Monday, June 30, 2008

Wormapalooza -- level 2

We have added the next level to our worm farm. We weren't really sure when to do it, but it seemed like the first level was getting pretty full of worms, so we decided to spread the love.

A few days later, the worms have traveled into the 2nd layer of the farm. C lifted up the top layer and they were like spaghetti coming out of the holes of the box. Pretty gnarly.

We have had the worm farm for a while now, and I am still pretty pleased with it. It does not smell. At least, not a gross smell. It has a pleasant earth odor, but really only when you open it. The worms do a good job of eating the food scraps we put in. I also chop up receipts, pieces of boxes with food residue that I can't recycle, and school handouts that have been colored on (only the scribbly drawings, not the good ones). I haven't tried orange peels. Any advice on those?

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Vacation at Home

Have you changed your vacation plans because of high gas prices? Are you reluctant to fly because of the emissions? If so, fear not! You can vacation at home!

After a few expensive trips with little kids, we realized that we were flying across the country to do, in many cases, things that we could do at home. For example, we took two kids to Seattle. We walked around the city, went to the zoo on the bus, went to the farmer's market, visited the tower, drank lots of coffee, went to the farmer's market again, went to the park, Children's museum, went for a hike... you get the picture.

Now, I LOVED Seattle. Particularly considering that we went in August, and August in Austin is hell. But little kids don't really appreciate the wonder that is Seattle and maybe we could have saved ourselves a lot of money and some frustration by vacationing closer to home. A lot of it has to do with attitude. When you're on vacation, you're out to have fun and try the cool local stuff. You don't worry about paying bills and cleaning the house. You get to spend time together as a family, relatively free from other distractions. And if you want an ice cream, you get one.

For example, today we spent the day "vacationing" in Austin:
After breakfast at home, the kids and I rode bikes over to play mini-golf. This was an exciting first for my kids. Afterwards, we met C and the little one at the fountain park to run around in the fountain. We had a little snack while we were there, then headed over to the Children's museum. After the museum, we went out to lunch and even bought ice cream for dessert. We raced our bikes home and then collapsed. We'd spent the whole day out. The evening was dedicated to relaxing.

This would actually be a pretty good vacation day. We normally only eat one meal out when we go somewhere, because I don't have the patience or the money to take 3 kids out for all three meals, never mind the endless snacks.

You could be your own tour guide, and make a vacation plan for 2 or 3 days. Heck, you could even hire a housekeeper for a day... it's still less expensive than going to a hotel :)

When I'm on vacation, I like to mix it up. Do a little something cultural, a little something outdoorsy, and something indulgent. For example, each day you could do one thing from each of the following categories:

Cultural
  • go to latest exhibition at the museum
  • gallery hopping
  • symphony
  • live music of some other kind
  • go dancing
  • do some art/craft thing -- paint pottery, for example
  • Sierra Club meeting
  • movie
Outdoorsy
  • go for a hike
  • go for a bike ride
  • fly on a zip line
  • swim in a local swimming hole or springs
  • go sailing or take a sailing lesson
  • kayaking, or go out with friend on his/her boat :)
  • camping (if it's not 100 degrees)
  • rock climbing
Indulgent
  • get a massage
  • lay around and read a novel
  • get an ice cream
  • go somewhere amazing for dessert
  • take a private dance lesson and finally learn to dip
  • go to the farmer's market and don't worry about the price of berries
There's lots of other activities that are fun too, especially if you have kids:
  • feed the ducks
  • zoo
  • bake cookies
  • go to the store and trawl for free samples of food (WF is great for this)
  • climb a tree
  • putt-putt golf
  • bowling
  • summer musical
  • visit a friend with a new puppy or kittens
  • tube the river
  • run under the sprinkler/borrow the neighbor's slip n slide (if you're not in a drought)
  • garden
Of course, planning a vacation at home doesn't require a lot of study. But sometimes you do need to plan it. I happen to have a lot of vacation time (thanks, grad school!) but I find that if I don't make a plan, I tend to fritter it away.

Some vacation plans can't really be replaced, but if finances are tight, or you're really burnt out and need a weekend vacation, a well-planned vacation at home can be just the trick.

Do you have any other tips? Please share! (Can you tell I canceled a big vacation this summer?)

Friday, June 27, 2008

Mac and Cheese


A couple of years ago I was vegging out watching Alton Brown do a whole episode on how to make macaroni and cheese. I didn't write down the recipe, and I'm certainly not going to buy the expensive cheese he used, but I did learn how to make a mean mac and cheese.

I'm home with the little one today, and we wanted a quick lunch. Sliced fruit and mac and cheese. I grew up on Kraft, but it seems to be getting more and more expensive (around .80 a box.... seems extreme, considering what it is). I bought 3 boxes of the store brand on sale -- 3 for a dollar. Let me just say... BLECH!! (In case you're wondering, the store brand is from HEB. Their Hill Country Fare macaroni and cheese is punishment food).

Not wanting to toss the box or, God forbid, punish someone even less well-off than me, I decided to doctor up the Mac and cheese. Use the mac. Toss the gross "cheese sauce mix". Enter Alton with a simple bechamel sauce.

Usually this is the part of cooking shows where I start to laugh. Right... a "simple bechamel sauce". Has a French name -- can't be simple. Ah, but it is. And delicious.

Start with some butter and a little bit of flour. Melt the butter and stir in the flour, making a roux ( I think this is the correct spelling.)

Add some milk, stirring in between little pours. It will thicken as you stir. If it gets too thin, just stop adding milk, or sprinkle a LITTLE flour in. (Not too much, or it will get clumpy).

Add your favorite cheese, grated, or sliced thinly.

Alton and I like to put in some pepper and a little nutmeg. The nutmeg really makes the dish.

Pour this scrumdidilyicious cheese sauce over some macaroni. If you're feeling fancy, you can sprinkle additional cheese on top and pop it under the broiler for a minute or so. I don't usually (ever) feel fancy. This mac and cheese is delish on its own. The other beautiful thing about it is that I almost always have all the ingredients.

Bechamel sauce is one of those classic sauces that works for a lot of recipes. Want alfredo? Put in parmesan instead of cheddar. Use cream instead of milk if you want it to be creamier.

image from inmagine.com

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Wear it Out!


In our society, we rarely wear things out anymore. When something has a problem, we tend to throw it away and get a new one. Or we upgrade. My parents got me a television during my first year of college and it's been my tv ever since. It was fine. It wasn't too big. It wasn't too small. It was made before there were DVDs, so I had to run the cable for the DVD player through the VCR. No need to upgrade. Maybe there was a resolution difference... I'm not sure. I don't really care about fine resolution or high definition or whatever....

A couple of years ago, my daughter smashed in the power button. To turn the TV on, we had to stick our finger inside the little hole and press.... something. It worked fine. I got really used to it. A few months ago, the TV started shorting out. We could hit it on the side and it would work again. My 2 yo daughter got pretty good at this (a little Fonz... remember how he would hit the jukebox on Happy Days?) Finally, it stopped working. We actually wore the TV out.

I wasn't too sad about this. We don't really watch that much TV and I've noticed that it makes my kids grumpy. They fight about TV and they seem to get in a bad mood when they watch. Yep... even when they watch movies. I also noticed that when the semester's out, I tend to veg out in front of the TV, even though I think it's pretty evil. So, when the TV died, we decided to just let it die. A couple days later, the kids stopped asking about it.

Since the TV died, several people offered us spare TVs they had laying around. We finally took someone up on the offer, and got a small Sharp TV. It's the exact same model that I had before, but even smaller. I am going to put it on a little cart in the closet. It's nice not to have to watch everything on the computer, but I don't want a TV-centric life.

Pretty soon, with the HD thing, my TV will only work for movies anyways, so we might as well get used to it.

If you have kids, do you have a TV policy? Do you think that it makes them act differently when they watch a certain amount of TV? What about when they go over to friends' houses?

So.... what else have I worn out?

My sneakers. I'm so proud. I've now downgraded them to water shoes (for when I go tubing).

Speaking of TV and movies....
I have some burning questions about the Disney Princesses:
  • Why does Cinderella lose everything at midnight except the glass slippers?
  • Why do Sleeping Beauty's parents bring her back for a party on her 16th birthday? Didn't the curse say she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel on her birthday? Couldn't they have waited one more day? And shouldn't someone have been watching her more carefully on that day?
My daughter's favorite princess (gag!) is the Little Mermaid. She has a series of books about the princesses with little "lessons" about kindness. I don't understand how the Little Mermaid can be part of this series. She is totally disobedient and decides to ditch EVERYTHING for a guy she's met one time. She leaves her family, her home, and her whole species (genus?). Bad role model.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

June Food Challenge Update

Here's the short version:
I suck at this challenge and can NOT stop going to the grocery store.

I am having trouble keeping track of how much we spend because my husband has to keep running out for stuff (like milk, bread, emergency pizza, etc..) and we haven't always kept the receipt. I plan to do a monthly total using my credit card bill (don't worry! I pay it off every month).

But is it so bad to go to the grocery store ALL the time? Maybe not. The ExpensiveMart is down the street. Sure, it's expensive, but I don't buy very much there. The occasional gallon of milk or something small. WF is on the way home from work. I tend to drop by there frequently. Need some more gluten flour for the bread maker? WF. Need some lettuce? WF. Milk? WF. Yogurt? WF. The beauty of these stops is that for the things I buy, WF does not really cost that much. About the same and sometimes less than ExpensiveMart. And I get free samples as I walk around :) Because the things I don't need to buy are so expensive at WF, impulse purchases are kept to a minimum. $4 box of granola bars? Nope! $4/lb tomatoes? Nope! 9.99/lb olives? Yumm... nope!

Saturday I did a giant shopping trip and drove myself crazy. First, in a desperate attempt to give the farmer's market another shot, I hopped on my bike and rode downtown. I was there about 10 minutes before it opened. There were plenty of people. Some people were filming one of the stands. It seems like that is happening every time I go. I got some peaches ($5 for a small bag), lettuce ($5), squash, a red onion and supplementary tomatoes ($8 -- ouch!), and a bunch of chard ($2). Peaches were the only fruit available, and they were only being sold by one farmer, and they were selling out quickly. I now understand why I hadn't seen peaches at the farmer's market before.

Supposedly, our farmer's market is "award winning". I don't understand that. I am not really "wowed" by the selection, and certainly not by the prices. With the exception of the chard, the prices are the same at WF, and I do not have to get up early in the morning.

After the farmer's market, I stopped at WF for some bulk oil and gluten flour (love the bulk section). Then I came home, got the car, and went to HEB for a gigantic shopping trip with my daughter. We had to buy food for her birthday party, so we spent a LOT of money. I also felt ridiculous spending $4 for organic strawberries (the cheapest they have been all summer, and they were hard. Grrrr...) and then buying Oreos.

Maybe I'm a food hypocrite. Okay. I am. But I can NOT go on torturing myself in the grocery store. I am just going to buy what I can afford, avoid the dirty dozen when possible, eat very little meat, cook beans, make my own bread, and try to stick with actual food, rather than food products, the majority of the time. Saturday night we went on a picnic. We had homemade bread with tuna salad that I made at home, using green peppers from our garden, the freakin' expensive onion and lettuce from the farmer's market, and Hellmann's mayonnaise. I read the label and found out that Hellmann's has HFCS. What can I do? Am I going to make my own? No way. We had plums, chips and Oreos. It was delicious.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Random Stuff -- the Good, the Bad, the Totally Insane

Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed the following things:

The good:
Lots of people seem to be using scooters and bicycles. Last year we were the only family I saw riding our bikes to the pool. This year, many people are going on bike (at least 10 bikes today).

Shoe repair: I re-soled a pair of shoes that I got at Goodwill. They are totally awesome. Shoe repair is a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, it is WAY expensive in the US. It cost $40 to have my shoes fixed. I have brought broken shoes with me to Latin America to have them repaired because it is a) usually done the same day and b) very reasonably priced. We need more affordable shoe repair.

Tomorrow is reusable bag day in Austin. Celebrate!

The bad:
HFCS is in everything. It's in my raspberry jam. Grrrrr.....
I am getting a complex about jam. My favorite flavors seem to be from fruits that are probably loaded with pesticides. The cheaper brands have HFCS. Pretty soon I'd like to try making my own jam to see how much it costs to make and how long it takes.

The Totally Insane:
Amy's, maker of the veggie frozen dinners, has a line of frozen bowls of oatmeal. Huh?

Whole Foods has its own lunchable in the prepared food section: in a transparent plastic shell shaped like a lunchbox, you get a organic juice box, a sandwich (wrapped in plastic), an applesauce (in plastic), and a bag of animal crackers (can't remember, probably organic).
Have they lost their minds? What is the message here?

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Inherited Food

Three of my neighbors have moved away or left town on extended trips. They have brought over the food left in their refrigerators. Among other things, I have "inherited":
  • apples
  • frozen fish
  • 2 lbs. frozen baby shrimp
  • a jar of green olives
  • iceberg lettuce
  • a bag of rolls
It's hard to keep up with everything in your refrigerator, and often we are left having "overbought". I have a very full pantry and my fridge is just getting under control again, having eaten MANY leftovers recently. Then again, there is a fine line, especially if you have kids. You need to have food ready to make a quick meal when the savages get hungry or when there's an unexpected guest (or six). Summer in Texas means that you NEED popsicles. I think that this is not optional -- I am trying to prevent heat stroke. It's 100 degrees outside (literally). This may explain why I have inherited 3 containers of ice cream and a box of popsicles. :)

I like inheriting food. It's nice to get some extra, unexpected things. I don't complain that they're not organic -- after all, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It's much better than throwing the food in the trash, and it has injected a little variety into our diet. The other day, we made milanesa for the first time (it's a breaded meat cutlet -- these were frozen, and you are supposed to fry them in a little oil).

So, don't be shy. If you can't drink up all your milk before you leave town, give it to your neighbor. He/she will probably be happy to take it, and might have been on the way to the store to get milk anyway.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Why I Buy What I Buy -- Part III -- Convenience Food

Last night I bought a frozen pizza. Actually, it was a "fresh" pizza made by the store, which I doctored up with my own toppings at home, but nonetheless.... bad GradGreen, bad!

It's made me think about the need for convenience food. Some people seem to live off of frozen dinners. Other people make frozen pizzas a part of their week -- every week. I prefer to make my own pizza, but last night was a desperate situation. We were on the way home with 3 very hungry little people after 2 hours at the pool. One of them was crying because she was so hungry. :(

Why didn't I have anything ready at home? Because we already ate it all. I normally have some cooked pasta, some rice, some cooked beans... and all I have to do is heat it up and add something else. But all that was gone. So, I cut up a pear, fed it to the howling masses, and popped in a frozen pizza. I could have made something else, but I was exhausted.

This is all the result of bad planning. Bad timing for the swimming lessons. Could have started pizza dough in the breadmaker before I left, etc. But, at the same time, I don't think a frozen pizza is the end of the world. Actually, there were a couple of pluses:
  • I like to put my toppings on at home. That way, everybody can have the kind of pizza that they want. We don't have to "pick" topping off, pay for stuff that somebody doesn't want, etc.
  • Our other exhausted option was to go to a restaurant. We didn't. Thus, we saved money (I estimate about $20), gas, and sanity. 3 hungry kids in a restaurant is not a pretty sight.
Because I did such a bad job of planning swim lessons, I have been serving appetizers this week. (Why did I think going to the pool from 5:30 to 7:30 every day was a good idea?) We come home, everybody changes their clothes, and I cut up some fruit so that the kids can start eating while I whip up dinner. Whipping up dinner has consisted of cooking one thing (broccoli, for example) and heating up leftovers from the fridge. Last night we ran out of leftovers. Carrots weren't really going to fly as a dinner option (at least not solo.)

What is your desperation meal?

Monday, June 9, 2008

Why I Buy What I Buy -- Part II -- Syrup

So, with the newfound awareness of the June Food Challenge, I have been looking over my grocery receipts and marking things that are not actual foods but food products. My goal is to really think about what I am buying and why I am buying it. I may not always be able to make the best choice because of financial constraints or other reasons, but I might be able to make some healthy and green changes.

Today's post is about syrup. Maple syrup. Actually, not maple syrup, but the product that I grew up believing was maple syrup. You know, Aunt Jemima. Or the Eggo butter flavored microwaveable syrup in the handy squeeze bottle. Or the Hill Country Fare Light Butter Flavored Syrup. Obviously, these products are not really maple syrup. Maple syrup comes from trees ... I've seen it on TV. I even had maple ice cream in Canada. It was served in a log cabin kind of store to remind us of.... trees.

The Hill country Fare brand (a cool 1.29 for the bottle) is a combination of sugar, sucrose, HFCS and various flavorings. You get light syrup by adding some water. Hmmmm.... We all know that HFCS is the devil (or at least a product made by the devil). What's the alternative?

Maple syrup. You know, the kind from trees. Why have I NEVER bought it before? I don't know. I'm not even sure how it will taste. I do know that it's expensive. The least expensive syrup I could find was 4.49 for a bottle that's about 1/2 the size of the HCF bottle I usually buy. It'd better be good. My friend tells me that it's wonderful and that I don't need nearly as much. I hope that's the case.

I think this is a good example of how we buy things out of habit, or because it's what our mothers always bought, or because it's the cheapest... or whatever. Every time we buy something we are voting with our wallets. I have been voting for artificially flavored high fructose corn syrup masquerading as syrup. I'm not even sure what the real thing tastes like. That is a little disturbing.

Green Weight Loss Update
I have kept real sugar in my coffee, but curtailed my pastry schnarfing. I have been weighing in once a week and tracking the food that I eat and I am happy to report that I have lost 8 pounds!! I am thrilled that I have been able to do this so far without resorting to any diet foods or Splenda. Instead, I have been eating lots and lots of vegetables :)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Why I Buy What I Buy -- Part I -- Sunscreen

I am a heavy consumer of sunscreen. I buy a tube almost every time I go to the grocery store. If it is on sale, I buy several tubes (or bottles, whatever). I am not picky about the brand, but I prefer baby brands because I use them on the kids, and I like high SPF. I know that supposedly anything over 30 (or 35?) doesn't really make a difference, but I like a nice 50.

So I've been kind of shocked to hear that sunscreen can be bad for you. Geez... is ANYTHING good for you? Sunscreen can do a good job of protecting you from the sun, but apparently some of the chemicals that do that job can be carcinogens. So, while you're trying to protect yourself and your family from cancer, you are exposing them to things that cause... cancer.

So, I looked up sunscreen on the Skin Deep database. This is an awesome resource from the friendly people at the Environmental Working Group. They have rated hundreds of sunscreens, based on how well they protect you from the sun (sun hazard) and their health risk (health hazard). Number 1 and 3 on the list were stick lotions by California Baby. Sounds good, so I priced it. At drugstore.com, the .5 oz stick was 12.99. Not so good. Maybe a lotion? The 2.9 oz lotion was (on sale!) 15.49. I'm sorry, but that's totally out of my range.

I couldn't find #2 Badger sunscreen. I decided to go down the list. #8 Mustela is listed at 13.99 for 1.6 ounces. I saw a huge bottle of Blue Lizard at the pool, so I checked it out. It's #17 on the list (the sensitive version) it's 9.19 for 3 oz. The baby version is #23 and the same price (9.19 for 3 oz. Ouch!) Would it pay to buy a gallon like they have at the pool?

1 gallon sunscreen = 128 oz. = 149.00 (with free shipping) = $1.16/oz.
3 oz. sunscreen at 9.19 (let's leave out shipping) = 3.06/oz.
9 oz. at 17.99 (Coolibar.com) = 2.00/oz

Buying a gallon is a HUGE savings.

But is my sunscreen so bad? I'm currently using Banana Boat Sport SPF 50. According to Skin Deep, it has an overall rating of 3 (moderate hazard). It has a 5 (moderate hazard) rating as a health hazard and a 2 (low) for sun hazard. I think it does a good job with the sun. We have been out in the sun a LOT lately, and have little tan to show for it.

Blue Lizard Baby has an overall rating of 1 (low hazard); 3 (health) and 0 (sun). That's pretty good. I also found a list of 10 reasons why Blue Lizard is the best sunscreen.

Sun protection is very important to me and my family. We have already had a close call with skin cancer that scared the #(%@ out of all of us.

I noticed at the pool today that 5 out of 23 kids (yep, I counted... I was trying to be scientific) were wearing swim shirts with UV protection. This seems to be a pretty new phenomenon, but they seemed comfy. The shirts are light so they don't get all soggy when wet, and they are close-fitting so that the kids can swim. Three dads were wearing similar shirts (no moms...) Maybe instead of shelling out 150 for a gallon of sunscreen we could invest in some shirts and use less lotion.

But a gallon? Is that really necessary? Well, we have 5 people in the family. If an adult should use 1 oz. of sunscreen (per application), I figure a child would use about 1/2 that. So, our family needs 3.5 oz. of sunscreen for every trip to the pool. I could use up a 2.9 oz. of California Baby (at 15.49 a pop) in one trip! That's just not going to happen. A gallon of Blue Lizard would last about 40 trips (maybe less, with touch-ups). It's also just one gigantic bottle instead of many smaller bottles and tubes (and we seem to be whipping through about 2 tubes/week now).

I've been noticing that with a lot of my purchases, there is a trade-off. There is a certain price that I am just not willing (or able) to pay. I'm not sure if I'm ready for a gallon of sunscreen, although it seems to make more and more sense the more I think about it. I'll check into the UV clothes and report back.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

June Food challenge update

Let's call the first week of the June Food Challenge an observation week. Just like any study, it's important to observe what the natural state of things is before you make any radical changes.

I obviously have a grocery store obsession. I (or C) keep going to the grocery store! Last night, we had to get milk and more peaches. Today, a cantaloupe. I need to quit joking around and either:
a. accept that I go to the store frequently for fresh food, or
b. buy a LOT of fruit at HEB during my weekly shop.

This has been a kind of weird week because I did not go to HEB for a big grocery shop. My pantry was already pretty full of stuff, so I didn't want to make the trek. Then again, if I buy a lot of fresh fruit at the beginning of the week, it might start to go bad. Hmmmmmm

The worms are getting it on!

Actually, that may not be a totally accurate title. The worms obviously have been getting it on. There is a scary amount of worms in my worm factory, so I have ramped up the feeding schedule. They seem happy. My daughter, E, is thrilled. She loves to feed the wormies. I think that she thinks they are pets.

They have started making worm "tea", which is not something you drink, but something that you can put on plants. Awesome.

They still freak me out, but I love them a little more every day. Many people wonder if they stink, but they don't at all. I keep them in the coat closet, so that's a good thing.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Milk and Muffins

Already back to the store. I had to buy some milk for the little ones. I did hold off on buying muffin mix, though. I'll make my own instead. (My daughter has a summer birthday, so they will celebrate with muffins on the last day of school. So cute.)

I usually make my own baked goods. My mother always made cakes from scratch, and box cakes just taste fake to me. My only exception really is brownies -- maybe that can be an experiment soon -- they just taste so good from the box, that it's hard for me to believe that they'll be as good from scratch. Why do I have this idea about brownies? I don't know. I guess I'm just following what my mom did. Cakes from scratch, brownies from a box.

On one of the blogs I read recently, a tip to reduce grocery spending was to make something every day. I thought this was a great tip. You don't have to make every meal from scratch every day. Combine some leftovers, toss a salad, whatever. But the key is to make something. Yesterday, for example, I made bread (2 loaves, because the first loaf was so delicious that we decided we'd better get the bread machine cranking again). With the bread machine, this doesn't even really feel like making anything. It's more like pouring. Pour in water, flour, honey, oil, salt, yeast. Press button. 3 hours later..... voila!

Making something -- it seems so obvious -- but I like the fact that the tip is not "make everything", but just one thing. On Sunday I made beans. We'll have beans to eat all week (or maybe not, as my husband can eat beans 3 meals a day).

Anyway....I'm a cake snob. I'm a muffin snob too, to tell the truth, but I almost succumbed to total laziness. Almost. I don't understand why people will go to the trouble to buy a cake mix and mix in a few ingredients, but they just can't skip the box and mix in a couple more ingredients. I've timed myself. I can get a cake in the oven in about 8 minutes, from "Hmmm..... I think I'll make a cake" to cake in oven. Being a cake snob can be a little antisocial, especially if your friends know about your snobbery, and especially if you have kids. What do most kid birthdays have? Cupcakes from a box. People know that my favorite food is cake (bad, but SO SO good), so they must notice that I don't eat the box cupcakes. But! My friends are also quick to point out (and share) homemade cake because they know that I will appreciate it.

I shouldn't be such a snob about the cake, perhaps. The same behavior that I don't understand with cake is exactly what I do with brownies. Why can't I get over the box? Must .... get... over ... the box.

I also don't understand frosting in a can. Blech! My mother taught me how to make the best buttercream frosting ever; it's also ridiculously easy. Once you go scratch, you never go back.

Mom's buttercream frosting:
1 stick butter (can use vegan version for vegan frosting)
1/2 bag confectioner's sugar (or so...)
a little milk
a little vanilla
cocoa (for chocolate frosting)

Soften the butter, mix in as much confectioner's sugar as you can. Pour a LITTLE (like a tablespoon) of milk. Taste it. It's pr
obably pretty buttery. Mix in more sugar, adding drops of milk as needed. Put in about a capful of vanilla (1/2 teas?). Mix in cocoa if you're making chocolate frosting.

This makes enough to frost a whole cake, but if it makes too much, it stores in the refrigerator for quite a while.


Monday, June 2, 2008

Let the Challenge Begin!

Even though it's June 2nd, I'm starting the June Food Challenge today, since it's Monday. What's the point of the challenge?
  • save money
  • eat healthier, choosing organic when feasible, and buying less processed food
  • save time, by planning ahead and limiting number of trips to the grocery store
  • drive fewer miles (by limiting trips to store)
Step 1: Shop the pantry and fridge. Look at all the things that you already have and plan your meals from that. How many times have you gone shopping only to find that it's hard to cram the food you bought into the fridge because it's already full of food? Using what you have reduces waste and prevents food from rotting away in the back of the fridge or pantry.

Step 2: Make a plan.
I usually plan 5 dinners because we eat lots of leftovers. I also have to think about who will be home for lunch and plan plenty of things for snacks (ie. tons of fruit). I actually have a lot of food on hand, so I made the following plan:
Dinner:
Homemade pizza, salad
Chicken & barley soup, homemade bread
spaghetti, salad, bread
bean & veggie crumble tacos
curry couscous
salmon, rice, vegetables

Lunch:
veggie burger
salad
PB & J
curried lentils

breakfast:
cereal, yogurt with fruit, toast, eggs

snacks:
applesauce, graham crackers & PB, carrots & hummus, smoothie, banana bread, chocolate pudding

Step 3:
Make a list and shop from the list. Buy enough for the whole week, planning only to buy fresh fruit/milk in one other trip.
Here I ran into trouble. My list only had 10 items on it (amazing, huh? We really needed to shop the pantry), so I didn't want to go all the way to HEB. I decided I would check out the farmer's market. My daughter and I went, but all I ended up buying was summer squash (2 dollars a pound). They had blackberries at $4 a pint, but for some reason that seemed too much. I wanted lettuce, broccoli, and carrots, but they weren't there (out of season, I guess). Funny, peaches are IN season, but were not at the farmer's market. So, we went down the street to WF. There, I was able to buy organic carrots, organic lettuce, broccoli and local peaches. They also had local grass-fed ground beef on sale, so even though it wasn't on my list (already breaking the rules!), I bought 3 pounds, wrapped in 3 different packages. We don't often eat meat, but I like to have some on hand and it was a great deal.

Later in the day, my son complained about a lack of "juicy" snacks, so I went on my bike to Expensive Mart and bought apple sauce, bananas, a cucumber (there were none at WF), cherries and blueberries.

Observations so far?
  • Obviously, I have trouble sticking to a list.
  • I am a sucker for a good deal if it is something I can freeze. That is why my freezer is full of stuff.
  • Why did I refuse to buy organic blackberries at the farmer's market for $4 but bought conventional blueberries at Expensive Mart for $3.88? Because of the "sale" sign? I am more of a sucker than I thought. The cherries, also conventional, were also on sale.
  • There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to my organic buying. I am consistent with lettuce, and that's about it. I looked back at the Environmental Working Guide's rankings of the pesticides in foods and found that blueberries rank #32, so that's not too bad. Broccoli is #35, so choosing conventional doesn't seem like a big deal (44 fruits and veggies were rated). Peaches, however, were #1 -- and although my peaches were local, I don't think they were organic.
  • Going to 3 stores in one day, even if they are nearby, is not what I want to do.
  • Salad as I know it is not seasonal in the summer time. I should know this. I have tomatoes in my garden, but the lettuce has bolted and is bitter and disgusting. Cucumbers? I'm not growing them, but they are starting to grow in a neighbor's plot. Carrots -- out of season.
Do you have any "rules" you follow as to when to buy organic? How many stores do you go to?

Food expenses so far this June: 53.43
Miles driven: 5