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April 14, 2012

Miracle-Gro Expand ‘n Gro Review

This post brought to you by Scotts®. All opinions are 100% mine.

This Miracle-Gro Expand 'n Gro was recommended to me by my friends as I am known for not having a very green thumb and it has been a total dream to use.  This year I used it on my tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, petunias, etc.  It has worked fantastically for all of the above and I am now definitely a believer in this product who will certainly use it from now on.

EnG Product Shot.png

The Miracle-Gro Expand ‘n Gro™ is a lot lighter than usual soil which makes it much easier for us to carry the tubs in and out.  Since it is a concentrated mix, I'll just need to add water to get my plants 3 times bigger and more beautiful than the native soil.  

I am notoriously bad at keeping plants alive and looking healthy so I very much wish I had come across this product sooner.  It is very easy to mix up and use and very easy to clean up spills.  For the money spent and the plants and vegetables it produced it was a great bargain.  The quantity and quality of vegetables my plants produced this year has been absolutely great.  I have so much stocked up in the freezer for winter use - it's great!  My flowers have never looked better! I strongly recommend anyone with or without a green thumb give this product a try - I think you will be very pleased with the final result.                                                                                                          

Miracle-Gro Expand ‘n Gro Concentrated Planting Mix is available at lawn and garden retailers in the Midwest, Northeast and Texas or from the online retailer, Amazon.com. Please visit expandngro.com for in-store availability information and FREE sample.

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April 12, 2012

Banana Coffee Cake Recipe


3 c Flour
2 ts Baking powder
1 ts Baking soda
1/2 ts Salt
1 ts Cinnamon
pn Nutmeg (large)
1 1/2 c Mashed banana
1/2 c Banana liqueur
1/3 c Sour cream
1 ts Vanilla
1 c Unsalted butter; softened
1 c Sugar
4 Extra large eggs
3/4 c Flaked coconut
3/4 c Chopped walnuts or pecans
1/4 c Banana liqueur; for
.. brushing

GLAZE 1, OPTIONAL:
1 c Powdered sugar; sifted
1/4 c Mashed banana
2 tb Unsalted butter; softened
1 tb Banana liqueur
1 ts Lemon juice

GLAZE 2, OPTIONAL:
3/4 c Powdered sugar; softed
2 tb Unsalted butter; softened
2 tb Banana liqueur
-=OR=-
Powdered sugar; for dusting

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter a 12 cup tube pan and
set aside.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt,
cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside.

Beat butter until light. Slowly beat in sugar and
beat until it is light and fluffy, about 5
minutes. At low speed, beat in eggs, 2 at a time,
just until blended.

Beat in the flour mixture and banana mixture
alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Beat
just until blended. Stir in coconut and nuts by
hand, spread in pan smoothing top.

Bake until cake is golden brown and begins to pull
away from sides of pan, about 60 to 70 minutes.
Test in center. Loosely cover with foil if cake
starts to become too brown. Remove from oven; let
cool on wire rack 10 minutes in pan. Carefully
invert cake onto cake plate. Brush with the 1/4
cup liqueur. Let cool.

Glaze with either of the glazes or dust with
powdered sugar.

Glaze:

Combine all ingredients until well blended. When
the cake is lukewarm, spoon over top. Let cake
cool completely.

Applesauce Cake


2 c Flour
1 1/3 c Whole wheat flour
2 ts Cinnamon
2 ts Baking powder
1 ts Baking soda
1/2 ts Salt
2 c Applesauce
1/4 c Apple liqueur
1 c Unsalted butter; softened
2 c Light brown sugar; firmly
.. packed
3 Eggs
1 c Raisins
1 c Pitted dates; chopped
1 c Walnuts; chopped

CREAM CHEESE ICING:
1/2 c Unsalted butter; softened
4 oz Cream cheese; softened
1 Navel orange; zest of
3 c Powdered sugar
2 tb Apple liqueur

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour a 10 inch
tube pan; set aside.

Sift flours, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda
and salt; set aside. Combine apple liqueur and
applesauce; set aside.

Cream butter until light. Slowly beat in brown
sugar until very light and fluffy. Reduce speed to
medium, beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well
after each addition.

On low speed, alternately beat in flour and
applesauce mixtures, starting and ending with
flour, just until combined. Stir in walnuts,
dates, and raisins by hand.

Spread evenly in prepared pan, smoothing top. Bake
until cake tests done, about an hour. Cool in pan
on wire rack 15 minutes. Invert onto rack, turn
right side up and cool completely.

Cream Cheese Icing:

Beat butter and cream cheese until light. Beat in
orange peel. Reduce heat to medium; beat in sugar
alternately with liqueur until smooth and creamy.
Adjust consistency, if needed, by adding more
sugar or liqueur. Spread on top and sides of
cooled cake.

April 10, 2012

Fast Food Problems

McDonald's commissioned an individual television production company to fabricate a one-hour special wherever six random Australians were particular the task of investigating the whole food-making process. Whilst McDonald's funded the project, and their food-making processes were the ones scrutinised, it's fair very little was hidden from these individual 'food critics'. This course showed to facilitate McDonald's food, and probably largely major fast-food series offerings, is in reality relatively healthy - and more hygienic and fresher than we think.

Fast food companies give rise to all the time consumed to boundless lengths to persuade the consumption in the public domain of the wholesomeness of their food. It's an incredibly profitable contract. But, individual of the contract risks, in a health-conscious age, is having a reputation tainted by notion to facilitate your food is unhealthy or, worse, disgusting.

So, characteristic fast food - in the foremost - is safe pro consumption and may perhaps be moderately healthy. But why solve we feel unhealthy having eaten it? Compared to a serving of grandma's pot heat wherever we felt satisfied and fulfilled, fast food tends to leave us feeling unconvinced, piously.

I give rise to a thesis all but food: The single prepared food profitable to us is the food cooked with love. That is, food cooked pro a branded idiosyncratic to swallow. Food cooked with them in mind. It's food to facilitate has soul.

FOOD SHOULD BE PREPARED WITH PRIDE

During the healthiest brains, proud is the cook to facilitate makes their food to please the eater. They give rise to a vested concern in everything they solve. They hanker after to create it tasty, hygienic, and aesthetic on the plate. They attention. They cook their food with love. And they hanker after their food eaten with love and respect pro the process.

Fast food, on the other give, is an unloved baby whose blood relation neither loves the food, their effect, nor the receiver of the food. It's made with rejection soul or spirit. It may perhaps fill our bellies and feed our bodies, but the experience of consumption fast food does nothing to feed our souls.

We must to be converted into fanatical observers of how food makes us feel, and although food of itself doesn't prepare us evil, our practices can now and then prepare us feel to facilitate way. Feeling bloated or dry in the hot air or unsettled are all psychosomatic secret code to facilitate the experience of consumption sure food hasn't been assured. The food hasn't served its nourishing objective.

THE SERVICE THAT COMES WITH THE FOOD

Whenever we verve to takeaway restaurants, not single is the food not cooked with love, it's often not served with love. Patrons are commonly treated as second-class citizens; largely since the person serving them has rejection correctness. They've not been skilled to attention.

Wherever we verve in life it pays, as much as potential, to place ourselves in situations and circumstances of decent experience. Enriching experience is decent pro the soul. Placing ourselves in non-enriching experiences, though, leads to a painkilling of the soul. The service to facilitate comes with the food is precisely as central as the consumption experience is. The service, too, requirement show your face with love.

***

The hassle with fast food is it's in general not cooked nor served with love. Often it's prepared and cooked by fill with rejection stake in its consumption. Eating food is a spiritual hobby. If we attention as much as necessary pro ourselves and persons we love we limit our dependence on fast food. We'll still swallow it, perhaps, but a reduced amount of so.

Our dietary practice are strategic inputs to our holiness. When we swallow food made with love we profit. Food made exclusive of love cannot profit us piously.

Restaurant vs Picnic


Before we make ongoing, I would like to get on to it impeccably apparent with the intention of I am all in act of kindness of dressing up and vacant to a kind restaurant. I love ordering my food, having it prepared to my liking, having my food brought to me, served while it is still sweltering, be inflicted with more fill up, or whatever I am drinking with feast poured, lacking asking, and finally not having to sort out the dishes with. Sounds pretty terrific, no problem?

On the other furnish, I like to take the children made known and expose them to the finer things in life, like a skilled restaurant. Children need the exposure to gather to converse in faintly, stay in their seat and not make too hurried as the food does not occur as fast as they believe it must. These are things with the intention of completely aid all the self-control and understanding I can muster pro lone sundown.

Whatever we take pleasure in intake seems to permanently be privileged in calories and more processed in a restaurant setting. There is a privileged salt or fat content, along with more cholesterol than you would normally manipulate by family. Food allergies are a further conundrum by restaurants. Are you allergic to wheat, nuts, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, or strawberries?

With the nation of now, public are having vex making tops come across. Going made known to munch by a restaurant is not an straightforward business to deposit into a financial statement. For model, how many public are vacant, are we vacant to a high-end restaurant or are we vacant to a restaurant with a dough menu? Even a middle-of-the-road restaurant will cost $10-$15 for every person, and if you take the children it can add a further $4-$7 for every plate: At that time you add the beverages and the perk. It all adds up!

There are other alternatives to intake in a restaurant with children. I rather to quantity a picnic basket and waste the time before a live audience with my children. I can take them to the playground solely around the corner, or to the lake everywhere they can splash in the fill up, to the mountains pro a hike (if they are older), or to a gathering with acquaintances and family tree. Any of these seats allow my children to run and mess about, take pleasure in nature and munch anytime they aspire.

I take pleasure in having them help me pick made known their favorite foods and beverages and be inflicted with them arrange could you repeat that? They aspire to munch. I ordinarily discover they pick made known food with the intention of is more nutritious pro them. It permanently makes intake a happier experience as they can munch as they are hungry, especially as they sort out not be inflicted with to sit still and pass the time. Organizing a picnic is now and again not straightforward bring about but, it can be rewarding. Making memories with my children and early extra traditions with the intention of will be voted for on to my children and my children's children can be very energizing to the soul.