Happiness is washing your bath towels twice

 

 

 One time in baking soda, a second time in white vinegar.

One cup, warm water setting, right in the top-loader with the load. I do a pre-soak and an extra-rinse each time as well.

Works especially well on my white and light color towels instead of detergent in my experience.

At current prices at Sam's Club the cost is about 52-cents for the two loads, about 33-cents for a cup of baking soda for the first load, and 19-cents for a cup of vinegar for the second load.

That's more expensive than using, for example, ALL Free and Clear and CLOROX 2, which are about 13-cents and 21-cents in just one load, respectively, or 34-cents total. And water is money, too, unless you have a well like me.

But I like the results better.

Disclaimers say check to see if your machine is compatible with vinegar.

Happiness is Sunday morning baking two dozen triple wheat muffins

 OK I ate two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Triple Wheat Muffins

1.5 cups wheat germ

1.5 cups all purpose wheat flour

3.0 cups wheat bran

1 T baking powder

1 t baking soda

1 t ground cinnamon

 

2.5 cups milk

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs beaten

1 cup apple sauce

 

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another.

Whisk dry into wet gradually.

Add 24 baking papers to tins.

Use a 1/3 cup measure to scoop batter into the liners.

Bake about 20-22 minutes.

Cool in the pans on the counter for 20 minutes.

Serve with butter and jam. And coffee. 

Happiness is a recipe which helps you cut back on toilet paper!

 For a butt-hole which is clean as a whistle, eat one of these oat flour and wheat bran muffins every morning instead of toast! You'll find yourself using far less toilet paper as a result!

Foil the kitty!

Oat Flour & Wheat Bran Muffins

1 cup oat flour (just grind up one cup whole oats in the coffee grinder)

2 cups wheat bran (I pay $1.29/lb at the health food store for a refrigerated bag of organic; super cheap!)

1.5 t baking powder

0.5 t baking soda

0.5 t ground cinnamon

 

1.25 cups milk

0.33 cup brown sugar

1 egg beaten

0.5 cup apple sauce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/ preheat oven to 400 F

2/ combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another

3/ add the dry to the wet, whisking together

4/ line two 8-bay muffin tins with parchment baking cups

5/ spoon in the completed mixture, about 1/4 cup each

6/ bake 15-20 minutes

7/ let cool thoroughly before storing in the frig or freezer

8/ parchment peels right off once cooled

9/ rewarm in microwave and serve with butter and jam

10/ one a day will do ya

 

 

Salty things I ate at Christmas

A waffle (409 mg sodium) on Christmas Day. ... And that's after substituting the salt and baking soda of the Betty Crocker recipe with more baking powder instead. Otherwise Betty's version would have packed 522 mg sodium per waffle. Eat just two of those (without butter) and you're more than half way to the daily limit of 2000 mg. Add bacon at 220 mg per slice and . . . ouch, because no one can eat just one waffle or one slice of bacon. 

A slice of spinach pesto Sockeye pie (308 mg sodium) on Christmas Eve. ... The canned salmon is the killer here, as is the pesto. One can't do much to reduce the sodium in canned fish except to use fresh instead, which is kind of a waste. But the salt in the pesto recipe can be cut in half and still taste like pesto, especially if you use salty Romano cheese instead of parmesan. Thus prepared I ended up with nearly 700 mg sodium in 1/2 cup for the recipe.

Two slices of this savory fish pie are normal for a serving, so the ketchup condiment had to go (190 mg sodium in one tablespoon). I used San Marzano tomato sauce instead and that was fine (16 mg sodium in one half cup). A teaspoon of the pesto is also good on the morning egg (about 30 mg sodium), as it is on the Saturday pizza.  

A gingersnap cookie (66 mg sodium), from frozen dough bought for a fundraiser. ... I ate only two, because at fewer than 4 mg sodium per square I'd rather eat Lindt 85% cocoa chocolate instead.

Oat muffins with dried Montmorency cherries

Oat Muffins with dried Montmorency cherries

This recipe is adapted from the POST 100% Bran Muffin recipe of old. The only substitution is the oats for the bran cereal. The only addition is the cherries. The yield is about 15 muffins. Calories per muffin are about 194. Total fat is 2g, total carbs 38g (dietary fiber 3.2g), and total protein is 6g. 

Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

.5 teaspoon baking soda

.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cups whole rolled oats

1.25 cups 2% milk

1 egg 

.5 cup unsweetened apple sauce

.33 cup brown sugar

.66 cup dried cherries

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Whisk dry ingredients together in one bowl.

3. In another bowl whisk together the wet ingredients, and the sugar and cherries.

4. Add the dry to the wet, mixing well with a wooden spoon.

5. Lightly grease 2 8-bay muffin pans with Crisco.

6. Add .25 cup of the mixture to each bay.

7. Add water to the last unfilled bay.

8. Bake 15-20 minutes on the center rack of the oven.

Unclog A Drain Cheap, Easy And Home-Made

Here's another one I've seen online in several places which I decided to try after wasting money on expensive drain opening products. I'm not sure why it works so well, but it does. Perhaps the rapid expansion combined with the acidity is the explanation. If your problem is something other than hair and soap scum I can't say it will work, but this preparation got rid of two slow tub/shower drains for me, cutting right through the gunk just like that. No more toes soaking in a puddle!

Drain Opener

1 cup baking soda

1 cup white vinegar

Remove whatever cover/plug is over your drain. Spoon in 1 cup of baking soda, and dump the excess over the hole. Cover with an inverted Pyrex 2-cup measuring cup. Slowly pour 1 cup vinegar into the hole, slightly lifting one edge of the Pyrex by the handle as you do. It'll bubble up all over the place, but it will drain back down, so don't pause. Let stand at least thirty minutes and flush with a liberal amount of hot water.

Buckwheat Yogurt Oatcakes

For about two months, I've been avoiding wheat on most days. Saturday night pizza has been the only exception. Otherwise I'm relying on less grain in the diet overall, using oat bran and oats as before but in smaller quantities, substituting brown rice pasta and corn tostadas for wheat pastas and wheat flour tortillas.

There's reason to believe that wheat is a major contributor to small LDL, which in its turn is suspected as a prime culprit in cardiovascular disease. The usual cholesterol panel you get at your annual physical tells you absolutely nothing about particle size, and doesn't even really measure LDL. It's a calculation, not a measurement.

So when I got the results of a special blood panel back in 2008 and found out my supposedly pretty good cholesterol numbers revealed many small LDL, I started to look into the subject more deeply. Most interesting has been the clinical work of a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, cardiologist named William Davis. His book, Track Your Plaque, has interesting dietary recommendations which frequently dovetail with the super foods menu. And his blog keeps us up to date on all the latest developments. I'm looking forward to my next blood test when we'll see if my small LDL particle count has gone down.

Eliminating wheat isn't easy, especially if toast, sandwiches and wraps, tortillas and pasta play a large role in your diet. And Saturday morning pancakes! So here's a recipe I love, in moderation, which the lady of the house adapted from "Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes" by Marcia Beachy in the More-With-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre.

Buckwheat Yogurt Oatcakes

.5 cup plain fat-free yogurt

.5 cup 2% milk

2 T canola oil

1 egg

.5 cup buckwheat flour

.5 cup oat flour

1 t baking powder

.5 t baking soda

.5 t salt

1 T ground flaxseed

1. Combine the yogurt, milk, oil and egg in a bowl and whisk together.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in another bowl and whisk in the wet ingredients for about a minute.

3. Fry on a lightly oiled griddle.

Makes about eight pancakes.

Vila's Banana Bread

I love this recipe as much for its simplicity as for the fact that it comes from my mother-in-law. It's on an old, yellowing, 3 x 5 card in her delightfully unmistakeable script. The style of the list of ingredients and instructions is terse and to the point. It's all no fooling around, because she had places to go, and people to see. "This is your favorite mother-in-law calling" is how she addressed me whenever I happened to be the one picking up the phone. I'll never get to hear her say that again. She passed away unexpectedly recently, at the respectable age of 83.

The recipe is wholly lacking in super foods in its original form of sugar, butter, eggs, bananas, baking soda and flour. But add some chopped walnuts, dried fruit like cherries or cranberries, and substitute some whole grain flour for the all purpose unbleached variety and you've got a passable super foods platform going. And a potassium platform, to which topic Steven Pratt devotes over three pages in his SuperFoods HealthStyle, ranking bananas in the middle of the list of potassium-rich foods with 422 mg in a medium sized one. Walnuts have 124 mg in one ounce. When you consider that you need 4700 mg of potassium daily for controlling blood pressure, balancing the body's acidity and alkalinity, and preventing osteoporosis, every little bit helps.

Recipes from Vila are keepers for another reason: she was a discerning judge of character. Not long after making our first acquaintance, she spied a piece of religious propaganda in my possession while seated next to her in the backseat of a car, the title of which had something to do with finding true happiness. After we got underway she non-plussed me with the question, "Have you found true happiness, John?" The tone of her voice was more the knowing tone of adult skepticism than of unalloyed innocence. She already had me pegged.

Blessed with copious amounts of serotonin, one couldn't fail to like her. She was easy to talk to, and her company a pleasure to keep. She never changed, and neither did I. "Cheer up, John" she regularly told me throughout over thirty years of our relationship. And if she could talk to me now, I'm sure that's what she'd say, adding "What I have done you also will be able to do."

Vila's Banana Bread

1 cup sugar

.5 cup butter

2 eggs well beaten

3 large ripe bananas mashed

1 t. baking soda

2 cups flour (one of which can be finely stone-ground whole wheat flour)

.75 cup chopped nuts (walnuts preferred)

.75 cup chopped dried cranberries or other dried fruit (optional)

1. Preheat the oven on bake to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream sugar and butter.

3. Add eggs and bananas.

4. Add sifted flour and soda.

5. Add nuts and mix well (and fruit if using).

6. Pour in greased loaf pan and bake approx. one hour till done.