Shadow Void

RRQ; Breakfast Food

What is your favorite kind of breakfast food?

Without a doubt, my favorite breakfast food is Blueberry pancakes.

Hey

Tonight, I made Pasta with lemon. It's spaghetti that has a sauce made of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, black peper, and salt. On a scale of one to ten, one being lowest, this dish gets a 0. The flavors just don't work. Yes, it is an actual recipe. I will post the actual recipe tomorrow if I can.

Gnocchi

 

Cooking

Tonight, the parents are out of town, and I am left to fend for myself. Needless to say, I am cooking for the first time in a long time. I am making gnocchi. If you don't know what it is, gnocchi is a small potato dumpling. I guess it's Italian. My recipe is fairly simple it's potatoes, flour, and salt. Right now the potatoes are baking in the oven and I'm waiting on them to finish so I can get out the food mill and get the whole cooking thing going on. Not sure what I want to have with them. Oh…my camera is annoying me so there won't be pictures but maybe I can get a really quick video to show you guys either tonight or tomorrow. So yeah just thought I would share.

Tuna Fish Case

There is a guy getting ready to sue Bumblebee Tuna Fish Co. It is pretty sad! There have been numerous warnings about eating tuna fish more than once a week. One shouldn't a can of tuna fish more than once a week. Doing so can lead to mercury poisoning. For those of you don't Tuna is a predator and as such they consume other fish who might also be predators. Mercury is one toxin that can build up in the body. The more exposure one gets to the metal, the more mercury one gets into the body. Okay so here is my question, does this seem a bit crazy to you? If there are warning put out there on a food item or any other item, aren't you choosing to ignore the warning by using them? It's a little like cigarettes. There are warnings right on the box of cigarettes. Here is one warning:

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm110591.htm

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/tc/avoiding-mercury-in-fish-topic-overview

 

This warning has been out since 2004. You can argue that they should have warned us a bit sooner on the mercury in fish. Still, if the we know to avoid eating foods high in fat or avoid taking illegal drugs. Let me get back to Bumblebee Tuna Co! They cannot control what toxins are being put into the oceans by other industries. They also cannot help the fact that we, the consumers, are eating their products more than once a week. Yeah…so I hope, I really hope you lose. I am sick and tired of seeing warnings on products.

Edible Plant Tryout; Black Raspberry

These wonderful berries are a native raspberry. I happen to love this time of year and I look forward to it every single year. Sadly, this plant doesn't produce fruit year round. You pretty much can get your fill when they are on the plant. Our family has four or five such plants on our property. Each year, I make sure to get my fill. Typically, we eat them pretty much right off the plant. If you've never had the opportunity to taste black rapsberries, I would say you're missing out. Though I am sure, there are other edible goodies out there that taste plenty good. I can think of one such plant right now ie Pawpaw. I highly recommend this plant. A couple things to know about this plant, 1.Berries are ripe when they turn the blackish purple color that you see in the picture, 2.The stems of this plant has thorns.

Edible plant tryout

Today, I tried dandelion greens for the first time. I made sure that I gathered what you might call baby dandelion greens. Quite frankly, I'll stick to the blossoms. I was not at all impressed. Someone else will have to make them for me the next time.

Edible Plant Tryout: Violets

Last week, I went out and collected violet flowers. I made violet flower sryup. Sounds somewhat different huh?? I gathered the flowers from various places in the yard. I made sure to ignore the plants growing near the road, along the driveway, and under the bird feeders. Carefully, I rinsed the flowers to remove any insects or other debris. The violets were put into a bowl. A saucepan of water was put on the stove and allowed to come to boil. Once the water was brought to the boil, I removed the pan from the heat and poured the water over the violets. You'll notice that the much of the color will spill out into the water. Don't worry about the color change, it's perfectly fine. It needs to sit for twenty four hours so I kept it in the fridge till the next day. After sitting, I strained the water making sure to remove flowers. Make sure to strain the fluid into the a saucepan and then add your sugar and bring to the boil. Now, the color changes as you boil the liquid to a light brown color.

I was not really impressed with this syrup. I did have someone else try it and they said it had a slight flowery taste to it.

Here is the recipe that I used.

 

2 C Fresh flowers

2 1/2 C boiling water

3 1/2 C Sugar

You want to bruise the flowers with your hand. Place the flowers in a saucepan and pour the boiling water over them and allow it to sit overnight. The next day strain the juice. Combine the sugar and honey with the violet juice and bring it to boil. Heat until it reaches the desired thickness.

Next week, I'm going to try some native greens. I'll try to post a video of it.

A Tale of Cooked Chicken

I don't know if I said this but mom and dad are off again in Utah. Anyway, I cooked a chicken breast yesterday. I boiled in water along with taco seasoning, rice, and bell pepper. After it reached a full hard boil, I reduced it down to a simmer. I let it cook for like a half hour. After that, I cut out a piece of the breast and made myself a chicken taco with it. I had the rice on the side. Oh...I also had a piece of corn on the cob. Hey I was hungry what can I say. I went to make a chicken quesadilla today.

 

I got the chicken breast out to get some more meat off of it. I took one look at it and I realized something. My chicken breast was cooked or at least partially cooked. The part that I used last night for my dinner was apparently cooked. You know how raw chicken has a sort of translucent look to it. Well, the chicken was pink and translucent. I have to use it so I found something else to eat and put the breast into the oven for about 15 minutes at 425 F. So hopefully now that breast it done and I can have for dinner tomorrow. Only problem is I'm sort of tired of doing the whole chicken thing. I think I'll do fish tomorrow. Yeah that sounds a lot better.

The Fat of It

As a small fry, I was always small. As a teen, I was small for my age. Even now, I am smaller than the average adult. I am not the smallest guy out there. Still at a whooping 5' 1/2 inch tall, I am still a feather weight. Sometimes, I wonder what it is like to be tall and then I wake up to the reality of my size. I'm never going to be a big guy. I doubt that I'll ever know what's like to weigh 120 lbs. As of right now, I'm still in the two digit weight limit. Kind of crazy huh? Okay, but that is not the point behind this particular post.

 

Who has the ultimate responsibility for the obesity in this nation or in the world? Ultimately, I believe that we have the responsibility for our own weight. After all, aren't we the ones who put food in our mouths? It doesn't matter where the food comes from rather it's from your fridge or your favorite fast food joint. We can't blame a restaurant for our inches. At least that is my humble opinion. You can eat just as good or just as poorly at home or out. It would be easy for someone to blame the source of their intake. Still it's interesting to note that there are some people out there who say that the government has role to play in our obesity plague.

 

What role does the government play in the fattening of America? It would to be in their limits of certain ingredients. Things like high fructose corn syrup and other fats. I thought it was nice of them to limit the trans fats in foods. Big brother has given us our food pyramid which tells us how many servings of food groups we should have. They also require food companies to list nutritional facts on their packages for us. All we have to do is read the package. As a border line diabetic, I do check the packages before food enters my cart. I honestly check the carbohydrates and the fats to see if I'm okay. The federal government can only do so much for us. Is it the Food industries fault?

 

Okay, so yeah they might have a small hand to play in this national epidemic. After all, they make the food that we eat. You can't eat a TV dinner and not take in more salt than you really need for a day. You won't like the cholesterol either. Now, I'd be a fool if I said that all fats are bad for you. They aren't all that bad for us. In fact we need fat in our diet. We don't need to be eating prepared foods taken from the freezer section for every meal. We don't need to be eating fast food every day. So I what do you think? Where does the blame lay?