A lot goes a little way

I just read the ingredients on my Trader Joe's "Next to Godliness Liquid Dish Soap" formulated to perform effectively while being safe for the environment. Usually, I love Trader Joe's products, and I thought I'd used this one before and found it satisfactory, but. . .

coconut derived surfactants, earth salt, lavender oil, tea tree oil, grapefruit seed extract and water

just doesn't do it. The label says it hasn't been tested on animals so we don't even know if it's safe for humans, do we?

My tea bags of black leaves come from bushes, so I asked Google, "what is tea tree oil," and was told that it comes from steam distillation of the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia, a plant native to Australia. It's not even tea! "Tea tree oil contains consituents [sic] called terpenoids, which have been found to have antiseptic and antifungal activity. The compound terpinen-4-ol is the most abundant and is thought to be responsible for most of tea tree oil's antimicrobial activity." You can use it for vaginitis, dandruff, acne and athletes' foot. Gee, I didn't know those ailments were even related!

Anyway, use twice as much of the TJ Soap as the bad old stuff and don't expect suds.

Dinner Menu

This was last night's, but was so yummy, I thought I'd post it in case I'm standing in front of the refrigerator some day at 4:30 wondering what to fix, and need to check my blog.

Oven baked, wild-caught salmon
Fresh greens, tossed salad
Freshly sliced cantaloupe
Peanut butter chocolate pie

The salmon was frozen from Trader Joe's (yes, of course, fresh would be better, but we live in Ohio, not Seattle). After it thawed (a bit--don't let it go all mushy on you), I set the oven for 375, sprayed a glass 8 x 8 dish, arranged the salmon in it, and put a light coating of mayonnaise on the salmon pieces, which I then sprinkled with some dried onion flakes, garlic salt, dill and parsley. Why not fresh herbs, you ask, but I never have those on hand.

While the salmon was baking (about 20 minutes) we had a small glass of wine and watched the evening (local) news. I don't like white wine, so we had Charles Shaw (3 buck chuck) Merlot, in my pretty 4 oz. stemmed glasses, which is just a perfect size for me. I get light-headed with 5 oz. I never drank wine before my heart surgery in 2002, but think it's probably much healthier than the chemicals in drugs. At least it's natural. In California this is called "two buck chuck;" in Ohio we pay import fees so it's $1.35 more per bottle. I can always tell the expensive stuff--doesn't taste nearly as good.

For the salad I used chopped red leaf lettuce for the base. Lettuce doesn't have much nutrition, so the darker the better--then grape tomatoes, shredded carrots, chopped organic mushrooms, fresh broccoli (and I use that term loosely, since I think it's been in the frig 2 weeks and God only knows when it was harvested and shipped) and sliced olives. The cantaloupe was cut just before I served it, but January isn't the best season for this fruit, so it wasn't like getting an Indiana cantaloupe in the summer.

Sounds really healthy. But ah, the dessert.

I used a purchased 8", chocolate crumb crust (Keebler), ready to use. The filling was made with 8 oz. low fat cream cheese, mixed with 1 cup of natural peanut butter (I use Krema), 1 cup of Splenda, 1 tsp. of vanilla, and about 4 oz. of sugar-free Cool Whip. It's stiff, so don't give up until thoroughly mixed. Put it carefully in the crust. Return to frig. When it set up a bit, I warmed up some sugar-free fudge topping, and made a design on the top of the filling. I serve that (very small pieces because it is terribly rich) with a dollup of the Cool Whip.

We both told me it was a great dinner. My husband always does, but I'm a bit pickier.