deliriumsama's Profile

I have a basket that sits on my bike's rack; I would rather get pannier baskets. This sort of arrangement may look nice, but if you put heavy-ish things in it, like, say, a 12-pack, it raises the center of gravity of your bike enough to really REALLY suck.

I'm experimenting with dairy free ice creams this year, since several of my friends are Vegan. There's a number of blogs out there dedicated to Vegan food, and some that are even dedicated to vegan ice cream in particular. There are also a number of vegan cookbooks that might be helpful for you. Thus far, I've had good luck subbing half almond milk and half coconut milk. The flavor is great!

Texturewise, I've read arrowroot powder being recommended, but I haven't been able to find any in my local markets, so I can't attest to it's usefulness.

One very important thing: DO NOT LEAVE LIQUIDS ON YOUR DESK.

Our cat likes to try to drink out of glasses, and we've come out in the morning to find our keyboards drenched on several occasions. Now we just do a final sweep before we "leave" the office for the night.

I do occasionally end up typing around my cats, but they usually prefer to lay in the sun on the back of the couch and stare out the window, so it's not an issue.

Tiamat_the_Red: My favorite store carries them. I know. You're shocked.

If your landlord will let you, get rid of the lawn, and plant veggies. Or something drought resistant. Put in a rock garden (if maintained, these can be really pretty).

If your landlord WON'T let you, just use a pushmower on a regular schedule. We had one, and we had a fairly large lawn. It was irritating, but less so than a huge gas mower that we would have had to maintain and fuel. Just keep it sharp, and you'll be fine.

Emma,

Welcome to the wonderful world of canning! I'm glad you found it so simple.

I love showing people how easy it is; the hard part is making the preserves, or prepping the veg. The canning is EASY.

A note on those salad tongs: I have a pair of silicon coated tongs I got from Ikea for about $5; they work fantastically for lifting jars. Regular metal tongs might slip, as in mdmeyer's experience above. You can also use one of those Orca Mits, the heat-proof silicon oven mitts. They advertise being able to submerge your hand in water while in the mit, so that should work.

I personally really enjoy small batch canning. It means that I don't need to spend a bundle on 15lbs of fruit to get started, and it also means that I don't end up eating the same thing every day for a full year. I find, too, that I'm more comfortable experimenting with smaller batches; if I want to try blackberry Meyer lemon marmalade, for example, I'm going to make a small batch first in case it doesn't turn out the way I want.

One major thing I've done to help keep my Fiance and I at a healthy weight is to cut out almost all processed foods, in particular, white flour. Pasta was a constant in my house, and it was really challenging to get used to cooking other things as my default foods, but it's done good things for both of us in terms of weight and energy. Sadly, whole wheat pasta doesn't cut it, so we just have pasta once a month or so, now.

Another major change we made was to start using our salad plates, and some darling little dessert bowls instead of full sized dishes. This makes controlling portion size less an act of will, and more a decision not to spill everywhere. Plus, hey, darling little dessert bowls! The only thing we use large plates for now is salads. ^_^
We also choose to eat at the table more frequently, and I choose to have a full glass of water between servings; if I'm still hungry after the first serving, I have a full glass of water, then wait half an hour. If I'm still hungry then, I eat more.

Lastly, we eat a lot less meat now. We made this change originally because our income dropped (yay recession food!), but now it's because we feel better without it, and I now have more recipes for vegetarian food than for non. We still have meat once a week or so, but usually it's something like a few strips of bacon, diced into a salad, or beef diced into a soup.

A trick I use, too, is to run my recipes through a calorie calculator and just kind of take note as to what is high cal, and what is low cal; some things have really surprised me. Split pea soup with ham is phenomenally low calorie, so is falafel. These things go into the "weekly" rotation. Spaghetti and meatballs are on the "special occasion" rotation. Roast chicken is on the "monthly-ish" rotation. There isn't anything we "can't" eat, just things that we don't eat regularly.

... and we took up rock climbing and yoga, which also helps.

I work at a bookkeeping firm; I'll be having a few of those cocktails tonight when work finishes up, let me tell you! This is not the week to work with finances.

RubyJane: If you were going to buy an electric burr grinder, you'd be spending a whole lot more than $75 or $80. Most of the manual ones that I've seen are beautiful, and come with 25 year or lifetime guarantees. I'd say they're worth it, personally. I don't have one, yet, though. I would recommend figuring out which one you like in person, then going online and reading reviews about that specific model before you buy if you're that worried about it.

I'll stick with my scotch eggs for my deepfried breakfast pleasure, thanks.