Dessert Survivor

THE NATIONAL PARKS: My Parks

2009-08-28T19:09:00.001-07:00

A Special Birthday Cake

2009-05-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Once in a while I get inspired to greatness. Like for my son's birthday. He loves "choo-choos," and I figured out a way to make a fairly simple "choo-choo" cake using mini-loaf pans, oreos, m&ms, and some food coloring and frosting.
I was happy with the results--but I knew the big test lay ahead.

Success! Yum.

College caf desserts

2009-05-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

Another school year has ended or is coming to an end. During the last semester one of us (Dessert Survivor) ate at a college cafeteria once a week, and took the opportunity to take pictures of a small part of the variety of things they offered.
Chocolate always works as a dessert.
These brownies not only looked good, but were good.
They even told people what the desserts were. Who cares what you call it? If it has sugar, it is probably good.
I found a couple things surprising. One was the large variety they offered. No two days were alike. The other thing that surprised me is that the students did not eat more desserts. I would like to say that they have better eating habits than I do, but then I see the amount of soft drinks they consume and I have a hard time with that conclusion.
Cheese cake with strawberry stuff on top--this was good. I would have been happy if they had served this every day, but I only saw it once.
Did you say, "Saint Patrick's Day," when you saw the green cake? Yes, that is what it was.
Student complaints about cafeteria food are common and go back in time to the start of caferia food. One difference between what is happening now and what happened in the past is that there are many more options.If the students at this cafeteria do not like the daily selection, there is also real ice cream available in addition to the soft serve (at least when the soft-serve machine is working.)

Dried banana

2009-04-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

A while back, and I am not sure how far back, I lost track of a banana. I had put it on a shelf intending to eat it later, but I forgot it. And then one day I found it. There it is below the nice yellow banana.
It had not rotted. It had dried out, probably because the building is kept with a remarkably low humidity.

No, I did not try it to see if it was still edible, and I do not think you should try this at home.

Cyrus turns five

2009-03-10T04:52:00.001-07:00

Isn't this a clever birthday cake? It was made by an eighth grader, Ingrid B, for her brother, Cyrus, who is turning five and is very excited because he thinks that when he turns five, he will be able to do whatever he wants. I am sure that after a few days at five, he will learn that it is not until you turn six that you can do whatever you want.

Classroom candy

2009-02-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

Why are these students stacking candy hearts? What possible educational purpose can that serve?
Probably none, but they are having fun. This student will never get all of those hearts in one stack.
This will work a lot better. Stacking candy seemed to amused them.
The candy itself was left over from Valentine's Day and was used in a previous class to illustrate confidence intervals. We were trying to estimate the average number of candy hearts in the individual bags. The sample itself was not a random sample--they came from a couple of big bags of little bags from a local store that had discounted them to get rid of them. So the results may not be valid, but the point was to show in a sweet, non-abstract way how a procedure worked. Each student got a couple of bags to count, and then we entered the results into a spread sheet. Using the sample mean, the standard error, and a t-value obtained from a t-value calculator, we got an interval estimate, an estimate that involved hearing, sight, touch, taste, and maybe even smell.

With a sample of 30 bags, we had a mean of 18.7 and a standard deviation of 2.053592311. This implies a standard error of 0.374932944. We know that if we take another sample of 30 bags, we will probably not get the same as as we got the first time. Each time we take a sample, we will almost always be a bit too big or a bit too small. The standard error is an estimate of how much we will be off on average. Using that, we can construct an interval in a way so that 95% of the time when we construct this interval, we will get the true mean. For this example, we would be 95% confident in the interval 17.9 to 19.5. We cannot tell if the average per bag is 18 or 19, but we are pretty sure it is not 17 or 20.

Except that one student spilled his candy on the floor. He picked it up and counted it, but another student may have added some bits to his pile. He got 26, which was the highest of any student. If we include his bag, we change our interval to 18.1 to 19.8. But should we count it?

I hope this 100-cents, five-sense experience made sense to them.

Jenna brought cookies

2009-02-17T20:00:00.001-08:00

What should a student do who gets cookies from home? The answer is obvious. She should bring them to class and share them with the other students.
Even if they are a scruffy bunch.

What is so happy about birthdays?

2009-02-08T12:58:00.001-08:00

I enjoyed some Happy-29th-Birthday cake on Friday. Even more I enjoyed asking the person having the birthday, "What it is like getting to be so old? What should I be watching out for when I get to be as old as you are?"
Happy birthday to the good Karen!

They are all gone now

2009-01-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas the baking begins. Dozens and dozens of delicious Christmas cookies come out of the oven. But they are not to be eaten under pain of death or something almost as awful, at least not until December 25, when the feasting begins. Then they go to friends and family.
They were very good. Both Dessert Survivor and Desert Survivor enjoyed them, though neither had anything to do with their creation. And now Dessert Survivor has miles and miles to run to undo the weight gain that they caused.

My Favorite Christmas Cookies

2008-12-28T20:11:00.001-08:00

I love cookies, and to me, Christmas is the ultimate time to eat cookies. There are so many good recipes to try. I didn't have a lot of time this year, but I probably made seven or eight different kinds of cookies, and these are some of my favorite. The bars in the middle are Seven Layer bars. I didn't have butterscotch chips so I used dried cranberries, and they were great. The cookies around the edge are almond-raspberry shortbread thumbprints. These have been a hit every year, and I can't stop eating them. The ingredients are simple: butter, sugar, flour, almond extract, and seedless raspberry jam. Yum, yum, yum.

Cookie cutouts have been a tradition at Christmas. I didn't have any helpers for decorating, so the cookies look rather plain this year. I like the strange ways kids decorate cookies! Nevertheless, they tasted great, and alas, disappeared all too fast.

Holiday cookies and desserts

2008-12-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season brings with it many parties, concerts, open houses, and various special events that have cookies and other desserts. This year I decided to keep track of all the cookies that they offered. (If you have a blog that needs pictures of desserts, and you do not have the talent to make them, you do whatever is necessary.)

The first was a sale at the college bookstore. The little cookies were bait to attract shoppers, who then were expected to buy something that was on sale.
I attended a community event called Santa's Village, meant mostly for kids, that had cookies.

I skipped a December graduation event because it was too late in the day, but I suspect it had cookies. However, I did attend a band concert with big cookies.
Some Christmas events are by invitation only. Here are desserts at a very nice invitation-only Christmas party I went to.
Wait, there was more. The little men were solid chocolate! I am not sure what the little white snowmen were made of--I did not try one, but I am sure they were delicious.
One of the local banks had a customer appreciation day or some excuse to serve big bakery cookies. I would like to make an Alliance with them--they provide cookies, and I will eat them.
And finally, there is the employee Christmas party with cheesecake.
That is enough for one post. If I find more cookies, I will show them in another post.

The two Lindas serve dessert

2008-12-12T20:05:00.000-08:00

On the first day of finals week I was surprised by an array of cookies, cake, candy, cider, and even healthy things like grapes in the lounge. The two Lindas had been at work.
Here the new Linda is preparing brownies for the table.
Here the old Linda (can I say that?) is sampling some of the cake.
Thanks, Lindas.

Key lime cheesecake

2008-12-10T08:26:00.000-08:00

Brian C sent an e-mail message last night that he had put a cheesecake made with real key limes in the faculty refrigerator and invited people to sample. I got there a bit late today, but there was still about a third left. I sampled it and it was very good. Brian's ability to create desserts clearly is much higher than mine.

People who have the ability to create excellent desserts need and audience, and I am always ready to be part of that audience. (Or is it an eatience?)
I had a meeting to attend today, and when I stopped back two hours later, the plate was empty. The eatience approved.

Pumpkin pie disaster

2008-12-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

I noticed that after Halloween some neighbors had discarded perfectly good pumpkins, so I checked the Internet to see if they could be used to make pumpkin pie. The site at www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org/pumpkinpie.php had all the info I needed. I even learned that most canned pumpkin is actually butternut squash--it has better flavor and texture than pumpkin. Also, the best pumpkins to use for cooking are the small pie pumpkins, not the large jack-o-lantern pumpkins.
I decided to prepare my pumpkin by microwaving it. It worked--the picture below shows pumpkin that has been microwaved on the left and raw pumpkin ready to go into the microwave on the right. Then I set out to find all the ingredients. We had all the spices, but the evaporated milk we had on hand was very old. It did not smell bad, so in it went. Enough spice and who will know that it came from the last century.
I decided I did not want to bother with a traditional crust, and since I like making crisps so much, I decided to modify my crisp recipe to make a crumbly crust, and that was a mistake.

The website warned that the pumpkin mix would be watery before it was cooked, and mine certainly was.
I cooked them a bit too long, and my crust alternative did not work out well. However, the pies were not only edible, but actually quite good. However, they would never win any baking awards.
Maybe I should have just stuck to apple crisps. It is pretty much the same recipe I used for rhubarb crisp, rhubarb-raspberry crisp, rhubarb-blackberry crisp, cherry crisp, and peach crisp, though I have switched to the oven because I have scaled it up. (If something works, just keep going with it.) Unfortunately, I am almost out of apples.

Educational cookies

2008-12-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

The good Karen in the education department brought in lots of deserts today. There was banana bread, some kind of muffins, brownies, and other sugar-filled delectables.
Thanks, Karen.

Apple Crisp with a Twist

2008-11-24T21:14:00.000-08:00

A few days ago we went over to a neighbor's orchard and picked some delicious Winesap apples. I was so happy to get the apples, because we've had several freezes at night and I had thought the apples were ruined, but in fact they turned out to be just fine. When we got the apples home, my husband dried some apples in the dehydrator and I decided to make an apple crisp.

I like apple crisps because they are easy to make and don't take many ingredients: flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oatmeal. Except I was out of oatmeal. I searched all my cupboards but couldn't fine any. There was no way I was going to drive an hour each way to town to get some oatmeal, so I decided I had to be creative or do what I dread: make a pie crust. The creativity won out, and I realized I had some granola cereal. It was made with oats, plus had some extra ingredients that had to be good.

Then I got out my newest gadget. When we picked the apples, the people asked if we had an apple peeler. I told them I had a regular vegetable peeler, and they looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe because I had three boxes of apples and they knew how long it would take to peel them with a vegetable peeler--like until about Christmas. So when I got home I got online and found this cool apple peeler.

It worked like a charm, and it only took a few seconds to peel the apple. Plus Desert Boy was entertained watching the wheels go round and round.

Here are the results of the peeling. I actually peeled 11 apples, but nine made a much more symmetric and pleasing picture.

The next shortcut step was to slice them. I have never used one of these before; I know, I must be from the Dark Ages or something. Anyway, I found out how much fun it is to slice an apple in one fell swoop and have it fall apart in eight pieces. I felt a bit artistic as I did it, like I was looking at a flower, with the slices falling open like petals.

Then I added cinnamon and sugar. The cinnamon came out a little faster than I expected, but fortunately I like it a lot.

Then it came time to make the topping. When I'm feeling really with it, I make the topping first, but today wasn't one of those days. Please notice that this is an action shot--the mixer is on--I thought it would make the photo more dramatic.

I put the topping on the apples, put it in the oven at 375 degrees, and promptly forgot to set a timer or look at a clock. Apple crisp is one of those dishes that fills the house with a wonderful odor, so it really wasn't far from my mind. Except when I went out to rake leaves.

It all ended well, though, I rescued the apple crisp in time, and was ready to dish it out when I realized I hadn't taken a photo of the finished product (hence the spoon). It turned out delicious. The granola cereal gives it a little extra flavor. I think that I might put a few raisins on top the next time I use plain oatmeal, they add a nice texture and color to the dessert. Speaking of desserts, I have a separate blog called Dessert Survivor. I don't post on it often, but Dessert Survivor picks up the slack. If you want to see some desserts, head there.

In real life, the dessert isn't really done when you take it out of the oven. There's always the cleanup!

If you want to check out this cool apple peeler, click on the photo.

Bazaar desserts

2008-11-13T19:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the annual St. Augustine Church Bazaar, a turkey dinner with much fund raising after. Of course they had desserts, which were bazaar desserts but not bizarre deserts. I wanted to try out my new camera, but found that the picture I took with my old camera was actually better. (I need to read the manual--there are a lot of buttons I do not understand yet.)
I did not have cookies tonight--I had blueberry pie instead. It was a change of pace from apple crisp in the morning, apple crisp in the evening, apple crisp just about all the time.

Dessert in the zoo

2008-10-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday night I was on the road again to Indianapolis with a bunch of college students for a networking event. Some of our junior and senior students met and mingled alumni, getting a chance to practice their social skills and to hear what life can be like after graduation. I am not sure why they wanted me to go along, but for some reason they do. Maybe they just enjoy seeing how ridiculous I look in a suit and a tie.
This year the event was held on the grounds of the Indianapolis zoo, in the White River Gardens. We were in the Hulman Riverhouse and it had a spectacular view of downtown Indianapolis.
I do not think I was supposed to go there, but there is a large conservatory just off to the side of the hallway, and I stepped in to take a picture, shown below.
The reception had a lot of hors d'oeuvres, including a plate with a lot of different cheeses. I tried the all, even the ones that had green lines in them.
Unfortunately, they did not have either cookies or cake. The only thing that could function as dessert was a tray of cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple, and grapes, which were very good and certainly a lot healthier than cookies or cake.

After a couple hours of socializing, it was back on the bus or into the cars to return home. So we left the still-lighted hall to return to our homework and class preparation. And to find some good cookies.

CDC cake

2008-10-28T20:34:00.001-07:00

Tuesday evening we attended the annual dinner for CDC, an organization that provides services for children and adults with mentally or physically disabilities. They have been active for 55 years! And since they had cake, I thought I should take a picture or two and post them.

One cake was chocolate and one was not. There were a lot of people there, and almost all the cake was gone when we left.
This year the dinner was held in Monticello. CDC provides important services for the communities in which it operates and appreciates any support they get.

Wedding cakes

2008-10-20T21:51:00.001-07:00

The reason I was staying in a motel and eating Chinese food was to attend a wedding. I attended a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, and it featured an ice cream cake. I almost did not get a picture of it because it was eaten so quickly.
For the wedding itself I made sure I got a picture of the cake before anyone started eating it. I never did get back to show you want was inside. There were two kinds of cake, and the kind I had--I think it was chocolate--was very good.
Best wishes to M & M.

Motel cookies

2008-10-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

I recently stayed several nights in a motel that not only provided breakfast in the morning, but also set out cookies at night. (I almost wrote that they provided a free breakfast, but caught myself. The cost of staying there included the breakfast and the cookies--there really was nothing free.)
Anyway, the cookies not only looked very good, but were very good. This young gentleman totally agreed. (Maybe we should call him "dessert boy.")

Chinese dessert

2008-10-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to a Chinese buffet, and got to sample their "Chinese" desserts. I doubt it they were really Chinese--I do not think that dessert is a traditional part of Chinese meals. What they had looked pretty good. I was less impressed with the taste.
Of course they had fortune cookies. None of the fortunes, though, were as intriguing as the advertisement on the table for Coke: "Refresh your thirst." Doesn't refresh mean renew, revive, or restore? Does the ad mean that you can take some water to quench your thirst, then drink some Coke to renew it, so you can drink some more water?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Picnicking with the Education Club

2008-10-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

The Education Club at Saint Joseph's College had a picnic on the first Sunday in October, and I was invited. The day was sunny and warm (for October), and the kids were having a great time catching (or in some cases, trying to catch) minnows. (They were using kitchen utensils as fish nets. I hope they get washed well before they go back on the kitchen shelves.)
Who really cares if you catch anything as long as you can get soaking wet?
The students enjoyed the food and the conversation.
This little boy enjoyed his bottle. He also later got very wet when he went down to the lake. (According to Desert Survivor, his diaper should have weighed about 2.5 pounds.)
And here another little kid tries to finish his potato chips while I torment him and he tries to capture a lady bug.
The picnic had a lot of food, and a tremendous amount of dessert. The delicious brownies alone would have been plenty.
However, the picnic also had a huge box of cookies. After just three I was overloaded on sugar and had to stop. So many cookies, so little space in the stomach. Sometimes life is not fair.

Volleyball Cake

2008-09-24T03:20:00.000-07:00

The volleyball team had a faculty-appreciation night Tuesday and not only invited faculty members to the game but also gave them pizza and cake.

The animal on the cake that is on top of the volleyball is supposed to be a puma, our mascot. I am surprised that most people had taken white cake before I took the picture. Maybe they started on the right and did not realize that there was a chocolate side to the cake. Naturally, I sampled the chocolate side. It was very good.

Shouldn't every team on campus have a faculty appreciation night, complete with cake and/or cookies?

Cookies at the Library

2008-09-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

As part of its programs to entertain and inform the people of the area, last night my local library had a musical performance. A professor from the local college played a variety of tunes on an electronic keyboard with a range of electronic enhancements. (Desert Survivor does not have a local library--she only has a bookmobile that comes by every few weeks. She should write about that sometime in her desertsurvivor blog.) Although the music was fun and free, there were only about 30 people in attendance. To make the evening extra special, there were cookies and refreshments at the end. I think most of the cookies were homemade, but I am not sure. The kinds I tested were very good. I did not try the pink stuff below, but it looked good.
I will have to pay attention for more library programs that feature cookies.

My Forrest Gump Day

2008-09-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

I took a really long run this morning, the first in over a year and a half. Last year I had a bad knee and could not run during the summer. This year I have gradually run more, but before today, my longest run was only eight miles.

I took my camera, but did not see anything interesting to shoot. However, I do like taking a picture of the junction signs at the point furthest out. (I live at approximately 580W and 520S.)
I checked my route on http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/index.asp?, which is one of several sites that lets you plot running routes, and it came to 15.7 miles. My watch said it took about 157 minutes, so I managed to average ten-minute miles. I ran faster than that the first eight miles, but much slower the last four. My muscles are not too sore, and more important, neither are the joints. However, I have not had energy to do much today.

Now I need to go now and eat some delicious peach oatmeal crisp to get my strength back.

Peaches II

2008-08-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

My abundance of little peaches continues, but last night I had time to do something more complex (but still very simple) with them than what I did in my previous post. I started with 3 cups of oatmeal, a cup of flour, half cup of white sugar, and half a cup of brown sugar, plus a pinch of salt. I added about half a cup of canola oil, and with a fork blended it until it was uniform.

Then I barely covered the bottom of a 9 by 13 pan with the mixture and set one cup of it aside. Next I added about two quarts of cut up and mangled little peaches to the remaining mix, stirred it to coat them with the mixture, and added the whole gooey mess to the pan. The remaining one cup of mixture then was spread over the top and the whole thing went into the oven for an hour and a half at 355 degrees. The result is shown below. It is very good, so good that it does not need ice cream.

The most time-consuming part was separating the peaches from the pits, but I had help with that. They were not skinned because these little peaches will not separate from their skins. I guess it needs a name. How about "peach oatmeal crisp?"

Peaches

2008-08-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have a peach tree that grew from a pit, and while it usually produces many peaches that are very tasty, I keep wondering if I should cut it down. In fact, once I did cut it down, but it grew back and I rewarded it for its determination to stay alive by not cutting it down again.

Why cut down a productive peach tree? The peaches are small, the size of plums, they have a tough skin that cracks as they grow, and the cracks encourage rot. In some years almost the whole crop will rot on the tree. Plus they are clingstone, so they do not separate well from the pit, making them hard to process. As the picture should indicate, they are visually unappealing, so I cannot even give them away.
This year the rot has not been bad so far, and it looks like it might be the most productive year ever for this tree. I have dozens of these peaches sitting on the table, and I am wondering what I can do with them. My answer for tonight was to cut them into pieces.
And then serve them with ice cream. What a simple but tasty recipe I have discovered!
Now if I can figure out what to do with the grapes. Last year the birds ate most of them. This year the birds have not found them. Yet.

Wild Black Cherries

2008-08-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

We are getting close to time when many fruit trees will be ready to harvest. This year my apple trees are taking the year off, but I should get some peaches. While I wait, I have been looking at some other trees. The local park has some crab apple trees. It is easy to make apple sauce from them, but it does not taste as good as regular apple sauce.
When I was jogging the other week, I noticed some wild black cherries. These are tiny compared to domesticated cherries, and the trees get much, much bigger. I searched the internet for dessert recipes, and I could not find much. What I did find was that the cherry trees could be dangerous for livestock.
I improvised, and though the results were edible, they were not good enough so that you would want to repeat what I did. Maybe next year I will figure out something that will taste delicious using these tiny cherries.

Party Cake

2008-08-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

My favorite granddaughter was baptized this week, and there was a reception for the occasion with a delicious cake from a bakery.
It was a marble cake, which I guess means that it was both white and chocolate. Definitely as good as cookies.

Dessert Survivor Wins a Shoe

2008-08-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about running in a little 5K. This week I ran in a much bigger one, with over 500 runners. In a race this big, you never run alone, and that helps you run faster.

The treats at the finish line were very different from last week. There were cookies, but they were McDonald's cookies. All the rest of the food was gone at the end, except the McDonald's cookies.
They also had watermelon, cantaloupe, and bananas. The watermelon was especially refreshing after an exhausting run.
And they had two kinds of tasty muffins. They were almost as good as real cookies.
This race gives away shoes to winners of all the different age categories because it was once part of a festival called the Touch of Dutch festival. It was named for the heavy Dutch settlement of the area. For reasons I do not understand, it was renamed the Town and Country festival, a far less interesting name in my opinion. Anyway, the race, called the Rotary Ramble, is one of the best 5Ks in the area. It attracts some very talented runners, and this year it was the state champion meet for some group.
I managed to cut my time from last week by almost a minute. The cooler weather (and some serious training at the beginning of the week) probably contributed. I was in the top half of the race, and finished third of ten in my age group, which was good enough for a shoe. (There are a lot of age groups, so they give away a lot of shoes. It is really tough to win one if you are in high school because there are so many high school runners who enter.)
I probably will not run another 5K this year, so now I can worry less about how those cookies will affect my running time.

Running a 5K

2008-08-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

I (Dessert Survivor) entered my first 5K race in almost two years on Saturday. Each 5K is different, but there are some things you expect from a well-managed race.

Generally you can register in advance and save a few dollars, but you also can register at the check-in.
When you do check in, you get usually get a goodie bag, and the highlight is usually a tee shirt. This year the race organizers gave long-sleeved tee shirts, which are great for running in the fall and winter.
There is time to kill before the race. One important thing to do is make sure you know where the nearest facilities are, especially if you are an old man.
After a lot of milling around and talking to friends, people are eager to get started. They line up on the start line several minutes before the start, and everyone tries to find the best position. This race is held before the new school year begins and there are kids who will be running cross country in the fall. They usually claim the first row, and they start fast.
We are off and running. I am old, perhaps the oldest runner in the race, and it takes a while for me to get into a comfortable pace. There is a tendency for young runners to start too fast and run out of gas later. I always enjoy passing them.
This year the race had a different course because the old course had road construction. But like the old course, it was an out-and-back rather than a loop. With an out-and-back those of us who are not so fast will get to see who is leading the race. Here Naza, as expected, has pulled away from the field. Naza runs cross country in college and loves to run. The picture is a bit fuzzy because I am taking it as I am running and I cannot hold the camera steady.
I finally get round the turnaround and start back. There are people ahead of me and people behind me. I have closed the gap on the girl ahead of me and will eventually pass her.
By the end of the race I was running alone, about 30 seconds behind a group ahead of me and about 30 seconds ahead of the person behind me. (The race results will tell me if that my impression was correct.) I have run about as fast as I can and it takes me about fifteen minutes to catch my breath. Three years ago I was more than a minute faster. Can I blame old age?
Waiting at the finish are cold drinks, cookies, and apples. Yes, cookies. Dessert after the race. Next to the tee shirt, the cookies and drinks are the most important reward for entering a race. I drink three little bottles of gator aide, and eat an apple and a bunch of cookies. (I like cookies.) According to one calories counter, I expended about 400 calories running the race. But I consume a lot more after the race. Does running this race causes me to gain weight?
After the race there is a drawing for various prizes. The winners are usually pretty happy, even if what they won is not very useful to them. The prizes are mostly donated by sponsors, and they get a little ad on the back of the tee shirt. This year I did not win anything.
And then there are the results and the ribbons for age divisions. I got a red ribbon. Unfortunately for me a super runner, Roger S, is in my age group. He ran a bit over 19 minutes. Once school starts, the high school and college runners no longer enter the 5Ks, and Roger wins many of the races he enters even though he is over 55 years old. I was about four minutes slower than Roger.

Better Than Dessert?

2008-08-01T18:06:00.001-07:00

Ummm. Is there anything better than freshly picked and cooked sweet corn?

Blackberries (the kind you eat)

2008-07-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I discovered a patch of blackberries about a mile from my house. (There are many benefits to jogging and riding a bike.) Blackberries are brambles as are raspberries, but when you pick them, raspberries are hollow and blackberries are not.

With a new source of fruit, I felt compelled to alter my raspberry-rhubarb crisp recipe for blackberries. I even had enough confidence in the result to take some to a carry-in picnic. (The arrow points to the blackberry-rhubarb concoction below.)
There were so many good desserts that I could not sample them all. The picture does not show even half of them. Some of the people who tried the easy blackberry-rhubarb crisp even said that they liked it. And no one died (so far). In fact, I was a little disappointed that they ate so much of it: there will be less in the mornings for me.
At least where I live, blackberries mature later than raspberries, so there is a supply of fresh bramble fruit lasting for about a month. I think that is great.

The Magical Fruit

2008-07-25T17:44:00.000-07:00

My garden is finally producing abundant beans. This year I did not plant enough in the sunnier part of the garden, so bean abundance has been a bit late. (Beans are so productive that they produce even in partial shade. Many garden vegetables do nothing at all in partial shade.)
Beans are one of the foods that were developed in the Americas. Other American-developed fruits and vegetables are tomatoes, corn (maize) including sweet corn, potatoes, squash and pumpkins, peanuts, and sweet potatoes. European diets were pretty boring before Columbus.

Green beans are best when picked young and tender. We prepare them by steaming them. Some people like them al dente; I do not. If steamed too long, they get mushy. When we have abundance, we have more beans than we can eat at one meal, and then I can eat them cold for lunch the next day. After many summers of fresh green beans, I have a hard time eating canned or frozen green beans. They are just so inferior to fresh beans.

If you let green beans ripen, you can harvest the seeds and used them as dried beans, which are an excellent source of protein. In fact, dried beans were once used as an example to illustrate the economic concept of inferior good, a good which people used less of as their incomes rose. As people got richer, they could afford meat, so they dropped dried beans from their diet.

Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit. Eat lots of vegetables and then you can survive many desserts.

One Hundred Pushups Challenge

2008-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

So have you been enjoying a lot of desserts lately and want a quick way to get in shape and feel stronger? Me too. Here's the latest fad, one that I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and do:

one hundred pushups.

There's a six-week training plan, taking about 30 minutes a week, and at the end of the program you should be able to do 100 pushups. If you'd like to learn more about it, visit http://www.hundredpushups.com/.

I'll let you know how it goes. Good luck!

Easy Raspberry-Rhubarb Crisp

2008-07-19T07:07:00.001-07:00

I have had black raspberries growing in the back yard for years. They are very seedy, and mostly I have just ignored them. But this year my son and daughter-in-law wrote about how much they were enjoying the various bramble fruits. And one of the bloggers I sometimes read wrote about raspberry pie. So I decided to try my black raspberries.

I like easy recipes, the easier the better. I am even willing to trade off quite a bit of taste to get more ease. This recipe does not give you the world’s best raspberry-rhubarb crisp, but it is very easy.

Combine:
2 cups of oatmeal
A cup or a cup and a half of flour
A pinch of salt
A half a cup of brown sugar
Between a half a cup and a cup of sugar

The amount of sugar depends on how sweet you want it. If you like things a bit tart, keep the sugar low. If you want it sweet, increase it.

Add 1/3 cup or so of vegetable oil. Corn oil or canola oil work well. With a fork thoroughly blend the mixture. Cover the bottoms of two glass pie plates, which should take between 1/3 and 1/2 of the mixture.

As for the fruit, you should have a cup to two cups of raspberries, and about four cups of rhubarb cut into small pieces. (I know that technically rhubarb is not a fruit, but we will call it fruit anyway.) Make sure the rhubarb is not woody. One stalk of woody rhubarb will ruin anything you make using rhubarb, and as the stems get older, the veins get woody.

Spread the fruit evenly in the two pie plates. Then cover the fruit with the remaining crisp mixture.

We could put this in a conventional oven and bake about an hour, but it is much easier and the results are as good if we put it in a microwave for seven to eight minutes. It is not done if the rhubarb is still holding its shape. When properly cooked, the rhubarb will be reduced to mush and the juices of the raspberries and the rhubarb will soak into much of the crisp mixture. If it is runny, you have put in too much fruit relative to the crisp mixture. (I have had that happen because I do not measure very well, and if I have lots of fruit, I use it.)

You could serve this as a dessert; it works well with ice cream. But I prefer it with yogurt as breakfast. The oatmeal, fruit, and yogurt make it a healthy start to the day, but it tastes like dessert in the morning. Here is the result, served with some blueberry yogurt.

(Variations: You can eliminate the raspberries altogether and make a rhubarb crisp. You can replace the raspberries and rhubarb with cherries and the results are very good. You can also replace them with peaches or apples. As you get sweeter fruit, you should compensate by using less sugar. With really sweet apples, you might not want to use any sugar at all. And if the fruit is watery when cooked, use more flour. If the fruit is not watery, use less flour.)

Yummy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-07-15T13:46:00.001-07:00

I ate some Chips Ahoy the other day and decided that homemade cookies are so much better that I took some time to make them. I used the recipe on the back of the chocolate chips package, but of course I had to tweak it a little. Add some M&Ms, a little less flour, and add 1/3 cup oatmeal (to make it healthier and counteract the M&Ms). They turned out super. What's your favorite change to the standard chocolate chip recipe?

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

2008-07-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

Okay, I know you're supposed to start a recipe post with the finished product. But we scarfed it down so fast that I didn't get a chance. In fact, my husband finished the rhubarb crumb bars off at breakfast this morning. He was lucky I was out doing a bird survey or I might have beat him to them. So here's a photo of the rhubarb I'm going to use for the second batch.

Our wonderful neighbor had given us a bunch of rhubarb and I looked on the internet until I found a recipe that sounded healthy. It's got oatmeal in it, so it's got to be healthy. We'll ignore the butter, sugar, and brown sugar part of it. Besides, rhubarb, always needs a little help, doesn't it?

Here's the recipe, a tasty dessert (or breakfast) good in or out of the desert:

Ingredients:
Top and bottom "crust"
1/2 cup butter, (melted)
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

Filling
1 egg (beaten)
1 Tbls butter (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 Tbls flour
1/4 teas nutmeg
2 cups rhubarb (cut into 1/2" pieces)

Directions:
Mix butter, brown sugar, flour, and oatmeal, until crumbly. Press 1/2 into greased 9" square pan. In another bowl, beat egg, mix in butter, sugar, flour, nutmeg and rhubarb. Beat until smooth. Top with other half crumb mixture, press mixture down lightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

If you happen to have lots of rhubarb and need more ideas of what to do with it, here's a website to the rescue: http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/