New foods!

It is like pulling teeth to get my Imp to try new foods.  I think I've found the trick though: he's more likely to try something if I tell him it's spicy.  

Case in point: we got him to try pad thai, recently, by calling it "spicy spaghetti."  He tried it, and liked it well enough to ask me to learn how to make it so I could teach him.  

Last night was another new food: buffalo chicken dip.  I started with a recipe found online, but ended up modifying it a little bit.  I'll probably half the recipe, more or less, next time I make it, and will just make it on the stove top.  

Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip

2 cans chicken, drained
2 bricks cream cheese (I used reduced fat, and thank God I did)
3/4 c shredded cheddar (grate it yourself so the dip doesn't turn out gritty if texture bothers you)
1 c ranch dressing
3/4 c buffalo sauce
1/4 c Louisiana hot sauce (optional--if you need more heat to be happy with it)

Drain chicken (my cats demanded some of the chicken water, so I drained a little into paper bowls for them), dump in crock pot, break up a bit.  Dump in cream cheese, cheddar, ranch, and buffalo sauce, and turn the crock pot on low.  Go back in an hour or so, depending on your crock pot (mine runs way too hot on all settings), and start the process of mixing it up.   It's ready when it's fully incorporated and hot all the way through.  It's good with Freetos, tortilla chips, celery sticks.  Probably would be good with club crackers, but I can't vouch for that, since I can't have those anymore. 

The picky kid ate probably a cup of dip, last night.  He only stopped because it was starting to make him queasy (as much cheese as is in it, I'm not surprised).  I had maybe half a cup...and a bottle of hard cider to mitigate the gallbladder attack I knew would follow.  

It was worth it.  This recipe turned out good.

Derp. Forgot to annouce.

 Light Up the Night dropped live on Wednesday.  It's available to purchase, or to borrow through KU.  

Eggs...and abject stupidity

 So.  

Eggs.  

They're something of a staple.  You use eggs for breakfast, for making cookies, for adding into recipes.  Eggs are just...they're ubiquitous.  They're in a lot of things.  They're supposed to be some of the cheapest protein out there.  

We use a lot of eggs in this house.  A lot.  Spouse eats French Toast egg muffins for breakfast on work days; Imp eats fried egg sandwiches with hot sauce for school day breakfasts (and on Sunday before church).  I make cookies, cornbread, and gluten free bread--all of which use eggs.  Two of them, each time.  I also have a recipe that uses four to make a can of spinach palatable (basically turns nasty, slimy canned spinach into spanikopita filling).  So, yeah--we use a lot of eggs in this household. I get them in the big boxes (5 dozen) from Walmart about every three weeks or so.  

I got groceries Friday.  The box of eggs had jumped from $10/box to a bit over $18.  Yeah.  Major jump.  I got them at Sam's Club instead, for a bit more than $13 for the same size of box.  (That had gone up, too, just not as much as Walmart.)  

Yesterday, I ran across a news story about yet another food recall.  I'm sure you'll remember the great lunch meat recall for listeria?  Back in July?  Where they went screeching that lunch meat would kill you because of this particular bacteria? 

Yeah.  When I got pregnant for the first time in 2008?  I was cautioned that lunch meat can carry listeria, and that since I was pregnant, I would be particularly susceptible to it.  And that I needed to take lunch meat I got and heat it to steaming in the microwave, then put it in a new, clean container, before I put it back in the fridge.  And then it'd be safe.    

There was no need for a panic and recall.  It's stupidly simple to mitigate the risks.  All that was really necessary was a public service announcement.  

Back to the eggs.  They're the current recall.  Because salmonella.  

Wait just a damn fucking minute, here.  Eggs have always risked salmonella contamination.  It's one of the reasons you're not supposed to eat raw cookie dough.*  I have never been unaware of the possibility.  And I've never had a case of salmonella from eggs.  Wanna know why? 

I wash the fucking eggs.  And then I cook the fucking eggs.  

Again: a recall is not necessary.  All that should have been done was to draft a PSA.  Here, I can do it for them: 

Attention: this is a public service announcement from the FDA and CDC.  Recently, there has been a multi-state outbreak in cases of salmonella food poisoning that has been linked to eggs.  Salmonella is a dangerous food-borne illness that can be controlled with a few, simple steps.  Step one: wash the outer shell of the egg with soap and warm water before you crack the eggs for use.  Step two: cook the eggs until the yolk is set.  These two steps will prevent you from contracting salmonella from eggs.  We will not issue a recall for egg-borne salmonella.  Thank you.

Then...leave the eggs alone.  Leave them on the shelves.  Stop fucking treating the American public like toddlers.  If people ignore the PSA's instructions and end up killing themselves with salmonella?  Awesome.  Each easily avoidable death is one fewer stupid fucker voting.  And breeding.  And encouraging the government to treat the rest of us--you know, the ones with brains in our heads--like toddlers.  

Stop issuing food recalls for things that the consumer should be responsible for mitigating for ourselves.  Save them for the arsenic-tainted apple juice, or the metal-shavings-tainted chicken nuggets.