During the month of November, I participated in an online writing workshop taught by a brilliant, highly skilled, former English high school teacher. A lesson and assignment each day. Thirty days. As is the way of things, life got busy. Really busy. In November. So, I printed all of my lessons and assignments to work on as…

From my January/February 2013 Whole Living Magazine, comes Banana-Apple Buckwheat Muffins. The recipe is included in a 21-day "eating clean" challenge that includes weekly menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner plus snacks. The plan focuses on cruciferous vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. Processed foods, sugar (small amounts of honey are used), alcohol, coffee, and common…

In the December 2012 issue of Taste For Life, a free magazine available at natural food stores, I found a Quinoa Protein Brekkie Bowl recipe and learned a new slang term. "Brekkie" means breakfast. The recipe comes from The Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook by Melissa Costello. I chose to sub half of the quinoa called for in the recipe with…

Three days ago, I donated a pint of blood. The phlebotomist, who performed the blood draw, informed me that it would take 24 hours to regain my white blood cells and 56 days for bone marrow to replenish all of the red blood cells. What is the purpose of white and red blood cells? White blood cells protect…

My daughter, Lisa, recently visited Paris. She took a photo of the store where Julia Child shopped for her bakeware.    She returned with a shiny, long, narrow baking pan to replicate the bakery goods she saw in Paris bakeries… and a jar of jam. For me. Sweet. The jam's jar is labeled with the words cerises blanches et…

Dick and I are camped out in our travel trailer just feet away from our daughter's house outside a little village in New York. We are lightening her work load post baby delivery by transporting her other three children to and fro. Here and there. Yonder and beyond. Three separate schools… middle, elementary, and preschool.…

My eyes fell upon this lasagna soup recipe on my daughter Jessie's Pinterest page. She had repinned it from another's Pinterest page, who had repinned it from another's… and so it goes. The trail led me to Brenda on her blog, A Farmgirl's Dabble. She had found the recipe in the February-April 2011 edition of "At Home with…

A quick, little, nutrient-dense treat via Jami over at eatnourishing.com. 1)The recipe calls for coconut butter, but I had none, so I used coconut oil. A hot water bath quickly melts the coconut oil, but unmelted coconut oil mixes in easily, too. My favorite coconut oil is Earth Circle Organics Raw Cold-Pressed and I like Now Real Food brand almond flour because it is…

Whenever Dick's and my travels bring us to St. Cloud (Minnesota), we have lunch at the Good Earth Food Co-op. Usually we choose soup, but most recently we had stuffed tomatoes. They were so very good that I decided to replicate them. My online search brought me to a stuffed peppers recipe on bettycrocker.com which I followed quite closely…

Today, after cleaning the chicken coop, I trimmed my sedums' dried stalks and spread mulch in three flower beds. Having happily spent the better part of the day outside in the crisp autumn air, and satisfied with my accomplishments, I thought a little chocolate would be good. A recipe I printed from the web site…