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Sometimes I have to wonder – would making it legal to have a radar detector around here be of some benefit? I mean, if it would encourage drivers to slow down at least once in a while, that can’t be all that bad, now, can it?

Right now, they are illegal to have in five out of the six New England states.  It’s only in Connecticut where it’s okay to have one in your vehicle.

Some people may say that it’s cheating the system to have a radar detector.  Maybe it is.  Some also say that they encourage people to speed.  Maybe they do, but once the thing goes off, people WILL slow down.

I’d rather see people be forced to slow down once in a while, than not at all.  What do you think?

I talked months ago about how I switched from Proactiv to AcneFree, and have been happy with the product.  I still am, not only that it works, but I can use it at my own pace, and not have to have product auto-shipped endlessly, and having boxes and boxed piled up.

But you know what’s slightly annoying?  That I always seem to run out of the toner before anything else in the kit.  With the Proactiv, it was less of a problem since I had all those kits, and plenty of toner.  Still, I decided to only use the toner with every other wash, so I could use up all of the Proactiv and get rid of it, once I was FINALLY able to get them to stop the endless auto-shipments.

I had noticed that on AcneFree’s website, they do sell the products in the kit separately.  But I think this is only on the website, as I’ve never seen the products sold separately in any stores, at least not at any of the stores I go to.

But it seems that the AcneFree people know that some people use parts of the kit faster than others.  With their auto-ship program, they will also throw in an extra product of your choice for free, including the toner.

Sounds good, but I won’t bite.  I will NEVER buy products on auto-ship again; if it’s anything like Proactiv, you have to jump through hoops to cancel it.  Also, it looks like you can’t slow down the shipments – a 60-day supply is actually more like a 120-day supply for me, as I can only use the stuff once a day, not twice.  Twice a day makes my skin red and irritated.

I’m also not going to pay high shipping fees for a few bottles of toner alone, plus, I would rather not have these people get a hold of my credit card number or address, snail or e-mail.  Then they will hound me to the ends of the earth about getting auto-ship.  Proactiv STILL bothers me regularly about coming back, saying they miss me.  Missing the steady stream of money they were getting from me is more like it.  It’s as annoying as someone who won’t stop trying to sell you patio chairs, when you don’t have a yard or a patio!

So here’s what I have been doing:  The ingredients in the Neutrogena astringent/toner product are almost identical to that of the AcneFree product.  The only real difference is the fragrance.  An 8 ounce bottle of that goes for $5.99 at Stop & Shop (I just bought one there today).  When the AcneFree toner runs out, I just pour some of the Neutrogena stuff into the container (which takes up less sink space than the big Neutrogena bottle does, space here is at a premium, the big bottle goes into a cabinet).  Then, when the toner in the AcneFree container runs out, by this time, the cleanser and the repairing lotion do, too, and it’s time to buy a whole new kit.  Then when that toner runs out, I pour in more from the Neutrogena bottle.

Hey, it works, and it saves me from dealing with shipping costs, auto-ship, and all that annoying crap!

…the more you eat, the more you TOOT!

Well, not really…it doesn’t HAVE to be that way!  Low and slow cooking of beans does a lot to remove the “gassyness”, as does soaking the beans overnight before cooking.

Beans are tasty, nutritious, and cheap; you don’t have to worry about getting purchase order financing to pay for them. A one-pound bag of dried beans costs less than $1.00, and can feed a lot of people!  You can cook them one day, and then use leftovers for other recipes.

For example, last night I made this Slow-Cooker Black Beans recipe.  I served it over plain white rice and a side of corn.  Then I can take leftover beans and corn and make this Creamy Black Bean Soup.

The master slow-cooker recipe is a good one, if you want to cut back on meat, but don’t want to give it up altogether.  It contains chicken broth, bacon, and ham, but not a lot of it.  The meat is there mostly to add some flavor, but you could actually leave it out if you wish, and use vegetable broth instead of the chicken broth.  It’s also a good way to use leftover ham.  When you cook a whole of half ham, there are always leftovers!

Canned beans are fine, but are a little more expensive than dried.  If you have a slow-cooker, definitely cook dried ones that way, it takes all day, but it’s so little effort.  So if you are looking to save money on food, the humble bean is a great way to go!

You probably think of pot roast as a winter dish, and you surely would not want to heat up your kitchen for hours on end by cooking it long and slow in the oven or even on top of the stove.  But if you find yourself with a hankering for it, you can always just pop it into the slow-cooker and let it rip all day!  Slow-cookers do not heat up your kitchen, and also use very little electricity, to boot.    Using a slow-cooker also means a lot less work, just set it and forget it, and then go about your business, lounge on your contemporary furniture, whatever.  This is really the best way to cook a cheap cut of beef, no matter what time of the year it is.

I found this recipe in the book “The Best of Mr. Food:  Slow Cookin’ Quickies”.  This is a must-have book if you have a slow-cooker.

My only gripe is that he doesn’t tell you to brown the hunk o’ meat before putting it into the slow-cooker.  That’s actually a gripe I have with a lot of slow-cooker books.  By all means, if you can’t be bothered with this part, skip it…but it really does add more flavor and a much more attractive color to the meat.  Just heat some oil in a skillet and brown the hunk o’ meat until nicely browned on all sides.  Once that is done, proceed with the recipe as directed.

For the beer, I used good old Guinness – I had a couple of cans of it sitting around that needed using up.  I’m not a big stout drinker, and Mike prefers to get his on draught at a bar.  Even with that plastic gizmo inside that can that makes it nice and fizzy just like the tap, he says it still isn’t quite as good.  Although the recipe calls for 12 ounces of beer, I just used the entire 14.5 ounce can of Guinness.  Exact amounts of stuff are not always important in cooking.  In baking, yes.

The original recipe calls for a sirloin tip roast.  I could not find one at the store, and we didn’t feel like driving to 4700 different stores to find one, so I just bought a bottom round roast and used that.  Any cheap, tough cut of beef will work here, save the pricier cuts for another recipe.

For they mustard, I like Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground – not too expensive and easy to find in most stores these days.  But of course, you can use what you like or have on hand.

For some reason, plain frozen pearl onions are a bit hard to find around here.  Most of the time they come with a cream sauce, and sometimes mixed with peas.  You almost NEVER see a store brand version of these.  But Birds Eye does make them, you just have to look closely.  It’s a pet peeve of mine, the ever-growing difficulty in finding any PLAIN frozen veggies anymore.  Half the stuff in the freezer section has some sort of sauce on it; sheesh, don’t people want to put their own stuff on it any more?

Anyhoo, onto the recipe!

1 (10-ounce) package frozen pearl onions
1 (4-pound) sirloin tip roast
1 (12-ounce) bottle dark beer
1/4 cup stone-ground mustard
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon pepper
* 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
* Hot cooked medium egg noodles

Place onions in a 4-quart slow cooker; place roast on top. Add beer and next 4 ingredients.

Cook, covered, at HIGH 8 hours or until roast is tender. Remove roast and onions, reserving drippings in cooker.

Whisk flour into reserved drippings; cook 10 minutes or until thickened. Serve with roast, onions, and hot noodles. I also like to serve some sort of other veggie with this.  Mr. Food suggests roasted root veggies.

Enjoy!

For some reason, I bought a large spaghetti squash a few weeks ago.  It sat there on my kitchen table until today, when I decided I needed to cook it.

I also had a bunch of leftover items that needed using up – mainly, one red bell pepper, one zucchini, and one yellow summer squash.  I also had some fresh rosemary and oregano that needed using up, as well as some onions and garlic.  And then there was the cheese – a 15 ounce container of ricotta with only a couple of spoonfuls taken out of it, about 1/2 of an 8 ounce bag of shredded Cheddar, and a couple of pieces of Parmesan and Romano cheeses.  Pantry items included canned tomato products and dried herbs and spices.

Spaghetti squash is a form of winter squash that, when cooked, breaks into strands similar to that of spaghetti.  And then you can use it instead of pasta in most dishes – great for those on low-carb diets.

First, I cooked the squash by cutting it in half lengthwise, scraping out all of the seeds and nasty stringy membranes, placing the halves cut-side down on a sheet pan, and baking in a pre-heated 350°F oven for about an hour.  This is best done in advance, as you need to let the squash cool before handling it.

When it’s cool enough to handle, use a fork to scrape out the flesh; you will see how it comes out spaghetti-like.  Scrape it all the way down to the shell, discard the empty shell when you’re done.  Spaghetti squash can get kind of water-logged, so putting it into a colander to drain for a bit after you’ve scraped it from the shell is not a bad idea.

I made a quick marinara sauce – I sauteed a small chopped onion and a few minced garlic cloves in some olive oil, then threw in a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes, juice and all.  I just kind of chopped the tomatoes in the pan with a wooden spoon.  Also added was an 8 ounce can of plain tomato sauce and a 6 ounce can of tomato paste.  I added some of the fresh oregano that I needed to use up, some dried basil, and salt & pepper.  The original recipe called for adding white wine, but I didn’t have any, so I threw in 1/2 cup of Sam Adams Summer Ale instead.

This was simmered for about 30 minutes.  It came to about 4 cups.

I dumped the ricotta into a bowl, mixed one egg into it, as well as some more of the fresh oregano and dried basil.  I threw in a handful of the shredded Cheddar, and used my cheese shredder whosit to grind in some of the Parmesan and Romano cheeses.

I then sliced the zucchini and summer squash on the diagonal, diced up the red pepper, sliced up a small onion, and sauteed them in some olive oil.  While they were sauteing, I put a few cloves of garlic through the press, right into the saute pan.

Then it was time to assemble the casserole.  I used my 12″ round casserole, but a standard 9″ x 11″ lasagna-type pan would also have worked.  I started by putting a thin coating of the marinara sauce, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  Then, in went half the prepared spaghetti squash.  After that, half the ricotta mixture, in dollops evenly spaced.  Then, half the sauteed veggies were spread over, then a sprinkling of some Cheddar, Parmesan and Romano cheeses.  Then the layers were repeated – half of the remaining marinara sauce, the remaining spaghetti squash, the remaining ricotta mixture, the remaining sauteed veggies, and another sprinkling of cheeses.  Finally, it was topped with the remaining sauce and whatever was left of the Cheddar, Parmesan and Romano cheeses.

This was baked, uncovered, in a pre-heated 350°F oven for about a half an hour.  Since everything in it is already cooked, you just want to heat it through and melt the cheese on top.  It’s ready when it is nice and bubbly.

I had also made a loaf of French bread, which I started in the bread machine and then shaped and baked in the oven.  Rather than serving it with butter, I went the traditional Italian route with infused olive oil for dipping.  I chopped up some of the fresh rosemary and oregano, and put it on a small dish with some dried basil, crushed red pepper flakes, and a little salt & pepper.  Then I poured some extra virgin olive oil over it, just as they do at Carrabba’s.  At Carrabba’s, they also provide you with a small decanter of olive oil with the bread, so you can pour more over the plate of herbs if necessary.

It was all very yummie, and I got to use up stuph that might have gone bad, and best of all, I didn’t have to go to the store for a single thing!

So – next time you are wondering what to make for dinner, look at what you have on hand, and improvise!