Iced Tea

Word Count: ~482, Estimated Reading Time: About 2 Minutes, 25 Seconds.

tl;dr: A quick and easy sugar drink with a nice amount of caffeine. Perfect for getting me through the day, even if the day is opposed to the idea.

Ingredients

Ingredient	Amount	Price (Bulk)	Price (Used)	Option
Tea Bags	5 Units	100 Units / $5.00	$0.25	All
Sugar	1/2 Cup	10 lbs / $4.98	$0.11	All
Tap Water	2 Qt	1 kGal / $5.05	$0.26	All
Lemon	1 Unit	1 Unit / $0.40	$0.40	A :
Lemon Juice	3 Tbsp	32 fl oz / $1.29	$0.06	B :

Lemons are better for You, but Lemon Juice is much cheaper.

Instructions

To start, bring 1.5 Qts of tap water to a boil. While waiting, add 1 Pt of cold water to a cup or bowl. Add Lemon Juice to cold water, and Tea Bags to a 2 Qt glass or earthenware bowl.

Once boiling, add Tap Water to Tea Bags. Brew for 7 minutes (Iced tea should be brewed about 180% normal time, to give it strong flavor). Remove the Tea Bags, add Sugar, and stir until dissolved.

Add Lemon Water to the Sugared Tea. Bring to a bit over room temperature, store in a pitcher in the freezer for about an hour.

Comparison

Common Option	Cost per Unit (1/2 Gal)	Diff per Unit (Opt A)	Diff per Unit (Opt B)
Arizona	$1.49	+$0.40	+$0.74
Wawa	$1.79	+$0.70	+$1.04

My Thoughts

This is a simple formula for a very reliable beverage. You can customize this many ways to suit a variety of tastes or needs, and can easily emulate most flavors out on the market for much less than they charge.

The difference is not so much that buying it to drink while You are out is stupid, but if You can, it is much better to make it home.

Do it Yourself.

• Christopher

Cost Table (Details in Source)

Option Group	Cost per Unit (w/ Energy)	Cost per Unit (w/o Energy
Option A	$1.09	$1.02
Option B	$0.75	$0.68

Nutrition Table (Details in Source)

Calories per Unit	Calories per Serving	Carbs (g/kCal/%)	Protein (g/kCal/%)	Fats (g/kCal/%)
406 kCal (406.51)	51 kCal (51.81)	106.10g / 403.79kCal / 99.33%	0.64g / 1.7kCal / 0.41%	0.17g / 1.7kCal / 0.25%

Stitchwich Manifest

Word Count: ~230, Estimated Reading Time: About 1 Minute, 9 Seconds.

tl;dr: What this site is, and who I am.

There are certain things universally needed by human beings in order to live in this society. The two which came to my mind immediately were food and clothes. This blog is meant to help deal with those needs from a mostly DIY / low cost lifestyle perspective. On this blog, I intend to record:

• Crochet Patterns I Use
• Recipes and Cooking Techniques I Use
• Other useful DIY Techniques I Use (especially those usable by most people without too much training)
• Shopping lists (and info about food) that I Use
• Maintenance techniques for various machines and items I Use
• My own personal reflections as I go through life from this perspective

I am moving out in a few weeks. Content will likely pick up then, as I will be running a household with two friends instead of living in someone else’s household. This blog is meant to simplify that transition for me.

Do it Yourself.

• Christopher

My Version of Fitness

tl;dr I discuss my own version of fitness: being active and aware of my body, both so that I do not neglect it, nor abuse it. I discuss my goals, both current and near-future. And I specifically outline a few things I am not very interested in persuing.

I go to the gym three times a week.

This is, by far, the most notable change I have made in my life since 2014 rolled around; People notice I am gone, since it takes about an hour and a half of my day, including travel. I mostly rent a treadmill from them; I have free weights at home, and mostly use bodyweight exercises, anyway. But I have been able to notice an improvement to my running speed, and discuss it with people sometimes.

This leads, sometimes, to a question about my goals in fitness. Do I plan to actually run an 8k or a Marathon? How long am I going to cut calories? Do I just care about how I look, or do I want to compete?

Well, I wanted to answer these questions (and, have a platform for talking about my experiences with Proper Excercise, Proper Diet, and Proper Habits), and so I started this blog.

My physical lifestyle: I want to be aware of my body at all times, neither neglecting its needs nor abusing it, and keeping it active enough so that it does not fall apart but not so active that it… falls apart.

This extends to three main areas:

1. Exercise/Physical Activity: I want to maintain some level of the commonly-thought-of idea of fitness. I just like how my body feels after it is used; it feels good to be active.

   Also, I have pretty bad asthma, and it gets worse when I am sedentary for too long. Heart Disease also runs in my family. Also, on a bit of a more personal level, I hate being too weak to do things.

   So, to combat all of these things, I must exercise… but I also know people who have been athletes for decades, and their bodies are falling apart at a relatively young age. So, I do not want to overdo it, either.

2. Diet: No, not always cutting calories. I want to be aware of what I am consuming, though, so I will probably always (to the best of my ability, anyway) keep track of calories, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins that are in what I choose to eat.

   About a nine months ago I got really serious about losing some fat which I had gained when my grandmother was passing away. I will talk more about that in another article. To summarize here, though, I do not want to let my body get that out of hand again… but I also do not want to be a skeleton, either.

   Like in Exercise, I like being strong enough to do things and be healthy. I have no desires to be ultra muscled (or ultra thin), though.

3. Habit: I have a really bad habit of not sleeping enough. I used to sleep only a couple of hours a night; I have worked on it and gotten it to an average of about 6. This is something I want to improve upon. Running at the gym is a habit I want to keep. Keeping track of my calories. Writing for my blogs.

   I used to hate habit, because I had seen some people use habit as an excuse not to adapt to life as it happens, instead choosing to cling to a rigid schedule.

   I am working on finding a balance with habits as well: Not so loose that I never consistantly do anything, but not so rigid that my day is ruined if I cannot make it happen. This is the hardest section for me.

In terms of my short term goals: I want to hit 180 lbs again. After I do that, I will probably attempt to build up some strength, though I am not sure on the specifics of the programs I will follow. I want to start sleeping 7.5 hours a night, and I want to start hiking, eventually (read: when the weather is warm again).

What I am not interested in: Team Sports, Running or Biking Competitions, Bodybuilding or Model-like Dieting, and Fad Diets. More on each of these later.

This is my Lifestyle.

See You Next Time,

Christopher

One Item Cooking Manifesto v1.0

tl;dr: One Item Cooking is trying to cook with one (or max, two) instruments. Some staples, such as rice or bread, I assume are already available. Eventually, I will be publishing some books.

Before I Get Started…

Welcome to my food blog. My name is Christopher Rodriguez, and I do sincerely hope that You enjoy Your stay here.

A few things have to be addressed, before I can put up the first of many applications of this philosophy on cooking. Mainly, I must define What this is, Why I want to do it, Where is it possible, and When I will be updating. The Who, I believe, I have addressed already. For more info about me, please visit my website.

What is ‘One Item Cooking?’

I figured that I would start with both the most important and the most difficult of the four.

One Item Cooking is a philosophy I take (sometimes, at least) towards cooking. It is based on a few core ideas:

1. I despise large bouts of cleanup, at least when I am the cause.
2. I loathe looking for a bunch of different items while cooking.
3. I (generally) live in places without a whole lot of free space.
4. I don’t need food to be gourmet for it to be good.
5. I cannot spend an entire day in the kitchen.

So, in order to address these and incorporate them into my cooking style, I have implemented the following rules:

1. Only use 1 (one) cooking appliance per recipe.
2. Limit that item to one of the following:
   • Cast Iron Frying Pan (minimum 10”)
   • Cast Iron Pot (minimum 2.5 Gallons)
   • Stainless Steel Saucepan (minimum 1.5 Qts)
   • Casserole Dish
   • Roasting Pan
   • Crock Pot
   • Rice Cooker
   • Wok (& Bamboo Steamer)
3. Those Items mustn’t be too heavy to store in a basement or bedroom.
4. We’ll be including a calorie breakdown and price for each meal. Nothing should be expensive, in either of those. And, everything on this site should keep as a leftover for at least 3 days.
5. Each recipe should have a cook time of under 1.5 hours.

These are the guidelines for recipes on this site. However, I will retain one very important right: to change the rules. If I do, I will let You all know beforehand.

Why do something like this?

Well, that is a two part question, really: You could be asking about the cooking itself, or about blogging about only these kinds of recipes.

As for the food, it allows me to cook in a way that doesn’t disturb others, and affords me a good meal at a great price in a small amount of time. Also, it eliminates a large assembly line of cleanup afterwards, and prevents me from having to run around the house grabbing more hardware. Finally, the satisfaction of following some semi-strict regulations is something I feel in spades. So, there.

As for the blog, well, I am the kind of writer which needs form or structure. I cannot simply look at a blank page and gush. I need a goal, a requirement, an impetus to drive me to completion. These rules allow me to get started without agonizing over ‘doing it wrong.’

Where can something like this happen?

Well, I grew up with this idea in mind in a little row-home/town-house in Marlton, NJ. I now live in a bigger house, where I still try (and have failed; another reason for this project) to follow the same rules. When I leave here, I do not want my diet to suffer because I move into an apartment. So, I would answer that question like this:

Anywhere there is a stove/oven combo.

If this goes well (and I acquire another hot plate) I may start a second feature with even more restrictions. For now, You do in fact need a kitchen to follow these recipes.

When are You going to update?

Now, this is tricky. In the past, I have said, “Once a Week!” immediately to this question. However, I find that I will eventually be burned out by following this schedule. For now, I will say at least once every fortnight.

Closing Remarks

If You have read this far, bravo. I only wish I had some way to reward You. But Maybe this is enough: Thank You very much for Your interest and Your time. I hope to see You again soon.

— Christopher