Food Review: Chirps Chips

A friend of mine found Chirps - chips made with cricket flour and I, of course, had to try them. I'd tried cricket flour already on fried chicken and hadn't liked that very much... too much cricket flour compared the other flour I'd mixed it with. The cricket taste was too strong in the flour so I thought I'd try the chips.

I ordered a variety pack from Amazon (that's an affiliate link where if you buy something following it then I get a little change in my pocket). It came with a bag of the sriracha flavored chips and two bags of cheddar cheese ones. I ate the cheese ones first.

I was surprised at the number of carbs in the chips. A single bag was 70 net carbs (That's 80g of carbs less 10g of fiber.) and somehow I thought it would be lower... especially after tasting them.

The cheese ones aren't fantastic. There's not a lot of cheese flavor, or salt... it doesn't taste like the cricket flour did. It tastes more like a chip made from some exotic grain than corn... like chia or spelt or buckwheat or something... without the sweet overtones, those would have.

It's not bad really, just sort of bland and dry. The cheese flavor, like I said, is more an aromatic flavor than an actual taste. If you were expecting something like the cheesy goodness of Ruffles you'd be let down. If you expected the cheesy goodness of say... oatmeal without the water or sugar or milk or butter or any processing at all... they're about that cheesy. I can't recommend them. They're not bad so much as they're nothing.

I *want* to like crickets in food. I really do. I look forward to the time when we have a protein source that's eco-friendly and also delicious. If we're going to go to space on any sort of long-distance trips we're going to need one. Crickets would be good for that... but going to Mars on a diet of crickets right now would be a bad tasting proposition. I'd still do it, but I would doubtless lose weight for reasons other than lower gravity.

I'll try the sriracha ones later tonight while watching Zombie Tidal Wave on SyFy.

New Favorite Low-Carb Recipe

I'm not sure how I found this recipe but it became an instant hit at the house and is my favorite... so favorite I immediately made it again to take to work for lunches.

Slow Cooker Pepperoni & Chicken over on the SkinnyMom blog is delicious. Seriously, and easy too.

Go to Skinny Mom's blog to get the actual recipe. What I'm going to do is describe it. Start with a crock pot, any size, and layer the bottom with one layer of chicken breasts. On top of that I deviated from the recipe because I had no chicken broth so I dumped half a can of tomato sauce and about the same amount of water over the chicken. No, I didn't mix it.. either time. I dumped. On top of that I sprinkled Italian seasonings from McCormick I think, until it looked right. Next I dealt pepperoni onto the mess like they were cards and I was covering the whole thing in them. Slap on the lid, turn on the crock pot and enjoy as the house starts to smell like pizza is cooking. Six hours went by as it cooked on low and the roomie finally woke up (he works nights, and I had to wait for him to wake up enough to feel like something decidedly unbreakfast like for his breakfast) I put some cheese on it, generous amounts of shredded mozzarella and put the lid back on while I steamed some broccoli which I sprinkled with lemon pepper and then dumped more shredded cheese on as I plated the rest the cheese mostly melted.

It. Was. Delicious! Cut it with a fork chicken, the spices were perfect, the whole thing, seriously great. My hat's off to Skinny Mom and I love this recipe. Low carb, delicious, and easy... also, relatively inexpensive.

Note: The recipe on the site calls for black olives but a) I didn't have any and b) I had no clue what I'd do with the other 3/4 of a can of black olives this would have left me with so even if I had had them I probably would have left them out. I just can't see throwing away that many olives and I don't eat them enough to justify the expense. Roomie says he'd eat the rest of the can just with a fork... if he buys 'em I'll use 'em I guess, but I'm not going to buy them. Not worth it to me. Bacon would be worth it to me... not black olives.

Note: The knife was completely unnecessary. I didn't know that when I grabbed it. Seriously tender and delicious. Make this. You won't regret it.

Weight Loss & Me

Achievement Unlocked: Goal Weight Reached!

I used to cook a lot for me and my other half and we ate well and it was delicious (except the time I made tomato soup with soy milk, that was simply awful, I can't recommend it at all.) But, my meals were making us both bigger, a lot bigger than we wanted to be. So, I learned a new way to eat that is healthier for me and has gotten me from 205 lbs (93kg) down to what you see here in the fuzzy picture, 165lbs (75kg).

When I was at my biggest the doctor told me during my annual exam that I was what's it called? Pre-diabetic. Well, that's no good at all. So, taking a page from my Mom's playbook based on the assumption that I've got a 50% chance of having a metabolism similar to hers, I went on the Atkins diet and tried to make sure I walked 10k steps a day. There was a stint in there when I ran pretty regularly, but that's mostly over right now due to a knee injury I did to myself out of stupidity. Nothing permanent. It's better now but I lost the momentum and haven't gotten it back.

So, now when I tell people I don't eat something because it's "not on my diet" what I really mean is it's not good for me and I'm trying to not do things that are bad for me. But what they say is "You're not fat." Nope, I'm not. But I was and I don't want to be again! So, instead of trying to foist the garbage onto me as a kindness it'd make me SUPER happy if you'd smile and say, "Well, congrats. It's working," instead of "You don't need to be. Here eat this." You're not all jewish mothers from 80's sit-coms trying to fatten me up, so stop playing the role. It's rude and irritates me. I'm not telling you to eat like I do so please, PLEASE stop telling me to eat like you do.

I'm a huge fan of MyFitnessPal as a way of tracking what I eat and keeping me on target. I mostly know what I can eat, but sometimes I go on an "enter it all because you need to pay attention dummy!" phase and when I do, MyFitnessPal is there with a great site and a great app for the android phone. I'm a huge fan. Another tool I used was a fitbit flex (affiliate link - buy it and I'll get a nickle or two) I got back in the day when I had money. They're not cheap but they're great activity trackers and the website dashboard is the best I've seen out there. It really is fantastic. Love mine.

In there I had a BIG job change where my income was cut by a LOT and money was tight, like really tight for a while, like seriously... I lived in a shack and was broke as hell. They're better now, but that was the hardest time to lose weight because carbs are cheap and protein isn't. Fresh vegetables aren't. It was a lot harder to eat healthy while broke but it's possible. It involved a LOT of chicken and eggs (when they were on sale) and frozen vegetables instead of fresh like I preferred. If I could get fish on sale I'd add that as often as possible because that's helpful with the good cholesterol.

That bout of near-poverty did help me see something I'd not paid attention to before (the last time I was poor I hadn't cared what I ate and would eat anything.) cheap food is factory food. I could get more bags of frozen dinners and pot pies and frozen pizzas than I could of real food for the same amount of money. But those things are all loaded with carbs, empty calories, salt, and God knows what other chemicals to give them the months long shelf-life that real food just shouldn't have. So, when I look around and see the obesity epidemic I understand it better now. Real food isn't as cheap as factory-food, or as convenient. Those bags of frozen chicken parts aren't something I could just throw in the microwave and eat... they required a time investment to turn them from ingredients to food.

So, now what? I've reached my goal weight. Well, it hasn't been about weight for a while now. I am a healthy weight for my height and age and I look pretty okay I think. I'm happy with my weight and have been for a while. Next though, because there's always a next, is getting in a little better shape. I'm not planning on lifting trucks or things, but I'm at an age where evidently muscle starts to go away. Well, that's no good. I don't need a lot of them, but I need enough to get me to the coffee pot and back for a lot of years yet! So, I've started using some Runtastic Apps on my phone to do some fitness type things. I'm not to a point where I'm lifting weights because seriously, picking things up bores me, but some exercises, bodyweight exercises, can't hurt: crunches, push-ups, planks, and squats so far.

How about you? What're you doing to get healthier? Take it from me, an inveterate pizza, Mountain Dew, and donut junkie, it's possible and without feeling like you're going to die. :)

I know what you're thinking... and you're wrong!

First what you’re thinking is, “That looks amazing. I must have it!”

While watching television in you almost certainly noticed while waiting for your show to come back on, a commercial on TV for Fazoli’s new “spicy” menu items and you were immediately struck with a yearning, a craving, an almost physical need for what must almost certainly be a cajun pasta explosion of flavor and goodness. You felt, as you saw the screen dance with spicy chicken alfredo, spicy sausage and spaghetti, and an interpretation of cajun lasagna, an urge to lean forward as your salivary glands anticipated the culinary greatness that must be yours.

Oh yes. At some meal in the future, you would lobby hard for Fazoli’s to be a choice. You would wheedle, cajole, call in favors, and promise others, all for the tantalizing splendor that would be a cajun inspired spicy Italian carbohydrate laden feast for the senses. You would be mistaken. Completely, utterly, mistaken.

The kind of wrong that, were word to get out, would destroy your reputation as a genius and erudite thinker. It isn’t at all what you’re imagining. Let me explain.

Close your eyes. Picture the standard sampler platter in front of you. You got it? Black shiny foam plate with dividers? Three portions of pasta on it in crudely dolloped out spoon fulls? Now, hold that image in your mind as I reach across the table and shake about half a teaspoon of Louisiana hot sauce, perhaps Tabasco even, on each separate selection. While you watch with your mind’s eye I reach over with my fork and stir it, ever so slightly around so the sauce isn’t visible, but isn’t really evenly distributed either. Now I return my hands to my side of your imaginary table and take a sip of my Diet Doctor Pepper and watch as you reach forward with a black plastic fork, trembling with anticipation to taste it. Then, as the first bite hits your tongue your realize your mistake. The subtle flavors of oregano, tomato, and basil of the red sauce are gone, burned off by the overly pepper-sauced conglomeration that now adorns your spaghetti. You dump your fork off onto the plate and remember the chicken alfredo and know that this, this will be a dish fit for a king. This is the kind of food bard’s used to sing about in long houses to their viking lords!

Then you put a small bite in your mouth and the traditional taste of garlic and three cheeses melted into a cream sauce has been replaced with the pepper infused vinegar flavor and aroma of the red bottle. The chicken grants no surcease from the burning in your mouth as it too is infused with this heinous distillation of dragon’s farts and heartburn. This isn’t just hot or spicy. It’s cheaply done hot and spicy. It’s the standard sauces adulterated with a knock-off hot sauce. No thought was put into measuring amounts or complementary flavors. It’s overwhelmingly tasting of a vinegar based hot sauce, and that’s all you taste through the whole meal. The three dishes are all the same dish, a noodle, a sauce that tastes only of too much hot sauce, and little else.

I like hot stuff. I love cajun cooking. I think spices are multi-layered affairs that dazzle the tongue, tease the nose, and dance their way down the diner’s throat to explode in a warm feeling of satisfaction and happiness in the eater’s stomach. This blasphemy of a meal does none of that. It rapes your tongue, claws it’s way down your throat after sodomizing your nose using a saguaro cactus strap-on, and when it gets to your stomach it turns on all the acid taps to bathe in the hydrochloric juices as your stomach wall dissolves under the assault. There’s no hint of flavor or subtlety. It’s a culinary assault and it should end soon, very soon, before you are tricked into trying it. You won’t like it. In fact, it’ll ruin perfectly mediocre Fazoli’s food and turn it into something that tastes like it spilled out of an over-charged car battery.

So, save yourself. The next time you see the commercial and are tempted, French kiss a 9V battery instead.

Food Review: Stouffer's fettuccini alfredo

It never does look as pictured does it?

This is the fettuccini alfredo I was initially asked to try first and I avoided it because it didn't have chicken or broccoli in it and I like both.

If alfredo is going to be bad it should at least be filling.

This wasn't filling enough. My guess is the plate pictured here, the one on the box, on the left, was a saucer. It would take two of these to fill me up and I don’t eat a lot normally. It wasn't terribly filling. What it was was... boring. The sauce didn't have enough pepper or garlic but it was creamy, and there was a lot of it. The noodles weren't swimming in sauce. The sauce was too thick for that. It was really thick and creamy and there was enough of it to get a healthy amount in each bite. I liked that. After I chewed the bite though, it didn't need a LOT of chewing, the noodles were a little over cooked and I’m not sure if that was my cooking or the noodles themselves.

I’ve definitely had less mushy noodles, after I chewed the bite the creamy sauce and that was the flavor and the texture. It was thick and creamy. It clung to the noodles well. There wasn't any sort of strong cheese flavor or any of the spices I associate with good alfredo sauce. It was just creamy. Good texture, but not a strong flavor. There was an after flavor though that I can only describe as watery. It happened after every bite. I felt like I’d just eaten bread dipped in water. That feeling your mouth gets that it’s just eaten something too saturated with water. I wonder if it was a result of the noodles being over-cooked? I don’t know. It wasn't a bad flavor. It was just odd.

Would I eat it again? Sure. If someone else bought it. I wouldn’t buy it on purpose though. It wasn't filling enough to buy on purpose and I’ve had better sauces and the lack of the chicken left me wanting more too. This wouldn’t be a bad starter alfredo if you had pepper, maybe some garlic powder, you know, garlic oil would be better, just a little bit stirred in would have helped. A chicken breast would have helped lots too. Have I mentioned it left me hungry?

Food Review: Atkin’s Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

In my continuing quest for a good frozen Alfredo-based meal I gave the Atkin’s one a try because I really am not a fan of most Italian food. Really when’s the last time you ate a noodle and said, “DAMN! That’s one fine frelling noodle right there! I’ve had some good noodles in my life but that noodle? Mmmmm... damned fine noodle.” Nobody’s ever said that ever. Why? Because noodles are boring. “Oh! You’ve made homemade noodles! That’s amazing! I bet they’re completely unlike every other noodle made with flour & water in the history of the world!” Said no one, ever.

So, I was happy this one had no noodles. Huzzah! The other advantage of Atkins is it, as a diet, doesn’t demonize fat, you know, the carrier of flavor. So, I supposed this dish would have copious amounts of chicken & broccoli with a delicious cheese based sauce that was probably high in fat because they don’t have to worry about fat because Atkins folks don’t care, so it would be resplendent with flavor I was mostly right.

And here it is right after I took it out and peeled the plastic off the top of it. Um, the broccoli is WAY over cooked. But it smelled goodish. Broccoli isn’t the most fragrant of vegetables so I gave the thing a sniff to see if I could detect any pepper in the sauce. I can’t see any at all. I didn’t smell any either. I could smell the cheesy sauce though. It smelled good. I added pepper myself. You know. You can’t tell if this chicken is grilled like in the picture on the box or not. I think to be fair I should plate this stuff up and see how it looks on a plate instead of in that plastic tray thing.

Well, this actually does look better doesn’t it? I stirred it up to distribute the sauce better and since it separated in the steamy bath of the plastic film it looks better mixed. Same camera took all three pictures. That black tray does NOT help the food look good does it?

How’d it taste? There were nice big healthy chunks of chicken that were about like you’d expect steamed chicken to taste, firm pieces, some big enough to be more than one bite. The broccoli really was mush though. The sauce... really that’s what this is all about. I should have just smelled it. It wasn’t flavorful at all. It was anemic and runny with no really strong taste at all. Instead of the food taking on the taste of the sauce the sauce was so lackluster IT adopted the taste of whatever I was eating. If I were eating broccoli it tasted like broccoli and dishwater. If I were eating chicken it tasted like chicken and dishwater.

The best part of this meal is definitely the chicken though. Nice whole pieces of white meat, big healthy filling chunks. I am full after eating the meal which wasn’t true of the others I’ve reviewed. This meal was the most filling of any of them and that’s without pasta.

Would I recommend this meal? I dunno. I think so but that’s purely on how good the chicken was. The dishwater sauce made sure it was moist and not dried out like white meat sometimes can be in these kinds of meals. The meat really is the star here. The sauce from the Michelena one that had no chicken or anything else in it was the best sauce so far.

Carb Creep during my Quit.

I quit smoking back in October and mostly stayed close to my diet during that time but allowed myself to go off it to avoid smoking. If I'm dying for a cigarette and can get myself through it without smoking by eating a wedding cake? Well... Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Nothing that extreme. But I was eating the flavored oatmeals in the morning for breakfast, not healthy. I had chips in the house, granted they were tostitos and I dipped them in salsa and didn't eat a lot at once but still.... not good.

So, tonight I went shopping after work and bought frozen vegetables. I want fresh but I can't afford fresh and if I don't eat it right away it spoils so fresh isn't practical for me right now. I also bought some chicken. I'd intended to buy tilapia but all the tilapia was farm raised in China and I'm not in favor of that because I'm not sure if the farm-raised in China is fed feces or not. I've read reports that they were and the idea isn't one I'm crazy about. I'd rather not thanks all the same. So, I skipped the tilapia. I'll shop for it elsewhere.

The main thing was I got healthy stuff. Forty dollars in frozen vegetables, meat, cheese, and two dozen eggs is an awful lot of food. Total net carbs of entire purchase is probably less than the average american will eat in a day... and I'll eat this over the next week or so as I try and refocus on taking care of myself as well as not smoking which honestly was the primary concern for the past few months.

As I put away the groceries I de-carbed the house. The exception is I didn't throw away the instant oatmeal. I may need it later if I'm starving to death or something. I just can't get myself to throw it away. It's food man! You don't throw away food. Chips I can throw away. Fig Newtons I can... there may even have been some old chocolate chip cookies. I'll neither confirm nor deny. But there aren't any more!!! The oatmeal I was eating has been replaced with the steel cut oats and they're delicious and seem blood sugar and weight loss friendly so far.

Wish me luck. I'll try not to bore you too terribly much with talk about my diet. But I'm gonna. I know I will. I get a little obsessive when I'm doing something.

Food Review: Michelina's Fettuccine Alfredo w/ Chicken & Broccoli

I tried this one and since they looked the same I also tried the Lasagna Alfredo with Chicken & Broccoli. I’m reviewing them together and didn't include a photo of the lasagna one because it was the same thing with different shaped noodles.(1)

The sauce was anemic. It lacked a strong flavor at all. It was warm, white, and creamy. It wasn't as flavorful as ranch dressing would have been. I think microwaved ranch dressing would have had a better flavor honestly if it’d had a packet of parmesan cheese dumped in it then certainly better.. I added salt and pepper to both of these. (Which is surprising since according to the package 28% of my USRDA for salt was in there already! 680mg of salt in the one meal... and it was flavorless.)

In both cases there were two pieces of broccoli bigger than a nickle in each box. Only two. The rest of the broccoli chaff was smaller, much smaller, flecks of broccoli. The chicken was the size of a normal dice, no. I take it back. They were smaller than a normal die. It also had no flavor. It hadn't been cooked and seasoned and then added to the pasta & sauce. It had probably been steam cooked, diced/cubed, then shot through a meat gun at the pasta boxes. If it hadn't been for the texture I wouldn’t have been able to tell the chicken from the pasta and sauce. The pasta was really the best part of the meal. It wasn't overcooked mush after following the microwave instructions. It wasn’t al dente, but it wasn't mush either. The noodles remained distinct from each other, kept their shape, and didn't turn sticky like over starchy noodles will sometimes. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the noodles. I was unpleasantly disappointed by the sauce. 

Alfredo sauce isn't a hard sauce: Butter, garlic, heavy cream, pepper, parmesan, and mozzarella cheese are the basic ingredients. I know how to make it. I've made it. I've eaten it in restaurants. It's the only thing in this dish that could give it any taste at all and sadly it was lacking. I can't recommend this at all. Here's a recipe for one I DO recommend.

(1) The sauce in the lasagna one appeared to have more pepper in it. There were black flakes of something in it. And the box said there was mozzarella cheese in it. It's possible the sauce in this one was a little thicker and stringier which would have been the cheese when I initially stirred it after microwaving it. After that stir though there was no feeling of difference between the two sauces other than the black specks of probably-pepper.

PS: Rich, you've said you're on a low carb diet! How are you doing that and why reviewing this pasta thing? Well, dear reader, I'm glad you asked. I was asked by someone to find them a good microwave meal, preferably an alfredo one, but italian for sure. They trust my judgement and have had my italian cooking so, I'm reviewing the stuff here that I eat. I don't eat it all and yeah. I know it's wasteful. But these two... they weren't worth going off my diet for sadly. I had high hopes. I really like Michelina's chicken pot pie. Or did the last time I had it. It's been a while. 

Steel cut oats vs rolled oats vs instant oatmeal

My mom suggested I try steel cut oats for breakfast. I've been eating instant oats. The ones on the right of this picture, mostly they look destroyed. In the middle are the rolled oats that I always intend to eat but seriously... they take too long so I would wind up eating the ones on the right.

Then mom said "get the steel cut oats. DO IT! I AM YOUR MOTHER OBEY ME OR ELSE!!!" (I may have dramaticizerated that last bit.) They take longer, much longer to cook than either the instant oats (minute) or the rolled oats (10 minutes). The steel cut oats cook all night. Kind of.

Steel cut oats are hard little oat nuggets. I put a cup of them into three cups of boiling water with salt in it, let it come back to a boil and almost boil over. I turned it off and took it off the heat, stirred again, put a lid on it and then, before I went to bed I stirred it one more time and put the lid back on it. I left it on the stove and this morning when I woke up they were ready to eat. I had a bowl. I nuke it with some splenda, butter, and cinnamon and it was good. It was as fast as the instant oats. The texture was much better than the instant oats which always seem a little pre-digested to me when I eat them. The steel cut oats need chewing whereas the instant oats feel like they'd just slimily slide down my throat if I tipped my head back like a baby bird. It might be in my head but I think the steel cut oats are a little "nutty" tasting maybe? A hint of it? I could be imagining it as a texture induced taste hallucination. I'll eat them more and know better but for now? They're better tasting and better for me than either the instant oatmeal or the rolled oats.

So, I'm trying steel cut oats for breakfast for a while as part of my blood sugar & weight management plan that is based on Atkins but has some things added... like this steel cut oatmeal breakfast.

Mmmm... Salad

Apologies for the focus on food over the next few days.

  

It's hot out and that means light food. When people think Atkins they think MEAT, but there's vegetables too, and more kinds of meat than just bacon... I know. It sounds blasphemous to say. But fish is good for you too.

Light means salads but salads aren't very filling so add protein & some fat to spruce it up a little. One of the thinks about the Atkins Diet that I like is all the protein in it means I'm usually feeling full.

Started with some sort of crinkley lettuce that I chopped, some cucumber, a roma tomato and chopped that up and threw the last two in a bowl with some lemon juice while I opened and drained the tuna (packed in water so vitamins stay in the tuna).

Scooped the tuna out onto the lettuce then scooped the tomatoes and cucumbers out of the lemon juice. I just wanted some of the lemon flavor, not for it to be overwhelming.

I tossed the whole thing with olive oil, lemon-pepper, and salt. I chucked it in the fridge for a minute or two and then it was chow time while I watched old episodes of Teen Wolf on Netflix.

Nutritional Breakdown:
Calories: 307, Fat 23, Carbs 12, Protein 22, Fiber 6, Net Carbs 6

Eat your vegetables

One of the criticisms I hear the most about the Atkins diet is that there aren't enough vegetables or there's too much meat. I'm unclear on what "too much meat" means lol. 

Thus omelet is two eggs and a cup of chopped peppers and onions with mushrooms. Does your burger have that many vegetables?

Nutritional breakdown? 

Calories: 319 Fat: 23 Protein: 27 

Carbs: 7 Fiber: 5 Net Carbs 2

Food Experiment Part 1

Today I went shopping and tried to buy a week's worth of healthy food. My definition of healthy is Atkins Diet friendly. That means low carb, high fiber and preferably nutrition dense with a wide variety of healthy stuff in it.

I wound up spending a lot more than I thought I should on it all but I intend to eat on it for a week and nothing else. (I'll include the shopping list at the end. It's the least interesting thing in the post.)

I'd intended to keep the receipt and give a cost breakdown of each meal. I accidentally threw it away and then it wound up with erm... stuff all over it. Next time.

This was tonight's dinner/supper (depending on where you're from) and I couldn't finish it all. I saved half of the burger and Colby-Jack cheese back for tomorrow. What follows is the nutritional breakdown.  You can't see the Chia seeds that I added to my 12oz glass of water (in which I'd dropped cucumber slices earlier in the day with some ice and put in the fridge to infuse the cucumber flavor through out. SUPER refreshing. It actually FEELS wetter).

Total Calories: 705
Total Fat: 55
Total Protein 63
Total Carbs 18 (Brussels Sprouts were the worst offenders at 4 net carbs)
Total Fiber 9
Net Carbs 9 (Total Carbs - Total Fiber)

Okay, so what'd I get with my $61?

1 head of cabbage
1 onion
6 roma tomatoes
1 pint cherry tomatoes
2 zucchini
2 cucumbers
3lbs lean ground beef
1 lb bacon (thick cut)
cheapest olive oil they had
1 lb coffee (cheap stuff from Folgers)
3 peppers (green, yellow, & red)
1 box of mushrooms
1 dozen eggs
3 cans of white tuna
lots of green beans like a gallon ziplock of them (fresh)
a gallon bag of brussels sprouts

Square Foot Gardening graphic -- Gonna do this in Spring 2013

Thank you to Homestead Survival for this link to the original site over at Frugal Dad.
I plan on doing this next year. I've got all winter to get things set up... including talking the roomie into thinking it's a good idea lol.
I've done some gardening in a pot and that worked out OK. I've still got mint growing in one of them and had some good success with tomatoes. Looking forward to trying this as well.

Source: http://FrugalDad.com