Radishrain

I previously reviewed Great Value macaroni and cheese from Walmart. This review is from Winco brand Macaroni and cheese from Waremart. I shall compare and contrast the two, abbreviating them as W (Winco) and G (Great Value).

W has much smaller noodles before they are cooked. After cooking for 8 minutes, they grow significantly.

W is much more starchy! Do not cook for only 7 minutes. Do not cook in a small amount of water that might seem normal to you. If you do those things (which I did at first), you risk making the pasta quite gummy with tiny hard things in it. My suggestion is to use even more than six cups of water (at least that much), and cook for about 9 minutes (maybe longer) instead of 7 to 8. Mine was pretty good that way.

W probably has the higher quality cheese packet. It's supposed to have natural food colorings and real cheese in it (but it is powder).

Over all, G is my favorite, and is faster/easier to cook. When cooked properly, they both have nice flavors, but are quite different. I do think adding extra salt does help the flavor of both W and G.

I don't know what the hard things are, but they feel like weevil larva exoskeletons when I bite on them. I did not see any weevils, though. The pasta is supposed to be best by some time in the future a long time from now. I did not notice any hard things from the box I cooked for 8 minutes (they seemed to have softened, if present, which weevils wouldn't). I noticed lots from the one I cooked for 7. I noticed about three from the one I cooked for 9.

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https://phys.org/news/2020-10-decline-average-body-temperature-healthy.html

The above article talks about how the average human body temperature, among healthy adults, in at least certain areas of the world, is declining. They have some hypotheses about why this is the case. I have my own. Here it is:

I hypothesize that the increased mercury in the environment is responsible. Mercury is known to lower body temperature, and we do know that there is more mercury in the environment than there used to be. Similar neurotoxins may also play a part.

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Best if used by date: 4 Feb 2022
Barcode: 078742358857

We got some of this within the last few weeks, from Walmart in the store (I didn't actually go myself and get it).

Anyway, it took about 7 minutes to cook, which is nice. It's one and a third cups of macaroni in the box, with a traditional-sized pack of cheese powder. The taste is great. Instead of traditional milk and butter, I like to add butter, low fat cream cheese (I used some from a tub of First Street cream cheese, but any cream cheese with at least some fat in it is probably okay), and extra salt (the salt brings out the cheese flavor more; the cream cheese flavor definitely, but probably the cheese powder, too); since I don't add milk, I leave a little water in instead of draining it all out. It's excellent that way.

Butter and evaporated milk also work instead of regular milk and butter (it just tastes a little richer), if you don't want to keep more perishable milk around.




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So, I was thinking today, it's pretty easy to dehydrate and powder leaves. Some leaves have a lot of protein (amaranth leaves, for instance). Seeds can be pretty difficult to harvest, and fruits take longer to dehydrate. So, why not powder lots of leaves?

I'm considering powdering our edible weed leaves next year (all together instead of individually. Then maybe we can make edible weed smoothies or something. Maybe they'd be a tasty seasoning on something. They'd probably contain things like mallow, dandelion, lambsquarter, amaranth, etc.

I plan to powder a lot of domesticated plant leaves, too! :) (Probably more so than weeds.)

I dehydrated and powdered some epazote. this was my first time dehydrating and powdering herbs in a food dehydrator, as far as I remember. It was easy and fun. So, that's why I'm excited to try other leaves.

I figured common amaranth would have seeds just like the cultivated grain amaranths, since the plants look so much the same—but no. We harvested some the other day, and the seeds were like tiny black specks. I wasn't expecting them to be so small, neither did I expect them to be black (there's nothing wrong with black seeds; I just thought amaranth seeds were the same approximate color as the flower/seed heads). Interesting and cool, but viable as a practical pseudocereal? Maybe not. Definitely different from grain amaranths.

What kind of fruit has the most seeds?

I don't currently know the answer, nor do I have seed counts, but in general, these fruits have a lot of seeds:

• Tomatillos (usually; sometimes they don't)
• Muskmelons (I've never met a muskmelon with few seeds. They are reliably seedy, in my experience; however, some do have more than others.)
• Eggplant (They can have a lot of seeds per fruit.)
• Pomegranates
• Ground cherries
• West India burr gherkins (They are quite seedy.)
• Tomatoes (depends on the variety; some like Sweet Ozark Orange and Cuostralee have quite a lot)
• Watermelon (Depends on the variety. I have met watermelons with few seeds, but they can potentially have quite a lot)
• Peppers (Much like tomatoes, it depends on the variety. Large bell peppers seem to have a lot, usually.)
• Wonderberries (These fruits are quite small, but for their size, they have a lot of seeds. It's easier to amass a large quantity of seeds from wonderberries than it is from most things, but that's in part because of the abundance of fruit.)
• Corn (If you count a whole ear as one fruit.)
• Strawberries

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-immune-cell-severe-covid-resembles.html

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Ingredients:
* 1 quart stewed tomatoes
* Black pepper (a liberal amount)
* Onion powder
* Garlic powder (or else granulated garlic)
* Milk (a liberal amount)
* Himalayan pink sea salt
* Parmesian cheese (a liberal amount is fine)
* A bay leaf (optional)

Directions:
Blend up the quart of stewed tomatoes and the bay leaf thoroughly in the blender, and pour into a glass sauce pot. Add the pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, parmesian cheese, and Himalayan sea salt. Boil it on high or medium high until it's thoroughly boiling. Take it off the burner, and add a liberal amount of milk. Stir. Put it back on the burner and boil again. Then turn off the burner and set aside. Make grilled cheese sandwiches while you're waiting for it to cool.

Notes:
* The milk does not stick or burn when you cook the soup before cooking the milk in the soup.
* If your tomatoes are quite acidic, the milk should take care of that, and mellow it out.
* Himalayan pink sea salt tastes really good, by the way.
* Black pepper improves the taste of tomatoes, and many other fruits. Don't skip it.
* The stewed tomatoes I used did have skins and seeds.

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Here's an excellent carob drink recipe (without exact measurements):

* Carob
* Almond milk (not sweetened or flavored)
* Brown sugar

Heat it on the stovetop.

Anyway, it tastes kind of like hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows in it. It's not bitter at all. But yes, it doesn't taste exactly like hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows in it, and it certainly doesn't taste like hot chocolate without marshmallows in it. Whatever the case, it's good.

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201007085609.htm

This article tells about how it seems better for you (with regard to support) if your support group members know and support each other (rather than just you).

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