From The Mommybot

Both healthy AND delicious!

Lavender Honey Lemonade recipe

--Moony

Can anyone suggest a food processor that's cheap but has a powerful enough motor to actually DO its job?  The Cuisinart hand blender that I got for Christmas SUCKS at making pesto because the motor isn't powerful enough to drive the blades in the food processor attachment.  I had to use my manual blender to grind some of it down, then throw it in a bowl and try and use the blender attachment which didn't work very well, either, but managed to do the job enough that I could just hand mix in the nutritional yeast, plus I had to cut up the garlic because the blender couldn't do THAT either.  I've only used it three times, twice for soup, at which its just okay.

I'm sure this isn't terribly coherent, but I was looking forward to making the pesto.  As it is, I left out the kale because I was too annoyed by just trying to blend the basil and garlic.

--Moony

The Cornucopia Institute's Soy Report Card and Scorecard for Companies

I used to drink vanilla Silk regularly for a few years, tho I don't anymore since I found out its actually not good for a person to ingest non-fermented soy.  My parents brought me some Trader Joes brand last year but I haven't opened it up.  At the most I'd use it as a component in cooking.  Almond milk and hopefully raw organic are what I drink now when I do.

--Moony

Went and pulled the box I thought my dice might be in from storage, along with my jewelry and a couple other boxes.  Nope, no dice. :(

I did find a letter my sister Ame wrote me from Japan when she was an exchange student that I completely forgot about.  And my box full of stuff from my trip to Egypt.  And some surprises among my jewelry, like a pair of silver Bast earrings.  I'm going to have to go through them and pare them down drastically to earrings I'll actually wear.  I do have to go back and make a bag o' scrunchies, tho.  I have a huge collection - plus I'm pretty sure I can use the fabric and elastic for other things.

Also made this quiche, substituting frozen spinach for the zucchini and pepper, and sour cream for the milk, and doubling the curry and cinnamon.  Verdict - Yum! :9  Now to either make some soup, or do something with the leftover pound of hamburger...or both.  Have to load up the freezer while I have the energy.

Today's weather has been all over the place - cold and rainy to sunny and warm to cold and rainy again.  I went and killed slugs earlier, and placed a little saucer of beer as a trap (apparently they're lushes ;) ). And for some reason the peas in the orange pot keep surfacing - they're not sprouted yet, they just seem to keep getting washed UP in the soil.  Well, a couple are starting to sprout, but because they were on the surface I had to push them back down in.  Hope I'm not killing them by doing that...and yes, I DID plant them a good inch down in the first place.

--Moony

I like cheese.  Specifically cheddar.  And sheep feta, which tastes like cheddar.  And American.  And parmesan.

Last month, I forgot to buy any cheese, except for parmesan.  So I decided to see how long I could go without it.  I went almost two months, until one of my SO's got a major craving for cheese and corn chips last week and of course it telegraphed to me, so I bought a block of cheddar.

And ate cheese all the next day.

And paid for it with being sick to my stomach the next day. :P

It happened again when I had a cheese snack last night. 

Oh well, I guess cheddar will be an occassional treat from now on, when I really REALLY want grilled cheese. And use sheep feta for everything else.

Parmesan is still okay, especially on rice spaghetti! :9 :9 :9

--Moony

I decided, and whether it will work or not is questionable, to poke holes in the black plastic I have on the back garden spot and plant my extra broccoli and kale seeds.  I also scattered some onion seeds and three orca beans in a spot next to the black plastic.  The black plastic is there to kill all the weeds before I plant carrots, but I figured why not give a few early crops a try.  I wasn't going to use the seeds anyway, so if they fail, that's okay.  I have more - except for the broccoli, which I was going to replace with a different variety anyway.

Garage sale season started today, too.  I got a quart size bean crock for 50 cents.  Now I can properly make baked beans and mac and cheese.  Yum!  Almost got a futon frame for $7, but it would have been hard to transport and I can't afford a mattress for a long time.  Still have to find a new airbed, which, admittedly, could have gone on the futon frame, but nah.

Interestingly enough, Red Elk mistook me for someone who'd asked about rubber to serve as a barrier in making handmade shelters, and proceeded to tell me that getting free inner tubes from tire stores works great.  And I was able to tell him that broken air mattresses would be even better. XD  So far that's the only re-use I can think of for my broken air mattresses.

--Moony

Well, soaking and scrubbing with vinegar and then dishsoap didn't work, Ecover 'softscrub type' bathroom cleaner worked halfway.  Boiling worked in about 20 minutes.  Guess that's what you have to do with burned sugar, which, incidentally also seems to have coated the exhaust under one of the burners. 

My blue with white speckles roasting pan is now just blue with white speckles again.  Whew.

--Moony

Welllll...

I made a mistake.

Since turkey is thicker than chicken, I increased the temp.  Totally dismissing that my oven runs hot anyway.

Yes, there was smoke within an hour. 

No, it did not set off the smoke alarm.

It had way over the internal temp needed, 3 hours before it was supposed to be done, so we ated it.

It tasted more like crispy BBQ than it was supposed to, and was a bit tough in places.  No pink at all.

My roasting pan has been baptized with burned sugar/soy sauce/black cherry soda mix.

--Moony

I've been reading the X-E blog, and people have been talking so much about having stuffing I really started to crave it today.  But since I didn't want to spend to buy a second box of stuffing, I decided instead to buy a Henry Weinhardt's Black Cherry Soda for 99 cents and make my favorite cola chicken with the turkey wing. 

It will be delicious, yes it will! :9

Found out today that my building manager decided to have a building Thanksgiving gathering after all.  So I bought some aluminum bread pans to make my favorite pumpkin bread for it.  I'm still going to do my own turkey, stuffing, and green bean casserole, tho.  Probably pop in for a while for desserts, tho.

I also decided to look up online to see if there was somewhere I could order Christmas Crunch (Cap'n Crunch, that is) just in case I totally miss it at Walmart next week, and there is!  The gc's really love making Rice Krispy Treats with it.

--Moony

Inspired by this article, I decided to try to make my bread more digestible, less starchy and all that other bad stuff the article mentions.  I suspect I might be a little gluten intolerant, so I've been looking for ways to switch off that without wasting money by throwing out what I currently have, which is whole wheat flour.

Since I have a lot of whole wheat flour still, I went with substituting half a cup of yogurt for part of the water in my staple breadmaker recipe Homemade Wonderful Bread from allrecipes.com.  I let the breadmaker knead it into dough, then let the dough sit for 24 hours.

It sort of worked.  Basically, what it turned out I did was let it do its first rise for 24 hours, which might have been a mistake 'cause I think it exhausted the yeast or something.  After that I punched it down and put it in a bread pan and covered it for a second rise, but it didn't rise as much as it should have.  I baked it in the oven anyway, and unlike my previous failures that tasted like thick lumps of baked yeast, this one tasted pretty good.  Almost normal save for a smoky beginning.  Good enough to munch on with feta at least.  The biggest difference is that this loaf has not given me a 'heavy' after meal feeling, and seems to burn fast like the sprouted Ezekiel pasta I have instead of sit in the stomach awakiting digestion.  That's what I'm looking for.

I think next time I should simply combine the water, yogurt, and wheat flour and let THAT sit and ferment for 24 hours, then pour it into the breadmaker with the rest of the ingredients and the yeast.  I think that will produce what I'm looking for.  Its definately something to continue experimenting with.

Also makes me wonder what cookies and other baked goods made with slightly fermented whole wheat flour might be like.  I might have to try that before I make Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread for my family at Christmas.  It keeps poorly, just a few days at most, but Holy God is it ever good!

--Moony

I don't have jam...I have delicious plum sauce! 

At least a good base.  Its very tangy, like sweet and sour sauce, and was something I wanted to make anyway.  I just need to get some Chinese five-spice next week.

--Moony

Go on, try!

You smell delicious cooking plums?  Good!

I'm still in the process of making Honey Plum Jam, which I had all the ingredients for.

Cherry plums turned out to be hard to pit, so I wound up using my teeth to help pit the last cup (what, who else other than me and the ghost kids are going to eat it?  Speaking of which while I was cooking, one 'escaped' her bedtime and ran around giggling until one of my hubbies caught her and played like he was a monster going to eat her...which of course made her giggle and shriek even more! XD), and made the plums into mush, instead of 'rough chopping' them, with my food mill which I finally got to use for the first time!

Right now its cooling, and hopefully thickening.  It took at least three times the cooking time to get it to thicken at all.  Oh well, if it doesn't get to jam thickness, I have syrup!

I think I need a 'Cooking with Silverbolt' icon for my cooking adventures! XD

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In other news, the manager's office and a closet next to it were burgled last night.  I heard something, but I hear things out there so often 'cause the kids in the building (and I do mean 20 year old kids) are coming and going at night all the time.  But funny thing is, the burglar apparently only needed the cash on the desk, someone's rent money.

--Moony

I found out from the Hillbilly Housewife newsletter (all about how to live frugally) today that if you leave the bottom inch of celery on the core, then put that core in some water, you can grow more stalks just like how you can grow the tops of carrots by putting them in water. I'm going to try that with the core of my current celery bunch.

--Moony

Made my first pot pie today.  A nine-inch pot pie, just like most recipes call for.

Just as messy to serve as you would think.

--Moony

The second attempt at making an herb bread in my machine went without a hitch, and its edible if not incredibly flavorful.

But I have realized I don't really like sage in baked goods.  :P  Save for maybe in croutons for stuffing.

--Moony

Krispy Kreme White Chocolate Raspberry-Filled Cheesecake

I would so try making one of these, just once...fortunately there are no Krispy Kremes in my area.

--Moony

Ingredients:
1 potato (sweet or regular; without any green)
olive oil spray
Seasoning salt or sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Scrub potato throughly, cut any bad parts out.
3. Using a potato peeler, cut one end off, then shave slices off the cut part with the peeler until the potato is a pile of thin slices.  If potato is wider than the peeler, cut potato in half lengthwise first.
4. Spray olive oil on cookie sheet.
5. Lay out one layer of potato slices on the cookie sheet, spray lightly with more olive oil (this part may be omitted), and sprinkle with the salt.
6. Bake in oven for 12-14 minutes, until the chips start to resemble storebought chips or are slightly brown and a little curled/bubbled.
7. Remove to a paper towel or paper plate and let cool.  You may also choose to add more salt or other spices at this point, before the chips cool.
8. Repeat 4 - 7 until all of the potato chips are baked.

I made it up one day when wondering what to do with some sweet potato peelings.  I find it helps any potato cravings I may have, minus the preservatives and other crap, and this way I tend not to eat a whole potato, either.  With my toaster oven it only takes about thirty chips before I'm full and then the rest go in a bag for later. :)

--Moony