All Photos: Rita Fox |
THE SAVVY SHOPPER
Life ... curated and with purpose. First a dreamer, then a realist!
Friday, July 11, 2025
Rita Fox Makes Pineapple Soup
Thursday, July 10, 2025
State Fair Blue Ribbon Desserts
Click to enlarge or go here for the digital edition and source. |
During the summer outdoor parties, pot lot dinners and barbecues give us many opportunities to try new recipes or taste what others bring.
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Freddy |
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Authentic vs. Inauthetic Coq Au Vin
Photo and authentic recipe from Delish |
Coq au Vin, the classic French dish, translates into rooster with wine. It was traditionally made with an old rooster tenderized by braising in red wine. Nowadays it’s made with chicken thighs and drumsticks.
I never make Coq Au Vin the true authentic French way. A friend of mine does, spending hours in her kitchen cooking it.
Coq Au Vin is the fancy way of making chicken stew. I take several liberties: Below in black font are the authentic ingredients and in blue font are my tweaks. One thing that remains the same is using a 6-quart Dutch oven to cook then transfer the chicken stew into your oven to bake:
Lodge |
2 cups red wine - Oh, yeah, this one stays, and I always have it.
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth - Never, always bouillon cubes with 1 cup of water.
Small bunch thyme - Dried thyme will do.
Freshly chopped parsley for serving - Dried parsley works fine!
Photo: Wikipedia |
Monday, July 7, 2025
The Dog Woof Washer 360
Even for a docile dog, this is a practical device for summer mischief. If your dog jumps into a pond or rolls in mud, perhaps you’d like to clean him before he goes into the house.
The cylinder washer 360 attaches to a garden hose. You fill it with dog shampoo, where it mixes with the water and sprays out as subs over the entire body of your dog. It gets mostly 4 or 5 star reviews from customers who say the pressure is adequate, their dogs cooperate, and it’s a much faster way of giving their dogs baths. Adjustable for large and small dogs.
Although the Dog Woof Washer 360 folds up, some dog owners have had to tighten the screws to keep it from folding while in use, so I suggest not folding it if you have the space to store it. Perhaps folding and unfolding it time and again could loosen the screws since the device is quite inexpensive to buy ... as low as $10.49 at Walmart.
Our dog was lucky as he got a lovely warm bath in the bathtub instead of a cold water shower outside, but the Dog Woof Washer 360 is cheap enough to only use in the summer for the times you don’t want to let your dirty dog into the house. With it, you have the means to clean his dirty little butt, underbelly, legs and head before he enters your home.
Friday, July 4, 2025
Does Japanese Mounjaro Help You Lose Weight?
The Japanese Mounjaro recipe is the latest craze circulating around TikTok and social media claiming to help with weight less the natural way ... but is there any science behind it?
Call me a Google expert on this topic! Here is what AI has to say about it ... the following seems to be mainly summarized from Yale University’s self help education website as well as VeryWellHealth:
"The individual ingredients often found in these "natural Mounjaro" recipes are supported by scientific research for their health benefits and potential contributions to weight loss.Core ingredients commonly found in these recipes, such as matcha, ginger, apple cider vinegar, lemon/lime, kombu, and umeboshi, have some science-backed health benefits that may support weight management:
🌱Matcha: Contains catechins like EGCG which may aid metabolism and fat oxidation during exercise. L-theanine provides sustained energy.
- No Peer Reviewed Studies: There are no specific peer-reviewed studies directly validating the Japanese Mounjaro recipe as a weight loss solution. Its effects are likely due to the combined benefits of its individual ingredients rather than a unique magical property.
The juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon of honey (which is optional)
1/8 teaspoon Himalayan pink salt, or a small piece of Kombu edible kelp (also optional)
My thoughts are: Japanese Mounjaro contains healthy ingredients that benefit a diet, but there are tastier ways of consuming them. Fads rarely work. The drink isn’t sustainable. Without reducing your food intake, you won’t drop significant amounts of weight. Moreover, drinking ginger every morning may interfere with certain prescription drugs some people take to treat other health conditions. Check with your doctor to make sure the ingredients ingested daily play nice with other drugs.
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Why Don’t Senior Baby Walkers Exist?
A senior baby walker would need an opening, comfort, and sturdiness. |
An elderly person's ability to walk can change rapidly. My mom’s legs are strong, but her balance has gotten unsteady. If she loses her balance while walking she can't catch herself and will fall without the support of a fast thinking person walking with her.
Seniors lose strength, but I think often the loss of balance paired with not having a young person's strength is what leads to falls and injuries.
Every day I get my mother up on her walker to walk short distances inside the home so she maintains her strength, balance and the ability to walk for as long as possible. If a senior stops walking, she’ll lose her ability to walk ... and likely not regain it.
I wonder why manufacturers offer conventional walkers, transport wheelchairs and indoor wheelchairs for seniors but nothing similar to baby walkers that would let them walk while semi-standing plus lose their balance without harm? Wouldn’t seniors benefit from using their own legs in a baby type of waker made specifically for them over a wheelchair where they don’t use their legs? A senior baby walker would allow the elderly to safely walk, i.e., exercise their legs to maintain their strength, but when they stumble and lose their balance, it would stop them from falling, hitting the ground and sustaining injuries. Brilliant idea, no?
Also like indoor wheelchairs, mobility on a senior’s own steam would prolong their greater sense of independence. Without the fear of falling, they'd move more ... and be stationary less!
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Discover Nude Envie Cosmetics
At every age I’ve gravitated towards nude colors in makeup. Personally I'd rather look like my best self over wild and crazy combinations of bold colors, not that there’s anything wrong with bold colors, or experimentation.
What’s more, all the make-up in the collection will work together in any combination. Some are matte, while others have a touch of frost for a little extra pizzazz.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Heath Bar Cake
Photo: Alcove |
If you like English toffee, you'll love a Heath Bar Cake! This one begins with flour and leavening agent, not a box of cake mix, but it’s as easy to make as emptying a box of cake mix. This cake, made from scratch, is simple, moist and fluffy.
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of buttermilk
½ cup of nuts, chopped (I use walnuts or pecans.)
Either an 8 ounce bag of Heath candy bar bits or you could crush 6 - 8 health bars to get 1 1/3 cups.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Ground Beef and Cabbage
We’re all familiar with the dish stuffed cabbage, but the only person I know who makes it is my friend, Norma, who learned how from her grandmother. I’m too lazy of a cook to make it.
So when I stumbled across the following recipe from Zestplate, I, the Queen of one-pan dinners, said this dish is for me. A lazy cook need not be a bad or unhealthy cook! It means finding an easier way~
Cabbage and Ground BeefWednesday, June 25, 2025
Savvy Shoppers Know That Size Matters
It takes a surprising amount of commodities to maintain ourselves! Doesn’t it?! Even a minimalist has to agree. From household germicides to skincare to haircare to personal care, we certainly need to buy a slew of solutions, soaps, lotions, and potions to clean, groom, and perfume our homes and physiques until the day we die!😳 Today and everyday, I mean, stop and what’s next? Germs? Bad smells? Dishevelment? Surely people in their right minds would never just let themselves go!
A reason I love T.J Maxx is the many botanical and organic finds including liquid soaps, moisturizing lotions, shampoos and hair conditioners that are also sold in huge 1 liter or 33 oz sizes for less. My practice is to buy one, plus one to keep on deck for when the first bottle turns into an empty.
I do the exact same thing when buying household cleaners like gallon sizes of distilled white vinegar, a 4 lb box of baking soda, Pinalen (pine oil), ammonia, and bleach from Walmart, Target, Key Food, or C-Town. (I’ve decided not to replace the ammonia because the others do the same jobs. I hardly reach for it anymore. Before switching to white vinegar to clean my floors and counters, I used ammonia to keep from ruining colored rugs with splatters while cleaning.)
Neither overbuying nor underbuying saves you money. Learn which products keep and which lose potency with the passage of time. Then the trick is to figure out what you need and will continue using. We might make a few mistakes before we figure it out, but eventually we do figure it out.After we figure it out, buying staples in big ole sizes not only saves time and money, but simplifies our lives. You make fewer trips to the store to restock and instead can do other tasks or pleasures.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Charts: Apples From Tart to Sweet
Recently I stood in the supermarket ready to buy a bag of apples for snacking. I prefer tart over sweet apples, so usually I know to grab Granny Smith or McIntash apples. But what’s on a supermarket shelf can change every time you go to buy them. Pink Lady apples were on sale the week I went so I pulled out my trusty phone to see where on the apple spectrum they fell. Tart! So into my shopping cart they went.
Photo: go here |
Although red delicious -- sweet apples -- are not my favorite, I will eat one if offered. Still when buying a bag of apples, I’d rather buy what I most enjoy snacking.
Apples are kind of fascinating because ancient, as well as, modern people ate them; they grow all over the planet; and there are 7,500 varieties of apples. I wrote all about apples in an earlier blog if you want to know more facts about them.
Photo: go here |
A note about charts: I link them back to the source where I find them, however often they are posted on multiple websites so their true origins may be unknown. I’m prepared to relink or remove a photo if requested, and I don’t claim ownership which is why I link them to my source. Blogging is a hobby to share and exchange thoughts, tips and information with others, not to earn revenue. When I know better -- how to share -- I do better.
Thursday, June 19, 2025
The Earth Is a Magical Place
I wait for it all year long! The first day of summer known as the summer solstice. It’s the start of my favorite season: Summer!!! I especially love summers in New York City. It’s so easy to get out and about, enjoying Happy Hours with good friends, good bar food, and good wine. Outside dinners under a canopy or sitting under the fountain at Lincoln Center before the ballet, or open air concerts and theater.
Photo: Indian Times - go here |
Have you heard of Pangaea? About 300 million years ago the Earth assembled into one supercontinent, Pangaea (from the Greek word pan meaning all, whole, or entire and gaea (meaning land, Earth, or Mother Earth). As Pangaea formed it became surrounded by a single gigantic ocean called Panthalassa, which means all the sea in Greek. While Panthalassa was the only ocean there was a smaller sea called the Tethys Ocean, an embayment within the coastline of Pangaea.
Animation here |