Shortages from Strike

 I read about six articles for the lists of things we will miss first. It seems bananas are at the top of all the lists. Tomorrow, I will buy about five pounds of bananas and peel, cut in half and freeze. I refuse to leave the peel on. Using those are like peeling snot as I have said before. I will take the frozen pieces of bananas, thaw, mash and drink in about a cup of milk. This will serve to satisfy my banana need. I will buy extra hair color, too. I don't think tp will be short, at least not according to articles. Who knows?(rhetorical)

I took an hour nap before the debate. Dinner was leftovers from yesterday--meatloaf, broccoli, smidgens of Brussels sprouts, and green beans. Tommy heated up a can of mixed vegetables and had those, too. Later, I saw the mixed vegetables through the glass storage container. I thought it was candy corn in the refrigerator. No, it was corn and carrots I saw. Just up from a nap makes me confused sometimes. Besides, I don't know where the tiny bag of candy corn and Autumn mix is right now. 

Today, the city's contractor cleaned up the yard next door, except they left dead vines hanging from the top of the porch. Plus, they left six-foot weeds in between two fences. Trees are in there, too. I sent an email to city dept on Friday. That worked better than talking to people. I did mention that mosquitoes and rats were a problem. 

Two packages were on the front porch when we came home. One huge and heavy one was luggage, 5 pieces from Macy's for $79, free shipping. The other, tiny, was a box of my hair color. Yes, the luggage is cheap, but it will only go to car and into a motel or hotel, so no air travel to endure. 

Tomorrow will start early, so I dread tomorrow. But, I eagerly look forward to it.

If I can remember, I will make salmon croquettes on Wednesday. I really want gravy with them. Maybe Tommy will make the white sauce. I will teach him how to brown it. 

The lack of sun and cool weather has been very pleasant. But, tomorrow the sun and heat will be back. At least, no rain. 

Eating the Wrong Things

 I was watching some ad for dog food with a small child in it. I asked Tommy if he had ever eaten dog food. He said he had. I laughed and asked him how old he was. Nine. NINE? "I thought you were going to say three or four. What possessed you to eat it when you were old enough to know better? He said it was Milk Bone Dog Biscuits, hard as a rock and had a weird taste. This was back when they only had the large ones. 

Tommy's younger brother and four or five friends were there, too. No one but Tommy ate a Milk Bone. The friends were all gagging. Tommy gagged a little bit but swallowed it. He never told his parents and no one told on him. He ate most of it, and it did not make him sick.

My son would never have eaten dog food. As a matter of fact after the rumor spread that the school lunch was actually dog food, I had to make a lunch on the beef stew day. It took a long time to convince him that the news of dog food being served for school lunch was not true. However, I don't think he ever really believed it. 

My mother told us not to eat plants or berries outside. I did. There was a tiny plant with tiny pale leaves that sort of looked like clover that I ate quite often, it was bitter, but I loved it. I was careful not to let it poison me. I spit it out after chewing a while. Silly me. 

My brother ate May Pops, but they looked disgusting to me. My sister crawled under the bed and ate part of a bottle of aspirin. She is the only one who became sick from our misadventures. 

I had sworn I would not buy any candy corn because the bags were so big unless I just took a bit and gave it away. Well, I found a tiny bag, 4 ounces, for $1.79.  We keep looking at it. We definitely will not open it until Oct. 1. But, I want to eat it near Halloween. So, we will hold off and buy no other candy. I bought candy corn and Autumn Mix mix. 

Did you or your child or anyone you know ever eat dog food, cat food, etc,?

Were there any lunchroom rumors about the food?

Did you ever eat plants you should not? 

Aspirin or other meds?

Did you buy Halloween candy when it came out in July? I knew I would never save it until Halloween. And, if you say you can do that, you prevaricate!

I know you would miss my sleep report--It is noon and I have not slept since 8 pm Thursday night. I am loopy. 

Recipe: Uses Candy Corn

about 1/3 cup of candy corn, all I had left

the finished product
Since this looked like a plate of poop,
I decided to remove it from the leading position.
 

 Last year, Sue gave me a recipe to use with candy corn. I only had a bit of candy corn left, so I used it. This year, I bought Brach's Autumn Mix. Then, when I had almost finished the bag, I remembered the recipe. As you can see, it has some chocolate candy corn in the mix. The bags of only chocolate candy corn is called Indian Corn.

candy corn pumpkin

It has pumpkins in the mix besides the chocolate.  I did consider cutting the pumpkins in fourths so they would melt at the same rate as the corn. I forgot, and there was only one pumpkin which melted just fine. Since this is supposed to be like Butterfingers, I thought the chocolate candy corn would be okay.

 

There was only about 1/3 cup of candy corn. I did not want to dirty a cup and have to press the peanut butter to get an accurate measure, so I just spooned in what looked like 1/3 cup peanut butter.



microwaved for 60 seconds

I decided working in the deep, 2-cup measuring cup was not going to be good. The short, 6-inch wide Corning ware oven dish was the next choice. It worked. I microwaved the mixture for 30 seconds, stirred, and microwaved for another 30 seconds.

 

I did not wait for it to cool and started dipping the mixture when it was too hot to handle. Waxed paper on the counter makes this easy. Top right--original shape. Just underneath that, a molded-by-hand bar. I decided to make the drops. After all the pieces were on the waxed paper, I decided to mold them by hand--bars and drops. That worked. They, also were ragged looking until I molded them. The little bar on the right I a drop that I molded into a tiny bar. In the bottom right corner is a Coke cap to give perspective to the whole picture.

 

Thinking the mixture might cool too quickly, I started when it was way too hot to handle. But, I had waited three minutes! Waxed paper seemed to be the thing to use because I did not want these to stick. Take my word for it, these are way too oily from the peanut butter to stick!

 

Okay, taste test time....I think one minute was too long for this few. Last year, I do remember the candy being flaky. This year, for some reason the bars and drops seem tough. It has only been about fifteen minutes, so I will see if they get flaky like last year.

 

You are going to love this recipe. Not only is it simple, it is delicious!


Homemade Butterfingers from Sue at The Little Acre that Could

"Mix equal parts of peanut butter and candy corn.
 
Microwave on high for about 1 minute,
stirring until they are melted together.

Let it cool just a minute or so – enough so you can handle it.

Then form into bars or bite size pieces.

You can dip it into chocolate but you don’t have to.

The longer it sets and cools, the more it becomes flaky like Butterfinger candy bars."

One caveat: I think that I microwaved this bit of candy too long. Maybe if you use a cup of each, microwaving for a full minute will work. So, sitting longer did not help. Last year, sitting did help. Oh, I did not dip these in chocolate.

Thank You, Sue

Your turn
Have you ever made this substitute for Butterfingers? Will you?

Frugal Post-Halloween

Chocolate candy corn...yum

Right after Halloween I searched for candy corn. It was later in the day, so I assumed I had just missed on the clearance. Someone else had scooped up all the candy corn! Bummer  Then, exbf and I went to Walmart for something later in the week. There were about six carts of Halloween stuff, sitting in carts by the door.

"Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!" That was all the sound I could make. The electric cart stopped and I waggled my hand as I just made that silly noise. 

"What?!"

"Get it, get it!"  I waggled my hand.

"What?" 

"Candy corn, candy corn, chocolate candy corn!"  I think I was bouncing on the seat by then.

You see, there were only two or three bags left of chocolate candy corn amidst a cart of regular candy corn and several people who were into that cart. I was ready to go into a tantrum to match any two-year-old. Or, I think I sounded like one. A guy was laughing at me and confusion of exbf who literally jumped to see what I wanted.

Whew! He got one for me and then proceeded to get the regular ones for himself. There was a cartful of the regular candy corn for him. At $1 for the hugest bag I have seen, I figured we still should share and save more money and calories. He does not like chocolate ones.  

At home we both tore into our respective bags. I put some of mine in a glass jar. The rest I put down to find a twist-tie and cook lunch. Later the next day, I found the bag still open. So, it is trash. Tonight, I got out the jar and started eating. I bite off all the orange and white parts and make a little pile of the chocolate, eating the chocolate last.

Right now, I feel like I ate a cup of sugar. Yuck! for the feeling. Yum! for the time just before I ate too much tonight and was still enjoying it.

(Another indoor shot with funny color graces my opening of the blog post once again.)

Your turn

Did you wait until after Halloween to indulge in Halloween candy? Or, did lucky you have children's candy to eat while they were at school?  I did that.  They got wise and hid their candy from me.