Open Letter to the Makers of Blue Bunny Dairy Products

Dear Wells Dairy,

I cannot begin to tell you just how pleased I am to have discovered your line of Light (spelled correctly!) yoghurts at a nearby supermarket. I am especially fond of the Light Superfruits, with such strange fruit combinations as white cranberry strawberry and pomegrante acai. I have not yet found one that I did not find singularly delicious, and with such a rich and creamy texture! And I am most pleased about what you don't put into it! No corn syrup and none of that nasty inulin that has become so popular with yoghurt makers lately. I know that inulin is a good thing for most people, being a natural fiber that promotes the absorption of calcium, but, frankely, it gives me the shits. And until I saw your product on the shelf, I had resigned myself to a life of eating only whole milk cream top Brown Cow plain yoghurt, because it was the only stuff I could find without inulin.

Sadly, our country's diet industry might have suggested I stay with the inulin fortified products, as artificially induced diarrhea is supposed to help with weight loss and the whole milk cream top stuff is obviously OMG high in calories, but I just couldn't do it. I have suffered in many attempts to be thin, and I will not do it through laxative yoghurts.

So, Wells Dairy, please keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
Me

Jackpot!

So I haven't posted in a while, but that's because I have been food busy!

First off, I found yogurt! It's this little store brand. I have to drive to Wilmette (about 20 minutes awawy) to get it, but it only has 15 grams of sugar per container so that is do-able. Plain yogurt has about 10 grams. So far, it has been pretty tasty. The blueberry is my favorite.

Then, I put to good use this book I just got. It's called A Cook's Guide to Chicago. I will have tons of little places to go to all over Chicago that sell everything from imported cheese to pierogies to ethnic foods of all types. My big trip was to Mitsuwa Marketplace. It's a mostly Japanese and a few other Asian ingredient supermarket and food court locted in Arlington Heights, which is southwest of Lake Forest. It's definitely a field trip but I was able to purchase pickled daikon, kim chee, Pocky, Japanese produce, and a bunch of other stuff, including a huge bag of brown sticky rice for $13. I was also able to have a nice lunch and I took home some dim sum for breakfast the next day, including a decent if not spectacular sticky rice in lotus leaf.

Over the weekend, I also went to the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, WI, and got some string cheese and some cheddar with blueberry and some landjagger smoked sausage. Yum yum!

After the cheese castle, I hooked up with my aunt and uncle in Brookfield and we went to Penzey's Spice (Go everyone, or order from them online!) and afterwards, we went to the Olive Garden, where I tried the new Chicken Roma, which had good flavor but was a little heavy with the oil on the noodles.

I haven't been cooking much, however, because I made a huge soup pot of Heather's Magic Chicken Noodle Soup of Get Wellness. Here's how to make it:

Take one whole chicken and make sure it is clean. Put it in a large stock pack; I use a 7 quart one. Cover chicken with water. Throw in one bay leaf and about 2 tablespoons of coarse salt. Chop up two large onions, two carrots, and two stalks of celery and chuck it in the pot. Turn on the stove and boil it. Once it really gets going, throw on the lid and turn it down to a roiling simmer. Cook until the chicken is falling off the bones and the broth is tasty tasty. Put the whole pot in the frig over night. The next day, take out the pot and skim off most of the fat. Then take the meat off the bones. Discard bones and throw what meat you want in the soup back in the pot (freeze the rest of the met for some other use in the future). Turn the stove on and heat it until it is boiling. Throw in 3/4 of a package of country blend frozen veggies (mix of carrots, green beans, and corn) and about 8 oz of egg noodles (use more or less depending on how noodle you like it). Cook until noodles are done and then enjoy! It's good for what ails you!

I ate this soup for about a week, until I was tired of looking at it and my sniffles went away. I stuck about two large bowls worth in the freezer for future sniffle countering.

The next big cooking project (and this week's vegeterian recipe) is pumpkin curry. Take 5 small onions and slice so the onion slices look like little half moons. Saute in some oil in a large pot and then throw in 1 tablespoon ground cumin, 1 tablespoon ground coriander, 1 tablespoon garam masala, and 2 tablespoon of a sweet but not spicy curry (I like Penzey's Maharajah Curry. Can you tell I love me some Penzey's?). Cook until the spices are fragrant. Then throw in three cans of pure pumpkin (don't get the pie mix, that's just nasty!). Start cooking. If it looks like it is thicky and pasty, add in some broth to thin it out. This makes a hearty stew that I throw over brown rice. To add protein if I am being entirely vegeterian, I might throw in some seitan into the stew.

Also, remember, feel free to adjust the spices to your desired level. I like a little heat, so sometimes I throw in some red pepper. It's all about what makes you happiest!

Moving Frustration

As my many dear readers (all two of you) know, I recently moved from Foxboro, MA, to Lake Forest, IL. This has involved oh so many changes and adjustments - including getting used to living in upperclass-obtuse-topia, getting rid of a lover (be nice), selling the rollerskate, and other very stressful things. But of all the things I knew I would have to get used to, all of the changes, I never expected that I would have so much difficulty with grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping here is excruciating and involves multiple trips to supermarkets that are very far away. Yes, I know that there is a Jewel Supermarket and Don's Finest Foods (little boutique market) here in Lake Forest, but neither can really met any of my food needs. I am fussy about my produce and neither local option is acceptable to me (yes, I am a fruit snob). So, I end up heading south to Sunset Foods, which is ok, but fairly limited, west to Dominick's which is cheaper but the fruit and produce doesn't last very long, or even further west to Cub Foods, which has a good ethnic selection but is otherwise a crapshoot and about to besold to Garden Fresh locally (maybe I will get lucky there). I can also go even further south to Whole Paycheck and I even found a Trader Joe's, so at least I can get good frozen stuff. I certainly miss Russo's in Watertown. I regularly cry because I can't go to Russo's on a regular basis.

All in all, though, as much as I whine, I can get by, even if my diet is heavy on apples, which I don't much like. But what has really been bothering me is that I can't find yogurt here.

See, I have to really watch my sugar intake and most yogurts have too much sugar. In Boston, I used to get the Columbo Light, which was decent and low-sugar. Here, there is no Columbo. There is Dannon (full sugar and fat), Yoplait (ditto), and Stonyfield (ditto but with the added evil of inulin, which I am allergic to). Even going to Whole Paycheck is not a treat. Compared to the 100s of varieties at Whole Paycheck in Boston, there are only about dozen choices, many of which are soy or goat milk - almost everything has full sugar, full fat, and/or inulin.

I may have to breakdown and start making my own again.

Yes, yours truly makes yogurt. This causes a lot of surprise. For example, a lover was once visiting me at my place in Foxboro. While sitting at my kitchen table reading the newspaper, he looks up and goes, "What's that?" Well, that was my yogurt maker.

"You make your own yogurt?" This was said in a tone filled with both respect and surprise. But the look on his face was saying something different. That look said "What is this? Little House on the Praire? Has she fed me any of that stuff?"

But, I may just have to suck it up. Plain yogurt is no fun for plain eating; I generally use it only for cooking. But dammit, I need my yogurt fix!