Yes, it’s true. There is a benefit to it. I should say, there appears to be, since this hasn’t been confirmed by scientific studies but only by a single simple experiment and some speculation. Without high fructose corn syrup, we would apparently lose something near and dear to breakfast cereal eaters everywhere.

From the folks at Epicurious:
The End of a Snap, Crackle, and Pop Culture

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Well, I went with the beans and rice as described, and cooked up something with the potatoes.

Beans and rice: It didn’t help that I screwed up the rice. I mismeasured the water, had to add more most of the way through the cooking process, and it just didn’t work quite right. The bean mixture didn’t come out quite the way I’d hoped either. I think it needed more seasoning, to start, and the garlic should have been pre-cooked rather than just thrown in. But it was certainly edible and worth tinkering with later. The crostini I managed to get right at least.

Potatoes: I fried up the bacon (about six strips, once you throw out the three I cooked too long because I wasn’t paying enough attention) and reserved the grease. Then I washed and cut up three nice big potatoes and tossed them in just enough of the bacon grease to coat. Added the crumbled-up bacon and some chopped basil. I don’t know, eight or ten big leaves maybe. And then some black pepper. Tossed it all together, threw it in the oven for 40 minutes at 375. That seemed to turn out better. Still not quite as delicious as I’d hoped, but certainly very good. We’ll see how it reheats later.

So, mixed results.

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Tonight I’m on my own for dinner because Tim’s hanging out with a friend. I also neglected to actually plan a dinner for myself, having been tired and uninspired when making the week’s menu and figuring I’d just get some cheap, quick fast food takeout. However… I’ve made some not so smart eating choices this week, and I feel like I ought to try to do something healthier tonight. I would also rather not spend any more money than I have to. That means cobbling together a meal at home from whatever’s sitting around, since I didn’t actually buy groceries to make a meal tonight.

This morning, taking a quick inventory, I found that I actually have a surprising selection of ingredients that could be used up. I’ve got some kidney beans with Italian seasoning, a couple of kinds of cheese, half a can of tomato sauce, some fresh basil, a little pre-cooked venison tenderloin, bread (French baguette, pita, and a partial loaf of sliced multigrain), peanut butter, some slightly spicy vegetable stock, bacon, and part of a bag of potatoes. There are also a few miscellaneous pantry items like lentils, pasta, a single serving of rice, and so forth that could find a good home in my dinner. (I’m not so hot on the pasta, though, since I’m having pasta dressed with butter, basil and garlic for lunch.)

My initial thought: Put the rice on, and while it’s cooking, simmer the beans in the tomato sauce with some basil and garlic. Serve beans over rice with cheese-topped crostini on the side. But I feel like I could do something with the potato and bacon, possibly along with the basil, too… And the bacon’s going to go bad before anything else on that list and has already been frozen and thawed once (and thus shouldn’t be refrozen). I don’t think there’s really enough substance there for a meal, though, especially since the meal needs to have some protein given that the rest of my food today is relatively low on it. If nothing else maybe I’ll figure out something to do with the bacon that can be put in the fridge or freezer and reheated later. Or just go ahead and fry it up and make bacon bits or something. It needs cooked quickly before it turns.

(Crostini, incidentally, sounds really fancy but it’s really easy. Just slice up some French bread, cutting at an angle if you want to have bigger slices and be really fancy. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then pop in a 375 degree oven for about 7 minutes. You can do endless variations with what you put on the bread; Tim likes his with butter instead of oil, shredded four-cheese mix is what I was planning for tonight, and the other night we had some with parmesan cheese and tomatoes.)

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1 lb ground pork $4
1 lb nitrate-free bacon $7
1 lb sage breakfast sausage with no ingredients I can’t pronounce $4
1 lb sweet Italian sausage, ditto $5
(All of the above from relatively local, grass-fed, delicious pigs)
1 scant pint multicolored heirloom cherry tomatoes $2
1 large bunch Italian basil $2.50
1 head heirloom garlic $1
1 bunch carrots (greens intact) $2
1/2 pint multicolored fingerling potatoes $2
1 pint blackberries $4
1 overflowing pint apples $2
1 quart green beans $3
2 large green bell peppers $1
1 overflowing pint broccoli $2

Total: Approximately $42.

Getting Tim inspired to cook dinner by taking him to the Farmer’s Market: Priceless. *big grin*

Plans include: BLTs; angel hair pasta tossed with basil and garlic, with tomato-parmesan crostini (made with homemade French bread); roasted vegetables and Italian sausage; a couple of fruit/granola/yogurt combinations; and fresh fruits and veggies to go with lunches for part or all of the week. Then next week we’ll dig into those breakfast sausages with some eggs from the Farmer’s Market and homemade buttermilk biscuits, and do something with the ground pork…

I’m hungry now.

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Company Creates Combustible Tattoo Ink

(“Combustible” in this case means not that it will burn your arm up if you get it too close to open flame, but rather that the ink can be removed much more easily and less painfully than current procedures allow.)

From the article:
“I don’t know anyone who would pay more for a tattoo where their thought is, ‘Maybe one day I’m going to remove this,’” said Jerry Lorito, vice president of the tattoo removal company Tat2BeGone in Costa Mesa, Calif.

More to the point, I don’t think I know anyone who would go get a real tattoo at a real tattoo parlor where their thought is, “Maybe one day I’m going to remove this.” If they aren’t ready to make the commitment, they’re going to opt for airbrush or henna or a standard temporary tattoo. Which, I’ll grant, is partly because up until this point the ink has been pretty much permanent. It’s not just that, though. I mean, this isn’t something you buy at the drugstore and slap on and then you’re done, you know. It’s often fairly expensive (mine were $100 and $130, I think, for relatively simple black-only designs threeish inches across), and also painful. When it’s done, it’s effectively an open wound that requires a further investment of time and energy to care for properly until it heals. And even if it is more easily removed, it’s still something that becomes a part of your body. That’s not the kind of thing people generally do if they have any notion of removing it later in life.

Maybe there are some who will use this new ink, or the dissolving ink they’re talking about developing (for more real-looking temporary tattoos, I guess). But overall I don’t see this being a big seller. This just isn’t something people do with the thought that they’re going to want it removed later.

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Whew. A chance to breathe. Okay.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. It’s likely to continue for a while… Maternity leave is looming rather close in the future (August 1), and there’s lots to get done at work before I go. It’s a little frustrating, because the reasons it’s all so rushed are completely out of my control. Also because I already know that I won’t be able to finish as much as I’d like, again due to circumstances beyond my control. It’s really no one’s fault in particular, unless you want to blame the beaurocracy in general, but… Well, there you have it. At any rate, I usually blog in spare moments at work, but there haven’t been many of those lately, hence the lack of posting.

I mean, seriously. I actually dreamt code last night. I know things are scary-busy when that happens. (Now, why I can never dream useful code…)

Of course, I also had a dream a few nights ago in which the words “Beleriand” and “Eriador” figured prominently, so apparently I’ve also been listening to too much of my Tolkien audiobooks… Or perhaps my subconscious is just more impressionable than usual lately.

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I finally broke down and got maternity pants, ordered over the weekend and dropped off at my door on Wednesday. I should’ve done this a couple of months ago, probably, and spared everyone a lot of whining about my clothes hating me. Hindsight, you know.

It’s not that they’re perfect. As expected, they’re a little too short. And the elastic style is such that they do tend to slip down around my hips when I stand up or after I bend over. But… Well, the regular jeans were doing that too, and at least these are comfortable while they’re doing it, and easier to reposition, and stay in place better when I’m walking around or while I’m sitting down. And though they’re too short, it’s not by enough that I feel the need to bitch too much. Two more inches would still be better, but this will do, I guess.

I had a little “oh… yeah, right” moment yesterday with them. I have a thumb drive on a D-ring that I use to transport data from place to place at work. I had been hooking the D-ring onto my belt loop for safekeeping. You see where this is going, don’t you? Yesterday I reached back automatically to clip it in place, and… no belt loop. Heh. Oops. Small price to pay, though.

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Something about what I’m doing is working. The top number of my blood pressure was down by 10 points at my checkup on Saturday! The bottom number was up, but 130/80 is still within acceptable normal range for preggy ladies. And this on a week I was afraid it would be worse, because work has gotten really busy all of the sudden and because I was worrying about the whole blood pressure issue (which is, of course, a self-perpetuating loop).

Initially I thought this was a great joke and very funny. Then I began to realize that I have a better feel for Lisa Simpson’s political outlook than those of the major candidates. Of course, this is because I’ve seen more of Lisa than of any candidate… but whose fault is that, really? Not that I would really want to give up the whole voting process, but sometimes it disturbs me that people like me are allowed to vote.

I think I must be weird. (I know, I know. What was my first clue.) For all the talk about kicking babies being painful and annoying and keeping expectant moms awake at night… Actually, not so much for me. Natalie’s kicking pretty well these days (and nights!), but unless she hits a rib it doesn’t hurt and anymore it happens often enough that it doesn’t even feel that weird. Sometimes it’s almost soothing in a strange sort of way. She’s certainly not keeping me awake at night with it. *shrug*

I made crockpot venison and veggies yesterday and felt really domestic and spiffy about it because I used homemade veggie stock for the liquid. Which is silly, because veggie stock turns out to be, like, the easiest thing ever to make. Dump a bunch of veggies and some seasonings in a crockpot, cover with water, turn on low all day. But I felt proud of it nonetheless.

My next crockpot experiment: Cooking beans from dried. Cheaper than buying canned, super-low sodium, I have the opportunity to cook seasoning into them instead of applying it later, and since I can bring in my own reusable container to buy them in bulk from the co-op, less packaging. (Recycling is good. Reusing is better.) I may do that Wednesday. We’ll see how it comes out.

The philodendron in my cube is still not dead. Yay!

“Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.”
–Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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Natalie’s room is painted and ready to start furnishing! Tim’s blogged this, so I won’t repeat, but I wanted to point people toward the pictures he took because I’m proud of him and wanted to show off his work.

Finally finished…

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“See, I’m not against chocolate. I just believe in proportion, balance, moderation–it’s a monk thing. Desserts that use three different kinds of chocolate plus a fudge sauce just don’t appeal to me; they lack focus, somehow, and seem to pummel the palate instead of caressing it with cocoa. I’m also opposed to chocolate recipes that use too much sugar, and you might notice the relatively small proportion of sugar in some of the recipes that follow.”
–Father Dominic Garramone, More Breaking Bread, in his introduction to the chapter “Delights of Chocolate”

I admit it. I get tired of chocolate sometimes. A lot of times, actually. I’ll have it sometimes, but I ofter prefer it in smaller doses than most, I think. It’s a wonderful thing, but Father Dominic is exactly right. Too often it’s carried to extremes. More is better, right? …Wrong. So many chocolate desserts these days are just overpowering. They’re too much. They kill my taste buds. And worse, if I order a chocolate dessert in a restaurant, one slice of cake usually comes out large enough to feed a family of three. It’s just too much.

Which is why, no matter how much of a pain they are to form, I actually really do like Father Dominic’s recipes for chocolate donughts and chocolate scones. And while Tim reports that most people like the donughts frosted with chocolate buttercream, I… prefer them plain. The frosting overpowers the more subtle flavor of the donughts, in my opinion, and again makes the treat too sweet and too chocolatey. As for the scones, most of the sweetness in them comes from the raspberry jam filling. This is something else too few desserts seem to do: combine fruit with the chocolate. That sweetens things up, but also creates a nice flavor balance with the chocolate. It lightens instead of making everything heavier and richer. Fruit + chocolate = yumminess.

Remember… More is not always better.

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