It hurts to be cheap

I'm not always cheap.  I'm more than willing to pay $6.00 for a Chai Tea Latté with Lactose Free Milk at least once a week.  But in most other aspects of my life I look for bargains.  Why buy fancy expensive shampoo when my hair is less than a 1/4 in long?  Designer or brand name clothes?  Who needs them.  So when I found no-name brand low-end razors on sale, I scooped them up.  A razor is a razor, right? Do I really need triple blade, pivoting action with aloe gel strips?  Of course not.  I'm just going to shave my legs.  I've been doing this for 30 years now.  It's not that hard.

Let this be a cautionary tale to women every where. Spend the extra $$ on the fancy razors, lest you end up looking like this:

I actually had to remove a piece of skin from the razor blades.  I screamed in the shower when the water hit the open gaping wound.  24 hours later it started bleeding again when I changed the band-aid.  

It's a good thing the weather has cooled off, as I don't think I'll be shaving again till next summer!

Run for the Cure

Now that I'm running on a regular basis, I figured I should use my power for good! I'm hoping to raise at least $150 for the Run for the Cure 5K run on October 6th.

Breast Cancer will affect one out of every nine women in their lifetime. One out of 29 will not make it. Although the stats have improved tremendously over the past 20 years due to early detection, we'd like to see that number disappear. The funds raised from Run for the Cure will go a long way in helping with research, education and health promotion.

I have been very fortunate that my immediate circle of friends and family have not been affected by breast cancer. Two of Liam's teachers have, parents and relatives of our friends have and so have co-workers. So it touches us all in some way. So while I'm not running for any one specific person, I am running for all women.


Please click on the "Donate Now"  button below to sponsor me.

Daring Kitchen - Gnocchi

This month's Daring Kitchen Challenge was to make Gnocchi.  I had only ever made Gnocchi once before, and that was using potato flakes instead of real potatoes. They were okay, but turned out very heavy and sticky.  This time, using not only real potatoes, but sweet potatoes and beets as well, they turned out light and fluffy and quite delicious. 

Blog-checking lines: Todd, who is The Daring Kitchen’s AWESOME webmaster and an amazing cook, is our September Daring Cooks’ host! Todd challenged us to make light and fluffy potato Gnocchi and encouraged us to flavor the lil pillows of goodness and go wild with a sauce to top them with!

I baked all 3 instead of boiling them.  It cuts down on the water content in your dough and gives them a sweeter taste.

I couldn't find our potato ricer, so I used the grater instead.  Other then being very messy, it worked well.

I couldn't conquer the technique of rolling each piece of dough over a fork to give it ridged details.  I went with slightly squashed or disk shaped instead.

After boiling the gnocchi for a few minutes, I tossed them in a brown butter and sage sauce, sautéeing lightly. 

The final dish.  I had planned on also making a spinach version, but I forgot to buy spinach.  I think the green would have looked great mixed in with the white orange and purple.  But 3 batches in one day was enough work, so maybe it was for the best.

A young Elder

Liam headed off to school this morning to start grade 5 - or be a young Elder as his school refers to them.  Being 11 and "all that" he was not too keen to have his picture taken!  But this camera totting Mama always gets her shot!

He agreed to the first shot, as long as that was all.  I tried to sneak in the rest, with mixed results!

I hope he has a fabulous year!