My son, Seth, started his own blog this weekend. Check it out. I know you will. Because he is a great guy. And cute, too!
Anasazi Beans With Guacamole
I am always looking for new things to eat that are healthy, inexpensive, gluten free and good tasting. The other day when we were in Parker, I found these Anasazi Beans. I had read about them in cookbooks and on the internet, but I had never seen any in a store. They were more expensive than other kinds of dried beans, about twice as much for a 16 oz bag. I bought them anyway and brought them home.
I couldn’t wait to take them out of the bag and take a picure of them. I mean, they are so pretty just sitting there in the pot:
I made bean soup with them, adding some chopped celery, onion, garlic, basil, thyme, and black pepper. I don’t usually add any salt to the pot when I am cooking dried beans. It makes them tough and chewy, so we add the salt after they are cooked if they need any. I have always added some sort of meat to the pot when I cook beans, but this time, since we are trying to eat less meat, I did not add any at all. We wanted to see how good dried beans could be with no meat added.
Also, I have found that if you either soak the beans overnight, or put them in a pot with water, bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, then pour off the water and rinse the beans well, you won’t get the flatulence usually associated with eating beans. (It works, believe me, I know it does!)
After you rinse the beans, add them to the crockpot with the other ingredients. I cooked these beans for about 4 hours on high, then turned them off and let them sit overnight in the crockpot. The second day, I turned the crockpot on high and cooked them another two hours. The soup turned out just right. I served it with homemade guacamole spooned on top, and cornbread on the side. The guacamole added just the right amount of mmmmmmmmmm to this soup.
Something I’ve Meaning To Tell My Sister
My sister has had eczema on her hands for a long time. She has trouble with breakouts often, and has to wear gloves when washing her dishes. I have also had some trouble with my hands itching and some trouble with my cuticles and nails getting too dry.
A few months ago, while we were in Flagstaff, I decided to look for a dishwashing liquid that would be better for my hands. We had been using Palmolive for years, and it had been the best one I could find to prevent the itchyness, but even that was not working for me anymore.
Yeah, I COULD just wear gloves, but even though I had bought some, I can never remember to put the dang things on until AFTER I had my hands in the dishwater. Have you ever tried to put rubber gloves on wet hands??? Not happening, friends.
So, anyway, we were in the health food store in Flagstaff, and found BioKleen Dishwashing Liquid:
This stuff is great if you have sensitive skin! I have been using it since the last week of October. My hands are not all itchy, and don’t have the ugly peely looking cuticles I usually get when I am the one doing the dishes. See:
The bottle says Hand Moisturizing, Natural, Non-toxic, Biodegradable. It has Grapefruit Seed and Orange Peel Extract, and is Gentle to the Skin. It was not cheap, but a 32 oz bottle lasts a pretty long time. We just opened our third bottle and have been using it since the last week of October. Anyway, consider this a public service announcement. If you have a problem with dry itchy skin on your hands, get some of this stuff. It works great! (and NO, I was NOT paid to review this product. I just really like it.)
Driving Me Crazy!
When I turned 16, I wanted nothing more than to get my drivers license. My father, however, was of the opinion that girls did not NEED a drivers license, that they could go everywhere they needed to go with their parents, their brothers, or their boyfriends. He steadfastly refused to take me to get my license.
Until it occurred to him that he could also take my brother, who is a year younger than me, at the same time. At that time in Georgia, if your parent was with you when you went to get your drivers license, you did not have to show your birth certificate. You parent told the officials how old you were, and they took them at their word.
So, on that day in 1968, my father told them I was born in 1951, so he could tell them my brother was born in 1952. And ever since then, my date of birth has been incorrect on my drivers license. It has never been a problem. Until yesterday.
Yesterday FabGrandpa and I went to the Arizona DMV to get Arizona drivers licenses. His was coming up for renewal in March. Since we are not planning to go to Georgia until November, it would have been a problem for him. He is required to have a valid drivers license for his summer job. An expired Georgia license wouldn’t work. And, because we also got a post office box in Arizona last week, I decided to go ahead and get my Arizona license, too.
When it was my turn, I appoached the desk, and gave the clerk my two forms of ID, which consisted of my Georgia license and my brand new US Passport card. And the dates of birth on them did not match! I went through the whole story of how my father lied on that day in history. The clerks conferred amongst themselves. They called the supervisor. They called The Boss. All of this was making me really uncomfortable. And they finally told me I could have my Arizona drivers license, but that I really need to bring in my birth certificate next time I am in town. You know, the birth certificate that the Passport office said was not a valid one? Thanks, Dad, for all the fun.
A Little Advice About Cooking
Many years ago FabGrandpa and I used to hang out with a bunch of people who got together two or three times a week for pot luck suppers. It was at a different person’s home each time. Every family that came brought a dish to share, and whose ever house it was at cooked the meat, whether it was weiners on the grill, a pot roast, fried chicken, or whatever.
It was in the days before I found out I had to eat gluten free, so the things I made and took to share were always full of gluten. I made this one squash casserole that I had been making for years, the one that I had adjusted the original recipe to make it MINE. The one I used to make and tell my children it was pie, and they could have some if they ate their dinner. The one that I took to family reunions and other family get togethers, and people would sidle up to me and say, “Karen, that squash casserole is better than the ones your mother makes. How do you make them?” And I would always tell them the ingredients that I use to make it. And the next time I saw them, they would say “Karen, I made my husband a squash casserole using your recipe and he didn’t like it. What am I doing wrong?”
The conversation would continue, with me asking questions like “did you cook the squash with butter?” And they would say, “Yes, I did.” And I would ask “What brand of butter did you use?” and they would say “Country Crock” or “Parkay” or whatever else brand of margarine that they had used. And then I would ask “Did you use club crackers?” and they would say “Yes, I did” and I would ask “What brand of club crackers did you use?” and they would say, “Well, I used saltines.”
And then I would tell them, if you didn’t use real butter, and you didn’t use real club crackers, then your finished casserole will not ever taste like mine and your husband will never like it. And they don’t get it.
So, what I am trying to say here, is that if you ask ME for MY recipe, and you don’t follow it to the letter, then what YOU end up with will never be the same as what I made. Get it?
And so now that I have got that out of my system, I have to say that whenever a recipe is given out, here or anywhere else, you can certainly make substitutions for any and all of the indgredients. Just don’t expect what you make to be the same as what the original person made.
What made me think of this today is that FabGrandpa and I have been talking about changing to a mostly vegetarian diet. This discussion has come about because we watched a documentary on TV last night about healing your body through changing your diet.
As we discuss this between us, we have talked about whether or not we want to continue to eat chicken, fish and seafood, cheese, and eggs as a part of our new eating plan. And this is important to talk about. Because tonight for dinner we had Black Bean Nachos. We really enjoy this particular combination of foods. But, if we decide to cut the cheese (hahahaha, I said cut the cheese!) out of our diet, we could no longer have Black Bean Nachos. We would have to substitute something for the cheese. And we probably wouldn’t like it as well as we like cheese.
So, if you have changed your diet as part of a new eating plan, to improve your health, what substitutions have you made? What things did you cut out? Do you like your new way of eating? Do you feel better now that you have made the changes?
I’ll go first: I cut gluten out of my diet in April of 2007. I have substituted rice flour, tapioca flour, corn starch, buckwheat flour, and sorghum flour for the wheat products I used to use. I cut out everything that is made with wheat, rye, and barley. I do like my new way of eating. It took a while to get used to it, but since I feel so much better than I used to, it is easier to eat the things I need to eat instead of the old things I used to eat.
So, there it is. An informal survey of the peeps who read my blog. Feel free to email me at fabgrandma@gmail.com with any suggestions you may have as we work out this new eating plan.
And The Verdict?…
So today I put the new oven thermometer in the oven and turned it on at 400 degrees. About twenty minutes later, the thermometer was showing 350 degrees. So THAT is why the things I have been trying to cook have not been turning out right.
After fooling around with the oven for an hour or so, I figured out that to get the oven to 400 degrees, I need to set it on 450 degrees. That should make things better as far as trying to make a cake or cookies.
And after all that, I made a gluten free pizza. The crust turned out pretty good. I baked it for 12 minutes at 400 degrees, then put the toppings on and baked for another 12 minutes. Perfect! Oh, and no picture of it because we ate it all!
Oh, Excuse Me…
It has been brought to my attention that I have not written in my blog for 4 days. FOUR DAYS! Where has the time gone? It’s not like I was doing anything really important, like working, or cleaning, or even reading the long awaited mail.
It’s just that I have been doing nothing. And going nowhere. You know, being a complete mush head. Lolling about on the sofa watching TV. Playing games online at POGO. Sleeping until 10:00 then taking an afternoon nap before snoozing on bed before actually going to bed.
When your life is like that there is absolutely nothing interesting about it, for you or for anyone else.
So, today, we got out of our pajamas and out of the house and went for a drive. Only I was driving so I couldn’t take any pictures to prove it. I wanted to go here, but we didn’t, so I have nothing to write about. Because I am sure you don’t want to hear about how we drove over to Blythe, California to go to K-Mart and buy an oven thermometer:
Oh, Yeah, Baby! and it even says Martha Stewart on it. Now I’m cooking! Oh, sorry.
So, there ya go, all the drama that was the drama, and all the news to make you sorry you asked.
Mail Lost And Found
For eight years, our daughter, Becky, who lives in Atlanta, has handled our mail for us. She has collected it from the post office box and sent it to us about every two weeks or so. She has done this for us because she loves us, and has done a very good job of it.
Over the last year or so, the mail has been sent with more and more time in between, an indication to us that she is busy. We understand that–she owns her own business, has lots of friends, a new boyfriend, and now a new puppy. (well, her room mate has a new puppy) So, we decided to permanently change our address to a PO box here in Salome. We decided to come back here to this same RV park next winter anyway, and the post office will forward our mail for free to our job in the summer for 6 months, which is all we would need, anyway.
So, we called Becky and had her send our mail one last time, which she did, 10 days ago. When we still had not received our mail package yesterday, I emailed Becky and asked if she had really sent the mail on the day she said she was going to. Yes, she did. So, today, still no mail.
I got to thinking about it, and although she has never done it before, I wondered if she had sent the mail to the last place we were, in Phoenix. Called them, and sure enough, they had my package. But, they wouldn’t forward it to me. They could return it to Becky, but could not forward it to me. Even if I paid them to.
So, now I am waiting for my mail to take a ride from North Phoenix RV Park in Phoenix, back to Becky, then back to me here in Salome. That package will have traveled over 6,000 miles before I get it. Imagine that!
And I just want to say here, that I have worked at RV parks for years, and at every place I have ever worked, we would forward the mail. This is not normal.