Chewymom

Two little helpers and I mixed some dough, rolled it out, and baked the cookies. And then we had the REAL fun of ICING the cookies…and the best part–EATING the cookies!

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things change. Like the cost of food. Sure, there’s the grocery bill with the four gallons of milk and ten boxes of cereal. But let’s talk about Cracker Barrel because that is what Sam chose for his 10-year-old birthday lunch.

I remember a time when we could take our then-family of six to Cracker Barrel and feed them all for about $25. Chewydad and I ordered adult plates, Brig, Ben and Drew ordered kid meals with chocolate milk, and we asked for a plate of biscuits. Sam was a baby and would chew on whatever we passed his way.

It has gotten easier to go to Cracker Barrel–no high chairs or boosters, no guilty feelings for the mess we were leaving on the floor or for the spilled milk and sticky handprints. But GOOD GRIEF! I never thought I’d see the day when I’d pay $72.46 for a meal at Cracker Barrel.

Here’s a really easy, really yummy, and fairly healthy recipe I used to make way back in the 90’s. Somehow it fell out of my repertoire, but I remembered it and made it tonight. It was more of a hit with some of my kids than with others, but I always really enjoy it!

1 box of Rice-a-Roni, chicken flavor
1 bag of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots
tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream
salsa

Cook Rice-a-Roni according to package directions. Steam veggies. Place Rice-a-Roni on plate and put veggies on top. Top with cheddar, sour cream, salsa, and crumbled chips.

We moved to this town almost five years ago, and we were quite surprised when a day or two later the doorbell rang, and there stood the mailman! “Hi,” he said, “I’m Sam the Mailman! Welcome!” He proceeded to chat with us for a bit, told us he had been on this route for thirty years, and said to let him know if we needed anything. Let me just tell you that kind of thing never happened in Atlanta.

Once I walked out to the mailbox as Mr. Sam the Mailman was driving up, and as he flipped through the envelopes he noticed one for the previous homeowners. He pulled it out of our stack and said, “I know where they live. I’ll just run it by their house.”

In April we bought a new house, and in August we moved in. It is just around the corner from our previous house, so Mr. Sam is still our mailman. He has stopped in a number of times and walked through the house to see the kitchen remodel in progress.

And today, we found this note on the top of our mail.

Gotta love a mailman who stops in for a chat, hand delivers mail sent to the wrong address, and leaves little notes.

And in case any of you are wondering about the coffee, I have to admit that Tulipgirl directed me to this company, which I think she found via her sister Mountain Mama. I heartily recommend buying your coffee from Seth at Old Bisbee Roasters. He roasts it when you order it, and it arrives fresh in about two days. Shipping is free if you order two pounds. And it’s guaranteed to help you get to know your mailman! Tell Seth that Chewymom sent you.

Doesn’t that make you hungry??

High fructose corn syrup. It’s in everything these days. And, to quote Howard Beale, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more.” Well, that may be a bit overly dramatic, but still, I’m pretty darned annoyed.

Today I was at the grocery store, and I needed barbecue sauce. I picked up one bottle and looked at the ingredients. Second on the list: high fructose corn syrup. I did this over and over. I had too much time on my hands A streak of righteous indignation came over me. After turning around EVERY. SINGLE. KIND. OF. BBQ. SAUCE., I stopped to count how many. Sixty. That’s right folks, my Kroger has sixty different kinds, brands, flavors of barbecue sauce. Almost half of one side of an aisle, taking up three shelves. How many would you guess have HFCS, high on the list, I might add. Thirty? Nope. Forty five? Guess again. Fifty two? Naaah. Out of sixty kinds of barbecue sauce exactly ONE does not have HFCS. Fifty nine do.

Y’all this stuff is bad for us! Frankly, I have no problem with some companies putting HFCS in some foods, as long as they label it properly. That’s free choice and all. But how about a little free choice for those of us who would prefer NOT to consume the stuff? I’m so tired of seeing that one ingredient taking up space on so many food ingredient lists. Cereals, drinks, condiments. It’s everywhere. And I’m not even talking about junk food. I just wanted a little barbecue sauce to put on a baked potato to add a little “zing.” I’m not even trying to slather up a Boston Butt here.

Although it’s tempting to start an outcry for people to write to food companies and congressmen and whatnot, that’s not what I’m going to advocate. I do, however, suggest that you plan an especially long grocery store trip the next time you go, and spend time flipping around to the back of the cartons and bottles and read the ingredients. You’ll be amazed. If the food doesn’t contain HFCS, it almost certainly will have partially hydrogenated oil. Why food companies can get away with pumping stuff full of these two ingredients and labeling it “food,” is beyond me. I guess it’s because we are willing to pay money for it.

And (look out–here comes another tangent) it’s because we are lead to believe (thank you, TV commercials) that prepackaged junk will make us happy, cute, perfect mothers, and it will give us charmingly cheerful children. And besides, we’re too busy to do things like [gasp] chop and steam a few veggies or boil some rice and then butter and salt it ourselves. Or to poke a few holes in a potato before we microwave it (how in the HECK did someone create a need for shrink-wrapped potatoes that are “ready to microwave????”).

Okay…deep breath here…calm down, Chewy.

Seriously folks, my challenge for you today is to pay attention to the ingredients in the foods you and your family consume. Slow down. Read labels. Cook something real this week. And refuse to buy foods with HFCS. If you will do that, then maybe in a few years I’ll go to Kroger and find that there are three-out-of-sixty kinds of barbecue sauce without that dreaded ingredient.

Tonight we had a very…eclectic dinner. DS11 has really gotten into the Redwall books, and he did a little research and found some recipes supposedly from the books. I had already planned to make something else for dinner, so we had all of it! DS11 made all of the “Redwall” items, and I made the pasta dish.

Here is our menu, complete with recipes:

October Ale (from Redwall)
16 oz. Cola
8 oz. grape juice
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp lime juice

Mix grape juice with soda, slowly, so as not to maek too much fizz. Then add in the sugar. Heat for fifteen seconds, and then stir til sugar dissolves. Add in lime juice, then stir again. Chill stil ready to serve.

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Shrimp and Hotroot Soup (from Redwall)
Ten handfuls paprika
Three handfulls ground pepper
Three green onions (diced)
Two cups pure spring water
One clove elephant garlic (diced)
One handful chili powder
One cup freshwater shrimp

Mix water, pepper and paprike together and heat for 5-minutes at the lowest possible temperature. Slowly add green onions, shrimp and garlic. Slow boil it and let it cool for one minute. Add chili powder and enjoy! Vary the amount of pepper depending on how spicy a soup you want.

*note: Actually varying the amount of chili powder makes it more or less spicy. Also, we boiled the soup for a good five minutes or so, then set it on a warmer until our other dish was ready.

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Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Pasta

1 large red bell pepper
1 crate mushrooms, sliced
1 crate grape tomatoes, halved
1 jar artichoke hearts
2 Tbsp minced garlic
Olive oil

1-1/2 Tbsp basil
1-1/2 Tbsp oregano
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp brown sugar
salt to taste
dash balsamic vinegar

1/2 lb spaghetti–cooked according to package

Prepare veggies. Put olive oil into skillet. Add minced garlic and let sizzle a minute. Add mushrooms and tomatoes and stir. Cook for a few minutes, then add artichoke hearts, spices, lemon juice, and sugar. Add more oil if needed. Simmer 15 minutes while cooking pasta. Add pasta and a few spoons of pasta water to veggies and toss. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar.

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Scones with Meadowcream (from Redwall)

Scones:
1-3/4 cups flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
6 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
18-20 Tbsp heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425. Mix dry ingredients together, then add heavy cream, four Tbsp at a time, stirring well after every four Tbsp. Make sure the cream and the dry ingedients are mixed well. Shape into 3-inch balls (don’t shape too much–just enough so that the scone stays together) and set on a cookie sheet about 3-inches apart from each other. Bake for 10-16 minutes. Makes around 12 scones. Enjoy!!

Meadowcream:

1/3 cup cream
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar

Blend all ingredients together in a medium bowl with a fork or whisk. Amounts may need to be adjusted depending upon personal taste and desired thickness. Chill. Serve over EVERYTHING!

Can someone please tell me how to rid my kitchen of fruit flies? They were swarming on my bowl of peaches, so I put those in the fridge. Then the hovered over my apples and bananas. I moved the apples to the fridge as well, but I am leaving the bananas on the counter–my kids won’t eat them if they turn brown in the fridge.

The darned flies are still around the bananas, but their latest obsession is my starter. I was trying to make sourdough starter. I had it covered with a dishcloth on the counter. They got ALL OVER the dishcloth, and some even got under it and drowned in the starter. I obvoiusly had to toss the starter. I’m just dying to try it again, though, but not until I get these bugs under control.

Any tips???

Today I enjoyed my usual lunch this summer. I opened a bag of spinach and put a large amount on my plate. Then I walked outside to the garden and picked a few peppers and pulled up an onion or two. I looked over the herbs and chose chives for today’s salad. I noticed two little red tomatoes that I plucked as well. I walked back into the kitchen, rinsed everything off, sliced and diced, and spread it on the spinach. Then I topped it all with some raw cashews, some bean sprouts, and some Newman’s Own dressing, and YUM!!!! A delicious lunch! And those garden veggies HAVE to be healthy–they were alive and growing only three minutes before I popped them into my mouth. Sure beats stuff picked by a machine a few weeks ago, on some farm thousands of miles away and ripened on a truck, and then sitting on the grocery store shelf for several days!

Many of you have probably heard about this new “no-diet” diet craze. Great–just what we need–another diet. This “new” diet really isn’t new. Anybody who has heard of Gwen Shamblin and her “Weigh Down Workshop” diet will remember that she had the same premise. You can eat anything you want, as long as you wait until you are truly hungry to do so. (Yes, this is the Gwen Shamblin of denying-the-Trinity and child-abuse fame.)

I tried that diet. I ate pop-tarts, boxed macaroni and cheese, Mrs. Winner’s cinnamon rolls, quarter pounders with cheese, pizza–you name it. But only when I was hungry. An amazing thing happened. I would pass by, say, Mrs. Winners, but I wouldn’t be hungry. So I would not stop in for a cinnamon roll. A few minutes would go by, and as I thought about and lusted over the cinnamon roll, I would begin to feel hunger! Hot dog! (or rather Cinnamon Roll!) I would go purchase and eat the food. Surprisingly I did not gain 50 pounds. But I didn’t lose 50, either. I think I lost about 5 pounds, over the course of 12 weeks. And I learned something about hunger pangs. Sometimes your stomach just has them in anticipation of a food you really, really want.

And since then I’ve learned another thing. There’s a lot of stuff labelled as “food” that really isn’t food. For the nutritional value, you might as well eat wood chips or the cardboard box the pop tarts are housed in as eat the pop tart or other junk food.

I like what Gwen Shamblin and these “new” gurus are saying, in that they are addressing the problem of gluttony. Eating just to fill some need besides hunger. Being selfish with food. Eating significantly above and beyond the needs of our bodies. But there’s a nutritional element as well that they are leaving out. In order to be good stewards of the bodies God gave us, we need to fill them with nutritional food. Food He designed to go in our bodies work best. They’re called whole foods. It’s the way I’m trying to eat now. I’m not a purist by any means–especially at Christmas! Believe me, when there’s a party with yummy appetizers, I’m right there munching on them! But those yummy-but-not-necessarily-food-foods do not make up the bulk of my diet. For the most part, I’m anally reading labels and munching on fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

It’s not a fad diet, but hopefully a lifestyle change toward eating real food that God created, knowing what would be best for my body–not chemicals mixed together to satisfy a sweet-tooth, a fad diet, or a busy mom who only has time to pour powder out of a box and mix it together. And it’s really yummy, once you get a preference for that chemical-taste out of your system! So instead of a “no-diet” diet, how about a “food” diet?!?