Thanksgiving and Turkey
Posted: November 22, 2012 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Addams Family, Christmas, George Washington, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth, Plymouth Massachusetts, thanksgiving, turkey, United States, vegan 1 Comment »Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving as a tradition
Christianity.com says: the pilgrims never observed an annual Thanksgiving feast in autumn. In the year 1621, they did celebrate a feast near Plymouth, Massachusetts, following their first harvest. But this feast most people refer to as the first Thanksgiving was never repeated.
Thanksgiving Timeline from The Library of Congress
1621 – Pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated a harvest feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
• 1630 – Settlers observed the first Thanksgiving of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England on July 8, 1630.
• 1777 – George Washington and his army on the way to Valley Forge, stopped in blistering weather in open fields to observe the first Thanksgiving of the new United States of America.
• 1789 – President Washington declared November 26, 1789, as a national day of “thanksgiving and prayer.”
• 1800s – The annual presidential thanksgiving proclamations ceased for 45 years in the early 1800s.
• 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln resumed the tradition of Thanksgiving proclamations in 1863. Since this date, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States.
• 1941 – President Roosevelt established the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Read the rest of this entry »
Bead Crochet Bracelets
Posted: August 16, 2012 Filed under: News | Tags: Bead, Bracelet, crafts, crochet, etsy, hemp, jewelry, Seed bead, Shopping, vegan, Wrist 4 Comments »Well, here they are!
The verdict? They are comfortable to wear, fun to make and I love them. I realized during my photography session that I either need a mannequin arm or a friend with daintier wrists than mine. 
You can see from the pictures that some can be worn as both necklaces and bracelets. I am having fun rummaging through my bead bin and scrounging cool buttons for closures.
Creating is fun, photography is hard, but now that I have them all photographed I will get them measured and listed in my Etsy store tomorrow. So far I am making them to fit a 6.5 inch wrist (mine), but I’d be happy to make them in custom colors or lengths, call or email me with your ideas! Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite…
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- green glass wraps 3 times with a mother of pearl button
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- pale green glass on fine hemp
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- silvered and foiled beads on waxed linen
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- previous bracelet worn as a necklace
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- black glass and hematite beads on fine hemp
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- colorful foiled beads on waxed linen
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- wraps 3 times with a button closure
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- colorful foiled beads on waxed linen
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- multi-strand necklace of tint glass beads on fine cotton
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- freshwater pearls and glass beads on fine cotton
SOTD, Shake of the Day
Posted: August 10, 2012 Filed under: Health & Fitness, Recipes | Tags: Fasting, Flax, Food, Fruit, Green tea, Home, Nordic Walking, Pineapple, recipe, Shopping, smoothie, Stevia, vegan, VitaMix Leave a comment »Mmmm, breakfast.
I was pretty shaky after my exercise this morning, I guess green tea alone just doesn’t cut it for me for Nordic Walking. In the past, working out in a fasted state was believed to burn a lot more calories but I just googled it and found that those findings were controversial. I am linking (see related articles below) to 3 articles that reach different conclusions. Anyway, I had to come in after 45 minutes because I was too dizzy to continue, so I’ll probably go with “lightly fed exercise” myself unless I am just doing a 20 minute run or something. But… it is all OK because I made this!
Pineapple mylk
Ingredients:
almond or soymilk, 1 cup
flax seeds, 1 tsp
frozen or fresh pineapple, 1 cup
sweetener as desired, I use 3 drops of Stevia
Process:
I used the VitaMix. If you don’t have one you should probably use flaxseed meal because my regular blender never ground the seeds up well enough for my taste. Essentially, that is the difference between a VitaMix and a blender. A strawberry smoothie made in a blender will still have strawberry seeds in it, the smoothie made in the VitaMix will not.
You can bet I’ll make one of these before I walk out the door tomorrow.
Related articles:
Mark’s Daily Apple recommends fasting before intense exercise, referring to a study in which the subjects were eating a diet containing 50% fat. He also notes, “Lifting heavy things while picturing the pounds of meat to come is, for lack of a better word, kinda Primal. The hunger fuels my performance.”
BuiltLean recommends a light meal before exercise. He says, “The group that ate before the moderate cardio session continued to burn significantly more calories up to 24 hours after the exercise bout. The authors concluded that “when moderate endurance exercise is done to lose body fat, fasting before exercise does not enhance lipid utilization (fat use); rather, physical activity after a light meal is advisable.”
The New York Times: Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast which states, “Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.”
Every-day Eggplant Parmigiana
Posted: August 7, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: Black pepper, Casserole, Cook, Diet food, Eggplant, Fruit and Vegetable, gluten free, low-fat, Marinara sauce, Parmigiana, recipe, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment »Before you get started, I want to warn you that this is not a traditional recipe, this one is quick and simple enough for a week-night. Click this link if you were looking for a traditional recipe and want to bail out now.
Mine is low-fat, gluten free, and either vegan or vegetarian depending on whether you use mozzarella cheese or a vegan substitute. In case you worry that this is sacrilegious, don’t. First of all, the traditional dish it isn’t from Parma at all, despite the name it is from Southern Italy. Second, there are many regional variations on eggplant Parmigiana, also called eggplant parmesan in the USA, and third, there are two completely different traditions that claim the name, one is the baked casserole type and the other is the stacked slices type. I like the casserole type best but each slice of eggplant is generally salted, pressed, dipped in egg, breaded, then fried, and finally baked with sauce and cheese. That is just too many calories and way too many steps for me. Read the rest of this entry »
Healthy Cream of Mushroom Soup!
Posted: August 3, 2012 Filed under: Health & Fitness, Recipes | Tags: Cook, crock-pot, Dill, gluten free, low-fat, Miso, Mushroom, Paprika, Slow cooker, soup, vegan, vita-mix 2 Comments »This is a winner!
I just came up with this last night and it is amazing, fresh-tasting, rich, vegan, gluten-free, and low-fat to boot. The house smells incredible while it is cooking and your guests will never believe that there is no cream or flour in the broth. The original inspiration for pairing mushrooms and a serious amount of paprika is from The Moosewood Cookbook (this link is to the NEW book but the cover pic is the same.)
Now, make it and let me know how you like it!
Ingredients:
- Mushrooms, I used baby bellas, about 12 oz.
- Celery, 4 stalks
- onion, about 2 slices, you can use more but I don’t really like onion
- Miso (any color), 3 tablespoons, (you can sub your favorite bullion)
- Almonds or walnuts, 2 tablespoons
- Paprika, 1 tablespoon
- Dill weed, 2 teaspoons
- Black pepper, 1 teaspoon
- Tamari, 1 teaspoon, or to taste
- 3 cups water or broth
Separate the stems from the mushroom caps, slice each mushroom cap into three or four slices. Place stems in blender, (I used my Vita-Mix), and mushroom caps into a slow cooker or crock pot, (you could use a soup pot on the stove).
Chop onion and celery and microwave on a plate until soft, add to mushrooms. Add remaining ingredients to blender or Vita-Mix and blend until smooth, about 1 minute. Pour over mushrooms and cook in crock-pot on high, or on stove at medium, until mushrooms reach desired softness. Mine took an hour in the crock pot, it would take less time on the stove.
Options:
- Saute your onions and celery in butter or oil instead of microwaving them
- Sub milk for 1 cup of water
- Sub wine or sherry for 1 cup water
- Add sour cream to each bowl right before serving
Almond Milk Maker- Monday
Posted: July 23, 2012 Filed under: Health & Fitness, Recipes | Tags: Almond, almondmilk, homemade, milk, money saving, Nuts and Seeds, raw, recipe, sanlinx, soyajoy, soymilk, sugar-free, tofu, vegan 1 Comment »It’s Almond Milk-Monday!
Several people have asked me how I make almond milk. May I introduce the Sanlinx SoyaJoy. Yes, I know you can blend soaked almonds and water in your blender and then strain them through a dishcloth but I am Gadget Girl, daughter of Appliance Lady, so that is just not how I roll. If someone invented an appliance to do, make or clean something… Mom had to have it! She bought this for me years ago when I drank soy milk and I recently discovered that it does a great job of making nut milks.
Eric’s Rutabaga Soup Recipe
Posted: November 6, 2009 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: gluten free, lowfat, one-pot, recipe, Recipes, Rutabaga, soup, vegan 4 Comments »
Rutabaga Soup
Eric said I should write this one up, I guess that means it was tasty!
If you’ve seen rutabagas in the store and wondered what you could do with them, try this recipe. This soup takes advantage of the rutabaga’s sweetness while disguising its cabbage-y flavor. Rutabagas are an excellent source of Vitamin C, folate, potassium, dietary fiber, calcium, iron, niacin, and Vitamin A. Raw rutabaga contains an exceptionally high amount of the cancer-fighting glucosinolates, even more than other cabbage members.
I had no idea, until I looked it up for this post, that the rutabaga originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip, and in my opinion, they taste better than either. In WWI Germany, the famine of 1916-17 was known as the Rutabaga Winter. They are tough to peel with a knife, a vegetable peeler works much better. Many people serve them roasted and buttered, fried or whatever, but I like them to disappear into a soup. You can use a small one, two small ones, one large, whatever, this is a very forgiving recipe. Rutabagas are also called Swedes or Swedish turnips which would make this Swedish Turnip soup:
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1/2 onion
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 rutabaga (any size, peeled and diced)
- 1 carton low sodium broth or water
- 2 bayleaves
- 1 can stewed or readycut tomatoes (14.5 oz can)
- 1 Tbsp paprika
- salt & pepper to taste.
Process:
Slice and sauté onion and celery in oils, peel and cube rutabaga and add to pot, pour in half the broth, add bayleaf and simmer until rutabaga is soft. Then, mash rutabaga with a masher or fork, add tomatoes and remaining ingredients and simmer 15 minutes or so to blend flavors, serves 4, about 140 calories per serving.
Notes:
If you want to cook it faster, you can cut up the rutabaga and cook it in the microwave and then stir it into the sautéd vegetables. For a more elegant and higher-fat soup, puree the finished soup through a blender and either stir in one cup of cream or serve each portion with dollop of sour cream.
