Things from the Basement

Ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties...

Well, there's some dust and cobwebs, and maybe a spider.

As I mentioned, I have about thirty boxes of books in the crawlspace. The oldest of these boxes dates back about ten years, when my ex left me and I packed up the spare room so I could get a roommate. Since money's tight and I read voraciously, the last time we went down into The Hole I brought up a couple of small boxes.

All the books down there are "keepers," meaning I thought they were good enough to hang on to for one reason or another. So far the box I opened last week has had only one book that I think will go for used book trade-in credit.

So I've been reading a little. Okay, I've been reading a lot. Here's the pile of books that's sitting on my bedside table at the moment. And the ones on my desk, and the couple that made it into the bathroom...

Echoes of the Well of Souls: The first book of the second trilogy of a series that I never read, but one that apparently made Mr. Chalker's career. I've put these on my "gotta find used" list, it's a great read. More books by Jack L. Chalker.

I guess I must have been pretty detached to never run across the Well of Souls series. I'll blame the ex.

Power Lines: The second in the Petaybee series by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborrough. I've been following Ms. McCaffrey since early Pern, and Ms. Scarborough is also a fine author (who coincidently used to live in Alaska). This one wasn't actually in The Hole, but I'd been watching for this series and snapped it up. Plot: a terraformed world gains sentience and works for the freedom if itself and it's residents from the Evil Company. More books by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Escape Velocity: This is apparently the first book in the Warlock Series. Now, if I recall, the Warlock series is technically sci-fi, taking place on a planet that was colonized by, basically, the Society for Creative Anachronism. While the ship full of role-players takes off during this novel, it's largely about the death of democracy. And if you had any doubt Mr. Stasheff mentions it frequently.

Not that this makes it a bad book. But I'd classify it as a "light read"; the plot moves right along like a nice space opera and the lectures never get too deep or lecture-y.



The Ambivalent Magician: Another series I never chased down! This is a wonderful tongue-in-cheek read, in which the author claims to be experimenting with "Fantasic Metafiction". What we have is a modern-day mad (well, eccentric and very focused) scientist who's thrown cross-dimensionally into a medieval world. This is apparently the third and final book in the series, and I think the other two are The Inadequate Adept and The Reluctant Sorcerer. This is also a fun read, but a rollicking, laughable one.

There's actually four mor books in this pile, not counting the one I'm reading. So let's do this as a to-be-continued.

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If the blogs seem a little sparse it's because things are very busy. I've got several things going on in the on-line world, and both kids have been very needy lately. Kiddo is wrapping up potty training, I think, and Baby has just hit the Mommy-can't-be-more-than-four-feet-away ever phase. Winter finally arrived and it's too cold for Baby to hang out with us to play in Gran'pa's yard. I've got to find some ideas to keep Kiddo from being bored this winter, he has so much energy.

We did go to the community Spookytown today, which is indoor trick-or-treating in an old grocery store, sponsored by local businesses. Kiddo did very well; it was his first time trick-or-treating and he was thrilled that people would give him candy! It was, however, a total zoo and the music was far too loud for a children's event. We trick-or-treated and danced for about an hour before I couldn't take anymore.

A Room Without Books....

I read a little.

Okay, I read a lot.

Okay, I've got about 30 boxes of books downstairs in the crawlspace that I have no room for, and my #1 criteria when we are finally about to buy a house is "lots of room for books."

Our budget doesn't allow me all the new books I'd like. I can't quite bring myself to use the library, because I hate to take a book back. I don't just read, I re-read, over and over again. I do a lot of shopping at our local used book store, but it's always agonizing when I've discovered a series and read up to the point where I have to wait for the next one to come out plus several months for it to show up used. I also have a terrible time picking books to turn in for credit. I've kicked most of my packrat habits, but I just can't shake hoarding books.

One of the problems is when one's best-loved books go out of print. As a teenager I fell in love with Jo Clayton's Diadem series, it's spinoffs, and the Skeen trilogy. Ms. Clayton succumbed to cancer many years ago, and there's no whisper of republishing the series. Not only have I got all my original Clayton paperbacks, but I was fortunate to find duplicates helping someone clean out their storage area. Some of these I've literally read to pieces.

Then there's fun things like authors (or their estates) republishing a manuscript in its original, un-edited form. A great example of this is Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. The original version was very long (for the time) and, well, racy might be a bit mild for the time. This books was so influential that it accidently started a religion! After Mr. Heinlein's death, his wife Virginia found the carbon of the original manuscript decided if was much better as he wrote it. One thing led to another, and the unabridged version was released. I have the "as written edition", and not one but two copies of the "as originally published" version.

I've got my original boxed paperback set of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia . Those really are falling apart, I've had them since 6th grade or so. I've also read the oversized omnibus edition my sister got me enough that I've had to repair the binding. We loved Narnia. My sister has a poster-sized map of Narnia that would be a collector's edition if we hadn't put stickers on it.

I've just realized that I could go on forever here, and my best-loved books wasn't even what I intended to write about today! Expect to see more book talk soon.

I'll leave you with a quote, generally attributed to Cicero:

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Vacuuming Sucks

We've been experiencing big internet outages up here the last two weeks. Some odd weather and poorly aimed railroad fixes managed to cut the critical fiber cable for not just one, but both telecommunication companies servicing our area.

So yesterday, faced with no internet, no long distance and no phone or cell service, I was forced to take drastic measures to prevent the onset of boredom.

I vacuumed.

I hate to vacuum. The source of this hatred is simple and almost Freudian: when I was growing up we had this Kirby vacuum cleaner that must have weighed about 40 pounds. This would have been around, oh, 1979 or so. Kirby's are great machines, and one day I may even be able to afford one again. But that thing weighed a ton.

At the time my mom and step-father also sold Amway. This was old-school Amway, when it was still mostly about selling soap. Great products, by the way, if you can find someone to sell them to you without trying to talk you into being a distributor. But as a sideline to the Amway business they cleaned offices. Or rather, the whole family cleaned offices.

There was one building we cleaned that had one very long two-story staircase you had to climb to get to it. My job was to haul that old Kirby up those stairs and vacuum the offices. The thing was heavy and awkward, having no real good place to hang onto it when you needed to carry it. It didn't take long for that Kirby to become the bane of my existence.

If wasn't just that it was heavy, it was also loud. I mean, really loud. And while it had a bag, it was the pre-cursor to bagless vacuum cleaners: instead of using a disposable bag insert you reached into the permanent bag and cleaned all the dirt and stuff out by hand. Gross, gross, gross.

Oh, I hated that Kirby.

So as I grew up vacuuming became anathema to me. I'd rather do anything else. Like change my own oil, clean grout, or write a term paper. Wash diapers by hand. Drive in rush hour freeway traffic with screaming kids. Talk about politics with a drunk radical. Anything but vacuum!

So I grew up and got married to Husband #1 and we were broke so guess what Mom gave me when she had a central vacuum system installed in her place?

The Kirby.

Cue the Psycho shower-scene music.

Interestingly enough, the old machine was, oh, at least 17 years old and still worked like it was new. And it had all the hoses and attachments, including the shampooer. Yessiree, it worked like a champ. And it still weighed a ton!

The old Kirby has long since gone (along with Husband #1); we've got a nice lightweight Dirt Devil with a canister. But I still hate to vacuum. Nonetheless, as the internet-less day wore on I was rapidly running out of chores to do. I knocked out the dishes, caught up the laundry, rearranged the kids' room, canned some salsa. Then I looked around at the floor, with which kids becomes a repository for all kinds of interesting food artifacts, and decided I had to do it.

I lived. And they got the 'net back up. *phew*

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green

I really like making soup. It's so easy! I've had a ham bone in the freezer forever, so I thought with the chill in the air Split Pea Soup would be a good idea. Did you know that the second week of November is National Split Pea Soup Week? I didn't, but I decided not to wait!

Split Pea Soup is one of those things you either love or your don't. My family loves it. I think it has a lot to do with your first Split Pea experience. Split Pea is sometimes made with smoked meats, which is tasty but can make it very rich and a little overwhelming on your first try. Many restaurants let their soups sit all day, and the result with creamy soups is something your spoon can stand up in. That's a little thick for me. There's a wonderful happy medium between too thin (like regular non-creamy soups) and too thick (it should not make a good spread).

Split pea is also really, really cheap to make. All the expense is in the meat. When we have ham I'll have Hubby carve and not get too picky about cleaning the bone. (I never buy formed and pressed ham. Wait for the holidays, and get whole hams cheap. But that's another blog.) Then the whole bone goes in the freezer until I want it. You can also find ham hocks and salt pork on sale if you watch for them. Salt pork is mostly fat, I'd get the hocks given the option. You do want fat to add flavor, but I love finding ham chunks in my Split Pea Soup.

The biggest issue with Split Pea Soup is scortching it. Stir regularly and once you've brought it to a boil reduce the heat as much as possible. It's quicker than bean soups, because while dried whole peas have to be soaked overnight, split peas do not.

Usually I make my Split Pea on the stove top, but I ran across a crock pot recipe, and since my attention's been wandering due to baby induced sleep deprivation I thought I'd give it a try. It came out wonderful, so here's the recipe. As usual, the title links to the original recipe and what you see here is how I made it:

Crock Pot Split Pea Soup

INGREDIENTS:
1 (16 ounces) package split peas
1 meaty ham bone or 2 ham hocks
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 large potato, diced
8 cups of water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

PREPARATION:
Combine split peas, ham bone or ham hocks, carrot, onion, potato, sausage, celery. water and salt and pepper in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW setting for 8 to 10 hours. Remove ham bone; cut meat off bones, discard the bones. Return ham to the soup and serve hot.

I should recommend http://southernfood.about.com for recipes. They have an extensive database and I've had really good results with almost every recipe I've found there.

And last, today's Blog title is from a Lewis Carroll poem in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. If I recall the Mock Turtle sings it to Alice and the Gryphon:

Beautiful Soup

BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!

The Cost of Convenience

Today I decided to wash my curtains. They had an accumulation of cat hair and were getting wrinkled, so I pulled them down and looked at the tag. "Dry Clean Only". Well, poo. I don't dry clean anything unless it's absolutely necessary, so I turned the tag over.

100% Cotton.

What?

Dry cleaning used to be reserved for fabrics that didn't handle water or drying well. The only reasons I can think to not wash 100% cotton are shrinking and wrinkling. And if you wash in cold, use the no-heat dryer cycle to suck most of the moisture out, and iron them, there isn't a problem. Of course, dry cleaning is convenient, doing them by hand takes time.

Ah, time. There's the trade off for convenience, time versus money.

Once upon a time we were a two-income household with no kids. We had disposable income, but not a lot of time. Then came Kiddo, and for a while we were two-income, one kid household with absolutely no time at all. Now we're a one-income, two-kid household. I have time - well, as much time as anyone with a baby and a pre-schooler - but money's tight.

One of the tricks to saving money when you take an income cut is to do away with convenience, or at least convenience that costs money. I grew up in a convenience generation. Everything is drive-through, microwave, gimmee now, I got things to do. Shoot, most folks can't even wait to stop their car to talk on the phone. It's really hard to give up the convenience habit.

I saw a news article the other day about how families are eating out about 60% of the time. Many of them seemed to think they were saving money (okay, maybe where they live), but most cited it was easier than having to deal with cooking and clean up. Convenience. Taking my family out can cost $20-$30, but I can feed us at home for $5-$10. I save money, but it costs me time. Or does it? Now that I think about it... get the family in the car, drive somewhere, wait for service, wait for food, eat, drive home... maybe it's not costing me much more time than eating out would.

Even preparing food at home is a trade-off. Pre-fab meals are probably quicker, but I can spend some time and make it from scratch cheaper.

Yesterday high winds and a freak landslide about 15 miles south of here took pretty much the entire State of Alaska offline for a while. I was working on another site when all of a sudden, bam, no internet. So I start to do other stuff. What's on TV? Dunno, the TV Guide is online. I need a new chicken recipe - whups, the 'net is down. Wonder if my deposit went through? Bzzzt, no online banking. I should send pictures to Nana and Auntie. Argh.

Every now and then we need something like that to remind us about the days of reading the newspaper, going to the library, using the mail, and actually going into a bank and *gasp* speaking to a teller face to face. Things that all take... time.

While I miss the conveniences I used to be able to afford, I have to say I enjoy having time. Time to spend with my kids, cook a good meal, make jam, take care of my family's needs, and yes, even iron curtains. I often miss my old job, but so much of that income was spent on convenience: daycare so it was convenient to work, fast food 'cause it was inconvenient to cook, new clothes because it was inconvenient to mend, dry cleaning because there was no time to wash. And I missed about 10 months of kiddo's babyhood, because I was working. Kiddo just about became inconvenient.

So we made sure we could keep our heads above water financially, and I quit. It took some work to get our finances to where one income covered it, but we did it. Now I have time.

And I do all the laundry, cooking, cleaning, kid-chasing and shopping. And I get to make cookies with my son, make baby food for baby, iron my husband's shirts, and we all sit down together and have family dinners that I cook.

Convenient? No. Less expensive? Sure. Spending time with my family? Absolutely priceless.

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Trivia:

In the State of Alaska, to quality for WIC a family of four cannot earn more than $46,250 a year.

Daycare for one pre-schooler in Alaska costs at least $600 a month.

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Update:

Someone asked me today if we got our monitors. Yep! We found the Samsung SyncMaster 940bw at Sam's Club for $210.

Family Day!

Today I have more pictures of the family!

Hubby with a very limp Baby.

My little ankle-biter!

So-ooop-er Kiddo!

Bedtime

The Art of Faking It

Often in the kitchen I find myself at a total loss. What's for dinner? What'd we have yesterday? While we're at it, what have I got to work with?

Oh, you thought I meant faking It. No, I'm talking about cooking.

Today I wanted to make potato soup. Potato soup is a favorite in my family, and since we get milk from WIC, it's really cheap to make. You can make a good meal out of a hearty potato soup and some whole-wheat bread.

Here's the actual recipe in the Ugly Green Binder:

Potato Soup
6-8 medium potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
6 cups milk
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lb cheddar cheese

Peel, cube, boil, drain and "mush" potatoes to the consistency you like (I like them lumpy, but my kids like smaller pieces). In separate pan, melt butter, add flour and cook while stirring for about a minute or so. Add half the milk and stir until lumps are out of flour mixture. Add remaining milk and on med-high heat, heat to a boil. Stir almost constantly or it will scorch. After boiling, turn heat off and add remaining ingredients.

Easy, right?

In real life, I can't stick to a recipe to save my life. Part of it is I only work with stuff on hand, and lots of recipes can be changed on the fly. The other half is, well, I like to cook.

I like stuff in my soups, so out come the carrots, celery, and onion (make sure you pre-cook the carrots). Maybe some corn. Oh, we like peppery soups, so I start with about two teaspoons.

Chicken bouillon works well, it keeps it from tasting like a mouthful of hot milk, but vegetable or ham work well too. If you have stock or broth, use cream instead of milk and substitute two cups of broth for two cups of milk. I didn't have any bouillon or soup base in the house, so I used a little crushed garlic, basil, and extra salt and pepper. I've often wondered if adding a can of clams and substituting a cup of clam juice for one cup of milk could make a decent chowder.

I have no clue what size a medium potato is. I have a 6 cup bowl and I start chopping potatoes in about 1/2 inch chunks until it's mostly full. And peel them? That where all the vitamins are! Boil them until they fall off a fork, maybe 15 minutes, drain and let them steam dry (that just means let them sit and steam, it pulls moisture out of the potatoes). Then you have options. If you like a really really thick potato soup mash 'em all. If you like a milk broth with tater chunks in it, don't mash at all. We're somewhere in between, so I mash about half of them. Remember, the roux (the flour and butter paste) will make this thicken in the fridge.

I don't care for cheese in my potato soup. I might float some on top, or use it if I'm making potato & broccoli soup, but otherwise I have better things to do with my soup. But crumbled bacon works well, so does ham (boil the meat off a ham hock for cheap soup ham). Be sure to get rid of as much fat as possible before adding meat to cream soups.

So my recipe is more like:

Potato Soup
5-6 cups unpeeled cubed potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
6 cups of milk
2 teaspoons chicken soup base
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 cup fine chopped celery
1/2 cup fine chopped onion
1 cup diced carrots, cooked
1 can corn niblets, drained
1/2 to 1 cup crumbled bacon or fine chopped ham

Boil, drain and mash potatoes to the consistency you like. In separate pan, melt butter, add flour and cook while stirring for about a minute or so. Add half the milk and stir until lumps are out of flour mixture. Add remaining milk, onion, celery, and seasonings and on med-high heat, heat to a boil. Stir almost constantly or it will scorch. After boiling, turn heat off and add potatoes, carrots, and corn. Stir lots. Refridgerate or serve immediately.

The point is, besides showing off my potato soup, that you can make do with what you have. The basic recipe is potatoes and milk, and that's just great, nothing wrong with it. But you can make it as fancy or plain as you like, just with what you have on hand.

Update! Baby Products You Gotta Have

Last week I was talking about baby stuff I can't live without. Well, I openend my copy of American Baby Magazine. today to discover that the nursing pillow has made their reader-voted first place as the best baby product for the fifth year in a row!

Strangely enough they don't seem to have the list on their site.

But I thought that was neat, and wanted to share.

Yay, Dividends!

If you're a resident of the State of Alaska, you know that the Permanent Fund Dividends were deposited today for early bird applicants.

YAY! FREE MONEY!

The Permanent Fund was established through a constitutional amendment approved by Alaska voters in 1976. The constitutional amendment and its supporting statutes set aside at least 25% of certain mineral revenues paid to the State for deposit into a public savings account to be invested for the benefit of the current and all future generations of Alaskans. Part of that is given to each eligible Alaskan Resident every year. I've been getting them since they started.

"They" try to take it away from us from time to time, wanting that money for more government. So far the voters have always given them a resounding no. I do wonder about our elected officials who can't remember the definition of "permanent". Maybe they're thinking about hair treatments.

Anyway, Regular Readers here know that money's tight for my family. Sure, lots of Alaskans use the PFD's to make major purchases, but a lot of people use them to keep their heads above water. Unfortunately it's easy to fall into the habit of making purchases and saying "We'll just pay it at Dividend time." I'm pleased to say I've broken that habit.

With our PFD's we're making necessary repairs to Hubby's vehicle (about $900, but the thing will last another 5 years when we do), and we paid off some high-interest debt we had floating around. Then we have a nice little chunk left over for a bill buffer, so I no longer have to carefully time when I pay bills with when the paychecks hit. That alone is going to take a huge amount of stress off me. I hate paycheck to paycheck bill juggling.

Of course, as soon as Murphy knows you have money something will happen. You know, never mention in your vehicle that you've got extra money, it will find a way to burn it up. So far I think we've got it under control (please don't tell Murphy!).

But we can't help wanting to get us a goodie. We work very hard to live within our means, and that means not getting "gimmees". But being frugal is like dieting. If you don't treat yourself now and then you'll blow it all in a splurge.

We've grasped new monitors for our PFD treat. These are about 5 years old and mine's starting to loose color quality. Naturally we want the new fancy LCD monitors. We picked a budget, and a couple of 17" would fit... so naturally we are gazing longingly at the 19". And bigger.

My tech friends have recommended a couple of brands, and so far no one has reported a bad experience with any particular brand. The major recommendation is to buy the 3 year warranty as pixels can and will die on the monitor. The major measure of quality seems to be response time. Since we play high-end internet games, we want something zippy, like 8ms response time.

We'll see what happens, we're still bargain hunting! But I want to wait, just a little, to make sure that Murphy doesn't figure out we've got money...

Good Gravy!

When you're cooking broke you often find yourself stuck with very... interesting combinations of ingredients. Somehow you need to put them together into something that won't gross out your family. My secret weapon is gravy.

I'll confess I cheat. I've never been any good at scratch gravy (I'll get it right one of these days!). My mainstay is Tone's Gravy Mixes, which I get at Sam's Club in the really big containers. About $7.50 for a LOT of gravy mix, a huge savings over individual packets.

Mix your gravy thin and pour it over leftovers and noodles, poof, you've got a perfectly palatable casserole. Brown or mushroom gravy and a half cup of sour cream makes instant stroganoff. Any gravy and a can of cream of celery soup makes an awesome pot pie sauce. A little gravy mix can turn soup into stew (so can instant mashed potatoes). Add extras to your gravy - a little onion, a little mushroom, maybe a little garlic or a bay leaf - and it's not the same ol' gravy every time. And gravy can cover up most cooking disasters.

Boullion and soup bases are great tools too. You can fake Au Jus with it, mix it with a little cornstarch for a quick and dirty gravy, or season rice with it. A spoonful of soup base in soup is cheaper than trying to get it seasoned just right. I prefer soup bases to bullion because they are more flavorful and less salty, but bases are more expensive. Don't get bullion cubes, they're a pain to dissolve; looks for paste or granules.

Cheese! Boy, you can get your kid to eat anything hidden under cheese. Rather than buy Velveeta, I discovered that cheese sauce is pretty easy to make. It stretches your cheese, too.

Cheese Sauce

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black or white pepper
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup grated cheese, any variety (stronger flavored cheeses work better in my opinion)

Melt butter; remove from heat. Stir in flour and seasonings. Gradually add milk, stirring until well mixed. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. Cook for 5 minutes longer; add cheese.

Stir until smooth and well blended. Serve with pasta or vegetables.
Makes 2 cups.

Oh, cream soups. These are a mainstay of the Modern American Casserole. I prefer Cream of Celery, possibly because of an overdose of Cream of Mushroom growing up. I find the celery very versatile. Did you know you can make your own Cream Soup substitute for casserole? It's pretty good. The only place I don't like it is in pot pie. For some reason the "lid" of the pot pie makes the sauce really set up, and it turns quiche-like. I did this a lot when TEFAP was giving us powdered milk.

Homemade Cream Soup Mix

2 1/4 c nonfat dry milk
3/4 c cornstarch
2 tb dried onion
2 tsp celery seed -or- 1 tsp each basil and thyme
1/2 tsp pepper

Combine all and store in an airtight container.

Sub for one can condensed soup: 1/3 c dry mix and 1 1/4 c cold water.
Cook and stir until thickened, or add to recipe. If desired, add 1 tsp of appropriately flavored bullion (chicken, beef, whatever works) per "can" of mix on the fly.

Makes the equivalent of 9 cans of soup.

Give Us This Day

Bread. Basic stuff. Can't have a sandwich without it. It fills you up, holds your peanut butter, mops your egg yolk, and gives you a scooper at dinner.

But if you're going for maximum nutrition for minimum money, I recommend that you don't cheap out on bread. Next time you're in the store, grab a loaf of brand-x super-cheap on-sale bread, and compare its nutrition label to a good brand name. It's a little startling. You might spend two dollars more a loaf for the next brand up, but the nutritional benefits are definitely worth the money.

One of the problems with bread is that when the flour is processed they remove a lot of vitamins and minerals... and then put them back, more or less. The cheapest brands are often little more than fiber and empty calories. On the other hand, spendy multi-grain varieties might be fooling you into thinking you're getting whole-grain benefits when you're not.

Go whole wheat whenever you can. Whole grain breads have astounding benefits that go beyond what you can read on a nutrition label. Eating whole grains has been shown to reduce the risks of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Seriously, this is one place where your money is well spent, and careful shopping (try your local warehouse club, or see if the bread distributor have a day-old store) can minimize even that expense. Remember: in the United States the only way to be certain that it's really a whole wheat bread is to read the ingredients! Here's a really great article on Whole Grains. If you're paying a bit more to get away from empty-calorie cheap bread, you might as well go for whole wheat and get all those bonuses!

I like to make my own bread, but I don't have quite enough free time these days. Instead I've been making No-Knead Rolls and I've just started making my own Pita bread, both of which are less time-intensive than loaf breads. I make with them half whole wheat flour and half unbleached white flour (100% whole wheat I find very hard to work by hand, it makes my tendonitis flare up). If you find making bread intimidating, Try these very easy recipes. The titles link to their internet source; these have my modifications.

No-Knead Rolls
4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup shortening
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 egg

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside to proof (let it sit about 10 minutes). In another bowl, mix together sugar, salt, shortening, and egg with an electric mixer at low speed. Add mixture to yeast, and stir in flour. The last 3 cups of flour will have to be mixed in by hand. Cover dough with a damp cloth, and place in refrigerator. Punch down occasionally as dough rises. You can leave dough in refrigerator overnight. Two hours before baking, shape the dough into rolls. When shaping your rolls, remember that they will double in size. Place on greased pans, baking trays or muffin pans. Let rise 2 hours. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 8 to 10 minutes.

Whole Wheat Pita
1/4 c warm water
2 tsp active dry yeast
pinch of sugar
2 c whole wheat flour
1 c unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 c water
1 Tbsp Oil
1 tsp salt

Mix yeast, pinch of sugar and 1/4 c of warm water in a small bowl. Set aside to proof yeast, about 10 minutes. In a large bowl, pour in yeast mixture, then flour, olive oil and salt. With a wooden spoon mix in about 1/2 cup of the remaining warm water. Add water a tablespoon at a time as needed to make a firm dough. Knead by hand for about 8-10 minutes till smooth. Wipe a large bowl with a little oil, add dough and cover with plastic. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down dough and knead briefly. Cut into 6 equal pieces. Roll pieces into balls, place on a cookie sheet and cover with plastic wrap.

Let rise till doubled again, another 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400° F. Roll out each ball into a 6-7" round, taking care not to pierce dough surface (or pita won't puff).

Place rounds on a cookie sheet, brush each generously with olive oil, and bake about 6 minutes till tops begin to brown and pitas puff. Note: over-cooked pitas get hard on the bottom, but they still make awesome pizza crust!

I was going to write a blog on making loaf bread, but I realized that when I went to re-learn it (I hadn't made any since high school) I found a great site that laid it all out, with pictures and everything. It took some looking, 'cause the page in The Ugly Green Binder in the Cupboard doesn't have the URL on it, but I found it. If you'd like to learn to make your own real loaf bread from scratch, may I highly recommend The New Homemaker.

Kids. Gotta love 'em!

I had a blog all written to post today... and the baby was on my lap and somehow managed to close IE before I'd saved it. He was kicking the keyboard.

Some days it's a good thing they are cute!

Instead I give you some books that are on my permanent Keepr List. Maybe tomorrow I'll come in and give a little comentary on them, tonight I'm out of energy.











Tomorrow: something you might actually care to read!