The Friday Five from The Women's Colony

1. What is one characteristic you received from your parents that you want to keep, and one you wish you could change? 

I'd want to keep my inquisitive nature (from my dad).  At the same time, I might tone down my need to question absolutely everything, all the time, every time. It gets in the way of seeing the magic moments in life sometimes. 

 

2. If you could have any chef (free of charge) cater a dinner party for you and your friends, who would you choose? What is one thing that would have to be on the menu 

Anthony Bourdain^. I'd like him to make Vietnamese crêpes called banh xeo (happy pancakes). They are gluten-free and look wonderful. I saw him eat them on one of his travel shows, and they were crispy and fresh and I really wanted them right then.They don't seem to be particularly difficult to make, but to require an insanely hot iron skillet to get the crêpes perfectly crispy.

Vietnam

I like Vietnamese food a lot. Everything I've ever had or made has been wonderful. Lots of veggies, lots of herbs, lots of flavor, usually not too spicy if that is a concern. It isn't for me, but it is for some folks. 

3. How do you know when you are in love? 

I have no idea. Seriously. Maybe when you're happier with the person than without them? 

 

I can tell you how you'll know if you aren't in love any more , though: when you simply don't care much one way or the other, you are no longer in love. And yes, I am a little ray of sunshine, aren't I? 

 Vintage Images from the Graphics Fairy ^

4. Favorite crappy, sugar laden cereal? 

I used to love Kellogg's Corn Pops, but they are not gluten free, so I haven't had them in years and don't buy them for the kiddos, This is a true shame, because they're missing out on the joy of having the roofs of their mouths scraped raw by those sweet little corn nuggets. My understanding is that they used to be free of gluten^, but that that changed a few years ago. So I don't buy them. At all. Period.

I'd like to take this moment to explain allergy math to food manufacturers. They look at Celiacs, or people with food allergies, and see them as a percentage or two of the population. What they don't see is that if one person can't eat it, it doesn't get purchased in most homes. So that 1-2% is multiplied by the several other people living there, and suddenly it's a lot more than 1% they're missing out on. If I don't buy your product for 4 people, we're 4% out of 100 consumers.And when I buy more of one entire brand name because the company has made an effort to make things that I can eat, you lose even more of my business.

So come on, Kellogg's. Y'all get on the trolley. Sheesh. 

Many awesome companies are moving toward making their cereals and other products gluten free whenever possible. General Mills has done a fabulous job making Rice Chex & Corn Chex GF. They've introduced lots of other GF products, too^. They introduced several products including a GF Bisquick this summer. Everyone I know who buys GF foods now makes a point to buy as many General Mills products as possible. I can't tell you how nice it is to buy food from the regular grocery store from a recognizable company at a good price. Their response to the GF community has created a lot of brand loyalty. Yay, General Mills.

I buy Rice Chex or Corn Chex almost exclusively now and sometimes fancy it up with a recipe from the Chex website^. I'm not sure I'd go back if I could; the awesomeness that is Chex Muddy Buddies is beyond description. GF, full of chocolate and peanut butter. Oh, my goodness.

Here's the recipe. 

Muddy Buddies ^

Ingredients:
9 cups Chex cereal
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.
2. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.
3. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Use dairy-free chocolate and margarine if dairy is an issue. Obviously, use GF Chex if gluten is an issue. Always read the labels on ingredients. Always. 

Again: Yay, General Mills. Seriously, you guys rock. 


5. If you were guaranteed honest responses to any two questions, whom would you question, and what would you ask them? 

I'd like to ask the same question of two very different people. 

Also, this assumes that I can ask anyone from any time period, right? I'm gonna be seriously disappointed if I have to limit my questions to current denizens of Earth.

Ok, so I'd ask Charles Darwin, "What do you think of your idea now?", because I'd like to know what he thinks of the massive, far-reaching effect his theory has had on the rest of Humanity. I wonder if the continued controversy would surprise him or not?

Charles Darwin

I'd ask Thomas Jefferson the same question,  "What do you think of your idea now?" Because Jefferson was the principle author of the Declaration of Independence and so much change has come to pass in the world as a result of what he did and what he wrote. Would he be sorely disappointed? Surprised? Happy?

  Thomas Jefferson

How would you answer these questions?

This week's quiz is from The Women's Colony^. So many talented women. I encourage you to zip over there and read to your heart's content.

Namaste.

Our weekend and our week ends

We had a lovely, quiet weekend,  staying home nearly the entire time, working on projects around the house. Saturday morning, we planted our flowers for the summer, including a gorgeous Columbine, the state flower of Colorado.

 publicdomainpictures (^)

Every year we've had less and less to purchase and plant, since we try to plant perennials and re-seeding annuals as much as possible. Still, I was surprised that we were able to get by with so little this year - a 9-pack of pink petunias, a pink geranium, the columbine, and 2 portulaca. 

It's been unseasonably hot so far this June, and it may cause me to break down and get a tomato plant. Colorado has odd, unpredictable weather during the day, and tends to have cool nights, which is a bad combination for  tomatoes. Still, hope springs eternal, so I usually end up getting a plant or two, nursing it through the summer, and getting maybe one or two tomatoes total. Sigh. I'll probably never learn. 

Dan spent the weekend doing several things on his "Honey-Do" list. He installed a cat door in the door that leads from the master bath to the hallway. We close our door when we leave the house to keep the dog downstairs, but the kitty tends to manage to trap herself on the wrong side of the door about 50% of the time. This way, as long as the door between our bedroom and the bathroom is open, kitty can come and go as she pleases. 

Dan also fixed the microwave (the turntable had stopped turning); rehung the door on the tool shed with new screws to prevent it from being saggy; and positioned the fans for the summer season. Oh, and he taught the SuperCat to play Tee-ball in advance of her first practice this week. She has a remarkable sense of hand-eye coordination and picked up on batting the ball off the tee right way. Running the bases was a bit harder to explain, but she seemed to be getting it toward the end. 

As for me, I worked on several projects, including de-cluttering the kitchen and organizing some files. I did a bit of writing, and spent about 3 hours doing all of our summer scheduling this afternoon. Everything I can possibly think of is on our shared schedules with reminders, notes, directions, and so on. 

Because the weather has been so cooperative, we ended up grilling on the deck Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I read about a technique for preparing chicken last week at the Amateur Gourmet called "spatchcocking" (^). I ended up trying it tonight and don't think I'll ever grill or bake a chicken any other way ever again. 

Basically, you excise the spine from the chicken with a super-sharp knife, then push the whole thing flat. That's it. If you're up for it, you can remove the breast bones and ribs from the inside, but you don't have to. The flat chicken is more or less the same thickness all over and will grill or bake quickly and evenly, resulting in all of the meat being very moist. 

 spine removed, laid flat. 

the scissors are to snip around the tail bone

 spine, breast & rib bones removed

Dan grilled ours with a bit of spicy-vinegary barbecue sauce. It cooked very fast and evenly, and was as moist as any chicken I've ever had. 

 leg quarter after cooking

S'mores made with GF Graham crackers

  Dennis looking forward to any 

spare chicken parts

We served the chicken with "Gaga beans", baked beans named after my mother-in-law, who puts relish in her beans. Dan makes "Daddy beans", which have mustard, cider vinegar and liquid smoke. "Mommy beans" (mine) are sweetened with brown sugar, and are spiced with chopped onions and diced garlic. They're all different, but are all yummy. 

We have more than half of the chicken left over from dinner, and it'll form the basis for dinner for the next night or two. 

After dinner, Dan hooked a lighted button to the SuperCat's blouse and she ran and careened in the dark on the lawn, flashing like a lightning bug, darting in and out of the shadows. Before we went in, we made S'mores on the still-warm grill, and talked and laughed. A perfect end to a perfect weekend. 

Namaste.
=^..^= 
d

P.S. We ended up staying home all day Sunday, and so we go into Monday morning and the beginning of Week 2 of the June Food Stamp Challenge (^) with the same figures as yesterday, having spent $110.61, which is 31.87% of the total lowest monthly food stamp allowance ($347.00) for a family the size of ours.

So far, so good...

Monday morning will be the end of Week One for the June Food Stamp Challenge (^), but I'm going to go ahead and total up my receipts because I don't plan to spend anything between now (Saturday night) and then. If I do, I'll recalculate.

At Costco, I purchased:
2 boxes of Fiber One Bars, 30 bars per box
1 very large bag of corn tortilla strips, Kirkland (Costco's house brand
1 34 ounce box Kirkland Spiced Pecan cereal
2 large loaves light wheat bread (45 calories per slice)
4 jars Kirkland brand organic peanut butter. No sugar added, just peanuts and a bit of salt. Two 28 ounce jars for $7.69
1 64 ounce (4 pound) jar Kirkland animal crackers (no HFCS & organic)
2 large jars Nutella (chocolate-hazelnut spread)

We still have all of the tortilla strips and the crackers. We have most of the bread, cereal, peanut butter, bars, and Nutella. Our youngest starts playing ball this week, and we'll be packing the crackers as a snack twice a week. Peanut butter goes into sandwiches, sauces, and baking. Tortilla strips go into salads, soups, and chili, and are the base for nachos. Nutella is our little one's favorite. She eats it with peanut butter on sandwiches, and dips apples in it.

The food total at Costco came to $66.51.

At King Soopers (Kroger nearly everywhere else), I purchased:
3.15 pounds of organic cherries
1 gallon of organic milk
2.57 pounds of bananas
4 pounds of organic gala apples
6.78 pounds of chicken (@ .78 cents a pound)
2 pounds of low-carb pasta (for my husband)
2 packages of gluten-free Ivory Teff wraps
2 packages of Haribo Gummi Bears on sale (for our daughter)

The chicken will be tomorrow night's dinner &; will be part of other meals after that. We have several apples left, along with most of the pasta, bananas, apples and wraps. We still have over half of the milk, but the Gummis are gone gone gone :)

The total at King Soopers Kroger was $44.10.

The total for the first week is $110.61, which is 31.87% of the lowest food stamp + WIC benefit estimate of $347.00. That doesn't tell the whole story, though.

First, as noted, we still have most of the food purchased above. For much of the week, we ate food we purchased previously, including corn,  tortillas, fruit, veggies, cheese, milk, bread, cereal,tomatoes, and so on.

Next week we'll be eating foods purchased this week in addition to some things in the pantry/fridge/freezer. Along with tomorrow night's chicken, we're planning chicken and rice, Musubis (Hawaiian sushi), grilled pronghorn kabobs (thanks to my husband the hunter), sandwiches, bagels, oatmeal, etc. Monday will be "left over" day, when we put together meals made up from  whatever is in the fridge. I'll be baking gluten-free bread and probably some cookies next week, in addition to packing meals for our youngest to eat between ball practices. 

Speaking of bread: While I was at Costco, I noted that the 2 loaves of bread purchased for my husband &; daughter came to $4.29. On the baking aisle, I noted that 25 pounds of wheat flour came to around $5.50. Add in yeast (less than $4.00 for 2 pounds), oil, and so on, and it becomes clear that its much less expensive to bake bread than to buy it. Even factoring in a second-hand bread machine, it wouldn't take long for the savings to outstrip the initial cost.

If I thought I would need to rely on food stamps for any length of time,  I would make a point of purchasing flour and yeast in bulk (and/or  starting a sour dough culture), as well as locating a bread machine. I  own/moderate a recycling list in my city, and see bread machines given  away on a regular basis. I see them at the thrift store for under  $10.00 every time I'm there. An investment of under $20.00  (machine, yeast, flour) would yield huge savings. 

Previously, I baked nearly all of the bread eaten in our house, but that fell by the wayside when I stopped eating wheat. At this point, I bake my own bread (gluten-free bread is ridiculously expensive - often more than $5.00 a loaf), but purchase wheat bread for everyone else.

The Little Red Hen and her bread

It clearly makes solid financial sense to go back to baking all/nearly all of our bread, so in the weeks ahead, we'll be doing just that.

Namaste. 
=^..^=