Apple blossoms!!! You know what that means!!!

Why?

I have traditionally NOT given scraps to my pets. When I was a girl, all out cats ate were scraps, but when I was on my own with my own animals, I fed them pet food. But I have been having my doubts about the pet foods these days, especially after the scares with the melamine and other toxins from Chinese-manufactured foods.

WHY do we still import anything from China, I’d like to know? I think most Americans, given the choice, would prefer domestically-grown and made foods. I have yet to heard from anyone who wants their foods from China. I’d rather get ALL my domestic products from the USA, too. I like USA-made car leather cleaner, USA-made technology, USA-made clothing, everything. I’m willing to pay a bit more for it, too. And I especially want USA-made foods and pet products.

We’re starting to give scraps to our pets. We even cook for them more often now. One of our favorites is “dog rice.” It’s inexpensive rice boiled with chicken or beef broth, with chicken or beef scraps cooked in. The dogs love it, and I think it’s better for them than the Chinese-made dry foods.

What do you think?

Check out this article at News With Views.

There’s so much more in the American death parade, but just when you think you’ve heard it all, we find aborted baby fetal cells in our food. Lifenews.com states: Dozens of pro-life groups are calling on pro-life Americans to boycott PepsiCo because it has contracted with a company that uses fetal cells from babies victimized by abortions to test and produce artificial flavor enhancers. Obama’s Security and Exchange Commission rules PepsiCo cannibalizing aborted babies is “Ordinary Business.”

Debi Vinnedge, the director of the group Children of God for Life is calling for a public boycott of major food companies partnering with Senomyx. Vinnedge states, “What they don’t tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby…”

Related to the supply of the fetus, is the supply of fresh and more mature fetuses. The timing of abortion becomes an important consideration to the researchers and medical community who benefit from a more matured and developed fetus. The majority of abortion procedures are performed between the sixth and eleventh weeks of pregnancy, however delaying until the fourteenth to sixteenth weeks will yield fetal tissue that is usable in pancreatic transplants. Simply put, the older the fetus the more valuable!

After exposing the practice, Vinnedge’s group called for pro-life people to contact the companies using Senomyx to test their products. While some companies stopped contracting with it, others did not. The original list of companies contracted with Senomyx included PepsiCo, Nestle, Kraft, Starbucks, Campbell’s and Nestea. Here is the list of all aborted fetal products.

See the article for all the source links. Check this list for all companies that partner with Senomyx.

I’m going to be sick.

I think I failed on both counts.

My mango was mostly green with some red. I see now that should have waiting until it was more red. (No wonder it tasted ikky). The flesh, however, was quite squishy so I can’t say I’m 100% sure if I got it right. ?? Who can tell, lol.

And getting the thing open– OH MY WORD. I first had to peel the skin off. The durn thing was so slippery it was like trying to whittle a sloppy bar of soap while taking a shower.

The there’s this weirdly-shaped nut in the center. hackhackhack I finally did manage to pry the flesh away from the nut, but half of the fruit was not squished between my fingers. My fault from treating the thing like one of our good ol’ American apples.

SO i served it for dinner with some strawberries and biscuits.

YUK. Me no likely mangoes. They are bland and mealy.

Good thing I had strawberries on the table! What would I do without my luscious American fruit?!

Well, lesson learned. And guys, if you every wonder what kind of foods to get your gal: skip the mango. Instead, surprise her with chocolate strawberries. They rock.

*sigh*

Enough said.

Potatoes are almost always better as leftovers.

Chicken is hard for me to cook. It’s a dry meat, and bland. To me, you can only do two things with chicken: roast it or cook it in a casserole. And most casseroles are cream based, which I do not like.

I like to cook beef. Beef is such a flexible ingredient. You can roast it, grill it, broil it, put it in stew, in soups, grind it for burgers, use the ground beef for casseroles and stews, etc. Yeah, you can do all that with chicken, but it doesn’t taste as good.

Flounder is a messy fish for cooking. I don’t fry my foods, but if I did, I’d fry flounder. It’s too juicy for broiling and turns rubbery when baked.

Everything tastes better with a glass of red wine. On the other hand, beer makes foods taste worse.

There’s a new food fad out– eat more fats to lose weight. Just like all the other fads (the carb diet, the protein diet, the juice diet, etc), there are “studies” to prove the validity of this new diet. One study said that the French eat 5 times more fat than the American, but the Americans are obese while French are not. I am not a fan of diets and food fads. Everyone is always looking for the “magic cure” like a charm for bracelet that will epitomize the solution. There is no magic cure. And I think our problem with obesity is largely due to all the corn syrup in our foods, and the processed foods that we consume too much. As a kid, the only fresh fruits and vegetables I ever remember eating were apples, iceberg lettuce, celery, and sometimes bananas. We were very poor and could not afford the high prices of fresh food. We ate a LOT of cheap canned food, especially canned peaches, canned tuna, and canned tomatoes. And pasta and white bread, which was so cheap. I think this kind of diet is what has hurt the American wellness.

Well, thanks for joining me in my rambling. What do you think about these issues?

Well, as a followup– I placed the frozen turkey in the refrigerator on December 21. One week later, I removed it to cook it for Christmas dinner.

THE STUPID TURKEY WAS STILL FROZEN INSIDE.

:-p

I managed to wrangle the glacial neck and giblets from the cavity before throwing the bird in the oven. I always over-bake my turkeys because they just never seem to completely thaw inside. WEIRD. Is it just me?? Do I have such terrible luck with turkeys or something??

LOL…..

Cranberry Scones
2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter (no substitutes)
1 cup chopped cranberries
3/4 cup buttermilk (or Half n’ Half with lemon juice)

Combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the cranberries. Stir in the buttermilk just until moistened.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead 6 to 8 times. Divide the dough in half. Pat each half into an 8-inch circle. Cut into 8 wedges.

Place the wedges 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 F for 15-18 minutes.

Devour while still warm. SO GOOD.

The glorious finished product.

Believe me, these are simply amazing scones. They are not sweet like muffins. The scones are perfect with tea or coffee, and are perfect as a light breakfast or brunch. Kudos to my daughter for making these! Er, maybe instead of kudos she’d prefer a gold bullion.

Try them, you will like!

I think the problem was that I didn’t have a decent apron. The one I got — I got it from a well-intentioned friend as a bridal shower gift — was a jade-green flimsy wrap-around housecoat/apron type of contraption. You sorta put it over your head and then insert your arms through the holes and sorta tie it… oh forget it, I’m not wearing this thing! It was so lightweight that all food seeped through right onto my shirt, anyway. So for years, I wore no apron– although that jade-green apron hung, ignored, in the pantry closet for 20+ years.

Over the years, I’ve kept my eyes open for a decent replacement, but never got one. Maybe it was inertia or maybe it was because I never found any suitable kitchen apron. Oh, I could grab one of those Marcus scrubs and use that, but I don’t want to look like a surgeon in the kitchen…. although the image of me in a doctor’s suit holding a cleaver and cutting board makes me snicker, hee hee.

And when looking for a replacement, I saw a lot of stuff that repelled me. Frills, pretty fabric, super-tight bodies, skinny ties that would tangle. What the heck?! Are we going to cook or are we going to compete in the Miss America contest?! These are supposed to be aprons not kitchen cocktail dresses!

But a couple of years ago, my husband came home with an apron he’d got from the grocery store he worked at. He had ended his work there and he could keep the apron. I kept the apron but never used it because I’d gotten out of the habit. But today I had to hack away at huge pork loin and didn’t want to soil my clothes.

Oh my word, what an apron! Why don’t they make them like this for housewives?! This thing is thick linen, like canvas. And you simply put your head through a small loop. The strings are extra long, so I can tie it loosely in the front and not in the back (I could never manage to untie the blasted knots after I’d made them– someone always had to rescue me after the kitchen work was done, lol). The store apron is thick but very comfortable. And no matter how much you slobber that juice, broth or batter, it’s not getting through the tightly-woven fabric. Nice!

So I think I finally found my apron.

How about you? Are you an apron wearer? What kind meets your needs?