Portabella Burgers

Tonight we had Portabella mushroom burgers. They are so good and so easy!  They have lots of niacin, potassium, and selenium, and only about 30 calories per mushroom. Here's my recipe so you can have some too. I swear even Aaron says they taste like burgers.

Ingredients:
4 Portabella mushrooms
1/2 onion minced
2 cloves garlic minced
2 T. canola oil
1/4c. balsamic vinegar

Wash and de-stem mushrooms

Mince onions and garlic

(note: I am a sucky mincer...it's ok. also, I like garlic ALOT, maybe you might want to use just one clove)

Mix water, oil, & vinegar thoroughly and then add onion and garlic.

Flip Mushrooms and pour mixture into gills. Then grill the mushrooms cap side down, don't flip them over.

Put on bun, add what you want, and eat like a burger! If you're lucky you'll find some good local corn. (from Petruzzi's in East Brookfield, in our case)

five finger shoes OR hideous frog feet shoes

Today Aaron and I drove out to Evans on the Common in Townsend, MA and bought our very own Vibram Five Finger Shoes . The lady at Evans was super nice and helpful with picking the right shoes and the right size. They are not sized like regular shoes so it's important to try them on before you buy them.

Aaron got the nice neutral black KSO,while I got the slate colored Sprint

If you like to be barefoot, but worry about sharp objects and hygiene check these out.

I know, they look kinda goofy, but who cares?

These shoes are supposedly just like being barefoot, but with some protection. Basically the idea is, our feet were made to be barefoot, and all of those pointy heeled shoes force our feet to be what they aren't. Which in turn can cause back, knee, and foot problems. I always think of it in terms of back braces. If you wear a back brace, the brace supports you and your muscles do less work and atrophy. The same thing happens in your feet. The shoes provide all the support and your muscles get weak.

We plan on slowly working our way into wearing these alot of the time, and Aaron wants to run in them. The Plan: take your time, do it slow, listen to your body.

I'll update when we've been wearing them for a bit, and let you know how it's going.

FYI this was all Aaron's idea..... I think he's coming to the crunchy side. =0)

Updated here and here

 at some point about 2 months after buying them, the seam on my big toe gave out. It was a very simple fix with a needle and thread. Aarons however are going strong with no signs of wear.

Picking berries....

Still no word on The House.... still waiting....

So no Thankful Anyway Thursday post, I don't even want to think about the stresses right now..

When we bought this house there were some wild black raspberries on the side of our shed, and we decided to keep them and nurture them a little bit. So we trimmed them and fed them with a little organic fertilizer.

They are coming into season and boy am I glad we kept these guys!! This is their best season out of the last 3 seasons we've had them!! 

There were a ton of ripe berries, so I spent some time picking berries while Roxie hung out in the yard. I left some on the top for the birds, and some on the bottom for the rodents. I of course forgot a bowl, so I used my shirt...

They ended up in a  fruit salad, along with mango, orange, watermelon, grapes, and blueberries.. YUM

How to make horehound drops

Today I finished up making my horehound drops. It doesn't take two days, it just took me 2 days. =0)

 List of Ingredients

■2 cups of fresh horehound (include leaves, stems, and flowers) or 1 cup dried horehound
■2 1/2 cups water
■1/2 cup corn syrup
■3 c brown sugar
■1 teaspoon of butter
■1 teaspoon of lemon juice
■1 teaspoon of cream of tartar

First I harvested the last of my organic horehound. A bunch that would make about 2 cups when cut up.

Then I washed the horehound, removing any dead or yellow leaves, and cut it up with scissors. Next I got all of my ingredients together: Butter, corn syrup, cream of tartar, water, lemon juice, and brown sugar.

I poured the water on the cut up horehound, brought it to a boil and simmered for 10 minutes. Then I strained it a few times through a sieve covered with cheesecloth; into a medium stockpot.

Then I added the brown sugar, corn syrup, and cream of tartar. I brought it to a boil, and stirred frequently. I also attached the candy thermometer. When the mixture reached 240 I added the butter. Also at that point I pretty much stopped stirring except for a couple stirs here and there to make sure it didn't stick.

The next step is just waiting for the mix to get to 300. This took quite a bit longer than I expected. While I was waiting I buttered a pan (use alot of butter). Finally it reached 300 and I quickly added the lemon juice and poured the mix into the pan. It was HOT!

It started to cool down and I scored it a little. (that didn't really help, and next time I'll try wax paper on a cookie sheet) It was HARD to get out of that darn pan, hence the plan to use cookie sheets, or maybe even buy some molds next time.

Today I finally finished getting all the chunks of hard drops out of the pan, what a pain! I coated them with confectioner's sugar because they kept sticking to each other. That seemed to help quite a bit. Then I placed them in these jars for safe keeping.

Just an FYI, these are a little bitter.  I wouldn't call them candy, they are more medicinal cough drops, but horehound drops are very effective for soothing sore throats, asthma, coughs and help encourage mucous expulsion.

I am wicked smart.

So I am terribly impressed with myself. Why you ask? Because I found my old blog from 2006, not hard really. Then I remembered my password and username, that was a challenge..hehehe, and then ... here's where my impressive intelligence, well.... , impresses me....I imported my old blog posts into my new blog, (ok it wasn't that hard, and probably anyone could do it... still it took me forever to get it done.)




The whole point is:



Go read my old blog posts from '06. They are kinda funny, pretty judgmental, and boy I was bitchy! I don't agree with some of what I said then, but I left it up to remind myself of all the growth I've experienced. Just a note: I am no longer working at that job I was so excited about. I especially "like" the rant about the kids in my physics class; I worked so hard to get good grades in that class. Also I FINALLY graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelors in Psychology, May 2008. I didn't keep my 4.0; it went down to a 3.9 because of a stupid drawing class..... who loses their 4.0 because they get an A- in Drawing?... Geesh... LOL at the time I was very upset, but I survived.



I occasionally ponder graduate school, but I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.

getting fat and dog school

Ok so I noticed the other day that I have gotten fat! How the heck did that happen? All of a sudden I just blew up!. I can't believe it. I need to do something about this. My clothes are slowly getting smaller and smaller. So I am going on an exercise plan. I started running again. Just me and my dog. He used to love to run with me. It seems as though he hasn't forgotten how much fun it was.

Secondly ... tonight we start our second set of obedience classes. We really enjoyed the last two so I am looking forward to our class tonight. It's eight weeks long and we are learning off leash commands. We'll see how well we do with that. Hopefully Bear will behave and hopefully I will have enough control of him. Our instructor is really great and I am so glad we finally decided to start training him. There are so many differences in the way we interact now. It's pretty wonderful.