Pharm Cooking: Beginning of week is hectic
By LOU GREENHAW
Contributing writer
I was chastising my father-in-law, Don Greenhaw, that he didn't think ahead when he opened the pharmacy 50 years ago. Otherwise, he would have known that the 50th anniversary celebration would fall on a very hectic day!
Monday is our busiest day of the week. The first is one of the busiest days of the month. Plus sales tax went up on July 1, and all the cash registers and computers had to be changed. Then postage went up on July 1, and all the mailing charts and the postage machine had to be changed. Our promotion sales change monthly so a new sale had to be displayed on July 1. Throw in the fact that days in a holiday week are usually busier, and this makes for a wild 50th anniversary celebration! You would have thought he could have thought ahead to all these events!
Actually, he probably would have never guessed that a stamp would be 37 cents or sales tax at 6.8 percent! Likewise, he probably wouldn't have guessed that 300 prescriptions would go out the door on a Monday either!
Our other business, the Health Post, is going well. We finally got the stepper machine repaired after two trips to Wichita and a lot of money later. I've gone to Wichita with one of these infamous lists of things to buy that I don't know what they are or why we need them!
Mike Gardner is running the show this month, and he and Keith Schobert gave me a list of things to get. I got them all without even having to call back and ask questions! I was sure the man at the sports place would ask me something like with or without a widget? The only question I was asked was what color for a mat! That I could answer!
We have hosted a couple of open houses at the Health Post; one was for the public and the other for the medical community. The medical one was to show off the Health Post as well as all of our screening equipment from the Wellness Center. It was fun doing tests on the doctors for a change! They were all great sports about it even jumping on the body analysis machine and having their body fat percentage figured and being told they were under hydrated from the total body water percentage!
I tried to keep the snacks for the medical community healthy. I tried a recipe for a cheesecake that I thought was good. It is off an Equal promotion that I was sent. I altered the recipe to make 32 small ones in cupcake foils. That made them have 79 calories each. I thought it really made me feel like I had dessert with everyone else even though it was low in calories. I used the Equal Spoonful, which is measured just like sugar. I'm sure those of you familiar with artificial sweeteners can figure out the conversions!
Because the color scheme at the Health Post is red, white and blue just like the post office, I topped the little cheesecakes with fresh strawberries or fresh blueberries. See, I may not know a bench press from a squat rack, but I do know my colors!
New York Cheesecake
(lower calorie version)
1 1/4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/4 cup butter or margarine,
melted
3 packets Equal or 2 tablespoons Equal Spoonful
24 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
18 packets Equal or 3/4 cup Equal Spoonful
2 eggs
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pint strawberries, sliced, raspberries or blueberries
Mix vanilla wafer crumbs, butter and 3 packets of Equal. Place evenly on the bottom and 1/2 inch up sides. Bake at 325 for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven to cool. Beat cream cheese and 18 packets of Equal until fluffy. Beat in eggs, egg whites and cornstarch. Mix in sour cream and vanilla until well blended. Pour over crust. Bake at 325 for 45-50 minutes until just set in center. Remove from oven. Cool completely. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight. To serve remove from pan and top with fruit. (If you don't want to top it, reserve 1 tablespoon of crumb mixture and sprinkle on top before baking.).
