Thursday, July 17, 2008

Google, Hurrle's, Nova Science Now

Some of you may be wondering about the ads on my blog page. They will no longer appear as Google AdSense has closed my account. I am apparently a risk to their advertisers although I have not been told why this should be. On investigation, I find through the forums that lots of accounts have been closed in the last week or so, not just mine, and not one of the people knows why. I am feeling somewhat upset about the whole business so I apologise if this blog seems a little lacklustre. Yesterday afternoon, we drove into the country and visited a place called Hurrle's (pronounced Hurleys) where they have their own farmers' market. They have all kinds of vegetables and baked goods for sale there but we just ended up with strawberries and a few tomatoes. I had been told their strawberries were particularly good and I found them delicious. I sliced up one of their tomatoes for supper and found that to be very good too although I presume they are not field tomatoes yet, too early. We didn't check out any of the baked goods or breads as we don't eat a lot of that kind of thing. They also sold some sausages - I heard one customer say she waited for them every summer. The only problem is, they are rather a long way out of town and Matt kept pointing out that some of the items were a lot cheaper where we normally shop. I kept saying they were not as fresh. When we ate the strawberries and tomato Matt couldn't see any difference so...... I watched Nova Science NOW again last night, they had a very interesting segment on the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. An absolutely fascinating segment on bird brains which apparently have linguistic sections similar to ours and another about a young Japanese woman who is working on a robotic arm and hand or prosthesis which will eventually work exactly like an original hand, stimulated by the brain, for those who might lose theirs in an accident of some kind. You can watch these video segments here. The following is a recipe we have made often either for a dinner party or just for ourselves. We got the recipe from Readers Digest Great Recipes. Vegetable-Stuffed Mushrooms Serves: 4 12 lge mushrooms (about 1 lb) 1 tbs butter 5 green onions chopped fine 1 med size stalk of celery, chopped finely 1 small ripe tomato, cored and chopped 1/2 tsp dried marjoram crumbled 1/8 tsp black pepper 1/2 C soft white breadcrumbs or less if you use dried Instructions: Preheat the oven to 400 F. Wipe the mushrooms with a damp cloth and twist off the stems: set the caps aside and mince the stems. In a heavy 10 in skillet melt the margarine over moderate heat; add the green onions, celery and mushroom stems and cook uncovered, stirring often unti the veggies are soft - about 5 mins. Add the tomato, marjoram, and pepper and cook, covered, 5 mins longer. Stir in the breadcrumbs and remove skillet from the heat. Spoon the mixture into the mushroom caps, mounding it up slightly. Lightly grease a baking pan and arrange the mushrooms in one layer. Bake uncovered for 20 mins or until lightly browned. This recipe does not call for salt, however you may wish to add some. Have a great day.

5 comments:

  1. Ah, so when people call me bird brain it must be because of my language skills. LOL!

    For our opera-in-a-tent picnic I splurged on a box of organic cherry tomatoes on the vine. They were a bit expensive and bought as a treat ... but in fact there turned out to be loads in the box, and they were very good; and we've been working our way through them for the last ten days and there are still a few left and they're still just as good ... so we reckon they were a pretty good buy after all. :)

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  2. That's one of the things they said on the programme, being called a bird brain was not an insult.

    I usually find I don't enjoy cherry tomatoes, but grape tomatoes are mostly very sweet. Depends where they are grown I guess. Being organic probably makes a difference too.

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  3. Always wash tomatoes. Some times on my way home from the supermarket I already start nibbling the cherry tomatoes, then last week I didn't immediately chuck out the water in which I'd washed the tomatoes and ...?
    Later, when I went back into the kitchen the water had turned *green*.

    And it wasn't a one off because I repeated the experiment a few times and each time the water again turned green after having stood for a while.

    Marilyn

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  4. Jo - sorry about the anonymous. Google's not accepting me as a google blogger, so in desperation I clicked on anonymous.
    Marilyn

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  5. Oh I do wash them Marilyn, you don't know what has been sprayed on them, or who has handled them before you get them. I think of all the horrid things people do with their hands, and make sure I wash my tomatoes and most other things eaten raw, before I pop them in my mouth.

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