Barefoot Contessa's Chunky Blue Cheese and Yogurt Dip

This Gorgonzola Dip pairs perfectly with lightly steamed asparagus.

Trouble with blogger yesterday--maybe I can post today!
   I tried a new recipe Wednesday: Barefoot Contessa's Chunky Blue Cheese and Yogurt Dip. (Links to the kitchen blog of Border's Bookstore. Click for the recipe then scroll down the page a bit.) 
   Now, I'm not much of a blue cheese fan myself; one of the others in my "cook the book" group chose this recipe. And I'm glad they did!
   The point with our cooking group was to get me out of my comfort zone. My original idea was to pick a complicated cookbook to get me to use techniques I'm too lazy to use often, but this book turned out to be a much better idea! Barefoot Contessa's How Easy Is That? cookbook contains recipes I'd never choose myself; and I'm really enjoying broadening my palate's horizon, so to speak.
   More and more I'm finding that foods I didn't used to like really do it for me now. Gotta love that!
   Happy Friday the 13th!! Hope you have a terrific time this weekend!! 

Original recipe calls for Tabasco--I was out of it!

This recipe couldn't be easier--just a few pulses to combine.

Add the minced chives last and pulse just a couple more times & DONE!

Please eat some sweets for me while I watch Hubby eat Hican Pie Bars

Hican Pie Bars--substitute pecans if you want. Click on pic for clearer image.

Still working hard to reduce packaging waste by cooking/baking mostly from scratch. Since I've started trying to follow the 4-Hour Body suggestion to eat "slow carbs" (protein, legumes, veggies) except on the Saturday cheat day, it's been tougher deciding what to bake. After all, Hubby still wants his sweets. As he's most days out in the garden, yard or garage often tending to projects that I came up with in the first place, I can hardly deny him his just desserts!
   The trouble now is to find sweets that won't tempt me Sunday through Friday, while I wait for my cheat day. That's where these Hican Pie Bars come in. Hicans are a bit stronger tasting than pecans, and I'm not crazy for them...so I'm not craving these bars like I would be my fav: Lemon Pie Bars.
   My Hican Pie Bars are a riff on the Pecan Pie Bars found on MyRecipes.com, which I had made before. Added the butter flavoring because I like a more pronounced butter flavor in a pecan pie. When I'm short on time, I make these bars rather than a pecan pie, 'cause there's no mess from rolling out pie crust dough to clean up afterwards.
   Anyway, hope you're having an absolutely fabulous day. Eat something sweet for me, and I'll catch up on Cheat Day! 

Determined to wait for "cheat day," the "bite" in the pic went back into the pan!
At left: bars ready for the freezer; butter wrappers work perfectly to keep extra air out.
I remembered to buy more rechargeable batteries today. Love those little money savers!

Hican Pie Bars
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter or margarine, cut up
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 large eggs
2 1/2 cups finely chopped hicans (or substitute pecans)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 to 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring, as desired (optional)
Preparation
Combine flour, sugar, and salt in large bowl; cut in 3/4 cup butter thoroughly with a pastry blender until mixture resembles very fine crumbs.   (Or use a food processor.)  Press mixture evenly then firmly into a greased 13" x 9" pan. Bake at 350° for 17 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
For filling, combine brown sugar, corn syrup, eggs, flavoring(s) and pecan in a large bowl. Stir to combine then slowly pour in 1/2 cup melted butter while mixing. Pour filling over crust. Bake at 350° for 34 to 35 minutes or until set. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

See what that this DVD made me do! Water shots too.

What looks like a watershed beyond the ditch is normally arable farmland.

Western Kentucky is pretty waterlogged these days. May days normally spent outside in gardens and flower beds find us all just waiting for the ground to dry. Fortunately, after 14 straight days of rainfall, we are in a reprieve, so the farmers are out in the fields that aren't under water even after dark...even on Mother's Day!

Overflow! Rods in the mudroom and garage were full.

   The other day threatened rain all morn, so I considered just putting my two loads of laundry in the dryer, but while waiting for the first load to wash, I popped in a DVD: Call of Life. An eye opener, to say the least!
   This was not shameless propaganda but instead gripping testimonies by noted scientists/academics from esteemed institutions like Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. If interested, see below for the trailer, which tells the tale of the documentary in brief. Hard words for sure, words that I don't want to forget as I endeavor to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Call to Life  leaves no doubt that we face a crisis that we must address or "entire eco-systems may face irreversible, chain-reaction system collapse."
   So, despite threatening weather outside, I hung my two loads of  laundry to dry...INSIDE! Looked goofy but I'll share a pic anyway. After all, I'm a bit proud of my moment of renewed realization that maybe the little green things I do actually COUNT.
   I know not everyone can hang laundry inside (or out) to dry. But there are soo many other ways to reduce one's impact on the environment. I have so much to learn!
   No time for guilt tho'. I can't change how un-green I've been--I can renew my resolve to make conscious efforts to be green where I can.
   Let's get our GREEN ON! Feel free to leave a link to share any of your green moments--frugal posts count. Why, if frugal had a color it'd be green!

This shot taken out sunroof while driving--not recommended in traffic! ;)

Not buying it: Tomato Sauce - paste easily converts to sauce

Paste to sauce: 6 ounces of paste, 12 ounces of water, 1/2 teaspoon sugar.

No longer buying cans of tomato sauce! Took a look at the ingredients in a can of tomato sauce...found water and tomato paste. Now I just buy paste and add my own water. Why pay for the added water?
   And if you're into preparedness, the little cans of paste save on storage space when compared with sauce.
   Though I do recycle all cans (first removing & tossing the labels in with the magazine recyclables), it takes less energy to recycle smaller cans. Yet another little way to lighten my impact on this lovely earth. For more ways to lessen our carbon footprint, visit Carbon Footprint.
   Came across a great article by Colin Beaven, No Impact Man: "42 Ways to Not Make Trash." No Impact Man's year spent trying to reduce his carbon footprint to zero sure made a BIG impact on me.
   The fact that going green almost always saves $greenbacks$ is icing on the cake! Speaking of cake, I hope to make one either today or tomorrow. Please leave a link if you've got a great cake post!!

Happy Cinco de Mayo: Ooey Gooey Tres Leches Cake

Click to enlarge pic to better see the ooey gooey-ness.

  "Cream of coconut" is not coconut milk. Yellow cake mix is better. 

I'm an eat-the-frosting-last-because-it's-best kinda gal, so to my way of thinking Tres Leches Cake is one of the few cakes that can get away with not having any icing! No doubt there are endless variations of the Tres Leches Cake out there, but "ooey-gooey" could probably describe them all.
   This Coconut Mango Tres Leches Cake over at Cooking in Mexico looks over the top indescribably delicious! Love that Kathleen didn't start with a box cake and hope to make her version SOON. Meantime, here's my quickie version of the cake, and making the cake according to the directions on the box would make it even easier but less dense.
Ooey Gooey Tres Leches Cake
Cake Ingredients
1 Yellow Cake mix (used French Vanilla but Yellow is best)
1 box instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter)
1 cup coconut milk (or regular milk or almond milk)

Ooey Gooey Topping Ingredients
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 can Cream of Coconut (Coco Lopez brand found among the bar set-ups at grocery)

In a large bowl, beat cake ingredients for 2 minutes. Pour batter into a 13" x 9" pan and bake in a preheated 350F degree oven for 30-40 minutes or until done. (EASIEST version: make cake mix according to package directions instead of using cake ingredients shown here.) Meanwhile, stir together sweetened condensed milk and cream of coconut. Poke holes in just-out-of-the-oven baked cake and pour the topping ingredients evenly over the holey cake. Refrigerate then EAT!

Poking holes prior to pouring. Bigger holes would be fine.

   Happy, happy Cinco de Mayo! Hope you find some way to join our brothers and sisters of the Estados Unidos Mexicanos in celebration of the day!! Make and Freeze Margaritas anyone?!!

Repurposing leftovers: Étouffée-ish Lentil Chicken Veggie Mish Mash

Only risk with winging it in the kitchen is that you must be willing to eat the results! Latest experiment in cooking turned out just fine, and another minimal meat meal has come and gone: this time an Étouffée-ish Lentil Chicken Veggie Medley.

Creole Trinity: onions, peppers and celery.

   Finally found a source for antibiotic-free, humanely raised chickens, so I'll be adding chicken back to our meal offerings, while keeping to my plan of preparing more minimal meat meals (saves money and also lightens our carbon footprint). Cooking more and more vegetarian meals, but as I'm not only cooking to my tastes here, minimal meat seems a good compromise.
   I didn't really follow any recipe for my lentil chicken mish-mash, but used the seasonings for étouffée found in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen as my jumping off point. After I took the above picture, I ended up adding a bit of leftover lentil soup (cooked out the liquids), along with some prepared mustard and a bit of Sweet Thai Chili Sauce too. And stole the onions out of a leftover cucumber and onion salad, so they tasted vinegary going in. Couldn't really taste any vinegar once the onions were cooked!

The seasonings used, as in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen.

   Posting this is my way of showing what goes on around here most days: repurposing leftovers and using less animal protein. Any leftovers making their way to your table today? 

Eating more "slow carbs" like lentils, as suggested by The 4-Hour Body book.

Leftover Roasted Chicken, with garlic and potatoes. (Aren't chickens gross when cold?)

Only added one chicken thigh but end result enough to feed two.

Make over: Customizing plain white sheets

Before.

One of the library books resting on my lap these days is The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. (Learned about this book over on The Spicy Perspective; She is doing a fabulous job of providing recipes that adhere to Ferriss' "slow carb" ideal.)
   LOVING this book. If I remember nothing else, I hope to remember Ferriss' concept of the importance of finding the MED or "minimum effective dose." Of course, he's talking about the minimally effective amount of exercise, but this MED philosophy can be applied to save time or money in many areas of our lives.
   For instance, I realized that painting the bathroom Chinese red meant that--unless I wanted the RED bath to stick out like a sore thumb--I had to sprinkle little touches of red throughout our home.
   Not wanting our house to be ALL about red, I've been searching for the MED or minimum effective dose of red for the other rooms.
   When I visit fancy home shops, I always moon over the custom sheets...often embellished with fine laces or satin ribbons. But I don't need new sheets and wouldn't spend THAT much money on them anyway!
   An affordable alternative was in order: for our master bedroom, I decided my white sheets could use a little shot of red, and a little red cording (and Mom's sewing skills) just turned the trick.
   Still debating whether to put another line of cord on the top sheet. Would I like that just as well or better? So, guess I am deciding whether I have found my MED of red yet for these sheets. ?? Feel free to weigh in if you want!

Towns lived in on the journey to Debt Free-land

Keeping an eye out for "wants" pays off: math manipulatives recently bought at a garage sale.

We are fairly swimming in all the rain that keeps falling. I feel as dull as these endless gray skies that keep me indoors as life goes on here in PerpetualRain-Falls, Kentucky.
   Still, time inside has given me time to ponder some of the many places we've lived on our journey to Debt Free-land:
Save-asota
DodgeDebt-City
SecondHandSales-borough
NoCable-ton
Don'tEatOutMuch-ville
PayLoansOffEarly-dale
CheapVacays-burg
DIYorDoWthout-field
   Okay, I haven't spent ALL my time coming up with corn-ball town names, I have read or skimmed a library book or two (or three or four or...).  
   Be CentsAble: How to Cut Your Household Budget in Half by Chrissy Pate and Kristin McKee recommended this Birthday Freebies site. Though no freebies were listed within 25 miles of our town, hope you get lucky!
   Of course, you may not want to follow this suggestion unless you have what it takes to get your freebie and walk out with nothing except what's within the ole budget. When I got a free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery for my birthday, I had no problem walking out with that and only that. (I do occasionally buy ice cream there--not often enough for anyone to know me.)
   Anyone else getting birthday freebies? Care to add anything to my corny list of towns lived in on the way Debt Free-land? Hope it's not raining out Spring in your neck of the woods!

Cried over the Royal Wedding--while grating onion for cucumber sandwiches

Middle Eastern flatbread

Wanting to somehow join in the celebration of the Royal Wedding yesterday, I decided to make cucumber sandwiches.
   For a cucumber spread, I just smooshed together 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1 to 2 tablespoons grated onion, 1/2 teaspoon onion salt and somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 cup of both grated and finely minced cucumber. I threw it together in a hurry...sorry no pics of the spread!

Harvested my funny little Romaine lettuce crop--scant but free salad!

   Unfortunately, I'd had no time to bake bread; neither did I find time to stop by a bakery for a quality white or sourdough bread. So, we slathered the cucumber spread on some flatbread bought from a tiny little market we stumbled upon in Nashville on Thursday. (Three ladies were slapping the dough in a little room at the back of the store, and the freshly baked bread was available on a screened pass-through between that room and the store.)
   Granted, smearing cucumber spread on flatbread was decidedly less wedding-like than dainty little cucumber sandwiches would have been, but still, it WAS tasty!
   Hope something tasty pleased your palate yesterday! And may we all live HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!

Cheater salad dressings and some links to share

Cheater dressings: cheaper than commercially prepared, less packaging waste.

Okay, okay, I know I'm trying to make more of everything from scratch, but all this rain, rain, RAIN has me feeling very lazy. So today we'll be topping our salads with a cheater dressing: semi-scratch Italian made using a package of seasonings plus my olive oil, water and red wine vinegar.
   To console myself on not making the dressing completely from scratch, I remind myself that these cheater dressings do reduce packaging waste. The little seasoning packet tossed today is better than the big plastic bottle that packages a ready-made dressing.
   Same goes for the semi-scratch cheater Ranch Dressing, made with seasoning I buy in bulk, along with my mayo and milk. And there has to be a lower carbon-cost of shipping these seasonings without the added weight of the liquid ingredients.
   Tho' we recycle all plastic containers, using less plastic is always a good idea. Besides, we can expect high oil prices to raise the prices on all petroleum based or packaged products!
   I managed to visit the library yesterday. Brought home and skimmed through The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better by Chris Farrell, the Economics Editor of Marketplace Money, an NPR broadcast. I say 'skimmed' 'cause I'm less interested in investing than I am in frugality. Aside from the usual "buy used, reduce, reuse, recycle" advice, the book shares several links to frugal sites.

   Please let me know if you visit any of these and come across any new frugal ideas!
Frugal Link Love from The New Frugality
Frugal Living on About.com
Frugal Village
Sustainablog.org
World Changing
Simple-Green-Frugal
1Green Generation
The Daily Green
Inhabitat
Green Yahoo
Greener Penny
Freecycle
TreeHugger (Love this site!)
Green Money Journal
Slow Food USA
Happy link hopping!!

Finally got-around-to-its: Kale chips and re-growing produce

Hey, I finally got around to trying a couple of suggestions I'd seen on other blogs. Aren't you proud of me?

Seasoning of choice this time--YUM!

   A riff on those by Meg over at Cooking.In.College, my kale chips were wonderful! Her suggestions to avoid crowding on the pan and to dry the kale as much as possible no doubt contributed to crispier chips.
   Too lazy to measure, I just poured some olive oil over the kale in the pan and spread it around with my hands before sprinkling the kale liberally with McCormick's Salad Supreme. Baked on a heavy sheet pan in a 350F degree oven, it took 7 minutes in my oven for these bad boys to crisp up.
   Some bites tasted like popcorn! Most tasted like...well, crispy, seasoned kale. Fine by me!

My baby Romaine lettuces--aren't they cute?

   Finally got around to trying Practical Parsimony's idea to get free produce from the normally discarded celery bottoms. Well, I had some Romaine lettuce on hand, so I plunked the cut off bottoms into some water...and wahlah, little baby lettuce leaves are growing!!
   The little outer leaves are just existing, previously cut leaves continuing to grow but the inner leaves seem brand new. I never knew it could be such fun to be a countertop gardener!
   Even if I only get one salad out of these, it'll be a FREE salad, eh?!
   Sure feels good to scratch two things off my to-do list, particularly since both were successes. Any projects waiting for you to "get-around-to-it" over at your place?

Contemplating waste--well, that and Coconut Chess Pie

  

Caught the documentary Wasteland (movie trailer below) on PBS' Independent Lens last night. Watching folks walking around on literally mountains of trash sure makes me more mindful of every little thing going into the wastebin here at home. Good reminder that throwing it away doesn't mean it's GOING away.

Previously-homemade frozen piecrust

    All the more reason to cook foods from scratch as opposed to buying pre-packaged goods. And this Coconut Chess Pie couldn't be any easier! Just the thing to brighten these gray skies on yet another rainy, rainy day here in Kentucky.
   To my way of thinking, reducing one's trash relies on reducing one's consumption. And though I may never reach the heights achieved over at Zero Waste Home, every day I am working to glean at least ONE unneeded thing from my closets or cupboards.
   I'm working on changing my mindset from 'I need more' to 'I need LESS.' Wish me luck!

Coconut Chess Pie

Chess pies are just soo easy--gotta love 'em!

1 stick (1/2 cup) melted butter
1 1/2 cup sugar (or less!)
3 eggs
1 cup flaked coconut
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
unbaked 9" pie shell (if frozen, no need to thaw)
Whisk together filling ingredients. Pour into unbaked pie shell; bake in a preheated 350F degree oven for 45 minutes or until set.

Quiches are great for using up leftover stuff

Smoked Salmon Asiago Quiche

We've been eating quiches around here ever since I discovered the recipe in my 1976 copy of Laurel's Kitchen. It contained a quiche recipe that is soo easy to adapt to whatever ingredients are on hand. And quiche works beautifully for a minimal meat meal (2 to 3 oz. smoked salmon in this quiche) or with leftover veggies as a vegetarian meal.
   Storming here in Kentucky and looks like we're in for another week of rain/storms to come.
   I'll share my favorite zucchini quiche recipe another time. Care to share your favorite quiche combination?  
   What's cooking over at your place? As always, feel free to leave a link to a post you'd like to share. I'm always looking for new ideas for ways to use leftovers.
   Hope you're having a fantabulous weekend!!

Here is the Laurel's Kitchen recipe slightly adapted:
Basic Quiche Recipe
3 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup grated cheese
1/4 to 1/2 to 1 cup leftover proteins or veggies
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
pinch freshly ground pepper (or to taste)
sprinkling of ground nutmeg
butter
9" or 10" unbaked pie crust
Sprinkle cheese over bottom of pie shell; then sprinkle with the cooked leftover of your choice. Whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Pour over the cheese and leftovers into the pie crust. Sprinkle with ground nutmeg then dot with butter. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes or until set. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

1/3 c. liquid (half water/ half vodka) makes 2 crusts easier to handle but still flaky.

I always try to make two pie crusts, 2nd to freeze for later.

Uncooked quiche with dots of butter floating on top.

This moment: Drive by landscaping gaping

No grass landscaping--these folks are geniuses!

Happy Earth Day!! Every year I'm trying bit by bit to edge our one acre lawn toward becoming a grassless permaculture. (Guilty confession: I buy the plants/bushes/trees, Hubby plants 'em, but don't dare tell him of my diabolical plot to eventually get rid of all the grass!)
   Rosalind Creasy's Edible Landscaping is my ideal. Seriously, if at all interested, visit Creasy's link--incredible pics there!
   With water resources becoming ever more precious, permaculture, edible landscaping and xeriscaping are the sustainable wave of the future. So, when I'm out and about, I snap shots of other folks' lawns in hopes of finding something to incorporate into our own landscaping. I hope to find schemes/layouts to reproduce on our place...with edible plantings woven throughout. Wish me luck!
   Raining, raining, raining here in western Kentucky. What's it like outside your window today??

Thanks to Soulemama for this Friday photo sharing concept. Feel free to leave a link to your moment.

I liked the bright green ring around the tree on the left.

This looked better in person than in the picture...such a variety.

For some reason, this was my favorite--do love the deep, contrasting colors.

Wonder if bushes lower electric bills by insulating the house from sun?

Sadly, landscaping takes work to maintain...this yardscape is going to pot!

On my mind: Meeting green halfway works for me and my budget

Okay, I'm trying to buy greener products, but they don't always suit me. So I've decided to meet green halfway and guess what? IT WORKS!
Underarm Deodorant 
    I'm a big believer that "layering" underarm deodorant makes it work better, but never foung a "green" deodorant that seemed to work. I tried three different brands: Kiss My Face, Tom's and Jason's, but even if I applied the natural deodorants at night and in the morn and then reapplied yet again a few times during the day, I seemed to smell of lavender AND sweat. UGH!

Add water to baking soda for a thick paste.

   So I decided to go halfway green: I apply a natural deodorant at night after my shower and in the morning I use a standard commercial antiperspirant/deodorant. Works great!
No 'Poo Shampoo
   Never found the time to give the "no 'poo" baking soda shampoo the days supposedly required for my "natural oils" to kick in, so I've been using the baking soda paste every other shampoo or so (about 1 1/2 teaspoon for short hair). Works great!
Homemade Dishwasher Detergent
   The cleaner greener homemade dishwasher detergent I made a few weeks back is working for me too. Still using it every fifth time or so and there hasn't been any of the buildup I'd been warned about with the green recipes. Works great!
   Until I can find my way to natural products that work, meeting green halfway not only eases my budget but also eases my guilt about the environmental impact of commercial products.
   Are there any ways you are meeting green halfway? Any recommendations of natural products that DO work would also be appreciated!

Cooking the harvest challenge continues: Asparagus glut begins

Not that I'm complaining, but the asparagus is coming on like gangbusters! Every day new shoots inch their way up to harvest height.
   As for my thrown together pasta, what's not to love about big bits of melting Parmesan, pan-roasted walnuts and asparagus? (Seasonings: olive oil, butter, thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, S&P.)
   BURNED the first batch of walnuts -- what a waste of walnuts, olive oil and butter! HATE waste, salvaged what I could by cutting off the black bits. The salvaged walnuts were tasty on a salad...leftovers pictured here.

Oriental Asparagus Salad -- minus ingredients I didn't have.

   The Oriental Asparagus Salad was just slightly cooked asparagus marinated in a dressing made of 1/4 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, 1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic and 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger. Found this recipe, which also called for fresh bell pepper and water chestnuts, in The Best Kept Secrets of Healthy Cooking by Sandra Woodruff, R.D. (recipes). Have yet to make a recipe of hers we didn't love!  
   Hope I can meet the challenge of all this asparagus. And we still have gobs of kale to eat! One of these days I'll get around to making these Kale Chips found over at Cooking.In.College.
   What we can't eat of our garden produce we do try to give away, so hopefully little will be wasted. Did I mention that I hate waste?!

Make over: Candle holder from a soda can

Okay, I know I already made a post today but just came across some creative repurposing I had to share!
   Meanqueen over at Life After Money makes the cutest little tea light candle holders out of aluminum cans. We don't drink many sodas, but we do save them until we get enough to recycle. So if I wanted LOTS of little tea lights to brighten up an outdoor party, this can repurposing would be the no cost way to go!

Pretending 'this may be my last' saves me money

In the Great Depression, people learned to "Make Do, Make Over, Do Without" because when there's scarcely enough money for food, everything else becomes a luxury. Though most of us reading this don't worry about where our next meal may come from, consciously trying to make things last still helps our budgets and our planet!
   So, I play a little mind trick on myself before tossing/re-buying anything. I ask, 'What if this _____ is my last?" If this were my last pencil, I'd make do with a dull point to use all the carbon before sharpening it again. If this were my last tea towel, I'd durned well make it over instead of tossing it into the rag bag.
   The more I learn about the environmental impact of the products we use, the more I'm motivated to apply the 'this may be my last' mind trick. This past weekend I discovered a fascinating series produced by the Sundance Channel called Eco-Trip, and its episode about the impact of a cotton t-shirt really got me thinking. Evidently the use of pesticides in growing cotton make it the world's 'dirtiest' crop. So, I'll be looking for organic cotton, I'll be trying to buy from companies with ethical practices, and I'll be working even harder to make sure anything made of cloth that I do buy is well cared for.
   And if there's anything to this Peak Oil business, the ole ditty "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" will really come in handy.
From rags to riches
   Did I mention I have an amazing mom? She revamped these years-old kitchen linens of mine by sewing like-colored lace and little patches over the holes. Don't know where she got the "moda" ribbon that she repurposed to make some patches from, but at least four of my kitchen towels now sport this new "logo." (Including the one I accidentally burned recently!)
     Patched kitchen towels suit me fine. I'd much rather buy new clothes than new kitchen towels, wouldn't you? Sporting any patches over at your place?

Happy Passover--celebrating each other's faiths with food!

Banana bread cooling; blond brownie dough ready to bake.

My blond brownies turned out okay, but I'll keep looking for the BEST recipe. Meantime, you may want to check out these Chocolate-Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch by David Lebovitz. Pretty much the same as the Saltine Cookies I make, but using Matzoh makes a nice Passover variation.
   I'm not Jewish, but I love celebrating foods with other faiths.
   I feel privileged to have visited and witnessed Rosh Hashanah services at a Jewish Temple, Friday prayer at a Muslim Mosque, a worship service at a Hindu Temple and a meditation with a Buddhist Dharma study group. Not to mention visits to several different Christian denominations.

One for Hubby to take hunting; one for freezer for later.

   Some of these visits were college credit requirements for a class in Comparative Religions; some visits were made for fellowship with friends. I am richer for having all these experiences -- MUCH richer for gaining a respect for all the different faiths. Gives me great hope to know the MAJORITY of us are seeking to find and do the right thing by each other.
And now for my cooking confession:
   Did I mention that I'm lazy? The pic at top tells the tale. Once it cooled in the pan on the rack, I propped my banana bread on top of the pan to finish cooling, so I wouldn't have to clean the cooling rack!
   Washing dishes never seems to end. If anyone likes washing dishes, please teach me your secret! Better yet...tell me how YOU avoid cleaning something!