WHOLE GRAIN GOODNESS EXPERIMENT ONE

WHOLE GRAIN GOODNESS EXPERIMENT ONE

I am on a whole grain quest for nutritional goodness. In this frame of mind, the package hawking Grains-Of-Discovery, Organic Whole Grain, AMARANTH, The Traditional Grain of Mexico was too much to pass up. So I brought it home just knowing I would wake up stronger and better nourished than any day previously.

I’ve never cooked with Amaranth. By the way, it’s a seed not a grain. Mexico might call this a grain, but a seed is a seed. The package goes on to say this seed was a staple of the ancient Aztecs, and it is a complete protein. Well…my whole grain guide did not come in the mail for another two weeks, complements of a magazine subscription I ordered. Be careful not to overcook it.

I gave it a stern boiling and I created a viscous gray sludge like substance. When I saw the picture of the individual grains standing up and smiling, I knew what I had done. The next question became what to do with gray sludge? Supper time is fast approaching. Hungry people do not care about expanding the cooks experimental universe. So I tasted it. Ummmmmmm, really earthy taste, along with being gray, I perceive this as a drawback. Gray food is a tough sell at my house.

Okay, time to call out plan B. I put lemon juice in it. I added small amount of maple syrup. I added raisens and almonds. Then I stuffed it into acorn squash just like it was supposed to be there and baked it. It was pretty good. It was eaten. Will try for standing up grains another time.

 

SPRING COLOR 2014

SPRING COLOR 2014

This year the spring color is an electric neon pink. I already have a sweater in this color, a gift from my sister. She guessed that this would be the latest thing when she gave it to me. I am good to go. In the mall windows they are showing bright pink sweaters, blouses and tops and pink jeans. The pink jeans are interesting, I guess, as I try to conjure the event I would attend in them. Symphony…no…movie…maybe…grocery stores…maybe…church…no…writers meeting…they’d almost be too polite to laugh… perhaps not.

The problem with this dazzling color is that it is hard to work with and accessorize. Too much of the bright pink and you’ll look like a walking tulip, scary, but ambulatory. You must acquire and wear this color in small doses. Well let’s consider how small, a scarf, a shell, a purse, a pair of shoes, perhaps just the right amount. Anything more needs careful consideration, very careful.

My beautiful sister, who I love dearly, often gives me great fashion advice usually while we are walking along looking into windows. Her voice will often replay in my ears as I contemplate various fashion foibles that might take a turn to the dark side. No one wants fashion to turn on them after they have left the store, but I have my sister’s voice whispering in my ear her words of wisdom, “Nothing that color belongs on something that size.”

 

 

SPRING OF 1000 PEAT POTS

SPRING OF 1000 PEAT POTS

When snow is eight inches deep and stacked against everything, the pictures in my seed catalogues take on an iridescent glow and start singing like sirens. “Come think about seeds. You could have vines over all the  yard and be harvesting green beans, tomatos, ________.” Just fill in the blank. This is the time of the year when it is really hard to keep spring fever at bay. I have refused to even pick up the sticks and start cleaning up because I’ll get started and then the weather will be bad and spring will be cancelled until May here on the plains.

But the catalogs are really tempting. The pages are glossy. Descriptions are: Our beautiful, mini-sized, colorful lunchbox snack peppers are remarkably sweet and flavorful. They are followed by bright dazzling pictures calling to me, “I’ll grow for you.” So back to my story, the spring of 1000 peat pots. Every window releasing a crack of light was shining that light on at least 25 peat pots. Peat pots were everywhere. One thousand plus seeds later not one tiny green shoot?  Negative, not one. I grew peat pots full of dirt. There you have it, the peat pot siren song. Can you hear it?

So, on this day, when we are shut up in the house by winter storms efforts. I want to say to you. Don’t give up. Don’t surrender to the terrible blahs of the long winter. Listen to the voice in your head that says: “Step away from the peat pots.”

 

HELLO SUN

HELLO SUN

Today is the first day of daylight savings time. When I was a girl I used to read editorials about this being communist time, not God’s time. But we have surely moved past that today. The reality is that the sunbeam that used to greet me at 7:44 is no longer there. Now I am up and busy long before the sun hits the window where my chair is located. When we change to daylight savings time we are on our way to spring. It is the first step to the spring feeling. Next we will find daffodils in front and trees budding.

Today I feel like someone who has slept too long. Winter has left me groggy. Time to move things outside and get the yard ready for summer activities.  I’m looking forward to sitting in the sun, and digging in the dirt. I don’t ever get everything done outside, I just get to a point where I say there is always next year and leave it where it is. I can always make more plans than I can execute. This year won’t be any different.

In a couple of mornings I’ll be over the adjustment to communist time and I’ll be in rhythm once more. Up bright and early, searching for the first ray of the sun, planning to do more than is humanly possible. But right now I am struggling with the first day of daylight savings time.

 

VEGETABLE ROULETTE

VEGETABLE ROULETTE

I’ve recently discovered Bountiful Baskets. I love the surprise of it; the going, picking up, and taking home. Things my family wouldn’t let me put into a grocery cart now show up on the kitchen table. Conversations, with the man who would check the top of my grocery bag for greens saying: “What are those green things?” have evolved into discussions of the health benefits of ________.  Followed statements like by he might even enjoy it, who knows. The inbred suspicion of green things doesn’t leave some men when they age. They were stymied by chocolate donuts and marshmallows and never develop an adult palate. It is my mission to help with this.

Enter Bountiful Baskets the wonderful vegetable game. You take your basket and get fruits and vegetables very reasonably priced. You get more with your buying power than you can through the grocery store and you get your family to try things. They can no longer inspect the cart and sacks before you can get them into the car. You can just walk into the house and plunk down you baskets of fruits and vegetables. Can’t wait till you try this ________!  Use your imagination.

Google will offer up a recipe for anything you’ve never cooked before. You’ve nothing to lose. It also shifts the meal planning away from the meat dish. I’ve whispered the previous statement not wanting to blaspheme too loudly, especially within hearing of an objecting ear. We should all be cooking veggies, serving up salads, and stuffing squash. Let’s play vegetables. I’ll see your three zucchini and raise you a rutabaga.

 

PUBLIC SERVICE

PUBLIC SERVICE

I volunteer as a public service. This past year I volunteered to judge a school competition for the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I judged one of their speaking contests. Everyone should take time out of their busy schedules to encourage young people in their pursuits. We were encouraged when we were younger and we should do likewise.

God Bless the Volunteers who pass on the things they believe the next generation should know. There should be more of them around. I know I volunteered when my children were in school, but now that I have grandchildren, I occasionally get pressed into service on some new endeavor. I try to be a cheerful volunteer. I have been around people who have not made that commitment to cheer, and they will make everyone miserable.

I want the next generation to be better than mine was. As a boomer, I have done my best to pave the way for new ways of questioning the status quo. There is nothing sacred about the past. There were not good ol’ days. There were days of my youth and mini skirts, fuzzy hairstyles and rusty cars. Those were not the good ol’ days. Days of confusion, belief testing, long conversations searching for values and learning to become the citizen I am today.

Let’s go forth as volunteers and shed light on our pasts. The young people are not going to the dogs. They are survivors and searching as we once searched for their truths and their place. I want to do what I can to show them the way.

 

THE PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE

THE PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE

My husband has a new coffee pot. It is beautiful, red and black, shiny, the carafe has a little silver hat to wear when it is perking coffee. In the middle of its gleaming redness is a small clock that tells the time and shines out like a lighthouse beacon. It is just the most splendid thing we have ever had that made coffee. The last coffee pot we purchased did not turn itself off. We were such fire hazards that there should be a law that prevents retailers from taking money from us for a pot that won’t shut itself off.

The only thing I have ever seen bigger and shinier than this pot belonged to my son-in-law, the commander. He has a regular shrine to the coffee gods in his kitchen. It warms milk and whistles Dixie, mine doesn’t. If you don’t drink a lot of coffee, not a regular addict, then you are particular about how yours tastes. I didn’t drink it for years because I thought it smelled better than it tasted. So now I have become a convert. I have two cups a day. The coffee has so much stuff added to it, it becomes dessert. It has to be as light as a tan crayola, it has to be sweet not bitter, and it should have a robust interesting flavor.

A two cup a day drinker is not actually an addict. We are more hobbyists and very critical if perfection is not achieved in our individual cups. I may never be an addict, but my day is better when I have a couple of jolts of tan crayola.