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This post might not be very exciting, but maybe it will help someone.

Our kids were drinking a fair bit of orange juice, due to the fact that we got a bunch of it from Costco. That was the orange juice that was ready to drink. But it ran out, and we didn’t have a Costco run planned anytime soon, so we got a can of orange juice concentrate from the normal grocery store.

The kids could tell the difference. It was name-brand orange juice even, but anything from the grocery store that was concentrated just didn’t have the same taste as the unconcentrated stuff. In fact, they wouldn’t even finish the pitcher of orange juice. So that fell to my dad duties of finishing food that the kids don’t in order not to waste any. I eventually, over the course of a few days, finished the orange juice. And I had to agree with them – the stuff from concentrate just doesn’t taste right.

Then my wife found this:

Doesn’t look like much, but it is OJ concentrate that actually tastes like the normal stuff. No bitterness or whatever. We can find this only at GFS, so good luck if you’re not near one of those.

Hmm… reading over my post, I see that it sounds like an advertisement. Oh well. It’s good stuff; I don’t mind giving them free publicity.

The Daniel Plan is a fairly successful diet to help people become healthier.

Physically.

But one’s physical body is only one aspect of oneself. What about mental health or emotional health or spiritual health?

Could we get Daniel Plans for those?

The Biblical Daniel plan, as opposed to the American Daniel Plan, was to eat only vegetables and drink only water, forgoing meat and wine (which would include today’s soft drinks, I assume).

To look at it another way, the Daniel meal plan is about eating what you need and what is good for you, not what you want and what pleases your taste buds.

If you take that concept and apply it to other areas, what would it look like?

Mental health – avoiding television? Limiting your playlist?

Emotional health – limiting your internet? being more selective in the books you choose?

Spiritual health – studying the Bible more? reading fewer blogs?

The only problem with the non-physical Daniel plan is that there is no good way to track progress. Physically, you can measure things: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. But the health aspects that are not physical are more subjective.

Go ahead and try a 10-day detox, not just of foods that are bad for you, but also of media that are bad for you. Chances are good that whatever pleases God will also be healthier for you – body, soul, mind, and spirit.

I tried a new food, and I’m going to pass it on to you. Consider this a belated Christmas gift.

Here it is:
Rice Krispy Treats made with Fruity Pebbles

Just make rice krispy treats like you normally would, but use Fruity Pebbles instead of plain Rice Krispies.

I would say they are about twice as good as the standard recipe.

It’s like rice krispy treats with flavor, not just sugar.

This variation is good, but my all-time favorite is still the rice krispy treats made with butterscotch and with a chocolate topping.

It’s good to have friends.

We have friends who have a pool. We get to enjoy swimming, and we don’t have to worry about maintenance.

And we have friends who have chickens. We have a few friends who have chickens. We get to enjoy fresh eggs, and we don’t have to worry about feeding them or cleaning the coop. All we have to do is give them empty egg cartons, and we get them back full.

Here’s a photo of part of our fridge:

That’s right – 7.5 dozen eggs. It seems all our friends had extra eggs all at once. Or rather, their chickens did.

We’re down to about 2 or 3 dozen now.

Anything you have a surplus of? That you’d like to send our way?
Raspberries?
Salmon?
Homemade bread?

• Peaches from a grocery store are much better if they’re packaged in glass instead of metal cans. I never knew that canned peaches could taste like peaches are supposed to taste. The tin cans remove all flavor. But the glass jars are awesome.
• Conversely, salsa is much better in plastic than in glass. But that’s because the salsa in plastic containers is fresh and will spoil quickly because it is not preserved, whereas the salsa in glass containers is meant to sit unspoiled for a long time. I have become used to fresh salsa and now I skip any glass jar salsa.
• If chicken salad is made without grapes and runs on the plain side in terms of both flavor and texture, throw some bread and butter pickles in the mix. Big improvement.
• If you’re eating at a Bob Evans restaurant, don’t let the little children get the Bunny Hop Cakes. Yes, they look fun, but that meal is essentially just frosting. We like the rest of Bob Evans’ offerings, but skip that one.
• I used to like going to Logan’s Roadhouse because they had good peach tea. They changed their recipe in the last year or two, and now they have great peach tea. I don’t know what they did, and I don’t want to know. It could be 100% high-fructose corn syrup for all I care – it just tastes great.

What’s your vote? Who has the best peach tea?

I got this smoked salmon recipe from a guy at work. It has worked well for me.

First, photos from my attempt. Scroll to the end for just the recipe.

You need:
salmon

To make your life easier, choose the center-cut fillets. Do this because they are about the same thickness, so they will all cook for the same time. If you get a standard fish, the sides and end are much thinner than the center. Grilling that piece of fish will cause the thin parts to be overdone or you’ll have to cut the thin pieces separate and take them off earlier than the thicker parts, which is more work for you.

brown sugar, salt, and pepper

(more…)

You may have a habitually picky eater – the child who does not like most of what is presented to him for consumption.
Or you may have a child who is going through a phase and refuses anything but mac and cheese.

If you ever find yourself in that situation, I have a solution for you. This should not be your primary plan, but it is guaranteed to work.

You are going to need three main items:

1. A few women over retirement age, to be helpers. They don’t have to be actual grandmothers, but it wouldn’t hurt.
2. Some cafetria trays – one per helper
3. A bunch of small paper cups

When mealtime comes, station the helpers around the dining room, each with a cafeteria tray full of paper cups containing samples of each item from the meal.

The kids will walk around the room, helping themselves to the cups and eating.

If that does not work, your only hope is to obtain some shopping carts and push the kids around the room (while they are sitting in the carts).

No matter what the states of the kids’ stomachs before we enter Costco, our children are always interested in the food samples. I figure that in order to entice them to eat at home, all you need to do is recreate the experience of the food-sample carts in the store.

Or just let them not eat much, and they should be hungry at the next meal.