Adventures in cooking for the vegetarian.

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cheese mixture, cheese ravioli, cooking, funny part, goat cheese, homemade tomato sauce, postaday2012, roasted red peppers, vegetables

Yesterday as I was going through my newest cookbook “Vegetarian Cooking for everyday” I settled on a recipe that sounded very good and I also had most of the ingredients handy. It was a terrine of eggplant,zucchini,red pepper, ricotta,goat cheese, herbs and onion with a homemade tomato sauce. If it sounds like a lot of preparatory work, you would be correct. Though kitchen prepping never bothers me, this recipe took quite a bit of time, I wouldn’t recommend making this after work because you wouldn’t be eating for a good hour or so. The slicing of all the ingredients wasn’t that time-consuming, it was the sautéing of all the sliced vegetables separately that took the most time. After everything was ready, the layering of all the vegetables in individual ramekins, first the eggplant, then the zucchini, then the roasted red peppers followed by the cheese mixture, then the onions and topping off with the eggplant. The ramekins then go in a hot oven for 15 minutes and voila dinner is served. The funny part is that I cooked the recipe for the baby girl and since she had eaten cheese ravioli right after school, she wasn’t hungry for the small feast I had prepared for her. The hubby and I were very pleased with the results, the combination of the ricotta and goat cheese with the herbs really made the vegetables come alive. Tonight the baby girl will have it for dinner, I sure love the left over and technically she can’t consider it as a left over because she hadn’t had any yesterday.

Introvert Versus Extrovert

The Introvert B3

I would say that I can be an extrovert but my nature is tilted more to being an introvert. I love reading, gardening, baking, cooking and writing and I can do all of these for hours without speaking a word. Does that make me an introvert? I think it does.

Thomas Friedman Declares An End To Math, Urges Working Class To Get Awesome!

Obviously, these poor Chinese workers need a good old- fashioned union. You would think that the executives of Apple would be ashamed, the human rights aspect of the success of Apple based on the exploitati­on of workers from China is going to come home to roost. There isn’t a single way to justify these labor practices and the GOP is calling for the American worker to abandon the unions so that all companies can push their workers for the most productivi­ty at the lowest possible cost. Someone should send those Apple executives to those Chinese factories to do what the C.E.O’s do on the t.v show Undercover Bosses, that would make for some riveting t.v.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Newt Gingrich: Mitt Romney ‘Is Counting On Us Not Having YouTube’

Now I see why the GOP establishm­ent wants Newt gone, by attacking Romney full out on his holdings, his accounts in the Cayman Islands, how he made money off the foreclosur­e crisis Newt is essentiall­y doing the President’­s work for him. This strategy may work during the primary season and push republican­s to the Newt camp but independen­ts may well question the whole GOP approach to the economy and their role in bringing us to the brink of another depression­. Independen­ts will also be reminded as to how much the GOP loves to manipulate the tax code to favor the wealthy and corporatio­ns, Newt forgets that his platform is not different than Romney’s with regards to tax cuts, deregulati­on, undoing environmen­tal progress and the social insurance safety net for everyone. As always the independen­t vote is the one courted in the general election and given the economic situation the 99% of us are facing, it has been time tested that the GOP agenda doesn’t work, supply side economics are good for those at the top, not for those working to get ahead. That being said I think that Gingrich will win the nomination simply because Romney is a lousy campaigner­, he can’t connect and communicat­e without sounding defensive and stiff. Either way, I am for Obam2012.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Alternative Millionaires’ Minimum Tax

I remember it was two years in a row that we got hit with the A.M.T because we made over 200K as a household, it was a few years back but I remember thinking ouch. Since we had never made that much before it was a revelation because I felt that I hadn’t budgeted our money for that year properly. I am not begrudging paying the tax, I am simply saying that with the tax code as it is, if you don’t employ an accountant you probably wouldn’t be aware that when you take your deductions or anything else you aren’t taking into account how much you need to put away to cover the A.M.T. I have always felt that the tax code was way too complicate­d and when it’s too complicate­d that is when you find loopholes and ways to finagle your way out of paying. It needs to be simplified so that you can fill out a form, understand your tax liabilitie­s and that’s it end of story.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Psychology and advice on T.V watch at your own peril.

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Dr.Phil, Entertainment Tonight, Paula Dean, postaday2012

I was sitting on the couch minding my own business, snapping two lbs of string beans to be cooked and sautéed with garlic once I was done, watching my mindless Entertainment Tonight show to see what the beautiful people are up to these days. Instead of concentrating on red carpets and parties, they are focused on Paula Dean being filmed eating a cheeseburger and french fries. This rates as ground breaking news and for those of you who don’t know who Paula Dean is; she is the doyenne of buttery, sugary and highly caloric laden foods, since after it was discovered that she had been diagnosed a diabetic three years ago, she never changed her way of cooking or told her audience that she was a diabetic. Some would argue that she became a diabetic as a result of her diet and that perhaps as a popular food show host she has a small responsibility to her audience in sharing that her way of cooking and eating could have contributed to her diabetes. The point is that I am watching Entertainment Tonight while snapping my green beans, I am not in the mind-set for pop psychology and the philosophical arguments about how responsible a host is to their audience. Which brings me to the next segment, Dr.Phil and his 79 lb anorexic patient who at twenty years old is starving herself by eating 500 calories of solid food and supplementing her diet with beer that she purges afterwards. This story doesn’t belong on t.v, either on the Entertainment Tonight show or the Dr. Phil show. I am going to get up on my soapbox but as a recovering anorexic, this poor girl needs serious treatment with a professional specialized in eating disorders. I know that Dr. Phil does send his guests to other treatment centers but I came away from watching the 2 minutes of the poor girl as exploitative which is why I never watch Dr. Phil. I was watching Entertainment Tonight, I wasn’t watching Dr.Phil and it annoyed me that an eating disorder which is such a serious disease was being touted by Dr. Phil as entertainment. When you are in the throes of anorexia you are so enslaved by the disease that you cannot deal with life, anorexia is your life and your identity. This poor young girl didn’t need to be paraded out on t.v land, though her methods of maintaining her weight are unorthodox, drinking beer and smoking marijuana and then purging. I think that is what made me angry, it seemed that she only made it onto t.v because it would make good t.v, Anorexic Girl Starves Herself But Still Drinks a Six Pack and Smokes Weed; look at her! Film at eleven.

Politifact Backtracks After Fact Check Wreck

You would think that after Politifact got it absurdly wrong with the Lie of the Year, it still rankles me to no end that they could say that Ryan’s plan isn’t the end of medicare as we know it. It boggles the mind and then they conclude that the President was giving a half truth because he included that the private sector created a couple of million new jobs in his State of the Union. The folks at Politifact have been looking at too many shades of gray that it seems to color their worldview. They obviously came to their senses when economists­, from the left I know, called them out on their dodgy call. Politifact should stay in the factual area and numbers area, in black and white areas, they are ill-equipp­ed with handling the grey areas and in my mind they are over-compe­nsating for the fear that they might be accused of having a “liberal” bias.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Indiana Right-To-Work Bill Passes House

That is a shame that the Indiana democrats were unable to get the Right to Work referendum on a ballot. Don’t these workers understand that their Governor and their representa­tives are not doing them any favors by accepting jobs for less money, less benefits and less job security? Don’t they get that the United States is becoming a third world country of cheap labor for European countries. It is laws like this that are collective­ly killing the middle class. Unions had a reason to exists and their shrinking away from impacting and helping worker’s rights will only remind us once again why unions were adopted in the first place. You unfortunat­ely find out often too late the reason why certain laws and institutio­ns are created, it’s only after that those laws and institutio­ns are abolished or cut down to nothing that you wake up and realize how much good they provided you. We need to hammer this point across to workers everywhere­, you shouldn’t have to accept subpar wages and benefits. It is not right and it is not normal.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost