I'm turning an elm that I dug out of my flower bed into a bonsai. When I pulled it up I accidentally stripped a long section of the trunk. It's been in a pot for nearly a year now and that stripped section is scarring over nicely, normally it takes people ages to get something this gnarly looking but I got it by accident.

I've also been cooking with carne de soya. In the US we call it "textured vegetable protein" and either way it's basically crumbled, dried tofu. It's a poor people food in Mexico. When cooked, it's identical in texture to a 50/50 mix of ground beef and pork. It's functionally flavorless on its own but due to the drying process it works as a sponge for anything you put it in. Mix some spices and liquid into a slurry, give it 10 min to marinade, you have the perfect meat for any dish. I do mean any liquid, the other day I made chili, mixed the soya with a spicier blend than I use for the chili itself, some pale ale, and some bacon fat I had saved from breakfast. The chili kept it's usual flavor, but each bite of the soya tasted like spicey pork sausage. Two distinct yet complementary flavors in one pot and the two pounds worth of "meat" only cost 97¢. Doesn't even need to be complicated like that, bag of soya, can of kidney beans, can of sloppy Joe sause, half an onion, salt, pepper, garlic, Worcestershire, all in a crock pot on low. 6 hours later and it's the best sloppy Joe I've ever made. Better than the weeks I spent making my own sause from scratch. I call it Tojos.