Since the electricity has been more off than on this cold dreary day, and I have been using the oven to keep the house livable, the only thing I had the chance to make were peanut butter cookies. Definitely improved my mood (at least a little)!
My Thing-a-Day on Posterous!
Last night’s dinner wasn’t any kind of fancy gourmet meal, just some whole wheat spaghetti, sauteed mushrooms and ground beef, and Alfredo sauce (from a jar – eek) … and a side salad. Nothing terribly exciting, except all the lettuce and radishes came from the garden, which is quite exciting to me! LOL!
Last night before I tucked the lettuce in under their freeze-protecting blankets, I decided to quickly thin the little plants out a bit. There’s still a lot to be thinned out in order to give the largest of them the best conditions for growing perfectly, but I didn’t want to waste any, so I only picked what we needed for last night’s salad. If I do that a few more times this week, everything should be spaced out well enough.
I’m quite thrilled with this winter’s lettuce. The Black Seeded Simpson (a leaf lettuce) is behaving in a weedy manner (which I like) and looking and tasting great. The few head lettuce seeds I planted on a lark (really not winter hardy at all) are already getting large enough to start pulling together into little heads too. I think this is the earliest we’ve had lettuce on our plates from seeds planted at the beginning of winter. Last year, we did have some during winter, but all of that was from summer plants I babied like crazy to keep going through a few freezes. Old lettuce plants may provide good nutrition, but after a while, it just doesn’t taste as sweet as the leaves of new plants.
The thing I am most thrilled about concerning the lettuce is that while I have been covering most of the seedlings during freezes, some of the self-planted ones were just outside the range of my blanket, and I couldn’t be bothered to cover them … and they haven’t died. In fact, some of them look really, really healthy. What will be interesting to see, as the season progresses, is whether or not they are not only freeze hardy but also don’t go to seed at the first sign of a warm spring day. Either way, I’ll be saving seed from these plants, because they will be the ones to plant at the start of next winter planting season, but if they also show themselves to be tolerant of warm and sunny weather, I may have my perfect lettuce seeds at last. Something that can be grown and enjoyed through winter and into early summer. That would be great!
In other garden news, I really need to get out there and do some weeding and prep work for spring planting. I’ve done better at keeping up with it this winter (and certainly better than I did this last summer), but it’s either sunny but too cold or warm enough but too wet to be outside puttering. It’s not especially overgrown, but still, weeds are weeds and they have to go. I also need to plant more radishes and carrots, as well as tear out the total failure of arugula (it just isn’t going to grow in my garden) and plant some more head lettuce.
It’s also time to start my indoor seedlings and maybe order some seeds of some kind to try some new things this summer. And “we” need to get out the tiller and till massive areas of the yard. I want to do a grain crop this year, plus I need to buy some potato starts to begin the potato experiment anew. OMG, there is so much gardening stuff I need to be doing and I am so busy with other projects! Maybe I should take a day off from the artwork and spend some time planning and working on the garden projects. I yet again have hope that this year will be THE YEAR my garden is totally awesome. Yes, hope does spring eternal in the gardener’s heart. LOL!
Lately, I’ve been exploring restaurants, bars, diners, and the like in the Austin area. Like most people, we get into the rut of going to the same few places we really like without checking out other places we might like as well which have different things to offer. The Austin Metro Area is full of all manner of places to eat, drink, and be merry, and it seems a shame not to try more than the handful we visit regularly. As seldom as we eat out or get takeout/delivery, it’s not even a handful of places!
So … I’ve been trying to find new places to check out for some variety, and I’m finding it harder than I expected to find places that a) serve reasonable food and b) aren’t ridiculously expensive. I don’t care how organic, local, and fresh your foodstuffs are, there will never come a day when I pay $7.95 for an order of chili cheese fries.
This brings me to the reason for this post:
No matter how organic, local, and fresh your foodstuffs are, chili cheese fries are inherently unhealthy. Sure, the organic/local/chili cheese fries may (or may not) taste a little better than the $2.95 ones at the fast food place, but they are both steaming piles of artery-clogging salty greasiness containing far more calories than necessary for very little nutritional return. Additionally, the expensive chili cheese fries tend to be found at trendy locations that are further away and more crowded, which means not only would I be spending more money for the same nutrients (or lack thereof), I’d be spending time.
My time (and my husband’s time) is worth quite a lot these days, and we’re both mindful of how standing in lines or driving across town just to get one thing we want –food or otherwise– adds to the cost of said thing.† Once all is said and done, those $7.95 chili cheese fries might end up actually having a “cost” of $10, whereas a nearly identical (but less trendy) pile of chili cheese fries from the fast food place around the corner is only going to have an additional time/gas cost of a few cents. If I’m going to eat something that’s going to slowly kill me, I’m not really inclined to pay more than necessary, you know what I mean? LOL!
There’s a Part II already started, but my brain and body is moving slowly today, and I’ve sat at the computer just about as long as I can for right now. It’s cold. I ache. Time to go get comfy.
Footnotes
The oxtail soup. It was good. I’m fairly confident in my cooking to say if you loved oxtail soup, you’d have liked it. I made a good oxtail soup. But … I was not terribly taken with it. Would eat again, but would rather have some other cheap cut of meat in my stew. But yeah … flavorful, filling, and OMG greasy. A decent meal.
Going to freeze the ton of leftovers, because there will be a day when I don’t feel like cooking, and I’ll be thankful I have it. I don’t need to eat it two or more nights in a row though. Just not that into it.
Been quiet because I’m sick. Something viral and not TOO nasty, but yeah, sick.
Davies, a New York artist and photographer, decided to buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal, set it out on a plate in her East Village apartment, and document its gradual decay (or lack thereof). After just one day, her two food-focused dogs — a Shih Tzu named Suki and a small poodle named Charlie — stopped paying any attention to the plate contents.
“They totally lost interest,” Davies said. “That was just unbelievable to me. But there was no more smell after 24 hours, you know?”
The burger and fries have now been sitting out on a plate for 180 days, and there’s no real difference in appearance. McDonald’s claims it’s because the environment it’s sitting in isn’t right for mold or bacteria growth, but I’m going to have to call bullshit on that … for the reason that the poodles won’t even mess with it (or flies or any other critters with 4-8 legs).
My kitchen is a dry and warm place, and things don’t grow mold in it either. Well, not until they are completely dessicated, and then they DO start to grow mold and other bacterias. There is one thing a forgotten potato or bit of food left out does attract long before it’s dessicated and moldy: bugs and other critters, and I assure you, it doesn’t take 180 days or more to attract them either. McDonald’s is on crack if they think it’s in any way natural for something calling itself food to sit out in the open for 180 days and not change in appearance or attract some kind of unwanted pest.
If something claiming to be food does not rot, mold, or attract hungry critters of some sort … it is not food. And it’s not just McDonald’s either. It’s all fast food. I could tell you in great detail why I find it impossible to eat at McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell (and on and on), but truly, it’s so sickening I’d rather than make myself ill discussing it. Just thinking about it right now makes me feel like barfing. You will just have to take my word for it, it’s disgusting crap, and I would probably not even eat it if I was starving. I’d rather eat dirt, and said dirt would likely be a healthier choice.
I do love fast food and take out as much as the next person. Greasy foods are tasty, and not cooking is always nice. But these fast food chains are not the only place to get a burger and fries (or tacos or anything else) quickly and for a reasonable price. Look around in your own town and find that out-of-the-way burger place that uses fresh ingredients and makes things on the spot instead of using frozen/overly-process crud … or make it at home yourself (by far the healthiest option). Burgers and fries are not hard to make.
Now what I’d like to see are some swab tests on this burger and fries to determine if there’s any bacteria or mold at all on it, because that would be an impossibility. There are bacteria and mold spores everywhere (seriously, everywhere), and as much as McDonald’s would love to claim the conditions where their crap food has been kept for 180 days isn’t good for growth of such things, bacteria and mold grow everywhere (seriously, everywhere).
But really … no bugs or critters have gotten into it after 180 days?! I’m telling you, it isn’t food. The universe is full of things looking for a free meal, and nature rarely passes up on an opportunity to eat.
Since I had all the proper ingredients today, I made real Monte Cristo sandwiches. I love, love, love these things. It’s possible they will be the death of me. Seriously, it’s like a heart attack on a plate, but oh so good.
I wanted a Monte Cristo sandwich, but I didn’t have the ingredients for one, therefore I created the Not Quite A Monte Cristo sandwich … served with sweet potato fries.
Three slices of bread layered with roast beef and Swiss cheese, breaded in a light batter and fried in about an inch or so of hot peanut oil in a skillet (which had preciously fried the fries).
I’ll be making a few changes, but yes … this was a win! Very tasty!