Surviving the Burbs

I found this wonderful recipe for a Lebanese lamb and bean stew.  Besides being a delicious fall or winter meal, the aromas that waft through the house while cooking are scrumptious.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Lebanese Lamb and Bean Stew Recipe at Epicurious.com.

The restructuring and social engineering of America.

American Thinker: UN Agenda 21 – Coming to a Neighborhood near You.

I never seem to use all the celery I buy without half of it wilting before I get to it.  And I failed miserably trying to grow celery in my garden.  So I have to find ways to buy celery without waste.  With my new aim of being frugal, I found this site that shows you how to freeze celery.  Frozen celery doesn’t do well for using it raw, but works great for those soups and stews you’ll want to be making this coming cold winter.

Freezing Celery.

Monsanto is the first and only company to get a patent on life forms (plants). Our two plans, corn and soy, are genetically altered to resist only their Roundup herbicide. If their product crossbreeds with other farmers’ produce, they lay clai…m to that produce and steal the land. Here’s birth defects created by the Roundup.GM Soy Herbicide Linked to Birth Defects.

I heard this was a pretty fiery board meeting.  I’m sorry I missed it.  Next time I hope to find that link to the webcast.

Fredericksburg.com – Stafford board hears Comp Plan criticisms.

I have an abundance of hot peppers – jalapenos, cayene, habaneros, seranos.  So time to use them up or preserve them.

Making and using Hot Sauce | Tips & Techniques.

My garden is coming to the end of its season and the stevia plants are about to seed.  I use the stevia liquid for iced tea and the stevia powder for hot drinks and baking, but these are pretty expensive to buy.  I went looking for a recipe to make with my homegrown stevia and found a good one at About Eating.

Homemade Stevia Extract:  Stevia.

I wanted to do some research on Sucralose (Splenda product) to see how ‘natural’ it was as Splenda claims.  It seems not natural at all but not sure about it’s harm. I’m of the opinion, natural is best.  Splenda in a nutshell is a combination of sugar and chlorine and was discovered by scientists trying to develop an insecticide.  That immediately sent up a caution flag for me.  Here are some very interesting articles about Splenda:

How Sucralose (aka Splenda) Is Made And Why You Want To Avoid It « Life With my Kids.

From the Splenda site:  http://www.splenda.com/page.jhtml?id=splenda/faqs/nocalorie.inc#q2

From a chemist-turned-comsumer-advocate:  http://www.thepeopleschemist.com/view_learning.php?learning_id=14

And side-effects (mostly affecting females):  http://www.zhion.com/Ingredients/Suralose.html

This sounds and looks delicious!  I’ll have to try the recipe this weekend.

Whole Story » Blog Archive » Secret Ingredient Flourless Brownies.

MSG is another culprit in weight gain.  Another on the list of artificial ingredients, flavors, preservatives and additives that have increased manyfold in consumption and are causing health issues.  Here’s the article which describes the harm and studies done.

The Surprising Ingredient Causing Weight Gain on Yahoo Health.