Cauliflower Mashed “Potatoes”

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A lower calorie, lower carb, healthy alternative.

Here’s a recipe for folks trying to cut calories or just eat healthier. It’s basically a mashed potato substitute — made with cauliflower.

Ingredients:

  • Cauliflower1 head of cauliflower. Make sure it’s not green. (Image from Wikipedia.)
  • 1/4 cup milk or cream. Obviously skim milk will make it lower fat and calories, but cream will make it more like real mashed potatoes. Use either or anything in between.
  • 3 tablespoons butter or butter substitute. Butter is better, but go with the substitute if you’re trying to keep calories or fat content down.
  • salt to taste

Instructions:

  1. Trim off cauliflower stem and greens and cut into flowerettes. (My spelling checker says I spelled that wrong, but how else would you spell it?)
  2. Place in a microwaveable bowl with a lid, add about 1/2 cup water, and cover.
  3. Microwave on high for about 10-12 minutes. (Times may vary.) You want it completely cooked through. (If you have a fear of microwaves, you can steam it on a stovetop.)
  4. Drain.
  5. Combine milk or cream and butter or substitute in a microwave safe cup or bowl.
  6. Microwave milk/cream/butter/substitute mixture on high for 30 seconds or until hot and butter is melting. (Fear of microwaves? Use a pan on the stove.)
  7. Using a potato masher or electric handheld pureeing tool (my tool of choice for this job), puree the cauliflower. (You might also be able to use a blender or food processor, but I think that’s taking things too far.)
  8. Add the milk/cream/butter/substitute mixture and stir well.
  9. Add salt to taste.
  10. Serve.

This should make 4 normal sized servings.

I made this the other night with some heavy cream left over from the holidays that has still (by some miracle) not gone bad. It tasted unbelievably good with the steak Mike grilled up for us.

Skeptical? Don’t knock it until you try it.

And yes, I do use my microwave extensively for cooking vegetables.

Another Example of the Media Screwing Up the Facts

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A brief rant.

One of my Twiiter friends, @Vatsek, tweeted the following to me last night:

Have you seen this? Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one — CNN News web page

First of all, I do want to make it clear to folks that I don’t normally go out of my way to track down news stories about helicopter crashes — unless they’re local or there’s a chance I might know the pilot. But since @Vatsek tweeted it to me, I figured I’d better check it out to see why he’d flagged it. I found the article on CNN.com, “Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one.”

It was a brief piece with an overhead view of what looked like a helicopter that someone with a very large foot had stepped on. Included in the text were these sentences:

…The copter, which was heavily damaged, was attempting to take off when it crashed. A rudder apparently failed, the university statement said….

“All of the sudden, he dropped straight back down into the ground,” [a witness said]…

I have two problems with these statements:

  • A standard helicopter does not have a “rudder.” It has a tail rotor, which is controlled with anti-torque pedals. Those pedals resemble rudder pedals on an airplane, but they are not rudder pedals because a helicopter does not have a rudder.
  • If a helicopter’s tail rotor (anti-torque system) failed, the helicopter would not come “straight down.” It would be spinning like crazy. That’s because the tail rotor prevents it from spinning like crazy. If it failed, it would spin. And it’s pretty clear from the photo in the article that the helicopter was not spinning like crazy when it hit the ground.

This is yet another example of the media speculating, with absolutely no knowledge, about the cause of an accident, spreading misinformation among the public. What’s even worse about this is that if they asked any helicopter pilot — even a new student pilot — to fact check their story, they could have gotten it corrected with, at the very least, the proper terminology for the tail rotor/anti-torque system.

Scamming Jobseekers

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How low can some scum go?

This afternoon, my sister called me to chat about some things. The topic of her ongoing job hunt came up and she told me about what we both think is a scam.

She’d applied for a bunch of jobs that were listed on Craig’s List. Later the same day, she got an e-mail message from someone identifying herself as “Sister Mary Joseph” who claimed that one of the people my sister had applied for a job with had forwarded her contact information. Sister Mary Joseph was supposedly a recruiter who had dozens of high-paying jobs waiting to be filled. She provided a partial list that was short on details. The problem was, my sister’s resume needed some work and Sister Mary Joseph’s company would have to revise it before they could apply for any of the jobs.

The fee for this service? $100.

Sister Mary Joseph offered to give my sister 90 days to pay the fee. All she had to do was give Sister Mary Joseph her PayPal information, and Sister Mary Joseph would deduct the money from my sister’s PayPal account when the time came.

All this was revealed in a series of e-mail messages between my sister and the oh-so-generous-and-helpful “Sister Mary Joseph” — one of which actually ended with the phrase, “God bless.” When my sister pointed out (truthfully) that her resume had just been redone for her by a professional, Sister Mary Joseph said that she’d shown the resume to a bunch of people and they were all critical. It definitely needed the work that Sister Mary Joseph’s company would provide.

At this point, my sister, who recognized this as a scam as soon as the $100 fee was mentioned, broke off communication. Baiting a scammer is fun, but after a while, it does become a waste of time.

My sister thinks that a number of too-good-to-be-true job ads in Craig’s List (New York) were posted by a person or company who uses them as bait for desperate job seekers. They con them into coughing up $100 for resume services they probably don’t need to get jobs that probably don’t exist. Or, for the really dumb ones, they get PayPal information so they can suck an account dry or go on a shopping spree. She’s reporting the scam to Craig’s list. With luck, they’ll act and remove these scammers before they con anyone else.

Because I’m sure they’ve already sucked money out of enough job seekers.

Exact Sunrise/Sunset Times for Pilots and Photographers

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Important data…and a special offer.

This is an old post with links to old files. You can find the latest version of this offer and currently available files here.

I’m a geek and know it. Each year, for the past few years, I’ve gone through a convoluted exercise on my Mac to extract, process, and import the exact sunrise and sunset times for Wickenburg, AZ (where I live) into iCal as individual daily events. That data is then synched across all of my Macs (via MobileMe) and on my Treo (via the Missing Sync). As a result, if you ask me what time the sun rises or sets in Wickenburg any day in the current year, I can tell you — usually within about a minute — no matter where I am.

Why I Bother

Why do I have this information? Well there are two reasons.

For one, I’m a pilot and I often need to plan for flights in the future. For example, suppose a client wants me to take him from Wickenburg to Sedona for a day trip on a specific date in March. While I’m allowed to fly at night, there are three mountain ranges between Wickenburg and Sedona that get very dark at night. My personal rule, established for safety, is to leave Sedona no later than 30 minutes before sunset. That gives us plenty of time to cross all three mountain ranges before it gets dark. So, with a glance at iCal or my Treo, I can find out exactly what time sunset is on the day in question and tell him when we have to leave Sedona.

As a pilot who often flies photographers around places like Lake Powell, this becomes really handy. The best light for photography is early in the morning and late in the afternoon. This isn’t a theory at Lake Powell — it’s a fact. Knowing what time of day sunrise and sunset happen helps me to plan flights in that area.

Of course, the sunrise/sunset times at Page, AZ aren’t the same as in Wickenburg, but they’re close enough to get approximate timing for preliminary flight planning; I usually check the exact times before finalizing.

I’m also a photographer myself. So it’s important to me to know what times are best for photography.

How I Do It — Briefly

Time PaletteI get the exact time information from a program called Time Palette. I bought this try-before-you-buy program years ago. It had the information I needed, but no export capabilities. So I asked the software author to add them. He did. (Try asking Microsoft, Adobe, or Apple for a specific new feature you need in one of their programs and see how long it takes for you to get it.)

The hoops I jump through to export the monthly data and import it into iCal aren’t worth discussing here. It’s technical and boring. But each year, I improve my solution to make it a little quicker and easier for me.

Special, Limited-Time Offer

I realize that there are probably a lot of other pilots and photographers out there who could benefit from this information for their localities.

So I’m making this limited-time offer: I am willing to create iCal-compatible ICS calendar files for 2009 local sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset data for anyone who asks from now until January 2009 month-end. All I need from you is the name of your city/state/country and your exact time zone name. I figure that if enough people ask, it’ll motivate me to completely automate the entire process so it’s even easier for me next year.

You can use the comment form for this post to request your custom ICS files:

  1. Enter your name (first name only is okay) in the form’s name field. Don’t put the name of your company or blog or anything else.
  2. Enter your real e-mail address in the e-mail field. This keeps it private so only I can see it. And no, I don’t harvest this information for other use or sale. But I will use it to send your files, so if you put in fake information, you won’t get the files.
  3. Enter your Web site or blog in the Web site field if desired. You don’t have to do this, but why not?
  4. In the big comment field of the form, enter the following information (1) your city/state/country, (2) the closest large city/state/country with an airport (in case your city isn’t in the Time Palette database), (3) the exact name of your time zone, (4) whether or not your city observes daylight savings time, (5) a brief summary of why you want this information, (6) the name of the ICS-compatible software you plan to use the file with, and (7) any other comments you might want to share.

Please don’t leave out any of this information. If you leave out something really important — like the location or time zone — I either won’t be able to generate the information for you or it will be wrong.

One request per person, please. Full calendar years only — no special date requests.

I will create and send out these files as I find time. I’ll probably do them in batches. Don’t nag me. Don’t complain when you don’t get yours right away. I occasionally do work for a living.

I admit that I’m more likely to be motivated to create and send out a batch of files with a donation to my coffee fund. (Hint, Hint)

Don’t use the Contact form for this blog or my e-mail address, if you happen to have it, to make a request or ask questions about how I do this. I will delete your message and will probably ignore any other request you make through proper channels. My long-standing rule has not fallen: I do not provide support via e-mail.

And if you want this information for your locality, ask for it now. I’ll stop considering requests on January 31, 2009.

Disclaimer: I do not guarantee the accuracy of this information. It should not be relied upon without independent verification for any mission-critical operations. I will not take any responsibility for any use of this information. Use it at your own risk.

Download a Previously Created File

As I create these files, I’ll put them here for download by others who live in the same city. (I won’t create files for people who don’t have the courtesy to provide an accurate e-mail address, so don’t even try it; I’ll check first.)

The following files are already available for download; help yourself if you live in one of these cities:

2009:

The Joys of Online Shopping

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Why visit stores?

I have gotten to the point where I do about 75% of my non-grocery shopping online. I’m willing to bet that a good portion of the folks who read this are in the same situation. The rest of you might wonder why.

The Shipping Cost Argument

Most people use this as their argument against online shopping: if you shop in a store, you don’t pay shipping.

Okay, this is true. But I still have to get to the store. That takes time and costs money for fuel.

While I’m more concerned with the value of my time than the cost of fuel to drive to a store that has what I need, I won’t deny that I probably would have to drive at least 80 miles roundtrip from my Wickenburg home to find the item I’m looking for.

Let’s do the math here.

First, my time. Suppose I have to drive 80 miles round trip to get to a store that might have what I want to buy. Suppose I can get to the store in about an hour and that it takes me a half hour to find what I want to buy and pay for it. Then another hour to get home. That’s 2-1/2 hours. But what if the store that I thought had what I wanted didn’t have it? Then I have to go to another store, which may or may not be nearby. Let’s estimate 30 minutes for each store I visit. Now let’s estimate 2 stores per item I need to buy. So if I have to buy something as simple as a pair of jeans, I might be spending about 3 hours to get to the store, find them in my size and color, buy them, and get home. In 3 hours, I can write a how-to article for publication on a Web site that pays me several hundred dollars per article. So I’m potentially losing out on several hundred dollars of income.

Okay, so suppose I wasn’t planning on doing anything else that day. For the sake of argument, let’s assume my time is worthless.

But let’s look at the fuel costs. Suppose I drive that in my Honda, which gets about 20-25 miles per gallon highway. There’s some highway driving and some nasty “city” driving in terrible traffic where I usually shop. To make the math easier, let’s assume 20 miles per gallon. That’s 4 gallons for the 80 miles. Fuel prices for premium (which this little car takes) have ranged from $1.50 to $5.00 per gallon over the past year. We’ll use today’s price, which is about $2 per gallon. That’s $8 in fuel alone.

How much is the shipping cost for that pair of jeans?

It’s Not Secure

What? Get with the program. If you shop smart online, your transaction is secure.

In fact, it’s probably more secure than handing your credit card to a waiter in a restaurant where it’s all too easy to copy down credit card information before running a charge for your meal. Or reciting it over the phone, in a place where it could be overheard, or to a company that may or may not have honest employees or good intentions.

What’s risky is entering credit card information in unsecured forms online. Look for the lock icon on the edge of your browser window to ensure that a form is secure. You can also look at the URL; it should start with https (note the all-important “s”). Another thing that’s risky is putting your credit card information in an e-mail message. There’s no reason to do it, so don’t.

It Doesn’t Support the Local Economy

Well, that’s certainly true. But neither does shopping at the mall. Or at Wal-Mart.

And neither does hiring staff in India or China or Pakistan to provide telephone support or make products.

Let’s not go there, okay?

Today’s Purchase

Simply said, online shopping is fast, convenient, and affordable. Here’s an example.

Chef PantsI just bought 3 pairs of the “chef” style baggy pants I like to wear. (And no, I didn’t buy them with this crazy pattern — although you have to admit they look pretty funky.) As I was buying them online, my husband pointed out that he knows a place in Phoenix that sells “those kind of pants.” But do they sell the brand I’m wearing right now? The brand that seems to be cut perfectly for my middle-aged body and relatively long legs? And how much do they sell for there? These are all unknowns. There’s a chance that I could track down the store he knows and spend 30 minutes in there only to find out that they don’t have what I want. That my time wasted.

I found an online retailer that sold the pants I wanted by doing a Google search for a brand name. I immediately saw a store I’d bought from in the past, as well as a bunch of other online stores. Within about 10 minutes, I confirmed that the store I’d used before had the colors I was interested in at the best price. (You want to buy your own pair? The pants are from Five Star Fundamentals and the online store is AllHeartsChefs. These a great pants.) The entire shop-and-buy transaction took 15 minutes of my time as I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying my morning coffee.

Shipping on these three pairs of pants was a hefty $12.50. That’s a lot more than the $8 of fuel that I use up on a Wickenburg to Peoria shopping trip. But guess what? There was no sales tax added to my purchase. That saved me about $4.50. Oddly enough, when you add the cost of fuel to the sales tax I saved, it results in exactly $12.50 for this purchase. So the net savings was just my time.

And I’ll continue to argue that my time is of value to me.

The Death of Brick and Mortar Retailers

Online shopping is going to put a lot of brick and mortar retailers out of business. It’s sad, but is it such a bad thing? Don’t you think we have enough strip malls in this country? Aren’t you sick of seeing “big box” stores popping up all over the place, causing traffic jams during the day and blotting out the night sky with their parking lot lights?

Yes, there’s a loss of jobs. Or maybe it’s just a shift of jobs from malls to warehouses.

The benefits — as far as being green go — are real. People argue that when you buy online, the item has to be shipped to you and the shipper has a carbon footprint. That’s true, but don’t I have a carbon footprint when I drive my Honda down to Peoria and back to buy a single pair of jeans? The UPS guy, in contrast, is bringing goods for dozens — if not hundreds — of Wickenburg residents every time he comes to down. He’s doing the driving for all of us. And the more online shopping we do, the more driving we don’t have to do — while his driving remains almost the same.

This is the same argument the railroads have been using lately to say why shipping freight via rail is more green than shipping via truck. They’re already making the trip; adding more items doesn’t substantially increase the carbon footprint.

Personally, I’d like to see malls go away. I’d like to see downtowns revitalized. I’d love to be able to go to downtown Wickenburg and shop for things like clothes and shoes and books and music. I’d love to sit at an outdoor coffee shop with friends in my own town, with shopping bags at our feet while we discuss the bargains we’ve found. None of that kind of shopping is available in my town or anywhere near it.

Just as malls are killing downtown shopping, online retailers are killing malls.

And the way I see it, I’ve wasted enough time and money shopping. When I want to buy, I’ll buy it online.

What do you think? Use the Comments link or form to share your thoughts.