What to do on a (now) rainy afternoon? Blog, of course!

   Feeling a bit low has its advantages. Especially when the weather is not great, as it is at the moment. A nice soothing light rain is falling outside and the temperature is cooler than I'd like, so working outdoors isn't really an option. I'm also not super-inclined to do a lot of housework, so I'm catching up on the blog.

   What's the topic for this entry? A link I get in my morning e-mail and have been faithfully following for some time now is Daily OM.

   What I like about Daily OM is that, in addition to sending little inspirational messages every day, the site contains links to loads of little courses that have to do with self-improvement. The best thing about these courses is that for at least most of them, you can decide what you want to pay - from as little as a dollar (one dollar!) upward.

   That appeals to my bargain-seeking soul and also offers a great opportunity to look at courses that might help me get my nutrition, my home, my daily meditation or my daily exercise in order. A course I'm kind of excited to take just popped up in yesterday's Daily OM, and that's this one: Clear your home, clear your life. It's a holistic approach to de-clutter and organization that spends a lot of time on looking at the "stuff behind the STUFF" - something that I believe is important to understand for those of us who have a somewhat less than minimalist approach to "decorating" and organizing our homes.

   And, having watched a marathon session of the A&E series Hoarders (shudder) recently, it is just the kind of psychological approach to help a "normal" (e.g. not of the hoarding mindset/pathology) sort of clutterbug get those things back in a semblance of order.

   I'll be working on the course at my own pace so I'll let you know how it's working. And those who know me, know that I'm in need of a little de-cluttering, or at least my home (and likely also my mind) is!

Weird sources of traffic for your blog... what can you do?

I occasionally check my blog stats... which aren't very high, as I don't publicize my blog at the moment because I've been so sporadic in writing. So I was surprised to see some very odd sources of traffic.

Most of these odd sources are to do with either medicines (some sort of online pharmacy fill-your-every-prescription-here dodgy-looking sites) ... so what in the world is going on?

Hmm. Maybe it's the old SEO strategy of copying links of random sites to your own site's HTML to make it appear you're linked to thousands of sites "for real" ... when the truth is you've just randomly copied and pasted links. That strategy, or so I thought, is obsolete and in fact gets your site kicked off the search engines. But perhaps it still works. Apparently the hawkers of dodgily-sourced Cialis, Viagra, and other popular drugs think so.

I don't get it though.

A few of the sources are legitimate - I'm on the blogrolls at a couple of paper ephemera sites, which means that I should probably blog a little more in future about the paper goods I still have - and haven't listed yet for online sale. Yes, that is going on my TO DO list for this spring.

And that's about it for today... I'm a little under the weather, with what appears to be a virus that also seems to be affecting people I know (but whom I haven't been in contact with for months! How does that work?) ... either that, or the recent sunstorms are actually capable of making us sick. (I don't believe that but it's kind of amusing to ponder, really, when lolling in bed in the "morning" - uh - afternoon - when the head is pounding and fatigue makes thinking about more serious concerns just too icky.)

So... more, something perhaps more substantive, next blog entry. What will it be?

I think I'll go run the juicer now with the various fruit and veg I have left from last week's shopping - BRB - Nope, can't do that, I only have one sweet potato, some beetroot that actually needs to go into the compost because I forgot it was there, along with some kale that looks like it also needs to be tossed... some celery, two granny smith apples and some Washington apples that also are going past their best ... and a container of spinach that at this point needs to be sorted and probably used in a soup or curry instead of juiced. So that means a trip to the grocery store is on the TO DO list for today, as well.

With rain in the forecast, maybe I ought to buck up my energy and go do the shopping before it starts... or perhaps I'll just crawl back in bed and take stock later.

Wimpily yours, blogosphere... later. (yawn)

Cub Cadet Vintage 1962 - my little dream machine

My lawn is visited often by these two machines that have been lovingly taken care of and work like a dream. Though their shed is a little crowded and it's a funny little dance of logistics to get them in and out of the shed, I enjoy mowing the lawn very much, particularly when passers-by look at these anachronistic beauties in action, and smile. 

Juicer tips, and a little about avocados

Getting to know your juicer's limitations and capabilities is fun, but can be messy. For instance, some fruits/veg you can put through the juicer "foam" or have more pulp that makes it into the juice, and that can actually clog up the spout of the juicer, making the juice well overflow into the machine (and onto your counter).

An easy way to know the spout is clogging is by first getting to know about how much juice your extractor gets from each kind of fruit/veg. If that amount of flow isn't happening and the juicer is still processing the food, it's likely the spout has clogged.

Good news, though... it's an easy fix. Turn off the juicer as soon as you notice a slowdown. Find a flexible item that will fit up the spout (a drinking straw works really well). Be sure the container your juice is flowing into is still under the spout. Then push the straw up the spout and wiggle it around to dislodge whatever's there... when the juice starts flowing again, you're done!

Certain fruits are more susceptible to clogging up the juicer than others. Orange juice froths and can stop the spout fairly fast, so monitor the juicer carefully when running oranges (peeled, the white part of the peel is quite bitter and will ruin your juice). Mangoes are pulpier, so they can also clog. If the mango is ripe enough to be fairly soft, one solution that also adds to the fiber content of your juice is to mix the mango in a blender with the juice instead of running it through the juicer.

I've also discovered that mangoes have a pretty good aerodynamic quality - when they hit the fast juicer blade you have to be quick with the plunger, or end up with mango in your hair, on the counter, or (inevitably) splashing into the finished juice and sending it everywhere. The up side is that mango is purportedly good for the hair!

Another food you need to add in the blender is avocado - in vegetable juices the avocado adds a smooth texture and a healthy oil. How good are avocados for your health? This link (now fixed!) says that they are VERY good.

Tasty tomato-based juice "avocado smoothie" recipe

Just finished this one:
2 large ripe tomatoes, quartered
1 cucumber, scrubbed and stem end removed
1 red bell pepper, quartered (stem removed, no need to remove seeds or membranes)
3 stalks celery, scrubbed
4 carrots, washed and topped
1 lime, peeled
Juice these ingredients, then place about a cup of the juice in a blender and add:
flesh scooped out of 1 small ripe avocado (save the seed to sprout indoors if you like)
Add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper or other seasonings to taste (but note that there's a bit of sodium coming from the celery and carrots, so you don't need much at all)
Serve immediately (or refrigerate, this should keep well in the fridge for up to 2 days)
Yield: @ 4 cups

This is a savory, tasty and velvety-textured smoothie full of nutrition.
Here's an idea of the nutritive values in this juice (based on the FDA nutrition facts here which don't list all vitamins) ... Note that the fiber values are somewhat lower in juice, but there is a surprising amount of pulp from the juices so it's probably around or somewhat under half of what's listed:

• 1 Bell pepper: 25 calories, 0 fat, 40mg sodium, 220 mg potassium, 6g carb, 2g fiber 4g sugars, 1g protein; 4%DV Vitamin A, 190%DV Vitamin C, 2%DV calcium, 4% DV iron
• 4 Carrots: 120 calories, 0 fat, 240mg sodium, 12 mg potassium, 7g carbs, 2g fiber, 5g sugars, 1g protein, 440%DV Vitamin A, 10%DV Vitamin C, 2%DV calcium
• 3 stalks Celery: 22 calories, 0 fat, 175mg sodium, 390mg potassium, 6g carbs, 3g sugars, 15% Vitamin A, 22% Vitamin C, 6% Calcium, 3% iron
• 1 Cucumber: 30 calories, 0 fat, 140mg potassium, 4g carbs, 1g fiber, 1g sugar, 1g protein, 4%DV Vitamin A, 10%DV Vitamin C, 2%DV calcium, 2%DV iron
• 2 Tomatoes: 50 calories, 0 fat, 2mg sodium, 680mg potassium, 10g carbs, 2g fiber, 8g sugars, 2g protein, 40% Vitamin A, 80% Vitamin C, 4% calcium, 8% iron
• Avocado: 250 calories, 22g and 170 calories from fat (but very good fat!), 700mg potassium, 15g carbs, 5g fiber, 5g protein, 20% vitamin C, 10% iron.
• 1 Lime: 20 calories, 0 fat, 75mg potassium, 7g carbs, 2g fiber, 0 sugars, 35% Vitamin C

Titli's Busy Kitchen (and her Busy Garden) - Love her!

Just found this awesome funny smart lady on YouTube through a gardener friend's link.
I believe I'll make THIS recipe for dinner tonight, all I need is a bag of lentils, I have everything else... including the coriander (cilantro) which is growing on my kitchen windowsill.

Veggie juice - one nummy recipe!

Updating on the fourth week into juicing at home. Last week I wrote that a few weeks ago I purchased a juicer, after watching the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" that showed the journey of two men and how they improved their health through juice fasting.

I promised to update with good juice recipes as I discover them, and today my recipe’s all about complementary veggies in a tomato juice (the fruit in the bunch) base.

Here are the ingredients:

Two large ripe slicing tomatoes, washed and quartered

One medium size cucumber (about 9 inches / 2 dia) washed

Two stalks of celery, scrubbed (dirt finds its ways into the ribs so be sure to rinse that out)

One 1-1/2” piece of ginger root

Two medium carrots, scrubbed and the stem tops removed

One large green bell pepper, quartered (no need to remove the seeds or membranes)

About 2 cups of washed baby or “teen” spinach leaves, packed into a measuring cup (pack well, this is key to juicing spinach)

A few sprigs of cilantro mashed into the middle of the spinach

Spices: Ground turmeric, about ¼ tsp,

Cayenne pepper, to taste (my guess is about ¼ tsp for my taste but you could punch up the spiciness with a little more),

Onion powder to taste (again, about ¼ to ½ tsp.)

Sprinkle the spices over the spinach so as the spinach juices, the spices are incorporated. You could add them at the end but this seems to incorporate them well into the juice.

Juice everything… this recipe yields almost exactly 4 cups. You could add a little salt (I added ¼ tsp, which was plenty) or whatever other spices you like, to the finished juice.

This blend tastes healthy, vital, and has a little kick with the spices. Better than the loaded-with-salt over-processed bottled tomato juice “cocktails” out there. The color isn’t V8 red (it’s a green juice), but you definitely get the complementary flavors of tomato-cucumber-celery-pepper and carrot.

Enjoy!

And...

Juicer tip of the day: When juicing soft veg/fruit and hard veg/fruit, alternate the soft with hard. You can "sandwich" soft material between hard and the juicer plunger will extract a lot of juice from the soft which sometimes tends to just fly through the juicer into the pulp container. Just don't try this with bananas or avocado, as they'll just gum up the blade rather than juicing.

Juicing for health - A few weeks in...

A few weeks ago I purchased a juicer, after watching the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" that showed the journey of two men and how they improved their health through juice fasting.

Now I'm not in as bad a shape as those two guys, but frankly could stand to lose about ... let's say at least a fifth of my body weight. I've been guilty of consuming too much crap food (processed frozen easy to fix for a busy person type meals, for instance) and not getting sufficient exercise. So I got really inspired by these guys' journeys to health.

The next day I went to a local shopping center and picked up a Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Express, which cost me about $110 (it's not a top of the line two speed juicer but it had good ratings on Amazon, and was in stock, so I pulled the trigger). I then filled my cart with fresh vegetables and fruits, and proceeded to juice away.

I'm not doing the juice fast - not living on juices alone - but I have replaced two meals a day with juice and on some days have only had the juice. So far, so good. How so?

Well... I'm drinking less coffee, because instead of beginning the day with a big mug of joe, I'm having juice. I haven't had caffeine withdrawal headaches since I began this, which surprises me, as I'm pretty hardcore on the coffee, consuming what amounts to at least six 4-oz. cups of coffee daily until I started juicing. Now I'm only drinking one 12-oz. mug a day. 

I also find that the junk foods I craved (one of the guilty pleasures has been "cool ranch" corn chips), taste pretty much DISGUSTING to me now. 

I'm also eating less at meals, because I am filling up on the juice. I make at least 48 oz. (usually a little more) and take it to work where I can refrigerate it, so I'm having it two or three times during the work day. So my lunches have been smaller portions, and are much more filling than they were before I began juicing.

I have lost some weight, but don't know how much so far. I'd guess a few pounds. But fast weight loss isn't my goal - it's getting better nutrition.

What am I putting in the juicer?

So far I've juiced carrots, beets and their greens, ginger root, apples, kiwi fruit, blackberries, blueberries, pears, oranges, lemons, limes, spinach, cucumbers, broccoli, kale, cabbage, and tomatoes, and one (unsuccessful and tear-filled) attempt at juicing an onion. (I think that's all) 

The point is to get what's available in the fresh produce section on a seasonal basis... my strategy so far is to start with what I know I like, and move into the more challenging (kale, cabbage, broccoli were my first attempts at "challenge" - the kale wasn't as successful but I intend to work small amounts of the veg I know is a "superfood" but that I'm not so fond of into the juices and slowly my taste buds will acclimate - so far, so good!)

I've found tons of recipes for juicing on the internet, and will post some of my favorite recipes over the following weeks as I refine them. 

Two constants for the juices so far have been carrots and ginger root - the ginger root is great for your digestion and gives the juices a slight heat - about an inch of the root is sufficient, I've put twice that much in and then the ginger has a bite to it that can be very good - or too much.

Here’s one recipe I “created” that is quite yummy:

One large or two small oranges (peeled and quartered)

Two small granny smith apples (wash/scrub, take off stem
     and cut to size that fits juicer)

Two kiwi fruit (skin on, rub off the fuzz if you don’t like it)

Half a pint of blueberries, washed

One medium or two small beets, greens and all (scrub the
     beetroot and rinse the greens well, you can cut to fit the juicer)

Four to six medium carrots (scrub well and remove the tops)

One bosc pear (washed, stem removed, cut to fit juicer)

One inch of fresh ginger root (you might need to remove dirt
     from the root but you can juice with skin on)

Juice all ingredients then whisk together.

If you want a little more sweetness and a slightly thicker “smoothie” style juice, put one or two peeled slightly green bananas  in a blender; add a little of the juice to the blender and start it up, when the bananas begin to incorporate into the juice add juice a little at a time. Funnel into a container, refrigerate.

Yields roughly 4-5 cups of juice, which works nicely as two large servings or three medium servings of juice. For best nutritive value, use the juice that day.

I’ve actually added a juiced head of broccoli for a variation on the above, and it worked well, can’t even taste the broccoli.

So, three weeks in, the experience has been quite pleasant. I feel healthier, I seem to be sleeping better, I know I’m beginning to lose pounds … and although I know I can use the leftover pulp in other recipes, I haven’t bagged them in freezer-safe bags, so I have a freezer full of compostables for the spring garden, already shredded and ready to rot. With spring around the corner, I look forward to putting in my third year veggie garden and growing some of my own fresh veg for the juicing.

Ranting about the sorry state of the art of the magazine today, mainly.

Over the past week I've been looking at old editions of Fine WoodWorking magazine from Taunton Press, (which I'm putting up for sale on this link) and am struck by the "progress" over the 31 years it's been published.

The magazine was started "on a lark" by a group of people interested in writing about - and showing - what the title implies: Fine craftsmanship in wood.

Over the years the primary focus has stayed of course in woodworking, but many of the articles you see in current issues are just like any other magazine for DIY'ers. Now, while there's not necessarily anything wrong with the concept of a curio cabinet decorated with ducks in Tole-painted style, it's a bit far from the early days of the magazine.

The articles became less and less about those craftsmen and women who were truly fine at their work, and more and more about the products that are sold by the advertisers... product placement reared its head and features were written on the merits of this, that, or the other product or tool one could use in their work.

While this is not a big deal to many, I find it a little disheartening that almost every magazine out there these days has glossy articles that do little more than push shopping, consuming, and more shopping for the latest greatest product you can buy.

For a slightly tangential example, I recently began receiving (not at my request or as a gift, apparently I clicked some link on a website that generated the "subscription" without knowing!) the magazine called Real Simple.

Well.

When I received the magazine, I leafed through the pages to find the features on how to make my life "real simple" as the title implies. Did I find these articles? Not really. This magazine is apparently addressed to my demographic, which is women. It also is not really a magazine on simplifying ones' life. It IS, however, a fashion mag like just about any other. Full of short articles about the latest, greatest product meant to "simplify" my life.

Now, if I wanted to simplify my life I really don't think I'd be going out and shopping for more stuff. I definitely have enough STUFF as it is. Frankly, I have MORE stuff than I will ever need or use. Why would I need another doodad, appliance, chemical cleaner, cosmetic, "organization aid"... when all that would do is add complexity and more clutter to an already cluttered life?

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I don't believe that I am. One article in the latest (and I'm not paying for the subscription, though they keep sending me invoices and issues... persistent in their unsolicited attempt to bring me into the "Real Simple" fold) issue is about procrastination, or how to solve it "for good."

Well. Not really.

The article goes through a little list of how the author herself procrastinates, has cute little graphics, and then takes you chronologically through a day where she and a "tough" buddy go on what she calls an "Unprocrastination Day" ... I was with the program until I realized that most of what the two women did on that day was ... stop me here if you are surprised ... SHOP.

I admit that I'm being a bit unfair to the author here, as there were some very good tips on how to curb procrastination. BUT... while many of the stops in her day were for tasks like altering of clothes and repurposing of some lamps with new lampshades, the writer manage to mention trips to four major retail outlets (she named them) in her day, where she bought "stuff she needed" to complete some tasks (decorating, mostly) ... and one of the stops was to deplete gift cards she'd received that were about to expire or deplete by attrition... you can NOT tell me that those retail store names weren't requested - or required - to be included in the story.

So... when product placement creeps in around the edges so blatantly in otherwise handy little articles, I lament the thing we call "Progress." We don't need more stuff. Most of us don't know what to do with the stuff we have, and have plenty that we could recycle, refurbish, repair, and re-use.

Not being all self-righteous or anything, I would prefer articles about how to recycle, refurbish, re-use, repurpose, or repair in a magazine that touts simplicity and calls itself "real simple." But perhaps that's too much to expect in a time when the idea of "real" is reality tv, and the idea of "simple" is the next great gadget you can buy to "simplify" your life.

Like I wrote earlier... my life isn't exactly simple, but I feel a bit justified in writing this after having spent the fall and winter building up a compost pile from reclaimed materials and lawn waste... after a spring and summer 2010 of nurturing a veggie garden - a good portion of which was from seed I sprouted - that yielded enough for a pantry full of tomatoes, pickles, and salsas I canned myself and in canning jars I bought off Craigslist for a quarter or less of their new retail value... and spent part of the past weekend repairing at a fraction of the cost of replacement a coffee grinder. Among other things that I try to do to keep my life TRULY a bit simpler, including the eBay sales of stuff that could be useful to others, at a fraction of the price of new.

I will say that I don't expect others to live like I do, but honestly feel that if people really thought about the trends in information you find in magazines like Fine WoodWorking and Real Simple, they might recognize that on some level the entire publication is working in a way contrary to both the philosophy behind the title, and in a way that chips away at the time and money we really ought to be putting away for the future, rather than in buying that latest tool, gadget, cosmetic, or whatever.

And that's how I see it.

Have a great April!

- Rosie