Category Archives: Food

Not Cheaper

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After I work out at the gym — and I use the term “work out” loosely — I’m hungry and it’s a long drive home through rush hour traffic. (I have not followed conventional wisdom that advises one to choose a gym within 10 minutes of one’s work location or home. There isn’t one within 10 minutes of my home, or 15 minutes or 20 minutes, even, so I chose a locally-owned gym that is somewhat between work and home.)

One day there was a sample box at the gym’s counter, a box with mini protein bars. I took a sample. Yummy. And it worked. The next time I worked out I wanted a protein bar afterwards, so I bought one at the gym. A few days after that, I noticed the same protein bars at the grocery store for about half the price.

You might think it would be cheaper to buy them at the grocery store. I thought it would be cheaper. It is not cheaper.

Here’s why. The first time, I bought one protein bar at the grocery store and took it with me on my workout day. I ate it just after lunch, hours before going to the gym. Then I bought another protein bar after working out.

The next time I bought three protein bars with the good intentions of working out three times in the coming week. The protein bars were all different flavors, so I ate them over the weekend just to see how they tasted. Then I bought a protein bar after each workout.

I increased my protein bar cost by 50% by buying them at the lower price at the grocery store. I’ve decided to take them off my grocery list; it’s cheaper to buy them one at a time at the higher price at the gym.

Banana Blueberry Orange Smoothie Summer

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Last summer was so hot! We had 70+ days with temperatures above 100 degrees. And the drought! Our normal average rainfall amount is around 32 inches. Last year we had 11 inches of rain. We’ve had 18 inches of rain already this year. We are desperately hoping that the 18 inches recorded so far are not all that we are getting for the year. We had a mild winter, a warm spring and we are suspicious of the upcoming summer, thinking that it might be a replay of last year’s.

With the extreme heat and drought of last summer in mind, I have a plan: I’m going to blend my way through the upcoming summer. Smoothies and easy soups are on my supper menu. I treated myself to a Vitamix machine. (It was demonstration and sample day at the store and everything the Vitamix demonstrator made was really good!)

The first recipe I conquered was the Banana Blueberry Orange smoothie. It’s really cool and refreshing; definitely a keeper. To balance my diet, my next recipe was the Potato and Spinach soup that can be prepared mostly in the Vitamix; you just have to bake (or nuke) the potatoes first. There are only five ingredients in the soup (my kind of recipe), so how hard can it be?

Well, I don’t know how hard it can be in reference to an upper limit of “hard,” but I know that this recipe is making me work. I think the potatoes I use are too big and they overpower the soup. At least that’s what I think happened on my first two efforts. This recipe makes a lot of soup: seven cups. The instructions say that you can cut it in half, but I didn’t notice that until after I made the soup saw how much there was. (Really? I’m supposed to read all the instructions first?)

I was hoping to have success with one recipe before moving onto another one. However, if I keep this structure, it may turn into a Banana Blueberry Orange smoothie summer.

Summer Is Nigh

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I removed the smidgens of the winter-evaporated ice in the ice cube trays, washed and refilled the trays. Summer temperatures are nigh upon us.

Here’s an entry about ice cube trays that I posted on July 4, 2010 on my old blog.


I was making lunch one day, kale and avocado salad. (I must explain, here, that the recipe calls for 1/2 avocado. Note to the world: there is no such thing as 1/2 avocado. There is only a whole avocado and it’s for me. There may well be two halves to an avocado, but they are eaten at the same time. There is no “later” for any avocado in my house.)

I was looking for a bowl big enough for all the chopped kale. And remember, I’m one who can use up most of the kitchen items in making a sandwich. This kale and entire-avocado salad (who cares what the recipe says) needed a bowl bigger than I usually use, so I started looking around in the cabinets.

You’d think that because it’s my kitchen that I’d know where everything is. Okay, well, I do now. Probably. Anyway, the bowl I was looking for was in the second cabinet I looked in, so that search didn’t take too long.

But in the first cabinet, where I thought the bowl was (and I’m thinking it used to be there, until I-don’t-know-when), I found some ice cube trays.

Ten ice cube trays.

I have two robin’s-egg blue trays with the square cubes, two white trays also with the square cubes, five light blue trays with oval cubes and one blue tray for miniature ice cubes.

The light blue trays each have 12 ice cube holders. The robin’s-egg blue, as well as the white trays, have 14 holders. The miniature tray has 60 holders. The two white trays in the freezer with square cubes have 14 each. That makes 12 ice cube trays, total. (Excuse me while I do math now.)

I’m pretty sure that’s 204 ice cubes, in one shape or another.

I have no idea how I ended up with so many ice cube trays. We’ve had only one refrigerator at this house. Wedding gifts, maybe, from friends and family who worry about global warming?

Six Pounds of Peaches

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A 6-pound can of peaches

Enough peaches for everyone on our road

I came home yesterday to find that hubby bought a can of peaches. From Costco. Six pounds. Six pounds of peaches. Six pounds of peaches in one can.

Showing the weight of the canned peaches: 6 pounds

That's a lot of peaches!

“Are we hosting a family reunion?” I asked. “No,” he said, “it’s for us. It was such a good deal!”

With two adults and seven dogs in our household, “good deal” is not the term I would have chosen. I’m probably the only one not interested in the peaches, but sharing them with the dogs is not what hubby has in mind, I’m sure.

We didn’t even have a container big enough to put them in, after opening the can. And all those containers we did put them in are taking up a lot of room in the refrigerator. If you’re coming to visit us anytime soon, I hope you like peaches.

Circus Peanut Gelatin

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A friend emailed me this recipe for Circus Peanut Gelatin. Wouldn’t it be fun, she asked, to make this?

No, it would not.

First off, Circus Peanuts are my weakness. So simple, so pure; mostly sugar and food coloring. To buy them, I have do a little squeeze test through the bag to ensure that they are fresh. Nothing worse than stale, hard Circus Peanuts!

I replied to my friend (although I’m wondering if I should still call her a friend, after having received this recipe from her) that I’d never be able to make this recipe.

Circus Peanut Gelatin

One for me and one for me

The recipe calls for 44 Circus Peanuts, divided. Divided, sure. Twenty-two for the recipe, twenty-two for me. Already I need 88 of them, just to have 44 on hand to get the recipe started.

The first instruction is to cut 32 candies into small pieces. I suppose I could use a knife to cut them, but a knife can be so …. sharp. If I use my teeth, which are blunter, I can ensure my safety away from the knife. The recipe doesn’t say how many small pieces are needed from each candy, but I expect that only half of those 32 would survive to become small pieces. Now I need 64 (more?) candies in order to end up with 32 of them in small, non-eaten pieces.

After some microwaving, mixing, and refrigerating, we are instructed to put a candy on top of the refrigerated gelatin. It serves 12, so that’s one candy on top of each serving. And we know how that goes: one for each serving, one for me. That adds up to 24 (more?) just for the decorating step. And since I nibbled on each of the small candy pieces that went into the gelatin, I’m guessing no one else wants a piece of the finished product and that means it’s all mine!

However, by now my eyes are crossed and I’m feeling a little woozy from eating all that sugar. That’s why I think I will stay away from ever trying this recipe. It’s just too sweet for me.