Honey Bean Cookies

To continue my never-ending experimentation with chocolate chip cookies, here's the latest iteration. Take this recipe and
replace the 1 c shortening with 3/4 c shortening and 1/4 c ground small white beans.
Replace 3/4 c white sugar with 1/4 c white sugar and 1/4 c honey.
Replace 2 c flour with 1-1/4 c white flour and 3/4 whole wheat flour.

Result - OK. The taste is actually kind of weird, but I've eaten 8, so they aren't too bad. The texture is just fine. I suspect the honey is the taste a little weird.

Next time I won't try two experiments at once (honey and dry ground beans). The nice thing about using honey and beans is that the dough came out to the correct consistency without me having to do anything. I also suspect I should have replaced the brown sugar with honey, not the white. In all honesty, I only like honey on biscuits, so it could be someone else would like these just fine.

In theory, the beans added to the cookies should make a complete protein, so these cookies should have some nutritional value.

How did I get bean flour? I threw them in the wheat grinder.

Playing Chicken

I've been thinking about adding to my food storage. Food storage is extra food I have around the house (wheat, flour, sugar, etc.) so if a disaster strikes my family will have food. I currently have enough food to last us for about a month.

I was looking at beprepared.com for some ideas of things to add. I'm thinking of adding chicken textured soy and beef textured soy. I don't have much meat stored because it is so expensive canned, fake meat reconstituted with bullion might be an acceptable substitute.

I think I'll try the textured soy, that works out to
40 ounces * 3 ounces per 1 ounce dry = 7.5 lbs of "meat"
7.5 / $9 = $.83 a pound, not bad

I also noticed they had Mountain House freeze-dried chicken in a #10 can. It is currently on sale for $30.00. How much is this per pound? I did some math.
3/4 cup freeze dried chicken = 3/4 cup regular chicken
1 serving = 3/4 cup
14 servings per can
1 lb raw boneless chicken = 3 cups cooked chicken
so doing a bunch of math
3/4 chicken per serving * 14 servings = 10.5 cups per can
10.5 cups * 1 lb per 3 cups = around 3 lbs of meat

So there is the equivalent of 3 lbs of meat per can. At $30 per can that's $10 per pound. I guess it might be worth it though, if you were eating food storage and wanted real meat.

Traveling

My husband and I recently made a trip to San Diego with our daughter and son. It went a lot better than planned. They were angels in the car.
What we did: drove 700 miles in our car with a (almost) 3 year-old and a 9 month old
what we won't do again: drive straight through. It is good to know our kids can last all day, but we adults can't.
what we would do:

• stop every two hours. A lot of small Utah towns have really nice public parks, they are usually located somewhere along the main street in town.
  
• Bring a cd your kids like. We put some of my daughter's favorite videos onto cd so she could listen to them (didn't end up having to use them though) Just knowing you have a back up can really help.
  

Spencer's Camera Repair Service

This is just a quick accolade for Spencer's Camera Repair Service (Alpine, UT). My poor digital camcorder had taken a dive off an entertainment center. As a result, it only worked when plugged into the adaptor.

Spencer's gave me a free estimate of how much it would cost. They even managed to have it fixed by my sister-in-law's wedding at no extra charge. They charged reasonable rates (we checked the cost of the part on line). They were very nice on the phone and responded quickly to e-mails. I'm glad I went to them and would again.

(Note: I am not affiliated with them in anyway. They just did a good job and thought I'd mention it on line.)

Best Mother's Day Present

My husband gave me the most wonderful gift for Mother's Day, a card full of coupons. For example:

• One Stinky diaper change
  
• One Really Stinky Diaper Change
  
• one Failed diaper containment cleanup (including change of clothes and bath)
  
• one hour watching the kids so Mommy can read a book
  
• honey do_____,
  
• put the kids to bed (teeth, stories, diapers, the works).
• Ice cream trip
• Go on a walk
• Get the kidlet(s) out of bed (midnight feeding or morning routine, your choice)
  

He also had some terms and conditions:
1) When presented with a coupon, Daddy can't postpone or refuse to act on it, barring extenuating circumstances (such as if he is on fire)
2) If Daddy grumbles or dawdles, Mommy gets to keep the coupon for future use.
3) the presence of a coupon granting a specific action does not mean Daddy won't do said action without one.
4) Void where prohibited.

This post doesn't do justice to the coupons, he had the best choice of font and the whole gift just made me laugh.

Review: National Treasure

My husband and I watched National Treasure last night. I liked it. I wouldn't buy it, but if someone I knew hadn't seen it, I wouldn't mind watching it with them. I also suspect many junior high history classes will be watching this movie when their teacher is sick.

The basic plot is there is a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence and the hero has follow a bunch of clues from the founding fathers to find the treasure and avoid being killed by the bad guy.

The thing I liked about it was it was suspenseful , lots of action, very little swearing (maybe twice) and no scenes where I had to cover my eyes (or my husband's). It's a cute movie, probably not what the directors were going for, but I thought it was cute if although a little unrealistic. How many times can the hero be shot at and not get hit? The answer is "a lot".

My husband thought it was a little preachy and I agree, but I would rather have a movie that is preachy for something I agree with and I agree with almost everything. I wouldn't show it to my toddler, way too intense (and a PG rating), but an older 'tween would probably like it.

Video Editing

I wonder if iMovie is as good as it is supposed to be. I am currently using Nero to do my video editing and getting tired of all its bugs. I wonder if iMovie has fewer bugs, or at least less annoying ones. I've looked at the bug reports for iMovie and there are a few that seem really annoying. I just wonder how often you'd run into them. I want to do 2 things, old family movies from vhs to dvd and create a multimedia personal history. Time for more googling.