Please forgive typo's - this is a fast one today.

How do you know when life is simply too busy? When you are running late to make your scheduled appointment for...... a day off. Seriously, I can't believe this is happening to me! Geeesh. Still I wanted to blog.....

I made zuchinni pecan muffins this morning while leaning heavily on my food chopper. I can't get over how well muffins fit a busy mom's lifestyle. #1) They are portable #2) They freeze and defrost well #3) Any vegetable or fruit combination works here - and a few vegies are better than none #4) Using a blender and paper muffin liners make it easy to clean up #5) the kids can help and everyone is happy.

I also focused on ground beef for breakfast once again. I am stuck using one pound blocks of frozen ground beef. It is such a waste since my little five year old can't eat it before it becomes too old. Yet, I just figured out that I can probably make two breakfasts and then serve meatloaf on that second day without wasting the meat. Next time, I will try to find economical ground beef patties which have been frozen. If I allow them to defrost in the fridge (am I allowed to do that safely? I will have to doublecheck), then I can add some tasty beneficial spices. I might even ask the butcher at the grocery store if they can make smaller ground beef portions for me. That way I wouldn't have to expose as much ground beef to air. Anyway, my five year old likes salt and kelp seasoning with his beef. I thought it tasted good too! I have also recently found three new ecominical spice blends without avoids. One is called roast beef seasoning, steak seasoning, and I have forgotten the name of the third. Anyway, the brand is "spice it" and as far as I know, there are no anti-caking agents added to these. (It is not listed anyway.)

It was another economical trip to the grocery store. Rice milk and ezekiel bread are the most expensive items. Otherwise, everything else is quite cheap. True, it is not all organic, but I am trying to pick out foods which are the least likely to be high in pesticide residues. There is a book out there - "Safe Foods" which detail which veggies and fruits were found to contain high pesticides residues. Interestingly enough the worst contender out there was....... (drum roll, please)........ celery. While the book talked about both sides of the coin (buying traditional vs organic) and was ,in my opinion, a well written and objective book, it flat out said than in the case of celery -- just buy organic. Period. Pesticides just soak into the stalks, I guess.

Food for thought.. Tomorrow I will post the recipe for blueberry cookies. Yum!!!