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Possibilities
www.HandsOnHealthHH.com
Holistic Hugs & Peaceful Blessings!
Paula M. Youmell, RN, MS, CHC
Certified Holistic Health, Nutrition & Fitness Counselor
(315) 265-0961
"Just lift the corner of the clouds
and the sun is ALWAYS shining!"
Eli Schechter
Mt. Marcy in the Spring, viewed from haystack
Anything is Possible.
Create new possibilities every day.
Fun Food Focus
Spring Asparagus
Gently steam enough asparagus stalks to feed whoever you are feeding. Keep them crisp and bright green.
Remove from heat and dump steam water immediately (into a tea cup to drink when it cools!) and cool the aasparagus with cold water.
Slice large stalks, lengthwise, to make slimmer sticks.
Sauté wild leeks in butter, if you are lucky to still have some tucked into a more shady corner of the woods. If not, use green onions or garlic scapes.
Drizzle the asparagus and leek / onion / scapes with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Sprinkle with oregano, basil, and parsley.
Add slices or chunks of roasted red peppers. Perhaps you have some still frozen from last year's garden? I think I may have some left over from the Kent Family Growers Winter CSA!
Toss everything gently and enjoy at room temperature or chill until meal time.
Serve with a sprinkling of feta cheese.
PS If you are in the Burlington, VT area, I encourage you to check out the Healthy Living Market and Cafe at 222 Dorset Street in South Burlington. It is an amazing store with all your whole food and whole body care needs. The hot and cold deli, fresh juice - smoothie bar, and salad bar are a yummy, healthy meal waiting for you to just put it all together. They even had 100% whole food cookies to please Eli (and Mom!). And...they are selling my book!
North Country Public Radio Interview!
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Decisions...
Lake Champlain Sunrise
When you're trying to make a decision, pay attention to your body.
Do you lean forward or slump down?" Linda, Title Nine Catalog
Paying attention to what your body is saying can help you make better decisions. Go with that "gut" instinct, as it rarely makes mistakes.
Movement Magic
It is the time to get outside again, move, get your energy and blood flowing. Spring and summer give us time to build up our Vitamin D while we move our muscles like magic. (Sitting Kills, Moving Heals!) Get out and walk, bare those arms and legs to the sun. Shade your face, with a hat, for long walks. Find a spot in the back yard and bare as much skin as you dare for 10 - 15 minutes daily. This allows more than your arms and legs to do a 'lil Vitamin D work. Again, shade your face.
Vitamin D Hint for fall and winter: pasture raised pork fat is high in Vitamin D. This is a local source that seems more logical than buying fish oils from thousands of miles away. Pork lard was traditionally used in cooking as well as eating in lard sandwiches (not sure I will try that one!). The lard, from pasture raised pigs, contains reasonable amounts of Vitamin D. My grandmother told stories of "how food was" in the early 1900's, pork and pork fat was a staple in her family, growing up in Churubusco, NY. Perhaps there issome wisdom in traditional eating!
Shall I remind you of this come September?
To find local, pasture raised pork go to: www.gardenshare.org and check out their Local Food Guide. You will find farms all over the North Country offering up yummy produce, honey, maple syrup, meats, eggs, dairy, cheeses, herbs, soaps, and more!
Garden reminder: Pop those flower heads off your rhubarb. This keeps the stalks from getting woody. Tender rhubarb for strawberry season makes for yummy strawberry rhubarb pies and crisps!
Recipe for Whole Grain Butter Pie Crust: single crust recipe, make one crust at a time. I use the food processor to blend whole grain pie crust as a fork or pastry blender just does not work well! This recipe also works well with lard, but (there is always that "but") I only recommend lard from pigs that you know how they were raised: local, naturally fed, no funny stuff!
1 cup whole grain flour (any whole grain will work)
1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt
1/3 cup pasture raised butter
1-2 tbsp. cold water or milk
Put flour into food processor first. Sprinkle the salt over the flour. Add butter in small chunks, scatter about the pile of flour. Cover and turn on processor while slowly drizzling the water/milk in through the top. When the whole thing balls up and is just rolling around inside the processor, shut it off. Believe me, you will want to, as it seems the machine will jump off the kitchen counter!
Roll out your dough and place in a pie plate. I use a cotton rolling pin sleeve and a cotton pie cloth sprinkled very lightly with flour to make rolling whole grain crust easy.
I bought my sleeve and cloth at Evans and Whites Hardware Store, Potsdam. If they do not have one on the shelves, ask, they will order one for you. It will come in a few days and is well worth the wait and supporting local businesses. It makes the "whole" grain pie crust process a breeze!
Strawberry Rhubarb Filling Martin's strawberries will be ready soon!
2 1/2 cups chopped red rhubarb, fresh
2 1/2 cups de-stemmed, washed and cut strawberries (in larger pieces)
3/4 cup organic sucanat sugar
3 tbsp. whole spelt flour
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2-3 tsps. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. butter, cubed small
Mix the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, flour, zest and juice of lemon, dash of cinnamon, and vanilla. Mix well in a large bowl and pour out into crust. Dot the top of the filling with the butter.
Top with second crust. Brush crust with whipped egg white and sprinkle with 1 tbsp. sucanat sugar.
Bake at 350 F for 50-60 minutes until fruit is bubbly.
Enjoy, perhaps with a bit of the Organic Valley, pasture raised, heavy whipping cream from the Potsdam Food Coop or Nature's Storehouse, Canton. I pour this into a pint canning jar, add 1-2 tbsp. maple syrup and 2-3 tsp. vanilla, then shake until it all thickens into whipped cream.
Be Well! Paula
Spring Cleaning
Spring Cleaning!
For those who know me, you may be visualizing me chasing dust bunnies and cobwebs about my home. But, I ask you, to stop and think about what I am really passionate about: (certainly not a spotlessly clean house!) yes, health and food!
I am spring cleaning the winter veggies out of my life. If I have to eat one more bite of cabbage, rutabaga, turnip, winter radish, celeriac - see where I am going? - I may just lose my mind. I would rather go without vegetables; yes, you read that correctly, than eat one more winter vegetable.
OK, about my beloved beets, they do not get spring cleaned out of my house. I still adore them. For spring eating, grate up and add tender dandelion greens, nettle tops, and wild leeks. I eat the "wild" foods raw. Yes, even the nettle tops. I do fine chop the nettles and chew them well. I slather it all with one of my homemade herb dressings, sprinkle with sheep's milk feta and chopped walnuts. Yummy, spring liver cleanse delight! (No, it is not just the veggie bins getting cleaned out in this house!) I also add a few chick peas to this, if I want to make it my well rounded meal.
Now for those other dastardly root veggies and cabbage. I am forever grateful to the local farmers that grow them. But quite frankly, I am sick of them. My taste buds and tummy yearn for the produce bounty of spring and summer. The wild things tide me over until farm stands are offering asparagus, peas, spinach, baby greens, tiny radishes...
So, what to do with those sorely unwanted winter veggies? Out comes my metal cheese grater. That's correct, I spend 1/2 hour or so, grating up what is left in my veggie bins. I then will promptly place them, with gratitude and blessings, into the compost pile. Your heard me, the compost pile! I do not think of this as throwing out, wasting food. The grated veggies will compost down, go into my little garden bed, and nourish the veggies I grow nest year. Reduced, re-used, and recycled right back into my food chain.
Got chickens? Good, let them eat the unwanted winter veggies that are your spring cleaning victims. Chickens eat. Chickens poop. The nutrients in the grated veggies will be in the eggs they produce and their meat, if they are meat chickens. Put their manure into your garden and voila, those "recycled" veggies will come back to you in many different forms!
Or, you can juice the root veggies and cabbage (I have never juiced a squash. Has anyone experienced this?) and enjoy a liver cleansing concoction. Then throw the left over vegetable fiber into the compost.
That's it for now, time to find the cheese grater!
3 Days Later....I haul out the cheese graters and pile up the root veggies. Intention is to get Jake, Eli, and Joe in on the grating action. I get an immediate: "are you crazy (no, I am not going to defend myself on that one!), we are going to hand grate all those? Why not use your food processor?" So, I confess, out came the food processor and the grating was finished in 12 minutes. The results are in the picture above, just before I used the pitch fork to turn it all.
Movement Magic & Health and Healing Hints (A 2 for 1 deal today!)
Bothered by low back pain? Pay attention to your posture while sitting and standing. Hold your shoulders up and back, the head of your upper arm bone. Press the shoulder blades forward, like you are trying to touch the bottom corner of the blade (your scapula, see diagram below) forward to your inner rib cage. This lifts your chest up and politely asks your abdominal muscles to do some spinal support work. No more sagging vertebrae!
Practice this posture while standing, walking, vacuuming, doing the dishes, etc. and you will notice that the work of keeping your body erect is more evenly distributed along your whole torso. this takes the strain off of your lower back. You will also strengthen support structures which will make this whole process easier and becomes second nature over time.
Sitting, same thing, just add a little pelvic power. If your hips and pelvis are slightly elevated about your thighs, your back is in a better sitting position for good posture and spinal support. Your thighs will be angled slightly downward. This is just opposite of what happens when we sit in an Adirondack chair, just to throw in a visual.
Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day everyone, Paula
PS Looking for a "connected" summer experience for your kids, ages 8-13? www.deeprootfarm.wordpress.com