Gluten Free

It has been suggested that Val try a gluten free diet. She has a couple audio-immune issues. Well, in support of my pal I've started checking out; first what the hell is gluten and how do you cut it out of your diet. Let me tell ya, gluten is in lots of stuff! The first thing I did was "google" it, what is gluten? I found this wonderful blog Gluten Free Girl; she explained everything. I learned more than I really wanted to know about gluten.

Another blog I stumbled upon was Fat Free Vegan; and being a vegetarian this one was right up my alley.

After reading various blogs and websites I realized I don't have a ton of gluten in my diet. When I turned 40 I put myself on a pretty strict diet in order to dump 25 pounds. The first things to go were bread, pasta and beer. I've kept the bread and pasta to a minimum, Lord knows I'm not giving up my beer forever. One thing that surprised me was the gluten in veggie burgers. I'm now going to attempt to make my own veggie burgers, this has been on my "to do" list for a long time and I think this is a great time to cross that off my list. It will save me money and I'll eat healthier.

I spent the last hour cruising recipes, now I'll need to find guinea pigs to help me taste est them. I have a list made and I'm off to the market...

Sexuality Update

Locasexual n. An environmentalist who applies locavore logic to affection and, on principle, will date only locally. Refusing long-distance attachments and coolly calculating "sex miles," this carbon-conscious canoodler makes love as romantic as a spreadsheet.

Demisexual A "demisexual" is someone who is experiencing a level between sexuality and asexuality. The person does not experience sexual attraction to people based on appearance but rather on their level of intimate connection with the person.

Next up; Word of the Gay!

Just Realized...

It's been over a month since I've written anything. I'll blame it on Jake, he's my new dog. A trouble makin' Puggle; if he wasn't so cute the job of training him would be much easier. I got Jake from my cousin back in June, I'm his third owner and he has not had much for training and the little he has received has not been consistant. He's pretty good with sit and lay down but getting him to come to me when I call his name is a challenge. One would think he were deaf or something. He does not play fetch but loves it if you chase him around the yard. I'm not one for chasing a dog so we are working on other games. He loves to take my shoes and/or socks and run off with them. If I give chase he is in heaven so I've learned to distract him with something else, trade a toy for my shoe/sock. Does that mean he's training me?

I spent the last two days well if you count today three days dealing with him being sick. Seriously sick. Jake loves finding things in the backyard and chewing on them. I have know idea what he got into but he started puking Friday night. Jake is normally full of energy and driving me crazy. Friday evening he was sleeping pretty early and I thought I had finally figured out how to tire him out, don't let him take any naps during the day but I guess that wasn't it, he was sick. Jake continued being sick most of Saturday; I'm not going go into the gross details but let's say there was blood involved so I took him to the emergency animal clinic. Fortunately there is one close to my house. I called them ahead of time so I did not have to wait as long as some people but even so I was there for about 3 hours. They took x-rays to be sure he did not have a blockage then ran a series of blood and urine tests. Around 6 pm last night it was decided that he would stay over night at the clinic so they could hydrate him and administer some anti puke drugs and antibiotics. I picked him up this morning around 5 AM and he's been feeling pretty good. I have a couple medications I need to give him and he's on a "bland" diet for the rest of the week. So far today he has kept down his food. His energy is slowly coming back. They could not find out what was wrong with him, guessing it was something he ate.

Aside from Jake entering my life not a lot else has changed. I'm spending a lot of time at home which was on my game plan for this year. Trying to save money and complete some of my house projects. I've made contact with some old friends and it's been fun catching up with them.

I started playing Bocce ball on Sunday evenings, it's been a lot of fun and I've made some new friends. The league I'm playing in is not competitive at all, just a group of people out having fun. Just the kind of sport I like.

That's all folks...

Hard Boiled Eggs

Today when I got home from work I decided I had better use the avocados I have before they go to waste. I've been working on my guacamole recipe for a while and I think I may have perfected it today. I like it pretty spicy but I know most people don't so I try to make it medium hot instead of burn your lips off hot.

Once my tomatoes start coming in I will probably have to revise my recipe so that I can use the fresh tomatoes. As it is now I use two avocados, a 10 ounce can of RO*TEL diced tomatoes and green chilies (drained, seriously drained or it gets too runny), oh about a tablespoon of fresh chopped garlic, a little salt and pepper, ground cayenne pepper and cumin. Mix it all together, put some plastic wrap over it making sure I get out as much air as I can, then pop it into the fridge for a few hours. I use guacamole on most anything, veggie burgers, in a sandwich, scrambled eggs, I toss some in a tortilla with shredded cheese and salsa, and of course nachos one of my favorite deliciously sinful treats.

Anyway, as I was going in and out of the refrigerator I remembered how over the weekend I had had a salad and there were hard boiled eggs in the salad. I really like hard boiled eggs and never seem to make them so I decided I would boil a few up to take in my lunch for work. This got me to thinking, how do you hard boil an egg?!? I know this sounds silly, I've boiled eggs and colored them a million times and when Anne was living here they were a staple in our diet. But for the life of me I could not remember how long to boil them. So of course I googled it and came up with 2,770,000 results.

I found out a lot about how to hard boil an egg and why they turn out or don't turn out in some cases. That dark green color around the yolk is caused from over cooking them. You want to use eggs that are a few days old, using fresh eggs will lead to eggs that are difficult to peel.

Here's the method I used and they turned out just fine:

Put the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, covered by at least an inch or two of cold water. Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil will help keep them from cracking ( I had one egg crack but it gave me an excuse to eat it for dinner). Adding a tablespoon of vinegar to the water will help keep the egg whites from running out of any eggs that happen to crack while cooking, but some people find that the vinegar affects the taste. I did not add vinegar and the egg that cracked was not a big deal. Adding a half teaspoon of salt is thought to help both with the preventing of cracking and making the eggs easier to peel. I added a splash of salt but as I said I had one egg crack but it was easy to peel. Put the burner on high and bring the eggs to a boil.

As soon as the water starts to boil reduce the heat to low. Let simmer for one minute. (Note I skiped this step because I didn't notice the eggs boiling until they had been boiling for at least a minute! Also, if you are using an electric stove with a coil element, you can just turn off the heat. There is enough residual heat in the coil to keep the eggs simmering for a minute.)

After a minute, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes. If you are doing a large batch of eggs, after 10 minutes you can check for doneness by sacrificing one egg, removing it with a slotted spoon, running it under cold water, and cutting it open. If it isn't done, cook the other eggs a minute or two longer. The eggs should be done perfectly at 10 minutes, but sometimes, depending on the shape of the pan, the size of the eggs, the number of eggs compared to the amount of water, and how cooked you like them, it can take a few minutes more. When you find the right time that works for you given your pan, the size of eggs you usually buy, the type of stove top you have, stick with it. I boiled 6 eggs, let them sit for 12 minutes and they turned out fine.

Either remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water (this is if you have a lot of eggs) OR strain out the water from the pan, fill the pan with cold water, strain again, fill again, until the eggs cool down a bit. Once cooled, strain the water from the eggs. Store the eggs in a covered container (eggs can release odors) in the refrigerator. They should be eaten within 5 days. I drained the water out of the pan, filled it with cold water, repeated this a couple times them dried them and put them into the fridge. Oh yeah and I didn't use a slotted spoon I used my fingers, after rinsing in cold water a few times they were no longer hot.

I think it is so funny that I can forget something as easy as boiling an egg. While I was on google I also looked up recipes for using rhubarb, it looks like I'll have a bumper crop this year. I'm not a huge fan of the stuff so I'm always looking for ways of using it in recipes. I found a couple I'm going to try, ones a rhubarb chutney and the other is rhubarb cream cheese cake. I believe I already have the ingredients needed for the cake so if it rains tomorrow like they forecast then I'm going to give it a try. I can always take it to curling with me on Thursday and get my team mates to help me eat it.

OK, so that's my egg story.

Church vs Church

An article in Time caught my attention this morning as nearly every article about Gay marriage does these days. I have never been a huge advocate of the institution of marriage but this issue for me is not about "marriage" it's about equality, equal rights under the law. "Freedom and Liberty for all."

They're discussing whether "Gay Marriage" will pit churches against each other or not. This is something I just don't understand. I fully believe a church has the right to discriminate against those who do not share their beliefs. If the church does not want to perform marriages between two men or two women then they don't have to do it.

This is what I don't understand about these churches they make it out as though by giving equal rights to Gay people they will then have to perform Gay marriages. As far as I'm concerned they can keep on preaching their ideas and beliefs, I don't agree with them but they have a right to believe whatever they want.

I do understand their concern that if Gay people are allowed equal rights then Lord forbid we might have to start thinking their "chosen lifestyle" is OK. We can't have that! I mean really how can the church continue to dictate how we live our lives if we were to start thinking maybe what they are teaching is BS?

I wonder what would happen if people actually picked up a copy of the bible and started to read it! We could have a revolution on our hands. Can you imagine a group of Catholics actually reading the bible for themselves and not having a Pope tell them what is in it?!? Imagine if a person was to read more than one bible, something other than King James version. That always gets me "King James" version that should tell people right away that this is someone elses interpretation of the original. And who wrote the original, a group of men attempting to control the masses? The bible should come with disclaimers on it like any book of fiction, "this is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously."

I don't know I guess if the biggest issue facing our country is whether or not Gay people should be able to marry and be treated equally under the law then our country is not that bad off. Here I thought we were in an economic crisis, we have terrorists hovering over us ready to attack, global warming, people dying of diseases, living in the streets, a war against drugs, a war in several countries...

I'm happy to know our biggest worry is those damn Gay people wanting equal rights.