Tag: food

Photography

Fresh Veggies

Shelly

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Some of the veggies I brought home from work. I hope my coworker continues to bring in her surplus, because they’re delicious. She said her tomatoes should be ready soon, for which I shall be eternally grateful. Grocery store tomatoes are terrible. However, while at the store this morning, I suddenly couldn’t stand it any longer, and had to pick up some green tomatoes. It’s just not summer if you don’t have fried green tomatoes, right? Only, the stickers on the greenies say they are “vine ripened.” M’kaythen!

I managed to find a couple that had a decent amount of pink and light orange in them. They make better fried tomatoes, because the flavor has developed a bit. Pure green tomatoes are too hard, even after frying, and they just don’t taste as nice.

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Uncategorized

Veggies

Shelly

A coworker has a ginormous garden that’s producing more than her family can eat, so she’s been bringing sacks of veggies to work with her: zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and a variety of peppers. These are not the baseball bat sized zucchini that folks try to foist off on friends, relations, and innocent bystanders, either. They are tiny, baby veggies, with delicate skins and tender flesh. They are far superior to anything I’ve seen in the grocery store, and are organic, too.

She said that she’ll have tomatoes soon. I cannot wait. Grocery store tomatoes are ghastly imitations of the real thing. I remember real tomatoes, and I have high hopes that these will live up to my expectations.

Pets

More Recalls

Shelly

They’re like the Energizer bunny. It’s Menu Foods again, only this time, it’s foods that do not contain gluten. The company is claiming that it’s a cross-contamination problem, but after ANI’s little stunt with adding gluten to products that were not supposed to contain it, I can’t help but be a bit cynical.

Anyway, if you have a pet, you really need to keep on top of this. Itchmo and the Pet Connection blog are both good sources of information. I’d recommend keeping an eye on the FDA’s website, too, but keep in mind that they are not updating in a timely fashion.

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Mr. Raccoon

Shelly

We had a visitor last night! A young adult raccoon ambled onto my patio while I was making supper. I think he must have smelled the cooking food, and was investigating his chances of getting in on the action. It was too dark to get a photo of him through the window, and there’s no way I was going to go outside with him there, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Raccoons are crazy cute, but the possibility of them carrying diseases–like rabies–is too high to risk contact with them. Also, they can be very aggressive. This little guy was awfully brazen. He came right up to the patio window, where Harriet was doing her best Cujo impersonation. She was literally throwing herself at the glass. Not very smart of the raccoon to stick around, which makes me even more leery of him. Rabies is a neurological disease, and one symptom is the inability to properly gauge danger. Rabid animals do stupid things, like attack critters much bigger and meaner than themselves.

Supper, by the way, included fried tofu. It is most tasty. I’m not a big fan of tofu (the texture, it doth offend!), but I do like it sliced very thinly and either Shake-n-Baked or dipped in a mixture of about 2 parts soy sauce, one part water, and a few drops of worcestershire sauce, sprinkled with garlic and onion powder, then fried in olive oil. It gets crispy and leathery, which is much preferable to mushy and chalky.

Pets

Pet Food Part Deux

Shelly

Just for the record, I ended up going with Evo (turkey and chicken) for Harriet and Felidae Cat and Kitten (chicken and turkey) for Pandora. Evo is kind of wacky, in that it’s meant to mimic a raw diet. It’s super high in protein, but has no grains whatsoever. After I fed Harriet her tea (4-5pm feeding), she sat in front of the cupboard where I store their food, with her ears clamped down tight, and sang to it. She likes it.

Pandora was also happy with the switch. She’s had Felidae before, so I’m sure she’ll do well on it. I opted for the non-senior formula, because I’m not convinced that senior foods are appropriate for cats. At least, most of the senior foods I’ve seen, which have been higher in carbs, and lower in protein and fat. They also tend to be less smelly and palatable. Because cats are super reliant on their sense of smell and taste, and since those senses deteriorate with age, senior cats often turn into finicky eaters. In order to keep them thriving, it’s important to make sure they can smell their food, so that they will eat it.

I also got some good pointers for making homemade food (dog) from one of the dog newsgroup folks. I’ve got some more researching to do, and am going to sign up for a Yahoo group she recommended. I’m seriously considering switching Harriet over to at least a partially homemade diet.

This recall BS scares the crap out of me.

Crankypantsing, Pets

Pet Food

Shelly

If you own a dog or a cat, you’ve been following the pet food contamination story pretty closely. Rice and corn glutens have now been implicated alongside wheat gluten as being contaminated with melamine. The most logical theory I’ve seen so far is that the melamine was added deliberately, in order to make the gluten appear to have more protein than it really does. Higher protein means more money for the distributor. Melamine is apparently added to ruminant feed, but because of their longer and more complex digestive systems, the practice is (relatively, at least) harmless. Cattle can metabolize the melamine without it harming them.

Anyway, I have to buy both dog and cat food today. Harriet got the end of hers this morning, and Pandora is on her last bowl of food. I’m not looking forward to this. None of the foods I’ve been feeding my animals have any kind of gluten in them, but I’m still leery. There have been so many delays and so much politicking involved in recalls so far that I just don’t trust the government or the pet food industry to get information to us in a timely fashion.

So, what to do, what to do? I think I’m going to go with Canidae and Felidae. I’ve fed both in the past, long-term, and was very happy with the general health of my cats and dogs. Canidae does not use glutens of any kind in their feeds, and they claim that all their ingredients are grown and processed in the US. I have no reason to doubt that they are a trustworthy company, but I can’t help but be concerned.

Also, it’s Little 500 weekend, and I have to work tomorrow. Kill me now!

Crankypantsing

Iron Skillets

Shelly

I hate non-stick cookware. Hate, hate, hate it. I’ve inherited a couple of nice iron skillets from my mom (three, if you count the cute little pie wedge cornbread skillet). If they are seasoned well, and you are careful, iron is virtually non-stick.

I’m not always careful, though. Sometimes I do stupid things, like add tomato sauce to my just sauteed veggies, while they are still in the pan. Oops. All is not lost, though! Reseasoning an iron skillet is easy peasy. One of my favorite methods is to make pancakes. No, seriously. The first pancake may turn out a little funky, but the rest should be fine, and by the time you have made 3-4 of them, you will have a beautifully reseasoned skillet. And pancakes. Mmmm.

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Breadmaking

Shelly

I love homemade bread, but I don’t often have the patience to make it entirely by hand. I’m also not in love with the stuff that comes out of bread machines. It’s too dense and too dry, and it’s often crumbly. But, I’m on an extra tight budget this month, so I got out the bread machine in lieu of buying bread.

Tip 1: I experimented a bit, and discovered that adding a little extra water (or a little less flour), omitting the powdered milk that most recipes seem to call for, substituting olive oil for butter, and upping the salt a bit, results in an airy, moist bred with a crisp crust. Very nearly delightful.

The only problem–and it’s a minor one–is that the initial blending needs a little bit of assistance. Because of the increased ratio of water:flour, the paddle won’t be able to gather everything together into a ball on its own. A couple of minutes with a wooden spoon, pushing flour from the corners toward the moving paddle, is all it takes to get things on track. After the dough comes together, the paddle should be able to knead it on its own.

Tip 2: When making whole wheat bread in the bread machine, stop the machine after the first knead/rest period, then restart the cycle from the beginning. The extra kneading will help develop the gluten, and will result in a softer, less crumbly bread.

Photography

Cornbread

Shelly

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I’m heading out to the real OC in a little bit, to help Ms. Lea do some post-moving cleaning. I thought, since the house is pretty much empty, and because we’ll want something to eat, I’d make something to take with me. A crock pot of 15 bean soup and some cornbread seemed like an excellent idea. The cornbread turned out most excellently, so I thought I’d share my recipe. It’s tender, with a crispy crust, and a nutty, savory flavor. (I really don’t like sweet cornbread.)

  • 1 1/4 C flour
  • 3/4 C yellow corn meal
  • 1 tbls sugar
  • 4 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2/3 C milk
  • 1/3 C melted butter or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly coat an iron skillet with oil and place in the oven while it’s preheating. The preheated skillet is secret to the crispy crust.

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl. In a separate container (I use a Pyrex measuring cup), mix the wet ingredients. If you measure out the oil and milk, then add the egg, you will not need to dirty another measuring cup. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix thoroughly. By this time, the oven and the skillet should be hot. Remove the skillet from the oven. Pour the batter into the skillet. The batter should sizzle when it hits the hot pan. Return the skillet to the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

When it’s done, the edges should be slightly brown and be pulled away from the pan. You can also test it with a fork.

You can add things like corn (drained canned corn works fine), parsley, garlic, onion, cheese, and chilies to the batter, but I like it best plain.