the crab cheese filling and lightly pushed it onto each mushroom. I used the back of the cookie scoop tool to slightly indent the top of each cheese scoop. This tool probably only works for the large mushrooms. I think for smaller mushrooms, make a scoop and then slice it in half to fit a smaller mushroom.
*I topped each scoop of crab filling with a little shredded parmesan and pushed it down a little to stick.
*I checked my baking mushrooms after 20 minutes. They were browned some. I’m glad that I decided to put them back into the oven for another 5 minutes. They got browned more and that’s really good! A little more brown is really great!
*The mushrooms will be too hot just out of the oven, but that left me time to finish other dinner items and plate them up. They were warm and enjoyable even 5 to10 to 15 minutes out of the oven.
(some copied instructions from downshiftology food blog)
*Mushrooms naturally get a little wet and soggy when cooking. If you’d like to avoid extra liquid as much as possible you can place the mushrooms on a wire rack on top of the baking sheet. That way any of the mushroom juices will drain away from the mushrooms.*
*Discard the stems or save for a future recipe. (note about saving mushroom stems: refrigerate and use within a few days or freeze them after slicing or chopping)*
Sherry’s Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
12 large or 20-24 smaller Cremini Mushrooms
Note: This is enough crab cheese filling for 12 large cremini mushrooms. Or 20-24 smaller sized mushrooms- cremini or baby bell.
1. Begin by softening your cream cheese. Either at room temp or slightly and gently in the microwave (1-2 seconds- still firm and cool, yet soft enough to stir).
Make the filling. (Use it now, or store it covered in the fridge until ready to assemble and bake.)
In a large bowl, add ingredients in 3 phases, mixing together after each phase. I mixed by hand. You could choose to use a mixer.
Phase 1 mix together:
4 ounces regular or low fat block cream cheese, softened at room temperature
3 tablespoons Low Fat or regular sour cream
1-2 clove garlic, minced
½ teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
½ teaspoon worcestershire sauce
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Phase 2, add into large bowl and mix together:
⅓ cup shredded cheddar
⅓ cup shredded mozzarella
¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, (reserve 2 tablespoons to put on top of crab filling before baking.)
2-4 tablespoons finely diced green onion
Phase 3, add crab into large mixing bowl and mix all together
1 small can of crab, drained well (about 90 grams/<3 ounces meat)
About 90 grams/<3 ounces of imitation crab cut into bite-sized pieces.
2. Preheat the oven to 400°F . Get your Baking sheet ready with parchment paper covering it up the edges of the pan (crease and fold the sides and corners of the paper just enough to keep the liquid contained). Put a wire rack on top of the parchment paper.
3. Prep mushrooms with dry brushing (no water if possible): Brush away dirt using a soft pastry or dedicated paint brush for this task; Remove the stems from the mushrooms.
4. Put mushrooms on your baking rack, cap-side down. Sprinkle lightly with salt.
5. Fill your mushrooms. I used a cookie dough scoop to get a dense ball of the crab cheese filling. Next I lightly pushed the filling out of the scooper and into the center of each mushroom. I went back over the filling balls with the back of my scooper and made a slight indent to hold a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.
6. Put your stuffed mushrooms into the preheated oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Set your timer for 20 minutes. Check your mushrooms to see if they are golden brown across the middle of the filling. If they are only ½ -¾ browned, return to the oven and add 5 minutes to your timer. They are best fully browned. Let cool for 2-5 minutes at least before digging in! lol.
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