Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Law Lessons #2

Our law enforcement adventure last night provided a few more police procedure details.

For example, there is a portion of our police force that focuses on getting to the bottom of issues and correcting choices that make for frequent problems and complaints.

I like this. Where an issue keeps cropping up, they will scan the situation, analyze the underlying issues, respond and reassess.

For example. Neighborhoods in transition where established people may feel insecure with lots of newbies out and about, and teens not liking the crabby neighbors...the police reps might involve that neighborhood in a opportunity to get to know each other through neighborhood watch or group clean-up.

Sometimes they will work hard to make poor decisions not so much fun.

My favorite line of the night happened in reference to a problem that required officers on bicycles...officers who can go where cars can't and have speed and efficiency advantages...who were put on patrol in a local park where "swimming in the dog-gone fountain" is a problem.

Ha. Ha. We are a small town at heart. We've got some issues, stinky ones, but, the dog-gone fountain swimmers are up there. : )

Scraps and Snippets ~ Banana Ice Cream...

One of the recipes in Minnesota taught me a sweet skill. The recipe itself ended up being one of the least favorites. But that was because of the flavor pairings. But our minds went crazy trying to pair the parfait idea with this delicious soft serve consistency ice cream. There will be parfaits in our kitchen, as soon as we can stop ourselves from making and immediately eating the...Banana ice cream.

Now onto the sweet skill. You need a food processor. The girl who posted the original deets said she'd tried a Vitamix to less than stellar results.

Here's the recipe.

You take as many "happy" bananas as you want. Make sure they are "just right bananas," not the black and slimy banana bread bananas. Peel them. Chop the bananas up into bite sized chunks. Put them in a freezer bag. Put them in your freezer and freeze for a minimum of an hour. 

Dump as many bananas as you have people to serve (approximate size of a banana because they will be in chunks  so estimate or you could put each banana into a separate container if you are picky about stuff like that) into the food processor. Example: Use two or three for a two or three person serving. One banana per person...but stick to two or three in each batch. Run the food processor on high. 

You will think there is no way an ice cream substance is going to happen. No way. They break into tiny grainy looking bits and look less and less like creamy goodness. But magic is coming. Stop and scrape it now and again so all the pieces get fluffed. You will have a creamy, deliciousness in three or four minutes.

In our experiments at home, & and I have made banana ice cream with a blob of peanut butter and a splash of non-dairy milk (about a TBSP of each) and the  cinnamon banana version with a few sprinkles of Vietnamese Cinnamon 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon per banana. (BTW, there is a difference in cinnamons. Veitnamese is delicious and sweet. Highly recommended.) The results are yummy, slightly softer in consistency, but delicious. And the additions soften the banana taste. Uhh. Chocolate chips tossed in....yum. However, the banana taste is pleasant and not overwhelming because you are using the not overripe bananas.

Try it but be warned, it's addictive.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Cinnamon Apple Cake/Bread...

The Minnesota trip included this amazing breakfast bread.

Which I promptly tweaked upon arriving home.

My version of the Cinnamon Swirl Bread morphed into Cinnamon Apple Swirl Bread and Cake.

Bread/Cake

2 cups vanilla almond milk (or non-dairy milk of choice).

1 TBSP and 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/4 cup Earth Balance (next time I will try coconut oil)

1/4 cup applesauce

2 TBSP ground flax

6 TBSP water

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 cups of or a blend of whole wheat pastry flour, unbleached all purpose and/or unbleached white whole wheat flour.

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Filling: (I'm increasing/changing this up this next time so am giving you the changes I will make.)

1/2 cup sugar or maple syrup

4 TBSP ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

2-3 finely diced apples or 1/2 cup apple sauce or maple syrup

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x5" loaf pan and an 8 x 8" cake pan. Combine the milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle. Mix the flax and water together and allow to gel. In meantime mix flour, salt, soda, baking powder together. In a separate bowl cream sugar with the Earth Balance or coconut oil, add applesauce, vanilla, flax eggs and milk. Mix well. Stir in the flour mixture and stir until incorporated.

Mix the filling ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Distribute 1/3 the batter into prepared pans. (2/3 of that in cake pan, 1/3 in loaf pan). Spoon 1/3 of the filling over the batter. Repeat this step twice. Bake 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. You can remove the loaf from the loaf pan to a wire rack after cooling for 15 minutes or so in pan.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Minnesota Food Fun...

 Last week & and I went to Minneapolis to hang out with our fake family. 

Michelle is my personal Martha Stewartish nemesis. I compete with her on a food level. She stinking beats me every time. I should give up and just go to her place, but no, she keeps inviting herself to Iowa. :  ). Michelle is also the one who cracks the fiction writing whip and insists that I feed her Fabio scenes. (Yes. I know, you have two coming. Art takes time!) 

She also likes to try out creative foodistry. She went all Vegan while we were there and had the ingredients for lots of tasty recipes that we then returned home with. We also tried a couple of restaurants. The first was a raw food restaurant*. I think this was a first for them. We've gotten a taste of raw and really, really admire the tricks of the trade. 

 Ecopolitan is a delicious raw food experience.

The wait was a little challenging... but if you go to a raw restaurant and plan on a speedy delivery I'm thinking that's an unrealistic expectation.

We each got half-sized meals. The three girls got hummus pizza...yum. yum. The mature, but-not-quite-overripe  girls got raw tostadas...yum. yum. yum.

And we ordered a cashew cheeze cheeze log or some such thing for an appetizer. We each shelled out 12 or so for a light lunch. Not bad. Especially considering the taste and the quality of the ingredients. 

Bottom line. If you haven't tried a raw restaurant you really should give it a go. At least once. And if you happen to be in the Twin Cities, Ecopolitan is a good one.

* Raw food. Simple explanation. Heat processing is not part of raw food preparation. No stove. No oven, no flames, no fry daddies.  Instead, the whole food items (like nuts, grains, beans, veggies and fruits) are put together in creative ways. Breads are really large, crackers that are dehydrated.  A dessert may have a crust made out of nuts and dates versus pastry. The food may be warm, just warm (and will never have been heated over 119 degrees (I believe that's the maximum) or served chilled. The reason? Heat kills the enzymes in food and the enzymes are the life and nutrition within the food. Just like boiling a veggie to mush kills the texture and flavor, heating kills the enzymes in fruit or veggies. 

A lot of items, like grains, beans and nuts are soaked to soften them and make them easier to eat. 

Serials and Scenario's Donna Klein's Supermarket Vegan ~ Reviewed

Supermarket Vegan:225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World [Paperback]
Donna Klein
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Perigee Trade; Original edition (January 5, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399535616


Description:


An all-new collection of delicious, simple vegan dishes using easy- to-find, readily available ingredients-going vegan has never been easier.


The author of The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen shows readers how to use readily-available ingredients to create healthy, delicious, simple, low-cost, and elegant family vegan meals, including:


More than 225 meat-free, egg-free, dairy-free recipes for appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, side dishes, beverages and desserts


No expensive and suspect meat, egg, or dairy "substitutes"

My Thoughts:

What you see is what you get in this cookbook. There isn’t a breakdown of why to go vegan or what vegan looks like. Instead the book gets right to the recipes. And the ingredients in the recipes should be in most grocery stores.

I think this Is going to be a great resource for someone who knows the whys of going vegan but doesn’t know where to start.

If you are looking for recipes to use your miso or make your own seitan you won’t find them here. But if you want to eat Vegan and love salads and veggies and don’t have a pantry full of unfamiliar ingredients you'll find some great recipes here. Also, if you have been a processed food Vegan who leans towards Oreos, Fritos, Soda but want to get more into veggies and make your own meals this would be a good transitioning cookbook. There is reliance on processed foods, but not as much as I expected. Most recipes use fresh produce as well. Of note, there are very few dessert recipes. Don't expect to find vegan cupcakes, cookies and oodles of treats. But the book doesn't promise that either.

I did find several recipes that sounded good. I did not make them as I borrowed the cookbook from my library and time was limited. However, I found several recipes I want to make so I'll be purchasing or borrowing this one again. Recipes like Maple Coleslaw, Hot and Sour Slaw, Tahini Brown Rice with Artichokes and Chickpeas, Salad Bar Vegetable Lo Mein, One Pot Pasta with Spinach, Mushrooms and Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Cellophane Noodles with Scallions and Chow Sauce, Japanese-Style Soba Noodle and Red Cabbage Salad with Pumpkin Seeds and Tuscan-Style Chickpea and Spinach Salad with Artichokes and Sun-Dried Tomatoes are a few of the ones that grabbed the attention of my tastebuds.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Law Lessons #1

I had every intention of posting yesterday. But, intentions are not necessarily reality in my world.

Excuse #1...busy.

Excuse # 2... uhh, I'm going to wax eloquent on #1.

Reasons I didn't post yesterday. Work. Came home. Cleared a section of my room for a piece of furniture. The section was full of craft stuff that had found home in the "craft closet". However, since #3 wanted to move back home, and the new "craft closet" was her bedroom we decided that #3 was more important. After the displaced items were put in a corner, my desk was moved into my bedroom. A couch was carried downstairs, a TV carried up, and items were moved in an attempt at organization. This was abandoned due to time issues, most of it on my bed. (At 10:15 p.m. I was regretting that choice. ) Dinner was thrown together. & made a delicious potato lentil curry sauce. I'd give you the recipe but it got a little crazy, spices were flying/veggies hurtling across the kitchen. We killed the cumin and curry. Toad-Man dropped by to pick up some stuff for his service group's rummage sale. He stayed for dinner. Nice surprise. Then & and I headed out for our first Citizen's Police Academy class.

Yes. Citizen's Police Academy.

Can I tell you how excited I am? No? Too bad, I'm going to. Our city does a once a year 12 week class that covers our department breakdown and details. We met at a training facility with three firing ranges and several class/training rooms. It's pretty state of the art and we will be doing some serious hands on as we get into the classes. Last night was the overview and tour. Amazing! Apparently the gun cleaning room is so awesome that one of the FBI agents who used it said he'd never been in one that nice, even at Quantico. Did you know lead dust from bullets is wicked bad? And when you fire you get engulfed in smoke, containing lead. Who knew? Apparently a metro area firing range owner died not too long ago from lead poisoning because he didn't have a good filtration system. The training facility has a filtration system that is top notch. I didn't even have a clue that lead was still even in bullets. And our tour guide says it takes 7 years for the lead to be fully purged from your system once you come into contact with it.

The chief of police did most of the talking last night. If ever I wrote a police chief character for a book or movie I'd use ours, the man was perfectly cast. He wore his 30+ years on the force on his broad, slightly slumped shoulders. The importance of his job and the weight of caring have cast a patina of weariness around his eyes, but his silver cookie duster mustache softened the serious set of his countenance. A rumbly growl tinged his voice and his colorful word choices which were a mix of insider lingo and civilianese.

I learned that our police department is a lean, efficient force that does an amazing job. The coverage of police officers for a city our size is mind-boggling tiny. The biggest concern the officers and chief had was the difficulty in finding good men or women. Integrity is their primary concern and out of the last batch of 212 applicants they found 11 who made it through the process. Not great statistics.

I cannot wait for the gun handling and CSI classes. This is going to be SO interesting. I will, of course, share some of what I learn. : ).

Was. But not is...picture the contents spread around a room in various assorted places. That's reality. But...the closet is now being used by the one person I'd hoped would eventually come back home.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ And I Won't Even Get a Visit From the Tooth Fairy...

A little whine with my cheese...here's the deal. I'm going to write what I know. And tonight it's going to be a crybaby saga. Feel free to click out now. It won't get any better. I do promise NOT to post pictures of my future dental moments though.

Commencing whining...

My face hurts. No, this is not an opening for someone to say..."that's funny cuz it's killing me." Though I might laugh because I think that's a great line.

My face has hurt the past few weeks. I thought it was my tooth. A crown was bestowed upon me a few months ago. The tooth next to the crown needed a touch up and that area has been a little sensitive. Lately, there's been some extra crabbiness in those parts. I thought there might be a problem with one of those little guys so went to the dentist. NOT my favorite place to go, I must say. However, I do like mine. He thought my bite was causing irritation and he ground down a bit of tooth.

Then I went on a trip, and while there, especially on the ride home my whole face was not happy...so I thought I had an inner ear thing going on or sinus issues. So I put tea tree oil in my ear and took a few shots of oregano oil. Crazyily enough, after the burn wore off and I could see through my watering eyes, my ear was feeling clear and good. But, my face still hurt. Then, I bit down at dinner and bam! I knew something wasn't right. Heat and cold, no problem. A tongue or soft food barely touching the surface of the furthest back molar was agonizing. I kept myself loaded up on pain relievers went to work (last day of the month....and a busy lab day...oy) and called my dentist. They could've put me in first thing in the morning...but as I said, last day of the month, lots of x-rays and bone scans. So they made room for me at the end of the day.

I told him I knew the exact tooth and what it was doing. End of discussion. It's called something with the word percussion. It means the nerve is dying, is dead, or is working on an abscess. Two choices. A root canal and a crown or pulling the darn thing.

He gave me an antibiotic. (I am wanting to freak out...oh, no, my good bacteria.) I made an appointment to get it pulled. UGH. I'm going to be drinking lots of kefir, kombucha and not looking forward to the appointment. On the flip side, I do want to eat, sleep and smile without face pain.

Ummm. I would be such a baby if I had to deal with chronic pain or some major health issue. Another reason to remain proactive with health. I think I want this to be the last procedure I ever need to have done.