Strange things are poking out of the ground

It's that time of year where every day brings a new surprise from nature. What was brown and dry yesterday urns to green grass overnight. The plain soil suddenly has something green and fragrant popping out of it, and you start hearing Tiny Tim playing in your head, inviting you to do things that the neighbors would probably disapprove of. Tiptoe-ing through any flour bed is generally a bad thing for the plants ! At the supermarket , crops of seasonal veggies start appearing. One of my favs this time is Asparagus ! It is a nutritional good guy, inspiration for many dishes, and reminds us that everything in nature looks weird at some point in it's development. When asparagus is fully grown, it's a gigantic fern like shurb, but at the stage where we eat it, it can resemble a dinosaur like plant waiting to happen, or.....

Canned asparagus is a crime against nature. Frozen asparagus is somewhat better , but still too mushy for my tastes. I like to eat it where it is , what my father termed as, scared. Exposed to just enough heat to begin to break down the cellular walls of the plant. Blanching ) placing in boiling water for a moment and then plunging into ice water) is an excellent way to do this. This recipe has you preforming this exact form of cullinary art.

Sesame Asparagus Salad

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed (thin is better)
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey

Trim the woody ends off of your asparagus and then cut into roughly one inch pieces

 Fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil, and get a bowl and fill it with very cold water. When the water boils, drop the asparagus sections in and boil for 1 minute- no more ! Remove immediately and place in the ice cold water- this stops the cooking process. Your asparagus should look vibrant green

Next, assemble your dressing ingredients

In a small bowl, measure the dressing ingredients and whisk to combine. Pour over the asparagus and refrigerate for 2 hrs.

Simple as that ! While your dish chills, you will be free to entertain temptations placed inb your head by Tiny Tim. It's spring after all and tulips will not be around forever !

Sunday afternoon cooking school

Late winter, early Lent, and a Sunday with nothing to do. The weather has been breaking out in nice days, but it seems that it does not coincide with the weekends. So I wind up sharing my morning coffee with these guys, who have a bit of natural assets to deal with the newly fallen white stuff

Something about ducks in the snow makes me feel sad. Makes me think of the movie Dr Zivago , and being banished to Siberia

Yes, I am dating myself with that reference. What can I say - I am an old person. Almost. Numerically that is.

So while the ducks wandered across the frozen land and "Somewhere my love" kept filling my head, I started to think about dinner. Chicken was planned, but I wanted to do something a little more exciting. A little more interesting. A little death defying. And then I realized that what I needed was to spend this meal prep time teaching my son some knife cuts and a simple way to garnish. Yes, I know how to do these things, but normally it seems like putting on a string of pearls and a matching sweater set just to step into the laundry room . When no one else is there. At 2 am. It's nice but not nessisary.

We were planning to eat some cucumbers with dill, so it made a very nice medium to teach the three most basic knife cuts- slice ( top left) dice ( bottom two) and julienne  ( top upper  right). Ripe cucumber, sharp knife, basic safety rules like curl your fingers under away from the knife and it makes for a safe, satisfying lesson. He was wowed. Then I moved on and showed him how to make a cucumber look "fancy" with a zester. Run lines down the peel, slice and it looks purty

 My son adores any kind of food that is made to be eye appealing.Garnishes, bento boxes, tomato roses- he gets super excited about . If I teach him how to do any of these , it gets stuck in his memory forever. I was on a roll with these tricks, so I decided to teach him another fun sort of trick- polenta in an artsy way. Polenta is basically broth brought to a boil , and cornmeal whisked into the broth and seasoned with herbs, butter, cheese and so forth. It can be poured in a bowl and topped, poured on a serving platter and topped or poured on a cookie sheet, chilled and cut. Polenta was on the menu , so I decided to show him the last option

Polenta cooling on a cookie sheet

Polenta cut in circles with a biscuit cutter and a few leftover bits cut into squares.

Next came a veggie. Asparagus has been inexpensive here, but it is one veggie he is still not crazy about. I keep telling him that the trick to find how to like a veggie is to investigate different ways to prepare it. He watches a lot of TV cooking shows and was fascinated when some chef used this idea. It's asparagus! It's bacon! It's fancy !

Remove the woody ends from the asparagus stalks, grease a cookie sheet and wrap each stalk in a slice of bacon in a spiral sort of fashion. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes and serve

Put it all together with your favorite recipe for chicken parts, and it makes a nice( and fancy sort of looking) meal

Dinner cooked, lessons taught, bellies full , ready to conquer a new week.

Hello to my little childhood friend

Woke up with part of a voice and decided I should be well enough to get back to exercising, After all, outside of the pain in my throat and some minor sniffles and being a little tired, I felt fine and sitting around is not the greatest thing ! So let's start the day with a good breakfast. Something a little different this morning came to mind. A few weeks back our market was out of steel cut oats , and I bought some multigrain cereal in it's place ( wheat, barley, rye,spelt,oats,rice,millet cracked like steel cut oats). I found steel cut oats at the next store as a temporary item and bought them as well. Sadly the multigrain cereal has sat, so I decided to include it in breakfast today

Oatie Grainy mix

2 apples, diced
2 cups water
1 T raisins
1/2 cup multi grain hot cereal
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

Place apples, raisins, water and multigrain cereal in a saucepan. Cover and bring to a rolling boil.
Pour in the rolled oats and cook, stirring constantly for 3 minutes.Place in bowls and top with 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries and 1 T goji berries

Goji berries get a lot of hype as a "miracle food"with more vitamin c than any other plant source and many other erroneous claims. Much of the hype is not based on any fact, but bad information passed from source to source. Goji berries have been used in eastern medicine for almost 2,000 years because they do have medicinal qualities- there they are known more commonly as wolf berries and often used to treat liver ailments and diseases that have a root cause in the liver.So what exactly is the truth about goji berries ?

They contain
* Selenium and Germanium: These are well-known anti-cancer agents.
*Beta Sitosterol: This anti-inflammatory agent has been found to lower cholesterol, and has been used to treat impotence and prostate enlargement. Some have considered them to be an aphrodesiac for this reason.
*Zeaxanthin and Lutine: Have been known to protect the eyes.
*Betaine: Produces Choline in the liver, which helps detoxification processes there. It is also known to protect DNA, enhance memory, encourage muscle growth and protect against fatty liver disease.
*Cyperone: Used in treatment of cervical cancer. Known to benefit blood pressure, heart and menstruation problems.
*Solavetivone: An anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent.
*Physalin: A compound known to boost the immune system. Also found effective in treating leukemia, cancer and hepatitis B.

5 tablespoons of dried berries contain 112 calories, 21 grams sugars, 170% daily value of Vitamin A, 20% vitamin c and 12% iron

Once breakfast was over we began school and after a few subjects we headed out for a walk.Sunny day, nice and warm, should be a great thing . As soon as we hit the outside my lungs started behaving oddly. The best I could describe it was an itchy swelling kind of feeling- much like you feel with a mosquito bite, but in my throat. The feeling spread to my bronchial passages, and suddenly I was finding it difficult to breathe. As a child I had bronchial asthma, and this was feeling like the start of an asthma attack. They are very frightening, and I no longer have any kind of an inhaler or medication to deal with these , so I had to force myself to calm down, move slowly but deliberately back into the house and deal with this as best as I could with what herbs I had on hand. It seems that what I am dealing with may not be a cold, but instead an allergic reaction to one of the pollens in our area at this time. We have an unusually high amount of water hemlock this year, and it has come up early.There are also numerous false honeysuckles in bloom, but it seems that those are not a known allergen. I think to be on the safe side, till my cold is completely gone or the water hemlock stops blooming, I best limit my workouts to indoors. We came back in, exercised with the Wii and continued with school till it was time for lunch- 15 bean soup and tabbouleh on a bed of baby spinach

TABOULI

1 cup bulgar ( cook according to package directions)
1/2 c lemon juice
1/4 c olive oil -- or more
2 bunches parsley -- chopped finely(must be fresh)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 bunches green onions -- sliced thinly
3 fresh tomatoes -- chopped
1 can garbanzo beans , drained and chopped

Place the bulgar , mint, parsley tomatoes and onions in a bowl and toss . Combine lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl, whisk and pour on salad mixture. Toss. Cover and refrigerate. Will keep in the refrigerator covered for a week.

The rest of the day was spent with school and other mundane things till it was time for dinner. I decided to try something a little different- a variation on the ole campfire packet dinner. In campfire packets the food is placed in a foil packet, and the moisture from the food itself creates steam in the high heat and the result is a very moist and flavorful meal with minimal clean up. It can be done at home in an oven set to a high heat as well. I served these with Ronzoni pasta flavored with mushrooms and garlic sauteed in a wipe of walnut oil and water (stir steam if you will) , and a salad of romaine, watercress, dandelion greens and navel oranges with sunflower seeds.

Breast of chicken with asparagus and carrots serves 4

1/8 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp parsley
2 tsp lemon juice
1 leek -- thinly sliced
1 carrot -- cut into sticks
4 boneless -- skinless chicken breast halves, cut crosswise into .25 in. strips
1lb asparagus -- trimmed and cut into 1 in. lengths
heavy duty aluminum foil

Preheat oven to 450°F. Tear off 1 large piece of foil for each serving. Arrange sliced chicken
in center of lower half of each length of foil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with equal
amounts of asparagus, carrot, and onion. Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl.
Pour equal amounts of mixture over each. Fold two ends of foil together and tightly fold
3 or 4 times. Repeat process with ends to seal packet tightly. Arrange foil packets in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes and serve.

Last night I was kept awake with a lot of coughing and sneezing in an attempt to dispense about 50 pounds of crud in my lungs that had been building all day. I think this means that this cold/allergy thing is not done with me yet, and I will have to baby myself for a little while still. I don't like it. Being sick is very uninteresting and a hassle that keeps me from doing what I wish to do. Oh well- best see what I can learn from this experience !

Where is Solomon when you need him ?

Why is it that deep, sustainable changes have to be so difficult to make ? Simple change is easy, and just because something changes does not mean it will remain on the new course unless it is a sustainable action. And unless something is a sustainable action, change can mean more harm than good. Intelligent change must be real, measurable and sustainable. To bring sustainability all factors of the current problem must be understood and taken into account when making a change, or it will fail. That's kind of where I am right now, and it seems that the equation gets more complex as things go about. I have been considering just how to make this whole thing with family time work with my husband's commitments. He devotes almost all of his vacation time to the heavy weeks church wise ( Holy Week and Christmas), every weekend ( at least 2 weeks a month it is Saturday and Sunday, the rest is usually all morning on Sunday) flex time off at work for funerals and now he is being called to do funerals on his vacation as well. We have one car because we cannot afford a second car, no public transportation and live at an intersection of two very busy roads with no sidewalks.No possible solution is one that would be sustainable for many reasons and it is making me think very unkind thoughts about everything involved. Then in the mail I got a bridal shower invitation for one of the nieces, and as much as I would like to go I know I probably will not be able to because he is going to be called for a funeral AND do evening mass that day and we will have to jockey around the whole rest of the week in order to fit in the necessary errands of the week, so I will not go. It's one of a thousand things I have missed because he has to sing. It gets really old.

One thing is certain though, I think better on my feet while walking. Walking can become a moving meditation that gets your blood pumping, endorphins flowing and helps you burn some calories. While walking I discovered that I am also able to jump now ! Nick and I did a lot of walking yesterday , housecleaning and playing another Wii game called Walk it out. It allows you to walk to the beat of several different tracks while you build an island community. We could not walk because of the noise factor, so we did the most we possibly could while seated in a chair. We broke a sweat , and it was a lot of fun !

The day was powered at the start by pear apple blueberry oats. We seem to go to this one a lot !

Lunch was black bean salad on a bed of romaine and watercress. I really love the colors in a black bean/corn/tomato mix !

15-Minute Black Bean Salad

½ cup minced onion
2 medium cloves garlic, chopped
1 can black beans -- (15 oz) drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn -- thawed
8 cherry tomatoes -- quartered( I used 2 whole, chopped)
½ cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
3 TBS fresh lemon juice
lettuce of your choice

Mince onions and garlic
Mix all ingredients together and serve on a bed of lettuce. This salad will keep for a couple of days and gets more flavorful if you let it marinate in the refrigerator for awhile. Serves 4

Dinner was an easy one . I wanted to make another round of lentil soup and 15 bean soup for the freezer, and both work best with ham. I bought a shank ham for the bone, planned to cook it in my crockpot, but it would not fit so I had to cut the meat off the bone and cook it separately. This was a big advantage because I could do a second crock pot with lentil/split pea soup at the same time as the ham. I remebered a trick discussed on my freezer cooking loop to make ham less salty ( pour a can on lemon lime soda over it) , and decided to try it for myself. It worked ! The ham came out less salty and very tender. I served it with a tossed salad topped with fruit salad and pecans and a vegetable ragout- think a sort of stew without broth.

Asparagus-Potato-Leek Ragout

2 large leeks -- white and pale green
1 lb. small yukon gold potatoes ( or other small potatoes)
2 cups water -- seasoned with Mrs Dash
1 lb. asparagus -- trimmed and cut diagonally
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms
lemon juice
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves -- chopped ( or 2 T dried)
3 Tbsp. fresh parsley -- finely chopped ( or 1 T dried)

Cut leeks lengthwise and wash thoroughly. Then cut crosswise into 1/2-inch slices. Quarter potatoes and steam in a steamer until just tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a bowl. In skillet,water-saute leeks in seasoned water for 3-4 minutes, stirring until tender. (Add liquid if needed.)
Transfer leeks to bowl with potatoes. In skillet, heat more VegiZest water and water-saute asparagus for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add mushrooms and water-saute mixture, and continue cooking for about 3 minutes or until mushrooms soften. Combine all ingredients. Before serving, squeeze a little lemon juice over vegetables, stir in mint, parsley, and pepper to taste, and gently toss. Serves 4.