Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Lone-Ly Ranger


A good mommy does not get upset when he announces at bedtime that he needs to be a cowboy tomorrow. She dutifully gets up extra early (4:30 a.m.) and digs out bandanas, irons a plaid shirt and jeans, rummages for a vest, an old toy horse on a stick, and stuffs socks in her own cowboy boots so they will stay on his feet. She places dad's too big hat on his head and she smiles as he smiles at his perfect costume. 

A good mommy does not get upset when she picks him up at 3:00 p.m. and is told by the teacher that he was one week too early.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

If You Can't Beat'em...

I know they say you can't beat a dead horse, but I swear I am going to try! Can we talk about stinkbugs-- again? You see, since my fall tirade postings I have come to terms with their existence in my life. I no longer scream for my husband, though my heart does still skip a beat and I do a half a gasp everytime one is spotted IN MY HOUSE!!!!!

But, I have come to accept the fact that importing has given us the gift of a new, invincible, and predator-less insect to our ecology. I have finally come to grips with the fact that this BUG is virtually indestructable and will not only wreck havoc on our vegation, but will winter and nest in our homes.

So, instead of crying over things that I cannot control (short of moving to Iceland), I have put on my big girl panties and have decided to come up with some ingenious ways to deal with the situation. If you can't beat'em,... step on them, crush them, or kill them without paying the price, then use them.

Here are my top ten ways to take advantage of the situation:

10. Save their dying bodies and plant along your garden to deter rabbits. (Beware, their stinking bodies is a love call for more, and be aware that they probably already ate your garden).

9. Put a collection of dying carcasses on the bad neighbor's yard to attract them to his/her house.

8. Mail an envelop full to the B.O.S (School district Board of Supervisors) who keeps voting down your raise.

7. Mail them to anyone, for that matter, who has pissed you off.

6. Crush them up and use them as homemade pepper spray.

5. Use them as a gag gift by putting them in a sachet and sealing it with a bow!

4. Hide a bagfull in your exe's car.

3. Make and sell stinkbug paper weights.

2. Learn to like the flavor and make Mexican tacos. (Please note they use a differant supposedly cinniman tasting bug but of the same family.

1. Create Asian American Stinkilas. Made with an American tequila, instead of asking someone if he/she swallowed the worm, you ask the party reveler did he/she "Drink the Stink?"

Enjoy!


Saturday, February 2, 2013

Not Just for Guacamole Anymore!

Who knew! Maybe you all did, but I can certaninly admit that I only just started buying fresh cilantro since Christmas when a friend shared her "to die for" guacamole recipe. And I did what any other person who normally cooks everything using boxes and instant add-one-ingredient foods, I used a little bit and threw out the rest. Afterall, what else could you do with it? I did not make anything else fresh except for collard greens at Christmas, so I did not need it in any other recipes. To the garbage with the cilantro, and the garlic for that matter.

However, just recently, I was watching a movie called Hungry for Change and discovered much to my surprise that it actually has a huge benefit to our health. It is not just for spicing up guacaumole, it is great for cleaning out the old system as a metal detox. Can anyone say "mercury," or am I the only one who likes tuna? They also mentioned mercury fillings in teeth. (Why people are still doing that, I do not know?) 

As for nutirents, it gives 45% of RDI vitamin C, 200+ of vitamin A, and 258% of vitamin K (based on websites such as http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/cilantro).

 Lastly, shockingly, to use it they simply added to the salad. I would not have to buy a new food processing gadget or learn a new recipe. It was simple. 

So my question to you is since tomorrow is the super bowl, are you making guacamole?

Friday, February 1, 2013

We All Laughed When She Bought herself a Juicer


25 years ago my mother sat up one night watching televsion, and a week  later it arrived. The Juiceman's Juicer. Oh, how we chided her, "You will buy anything that they show for 30 minutes or more." "It's called brainwashing," we said. "You'll never use it," we teased. She never did. It sat in the box for 15 to twenty years before she past it off to one of us as a prized possession worthy of willing out. And my sister did what any of us would have done at the time, she moved it into her basement.

Now either I am turning into my mother by falling for all the stay young, stay healthy hype, or maybe she was on to something. And possibly she would be a lot healthier if she had actually used it herself because all the research (which I am sure had been there all alone but is now easier to find with the advent of media today) is touting the benefits of a raw healthy organic plant based diet. She was right, and we are all now scrambling to find ways to add more servings to our own diets.

I must admit, it must have been a lot easier for her to choose back then. There were what, one or two choices? Well, I made the mistake of verbalizing my intent to buy on my social networking page recently and was hit with a barage of whose using what, and which is the best. Vitamix, Blendtac, Omicron, soup makers, dough makers, green cutters, nutmilk bags and so on and so forth. Talk about overwhelming. I was waiting for the right one, the right price, the right day of the week to attend a demonstration, the strongest consumer report review, the user reviews, and lastly, approval from my husband if I was going to get to get the one that costed $400 dollar.

Enough! I said yesterday as I lay nursing a cold and wishing I had my new juicer to make an immune deficiencey concoction to help. I lay there, and through the clarity of a foggy, cold head, I asked myself why do I need one and what do I intend to do with it?  I then, with the appropriate answers did a few more comparisons, read some more reviews, threads, and articles but this time they were focused on the answers I was seeking. 

Now armed with more information, in particular, the differences between a Juicer which pulls out of the nutrients but no fiber and oxidizes fast... so drink up...or a Masticater which uses all of the fruit giving you fiber but in a thicker, pulpy, smoothis like drink. What would it be for me, the "mere" juicer like the liquifying Breville or a grinder ripper fiber infusing masticater blender, like the Vitamix.
 
The original goal had been to augment my diet with an added option for getting my veggies, not replace them completely. I love cooking and creating new dishes and the color and smells are important to me. Others have touted the Vitamix's abiliity to heat up the veggie juice into a soup in two minutes. But I love slow cooker soups that simmer and bring all the flavors together scenting up the home warmly. So the soup maker was not a necessity. I am about 80% or more gluten free so I don't need the bread maker because, so far anyway, I buy frozen organic gluten free bread. Lastly, the thickness of the pulp that I kept reading about bothered me a bit. I will not even eat fruit-on- the-bottom yogurt. I only do vanilla or thinner pudding types. Also, I kept reading how you can put it in a nutmilk bag to strain it, and that is an extra step. No thank you! 

So I opted for the Breville juicer which kept coming in as highest in its catagory.  As for the fiber, I will attempt to add it in other delicious and nutrious ways through my diet. By the way, I am in no way intending to undermine the Vitamix. It sounds like a wonderful machine. It just does not sound like what I need at the momment. It reminds me of the Kirby Vacuum. When my husband told me how the Kirby man came by and showed him the most amazing things that their vacuum could do. The man said it can be used on curtains and sofas, you can vacuum the stairs, you can even vacuum the mattress and get all types of crud and micro-organisms out of your bed. And I just looked at him incredulously and said, yes but who has time and who is going to do it? He laughed and agreed, but I later found the cancellation reciept for the order he had placed.

And just like I am not vacuuming matresses, I do not have a desire or need, yet anyway, to make bread with a blender.

Of course it may just be something that I grow to need as I continue to grow in my quest for good health. Until then I will keep you posted on how it went with my new juicer! Cheers!