Dealing with food waste; when life throws you carrots, make carrot-raisin salad and carrot-cake.

This month has been designated by the Crunchy Chicken the month of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Notice the badge on the sidebar?

I always have the best intentions of incorporating more fresh fruits and vegetables into our diet, buy them on sale, and then ... mostly what happens is that Em cooks supper several days in a row and I forget all about the food I'd bought that's been sitting in the refrigerator for ... well, for example, No. 2 flew down to attend No. 1's wedding shower in April of 2009 (last Spring) and I bought some spinach/artichoke dip for her to eat while here. She's a vegetarian and I wanted to be sure to have something besides peanut butter/jelly sandwiches in case she got hungry ... except she preferred peanut butter/jelly sandwiches to that dip and we just got around to eating it this week. No kidding.

I found a ball of homemade pizza dough on the freezer door and a container of that hot pork sausage that Em likes on his pizza. I didn't have any bell peppers or onions, though, and I like my pizza to have SOME vegetables. We had a 2-lb bag of carrots that I think I was gonna use for the baby shower last month, but Dave's mom made so many food dishes that whatever carrot dish I was gonna make got changed into something else that filled the few gaps left ... so I asked Em if he'd like carrots on his pizza. His face contorted into what I took to be a "NO!", so I thought, "Well, that dip has spinach and artichokes in it at least" and spread it onto the pizza dough. Worst thing that could happen was food poisoning, right?



Em had made spaghetti (with no veggies) the night before, and there was some sauce with ground beef left, so I put that on next.



Rest was pretty standard fresh ingredients and the pizza was quite good although it stuck to the pan a bit (which had more to do with not enough oil on the pan than old ingredients).


We both woke up the next morning feeling fine, so NO food poisoning! Makes me wonder if that dip was actually a food or more like a twinkie.

So, Diane was blogging about making a carrot cake and I thought, "I wonder if they use any carrots?" and it turned out they did and Em likes carrot cake (oh happy day), so I looked around for some recipes that didn't involve 12 cups of sugar, and found some capable of being tweaked to lesser amounts without losing the taste or using artificial sweeteners. I had a plan for the carrots.

The next day, Em said, "So, you want to get rid of those carrots?" Thinking he'd found a new public dumpster, I said, "I want to USE the carrots." He said that his very favorite salad is carrot-raisin if I could find a recipe for that on the web. With Google as my friend, I was able to make


and



from



and Em liked BOTH very much.

Tomorrow I see what I can do with apples and cantaloupe on their last legs.

Christmas Morning 2009 - RECORD snow storm hit North Texas.

THREE (3) inches came down yesterday and (oddly enough) STUCK. Some places more North got as much as SIX (6) inches.

Some children and animals saw snow for the first time. Churches canceled their Christmas Eve offerings.

Of course, there were car accidents all over the place ... because we have no idea how to drive in snow.

Em and I stayed home.





Today will be sunny, so that's the end of THAT.

Old-fashioned clothes lines. Drying for Freedom.

The environmental blogosphere is fond of promoting line-drying over using a clothes dryer. I dry our clothes outside, but don't have a clothesline; I use the patio furniture after Em moves it to the middle of the yard. Our patio furniture resembles metal screening, enabling air to blow from below and above. That's where I set my sweet potatoes to "air" before curing.



So, some things I lay on the table, some things I lay on the chair seats, and long things get hung on the backs of the chairs. Shirts/blouses get hung on hangers and the hangers get hung around the table edges. The patio furniture even lends itself to using clothespins to hold the clothes in place if the day is particularly windy.



We don't have T poles, and the fences around the yard (which belong to our neighbors) lack the ability to stand on their own through a good wind without any strain. I had a never-used clothes line that I bought several years ago and when No. 1's hemp-string clothesline broke I gave it to her along with a bunch of clothespins. That clothesline also broke recently and she called asking where I'd bought the clothesline because she was having no luck finding a replacement. So, I did a little googling on clotheslines and learned that the rope clotheslines aren't so common anymore. At Clotheslinesource.com, I found clothesline poles, retractable clothes lines, umbrella clotheslines, and wall-mounted clotheslines. No. 1's backyard already has the T poles, so all she needs is the clothesline. They don't sell them. Urbanclotheslines doesn't, either.

I lived in an apartment building with a patio in a blue collar neighborhood south of Chicago in the late 1980s/early 1990s. and one of the tenants complained to the landlord when I hung a few items out on the patio to dry, but I had no idea entire states had banned line drying.

Project Laundry List has a store, which doesn't sell them, either, but I watched their video about places that ban/have banned outside clothes drying. Another story about banning clotheslines here and a great trailer video for a documentary on the subject at Drying for Freedom. Who knew? There are a few places online where one can still buy rope clotheslines. Clotheslineshop sells a few. We're going to check out Walgreens and even Ace Hardware to see if ANY brick/mortar stores still sell them. If you know of a place, let me know.

Summer Squash Freezing Experiment.

Surfing for information on the absolutely EASIEST method of freezing summer squash, I ran across the following entry:

"I got this advice from a friend of mine who puts up lots of veggies for the winter. I have put the yellow squash in my freezer according to her instructions, but have not actually taken any out and cooked it. She says they will keep 3 or 4 months with this procedure. Wash the squash and dry. Do not peel. Prepare brown paper lunch bags by slipping them one inside the next until you have about 4 layers, then slice the squash and place them in the inner bag. Fold the tops down a couple folds and staple the bag shut. She has been doing this for a long time with large amounts of both yellow and zucchini squash, so I trust her that this works. Harlean from Arkansas "

Never having tried to freeze ANYTHING from my garden previously, I was impressed with the simplicity of this method. MOST begin with blanching. But, who wants to blanch if blanching might not be necessary?

So, I sent a smoke signal up for Diane and we started discussing this "paper" method when I ran across a later post from the same OP.

Notice how 4 bags went to 3: ThriftyFun. Diane and I got to talking again, and I decided to give it a try as soon as I found my brown paper lunch bags (which happened today).

I was up to 4.5 squash today (with the .5 losing half due to squash borers), so I chopped 1.5 for the first batch (sliced) that used 4 paper bags, 1 squash for the second batch (sliced) that used 3 paper bags, 1 squash for the third batch that was left whole and used 3 paper bags.





Put all three in the chest freezer in the garage and will wait a respectable time to allow the bags to fall to the bottom and offer the test of time before reporting on results.

Opinions are welcome on whether 4 brown paper lunch bags represent a bigger carbon footprint than one plastic freezer bag AND (assuming this method works) your guess on WHY.

Tuna Salad with Cheese and Curry Powder? Who Knew?

We haven't done much grocery shopping since before the wedding. Usually, I make lists each week when the sales ads arrive, but sales haven't reflected anything we needed lately so Em's been going alone to just get milk and beer with a few random exceptions. This week Albertson's has a sale on some things that need to be replenished in the pantry at the same time that manufacturer coupons are available for them. That's the best money-saving combination, so off we go tomorrow to renew our stocks of a few items we use regularly.

We finally this week used up a can of sloppy joe mix that's been sitting in the pantry for several years [before I knew how to make it from scratch] when I made hamburger buns with leftover flour from the pizzas. Now, I have buns leftover, too, so decided to make tuna salad sandwiches for supper trying a new recipe. I have everything I need for this one without a trip to the store.



Is there somewhere in the world where tuna comes in 7oz cans? Ours were once 6oz until manufacturers decided to save money by dropping the can size down to 5oz. Parmesan and curry powder in tuna salad with NO eggs? Who Knew?

I hope to get many more healthy recipes from Ruchi's challenge.

Speaking of challenges, Crunchy Chicken has a new

We're traveling some in August, so it's not likely I'll engage in her challenge, but we buy so little anyway that little would change if I did.

Mail ordering gummy vitamins during a heat wave.

Do I even need to add "Bad Idea"?

I Emailed Lucky Vitamin to see whether or not I'd kill my husband if I sliced the gummy vitamins that had melted on one side of the bottle either during delivery or during the Texas heat of this month waiting for me to notice their arrival on the front porch.

They told me: "Yes, this sometimes does happen during the summer months. We always suggest refrigerating the vitamins for sometime, then they will be fine to consume. Product like this is temperature stable, not like a fish oil or probiotic, so you should be fine. Thank you for shopping at Lucky Vitamin.com.Thank You,ChadLuckyVitamin.com Customer Support1-888-635-0474."

So, I tried to slice the glob in half. I was even successful in that.


Slicing the two halves into 30 pieces each, however, was LESS successful, as the glob was just as viscous as it could be and even the sharpest knives stuck to it.

It's currently in the freezer awaiting my next move.

Who Knew?

One of the things I told Em that I needed to see from the Whitehouse during the Obama Administration was the first family rototilling some of that White House lawn for a community garden.

Today, I ran across this: WOOHOO! Hat-tip to Jack and Jill Politics.

Wear Sunscreen.

I've always loved reading this, but had never before seen it turned into a video. h/t to Jenny Mae.

Bush/McCain. Who knew?

Honeybees and Squash in DownTown Detroit: The Return of Mother Nature

Today in downtown Detroit, on land reclaimed by the city, local inhabitants are growing grapes, asparagus, currants, and gooseberries. And they’re raising honeybees in an attempt to create the first twenty-first century green sustainable city in America.

How cool is that? Who Knew?

In other coolness, my dental checkup revealed ... ZERO cavities!!!

PC failures and priorities.

My PC failed this week. It failed badly enough that I had to call support. Roommate of No. 1 came over and spent an hour or two three days in a row doing what it seems I've forgotten (or never knew) how to do. He bought a new hard drive for me, but hasn't installed it yet. I need to document the software I use so he knows what to reinstall once he switches me over AND what he did yesterday to reinstall my video card driver fixed everything (for now)... and those are two key words.

Things I learned this week include:

1. No. 1's roommate could be making pretty big bucks doin' what he knows how to do in addition to or in lieu of his day job.

2. My PC is a big, big part of my life and I need to change that to provide more balance.

3. Hate to print stuff (just can't see wasting the paper or the ink), but I'm a list-oriented person, so all my lists are on the PC (with no backup). I need to suck it up, print some lists and start taking routine backups of my system of lists. D'OH!

4. Our area is unsupported by the Geek Squad. The phone book telephone numbers are ALL out of service. This brings me back to the FIRST thing I learned this week.

Got to go to update and start printing lists, burn backup CDs, etc.

What's New.

Em's still sick, although not as bad as he was. He's eating a little more now, his cough is more productive, and he's able to walk around some. Still off the cigarettes, although he asked me yesterday what happened to them, beseeching me to NOT give them away because he might want one. He still hasn't been outside and I think he's given up on the coffee. No. 1 stopped by yesterday with two more bags of CUTIES; Em's going through them like crazy. They're tangerines that sell in the stores this time of year, if you're unfamiliar. From MY perspective, he needs to eat a whole lot more and forget about smoking at all. He was already skinnier than 170 lbs BEFORE he got sick, and he's down to 160 now. Not big enough, IMO, for a 6' tall man. But, that's from MY perspective, and he's his own man.

No. 1 and I went shopping this past weekend together several times, as well. Mostly grocery sale items to replace soups, cough/flu medicines for us, but there were sales on makeup, so No. 1 took advantage of those, as well. I needed potting soil to do some household transplants and start the seeds for this year, so we went to Home Depot where we got a big bag of soil and THIS:



It's 100% plastic, 100% made in China, but works really well. Instructions state that it holds enough water for 11 hours, but I filled it 2 days ago and it's still shooting out spurts of steam (as you can see). No. 2 has one just like it. I'd asked her where she got it, but she didn't say Home Depot, and when I saw it there I just grabbed it and put it in the cart with the soil. I think we needed a fun addition to our home, so don't feel at all guilty. I love to just sit and watch it spoof and we didn't have a humidifier or vaporizer, so I think it's playing an important role in curing Em of his chest congestion.

Also in the "we didn't have" department, I bought us both slippers at Thrift Town last week Monday and within one week they've become a part of our lives. I don't think we noticed cold feet before this year, but now we wonder how we ever felt comfortable without slippers. Thrift Town had a 30% off sale on Monday of THIS week that I would have loved to attend, but life is what happens when you have other plans.

No. 1 will be doing 25 hours of community service at Texas Masonic Retirement Center to fulfill the requirements of one of her Social Work classes. She stopped by (with the cuties) yesterday after checking out the place. "This is where RICH people go to die; the place is a MANSION!" The social worker who will be showing her the ropes of elderly institutions (her desired specialty) told her that other places will NOT be this nice. Besides that class, I think she's taking Anthropology and 2 literature classes. No. 2 is taking Nutrition, Ethics, Music Literature, and College level Algebra, while #3 is taking Advanced Operating Systems, Computer Forensics, and Advanced windows administration. He's on quarters, while the others are on semesters. Lots of school and work going on with the younguns this year.

I'm thinking a lot lately about this year's garden in addition to getting some painting done inside. We're totally not handy and have no desire to paint walls and ceilings ourselves, so I'm going to call a guy who did some work for us a few years back. He's handy AND local. Not sure he's still doing handywork, but it's worth a check. He had a truck (last time we used him), so he could haul some gardening stuff for us, too.

Think I got a small piece of glass in my left foot. There's a little hard BB-type "ball" shape underneath the skin right on the outside edge parallel to the metatarsal arch. I remember a walk we took a few weeks back wherein I had to remove my sandal to shake some (most likely) glass that was hurting my foot, so I think a little piece of that glass got stuck and I'm just noticing now. I've already started "surgery" to remove whatever it is.

In the Who Knew? department, there's THIS:



D'OH!

Happy Holidays and Blog Changes for 2008.

Happy Holidays, Y'all!

Made some changes to the blog this week. New year is coming soon, so I'm thinking about what I spent my time on in 2007 and how I want to change that for 2008 (First change involves clickable photos on the right side of the posts. If you do NOT see Photobucket on a wave over a photo, give it a click; you might like (or not) what you find there.). Second change involves disassociating myself from some of the environmentalists who, IMO, have been highly influenced by Peak Oil activists. I'm not "into" the doomer scenario; had enough exposure to that with Y2k and noticed that the doomers from Y2k simply switched hats and moved on to the next doomer scenario when Y2k turned out to not result in their wildest dreams come true.

I have been and will be continuing to look into gardening ideas, including vertical gardening ideas that can be implemented for a song with no skills. Heh.

I'm trying to encourage No. 2 and # 3 to take part more in the blog this year (if their time permits) to pull in a more diverse direction (if diverse can be classified as a direction) of fun stuff.

As part of a resolution to cook less and have more fun, Em and I are leaving tomorrow for 4 days in Northern Nevada (to gamble) :-).

While I'm gone, I encourage y'all to check out the following videos:

Starting with Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff (21 minutes)>, move on, when you have the time, to a series of videos (hat tip to Delta Lady) which explain how the media influenced us to want more through the years. Each video is one hour long, so plan accordingly.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Almost forgot: No. 1 got 2 As and 2Bs, so her scholarship is renewed for another term. PHEW!

Your Mama Said There'd be Days Like This; There'll be Days Like This, Your Mama Said.

Forgot all about the wheat berries I've had soaking in the pantry for several days. The bushes are still sitting outside on the patio in their pots (which is okay for maybe up to 7 more days), and I have ALMOST 2 holes dug. 2 more holes plus soil amendments and we can plant those puppies.

It seemed kinda strange that Em had really bad cold symptoms last Sunday that went away by Monday morning (I'd thought) through the shotgun approach I took supplying remedies. He was fine the whole week up until Friday when his back started to bother him. Big day at the Racetrack on Saturday, working 9-9. His back was still bothering him in the morning, but he thought he could do the shift. Simply put, he couldn't. They drove him home about 2:30pm with spasms in his back. They'd wanted to take him to a hospital, but we're not hospital people.

We've been attacking the back problem probably as much as we can (or should) while it's still in the spasm phase. I have some familiarity with back problems having suffered from them over 20 years ago. We figure he'll be okay, but I'll be wondering for a while why he got this at this time and did it have something to do with the cold that he lost within a day that's lingered on in me for a full week now. Who Knows, right?

No. 1 came today to work on a paper for school. She has a plethora of papers due in the next few weeks, all in APA format. The one due this week is for her most anal-retentive professor, so it was kindof the test case and one that really required the services of anal-retentive mama. Who knew THAT feature of my personality would come in handy some day? APA format and Microsoft Word mix like oil and water. Her prof warned her, and we saw first-hand today. Frustrating doesn't quite describe the experience, but after a whole day we thought the product "good enough" and actually managed to save a copy without Word modifying the format. If she wants to (if she's anal-retentive enough), No. 1 will hunt down where the tab is 3 spaces instead of 5 and where the reference source is font 10 instead of 12). She's the one who needs to keep the 3.5 GPA to sustain her scholarship. Or, she can hope her anal-retentive prof is too busy or unforgiving to notice/care. Feeling lucky?

She stopped at the store for a few things for us on her way over and had the realization (fantasy?) that she's become part of the sandwiched generation without the bottom half of her sandwich. Now she's totally worried about us and talking about getting us on her cell phone plan. Of course, Em looked to be about 140 years old with his bad back and I had to ask her to help him out of the chair to come to the phone when his grandson called. The boy suggested he could call back. I had to tell him, "You don't want to get your grandfather out of the chair and then hang up." lol. Good times;good times.

Em's son mentioned coming to town next weekend. Might need to get the guestroom bed made up in case he spends the night here.

In the puzzle/game department, I've found online jigsaws. Right now I'm limiting myself to puzzles within the 50-70 piece category because they take less than 30 minutes to solve. That works for me. I like to mix my more obvious productive time with short sessions of non-obvious productivity and it's really kewl how online puzzles don't require any space in the home.

Who Knew?

Strange Stuff Worth More Than You Imagine. Did You Know About This? Excerpt: "Ambergris (Whale Vomit): I come across an article in the news about whale vomit every few years. A person is walking along the beach and comes across some disgusting blob and for some unexplainable reason has an irresistible notion to pick it up (while I’m sure hundreds of others have walked by it with absolutely no thought of ever touching it). Later they find out it’s whale vomit (also called ambergris) which is a highly sought after ingredient for perfume. If it is good-quality vomit (I have to laugh writing that), the ambergris can be sold for up to $10 per gram, with the finest grades fetching many times more than this."

Hat tip to Dawn C.

Who Knew?

Every once in a while Em's brother Emails something that triggers the "I didn't know that!" response. Here's the once from this while: Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pretty kewl, huh? I vaguely remember something about how speed-readers get the gist of whole sentences by pretty much just scanning various words in them. I guess 55% of us engage in some form of meaningful interpretation of symbols. I wonder how often MY interpretation agrees with yours.