Basil Flavoring Cubes

Has your basil gone jungle? Have the plants become trees? Is it time for a massive harvest before it goes to seed? Have you thought about what you are going to do with that mountain of basil sprigs sitting on your counter? Sure, some bruschetta might be nice for dinner tonight, but that will barely make a dent!



From my (brief) research, there are limited options when it comes to preserving basil:

1. Dehydrate it


2. Freeze it


3. Make & freeze pesto


4. Make & freeze herb butter


5. Can basil jelly

I already have plenty of dried basil on hand. I really wasn't impressed with frozen basil. I don't make pesto or herb butter because I avoid adding fats to our food (other than real chocolate). And while I liked the basil jelly Nomikins sent me last year, I had a hard time figuring out what foods to eat it with.

Last year, when I had a glut of basil, I really gave it some thought and came up with a way to preserve it in a form that I would be able to use easily. The result was "Basil Flavoring Cubes". Basil goes very well with tomatoes so I used tomato sauce as a base and blended it with fresh basil leaves. The resulting sauce was frozen in ice cubes trays and then stored in a jar in the freezer. Several cubes added to soups, rice dishes, and pasta sauces imparted a lovely basil flavor without any fat.



Here is this year's version. Since I had some fresh tomatoes on hand, I used them instead of sauce. First I roasted and peeled the tomatoes, and then pureed them in the food processor. I also added a couple of small roasted onions for additional flavor. Then I packed in lots of basil leaves and processed it until they were very well-chopped. The final product is a rather unappetizing-looking muddy dark green sauce. The flavor, though, is wonderful. Once the sauce cools (and I make some room in the freezer), I'll freeze this up in ice cube trays for my winter cooking.

Flexible Shopping

By flexible shopping, I do not mean performing backbends and splits in the grocery store. In fact, if you ever see me doing a split in the aisle, call 9-1-1. My body is not that flexible - I'm the one in yoga class that everyone else points to and snickers about. While they rest their foreheads on their knees sitting with their legs straight out, I am lucky to move a grand total of two inches from an upright sitting position.

My mind, however, is considerably more flexible than its host body. When frugal fanatics talk about shopping, they often stress "stick to the list." I say, "Bring your list but keep your eyes open." It is not uncommon for stores to have far more specials inside than they have listed in the mail circular. While you may not want to browse every aisle, scan the nearby labels while you are picking up the items on your list.

Last week, I noticed that the store was discontinuing several spices in the large containers. The clearance price was half that of the normal cost. I used to purchase all of my spices from bulk bins but I noticed that Whole Foods, which recently took over the Wild Oats in my area, has drastically reduced the bulk spice selection. The only other market that sells bulk spices locally changed hands about a year ago and I no longer shop there due to a couple of bad experiences with the new owners. Eventually, I hope to grow most of the herbs we use, but in the meantime, picking up a big canister of bay leaves for half price was quite a deal.

Picking out good prices depends on more than just looking for the lower price on the grocery store tags, especially since all food prices are rising. Every week, I scan the circulars that come in the mail in order to keep on top of the going prices and sales for food. When I shop, I make a mental note of current prices. Many suggest making a price book to keep track of this but I just never got around to that. I have a pretty good sense of which stores have the best prices on various foods and how often the sales occur.

This morning, I dropped by a store on my way home from getting blood drawn for the doctor. While inside, I noticed that my favorite brand of pasta was on sale. No, not on sale, discontinued. Ideally, I'd make my own pasta but often we are simply too busy (or hungry) to take the time to do that. I usually do not buy the pasta I want because of the cost, but today, I couldn't pass it up.

Organic, whole-grain pasta for almost half price.

The deal got even better. While pulling boxes off the shelf, I noticed several had coupons on the front for $1 off 2 boxes. I quickly pawed through all the boxes to snag any with coupons and paired them up with non-coupon boxes. I've now got a nice little stash of whole grain pasta that will help me meet my LITE goals for next month's challenge.

I would highly recommend abiding by the rule of not shopping when hungry. The blood draw required fasting so I went to the store h-u-n-g-r-y. A few things fell into my basket that normally would not make the final cut before going through the register. In the big picture, though, the price I paid for those was less than it would have cost me in gas to drive home, eat breakfast, and return to the store! Combining errands if driving is essential these days to minimize gas use and save the budget. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to get back on my bicycle for even more savings. In the meantime, if I have a doctor's appointment, I'll be going to thrift stores and sales on my way home each time to get the most out of the trip.

Trained to be Wage Slaves

LATOC had a link to a very interesting article on the function of public education yesterday. I thought I'd post it here since I know many of my readers have children. I have to admit that, as a childless (by choice) person, I'm grateful not to have to face decisions such as whether to put my children in public or private school or attempt home-schooling!

My life is plenty complicated just with Angel and the goldfish.

Prickly Pear Preview

This is a really busy week for me, with all the sign-ups for the new challenge, a doctor's appointment to do something about the vertigo, a dentist appointment to deal with TMJ (not related to the vertigo), two canning sessions with friends, a special mail order to be disclosed next month, an upcoming mother-in-law visit to my disturbingly disorganized and dirty house, and much more. So, posts will probably be a little sparse or at least short in the meantime.

I wanted, however, to give you a teaser about starting with this prickly pear ...


... and ending up with this dessert last night. The brilliant color is 100% natural.

More pictures, description of process, and perhaps a recipe coming soon.

Discretionary Eating Challenge

The concept of discretionary eating was first introduced in this earlier post. Please review it so that you know what the heck I'm talking about here.

Did you read it yet? Trust me, this challenge will make a lot more sense if you read it. C'mon, it will only take you a couple of minutes to click to it. Then come on back here to sign up.

Thanks. Now, if you'd like to take on this challenge for the month of August, leave a comment after this post. Please specify which categories you'd like to tackle, and please indicate whether you'll be giving 50% or 100% effort for each one.

Note: I plan to have this challenge again in September, so if you need to ease into some of these changes, choose 50% level for August and then bump it up to 100% in September. All participants will be listed in my sidebar. If you'd like me to link to your blog, include your blog URL with your comment.

EDIT: I originally intended to only allow 50% or 100% but several folks that plan to do about 75% and one person asked for 25%. So, I will allow you to select those levels as well. I'd really like folks to aim for at least 50% to make this challenging. However, I understand that the BUZZ category includes physically addictive substances and will be the hardest change. Try to limit the 25% choice to that category only. And, if choosing these other levels, it is up to you to define the criteria for yourself (using the 50% and 100% descriptions as guidelines)!

Choose from these Categories (abbreviations will be used in sidebar)

RESTAURANTS (CAFE)

• Avoid: restaurants, take-out, prepared deli foods, and frozen meals.


• Eat instead: home-cooked meals


• Levels:
  
  50% - home-cooked meals replace at least half of the professionally prepared meals you've been purchasing.
  
  100% - eat only home-cooked meals for the month. Food cooked by family and friends is fine.

REFINED FOOD (other than sweets) (LITE)

• Avoid: highly processed & refined food stripped of its nutrients.


• Enjoy instead: whole foods that are minimally processed.


• Levels:
  
  50% - reduce your current consumption of refined food by at least half.
  
  100% - totally eliminate the refined foods.

SUGAR/SWEETS (SUGAR)

• Avoid: sugary foods & drink (includes honey and agave nectar).


• Enjoy instead: unsweetened foods; whole or unprocessed fruit.


• Levels:
  
  50% - can still use a little sugar in your tea and coffee, some jam on your toast, sweet chutney with your rice, and the rare dessert.
  
  100% - zero added sugars. (Yes, it can be done. Been there, done that.)

SECONDS ONLY WHEN HUNGRY (SOW)

• Avoid: food eaten after physical hunger is satisfied.


• Enjoy instead: only eat as much as you physically need.


• Levels:
  
  50% - limit the pig-outs considerably, paying more attention to what your body really needs.
  
  100% - eat only when hungry and needing "fuel". May result in smaller, more frequent meals.

STIMULANTS (BUZZ)

• Avoid: chocolate, caffeine (coffee, black tea, etc.), alcohol


• Enjoy instead: herbal tea, coffee substitutes, water


• Levels:
  
  50% - cut all of these back by at least half.
  
  100% - cut them out completely. (Get professional help if necessary, especially with alcohol.)

VEGAN (VEG)

• Avoid: eating animal products. This includes eggs, milk, butter, dairy products (cheese, sour cream, ice cream, etc.), and meat (beef, pork, chicken, fish, and any other animal flesh).


• Enjoy instead: any plant foods (grains, beans, vegetables, fruits)


• Levels:
  
  50% - reduce the animal products in your diet by at least half. (You'll save money!)
  
  100% - jump in and give it all up for a month.

THE WHOLE ENCHILADA (ALL)

• For the brave soul who wants to try all the categories at once!

Once you've signed up, you can put the banner in your sidebar by copying the following code:

<a href="http://chilechews.blogspot.com/2008/07/discretionary-eating-challenge.html"><img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_2H3G4C5T6s0/SIv6dd85DHI/AAAAAAAAA7o/Cv2njsdLzso/s200/Discretionary+eating+logo.jpg" /></a>

- In Blogger, go to your layout options, and click on Add a Page Element.
- Select Text.
- Type whatever you want for the title or leave it blank.
- Click Edit Html
- Paste the code you copied in the body.
- Then click Rich Text to confirm the image shows up.
- Save.



When you view your blog, the sidebar image should now appear and have a hyperlink back to this blog.

Limiting your discretionary eating is a positive step for your pocketbook, your health, the environment, and social justice. Won't you join me today?

New Award

Jennifer paid me off for sending the Quit Now Challenge to her blog with this snazzy little diamond. Isn't she sweet?


I've tried to track this down as to who started it, something I like to know, but the closest I can come is another blogger claiming she tracked it down to an Italian graphic designer. In any case, awards work like memes. The person receiving it links to acknowledges the person that gave it to them and is then supposed to pass it along to 7 other blogs. And, go leave a comment on those blogs to let them know they've been victimized with a meme given an award.

I actually like getting awards, so ignore my silliness above. On to seven other bloggers who are just Brilliant! I tried to avoid repeating any blogs that have already received an award meme from me in the past. Good thing I keep finding new good blogs all the time!

Domestic Accident, Dustpan Alley, Going Green, Kale for Sale, make-a-(green)plan, One Size Fits All, The Purloined Letter

The Challenges

This is the last Sunday check-in for the Quit Now Challenge. Hopefully you've pulled off the month better than I have. I found myself at restaurants a couple of times through the month. Due to feeling dizzy for more than a week, plus some other stress, I caved and went for an easy meal. Oh well. I never claimed to be perfect, and would be very annoying if I was perfect.

If you are interested in continuing this challenge next month, I hope you saw the announcement here that Jennifer will be taking over hosting it. She's already signing up victims and I'm sure she'll do a bang-up job.

Tomorrow, I'll post the sign-up for the Discretionary Eating Challenge as well as a boring little banner to put in your sidebar.

Fried Rice - Without the Oil, Without the Egg, and Without the Pink Pork

With that title, I'm surprised you're here reading this post. I mean, what's the point of fried rice if you don't get to have greasy, eggy, pink porky goodness, right? Wrong!

Without oil, eggs, or pork, fried rice turns into a very healthy meal and an excellent way to clean out the veggie bin. Little bits and pieces of produce and leftover cooked rice meld together to form a flavorful quick meal. Well, at least the cooking time is quick. The chopping may take you a little while.

Here's a peek at the ingredients I used in today's lunch. And here's how you can make some for your lunch tomorrow.

LowFat Vegan Vegetable Fried Rice
Serves 1.

• 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil - yeah, it's oil. Use extremely sparingly just to add flavor. Or omit.
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Small piece ginger, minced - optional
• Fresh vegetables, chopped in small pieces - I used okra. Try carrots, celery, radishes, any greens, bell peppers, mushrooms, cabbage, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, summer squash, green beans.
• Frozen peas - I used these today because I was short on fresh veggies.
• Cooked rice, cold
• Soy sauce
• Rice vinegar dressing or mirin (sweet rice wine)*
• Cilantro - optional
• Nutritional yeast - optional

Heat a nonstick wok or well-seasoned cast iron pan over med-high heat, with smidge of sesame oil if using.
Add onions and cook until barely tender.
Add garlic and ginger. Cook for 30 seconds, stirring to make sure they don't burn.
Add the firmer vegetables (such as carrots and green beans) and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add in the softer vegetables (such as mushrooms and greens) and frozen peas and cook briefly.
Add the rice. Add a little water if needed to prevent serious sticking. Splash with soy sauce and rice vinegar dressing. (Mirin is better, but I've developed a sensitivity to it.) Heat through.
Remove from heat and stir in cilantro and nutritional yeast, if using. The yeast will give a bit of an eggy flavor if you want that. Otherwise, omit it.

Eat.
*When I first started making fried rice, it was missing something. One day, I splashed in some mirin and was very happy with the results. Back when I still ate eggs, I'd get all the veggies and rice cooked, move them away from the center of the pan, add the mirin and let it heat. Then I'd add a beaten egg to it and stir quickly while it cooked. It gave the whole dish a very nice flavor and helped keep the egg from burning and sticking to the pan so badly.

Pink pork was never, ever an ingredient in my fried rice, although I have added diced gluten meat at times.

Just another rant

Have you ever dealt with someone totally clueless? Sure you have; we all have. I'll allow that sometimes people don’t "get" something because it’s new and unfamiliar, but sometimes, just sometimes, they simply can’t seem to wrap their minds around incredibly simple concepts.

I blame MTV for this inability to have an attention span longer than it takes a fruit fly to mate.

Let me give you an example. Let's call the clueless girl "Bubbles". Now if your name is Bubbles and you are not clueless, please do not take offense. All females named Bubbles may not be total bubbleheads, but I have worked with "Bubbles" and she was this bad. Let's take a look at what I mean.


Bubbles: "I wanted to heat up this can of soup, but it didn't work right."

Me: "Well, you just pour the soup and one can of water in a pot and put it on the stove......"

Bubbles: "I did that, but it didn't get hot."

Me: "Did you turn on the burner?"

Bubbles: "Um, what's that?"

Me, trying to figure out how somebody out of diapers could be this clueless: "Did you see the knobs on the stove? Turn one of those to the right and see which burner comes on. Put the pot on that burner and the soup will get hot."
.
.
.
An hour goes by.
.
.
.
Bubbles (on the phone): "I got the burner to turn on, but the soup didn't get hot."

Me: "You put the pot with the soup and water in it on the lit burner and it didn't get hot?"

Bubbles, sheepishly: "Oh, the soup has to be in the pot that goes on the burner? I'll call you back in a bit."
.
.
.
The next day Bubbles comes into the kitchen with a French cookbook.

Bubbles: "I'm going to figure this soup thing out. I got a recipe book, but I can't decipher the directions. For instance, what's a TSP?"

Me: "You know, you really don't need to worry about a cookbook. The instructions on the can tell you everything you need to know."

Bubbles: "Well, I need to understand why the soup has to be mixed with water and how it gets hot on that 'stove' thing."

Me, resigned to at least trying keep her from badly scalding herself:"OK. A TSP is a teaspoon. It's a measurement of volume." The realization dawns that I just said too much.....

Bubbles: "Oh, I get it. So how many teaspoons are in a pound?"

Me: "It's not a weight measurement, it's a volume measurement. Look at your coffee spoon. It's about the right size. The amount of sugar it holds leveled off is a Teaspoon."

Bubbles: "So a Teaspoon is the same as a sugar cube. Got it." And she heads out the door.
.
.
.
The next day Bubbles walks into the kitchen.

Bubbles: "I don't think you were right about the sugar cube thing. I made some soup, but it was too sweet to drink, plus it was cold."

Me, really glad I don't have a knife in my hands: "Look, just stick with the directions on the can. Making soup from scratch takes years of training."
.
.
.
Wait a month and then repeat the exact same conversation.

Quit Now Challenge moves for August!

When I proposed the Discretionary Eating idea for the August Challenge (sign-up and logo coming soon), I knew some folks might be disappointed that I wasn't continuing with the Quit Now Challenge. I thought about trying to host both at once, but I am not a superwoman like Crunchy Chicken and decided two challenges would dominate the blog too much. I like the flexibility of posting spontaneously, whether it's silly random stuff or something useful but not related to any challenges I'm hosting or participating in.

Luckily, there is a solution that works out for everyone. Ok, maybe not for those folks who really don't want to give anything up anymore, but for everybody else, I think you'll be pleased.

Jennifer of Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings offered to take on the job of hosting the Quit Now challenge so it could live on another month. I am happy to pass the torch on to her and hope that all who are interested will sign up for another round of beating your addictions to prepare for the impacts of peak oil. Please pop over there now and sign up!*

And, no, you don't have to be a vegetarian to participate. Right, Jennifer? You are not allowed to beat them over the heads with carrot sticks, make them eat fried tofu, or smush their faces into creamy dreamy guacamole. I'm countin' on you...

Discloser: this is not a photo of Jennifer. At least I don't think so. If it is, she is going by the name ktpupp over on flickr.com.


*Really clever folks will quickly realize they can polish off two challenges with one sacrifice by picking something from the Discretionary Eating list for their Quit Now choice.

Avoid Wasting Food

Karen, an occasional commenter here and professionally trained chef, was kind enough to send me detailed information on how restaurant kitchens avoid food waste to incorporate in this final segment on the food security series. Her information comes from experience in a number of restaurants - nice ones, not the ubiquitous fast food joints. Wasted food is costly to a restaurant operation and can literally cause it to fail. Wasted food is also costly for the individual, society, and the environment.

Waste in restaurant kitchens is avoided at 5 key points: menu planning, purchase, inspection, preparation and storage. Much of this information can be applied to help you avoid waste in your own personal kitchen.


MENU PLANNING

Most independent restaurants only change their menus two to three times per year. When it's time for this to happen, smart cooks choose carefully and consider the following key points:

1. Choose foods that will be in season for most of your menu period.

It's important to make sure you can continue to get the ingredients for dishes on the menu throughout the entire menu period. For example, if it is March now and the new menu will run through September, don’t put asparagus on as the side for the salmon. If it's October and the restaurant is far away from Florida, Louisiana or California, strawberries with balsamic would be a bad choice. She says this seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how often well-trained cooks decide they "have to have" something on the menu that will prove difficult.

2. Choose versatile starches with multiple applications.

Every dish does not need to have a unique starch. While it might sound nice to have Israeli couscous for one, quinoa for another, mashed potatoes for another, and so on, that's a recipe for disaster both for storage and for prep. Select something more versatile instead, such as regular potatoes. They can be mashed, made into gratins and galettes, even used for fancy "stained glass" applications. Right there are four different starch applications from one item that can be paired with different dishes.

3. Be very careful about the protein choice.

Take into consideration the two points already made. Will your choice of meat be readily available and how versatile is it?

For instance, make sure that the fish you want to use will be in regular supply, reasonably priced, and not coming from a ridiculous distance. And while it may be tempting to put buffalo or venison on the menu, consider whether you are really going to have a constant rate of availability.

For versatility and multiple applications, consider the form of the meat. For example, instead of ordering individual parts, get whole chickens. They can be split or roasted whole, poached, etc., and the bones can be used for stock. With duck, avoid the temptation to order cryovac-ed breasts, since ducks are easy to break down. If you work with the whole duck, you get more bang for the buck because the legs can be made into confit and then used to create cassoulet or an upscale salad.

In your home:

Eating locally-grown seasonal produce is the way to go. It's generally easier on your budget as well as better for the environment. If your area doesn't have a year-round growing season, you can preserve extra during the harvest months for later eating. You may also want to consider indoor container gardening and sprouting to keep fresh foods on the table year-round.

With long-term food storage, limiting yourself to a single starch is not critical. In fact, some unfortunate folks have discovered that eating wheat, and only wheat, has triggered gluten sensitivities. For starches that can be stored, put up some variety but make sure you learn how to use them and rotate them regularly.

The protein advice fits in well with a frugal home kitchen. Keep in mind that legumes (beans and lentils) will store very well alongside your grains.

If you join a CSA, you will have to alter your approach to menu planning entirely. Instead of deciding what you want to eat for the week and shopping for particular ingredients, you pick up your share and plan your menu around whatever you have received. Your menu planning centers around ingredients rather than recipes. It will also help you develop versatility in the kitchen as you learn to substitute liberally in your favorite recipes and learn to create new recipes with whatever you received.


PURCHASE

Before an order is placed, a responsibly run kitchen does a daily careful inventory. Purchase levels must be closely controlled due to two factors:

1. The cold storage space is always at a premium. It is illegal to have food sitting on the walk-in floor. The wise chef will remember to avoid filling the walk-in with crates of produce on Friday afternoon when she's got to store prep in there for a wedding reception on Saturday afternoon.

2. Fresh food spoils. Ordering too much increases the risk of losing the excess to spoilage. It takes discipline to stay on top of this but pays off in less wasted food.

Once the orders are ready, the phone is the chef's best friend. Orders for everything from dairy to specialty products are phoned in several times a week to purveyors large and small ("from ginormous Sysco to boutique-y D'Artagnan").

In your home:

Do you regularly find science projects in the back of your refrigerator and unidentifiable food in the bottom of your vegetable crisper? If so, you need to learn to keep on top of your perishable supplies. Food waste costs you money and wastes all of the effort and resources the farmer put into growing that food for you, not to mention the transportation costs. Don't buy expensive compost! When shopping, buy only what you need and what you can use before it will spoil, or plan to preserve it.


INSPECTION

Every order that arrives must be inspected carefully, thoroughly, and immediately no matter how inconvenient. When dairy, meat, fish and produce come in, do an eagle-eyed inspection of product before agreeing to accept any delivery. I was surprised to hear that purveyors will try to send restaurants some nasty crap. Or they will screw up and send iceberg lettuce instead of mache. This or any other million possible mess-ups can send dinner service into a tailspin.

Every single box has to be opened. Fish has to be unwrapped, sniffed and prodded. This takes time, and deliveries invariably show up at the worst possible moment, regardless of the designated time at which they are to happen, but meticulous review will save you a ton of money and hassle.

In your home:

For the home chef, this step happens generally at the store or Farmer's Market, or possibly in the garden. Unlike a restaurant with a set menu, you can be more flexible with your ingredients. Wrong kind of peppers? Just substitute or alter your dish slightly. A couple of bruises on your basket of peaches? Cut them off and make a tasty fruit compote with the good parts.


PREPARATION

Once something has made it through the door, it gets addressed immediately. Time and temperature are your enemies when you're trying to avoid loss, so it's off to storage right away or else into production. Whole lettuces get washed, dried and made into salad-friendly bits ASAP to save space in the walk-in and avoid dirt which causes early rotting. Fish gets iced immediately, and whole poultry are prepped for their various applications and put on to cook (or to chill).

At the vegetarian restaurant Kathy worked at, the owners ran a farm locally where they grew excellent mushrooms. She says she never cleaned so many cases of mushrooms in her life (and she was the sous chef!) Unfortunately, the owners didn't appreciate the importance of preparation.

Every morning at 8:30 am, Monday through Saturday, she would open the walk-in door, and find a six foot high stack of mushroom boxes (illegally sitting on the walk-in floor). They all needed to be cleaned and prepped into something before lunch service. The resulting three sheet trays of smoked portobellos took far less room than the four giant boxes they came in. And once they'd cooled properly, the smoked portos could be stored in even smaller containers, opening up more (precious, precious) cold-storage space.

In your home:

If you are shopping or picking up your CSA share once a week, managing your perishable food is critical. One CSA member put it wonderfully. She said that as soon as she gets home, she does triage. In winter, she cuts the greens off the root vegetables and plans to use them within the first day or two, knowing the roots would last most of the week. In summer, she eats the okra and tomatoes in the first few days, and the potatoes and tomatillos later in the week.

Some members also processed most of their share the same day as pick-up. All the salad greens would be washed, and any other salad veggies prepped (washed, chopped, shredded) in separate containers to toss together for quick daily salads. Some vegetables would be roasted for use in various recipes. Winter greens might be blanched ahead of their use. This sounds like a lot of work to do all at once, but it makes meal prep a breeze later. For working folks, this may mean the difference between sticking with the CSA or going back to take-out and frozen dinners.


STORAGE

Proper storage is critical to avoid food loss and waste. Hot foods must be cooled before putting them in the walk-in, otherwise they will raise the walk-in temperature by 10-12 degrees, putting expensive foods in jeopardy.

Breaking down the line at the end of service at a quality establishment means babysitting cooling food for a while. Anything liquid gets cooled in an ice bath. Anything starchy gets spread out as flat as possible (yeah, this means mashed potatoes, too) and probably gets a fan pointed at it. And any proteins held on station during service get freshly wrapped. If it's fish, it gets clean wrap and fresh ice.

In your home:

If people handled their leftovers more carefully, they'd find their food dollar going farther. Given that home cooks don't have to reproduce the same menu the next day, they also have the luxury of freezing leftovers (when appropriate), which really cuts down on loss.

Karen shared that when she was working in kitchens, her non-cook friends would have her over for dinner and say "Oh, you probably won't even like it. It's not fancy." They were missing the point. She was so happy not to have to cook a meal that she didn't care what they made for her, and was even grateful for grilled cheese.

What did bother her, though, was seeing the way people neglected their leftovers. They'd let food sit on countertops for hours while they played Trivial Pursuit or watched a movie. Once they did get around to dealing with it, often they just wrapped it in plastic and shoved it in the bottom of the fridge. Or, worse yet, they'd yank the still toasty pan off the stove, throw some foil over it, and put it straight into the fridge. Sometimes they would stick some other leftovers right on top of the warm food. As she says, "EGAD!! People! It's called the temperature danger zone for a reason!!"

Karen also has some choice words to say about the use of leftovers in the home.

An excellent example of lack of respect for leftovers is the genius idea my mother (a terrible cook) came up with when I was a kid: she called it "the pot". The leftovers from each dinner from Monday to Thursday got put in "the pot". On Friday, "the pot" was what we had for dinner...everything all mixed together (she'd heat it, of course). This g*d-awful commingling of food that had been sitting in the fridge for varying lengths of time was not proper utilization of product!

For a better, and tastier, alternative, see some of my posts on making frugal soups, where I do caution readers to consider competing flavors and to utilize the freezer for this project.

How do you avoid wasting food in your kitchen?

Conversations in My Head

You are such a fake! Telling people to preserve food, ordering yourself a fancy new pressure canner, and now you're too chicken to even learn how to use it.

Am not. I just haven't had CSA surplus like I did last summer. What was I supposed to do, pressure can all those cucumbers?

Excuses, excuses. You could have gone to the Farmer's Market or the store to get something, anything, to learn how to use it. You know, none of the prep tools you get will do you any good if you don't know how to use them.

Oh, shut up already. Leave me alone. I'm sick!

Yeah, well, I'm sick and tired of you thinking that putting something on the shelf is good enough. Have you even read any of the country skills books you bought? Heck, did you even read that Disaster Prep book all the way through?

Um, no. I've been too busy.

Busy, my ass. You spend your time in cyber-fantasy-land, dreaming up your next blog post, reading other blogs, and pretending that's as good as actually learning hands-on skills. Get off your lazy butt and do something.

Alright. You know, after reading Sharon's post on water bath canning, I'm a little worried about that Lemon Zucchini Relish I made last week.

Why? We made it before and our Canning Guru did a ton of research to make sure it would be safe to can.

Yeah, but that recipe had raisins in it. I left those out because my sweetie doesn't like them. What if that changed the acidity enough to create a botulism risk?

What? You want to throw out perfectly good food now?

Well, is it worth the risk? I mean, it could kill us!

Hm, if you put it that way....

So, like, you know, I was thinking maybe reheating it and processing it in the pressure canner might make it safe. And, it would be a good way to learn to use the pressure canner.

Hey, maybe you aren't a lost cause after all!

But, sheesh, it's going to be a lot of work and I really don't feel that great. Maybe I'll just put the box back up on the shelf and deal with this some other time.

Not so fast, girlie! You get the instructions out and do this. It can't be that hard. Lots of other people do this all the time.

Oh, alright.

(Begin cleaning jars, reheating relish, reading instructions...)

Dammit! The instructions say to refer to chart for canning time. What chart? There is no chart. The Ball canning book doesn't even include zucchini in the pressure canning section. The National Home Food Preservation canning links for vegetables are down. What the f#%&*# do I do now? And didn't someone mention on Sharon's canning post that canning zucchini leads to mush?

(Pack relish into sterilized jars and close up pressure canner.)

There is nothing anywhere about pressure canning summer squash. This is going to ruin it. Well, maybe I can just waterbath can it again and stick it in the refrigerator. Screw this stupid pressure canner anyway.

(All three jars seal.)

Finally. I hope they're not horrible or filled with deadly botulism.

You always make a big deal out of trying something new.

Yeah, well that's because it usually turns out to be a pain in the butt. You know what's going to happen when we try making prickly pear fruit jelly this weekend, don't you? Glochids everywhere!

Sigh. You're hopeless. Can't you ever be positive?

No! I'm too tired, and my head's spinning again. I'm off for a nap. Don't you dare tell my readers about this. I mean it!

No, no, of course not. You just go lie down. I've got some writing to do.

Garden to Feed Yourself

One way to increase your personal food security is to take up gardening. A garden can provide you with a few homegrown tomatoes or, if taken seriously, provide you with much of the food you consume. Sharon’s Independence Days Challenge at Casaubon’s Book encourages folks to take their gardens seriously and provides a place to check in with your successes and failures.

Not everyone owns their own land and may therefore be limited in just how much they can grow. This doesn’t mean one should give up on the idea of gardening, though. Apartment dwellers can look into container gardening inside or on a balcony or patio. How about incorporating container gardens into interior design? Many communities also have community gardens or allotments available for rent. Or you may be able to convince friends or family with yards to let you grow a garden there. Guerilla Gardening, if done carefully and discreetly, might allow one to harvest some food, as well.

How should you go about starting your garden? Well, I'm the last one you should ask about that! There are plenty of books, websites, and blogs with information on gardening. You can probably even find gardening books specific to your region. Nothing, however, beats talking to other gardeners in your area. Hang out at the community gardens and chat with the folks gardening there. Gardeners generally love to share their expertise. Find out if there is a local organization for gardeners and go to their meetings.

Another source of information specific to your area is Cooperative Extension Offices. I was surprised to find out just how much information was available from mine, but I suppose it's not really surprising considering the University of Arizona is an agricultural college. Here's just a sampling of the information available right at my fingertips: Desert Gardening for Beginners, Extension Calendar (classes & workshops), Food Preservation, Forage & Grain Crops, Home Horticulture & Pests, Master Gardener Manual, Plant Disease Identification, Plant Images, Safe Food, Sustainable Agriculture in Arizona, Urban Integrated Pest Management, Vegetables, and Western Vegetable Quality. There are also links to each county’s Cooperative Extension Office.

So go outside, or stay inside, and get your hands dirty! The sweet taste of your very first homegrown tomato will be well worth the effort.

Holding Pattern

Until the room stops spinning and I stop hovering near the bathroom, Chile Chews will be in a holding pattern. Please enjoy the archives.

Challenge Check-in

Calling all quitters! How'd you do this week?


Has the challenge tossed you up in the air and slammed you down on your back?

If you just lay there doin' nuthin' and feeling sorry for yourself, you'll die. I don't care how shiny your underside is - you don't want to end up dry and crunchy like this fella.

So, take a breather, then get up and keep going.

Discretionary Eating

A while ago, Melissa mentioned "discretionary spending" in a comment she made here. Most of us are familiar with the concept, and concerned that the amount on income we have available for discretionary spending seems to be shrinking these days. For a definition of discretionary income, we go to Investopedia:

The amount of an individual's income that is left for spending, investing or saving after taxes and personal necessities (such as food, shelter, and clothing) have been paid. Discretionary income includes money spent on luxury items, vacations and non-essential goods and services.

Since I've been thinking and talking a great deal lately about food security, and a number of us are cutting out non-necessities from our eating for the Quit Now Challenge, something clicked in my head connecting these two concepts. I came up with the following definition of Discretionary Eating:

Discretionary eating is the amount of an individual's food consumption that is eaten after basic caloric and nutritional needs have been met.

Intriguing, eh? A little scary, perhaps? Did you cringe just a teensy bit upon reading that definition when you thought about what you eat and how much of your diet is discretionary? I know I did when the idea occurred to me. And I promptly decided it should be the next challenge.

For the last month and a half, I've been urging folks to give up some addiction, some habit, some non-necessity in their lives. This has been framed in the context of peak oil and the likelihood that changes in the world will mean we need to look after needs before wants.

Well, I'm going to turn up the heat and give you a challenge you can really sink your teeth into. For the entire month of August, I will ask you to curb your discretionary eating. I'll give you a variety of categories to choose from and a choice of two levels of commitment. I'd really love it if everyone chose to do all categories - the whole enchilada - but I know that's unlikely. People may disagree with my categories and whether those foods should be curbed. I also know most of you are very busy so you may not have time to fit all the options into your life.

August Challenge

This will be the August Challenge and I promise to come up with some kind of little doodad, banner, logo, or whatever you want to call it before too long. I'm throwing this idea out now to give you a chance to wrap your heads around it and start looking at your own discretionary eating patterns.

Get ready for the challenge. Decide what you are willing to eliminate for one month. Clean out your cabinets over the next couple of weeks and shop for healthier foods to prepare. Wean off caffeine now so you can start the month clean.

Towards the end of this month, I'll post again with a logo and give you a place to sign up for as many, or as few, categories as you want, and to indicate the level you are willing to commit to. In the meantime, I certainly welcome feedback on the concept and challenge!


Categories of Discretionary Eating
(followed by challenge abbreviations to be used in sidebar)

RESTAURANTS (CAFE)

Face it, eating out is a luxury. You can rationalize it any way you want, but it is not a necessity in life. You can prepare food at home, maybe not as good, but probably with more nutrition per calorie. A lot of the calories in restaurants come from the liberal use of oil or butter, and highfat dairy products. Fats are pretty empty calories compared to carbohydrates and proteins, and you need less protein (and fat) than is widely believed.

Defined as any meals prepared by professional staff: restaurants, take-out, prepared deli foods, and frozen meals.

Choose healthy meals made at home, or by friends or family.


REFINED FOOD (other than sweets) (LITE)

Processing and refining uses considerable resources to produce products that are generally far less healthy than the original foods. It also creates more packaging waste. While it would be great if you bought whole wheat berries, ground them yourself (manually, of course) and baked your own bread from the flour, I realize this is being too extreme. Many people do not have their own grain grinder or the time to do this. You may buy whole-grain flour or whole-grain bread and pasta, but white is right out.

Defined as any food product stripped of its nutrients.

Choose whole foods that are not highly processed.



SUGAR/SWEETS (SUGAR)

Most of us average Joes and Jills now eat like royalty. We have coffee cake for breakfast, candy for snacks, and ice cream for dessert almost every day. Rich foods are better saved for special occasions than sneaking in as a daily indulgence. Simple carbohydrates, especially from highly processed foods are not the best source of your calories.

Defined as sugary foods and drinks, made from any kind of refined sweetener, including corn syrup, sugar, honey, agave nectar, etc.

Good choices include whole and unprocessed fruit.


SECONDS ONLY WHEN HUNGRY (SOW)

Sometimes a recipe comes out really good and we take seconds just to continue enjoying the flavors. If you're no longer hungry, this is a waste of food and an excellent way to pack on the pounds. I'm not so naive as to think I can get away with telling you, "no seconds." You're clever enough to just buy bigger plates or pile them really high with your first serving. So, instead, you must take a pause, 5 minutes or so, to assess whether you are still hungry and in need of additional calories before loading up again. In fact, since it takes about 20 minutes for the body to really register that it is no longer hungry, it might be wise to sit and relax. This would be a good opportunity to work on quality family time at the table.

Defined as any food eaten after physical hunger is satisfied.

Choose eat only as much as you need.


STIMULANTS (BUZZ)

Theobromine, caffeine and alcohol meet no nutritional needs. They taste lovely and give a nice buzz, but they are entirely discretionary.

Defined as any chocolate, coffee, black tea, other caffeine sources, and alcohol.

Good choices include herbal teas, coffee substitutes, and water. Extracts in an alcohol base are acceptable for cooking and baking.


VEGAN (VEG)

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I believe a vegan diet is best for me and the planet. My belief that animal products are not necessary for a healthy diet is based on the opinion of medical experts, but I'm not going to try to beat you into converting. This option is presented for those who really want to stretch themselves.

Defined as any animal products, including eggs, milk, butter, dairy products (cheese, sour cream, ice cream, etc.), and meat. Meat means any animal flesh so that includes fish and chicken. Insects, too.

Good choices include any plant foods.


Two Levels:
100% COMMITMENT - no ifs, ands, or buts. Either do it or don't for each category chosen.

50% COMMITMENT - for those who want to give it a real good try but know they aren't going to make it 100%.




Full disclosure: Challenge criteria subject to change before August 1.

Homemade Breakfast Burrito

What happens when a vegan gets a craving for an egg, cheese, and sausage breakfast burrito? Does she sneak out to the Mexican drive-thru just down the street, and keep her mouth shut when it comes to the Quit Now Challenge check-in? Does she say "To hell with a vegan diet, I only follow that for health reasons, and one meal isn't gonna kill me"? Does she put her taste buds above her health and her commitments?

No. She gets creative and makes a healthy vegan version from foods she has at home.

There are flour tortillas on hand because I picked up a dozen for free yesterday at the local tortilleria with the coupon they included in the new city phone book, and of course I look through those coupons on the day the phone book is delivered, and I wanted to get a molcajete anyway. I'll cure that later.

There is rice left over from the last batch made in the rice cooker. The instant cheez-it mix from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook would be a quick and easy way to make some not-cheese. Remembering the egg-like texture from the potato salad, a quick check confirms there is still a potato left from the CSA share. Seasoning ideas come from Simply Heavenly! The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook. Alright, I can do this!



Chile's Sausage, Egg, & Cheese Breakfast Burrito...NOT!
Serves 2.

2 flour tortillas
1 small onion, diced
1 cup cooked rice
Poultry seasoning
Sage
Pepper
3 fire-roasted green chiles, peeled & seeded, chopped
1 potato, cooked, peeled & diced (I used the microwave for speed - I was hungry.)
Onion powder
Salt
Nutritional yeast
Vegan not-cheese sauce (Many recipes online.)
Salsa


Toss rice with poultry seasoning, sage, and pepper. (Next time I'd add Liquid Smoke, too, or smoked salt.) Set aside.
Toss diced potato with onion powder, salt, and nutritional yeast. Set aside.
Mix together not-cheese sauce and set aside.
Saute onion in cast iron skillet until softened.
Add rice to hot skillet and heat through, scraping the bottom well so that it doesn't stick.
Stir in chile and potato. Heat through.
Remove skillet from burner and heat one tortilla at a time over flame.
Divide filling evenly between tortillas.
Cook not-cheese sauce in skillet until thickened. Spoon over burrito filling.
Add salsa.
Roll up and enjoy!

Can't Afford Dinner? Try Changing What You Eat

It's time for another post in the food security series. Have you picked up on the direction this series is going? The first post was about getting food assistance from agencies and the second about where to find prepared meals from organizations. Both leave the individual with little control over what food they have to eat. These options are meant to help hungry people in dire straits who need food immediately, perhaps while applying for food stamps or securing a new job.

Part 3 of the series examines ways to shop and eat for less money by changing what food is purchased. If the budget is strapped, especially as food prices rise, avoiding hunger may indeed require a change in diet.

Learning to shop for and prepare different foods involves more work and planning than just picking up a box of food or a hot meal, but you will learn how to stretch your food budget and still eat nutritious meals. If the current economic troubles continue and worsen, and I think they will, the agencies and organizations currently providing food assistance are likely to be overwhelmed and unable to meet the needs of increasing numbers of hungry people. It is important for people to start learning how to eat more cheaply now, as they move towards increasing their own food security.

Whether you are shopping with carefully-budgeted dollars or using food stamps, the choice of what kinds of food to buy lies with you. If you have limited resources, the top priority must be maximum nutrition per dollar. Notice I did not say maximum calories. For a relatively small amount of money, you can get a day’s worth of calories from a super-sized meal at McDonald’s, but that is not healthy for you or the planet. If you’re still tempted to slash costs with the fast food diet, watch Morgan Spurlock’s plunge from health in a mere 30 days of eating at the Gilded Arches.

Although it’s my belief that whole, minimally processed plants are the best nutritional bang for the buck, I really don’t want you to think I’m badgering you into adopting a vegetarian diet. These foods may be the cheaper choice, though, for at least some of your meals. Rice and beans, for instance, are generally cheaper than meat, and much more filling per serving.

Regardless of whether you choose to eat animal products, you will get more nutritional value from your food by avoiding highly processed "food products" from the grocery store. You pay for processing in nutritional value and often in dollars as well. The environmental cost is, unfortunately, not factored into the supermarket price but considerable energy and resources go into the processing, packaging, and transporting of processed foods. Even something seemingly as innocuous as white rice comes with an environmental price tag. Purchasing fresh foods is a far better choice than stocking up on ramen, potato chips, and soda.

You can stretch your food budget by treating meat, dairy, and eggs as rare treats and condiments for flavor, not your main dish. Focus on nutritious, filling foods – the historic food of peasants around the world. Build your meals around starches, legumes, garden or cheap vegetables, a few fruits.

By starches, I don’t mean white bread and pale crackers. Look for whole grains, full of complex carbohydrates for energy, that can be purchased from bulk bins at reasonable prices. Stock up on rice, wheat, barley, oats, quinoa, and dried corn. Bulk bins will also provide plenty of bean choices, ranging from pinto beans and split peas to the fast cooking lentils. If you're new to some of these foods, buy just a small quantity first to make sure you like them well enough to eat them. At one point, I sampled every single variety of rice in a natural food store with enormous variety in their bulk bins. I was surprised to discover I really only liked a few of them. Of course, if I were starving, I would not be so picky!

Also check out the starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and winter squashes. These are traditional comfort foods, filling and satisfying. And a 5 lb bag of potatoes costs the same, or less, than a large bag of potato chips. Two people can fill up on those potatoes for several days, but would soon be very unhappy sharing just one bag of chips.

Choose fresh fruits and vegetables over commercially canned versions. Frozen produce is not as good as fresh, but retains more nutrients than the canned options. Some farmer’s markets now accept food stamps. Grocery stores offer a few great bargains as loss leaders in their ads each week. Build your weekly meals around those cheaper choices rather than making a list of what you'd prefer to buy. Remember, your focus is on maximizing nutrition for yourself and your family.

When you head out to do the grocery shopping, save your budget and your waistline by remembering the sage advice: Don’t shop hungry! If you are the slightest bit peckish, also be careful partaking of the food samples. They can trigger your appetite and your cravings, leading to costly impulse purchases.

In the Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyczyn encourages bargain shoppers to look beyond coupons and sales to the actual cost of their meals. Think you got a hot deal by using a $1 coupon on a box of cereal selling for 25% off the usual price? Compared to the usual price of boxed cereal, you sure did. You may have even beat the price of the generic brand. But compared to a hot oatmeal breakfast made from rolled oats out of the bulk bin, it probably was not such a good deal for each serving. Compare serving to serving of different types of meals rather than brand to brand on prepared foods.

The most sustainable choice would be locally-grown, organic food. However, it is often not the cheapest choice, so a hungry person is going to be faced with some hard decisions. Pay a little more to do the right thing, support local farmers, and protest agribiz? Or buy bulk staples and the loss leaders in the grocery store to get enough calories to survive another week without going postal on your new boss at the crappy job paying minimum wage with no health insurance. Thankfully it does not have to be all one or the other; you may be able to find some local bargains.

Gleaning programs provide an opportunity to harvest unwanted produce - cheap or free food in exchange for a little work. Religious or humanitarian organizations often sponsor gleaning programs locally and nationwide. Check with your local farmers to see if they allow gleaning after the harvest. The local food bank here accepts donations of excess produce gleaned from backyard gardens, farms, and organizations to be distributed to the food boxes.

You don’t have to be part of a formal organization to glean. If you notice trees in your neighborhood that are dropping ripe fruit to the ground, go talk to the homeowners. Ask if you can harvest the fruit for them in exchange for a share of it. Make a feral fruit tree map in spring when the trees are in bloom. Check craigslist and freecycle regularly. Citrus season here finds Craigslist hopping with posts by people who want citrus and posts by others who want their trees cleaned off. There were even offers of “marmalade in exchange for your fruit.” If you have something to trade – a skill or unwanted possessions – bartering is a good option in a cash-poor economy. Years ago, I endured many scratches as I picked blackberries to trade for a home-baked blackberry pie the next day.

How else might a person score free food in exchange for some work? If you have family or friends that are moving out of the area, volunteer to help them. There’s a good chance you’ll get to take home the perishable contents of their refrigerator and freezer. I’ve given away tons of food before my own moves and have also received quite a lot helping others move. And I haven't even limited myself to family. Last year, I responded to a craigslist ad giving away something I wanted. I'd noticed several other ads listed by the same person. When I arrived, I chatted with the lady and her daughter, finding out that they were loading up her car that very evening to move across the country. She still had quite a few things that no-one expressed interest in taking, so I offered to haul them to a thrift store for her. When we were done, she asked if I'd be interested in food. I came home with two big boxes of food, some perishable, some not. After sorting out the vegan items, I offered the rest free on craigslist where it was snatched up within half an hour. The moral to this tale is to keep your opportunities open. Being helpful and friendly contributes to building community and may be a key to thriving in the future.

The final source of food I want to discuss today comes from the trash. If you're like most people, you probably thought, "Eww!" I'm not suggesting you eat moldy bread and cheese picked out of a filthy trash can. Food waste is rampant and businesses routinely discard food in excellent condition, and Freegans want to keep it out of the waste stream. These folks, many of them employed professionals, practice dumpster diving as a way to protest corporate greed and systemic waste in our society. Today’s wasteful and excessive packaging keeps food “grime-free”, significantly reducing the ick factor for dumpster divers.

Now that you've gathered your nutritious foods from grocery stores, gleaning, and dumpsters, what do you do with it? You can start with Jennifer's series on sustainable eating. Pick up a basic cookbook that includes information and recipes for whole grains and beans, and doesn't require fancy and expensive special ingredients. Learn to cook peasant meals with simple, basic ingredients. Make Stone Soup with your neighbors. Recognize that there may be a steep learning curve finding new ways to eat. Start experimenting now!

Garden Porn

The Change Man

One day, almost twenty years ago, a young woman opened a drawer in her fiance's kitchen. There were pennies scattered amongst the utensils. She gathered them up and put them in a small bowl on the table. She opened another drawer and found a nickel and a dime. Hm, she thought to herself, and tossed them in the bowl with the pennies.

As the woman cleaned and organized the man's house, she kept finding loose change. A quarter here, a few dimes there, scattered nickels, and pennies everywhere. Too bad there is never any paper money, she thought.

The woman picked up the box from the top of the washing machine and carried it into the living room. What's this, she asked. Oh, her fiance said, that's just a box I never got around to unpacking when I moved (a year ago). They sorted through it together and the woman teased the man about the coins at the bottom of the box. He said he simply tossed his change wherever he happened to be. I've noticed, she replied. He blushed.

Why can't you just toss it all in one place, like this bowl? The bowl was getting full. Or keep it with you and spend it at the store? He had no answer.

At this moment, the woman hatched a plan. She would go through his entire house and gather up all the loose change. It would seed their honeymoon fund. She went through every drawer, every cabinet, every box. She searched his car. She lifted couch cushions and checked every pocket in every piece of clothing. She found many, many coins.

She opened the suitcase and there was a penny. There would always be a penny in the suitcase. After every trip, no matter how long or short, she would always find a penny in the suitcase. Where did they come from, she would wonder. She would check the lining for coins but there would only be the one penny. She'd always take it, knowing she would find another penny after the next trip.

By the time she had gone through everything he owned, she had accumulated $180 in change. The man was amazed at how much money he had casually tossed aside over the years. She was amazed too, but secretly a little disgusted that he had casually tossed aside $180 over the years.

She vowed to reform him. For years, she planted helpful bowls baited with pennies in convenient places. His change instead ended up on the counter in the bathroom or the kitchen, or maybe next to the bed. She instituted a "finders, keepers" rule for change left in pants to be washed but this did not change him.

She began swiping change as soon as she spotted it, just shrugging when he asked where his money went. If they were shopping together and change was due, she would hold out her hand first. She accepted he would never change and he accepted she would steal any change he had. They lived in peace.

Until today when she walked into her office and saw this. A plastic bag full of pennies. She stepped into the other room and asked, What the hell is this?! He grinned and said they were from work. Three years of pennies tossed in his desk. When he moved from one office to another, they moved with him. Today, he had gathered them up, for no particular reason. Perhaps only to annoy her. Or to please her. She didn't know.

She sighed and began to count. This means a trip to the bank for penny rollers, she grumbled. He shrugged and closed his eyes for a nap. On and on she sorted and counted until she finally forced order from chaos. There was not $180 of pennies. There was only $3.53. Why can't it ever be even, she wondered, why are there always leftovers. Tomorrow she'll roll them and take them to the bank. Or maybe not. The banks don't respect money the way she does. Maybe she should save them. Or maybe she should buy a bag of potatoes.

In the end, she knows he will never change, but she loves him anyway.

Rest Day?

Photo by shioshvili on flickr.com.

I'm starting to feel all wrinkly and tired like this chile pepper. The subject of balance between time spent online and offline was discussed in the comments of the Pet Peeves post (towards the end of the very long comment section). I did not have a good balance yesterday, as I decided to spend much of the day reading all the blogs listed in my sidebar. It was fun, I learned some things, and it felt good to catch up, but other tasks call me away today. And my body needs to move rather than sit in a stationary position in front of the computer!

On today's To Do list:

• Call insurance about yet another star crack in the windshield. Rocks on Arizona roads are tough on cars.
• Pay bills.
• Make and can sweet onion relish.
• Make another batch of Japanese pickles from The Joy Of Pickling. Great book with many ethnic recipes. Here is a similar recipe online.
• Clean the fish tank before Connie suffocates.
• Try to find the surface of my desk under all the papers I have neglected to deal with.

The list isn't too long so I actually have a small possibility of getting everything on it completed today. I might even have time to work on a real post, although there are plenty here to read if you're behind, or new to my blog.

If you can't bear to wait for me to continue with the series on food security, you can read some excellent posts on other blogs on the same subject. Jennifer has begun a series on sustainable local diet and Sharon has enough information on food storage and her Independence Days challenge on her blog to keep you reading for days. (Find these subjects in her Categories list in the sidebar.)

Challenge Check-in

It's time to 'fess up in another weekly check-in on the challenge. How are you doing with giving it up?

Last week, I snuck by without reporting on my own success or failure and nobody called me on it. Did I avoid eating out? Yes, I did...last week. This week? Not so good, but wait, there's a good excuse. Isn't there always?!

You see, it's all Leslie's fault. You know, Leslie from Leslie's Blog. Leslie that stalks Burbanmom's blog. Leslie whose dog, Deuce, has his very own blog.

This is how it played out. A couple of weeks ago, she posted about hot links - referring to a computer term, not spicy hot dogs. Granted, Deuce would probably prefer tasty hot links over geek stuff, but it was on her blog, not his. My reaction to the post was, "Oh no! I've probably done that." and I promptly e-mailed her to ask for clarification. In the meantime, I started going through my old posts, checking to see if I had committed this grievous sin. She e-mailed back, telling me to quit panicking because it didn't look like I had done this based on the posts she looked at. I was still confused, but dealing with this technical stuff gets cumbersome through e-mail so she suggested we talk on the phone.

Three and a half hours later, I insisted I had to get off the phone because my ear hurt from holding the phone against it and, besides, a friend had e-mailed to ask why the heck she couldn't get through on my phone. I'm not implying that Leslie talked my ear off (she did) because I talked just as much (did not). We hit it off tremendously and had a great time gabbing about blogs, living off the grid, being hippie girls, and we probably gossiped about you, too. We made plans to get together for coffee.

A little voice in my head pointed out to me, as we made our plans, that I was not supposed to be going to restaurants this month. Pretending that going out for coffee was not the same as eating out was stretching things, but that is what I did....right after I squelched that pesky little voice in my head. After all, she and I live on opposite ends of town. It was not reasonable, with $4 per gallon gas, for either of us to drive all the way out to the other's home for home-brewed local organic coffee. So, we met halfway in-between. I did not eat out, but I did have a latte.



Meeting a fellow blogger in person was very much worth 'cheating' on my challenge. Leslie brought me a present! She is a professional artist and graced me with an original colored pencil rendition of my banner chile pepper. Believe me when I tell you that this photo does not even begin to capture the vibrancy of the colors. Thanks, Leslie!

I've been envious of several other folks online since the meeting of the California bloggers a month ago, but now I can say I've had my own great experience. We talked for hours, again, and got to know one another in real life. This personal interaction colors the experience of reading her words online now, giving them additional depth and texture filled in by my perceptions. We even talked about what it would take to arrange a local Tucson Blogger Meet-up, until I spoiled the fun by pointing out that, as an anonymous blogger, I'd prefer to keep a low profile in the general population. It's one thing to admit here that I pee on my garden, but I don't want everyone in town to know exactly which garden that is.

Have you met any of your fellow bloggers in person? And after all that, have you forgotten that it's time to report in on the challenge?

Starving? Get In Line.

Continuing with the food security series, this post centers on where to get prepared meals when in a hunger crisis. My apologies to people outside of the US. Because I have lived my whole life in the states, my information and links will be specific to this country. However, if you live elsewhere, I expect you can probably find your local resources through appropriate searches online and contacting organizations locally.


Soup Kitchens and Hot Meals


Photo courtesy of the Archival Research Catalog of the National Archives.

These men found a soup kitchen during the Depression. How do you find out if there is a place to get a meal in your area now?

Phone book: If your phone book is like mine, with no category for "soup kitchen", try calling the local food bank for references. The printed hand-out I picked up this week had two soup kitchens listed for the area. Their websites do not list serving times, so a call is needed to find out the specifics from each one.

Online: With access to a computer, it is much easier to track down resources.

America's Second Harvest has a food bank locator by zipcode and a long list of links for other sites that may offer additional resources available to combat hunger.

2-1-1 Information & Referral: Like 9-1-1, in many states you can dial 2-1-1 to get help finding help. When you don't know where to turn for food assistance, housing help, childcare, disaster relief, or even suicide prevention hotlines, the folks at 2-1-1 can help hook you up with the appropriate agency or organization. On their website's search page, I had trouble getting any results to come up until I entered my state and simply selected the link for Comprehensive Information & Referral. (Hold, please, for 10 more minutes while I surf around the site....) Ah, here's a more direct route to help in your state: US Map.

Once in my state's 2-1-1 site, I was able to type in keywords and my zip code to pull up a listing of organizations and agencies able to help me find something to eat. It took a few minutes, but I finally figured out the right search phrases to enter by looking at the results of the broader food search to find where meals were available. The phrase meal sites and the phrase congregate meals brought up many options, including Meals on Wheels programs for seniors who are homebound, need a special diet, or are handicapped. There are far more listed here than on the Food Bank list, so trying 2-1-1 is definitely worth your time.


Kids' Meals

School Lunch & Breakfast programs provide free and reduced price meals for low income children going to school. The state agencies administering Child Nutrition Programs are listed in this directory on the USDA's Food & Nutrition Service website.


Cooking for Peace

The group Food Not Bombs shares free vegan food with hungry people, and protests war and poverty. Their website has considerable information about their history, purpose, and current activities. If you are interested in how they feed large numbers of hungry people (these kinds of details always fascinate me), check this out. By eliminating animal products from their menu, they have greatly reduced the risk of food contamination and spoilage in mobile locations.

I'm impressed with their commitment to reduce waste, obtain food through recovery and donation, and buying local and organic ingredients as much as possible. Food Not Bombs groups are located worldwide. Click here to find one near you if you are hungry or if you want to help. Be aware, however, that dealing with hunger in a direct and informal manner may not go over well with the authorities. There are also suggestions on the site for dealing with encounters with the police.


Will Work for Food

While I would hardly call Violent Acres a green blogger - I picture her more in purple tones - she had an outstanding tip in a post a couple of years ago. During a period of homelessness, she got a job at a buffet restaurant and ate for free as a result. She doesn't specify whether she only ate once a day or was able to eat several meals there daily, but it does suggest another avenue for avoiding hunger.

I know from talking to other folks with experience in the restaurant industry that there are always some perks to the job, either free food or steep discounts. So, if you want to get out of the unemployment and soup kitchen lines, consider trying to land a job at a restaurant. In the last post in this series, Rosa mentioned in the comments that restaurants may serve out the back door at closing. That's worth checking out as well.


Stay tuned for more in this series.

Pet Peeves in the Blogosphere

I am easily annoyed and can't really pick out just a few "pet peeves." This list is very long so I've tried to separate issues into logical categories to make the post easier to read. Please note that these are my personal opinions. All opinions on this blog are my own, of course, unless I have laid the blame on attributed them to someone else. You may not agree with them, but who doesn't enjoy a good rant? Or even a bad one.

I have tried to include information that can help you improve your own blog, or at least bring it up to my standards which we all know are the best. Of course. (Please note this post is tagged "humor" as well as "rant". If this post offends you, lighten up already!) I would kindly ask you to ignore the fact that I sometimes contradict myself, even within the same post. I am human after all, despite any rumors to the contrary.


CONTENT

Boring - if you're going to publish a post on the Internet, make sure it's interesting. I am so outta there if you can't hold my attention. I'm sure that's true on my blog, too. In fact, there have been a lot of short visits on my blog lately so I must be attracting folks that drop in and get bored really fast. Guess it's time for another boob post.

Length - I have no problem with long posts as long as it has content. Heck, I seem to have incredible difficulty keeping my posts to a reasonable length myself. Some bloggers, though, desperately need an editor. If I'm going to plough through a 10,000 word post, it better damn well be worth the effort! This prejudice probably stems from a background in technical writing. There's no need in creative or blog writing to be as cut and dried as what is required by technical papers but please remember that concise can be nice.


ENGLISH 101

No capital letters - it is not a Herculean task to push down the shift key to capitalize proper names, "I" or the first letter of each sentence. By not making the effort to do this, my perception as a reader is that the writer is lazy or poorly educated. This may be incorrect, but that is my perception.

Lousy spelling - most of us probably miss a typo here and there in our posts (and comments). That doesn't bother me. Consistently poor spelling, however, is inexcusable in a computerized world full of spell-checkers. Use them! (And, just to clarify, my name is Chile with an "e" and only one "l". It references the Mexican spelling for green chile pepper. Thank you for getting it right.)

Bad grammar & punctuation - unless English was not your first language or you are only 8 years old, in which case you really shouldn't be reading my R-rated blog, learn to put a sentence together that can be deciphered by a person of average intelligence. Not everyone out there is as bright as I am.


ATTITUDE

Superiority - bloggers that ooze a sense of superiority turn me off. There is a difference, sometimes subtle, between sharing learned information in an effort to be helpful versus flaunting it in an effort to boost status. (Eco 'Burban Mom, this does not include keeping my best recipe a secret.) Careless wording can edge a helpful post into the dangerous realm of know-it-all territory. I should know, because I do know it all. Ha!

Self-righteous - whether it is founded in religious beliefs, veganism, reproductive rights, environmentalism, or some other passion, this attitude is likely to turn more people away from a cause than draw them in. It's that old honey or vinegar issue. Rather than being abrasive and unpleasant, try sweet talking folks and then hit 'em upside the head with your cause.


BLOG PURPOSE

Business blog posing as personal blog - I don't mind bloggers who want to sell a book they've written; heck, I've been told that some publishers now require authors to have a blog to build a customer base. I hate it, though, when a blog poses as a personal blog when the real and only purpose is to get you to buy their crap. And, boy oh boy, do they have tons of it available for sale all over their website. Each "post" links to ever-so-helpful products or books that they just happen to be selling on their site. Let me clarify this because I do read a couple of blogs that sell a few things. The key is whether the posts have considerable helpful content independent of the products for sale. In other words, can I still learn something useful without having to buy their stuff?

Ad-heavy blogs - these rarely feature in my regular reading or in my blogroll, no matter how good the content. Look, I understand that maintaining a blog takes time and that can take time away from activities that make or save money. Mine sucks up a huge amount of my time and I always feel like I could do more - write more, dress up the site, read other blogs, and so on - but I've accepted that it's not my source of income. I have no problem with a few discreet and content-appropriate ads to offset some of the time spent blogging. Blogs with so many ads that I can't find the actual posts drive me nuts and I rarely bother visiting them.

Obsession with Stat Numbers - I love when bloggers post the bizarre and funny searches by which readers have found their blogs. It's a fascinating look into the way the Internet is used as well as how people think (or don't). An occasional post marking a milestone in stats is also fine; I've done that myself. However, there are blogs that seem primarily interested in building their readership without actually providing anything solid for them to read. I have to wonder then if they're just trying to increase ad revenue by getting more hits. In any case, I soon abandon them because I want to be engaged and learn something new, not constantly reminded how wonderful their stats are and how to build up mine, too.

I'll admit, thought that this is a hard line to walk, because there is definite value in getting more exposure and seeking out ways to do that. For instance, I ask people participating in my challenges to link to it on their blogs. My desire is to draw in people that are willing to 'green up' their lives and the challenges help draw in a diverse crowd that otherwise might not think to make these kind of changes. And while my ego, of course, likes seeing this reflected in the stats, ultimately my goal is to help people learn and for me to have the opportunity to learn from them as well. It helps expose me to new and interesting blogs, too.


LAYOUT

Click to read more - for some reason, perhaps inherent laziness, this bugs me. It bugs me that it bugs me because it's so petty, but I really don't want to have to click again to read a full post after I've clicked to get to the blog in the first place. As I think about it, I wonder why this bothers me because it only involves two extra clicks - one to access the full post and one to return to the blog's main page.

Perhaps one way to explain it comes from something I heard at a lecture by a book editor. She brought in a big box of books and showed us how many books she receives every single week with requests to review. Since there is no possible way for her to review all of them, she has to make her selections as fast as possible. She said that if the first couple of paragraphs do not grab her attention, she tosses the book aside and moves on to the next one. That made perfect sense to me and I think I may be applying that sort of filter. If those first couple of sentences don't really grab my interest, I'm far less likely to click to read the rest in hopes that it will contain something of interest later. We all have limited time available, and I'm sorry to say that I may be missing out on your best posts because of my selection filter.

Light-colored text on light background - pastel text colors on white or off-white backgrounds may reflect your artistic inclinations, but they are very hard for us folks with older eyes (and bifocals) to read! If you want readers from all age groups, please consider choosing a darker color for your writing. In Blogger, and I assume other blog platforms, it's easy to adjust the colors in the Layout.

Font style - some font styles are naturally easier to read than others. I've been told that newspapers use fonts with serifs because they can be read more easily in print than ones without. The font I use has serifs. Here is an example of a font without them. My old eyes find the serifs easier to read on the monitor. I also think it looks classier.

Small font size - some blogs, evidently written by bloggers with 20/10 eyesight, select a small font for their blogs. Sometimes it's downright tiny. I've struggled to read it on blogs that I like, but often gave up because it was too difficult to read. Thankfully, there is an easy solution to this problem: under the View tab in the top menu bar of my browser, I can go to "Text Size" and select "Larger". Yowza! I can see this! This works on most web pages, but not all. And it is a bit annoying when I go to the next site and have huge text jumping out at me because I forgot to reset the text size.


So, you young hip bloggers can make it easy on us old folks by using a font color with more contrast to your background and avoiding tiny text. Thanks!


COMMENTS

Registration - blogs that won't allow comments without registration specific to that blog only seem to get fewer comments. I have a hard enough time remembering all the user names and passwords already, and am unwilling to register in order to comment on just one blog. There are comment platforms or add-ins or whatever they are called available to use that will make it easier for your readers.

Lack of comments from non-bloggers - there are a few folks without their own blogs that comment regularly on blogs I read, but I've noticed that many non-bloggers do not. As long as the blogger allows anonymous comments, anyone can comment. This doesn't really fall in the category of pet peeve; it's just something that makes me sad. Do non-bloggers feel like they can't jump into our community? What can we do to draw them in to the discussions that happen in the comments section?

Spam - the only people that like spam are the spammers themselves and Vikings. Oh, and some misguided survivalist types. If a blogger fears spam, they can employ comment moderation to screen them before allowing comments to be published. I find simply using email notification is sufficient in dealing with spam, although that means anyone subscribing to my comments sees the spam, too, before I delete it.

Anonymous bloggers - this really doesn't bother me except when someone is signing up for a challenge. If the person did not use Blogger's OpenID option, or the name/URL choice, on the comment box, I have no idea if they have a blog or where it might be. Sometimes I know they have a blog but don't know what it is. I've tracked some down and then had to make a determination whether they intentionally or accidentally didn't include the blog link when signing up for the challenge. If you'd like others to check out your blog, remember to check the appropriate box when commenting. Oh, and don't sign in and also type in your blog address at the end of your comment. That's overkill. All of us on our computers know what a hyperlink is.

Comments not available by email - It didn't take long for me to get totally spoiled by Blogger's email notification of comments left on someone else's blog. It's a very easy way to follow the discussion without having to remember when and where I posted a comment. Unfortunately, the other blogging platforms don't seem to offer this consistently. That's one thing that's really bugged me about Wordpress, although there are other features to that platform that make me envious. Then Melinda unveiled her new blog on Wordpress, complete with email notification for comments. Hurray! I'm hoping other Wordpress bloggers will soon tweak their blogs to do this, too.

Lack of acknowledgment - when I first started reading blogs, I noticed that I felt more welcome at blogs where the blogger acknowledged the comments left by readers than the ones where comments were seemingly ignored. I also felt sad when I left a comment and the blogger consistently ignored me but chatted up the others. I understand this better now that I've been blogging for a year, have developed relationships and friendships with other bloggers, and don't always have time to respond to each and every comment. However, I do strive to respond to and acknowledge most comments on my blog. It's not that I want to "have the last word" but rather that I want my readers to know that I am listening to them and value their input. I've said it before and will say it again, if you are reading posts on my blog and other blogs but not the comments, you are missing out on a lot of information, and half the fun.

Rudeness - for one reason or another, sometimes bloggers just don't see eye-to-eye. Sometimes it's simply a difference in style, other times it's a difference in viewpoint. There have been times when I've enjoyed the writing on a blog and continued to visit despite such differences. I've felt compelled to leave a comment on these blogs occasionally, too. That was when I learned that some bloggers don't understand common courtesy. Two, in particular, had apparently taken a dislike to me for some reason. In one case, my comments were always ignored, and in another, my comments were consistently belittled. Those two bloggers succeeded in driving me from their blogs, rarely to return. Pity, really, because both were good writers, often with good content. Play nice in the blogosphere, people! It's a microcosm of the real world.


LINKS To OTHERS

Reciprocal link expectations - just because I link to you or you link to me doesn't mean the other party is required to link back. As you can see from this long list of complaints, I'm pretty damn picky about what and who I read and link to. I do appreciate when others out there like my writing enough to link to my blog, and I try to remember to keep my blogroll updated with the blogs I'm currently enjoying, but I don't believe there is any obligation to provide a reciprocal link.

Challenge links - this is the exception to the opinion above. My desire with the challenges is to get people to examine how they routinely do something and strive to make a change for the better. Because it can result in positive changes, the more people participate, the better. Word gets out through the blogs of those participating, so if you don't put up the challenge logo and never ever mention the challenge on your own personal* blog, I feel just a little cheated. It's even worse if you sign up, never blog about it, and don't even bother to participate in the discussions or report in on how you're doing on my blog. To me, that begins to feel like you just wanted a free link on my blog in the participant list and were never really serious about the challenge in the first place.

*If you signed up for the challenge and your only web presence is a business site, I completely understand not posting about the challenge on your site. However, please do make the effort to come participate in the discussions on mine.

Yeah, that may be petty but I'm ranting, OK?!

Internet Search Engine misses - this complaint is partly about ego but also about connections and networking. For some reason, the search engines don't catch all of the links to my blog (and I suspect this is the case for others as well). I have gone through every blog reaction listed on Technorati, for example, to create a folder of everyone who shows up with a link back to here. There are some of you dear readers out there that have had me in your blogrolls forever and you have never ever shown up there. Pinging has not fixed this. I have the same problem with Google Alerts frequently not picking up on new posts linking here.

Now, of course, I love to have people linking to me. It's nice to be acknowledged. However, that's not the primary reason that I check Technorati, have Google Alerts set up, and check my StatCounter often. I really want to know who finds me of interest, because if you find me of interest, I may very well enjoy your blog as well. Plus, of course, I want to know what you're saying about me when you think I'm not looking. Yes, I'm talkin' about you. Ha!

Seriously, though, it amazes me to have such a diverse group of readers. As an intentionally childless adult, how did I end up with all the nice mommy bloggers that come here? And as a complete non-knitter, what is my appeal to the knitting community? I understand vegans who like to check me out, but there are also devout carnivores who come by. This fascinates me and reminds me that there is a lot of common ground out there no matter how much the specifics may differ.

Challenge logo hyperlinks invisible - this is probably due to something I'm doing wrong, but it seems that the Internet search engines can't see the hyperlink embedded within the challenge logos. This means that I can't just do an easy search to find out who's participating in the challenges and might have forgotten to let me know, especially if they lurk on the blog but never comment. Sometimes I accidentally discover them and then am surprised to see my logo there. I've tried all kinds of searches with no success. Any of you wise bloggers able to explain this one?


That's all, folks!

Can you believe I can't think of anything else to rant about right now? My ability to complain, find fault, and rant sometimes seems bottomless. Trust me, though, for every criticism I turn outwards, I level far harsher ones on myself. And I really do strive to provide constructive criticism with potential solutions here because I know how unproductive pure judgmentalism can be.

By the way, this blog post only had 3,243 words in it, including this notice. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!