Diet and Life.

I got the results of my follow-up test: my TSH is 2 something.  Right in the middle of normal range.
I honestly can't say if I did that with the diet restrictions I imposed upon myself or if I just had postpartum thyroiditis and it was going to resolve on its own.  Either way, I feel better now that I've been avoiding gluten and sugar.  I solved problems I didn't realize were there like the fogginess that sometimes smogged up my thought.  I'm much better at interacting with people now because there's less lag between what they say to me and my response.

You can tell when I'm hungry because my conversation skills decrease pretty steadily in relation to exactly how hungry I am.  The hungrier I get the younger my brain gets, although even that is getting better without the gluten.

I've been doing a lot of research about this stuff lately because I'm the kind of stubborn ass that spends a lot of time trying to do things the way I want.  It's really interesting stuff, and I encourage everyone to look into it, regardless of skepticism.

I sort of joke that this is karma for me: I used to make fun of a youth leader of my old church for ordering burgers without a bun and I would frequently make it known that I thought celiac disease was a sham.  I still don't believe that all the people out there claiming to have it actually suffer from the disease, but it is real.  Gluten intolerance is also very real.

I will continue to be gluten free with an emphasis on wheat.  I'll eat spelt or kamut occasionally but wheat is totally out of picture - every time I eat wheat I pay for it, and the rides are not worth the price of admission.

The only things I can concretely tell you about thyroid health and diet from my own experience is that a glass of lemon water a day really helps and coconut oil is like the thyroid God.  If you do nothing else, take at least a tablespoon a day and see what happens.

Sugarless Chocolate Milk?

Sorry I sort of fell off of the blogosphere (can I say that?  I think my blog might be too small...), we had two conventions in a row.  Granted I only attended one, but I did show my art in the other.  Maybe I'll write about them later, but I have a specific topic I've been itching to type out on my mind.

Today I want to write about thyroid health.  Specifically hypothyroidism - what I have - but I think that most of what I have to say could be applied to hyperthyroidism as well.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, I am only sharing my experience.

In the beginning of August I went for a physical, just to make sure everything was in working order.  I guess they do blood work now as a matter of course; maybe they've been doing blood work as a matter of course for a long time, but I'm not one to go to the doctor unless something is wrong and I can't seem to fix it so I'm a bit out of the loop.  At any rate my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) came back at 10.45 or something, over 10 is the main point.  That's pretty high.  In fact, the doctor at the practice I visit has set 10 as the medicating cut off meaning that anything 10 or over gets a prescription.
I found this out when I received my labs in the mail a few days after I had my blood drawn.  At the top of the results was a curt note to me saying, "Jennifer, you are hypothyroid and need to take supplements.  One a day. Dr. _____"
Of course I rebelled, after having a good cry over it and calling hubby.

When I find out there's something wrong with me I generally take to the interwebs.  What I found was a general consensus that TSH alone isn't an accurate test if you're looking to find the root cause.  It works perfectly if you're looking for an allopathic solution (is that an oxymoron?) but I am not, so I decided to try and treat with diet.  A month later my TSH was down to about 6 and I was told to come back in two months to test again to make sure I was actually helping it and the decrease wasn't some sort of fluke.

You should know that a couple of things influenced my decision to attempt treating with diet.  First, I recently had a baby and there is a thing called postpartum thyroiditis.  Mostly it manifests as hyperthyroidism first followed by a month or two of hypothyroidism.  The majority of women are euthyroid within three months of being hypothyroid, some women need lifelong medication.  Second, I can be a stubborn little shit and I am pretty well like an ox about not putting chemicals into my body anymore.  It gets ridiculous sometimes, but that's another story.

So what am I doing?
I am essentially being paleo.  I am avoiding gluten, soy and white sugar like the plague and there is a list of veggies and fruits that are goitrogenic (meaning they promote thyroid inflammation/suppress normal thyroid function).  The list is as follows:

• cruciferous veggies which include broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussles sprouts, etc.
• peaches
• pears
• strawberries
• peanuts

I'm sure there are more, but those are the specific ones I'm avoiding.
I'm also steering clear of caffeine and alcohol.

I drink a glass of lemon water every day.  I'm not sure of the science behind this, but it seems to help.
I eat a spoonful of organic coconut oil (extra virgin) every couple of hours.  I think I'm taking close to 1/4 cup a day because I also put it into my hot drinks and cook with it.  I can't tell you how much this is helping.  If I start to feel icky, I'll take a spoonful and 20 minutes or so later I'm feeling normal again.
I eat a lot of yoghurt (Icelandic cream-Skyr which I make myself because otherwise I would break bank eating as much as I do) and cottage cheese with berries and ground flax seed.
I'm taking a women's multi (one-a-day) and an occasional cod liver oil depending on how much fish I consume that week.  I was taking a thyroid strength, but my body decided against that after a week or two.  I'm going to try an adrenal support supplement and see how that goes, I'll let you know.

To sum it up, these are the most important things I've found to do:

1. Do not eat gluten.  I felt it needed to be bold because holy crap gluten is so mean to your thyroid.
2. No refined sugar.  Again, sugar is evil.  I sneak in some maple syrup once in a while (the real stuff) and I seem to do fine, but granulated sugar is a no-no.
3. Try to avoid fluoridated water.  Seriously.
4. Try to avoid goitrogens when possible.  I read that the food loses some of it's goitrogenic properties on being cooked, but I've still been moderating my consumption.
5. Eat lots of good fats, like coconut oil.  Lots of coconut oil.  I mean it.
6. Probiotics are your friend (p.s. Goodbelly, you suck for adding gluten to your drinks)
7. Try supplements or, barring vitamins, add salt to your food.  Just in case of iodine deficiency.
8. Omega-3 is awesome, eat it somehow (flax, eggs, fish, supplements)
9. Brown rice wins over white rice.  Always

Things I've learned while being stubborn about dietary restrictions:

1. Food tastes awesome without sugar.  I've made a totally paleo cobbler a couple times now and it's amazing.
2. Coconut butter is a thing and you should try it.
3. I feel the difference when I eat gluten.  Not just wheat, I can't eat oatmeal unless it's specifically gluten free now...

A lot of people would say that my diet is crazy, that I'm depriving myself somehow.  I don't feel deprived.  I love dessert and I still eat it regularly, just sans sugar and most grains which does not make it any less tasty or satisfying.  In fact, dessert without processed sugars is more satisfying.  I'll share some recipes in a few days.


I'm going to leave off with a recipe I just discovered for sugarless chocolate milk.  I drink this before bed sometimes and it's amazing!

6 oz whole milk (I use organic, non-homogenized)
1 spoon coconut oil
2 spoons cocoa powder

pour ingredients into a blender and blend for 15-30 seconds.  Pour and enjoy.
This creates an interesting froth on top which is also delicious.  This is for a pretty dark chocolate milk, the measurements aren't exact, just make it how you like!

A Guide to Soaking Nuts.

I started with soaking almonds.  I looked up how to soak them in my Nourishing Traditions book and followed the recipe.  Then I got pecans, and it's a good thing I checked the book first, because I totally assumed that soaking almonds and pecans would work the exact same way.  But it doesn't, oddly enough.

So here is a guide to soaking different nuts!
It should be noted that all of these are for soaking raw nuts.

Pecans
4 cups pecan halves
2 teaspoons sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

Walnuts
4 cups walnut halves/pieces
2 teaspoons sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.
Store in your refrigerator.

Peanuts/Pine Nuts/Hazelnuts
4 cups peanuts, pine nuts, or skinless hazelnuts
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

To peel hazelnuts, place on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees until skins turn dark and begin to crack.  Place in a kitchen towel, wrap tightly andrub and squeeze the bundle in your hands.
Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

 Almonds
4 cups almonds, preferably skinless
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

Cashews
4 cups cashews
1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for no longer than 6 hours.
Dry in a 200-250 degree oven for 12-24 hours.

Cashews have such a short soaking time because they contain a toxic oil called cardol between the inner and outer shell.  Before the nuts hit the shelves of your market they are cracked and roasted at 350 degrees twice.  After they have been roasted twice they are marketed as "raw."  Because they are not truly raw, soaking them longer than 6 hours produces a slimy nut with a rather disagreeable taste according to Nourishing Traditions.

Macadamia Nuts
4 cups macadamia nuts

1 tablespoon sea salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours or overnight.
Dry in a warm oven for 12-24 hours.

~~~

The reason walnuts are the only nuts that need to be stored in the refrigerator is because almonds, pecans, cashews, macadamia nuts, and peanuts have a high content of stable oleic acid.  This means that they do not go rancid easily, and once prepared (soaking/dehydrating) they can be stored for a number of months at room temperature in an airtight container.  Walnuts, unlike the other nuts, contain large amounts of triple unsaturated linolenic acid and will go rancid much easier.

So there you have it.  That is a list of all of the nuts included in the Nourishing Traditions book.

Happy soaking!

Breakfast Time.

I mentioned earlier that I had been messing around with a pancake recipe, so here it is!

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1 cup liquid
1 tbs whey
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 tbs cooking oil

combine the flour, liquid and whey, mixing until smooth.  Cover and let sit overnight.  In the morning add the remaining ingredients, mixing well.

I recently discovered the awesomeness that is a ketchup bottle for dispensing pancake/waffle batter.  It makes for a mess free morning, and a more uniform batch of pancakes.  Not to mention the ease of storing any leftover batter you might have.
I use one of those upside-down bottles because they require squeezing.  I've never tried using a regular ketchup bottle, but I feel like it might be a bit messier on account of having to flip it over to get the batter out.

Next project: dye-free frosting colors!

Almonds Everywhere!

Sprouts recently had a bulk almond sale for $3.99 a pound of raw nuts.  I jumped on it, before I learned that you should buy refrigerated nuts because the natural oils can go rancid quite fast and who knows how long anything has been sitting out in the bulk section of your grocery store.  I'm not sure yet if the cheap side of me will win this one; I may continue to buy bulk nuts that are on sale in favor of refrigerated nuts simply because of the price difference.

At any rate, the almond sale means I've been making a lot of things using almonds.

I made almond milk last week that was delicious.  I turned it into an awesome tapioca pudding (I love tapioca pudding!).  I also ate some cereal with it, because sometimes convenience wins - I should just stop buying cereal altogether at this point.

I made almond meal/flour with the ground nuts leftover from the milk making process.  To do that, all you need is an oven or dehydrator to dry out the nut meal.  Once it's dry, if you want a finer texture toss it into a blender or food processor for a minute or so, depending on how fine a texture you're looking for.
I mentioned in my last post that I was going to try making flour-less brownies with it, but what I ended up making was a batch of thumbprint cookies.  They turned out deliciously, I'll definitely be making them again.

I also made a batch of almond butter with the extra 3 cups of nuts leftover from soaking for the milk.  All you need to make almond butter is a food processor and some patience.  I might play around with adding things like cacao powder for a chocolate butter, or honey or something, but you really don't need to add anything.  The only thing you should be sure of is that your nuts are properly dried after soaking.

After making my own almond butter I've decided that I'm never buying nut butter from the store again.  It's so easy to just make your own, and it tastes a ton better.

Actually, all this writing about almond butter is making me crave it.  I'm gonna go have some.

...and in the mornin' I'm makin' WAFFLES!

 Today is post 100!  Woot!

Today I want to share a recipe I discovered recently for super delicious waffles.  I might play around with the flour combinations a bit - I've been playing with pancake combos like wheat, buckwheat, and corn flour (which turned out awesomely).  I'll share some pancakes with you next week.

Lately I've been really into soaking things.  I even tried soaking popcorn.  I've also been really into pairing things with fruits high in vitamin C, especially for breakfast.  So here is an awesome waffle recipe I came up with:

Soaked Strawberry Almond Waffles

1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 Tbs whey
1 3/4 cups filtered water
1/2 cup cooking oil
chopped, soaked (not dried) almonds
diced strawberries

Combine the flour, whey, and water in a bowl.  Cover and let sit overnight.  In the morning, whisk mixture until smooth, add eggs, baking powder, salt and cooking oil, mixing until combined.  Fold in chopped almonds and diced strawberries to taste.
I used almonds that were soaked but not dried and I found that the waffle maker cooks them just right so you have crunchy nut bits in your waffles.  I've used dried soaked almonds as well, and that's good too, but I like the texture the wet ones give to the waffles much better.

To soak the almonds:

4 cups almonds
1 Tbs salt
filtered water

Combine, cover, and let sit overnight.  Drain and rinse in the morning.

With the remaining almonds (because there's no way you can fit 4 cups of almonds in your waffle batter) you can make almond milk, or you can dry them in a warm oven for 12-24 hours for snacking awesomeness or to make almond butter.  Or you can do both!

To make almond milk:

1 cup soaked almonds (not dried)
4 cups filtered water
cheesecloth, nut-milk bag, or thin material for straining

Put the almonds and 2 cups of water into a blender (or all 4 if your blender is huge) and blend until smooth (I gave it 5 minutes just for good measure).  Pour the almond mixture and extra water into a bowl lined with a straining cloth.  Squeeze as much liquid out of the pulp as you possibly can.  Enjoy.

Supposedly you can use the pulp for baking after you dry it thoroughly, and I'll be giving that a shot because I'm weird about throwing edible things away.  I'll let you know how that turns out - I'm going to try to make flour-less brownies with it.

Dark Chocolate Mounds.

I made a delicious cheesecake for Easter.  I didn't have any graham cracker crumbs, or graham crackers so I decided to use shredded coconut, specifically the shredded coconut from the last time I made coconut milk.  The cake turned out so good that I'm making another when we head to Grand Junction to visit my parents at the end of this month.

So I'm making coconut milk again.

I was sort of dreading it because of how difficult it was last time, but this time it was pretty easy.  I dunno if I got better at selecting a decent coconut or if I just had bad luck last time.  Whatever the case, I was pleasantly surprised.

So here's the recipe for the tapioca I made with my last batch of coconut milk:

1/3 c. small pearl tapioca
3/4 c. water
2 1/4 c. coconut milk
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs, separated
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Soak the small pearl tapioca in water for 30 minutes in a 1 and 1/2 quart saucepan.  Do not drain tapioca after soaking.  Add milk, salt, and lightly beaten egg yolks to tapioca and stir over medium heat until boiling.  Simmer uncovered over very low heat for 10-15 minutes.  Stir often.  Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. 1-2 minutes before folding in egg whites add 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder mixed with 2 Tbsp sugar to the tapioca.  Fold about 3/4 cup of hot tapioca into the egg whites, then gently fold mixture back into saucepan.  Stir over low heat for about 3 minutes.  Cool 15 minutes then add vanilla.  Makes 3 and 1/2 cups.

The recipe says nothing about letting the pudding set.  If you want a richer consistency I recommend making this a day or so ahead and letting it chill in the fridge until you're ready to serve it.

This pudding is not very sweet by normal standards.  It's perfect for me, but my sugar tolerance is pretty low, so if you normally like sweet things I would suggest adding about 1/4 cup of sugar to it when you add the milk, salt, and egg yolks.

So there you have it.
I'll post the cheesecake recipe later.

Adventures in Soaking Breakfast Cereals

When I say breakfast cereals I mean hot cereals; I've gotten to the point that I forget about cold cereal as an option.  I wish I could say the reason for this is because I know that cold cereals are bad for me, but the actual reason is that I can't have milk on account of the little one's tummy disagreeing with it.

Why soak grains?
I could explain it to you, but Dyno-mom has a wonderful, detailed post about it that says it better than I think I could say it.  Also, I'm feeling lazy today.

The above linked post also explains how to soak your grains properly.

How I soak my breakfast cereals:
I like love hot cereal.  During the last trimester of pregnancy, all I wanted to eat was malt-o-meal.  I knew it probably wasn't the best, but I couldn't get enough of the deliciously creamy, comforting goodness.  I was eating double servings sometimes twice a day (midnight snacks, if I felt inclined).  After having the little one, my cravings for it dropped, but didn't discontinue altogether.  The difference was that now I was somehow more conscious of buying a higher quality version of malt-o-meal which I perceived to be low quality because it's produced by a ginormo corporation.
I decided that Bob's Red Mill (BRM) was a better company for me to support.  Mainly because some of their cereals are USDA organic, and for some reason I trust this company to not be using GMOs.
Anyway, thus began my search for a BRM equivalent to malt-o-meal.  What I found is called wheat farina, or creamy wheat.  Not exactly the same, but delicious nonetheless.  Then I tried oat bran (which I originally purchased with the dumb idea that oatnut bread required it - before I actually looked for a recipe) and that was delicious.  Then came rice farina, or creamy rice, in an attempt to lower my gluten intake.
I never soaked the oat bran.

The wheat farina soaks nicely with whey, but I found I had to tinker with the amount of water I used.
The rice farina is super delicious soaked with whey, but again, I had to tinker with the water.
The proper way to prepare these cereals is by boiling the water and then slowly adding the cereal to the boiling water.  Somehow they turn out a lot thicker that way than if you soak them in warm water overnight, bring to a boil and then simmer.
The wheat farina needed considerably less water while the rice farina only needed about 1/4 cup less.  I never got around to fine-tuning the wheat farina because hubby and I are trying to cut down our grain consumption and I ran out of wheat farina after soaking it once.  Maybe some other day.

A double portion (what I eat) calls for a 1/2 cup of rice farina to 1 and 1/2 cup water.  So, that means I put the 1/2 cup of cereal into the bowl, mix with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of whey (or acid of some other kind, like lemon juice) and then pour in 1 and 1/4 cup warm water.  I generally do this around 7 p.m. the day before, so the cereal soaks roughly 12 hours.

I've been soaking my oats for some time now.  I usually use lemon juice for them, but whey works very nicely also.
 If you soak with lemon juice, be prepared to use a lot of honey or some other sweetener or spice.  Unless you like the bitter flavor the lemon gives to whatever it is you're soaking.
I tried soaking with apple cider vinegar once, but once was enough for me to decide that vinegar was not a good match for my taste-buds.

What is whey?
I didn't know what whey was for a long time, which is why I soaked my oats with lemon juice.  I got this idea that I would walk into Vitamin Cottage and ask, because they're a health store, they should know, right?  Well, the guy I asked looked confused and said, "you mean whey protein isolate?"  To which I said, "no, I mean whey..."  So he didn't know either.  Consulting the mighty google wasn't terribly helpful as the results I got all had to do with the protein powder as well.
Finally I discovered from my mother-in-law exactly what whey is, and how to get it.  I'm not sure why I didn't ask my sister-in-law or Dyno-mom.
Whey is the clear liquid that collects on the top of things like yoghurt and sour cream.  Also, had I actually searched the right combination of words, I would have found this page.

Animeland Wasabi Con

This weekend is Animeland Wasabi Con.  I am going to be there selling my art - actually liquidating my art.  I'm trying to get rid of all of the back-stock I have of prints.  What better way to get rid of something than sell it dirt cheap?

I'm sad that I don't have any new art to bring with me to the convention, but what can ya do?

I'm also nervous about having the wee one with me.  It will be an adventure if nothing else.

In case you're interested in stopping by, the convention will be held here:

Doubletree Hotel By Hitlon
3203 Quebec Street
Denver, CO 80207 

Friday March 1st at 10:00 a.m. to Sunday March 3rd at 4:00 p.m.

The hours are kind of arbitrary; I've never attended a convention that closed at a certain time.  Vendors will leave, but artists in Artist Alley usually stay later.  And there are always stragglers.

I ended up using the coconut milk I made for chocolate tapioca.  The method I used yielded just under 2 1/4 cups of milk, and that was what the tapioca recipe called for.
I did add a little bit of vanilla to the coconut milk (a tiny bit, because vanilla tends to "bloom" if you leave whatever contains the vanilla in the fridge), so it was sweeter than it would have been otherwise.

The overall taste of the milk was better than the tinned coconut milk I buy from Sprouts; it kept the natural coconut taste, so the flavour was much more pronounced.
I wasn't expecting the cream to sort of solidify.  I knew it would separate when kept in the refrigerator, but I was surprised that it congealed into something similar to butter.  Delicious coconut butter.

I guess I would make it again, even though it took me two days to finish it.
I would definitely make it again just for the tapioca.  I'm pretty sure the batch of dark chocolate tapioca I made with the milk was the best tapioca pudding I've had in a long while.  I will share the recipe with you when I feel like retrieving the tapioca package to type it up.

WAPF Pie

With the holidays here I wanted to bake pie.  I had ten mason jars full of puree (from two pumpkins!) so I thought I'd make pumpkin pie.
I've never made pumpkin pie before, so I consulted my Nourishing Traditions book.  I love the crust recipe; the filling was...interesting...so I modified it so that it would have more of the traditional pumpkin pie flavor I like so much.

The first time I made the filling I just used my mixer.  This produced slightly lumpy pie, almost like I put apple pieces in it.  Not only that, but the recipe calls for grated lemon rind, so the pie tasted something like a lemon creme pie with pumpkin.  Maybe I used a lemon that was too large, but the next time around I skipped the lemon.

The second time I made the filling I ran it through my blender after mixing it together.  This pie came out much smoother and overall more pleasant to eat.  In addition to omitting the lemon I tweaked the spices which produced a better flavor.

The third time I made the pie I ran the liquid through my blender before adding the pumpkin and then ran the blender a bit more.  I also tweaked the spices further.  The result was pretty awesome I think.  I didn't have an actual slice of this pie because I took it to my friend who just had a baby boy (yay!) but I baked some of the filling in a ramekin to make sure it tasted okay.

So here's the crust recipe.  The only modifications are the partial substitution of whole wheat flour for the white and the removal of Stevia powder:

1 cup unbleached white flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) frozen butter
2 egg yolks
3 rounded tablespoons cold water

Stir flour and salt into a food processor.  Cut the butter into about 16 pieces and distribute over flour.  Pulse the processor until the butter is broken into pea-sized pieces and is well distributed.  Beat the egg yolks briefly with a fork and dribble over the flour mixture.  Pulse once or twice (maybe three times for good measure).  Turn on the processor and pour water in, stop the processor "at once."  The butter should still be visible in pea-sized pieces.  Turn the crust onto wax paper, wrap up and squeeze (not hard, wax paper tends to split open), forming a ball.  Refrigerate for several hours.
Roll on a floured sheet of wax paper.

For your viewing pleasure:

 This really does work, by the way.  And I found that it was amazingly entertaining to do.  Now I just have to keep a plastic bottle around.

Pumpkin Pie Filling (my modified recipe)

15 ounces pumpkin
3 eggs
90 ml dark brown sugar (1/4 and 1/8 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup piima cream or creme fraiche
2 tablespoons brandy

Oven: 350°

Line a pie pan with the crust above.  Cream eggs and sugar, gradually adding everything except the pumpkin.  Blend.  Add pumpkin and blend a bit more.  Pour into the pie shell and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

If you want a sweeter pie, go ahead and just use 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar (or Rapadura is what the original recipe calls for).  I always halve the amount of sugar a baking recipe calls for.

Also, cream fraiche is like french sour cream.  I like it better than sour cream, myself.  You can find it at Sprouts, or a health food store in your area.

~~~

Okay, so this is me coming up with grandiose plans that most likely will not happen but I'm going to give it my best shot.  I'm going to try and make one recipe from the Nourishing Traditions book a day - or at least one a week.  This is a massive project, but I'm really trying to commit to eating better and I think this might be a good way to start.

Anyway, I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving filled with good cheer and merriment and such!

Fighting Anemia One Cookie at a Time.

Let me start by saying that I am aware that wheat products inhibit the body's absorption of certain minerals (including iron) by varying percentages.
I should also say that I am not advising anyone who is anemic to eat a cookie every day to cure the condition.
What I am saying is that these are delicious and they have a good amount of iron and B vitamins in them.

So, at my most recent appointment with our midwife we discovered I was still a bit anemic.  I think I hit a 9 out of 12 or something like that.  I felt alright except I slept a lot (thank heavens the little one also slept a lot) so I was surprised to find that something was wrong.
I was advised to take Blackstrap Molasses (2-4 tbs a day) and eat plenty of iron-rich foods.

I went home and tried to eat a straight spoonful of molasses.
Yeah....
I don't know if you've ever had molasses, but eating it straight is pretty gnarley.  Not only was it difficult to get down, my stomach decided I was an idiot for ingesting it and let me know.  I kept it down, I just felt pretty icky for a couple hours.

After trying to eat it straight I decided I'd integrate it into regular foods.  So I put it on my hot cereal and that worked okay, but I wanted some variety.  Also, I had romanticized molasses cookies.
Thing is, none of my recipe books contain a recipe for molasses cookies - I even have one a friend gave to me for a wedding gift called I Dough, 100 Cookies.  My mom didn't have one either.  So I turned to my trusty friend Bing and found this recipe which I've modified as seen below:

3/4 cup butter (melted)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
some white sugar

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Combine butter, sugar, and egg.  Mix until smooth and add molasses.  Add half of the dry ingredients, mix well and add the second half.
Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.

Oven: 375°

Roll the dough into balls and roll in white sugar.  Place the cookies about 2 inches apart and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the tops are cracked.


It really doesn't matter how large you make the cookies, they come out the same texture; nice and soft with a crispy outside (courtesy of the sugar).

I love this recipe, and hubby has proclaimed these cookies his new favorites.

They'll make a great addition to the holiday care packages I'm planning on delivering to my neighbors this year!

"No Fun" Cake.

We hosted a friend of ours for the weekend.  His birthday landed on his last day here - in fact he came to stay with us for his birthday - so I wanted to bake him a birthday cake.  The catch is that he's gluten and dairy intolerant on top of diabetic.  So, how to bake a sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free cake and still have it taste good?

Well, some hours of Bing searches later I came up with something that's actually pretty good cake.

For the cake itself I found this recipe and modified it as seen below:

2 cups white rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca flour (aka tapioca starch)
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tbs baking powder
3/4 tsp kosher salt
8 tbs coconut oil (melted)
1 cup agave nectar
4 large eggs
some vanilla
3/4 cup french press coffee

Oven: 350°

To grease the pans I brushed on coconut oil using a pastry brush - this actually worked a lot better than I thought it might; it's more effective than my previous method of taking a cold stick of butter and running it across the pan.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Combine the agave and oil, mixing on low with a paddle attachment (if you have one).  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg and scraping the bowl occasionally.  Add the vanilla.
Once all of that is mixed well, add half of the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.  Add coffee, mix, add the rest of the dry ingredients.
Spatula the batter into the pans so each is even and then bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top springs back when pushed lightly (they're kinda spongy) and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Run a dinner knife around the edges of the pans and allow to cool for 30 minutes.  Flip them onto a cooling rack and proceed to make the frosting.

Now here was the tricky part.  How in the world do you make frosting without sugar or dairy?
Welp, I had to get over my weirdness concerning stevia; to make a sugar free powdered sugar I used the following:

4 cups stevia in the raw
4 tsp tapioca flour (aka tapioca starch)

This will yield about 2 cups (16oz) of powdered sweetener once you've either run it through a blender or a food processor.  It took me about a minute to get the right consistency.  I made a small bit extra also, to dust the cake once it had been frosted.

Once you've got the sweetener to be the texture you want, the frosting recipe requires these things:

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/4 cup coconut milk
some vanilla

Whisk together the sweetener and the cocoa powder, then add the wet ingredients in whatever order.  Mix well with a hand mixer until fluffy-ish.  I didn't get it to come out to exactly frosting fluffiness, but it got close.
This made enough to barely cover the whole cake (including a small layer of filling).

Refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving.
It's even better if you can make this a day ahead: the frosting acquires a fudge-like quality on day two of coldness that's pretty awesome.


So there you have it.  You can now make what our friend calls a "No Fun" cake for those special people in your life who happen to have food allergies.

To be quite honest, I was surprised it turned out to be as delicious as it was!

Nipplephobia

Potentially offensive content ahead.

 Definition: irrational fear, fascination, attraction, repulsion, guilt, and confusion provoked by seeing an adult female nipple (or even the illusion that one is seeing one).  (266)

I'll be the first to say that I love the female figure.  We're so curvy and that makes us pleasant to look at (for me).  An essential part of the female figure is breasts, big or small.  They are an important part of being a woman and raising a child.

I've always seen breasts in a sexual way; they're fun to look at, to touch.  For this reason breastfeeding raises awkward feelings.  Here is this part of me that I've been practically trained to view as a sexual thing, and I'm supposed to use it to nurture my baby.  I don't know about you, but I don't view feeding a child as sexual, and I sometimes have trouble imagining exactly how breastfeeding is going to make me feel.
I am the product of what Ina May Gaskin calls American Puritanism.  I tend to agree with her terminology (though I couldn't find on which page of the book she states this) and I continue to be amazed at people who react in such a volatile way to mothers who breastfeed their children outside of the home, or at all.  On some level I can understand: breastfeeding is a rare thing to see in our society.  We've been trained to view it as indecent, something you should only do in private.  I had an emotional reaction to it myself when I first saw a friend feed her baby.  I can't recall having seen it prior to that, although I feel like I must have come across it somewhere and just forgotten.  The point is, seeing it made me feel awkward, and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.  If it produced this (pretty strong) reaction in me, I can only imagine what someone else would think/feel given similar circumstances.
Now I see breastfeeding on a regular basis and my emotional weirdness is falling away.  A lot of this is because I'm very soon going to be doing the same thing so my awkwardness is replaced with curiosity.  Even so, some of the stigma around breasts remains in me and I'm left to wonder if my open fondness of them is a subconscious cover-up of a deeper discomfort surrounding breasts as a food source.  It makes sense I suppose.

Image found on page 259, or here.

I think that this kind of view is rather ridiculous.  To be put on edge, or even angered, by such a vital natural function can only be a product of some kind of conditioning.  I might argue that the infant formula industry started it (because I'm on a huge anti-corporation kick right now) but that would be false, unless infant formula dates back to the Civil War period (258). 
In 1910 the pictured device was patented which, frankly, looks to be stupidly uncomfortable not to mention unsanitary.  Apparently we'll go to an awful lot of trouble to make sure we aren't being "indecent." 
According to Wikipedia the first commercial infant formula was introduced in 1912, so I can't blame aggressive marketing for the breastfeeding stigma that exists so prevalently in our society.  The pictured product says that it existed long before commercial industry started manufacturing formula.

This stigma is so ingrained in us that we were the only country to vote against the WHO/UNICEF Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes which recommended that member governments restrict the advertising and sales promotions of breast-milk substitutes as a "minimum requirement" to protecting infant health. (249)  Effectively we decided that infant formula companies are more important to us than the health of our children and, one might argue, the self-esteem of our women.

The whole reason Nipplephobia irritates me so much is because it promotes the view that our bodies are not good enough.  We, as women, are flawed and we need the help of corporations and the medical industry to even function.


All citations are from Chapter 15 of Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding by Ina May Gaskin.

Always Wear Protection.

Life lesson 2491: Wear gloves when preparing something containing Capsaicin.
On Wednesday I made green chile.  I did not wear gloves while cutting the jalapeño peppers the recipe called for.  All was fine, I washed my hands and got ready for bed.  Before bed I put lotion on my feet.  Thursday my hands were on fire, Friday my feet were on fire.  Today is okay pain wise, but my feet are still recovering.  I literally could not walk like a normal person yesterday (or today, although I'm better now).  I was a cripple.
I never, ever want to be sprayed with pepper spray.
So that is why I am posting a day late: pain.

Anywho.

I realized the other day that the opinions I held before becoming Catholic (or pregnant for that matter) were things I had heard from others, or came across in some form of media.  These are usually not reliable ways to form opinions.
Some examples of this are as follows:

I used to be pro-choice.  I had never looked into exactly how an abortion is done or how a baby develops in the womb.  After finding those things out my opinion was changed.

My old roommate purchase infant ibuprofen for my cat when he was injured (by her cat).  It turns out that it could have killed him if I had given him any more than I felt slightly comfortable giving him.  I will now always ask a veterinarian first.
She also told me that cod liver oil is something you shouldn't take during pregnancy.  This is very similar to people who tell you not to drink chamomile tea or have a foot rub while you're pregnant.

I am now way more distrustful of the medical industry.

What I came to find was that the opinions that had no research behind them were easy to change.  Those opinions formed from sensationalized news stories that I was too blind to identify as hyped, and those that I just heard from a friend and took to be true.  Those are the ones that are most often altered.
Sometimes, though, I thought things that were wrong but still hard to change.  Generally I had formed some sort of attachment to these because for some of them, changing my opinion meant that I had spent X amount of time doing something that I now viewed in a negative way.  These opinions were the slowest to change for the reason that I had a sort of inner battle with myself.  It usually took me realizing that I wasn't happy while doing those things to get past the hurdle.

I'm still changing.
Expecting a baby changes you.  As our baby has grown, so have I.  In an effort to make the best decision for this child and myself I have discovered a lot of new things, my priorities have shifted, and I've learned some valuable skills (like learning how to not care about frivolous things).
I'm still me, but a new me...if that makes any sense.

Counting Blessings.

It's so hot today, so I came home and opened our last milk stout.
Holy cheezits I'm a light-weight.  I've taken maybe ten sips since opening it an hour ago and I can feel it.
Nevertheless, it's delicious, and nice on a hot day like this.

Anyhow.

Today, as I was taking the trash out at work, I was thinking about how grateful I am for the life I have.  Not everyone has a husband/partner who is as supportive as hubby.  He's been a wonderful help to me as I struggle through the changes happening to my body during pregnancy.  I'm extremely grateful for all of the enduring of not-so-nice me he has done, all the excitement he has for the baby, and - not the least of all - the help he's given me with my own body image issues.  He has truly helped me embrace pregnancy for what it is: a beautiful, life-changing journey.

I'd really like to convey this to everyone:
Pregnancy is beautiful.
Yeah, it sucks...sometimes a lot.  There were nights in my first trimester that I felt like death.  But nothing as profound as creating a new life should be viewed with such fear and scorn as some of society would view it.

Which brings me to my next point.
I think our medical system is fucked.  Sorry for the language, but that's the best word I have for it.
That's not to say that I'm not grateful for the option of going to the hospital when I need to.  Having doctors I can call to ask questions is pretty awesome too.  The system largely needs reform, but I don't think that gives me a right to not consider the good things it does.

I can say that I'm unhappy about a lot of things in this country.  But I can also say that I am grateful to live in a place where information is readily available to me (all I need to do is look).  A place where I have options, even if my choices are met with skepticism and downright belligerence by others.  It's pretty nice here, to be honest, even with the bad; if I were to live somewhere else, I'm sure I'd have complaints there too.

The point of all this is I've decided to try and see something good in everything.  I'm going to try and be better about optimism and actually taking the time to be appreciative of little things like running hot water for a shower, or cats who don't misbehave.

And now, because my attention span is failing me pretty effectively, have a recipe for Chicken Alfredo:

1/2 cup bone broth (chicken)
1/4 cup butter
2-3 small leaves fresh basil, ripped or chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tbs. flour
3 mushrooms
1 cup shredded chicken
1/2 cup half and half (or to taste)
1/2 tsp. granulated onion
pepper and salt to taste.

In a medium saucepan combine broth and butter.  Cook until butter is melted on medium heat.  Once butter is melted, whisk in flour.  Add basil and garlic.  Let cook for a bit then add mushrooms and chicken and let this cook a bit more.  Add half and half, onion, pepper, and salt.  Cook until bubbly.  Pour over noodles or rice and enjoy.

I hope I remembered that right.  This is something I threw together without consulting an actual recipe first and it turned out pretty delicious so I thought I'd share.

I also thought that a few sips of beer would calm this baby down, but I guess I was wrong.  I'm growing a brute!

Tea Cookies

I was looking for a recipe for coconut flour cookies so I could bake something gluten free.  Hubby and I visit a friend of ours in Fort Collins semi-regularly and his children can't have wheat or dairy.
I wanted to bring them cookies this time so I found a recipe after discovering that coconut flour does not behave like grain flour (something I should have figured out before trying to make stuff with it).
I modified it a little because I didn't have any coconut milk, and I have some weird hangup concerning stevia.
Here is the recipe:

Dry Ingredients

• 3/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt

Mix well, set aside.
Wet Ingredients

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 cup Tetley tea (or black tea)
• 6 eggs, preferably free range and organic
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• Chocolate chips to taste

Turn on oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixer, whip the 6 eggs thoroughly. Add tea and mix well. Add butter.  Add dry ingredients and mix on lower speed until smooth.  If dough is too liquid-y, add more flour one tablespoon at a time, you should only need two - the dough will not be as thick as regular cookie dough.  Fold in chocolate chips with spatula.

When I make these, they do not spread.  They keep the lovely shape of the dropper I've got, making fun little dome cookies.
I also make a half recipe because I don't want to use all 6 eggs at once.
3/4 of a cup is 180ml give or take, so you'll only need 90ml of flour.  I have a measuring cup set we got for a wedding gift that has weird sizes to it and I use the first two which I think are 1/8 and 1/4 cup measurements to get the 90ml.
As for the vanilla, I just pour a bit in the batter (I usually don't measure my vanilla extract when I'm baking).
The dough (before adding the chocolate chips and after the extra tablespoon of flour) is kind of spongy.  I can't really think of how to explain it.

Next time I bake these I'm going to try using coffee instead of tea.  It should be interesting.

I hope you all are having a great Memorial Day!

Yard Work.

Today I planted the garden!

I planted a rainbow assortment of heirloom carrots.  I've got purple, white, yellow, and orange.  Although I couldn't tell you which seed was which, so it'll be a surprise when they come up.
I also planted purple cauliflower, cucumbers, spinach, acorn squash, and two types of tomatoes.  All heirloom.
I had another two volunteer pumpkin sprouts, the first of which I uprooted without knowing what it was.  The second I had the presence of mind to actually check the root system and found that it was sprouting from a pumpkin seed, so I transplanted it.
There are three (potentially) sugar baby watermelon plants in the back next to the pumpkin sprout.
I've got a jalapeño and an Anaheim pepper plant.  I'm going to plant some scotch bonnets and other types of peppers behind them.
I bought a bag of organic potatoes and a bunch of them sprouted, so I put those in a row.
And I still have space for herbs.

I'll be going to Ace soon to get plants.  They sent me a pretty awesome coupon set.  May's coupon is 20% off anything live.  I'll probably stop by and pick up more plants this week.

Our lawn mower broke over the winter.  The carburetor's shot apparently.  Our lawn has been growing wild pretty much since the winter, so it got pretty tall...and kind of gnarly looking while we waited for a replacement mower.
We ordered a reel mower on ebay.  It came last week on Friday, and then it rained.  So hubby finally mowed the front this afternoon while I did the garden.  He also picked up an electric weed whacker and trimmed the rest of the back and the front.
The lawn finally looks presentable!

I am so glad we don't live in a neighborhood with an HOA.

Anywho, I'd be interested to know what you planted, if you planted anything.

Go Fish.

I buy fish like this:

1. Open all three sales papers I get (one at a time)
2. Look for anything Wild Caught.
3. Go to the store with the cheapest Wild Caught fish.

Last week the cheapest Wild Caught fish (aside from Cod) was Seabass at Sprouts.  This was fortuitous because I prefer Sprouts eggs to Sunflower Market eggs - there's a reason Sunflower is cheaper - so I picked up a little over a pound and then froze it.  I purchased it on the weekend and I planned to cook it today (Friday).

Uh...
How do you cook Seabass?

I have no idea.  So I turned to Live Search while I was at work (the security guard lends me her computer sometimes) and I came up with this:

Marinated Grilled Seabass

6 pieces sea bass, thawed if frozen
Marinade:
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1-2 tsp. lemon zest (grated lemon peel)
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 T. small capers, rinsed
1 T. fresh garlic puree or garlic powder
2 T. dried shallots (or use dried onions or chopped fresh shallots)
1 T. dried parsley
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1-2 lemons sliced, for serving (optional)

Step 1: Mix marinade ingredients together. Put fish in single layer in ziploc bag, pour marinade over and marinate 2-3 hours in refrigerator. (Don\’t increase the marinating time much more than this or the lemon juice will start to \”cook\” the fish.)

Step 2: To cook, oil grill grates with olive oil, then preheat grill to medium high. Grill fish until firm to the touch and slightly browned, about 4-5 minutes per side. Serve fish with sliced lemons

I only had two pieces of Seabass, but I used the full 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice...and that was about the only thing I measured really accurately.  I didn't have 1/2 cup olive oil, so I used what was left in the jar, I couldn't say how much that was.  I also couldn't tell you if I used the correct amount of garlic, and I certainly didn't puree it, I chopped it finely.  And I only zested one lemon, so who knows if that was the correct measurement.
Yeah, that's right, that's how I cook: like a lazy person.

It turns out this recipe is fantastic.
I popped the fillets on the grill after marinating (room temperature) for a little under two hours.  I kept them brushed with marinade the whole time (even the bottoms when I flipped them) and I have to say it was really freakin' tasty served with some wild rice.
It took longer than the 4-5 minutes a side, but the fillets were pretty thick, so that was probably why.

My grill is a wood burning grill (which explains why I failed so hard when I tried to use charcoal in it) so I filled it with old wood and I used maple seeds/pine cones/pine needles/tree bark as a starter - basically all the dead stuff from the front yard.  I have to recommend this over newspaper; it works worlds better and you don't have all the paper bits fluttering about while you're trying to grill.
And now you know I don't have a clue when it comes to grilling either.  I basically treat it like a raised camp fire.
Trial and error for the win!


I liked this recipe so much that I wanted to share it.  It really makes an excellent summer dinner although I didn't put any greens with it (we're low on veggies currently).
Try it out and see what you think!

Midori Days.

Pumpkins grow in trees!

I'm learning about gardening.  This is my second summer in this house, but last summer I was busy with improvements like refinishing floors and repainting stuff.  There will be no refinishing of floors this summer, not while I'm preggo.  So I'm turning my attention to the outside of the house.

My parents made an excellently large bed for gardening when they were here and the soil is pretty well taken care of.  This I know because we had volunteer pumpkins last summer (two plants) and sooo many pumpkins in the autumn.  The vine on the largest plant even grew up the fence and into our backyard neighbor's tree!  If you look at the picture you can see the little green pumpkin hangin out in there.  He never did get ripe; too much shade.

At any rate, I'm learning that I very much enjoy gardening.  Digging around in the dirt is pretty awesome; I think everyone should do it.
I get ridiculously excited any time I plant something too.  Ask hubby.  I'm sure he'll be tired of me asking him to come look at the new plant I put in the ground when gets home from work, if he's not already.  I had him look at the rosemary when I put it in a larger pot outside, and he came and looked at the baby blueberry bush that is now sitting between the corner of our house and the pine tree.  I don't know why I get so happy over it, and I feel foolish telling him to come look at it, because it's really not impressive, but I can't help myself.
I suppose it's because this is a new thing for me, and I'm not confident in my abilities yet.  So every time I do something properly I feel good about it and want to share my excitement with others.  Particularly with plants and gardening, because this is life I'm trying to take care of, it's kind of a big deal to me.  Which is to say that if my blueberry bush dies I will be very sad about it.  Same for the rosemary.
I get attached to things too easily I think.

At any rate, I'm very excited about gardening.  It's a lot of work, but I enjoy most of it, and the rest is worth doing for the results.  I'll let you know what I plan to plant, other than what I purchased already.  I have this crazy thought of planting purple dragon carrots.  I think I've romanticized them somehow.


p.s. if you're wondering about the title "midori" is Japanese for green.  It's also a reference to a bizarrely cute anime.  Not to mention a particularly delicious melon flavored liquor.

Not so New Ideas.

Their aim is, as far as possible, to use nothing which is the product of the factory system or of modern industry in general; for they think these things so iniquitous that every one is more or less party to a crime in using them. . . .  There is certainly something attractive about the idea of living as far as may be on the produce of the land about you: to see in every walk the pastures where your mutton grazed when it was sheep, the garden where your vegetables grew, the mill where your flour was ground, and the workshop where your chairs were sawn - and to feel that bit of country actually and literally in your veins.
Tolkien once remarked to me that the feeling about home must have been quite different in the days when a family had fed on the produce of the same few miles of country for six generations, and that perhaps this was why they saw nymphs in the fountains and dryads in the wood - they were not mistaken for there was in a sense a real (not metaphorical) connection between them and the countryside.  What had been earth and air & later corn, and later still bread, really was in them.  We of course who live on a standard international diet (you may have had Canadian flour, English meat, Scotch oatmeal, African oranges, & Australian wine to day) are really artificial beings and have no connection (save the sentiment) with any place on earth.  We are synthetic men, uprooted.  The strength of the hills is not ours.

-C.S. Lewis

(found in) Joseph Pearce, C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church p81-2

(original source) Walter Hooper, ed, C.S. Lewis: Collected Letters I908-9

I finished this book (C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church by Joseph Pearce) which was the previous month's book club book - I'm a  bit behind - today at work.  I marked the above quote yesterday as I hit a little past the halfway point before having to close up shop: I generally read only at work unless something is so riveting that I cannot put it down, but the thought of having nothing to occupy myself with during the lulls (which are pretty much all the time at my job) the next day usually deters me from doing so.  I had marked it because it struck a chord with me; I agree with Lewis in his calling us "synthetic men."  I think that we've done more harm than we may realize by disconnecting ourselves from the land immediately surrounding us.

This is not to say that I think we should pitch the idea of urban living in favor of the farming life.  That would be impossible.  The amount of land we'd need for such an endeavor would be (in my mind) staggering for the number of people that inhabit the States alone.  Instead, we might try and make a compromise with the limitations of society and farm a decent size patch of back yard. Barring that, purchase as much as you can from local growers.  The farming life may no longer be feasible for the majority of us, but this does not mean we should disregard it as obsolete; without farms, where would we get our food?

What I am saying is that I think it's an enriching choice for body and mind to grow your own produce and/or buy from local farmers.

Also, it was - as stupid as this is going to sound - enlightening, in a sense, to realize that people have been rejecting industrial farming for a very long time.  Most likely from it's conception.

I know that this, being a new idea to me, is not a new idea to others; it was just refreshing to know that it goes farther back than had occurred to me.

As a side note: do read this book if you are at all interested in C.S. Lewis.  It was a fantastic read.

~~~

Good news!

I fixed my desktop computer.  What was wrong was a double whammy: I needed to flash the BIOS (update to the latest version) which turned out to be more complicated than it should have been because for whatever reason my computer refused to detect my flash drive.  I ended up connecting two freshly formatted FAT32 (standard format for flash drives, in case you were wondering) drives to the back two ports of the computer.  When that failed, I loaded the fail-safe BIOS and then the optimized BIOS (one after the other) immediately before entering the Q-flash utility.  Magically this worked (after trying five other times to get the darn things to show up) and my BIOS was successfully flashed...to no avail: I was still getting the "Main BIOS Checksum Error" dialogue instead of the operating system.  So, for giggles, I took a stick of RAM out - I had previously done this in hopes it was an easy fix with no result - and viola!  My computer turned on.

So there you have it, random BIOS failure and random RAM failure rolled into one.

My new 4GB RAM stick is on it's way; it's lame to try and World of Warcraft it up with only 4GB of RAM.  I'll happily take 8GB or more, thankyouverymuch.