Product Review: bumGenius One-Size All-in-One Diaper

Last time, if you recall, we learned a few new cloth diaper vocabulary words. Our new diaper vocabulary word for today is "all-in-one." As in, "The bumGenius organic one-size all-in-one pictured below would be very convenient for a guest diaperer."
As the name implies, all-in-ones are cloth diapers with only one part. There are no inserts or liners. It's all one piece.
One common complaint about all-in-ones is that they take forever to dry. Other diapers address this concern by separating the absorbent part of the diaper, the soaker pad (like the GroBaby or the gDiaper) or insert (like the FuzziBunz), from the less absorbent parts of the diaper, the exterior shell (like the GroBaby) or the exterior shell and a liner (like the gDiaper or the FuzziBunz). bumGenius addressed the drying issue while still maintaining its all-in-one integrity by permanently affixing multiple layers of separate soaker pads, as you can see in the above picture showing a side view of the bumGenius. That said, it still takes longer to dry that the component parts of the diapers previously mentioned because due to the exterior fabric, you can't dry it on the high heat that you can dry soaker pads, inserts, or prefolds.

Why didn't I show you a picture of the interior of the bumGenius? Simple, because it's already stained. So another common complaint about all-in-ones that bumGenius does not address (and I'm not sure any all-in-one could), is that they don't stand up to the intense washing necessary to combat baby poo stains and residue. The washing intensity is limited by the exterior material.

The only cloth diaper I've seen that is even more like a disposable diaper is MonkeyDoodlez. MonkeyDoodlez has a few lines of fitted, true all-in-ones (they also have a line of pocket diapers). There are no flaps attached at the ends, like the bumGenius. The closures are velcro. The whole thing goes in the wash. Of course it has the downside of being difficult to dry and not standing up to the harsh washing some folks deem necessary for cloth diapers. bumGenius has addressed the former problem, at least to the extent any all-in-one could, but not the latter. While the fitted MonkeyDoodlez have the advantage of no snaps to adjust the size to confuse guest diaperers. This particular bumGenius diaper uses a couple of rows of snap-downs to allow a general size adjustment, so it should stay in the diapering rotation longer than a fitted diaper. But it lacks the adjustable leg openings that make the FuzziBunz one-size pocket diaper uniquely awesome. [FYI: bumGenius makes a fitted diaper with velcro closures . . . so the only difference between that diaper and MonkeyDoodlez is the improved drying through attached flaps)]

End verdict: great for guest diaperers, but the drying and staining issues make this one not for me, choosing among cloth diapers. Might be just the thing for someone choosing between disposables and cloth, though.

My other diaper reviews:

• Product Review: gDiapers versus GroBaby
  
• Product Review: FuzziBunz One-Size Pocket Diaper

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Mobile Hack

So, imagine you're a new parent. Your baby hits that magical phase where they LOVE the mobile rotating over their crib/changing table/pack 'n' play. But the mobile only lasts about 5 minutes before needing to be wound again in addition to playing the most cloying lullaby of all time. What is a tired parent to do? Hack the mobile.

I surfed over to American Science & Surplus and bought the small mirror ball motor. AS&S's description:

Slowly I Turned...

Feel the need to have something rotate from the ceiling? This gear motor was made to turn a mirrored ball, but would be just as happy turning a globe, mobile, raincoat, rubber chicken or anything else that needs rotating. The light-duty DC motor runs on (1) "D" battery that you add, spins at 2-1/2 rpm, and works with anything that weighs under 6 lbs. The off-white plastic housing measures 5" long x 1-9/16" dia with a 5/16" dia cup hook on the business end and a removable triangular mounting hook at the ceiling end. Lots of Halloween, craft, diorama, robotics and science-fair applications.

Here's how it looks in our set up.



A comparison with the original mechanism:

You can see that the small mirror ball motor is a little longer. It is also slightly heavier (pretty much the same weight as the D battery that powers it). It rotates more slowly, but based on the squeaks of glee I hear from the pack'n'play, it's fast enough . . . and apparently my baby likes Built to Spill. :)

Mobile with annoying musical wind-up rotating device: $44.99
Small mirror ball motor: $14.95
Getting through dinner without having to get up ten times to wind up the mobile or listen to lullabies: priceless.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Product Review: FuzziBunz One-Size Pocket Diaper

In my ongoing effort to give a fair and balanced account of the state of cloth diapers today, I went to my local granola crunchy baby store and bought pretty much one of every type of diaper they had, including a FuzziBunz one-size pocket diaper.


Did you catch all the diaper lingo I dropped? What does it mean?

A pocket diaper has two parts: the stuffing and the envelope. Instead of a snap-in soaker pad, like the GroBaby or a smoosh in soaker pad like the gDiaper, in a pocket diaper you slide the soaker pad into an opening between the exterior shell and an interior liner. You can see the fuzzy white liner in the pictures below. So unlike the GroBaby and the gDiaper every time this diaper is used the whole diaper, both the stuffing and the envelope, have to be laundered. Kinda a bummer once you get used to the potential for reuse of both the GroBaby and the gDiaper (or prefolds with covers, a.k.a. what we were diapered with as kids, . . . another adventure I've recently embarked upon).

Another bummer of the pocket diaper is that the interior lining gets seriously soiled, but because it's attached to the exterior of the diaper, you can't brutally wash and dry it like you can the soaker pads in the GroBaby, the reusable soaker pads in the gDiaper, or good ol' prefolds. Mind you, thusfar the snow white lining of the FuzziBunz I'm using has shrugged off stains like baby poo is just no big thang, so maybe my concerns about the cleanability of pocket diapers in general is inapplicable to FuzziBunz. Only time can tell.

The upside of the pocket diaper is that it's very straightforward for guest diaperers, like baby sitters or grandparents. The only way it could be more straightforward is if it had velcro closures instead of snaps. But other than that, you could pre-stuff one of these and leave it on the changing table for the babysitter and you'd be good to go. The only reusable diaper that is more straightforward for a guest diaperer that I've seen is an all-in-one . . . but that's a story, and diaper vocabulary word, for another day.

Onto our next diaper vocabulary word: one-size. A one-size diaper has some sort of mechanism for adjusting its size to allegedly fit all sizes of all babies. Now, that's a pretty tall order because babies come in all shapes and sizes and you don't want an ill fitting diaper. Most one-size diapers have a row or two of snaps on the front (possibly referred to as "snap-downs"), like the GroBaby one-size and the BumGenius one-size. FuzziBuns doesn't have that, though it does have a ton of snaps to make the tummy opening "adjustable." But the FuzziBunz has a cool little feature that I think every one-size diaper should steal if it's not patented: adjustable elastic for the leg openings.

It's REALLY low-tech, just elastic with button holes in it strung through a casing along the leg gussets attached on both ends to buttons. But it's those leg holes where leaks are most common, so this is quite an elegant solution to a ubiquitous problem.

You can see in the picture above that the extra elastic and the buttons kinda tuck into the interior lining of the diaper, so the don't bother your little one's bum.

This is the leg gusset on the tightest "setting," which was actually too snug on my 10-pounder. That means this one-size really could work on even smaller babies, whose legs would not sufficiently fill other one-sized diapers to prevent leaks. Pretty snazzy. I wonder if the lack of "snap-downs" will result in the FuzziBunz not being so one-size on the large end of the spectrum. We'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, the FuzziBunz one-size pocket diaper is the best fitting diaper we've got, even if we do have to wash all its parts after each use.

So the jury is still out on whether this one-size really will fit through toddler-hood as well as it fits newborns and whether the interior lining will hold up to either the staining power of baby poo or the washing necessary to remove it. I'm not ready to commit the amount of money required to make FuzziBunz my exclusive diaper, which would be considerable considering you have to wash them for each diaper change. But, if I had a heavier rotation of guest diaperers, I'd definitely consider at least buying a few more. If I had a friend who was really choosing between disposables and cloth, I'd definitely recommend this over either the gDiaper or the GroBaby, as it's just much more like a disposable.

My other diaper reviews:

• Product Review: gDiapers versus GroBaby
  
• Product Review: bumGenius One-Size All-in-One Diaper

Click here to see the rest of this post...

January's Cookie of the Month: Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

As I mentioned previously, co-blogger Rebecca gave me The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough for Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year 2009. My goal this year is to post once a month about my experience baking a recipe from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book. Admittedly, this post is late, but the Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies themselves were actually made on January 31st, so they still count as January's Cookie of the Month.
[A quick editorial warning: the pictures are awful. They're either blurry or in poor lighting or both . . . sorry. I'll try to do better next time.]

When we're not making New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies at Chez Kelman we often make oatmeal cookies, either with raisins or chocolate chips. But I usually find them too crunchy. I'm not a big fan of crunchy cookies. So when I saw the name of this cookie recipe, I was totally stoked. It's even more exceptional given the authors' professed bias towards crunchy cookies. One neat thing about The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book is that they include a handy little icon in the top corner of the recipe to indicate whether the cookie is crunchy, hard, fudgy, chewy, or cakey. The icon for the Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies indicates they are chewy. Sounds like just the oatmeal cookie recipe I've been looking for.
The cookies spread a lot more than I expected, particularly on the insulated baking sheet, less so on the non-insulated baking sheet. I was hoping for a thicker cookie. But they were still chewy with just a bit of crunch around the edges. And the thicker cookies fell apart pretty badly when transferred to the cooling rack even when I let them cool on the cookie sheet for five to seven minutes instead of the one minute suggested by the recipe. If I were you, I'd let these cool on the sheet for as long as your patience can stand.
But unexpected spreading and crumbling aside, these cookies were insanely chocolaty. As you can see in the recipe the ratio of oats to chocolate chips is one to one, which is CRAZY for an oatmeal cookie. I mean, the batter barely holds the chips together there are so many chips. Particularly with the 60% cacao chips, I thought it was a bit much, though my taste tester vehemently disagreed. I prefer a higher dough to chip ratio, but that's me. The next time we make these, and there definitely will be a next time, I think I might follow one of the suggested variations and substitute half the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips or raisins. Oh, that's another cool thing about this book, it has LOTS of suggestions for variations for each cookie.
Soft Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies adapted from The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Ingredients

• 1 C all-purpose flour
  
• 1 t ground cinnamon
  
• 1/2 t baking soda
  
• 1/2 t salt
  
• 12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (the book includes all sorts of handy tips both in the introduction and in each recipe, like using cool, not cold, not warm, butter and cutting it into small pieces first, but I'm leaving those out in the interest of (A) reducing my risk of carpal tunnel and (B) feeling less guilty about posting their recipe by trying to encourage you to buy their book)
  
• 1 C dark brown sugar
  
• 3 T sugar
  
• 1 T light corn syrup (yes, I finally broke down and bought corn syrup . . . do you think they'll kick me out of the CSA?)
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 egg white
  
• 2 T milk
  
• 2 t vanilla extract
  
• 3 C rolled oats
  
• 3 C chocolate chips (I used my Ghiradelli 60% cacao chips that I discovered in the process of perfecting the NYTCCC)
  

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk (I sifted) the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

2. Soften the butter in a large bowl using an electric mixer at medium speed for about a minute. Add brown sugar, sugar, and corn syrup and beat at medium speed until light consistency and pale brown color, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg, egg white, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Turn off the beaters, add the flour mixture from step 1, and beat at low speed just until incorporated. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips with a wooden spoon (I used the electric mixer) until the chips are evenly distributed.

3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a large ungreased baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 13 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Furrday SMOOCH

Furrday 2010

You never write, you never call. It's like we hardly know you anymore.

Product Review: gDiapers versus GroBaby

Recently we at Chez Kelman have had the opportunity to test drive a few different diapering options. We used disposables (specifically Huggies . . . but for no good reason) for the first month, just until we could get our heads back on straight. Now we're branching into the wonderful world of alternative diapering options. So far we've tried the GroBaby diapering system and gDiapers.

Our co-bloggers Bob and Rebecca gave us a starter set of the GroBaby diapering system. Theoretically that should last four diaper changes before laundering. In reality, we made it through three changes before feces had contaminated both shells and thus required laundering. Perhaps with more practice - like maybe we could get the fit tighter or the arrangement of the soaker pad more evenly distributed - we could maximize the efficiency of the GroBaby diaper system. That being said, they are easy to put on and take off. It is easy to remove a soiled soaker pad and put in a new soaker pad. And there were no leaks, which we had a few of in the last couple days of newborn sized diapers. These new cloth diaper "systems" are SO much easier than the old fashioned diapers with pins.

Our friends Sarah, Chris, and Will brought a small sized set of gDiapers over since Will had outgrown them before they had the chance to test them out on him.

I didn't find gDiapers any easier than the GroBaby diaper system. If anything, the three parts of the gDiaper instead of two parts of the GroBaby diaper added a layer of complexity without any discernible benefit.

And like the GroBaby diapers, if anything gets on the outer shell you have to run it through the wash and hang it to dry. The gDiapers just add another liner layer that also has to be run through the wash and hung dry if anything get on it. The only difference is the soaker pad in the GroBaby diapers is washable instead of disposable.

And I wouldn't try to flush the gDiaper pads. First, you have to disassemble the pad before putting it in the toilet. Gross. Second, you have to let the inner layer of the pad sit in the toilet to disintegrate a bit before attempting to flush. They even provide a stick with which to swirl it around. Gross. Third, you have to hold on to the outer layer of the pad until you flush for some reason. Gross. Fourth, I am ENTIRELY sure this would clog the toilet. Entirely. Gross.

So much easier to just throw a whole diaper in the laundry.

And as far as saving the planet goes, the GroBaby wins hands down what with no part of it being disposable. My guess is that gDiapers are aimed at dedicated disposable diaper users who want to decrease that insane level of environmental impact.
The picture above shows a size 1 Huggie (the largest size that could theoretically fit a baby who could also fit the smallest size Gdiaper) next to a Gdiaper insert. I'm not arguing that the content of the Huggie is the exact environmental equivalent of the Gdiaper insert, but by volume alone, the Gdiaper is going to take up more space in your trash can and in the landfill, or clogging up your toilet and your waste water treatment plant.

But I could totally see disposable diaper users trying gDiapers, thinking they might transition from gDiapers to cloth diapers and be SO disappointed by the grossness and effort involved that they won't ever try cloth diapers. This is a total bummer because cloth diapers are actually MUCH easier than gDiapers. Really, gDiapers combine the worst parts of disposable diapers with the worst parts of cloth diapers.

Meanwhile, I'm currently conducting an experiment wherein I put GroBaby soaker pads in a gDiaper instead of the disposable gDiaper insert. I'll update this post with the results.

Edited on 1/20/2010 to add: The GroBaby soaker pads in the gDiaper worked VERY well. No leaks. The liner layer did an excellent job of keeping the poo off the outer shell. The liner itself did get soiled, necessitating a wash, but the outer shell could be reused with another liner and another soaker pad. Certainly no worse than the GroBaby. But I'm beginning to think all-in-ones get a bad rap. I mean, if I end up washing part or all of the diaper after each use, why not wash the whole diaper? Now, I understand that as she gets older and there are fewer explosive newborn bowel movements, there will be less frequent need to wash the whole thing. But I'm wondering if it's not worth trying some non-pocket all-in-ones. I had originally dismissed that sort of cloth diaper as too expensive and not easy to clean. Time to make a run to my local granola crunchy baby store!

I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to all the enthusiastic comments, but you should totally read them if you haven't yet. Very interesting! If you're wondering why they seem to skew in favor of gDiapers that might be a function of gDiapers linking to this post from their Facebook page. Thanks for the link!

Edited on 2/5/2010 to add:
Check out my subsequent diaper reviews:

• Product Review: FuzziBunz One-Size Pocket Diaper
  
• Product Review: bumGenius One-Size All-in-One Diaper

Click here to see the rest of this post...

New Year . . . Like Two Weeks Ago

So it's a new year here at Wiemanomicon. Technically a whole new decade. As you can see from the date of the previous post, we've been collectively slacking off more than a bit. Life is HAPPENING, people, out THERE in the REAL world (for those not in the know, note the NUMEROUS updates to the Parenting Resources post). But I've got some crazy blog ideas that I want to float by y'all.

I got not one but TWO cookbooks for Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year in 2009. First, from co-blogger Rebecca, The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book: From Chocolate Melties to Whoopie Pies, Chocolate Biscotti to Black and Whites, with Dozens of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Hundreds More by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Second, from friend Leah, Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat. Do y'all really think I eat nothing but cookies and cupcakes? I eat really healthy, dammit! Those cookies and cupcakes are made with ALL organic ingredients. :)

Anywhoodle, to keep my hand in the game or whatever the metaphor is, I thought I might post once a month about my experience baking a recipe from the The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book. And, in a fit of originality, post once a month about my experience baking a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I feel like I need some sort of structure and deadline to keep me on the blog and in the kitchen. I was pretty good about keeping up with Furrdays for awhile when I set that goal of posting a dog picture once a week.

Thoughts?

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Game room poster designs

These are the signs for my game room at VSU, designed by Sarah. They rock. There's also a view in there of what the game room looks like from the doorway. I know -- needs more color, less school hallway look.

Stop looking at the room -- check out those checkboards!

Furloughcation

The president of Cal. State Fullerton required all faculty and staff to take three furlough days last week. We took advantage of this unpaid time off to drive up the coast to a little town called Carmel. You might know it as the town of which Clint Eastwood was once the mayor. But that is not what attracted us. No offense, Mr. Eastwood. The Dog Lover's Companion to California seemed to suggest that Carmel was the dog friendliest town in California, and possibly the world. Whereas we usually leave our lovely pooch-a-roos at their favorite boarding place when we vacate, this time we decided to emphasize the "fur" in furloughcation and bring them along.

Based on the recommendation in The Dog Lover's Companion to California, we stayed at the Lamplighter Inn. Specifically, we stayed in the Concourse Suite, which had a fully fenced in backyard just for us.



Our bed and breakfast was just a couple of short downhill blocks from the Carmel City Beach, which allows dogs to run without leashes. They LOVED it! They made lots of dog friends and a few people friends. They tried to adopt a 7 month old yellow lab, but David convinced them two is company and three is a crowd. Apparently there was a big storm recently so there was a lot of seaweed on the beach and big waves. Augie and Izzy were highly interested in the seaweed. Not remotely interested in getting their paws wet. But there were lots of surfers to watch.




We took a day trip up to Monterey to check out the sea lions and got the added bonus of harbor seals! The sea lions are at the end of the Coast Guard's wharf next to San Carlos Beach. There is a fence between the walkway and the jetty where the sea lions bask. But one sea lion was right up next to the fence, like he was the was the bouncer. Augie and Izzy were just inches from an actual sea lion!



We walked along the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail, which is a little bike/walking path behind the touristy shops of Cannery Row. On the recommendation of The Dog Lover's Companion to California we stopped for lunch at the Trailside Cafe, located, perhaps not shockingly, along the bike/walking trail that included "Dogs welcome" on their sign. David had a salad, I had a sandwich, and Augie and Izzy split a hamburger. They were in puppy heaven. The seals were actually in the next town over from Monterey, Pacific Grove, in the little bay next to Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station.



We also made a trip down the Pacific Coast Highway to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Actually, this turned out to be the exact same park David and I camped in for a few days on our 1995 road trip. Augie and Izzy got to pee on giant redwoods! Very exciting. The park had recently been flooded in a big storm, so many of the paths weren't open, but the roads around the picnic areas and the campgrounds were open, so we had a good walk.

David particularly likes the following picture because it highlights not only the hugeness of the redwood, but also the fact that this was primarily a vacation for Augie and Izzy and not so much of a vacation for him.

David did have to do a lot of grading, but he got to do it in a cute little cafe (check out their logo with the sea otter) up the street from our B&B. He also took the brunt of the dogs when they were super pully on leashes. But then again, instead of walking the dogs around their usual haunts he got to walk them along the ocean and around the cutest little town ever. I think between their morning walks with David, their day hikes with both of us, and their evening walks downtown to get dinner (we did take out . . . Izzy is a bit whiny for sit down dining - I highly recommend the New England clam chowder and the prawns at A.W. Shucks and pretty much anything from Little Napoli), I think they probably walked almost ten miles every day. They are tuckered. And David and I are well exercised. I don't think I've walked that much . . . well, possibly ever.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Apple Cake

Rebecca made her awesome apple cake, first for a block party and then again when Mom was cruisin' through. Look at its deliciousness, and envy me. :)





Click below to see the recipe.


(Rebecca) This recipe was given to my mom by a German woman who was in her neighborhood craft group. It's been a fall favorite in our family since then.



Recipe:
1 1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 - 2 cups sugar (depending on the tartness of the apples)
3 eggs
1 t vanilla
3 cups flour
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t baking soda
3 cups apples (peeled, cored, thickly sliced)
1 cup chopped walnuts
2/3 cup golden raisin
1/3 cup currants

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan. Cream oil and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then add to wet ingredients. Add fruit and nuts and stir to combine. The batter will be very chunky - a wooden spoon will work better than a mixer for this last step. Spoon into the pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool completely and then remove from the pan.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Garden Renovations

We have almost no yard, but what we do have was in bad shape. Our patch of dirt and weeds by the parking area was a sad welcome home at the end of the day. It's very shady though so we needed interesting shade loving plants. We bought a variety of things that bloom at different times of the year and will hopefully grow and fill in the area. We left room for a composter and firewood rack. Soon it will be a useful and pretty part of our property.

Canadian Adventure

I had a math conference in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. Vancouver had record breaking heat (several 90 degree days) and no a/c. We almost melted, but managed a few minutes of sleep and got to see some cool things. We then traveled to Victoria. It was much cooler and the conference was behind me so it was great. The last leg of the trip had us traveling back to Vancouver, renting a car and driving to Banff. Despite the rain, and unseasonably cold temps (in the 50's) we got some spectacular views and had a great time. Click on the slide show to open in a large window for better viewing.

Tomatomania

My friend Bridget had to skip town for a family emergency, so she loaded me up with all the tomatoes and eggs I could carry. The tomatoes were really ripe, so our usual M.O. of adding sliced tomato to lunch and dinner was not going to use them fast enough. I synthesized all the marinara recipe information I could glean from Serious Eats into one recipe (which I share after the jump). Then I used the remaining tomatoes - mostly gorgeous yellow tomatoes - to make a salsa based on the recipe for salsa fresca in Mexican Light by Martha Rose Shulman.
The following marinara recipe (well, according to Mario Batali, it's not a true marinara, but its texture is closer to a marinara than a tomato sauce, which is thicker, less chunky, and cooked longer) is a hybrid of Mario Batali’s Basic Tomato Sauce, a marinara sauce recipe adapted from Lidia Bastianich's Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, and comments about marinara sauce from the readers of Serious Eats.

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  
• 1/2 large or 1 small red onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
  
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled and pressed
  
• 4 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)
  
• 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper (this makes a fairly spicy sauce)
  
• 1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
  
• 3 pounds ripe fresh plum tomatoes, or one 35 ounce can Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano), seeded and lightly crushed, with their liquid
  
• Salt
  
• 10 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
  
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano
  

Procedure

1. Heat the oil in a 2- to 3-quart nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion. When the onions are about halfway done (about 5 minutes) add the garlic.

2. Add the thyme, crushed red pepper, and carrot; cook 5 minutes more.

3. Add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to just bubbling, stirring occasionally for 20-30 minutes. Break up tomatoes with a whisk or spoon, until sauce is chunky and thick

4. Stir in the basil and oregano about 5 minutes before sauce is finished. Taste sauce, and season with salt and red pepper if necessary. Serve immediately or set aside for further use. The sauce may be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 6 months.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Progress

We finally got rid of the horrible sponge paint in the spare bedroom. Bob and I spent the weekend cleaning, taping, priming and painting. But, it was worth it. I'm so glad to have a new room.

Update on the use of 20 pounds of peaches below.





I made individual hand pies for the neighborhood party. This was insane. They were tasty, but it was way too much work.



Most of the peaches were used for peach jam and for spiced peaches. I want to make more spiced peaches - they are very tasty with vanilla ice cream.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Food, Inc

We went to see Food, Inc. yesterday. In fact, we went to a Whole Foods sponsored viewing of the movie (we did pay for the movie) which included a panel discussion following the movie, free samples from Whole Foods and a wine tasting plus food from Whole Foods. Overall, the movie was as I expected - it took a lot of information from The Omnivores Dilemma (and presumably Fast Food Nation but I haven't read that yet.) It was fairly graphic in its presentation of slaughter houses so if you weren't a vegetarian before, you might consider being one now. Poor animals. The biggest impact that it made on me is that I'm not sure I can eat at a restaurant any more.


I was a bit disappointed that they didn't get any of the major corporations to comment on the content. Nor did they talk to anyone with a different perspective than 'the corporations are evil and they are making us sick.' I do believe that like most other large corporations, the focus is on generating the biggest profit and that the choices made are to maximize profit with minimizing risk. But, that means that there is some risk and when you are talking about food, that risk can be deadly. I also wish that the movie had more information from government authorities on their take on the situation. Why is the FDA so impotent? What is being done to change this? Is there any move to have oversight of agriculture corporations? One thing that is misleading is that the movie doesn't discuss the fact that most of the soybeans grown in the country are used for animal feed, not for people food.

The panel discussion was interesting (if too short) and included many local people:
Particia Stansbury (Epic Gardens)
Mark "Coach" Smallwood (Local Forager for Whole Foods)
Lisa Taranto (Tricycle Gardens)
Sally Norton (Nutritionist from VCU)
Jonah Fogel (Virginia Cooperative Extension Service)
Lisa Dearden (Center for Rural Culture)
Ellen Frackleton (Agriberry)

Coach was a low impact farmer and was recruited by Whole Foods to source local, responsibly grown food and meat for stores in the mid Atlantic region. I would have liked to have heard more from him. He was definitely a great choice as a spokesperson representing Whole Foods. All of the panel was in favor of supporting local farmers. The basic take home message was if you don't talk to the person making your food, you don't know what went into creating it. Even when things are labeled organic, the animals may not be treated the way you would think. Any food that is mass produced is typically pooled from many suppliers which always raises the risk of food safety. Also, everyone on the panel felt like there needs to be more government involvement in stepping up safety regulations and policing these large corporations.

I left the moving feeling fortunate that I have the money and time and availability of good food, that I can choose to know the farmers where my food comes from. I can cook most of our meals from scratch and I can make informed decisions about what we eat. Most of the country does not have this choice or the means to make this choice. I feel like I should come up with a way to use some mathematical modeling to explore risk/cost/safety issues...

Click here to see the rest of this post...

Veggie Hunter

 

The hunter came home victorious; the whole village will feast tonight!

More of the bounty available at the link below.

Click here to see the rest of this post...

From cocktails

This is the product of the Mystery Photo Entertainment posted earlier. It's cucumber-infused vodka, which, it turns out, is ridiculously easy. (I followed the instructions here.) And it tastes awesome.