Germs?

"Unless you're in a kissing relationship,

skip the dip."

- as said by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

on NPRs Splendid Table radio show this weekend.

Anyone needing me to explain?

Menopause?

I jokingly call menopause "mental pause". But I'm there. How long does it last? It starts for some people early - believed to be the result of pesticides, hormones in our food, stress, etc. I'm at the age women in the old days started menopause.

Why am I talking about this? Yesterday I went for a physical. I've not had one in quite awhile, or I should say some things started several years ago never got completed. I thought I was over the hump, meaning that my body has entered the next woman's season of life ... but no.

Monte was reading about menopause on line. Do other men do this?!!! ;^) Well, Monte read that the possibility of having a baby in the house this summer has thrown my hormones for a loop.

But ya know what happened yesterday that is so typical of my body, but this was the worst! ... I was poked by 8 (or was it 9?) needles (and two nurses and the doctor) trying to draw my blood! I hate saying something to nurses, not wanting to start them off scared. And if you're going to ask me the typical question of if I drank enough water? ... YES!!!

Four tries were in the early morning since I had fasted. When they think they got enough for the one test needing my having fasted, they told me to go home, eat, and drink TONS of water and just drop in again. So I did just after lunch. Finally, the fourth one that time filled three more tubes.

I've heard in the past, "your veins are good but they collapse or roll". They did get veins this time but my blood is so thick (probably why I had blood clots in my last pregnancy). In the past I've tried laughing to make the blood flow more.

I told them they need to write in bold red letters on the front: Hard to draw blood! Put a warm pad on first. Use the smallest butterfly needle you've got. I think too they should draw my blood first when I get there and have been drinking a lot, and then do the rest of the appointment.

Now just the gap of time waiting, hoping all's well.

Snow & Rhubarb Pie

It's snowing! We woke to a dusting and now it's a blizzard. Schools closed anticipating a typical spring dump. The airport has canceled afternoon flights and businesses are suggesting closing by noon too. Denver's talking about 1 - 1 1/2 ft, so of course we'll get more! Good day for the wood stove fire going. We designed our great room with a cookstove setting between the kitchen and dining area. I leave the stove's oven door open for more heat to flow out. The upper little left opening is the fire box. I'd cleaned out the ash box below it last week, adding the ashes to my compost bin, so it's burning fast and hot.

"Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of Rhubarb Pie?" - Prairie Home Companion's ending to many stories and then a song: "Mama's little baby loves Rhubarb, rhubarb/Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie ... Just one little thing can revive a guy/ and that is a piece of rhubarb pie/ serve it up, nice and hot/ maybe things aren't as bad as you thought ..."

We were going to have company for supper last night, so I had supper preparations pretty well underway before they decided to fly out earlier ... just-in-case ... So Monte and me had a meal of the white chicken chili soup, nice salad, homemade bread ... and rhubarb pie. I took pictures of the pie making process, and here's the recipe from my Hearth & Home cookbook. When looking for recipes I'll often lay out many varieties, so I created this recipe from combining things I thought sounded good together.

Rhubarb Custard Pie

First, I freeze the 1/2" cut-up rhubarb from our garden in a heaping quart measuring bowl, so it's about 5 cups of rhubarb.

Second, you need pie crust for a double crust pie. I use my ground white whole wheat or pastry wheat I've always got in freezer. Since I had kamut in there too, this pie is half wheat and half kamut. I always use butter, unsalted if I have it. I've used lard or the newer organic shortening which is palm oil. I never use shortening. It's vegetable oil heated so hot it's next step would be plastic. Our body does not know how to break this fat down - it's what's now called trans-fat. And labels that have "partially" hydrogenated anything I never get. It's the word partial that's killing people. It races around our body looking for a home and latches onto cells, hurting them, and today we have way more cancer, diabetes, and heart disease than ever.

I use a food processor all the time now for the preliminary processing of the dough, unless I'm making a larger amount, then I use the whips in my regular Bosch bowl, putting the cut-up butter in first. But I always finish up both processes by hand with a pastry blender. Mixing the final bits of water in is when we often over-process pie dough, which makes it tough. Then I flatten the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it while putting together the filling. Keeping the dough chilled is another key to a flaky crust.

Filling -

the 5 cups cut up fresh or frozen rhubarb put in pie first.

Mix together -

3 eggs

2 Tb whole wheat flour

2 Tb tapioca

1/3 c honey

1 c sugar (we've been practically eliminating sugar, so I'm going to cut this back next time cuz it was too sweet for us now)

1/2-1 tsp orange peel

pinch of salt

Pour the filling over the rhubarb and cover with a top crust and make steam vents. I usually sprinkle it with a touch of cinnamon, but forgot yesterday. Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then lower to 350 and continue baking another 45-60 minutes. We like pie crust well-browned and giving the bottom crust a chance to thoroughly cook too.

When I put on the top crust I knife off the excess dough before crimping the edges.

I roll out this excess dough for little cinnamon tarts. Sometimes I'll put pats of butter then sprinkle on lots of cinnamon. The very little bit of sugar added on these is Sucanat. It can't really be called a sugar, cuz by its very nature, sugar is processed. Sucanat is plain dehydrated sugar cane.

Maybe this storm won't be as bad as we thought.

Self Improvement?

With every New Year there's a focus on self-improvement. I was reminded of what sits in my pantry as I read an article ...

There's this visual used in many varieties of settings. I've used it myself when I've spoken around the country. I used a large plastic gallon jar and had put very large rocks in it. The example I read this morning had golf balls in a mayonnaise jar. Then we ask, "Is it full?" and the response is, "Yes". I then filled it with gravel, the article- marbles, and "Yes, it's full" is the response again. Then we fill the jar with sand. The response is not quite so sure any more. I poured in water, the article poured in beer - then the jar is full.

Most of us have seen this illustration and know the right answers, but in the reality of daily living our lives answer this visual with, "In all the busyness of life we can always squeeze in more."

I had my old plastic jar with rocks visual sitting around ... I like visual reminders for reminding my heart. One look at the jar and I remember what's most important in my life that I need to make sure I squeeze in first, for my sanity or to be a better person.

One day, looking at that all grey jar, I thought, "That's ugly! That doesn't represent me! I'm made in the image of God who created gorgeous birds, butterflies and animals ... created exotic fruits and vegetables, beautiful sunrises ... all for our enjoyment. I'm a child of God!" I wanted a beautiful jar to look at, full of color!

I can't just end the illustration here. People want to know what I named my stuff in the jar. The sand is all the small stuff in life, like the squeaky wheels demanding attention, and this is what we tend to most. But if the jar is full of sand, we can't then put in the marbles or golf balls.

I share a piece of my life's story with this illustration: for the first third of our marriage I/we (when the kids came along) traveled with Monte as he did his geology, traveling primarily all over the western US, back roads, staying in cabins or kitchenettes. We'd be gone a week, home a couple weeks, then gone again. 

This is the time in one's life when they are establishing patterns, like organizing a home for best functioning and establishing a maintenance program. This traveling lifestyle forced the large important pieces into my life's jar. I had to say no to many things people fill (maybe clutter) their lives with. "No" to long term commitments, committees, sports, music/dance/etc lessons ...

When we stopped traveling ... I was overwhelmed and lost. I knew what life felt like, what I called "beyond maintenance", so I knew what I was missing. But I had never evaluated or named the important things to me in life. I didn't want to just maintain or just survive (tho there's times for that).

Most important in life? Family, health, passions and friends. If everything else is lost and only they remain, our life will still be full. The marbles/gravel represent other big things in life like jobs, house and vehicles ...

We do have a choice (usually). We should be able to control our reactions to outside forces and how we spend our time. There will always be time to clean the house or fix the disposal. We can choose to nurture relationships, take walks, control media. Talk, think, ponder, laugh, and love. It's our choice.

Years ago when I was pondering this message, Monte's dad and I were sitting in his living room and I was looking out the window at the woods. They had recently clear-cut, how they log in Wisconsin, and I couldn't get over how quickly the woods re-grew. Emery made a profound statement: "There are so many seeds laying dormant in the ground just waiting for the right conditions to spring to life."

Cleared for the sun to shine through and not be crowded, and then moisture, allows the seeds to grow. I thought about lives. How many seeds lay dormant in our lives, seeds of creativity ... All they need, to burst forth with life, is a little clearing.

I'm again re-evaluating what I need to remember and do for improvement in 2009.

Organics

I found this picture at this site.

I'm glad there are watchdogs out there.

locavore

Locavore is the new 2007 Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. I'm just reading about it.

It's all about the popular trend in using locally grown ingredients. It encourages people to buy from Farmer's Markets or even grow or pick their own food. As local and fresh as possible has got to be the best tasting and most nutritious!

Some groups are spelling it 'localvores'. (For further interesting comments along this vein and another dictionary word, check out my blog called Orthorexia.)

Indoor Gardening

I had an opportunity to purchase some Aerogardens cheap, so I got three. The third one had some minor difficulties which are now solved, so my Italian herbs are just sprouting. But the Garden Salad mix and Tomatoes are off to a great start. Tomorrow I'm going to raise the lights to the next level.

For years I've dreamed of sprouting and growing plants better, and possibly keep us in salad makings through winter. We did keep a cold frame outside that gave us salad makings most of the winter - until voles found it! But it's so labor intensive with putting insulation back on every night and removing in the morning, and sometimes needing to crack the glass open so the plants don't cook! And then last winter with the 3 foot snow dumped just before Christmas that never melted ...

The key for seed and plant growth in low sun angle cool weather is heat for the soil and grow lights. Now I've set that up in the greenhouse! With all the excavating and landscaping we are doing this year, the cheapest route is to start from seed.

Every year, I do start my veggie garden seeds in the house, on the rug in the dining room, just for a bit of warmth, and then move the sprouted seeds to the cooler greenhouse attached to the south side of our house. My growing season averages about ninety days, so I need to get a head start on some things. And too, I've learned what things start best in the garden.

But there's some things I know I can start from seed but have not had a lot of luck with and think it's the soil temperature. So this year will be a year of experiment. I'm going to start my garden seedlings in the greenhouse soon, and the grow lights that I can raise as plants grow, will keep the plants from getting leggy. After the garden starts, I'll start the perennial seeds I got for landscaping and can be planting them out through fall. Then I'll experiment through winter. If the winter gardening is successful in the greenhouse, then I'll be passing on the Aerogardens to my kids.

So far, what I've got growing in the greenhouse is wheatgrass. It's about ready to start harvesting. It's supposed to be very nutritious for you. We had bought some and Monte tried just eating it. His comment was, "It tastes like grass ... not objectionable though". I tried blending it with some juice, and it doesn't 'chew up' very well. So we'll 'juice' it through an extractor like a meat-grinder. I'll give you an update on that.

Sprouts

Yesterday I made yogurt and started sprouts (see Recipes label for homemade yogurt). I've been growing sprouts for over 30 years.

In the late 60's, moreso early 70's, I was a Hippie. That era brought about the Health Food movement. As a teen I didn't usually eat sandwiches, preferring sandwich fillings alone. My favorite was, and still is, to take sandwich meats and a cheese slice and roll up around a large helping of sprouts. All that just to say I bless the movement that started making sprouts available. I actually love snacking on handfuls of sprouts.

When Monte and me were first married we were readying ourselves to move to Australia to do geology in the Outback. The place was so remote there would be no fresh produce. So I learned how to make sprouts and was going to take a lot of sprouting seeds with us. The project fell through, but had we gone, Heather would have been born there, and who knows where living across the world would have taken us.

Back then I'd put about a Tablespoon of seeds in a quart jar to soak about 8 hours. I cut a piece of pantyhose and rubber-banded it to the top of the jar as a screen so I could drain and keep rinsing the seeds several times a day for about 5 days, keeping the jar on its side out of sunlight, but on the counter near the sink. Once nice and green then I'd cap the jar and store them in the refrigerator.

I made sprouts this way for years. Then I've bought various sprouting trays over the years. Most of these 'recipes' still require that you soak the seeds about 8 hours so the seed volume increases and the seeds don't fall through the holes in the trays.

I bought a new sprouter I ordered from Johnnyseeds.com that doesn't require pre-soaking the seeds. It comes with 3 sprout trays. I like its way of watering/rinsing the seeds. After experimenting a bunch, I'm settling on premixing my favorite combination of seeds - alfalfa, broccoli, and radish (spunky) - and starting just one tray at a time so there's 3 stages of growth. My picture shows 4 trays because I have two of these sprouters to keep us with fresh sprouts constantly, and not have to store them in the refrigerator for long at all - so they will be truly fresh and ALIVE!

With sprouts you get live enzymes and natural vitamins. Fresh sprouted seeds give you an increased vitamin, mineral, and protein content by 30-600%. They turn from seeds into extremely nutritious vegetables. My top tray has wheat kernels. These can be eaten in just a few days when the sprout is about as long as the kernel - sweet (not grassy like wheatgrass). The B-complex content in germinated wheat increases 600% in the first 72 hours. Vitamin E content is tripled and vitamin C increases sixfold, and who knows what other micro-nutrients are created out of the 25,000 science has now recognized in vegetables and fruits.

Sprouts can be juiced. We add them to salads, sandwiches, wraps, tacos, oriental dishes, omelets, and just as a side dish or snack. Creative Monte likes them on his whole grain waffles with yogurt and real maple syrup. I draw the line there!

Fruits and Vegetables

A Coincidence????

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.



A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters fo r brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.


Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).


Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.


"The news isn't that fruits and vegetables are good for you, it's that they are so good for you, they can save your life."

-David Bjerklie, TIME Magazine, Oct. 2003

Happenings

I'm sick. I have a fever and my body is achy. I've not been sick for ages! It's good to get sick once in awhile - it strengthens your immune system according to Dr Monte. I wasn't sure what I was feeling this morning, so I did go to church.

Philip Yancey is preaching all February and I didn't want to miss him. I love his books and am glad he's a part of our body.

We just had a bunch of geologists at our house. They left this morning. So I've been preparing some nice meals for them. I love listening to them talk about the origin of oil, peak oil, global warming, the origin of life, lakes of oil on Titan, platinum in gold (or was it a silver mine?), and subjects I can't pronounce. I can picture what they're talking about, but couldn't very easily explain it to you, though I am understanding it more after years of listening and seeing their maps. It's another world, a world of stories written in the Earth.

Several days ago I posted about a movie trailer. It's pretty powerful - the scientist writing on a chalkboard like a reprimanded kid having to write something 100 times.

Those of you who are Christians would experience sad and mad emotions over the movie coming out this spring.

I have to tell you that over the years we've had some pretty brutal experiences with Christians. You see, Monte's being a geologist who is a Christian, is viewed by some Christians as a walking oxymoron. Apparently you can't be a geologist and a Christian at the same time.

So it's as if we're in the middle of a war and being crucified from both ends.

Clean Plates?

When growing up, did you hear, "You better clean your plate ... Remember the starving people in ..."? And then the sitting with a timer. Or, "You'll just have to have it for the next meal."

We had some teens here for supper and were talking about this. Lots of fun comments, and Lizzie said something that we made her write on a post-it-note. So here it is -

"When you force kids to eat, even 1 or 2 extra bites, you deprive them of the skill of letting them recognize that their body is telling them that they are full." -Lizzie Farland

Her comment is profound because it opens up possibilities that some long-held child training methods may be fundamentally flawed and may even contribute to America's obesity pandemic. And like an old book on health in our home library says, longevity could correlate with eating small meals.

Clean plates got me thinking about the times I used to cook for the student center at the University of Arizona. I remember both Monte and another guy, used to lick their plates clean in front of me to show how much they loved the meal! I guess this has little to do with over eating by being forced to clean your plate as a child. It just makes the point that cooks love to be appreciated.

Health quote

"It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like."

I just read this quote and it made me laugh - sort of. You see, I disagree with it and definitely have some thoughts on it I'll share.

For most of us it is estimated that around 95% of our body is basically healthy, so why not work to keep that part healthy!

That's what a cell biologist acquaintance of mine realized. She used to give her time to lab work discovering things to help???? cancer cells. And she does have a discovery attributed to her name. But now she's giving her time speaking around the world hoping to help keep the healthy healthy.

A thought question - what's healthy versus vitality?

Orthorexia

As I prepared supper, I thought about statistics I've read, and not long ago heard on the radio (and had to call Monte on my cell phone immediately!). I think it's like 6% of American's money goes to food, while Europe and Japan spend 15-20+%. We Americans gladly fork over money for satellite TV, cell phones and other electronics, but we try to buy our food as cheaply as possible.

It's kinda weird, considering the fact that we can live without our TV. But shouldn't we be more willing to spend more on food, since we actually put it into our bodies?

For years I have been interested in nutrition, reading tons, since the 60's and Mr Rodale started us down this path of health and wholeness. So much food was beginning to be processed, boxed and shipped long distances. Shelf life became most important and convenience.

The more I know...understanding where the food around me is coming from and how it's grown and made, makes it almost impossible to eat.

There's a word for this: orthorexia. It means having an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy.

Our grocery expenses are higher than they used to be. Monte was questioning, since I've visually got it laid out on excel spread sheets. But we're wanting to buy wild fish, pesticide free fruits and vegetables, hormone and antibiotic-free meat and dairy. And did you know there's now organic Twinkies!? It turns out that eating with a conscience takes money.

That's what we've told ourselves, as we try and buy as fresh and local as possible.

I know we can buy cheaper, probably half the cost. But here's the thing about orthorexia--unlike most afflictions, the worse it gets, the better you feel.

Some friends roll their eyes, as I pick up everything and read labels. Are we becoming elitists? But you know what? We feel great!

quote

I love quotes! This is a keeper for me...

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."
from Redd Foxx

I am a health nut.
I can't write about it now, but I will.

Color

My last posting reminded me of a funny story I share when I do my Home Making Beyond Maintenance talk (which I'm going to put out soon as an eBook for starters).

There's many things we do in our dailies that I think we should try and be creative with - like making the environments we spend time in, like even where we do laundry, have some beauty.

Once we sat down for a meal and Monte prayed, "Thank you Lord for this white meal".

I had thought of the 4 food groups--potatoes, fish, bread and maybe rice. Everything was white, including the plates!

We need to think color when we make meals. Not only for the nutrients, but for the beauty of it too. It's definitely a memory we've never forgotten!