Finding Good Food Faster

For OTGF I have a cool website called the Eat Well Guide.  It's a database of restaurants, B & Bs, stores, farms etc. where you can find organic, sustainable food by zip code.  It even has a trip planner so you can make your next trip more healthy (Mickey D's is not an option).  

The site also has a blog called Green Fork where there is a list of some more cool green blogs.  And for all you adventurers out there, they have The Spring Break Challenge, a chance to win prizes for telling them about the food and fun you had on your Eat Well inspired trip. 

Road trips will never be the same!

Cooooooookiiiiieeeeees!

Dori posted a recipe for her favorite cookies and asked for others to join in.  So here's a recipe for wheat-free chocolate chip cookies that actually aren't half bad.  It's adapted from a recipe in Rebecca Reilly's book Gluten-Free Baking.  Bob's Red Mill makes the flours.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups brown rice flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1/4 cup tapioca starch or oat flour or almond flour or whatever else is around

Rebecca also adds 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum, but I haven't got any (it costs a fortune), and the cookies are a bit crumbly and fragile as a result, but still yummy.

2 (yes, two) sticks of butter at room temp

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 egg 

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup walnuts (if you like) chopped

Mix the dry ingredients.  Cream butter, add sugars and beat till fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well.  Stir in dry ingredients slowly, follow with the chocolate chips and nuts.  Form dough with two spoons into the size you desire and space 2 inches apart on parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  Carefully transfer cookies to a rack and cool. Get a big glass of milk (or soy milk) and dig in!

Rebecca's book is full of treats, like Sour Cream Coffee Cake, which I made last week, and it was YUM.  Gluten-free does not mean deprivation anymore.  It's all pleasure, no bloat! 

Good Clean Fun

I've been saving all these netted bags for some purpose, I didn't know what.  They look like the kind of thing that would end up in the ocean and entangle animals.  So today I got a suet cake for the woodpeckers and discovered that my feeder was all black and gungy.  Not a keeper, since it was made with wood.  I've read that people put hunks of suet in these net bags, so I decided to use one for the block, and then I got carried away and made ones full of thistle seed and sunflower mix.  I knew I'd find a good use for these bags!  I think they may stay cleaner and clean up better than regular bird feeders too, we'll have to see.  It's possible that the birds will rip them to shreds and choke and die on the plastic.  But since it's OTGF, I won't ponder on that.

Good Friday the 13th

On This Eclectic Life, learn about Only the Good Fridays and then you will know why I'm calling this Friday the 13th a good friday.

Fridays are always good because it is the end of the work and school week and we will soon be enjoying some free time, and an extra wink of sleep.  This weekend we are going to watch a concert, where Jr. will be playing in a saxophone quartet.  I heard them practice once, and it was beautiful; I love quartets.

The sun is shining!  That is very good.

I'm reading a good book, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle.

This is a very relaxing book, and one I need to memorize so that I can stop being a jerk, (oops, I hope that wasn't too negative).  Or maybe I can just remember this:  We are all one.

It's true that the more open you are to others, the more joy you will experience.  I have been witnessing this myself when I'm out and about.  Normally I tend to ignore strangers. But I've been paying more attention for a few days, trying to live in the present.  On Wednesday, a woman in a parking lot made my day.  She was voicing everything about the frigid weather that we're all feeling, saying she had to park way out from the store, away from the ice so she didn't break a hip, and that the cold was probably going to last into July and she'd have to cancel her vacation plans!  She cracked me up and I appreciated her diatribe, even though it was essentially negative.  Everyone is talking about spring out there, and everyone is anxious for it.  We're simple creatures, awaiting the return of the sun and life.

And here it is...It's...Alive!  

The Thyme and Lavender, growing right under the snow.

It's 18 degrees and sunny at 9:45 am.