Toll Bandits, Dream Yourself Slim, Happy Feet.

Incredible report on GMA just now, people who do all kinds of things to avoid a 75¢ toll, such as some people hanging on the trunk of the car so their feet obscure the license plate. Its not just cheap cars either, some of them can be $70,000 cars. Sometimes they are caught and end up with fines amounting to thousands of dollars. All for pocket change. The State loses millions of dollars or enough to rebuild a road or even make a new one.

One of my health emails this weekend had a suggestion which apparently works, if you have a craving for something you know you shouldn’t eat such as a hot fudge sundae, just start dreaming about something like a beautiful beach, a moonlit night, anything which gives you pleasure, you can stop when the craving has disappeared.

Story in the news at the moment, a penguin from the Antarctic somehow got lost and has been eating sand mistaking it for snow. They have done several operations on it (penguin is now called Happy Feet) to remove stuff from his stomach, read here http://tinyurl.com/3h4vprm to read more about it. All kinds of people are offering to help to return him to the Arctic but there is a problem with a possible virus which could then spread to other penguins and maybe wipe them out.

I am very fond of beets and often buy them, Matt is  so keen although he doe eat them. One recipe I remember from many years ago is hot beets served with sour cream, that was pretty good. Over the weekend I came across this recipe and I thought this was a somewhat different way of preparing them.

Mixed Beet Salad with Basil

By The Nourished Kitchen
WebMD Recipe from Foodily.com

Ingredients

1/2 pounds mixed beets (Chioggia, golden, white, red etc.), peeled and diced
2 cups chopped mixed basil (Violetta, Genovese, Cinnamon etc.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons unrefined extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons raw apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Steam peeled and diced beets over rapidly boiling water until they become tender, about five to six minutes or so. If using multiple varieties, note that the red beets will stain the other varieties so you may wish to steam them separately.

Once tender, immediately plunge the steamed beets into a bowl of ice water, allowing them to chill until cold to the touch.

Drain the beets, patting them dry with a cotton kitchen towel as needed.

Combine the drained beets with chopped basil and minced garlic.

Dress with vinegar and olive oil.

Serve cold.

Total Servings: 6

Have a great day.