Hard Things

[ysabetwordsmith]

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently?

Comments

Re: 0_o

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Right now, the goal is to cut out the explicitly sweet things like cookies, chocolate, and such, except for one cookie per day at lunch from the Coffeeshop I go to. <<

That's more feasible.

>>I cook from scratch much of the time, and I live in an area where it's easy to get good prepared foods, it's not as hard as it could be. <<

You're very lucky in that. Around here the edible food is mostly in co-ops, specialty stores, or the health aisle of a regular grocery store. It's really hit or miss. But the Farmer's Market is open again!

>> Last time I did it, the only things I wanted that were really a problem to find were Ketchup and Barbecue Sauce.<<

Local grocery stores have no option in barbecue sauce without high-fructose corn syrup. So I'm exploring homemade recipes for that. At least there's some organic ketchup available, which has only a modest amount of cane sugar. I want to try making sloppy joe mix so I can control what goes into it and have something reasonably healthy. The commercial ones are basically spiced-up HFCS.

Re: 0_o

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I think the west coast in general, it's easier to find good food than in the heartland, and the Seattle area certainly has a lot of choice.

I was able to find a ketchup that worked, and used that to make myself an OK BBQ sauce. Didn't write it down, unfortunately, but it was mostly added onion, garlic, and beef dripping as I recall.

Re: 0_o

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I think the west coast in general, it's easier to find good food than in the heartland, and the Seattle area certainly has a lot of choice.<<

That matches my observations.

>>I was able to find a ketchup that worked, and used that to make myself an OK BBQ sauce. Didn't write it down, unfortunately, but it was mostly added onion, garlic, and beef dripping as I recall.<<

*laugh* I used apple butter as a base for my first BBQ sauce:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/2190510.html

I also want to make a mango one for pork. Maybe a tomato one for beef. The apple one is nicely flexible though; it's a sweet-spicy blend.

Re: 0_o

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should add -- you could probably modify my recipe for low or no added sugar if you switched to unsweetened applesauce and sugar-free ketchup. There's no molasses or brown sugar or anything like that in this one; it's not a sugar-based sauce.

Re: 0_o

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like the idea of basing one off unsweetened applesauce! I've usually used tomato-dominated BBQ sauces, and they need some kind of sweetening to really work for me. An applesauce base could be very worth playing around with!

Thanks!

*bow, flourish*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Happy to be of service! Fruit makes a good base for many sauces if you don't want them oversweetened.