I made 2 great new foods over the weekend but I don’t have any photos to share with you to go along with the recipes. Frankly I made the foods for the taste and they weren’t all that pretty photographed.

Rawfood cereal
Soak 1 cup each of Pumpkin seeds and Raw almonds overnight.
In the morning drain them and process them with the s blade on your food processor. This is enough for 2 meals so I returned half to the fridge for the following day (it only lasts that long anyway) and the other half I put in some dried fruit and a cup of cashew milk. It was surprisingly good.

Roasted Stuffed Eggplant.
1 Eggplant
1 onion - chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic - minced
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
fresh basil about 1/4 cup chopped.
2 large tomatoes chopped.
Olive oil

- Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and cut out all but 1/4 inch of the meat - cube that meat.
- saute the onions and garlic, then add the eggplant and mushrooms. cook until it’s reduced and yummy. Remove from the heat and stir in the basil and tomato. Fill the eggplant halves with this mixture. Cover it and pop it in the oven at 350F for about 20 minutes. Uncover and cook for an additional 15 or until you can’t stand it anymore and have to eat it now because it smells too good.

Knitting and spinning:
I wish I could say that I’ve gotten a lot done. I haven’t. Lots of stuff happening here has prevented me from doing a lot of knitting or spinning. I’m hoping things will return to normal soon and I’ll have something to show for my efforts.

This is really really good and an easy meal for one or however many people you have.

1 Zucchini per person - grate it the long ways through a Mandolin cheese grater. You are grating long strips that are spaghetti like. If you leave your produce in the fridge, you may want to set this out to get room temperature. It’s not bad cold but room temp it seems to have more flavor.
2 good plops of a good Pesto (see below)
a handful of chopped reconstituted sun dried tomatoes.

Pesto:
1 large handful of fresh Basil
Lots of minced or crushed garlic
A good swish of olive oil
a bit of salt and pepper
1/4 cup of Pine nuts or I’ve heard Brazil nuts are good too.
Using the S blade and the food processor - process until it’s smooth.

Knitting:
Mostly I’ve been working on a deadline project:

But I’ve also been playing with the scarf here and there:

I’ve been working on this a while and I couldn’t find where I got the pattern from. I know it was free and on a blog. It was one of those blog journeys that you started at a friend’s blog and traveled 5 or so blogs away and found the pattern.
CO 29. Row 1 and every row there after: S1, *K1, K2tog, YO, P1. Repeat from the * to the end. Basically you cast on a multipple of 4 sts plus 1. You’re good to go.

Food here isn’t always super healthy. Sometimes we like to go for somehting a little naughtier. With Superbowl weekend coming up, I wanted to try out a fried mushroom. I had a bit of batter left so I threw in some onions too. While I think it’s a good batter for mushrooms, the onions weren’t quite right.

1/2 cup Corn flour
1/2 cup Rice flour
salt (to taste)
garlic powder (to taste)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
6 ounces Beer or cold water
Small mushrooms - washed and dried - if you don’t have small ones, cut up the big ones so they’ll cook through well.

Heat some oil to 375F - about 2-3 inches in a pan will work.
Mix the batter ingredients until smooth. Drop in the mushrooms and stir to make sure they’re coated completely. Gently drop the coated mushrooms into the oil - turn once to make sure all sides are brown. Drain and serve hot with ranch dressing.

If you’re vegan you know ranch isn’t exactly on the menu. To make a vegan ranch dip. Plop a package of silken tofu in the blender. Add a couple of teaspoons of soy milk and a packet of ranch dip mix. Blend thoroughly. It’s good stuff and Vegan.

I need to come up with a few more Football snacks. These days we don’t have a big party but it’s still nice to have the food as if we were having a bunch of guests (so long as I remember not to make enough for an army).

KNITTING:
I can’t show you anything just yet. I spent the weekend finishing up some socks for a local version of Sock wars, “Battle of the Soxes”. I didn’t feel like I’d be able to participate with all the dealines I have in February so I volunteered to create a pattern. I have a sample done in 2 weights now. The game starts this Friday and then I’ll be able to show off the socks.

SPINNING:
I need to work up a larger sample of some energized singles for a posting here. I got way laid by making boucles. I took a picture of an old Boucle I did….

And now I want to make a ton more. I’ve been dyeing up special for some funky boucle type yarns. I’m not sure what I want to make with the final product. All I know is that I want a ton of this boucle. It’s not a full boucle either. I should get out some of the others that are loopy and fluffy the whole length. This one is fluffy and loopy in spots. Which means it has just enough plain spots that I can knit with it without wanting to gouge my vital organs with my needles.

And I’m not talking about the herbal tea you generally find from Celestial Seasoning. I’m talking healing herbs. There were many comments and a few emails about my herbal asthma tea. I’m always hesitant to give out too much info here. To those that aren’t familiar with herbal therapies or don’t have a Naturopath, a little herbal info can be worse than no info. So what I’m saying is that if you are one of those and even if you are familiar - please don’t stop your meds and check to see if the herbs are a dangerous combination with the meds you take. Herbals are medicinal and can make other meds ineffective or dangerous. Just know what you put into your body. ok?

With all that, I’m going to give you a few recipes. If you are new I suggest you check out your local health food store. There are many medicinal teas out there that are just as good as stocking up on a bunch of herbs to make your own. That is if you’re new at this and don’t really want to play with herbs. I’ve only taken the respiratory ones when I’ve been out of herbs and waiting for a new order to come in. Yogi Tea makes “Breathe Easy” and Traditional Medicinals makes “Respiratory Health”. Both taste a bit better than the tea that I make and work just as well.

Asthma Tea
1 part of each in dried herb form - Chamomile flowers, Passionflower, and Echinacea Root
1/2 part each in dried herb form - Licorice root, Elecampane root, and lemon verbena leaves

If the herb is too big I crush it up a bit. I mix it all up in a jar and I make it fresh by the cup. Steep 1 large teaspoon of the mix in 1 cup of boiling water for 10 minutes.

Sometimes making a tea from one ingredient is helpful as well. Lemon Verbena is known for stopping wheezing. Making an infusion of equal parts of nettle and thyme work for some. Skull cap is another one that is good for respiratory health. And then some people find that just chamomile is enough to help.

Chamomile really is a wonderful herb. It’s a relaxant, anti-allergenic, antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory. Many people find that their asthma is triggered by stress as well as the usual triggers. As in, if you are stressed then your asthma will be worse than it normally is.

When I started down the path of treating my own asthma (I still have my rescue inhaler, I would be stupid to give that up) I started to read lots and lots. I wasn’t online then but I read all the articles I could find in magazines and in books. It’s the reason I first became a vegetarian. I was a strict ovo-vegetarian 12 years ago and it helped. It helped immensely. It really was the first step to becoming healthier. Since that time I’ve had times of eating meat and then back to being vegetarian. If I had to describe my diet these days I’d say it was Macrobiotic. No sugar, No dairy or eggs. The only meat I occasionally eat is fish.

I had sugar over the holidays. On slip and then one more and another….. Until I made myself sick. My digestive system is still feeling it. My poor stomach hates me these days but I’m treating it right. I suppose we need those times of eating bad to remind ourselves of why we eat the way we do. I’ll talk about other ailments and other reasons for dietary changes in another post. Really this could get very long but there has been interest in knowing about non western meds so I’m happy to share.

If you are really interested in learning more then I suggest you go out and get a GOOD book on herbs and healing. There are many good ones out there. I suggest you start with an encyclopedia - like “Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine” by Andrew Chevalier.

Edit: I forgot to also add that Caffeine has an effect on asthma. In this case it’s a good effect. Though you have to take into consideration the rest of your body. If the rest of you is effected negatively by caffeine it’s probably not a good idea to start to ingest it for it’s effect on the asthma.  I also want to add thta eating Gralic is a good thing.  You might already like it, if  not you can take garlic tablets.  Garlic helps reduce chest infections but it’s also good for colds, flu, ear infections and reducing mucus. So eat more garlic.  I know I didn’t put everything down. Asthma really is a personal illness. What triggers my attacks may not trigger yours.  Once you really know what your triggers are, you can work towards lessening the effects or removign the triggers.

KNITTING:
I spent half the weekend daydreaming about new designs. Which isn’t all bad. I wrote out the skeleton design for 3 shawls and a vest. I need to make my way to the shop to card the fiber for one of the shawls. It’s the one I want to do the most even though I have the yarn on the wheel for one already. Since all of this is at the shop, I really have nothing to show you.

I did do one sock and am workign down the heel of the other. I can’t show you those either because they’re for a game that’s being put on by The Knitting Experience. I’m not playing the game so I volunteered to test out a pattern. If any of you that are playing the game are reading this, it’s a good one. I can see this is going to be a good game. I can’t wait to sit back and watch it happen.

And so I’m going to leave this post without photos. I hate to do that. No photos is always so boring. I promise to have some good spin ones next post.

I’m giving up my spice mixes today.

Taco Mix
1/2 C Garlic powder
2T sea salt
1/4 cup paprika
1/2 cup chili powder
1/4 cup Ground Coriander
1/4 cup onion powder
Optional 2T Cayenne

If you currently use those Packets of Taco mix - this is really very close. Use it to season beans, rice, or the Meat/meat substitute for your tacos. I use it the same way that I would those packets. I don’t just sprinkle it on as is. I mix about 2T with 1 cup of water and mix it in to whatever I’m making. If it’s something like the rice, I use the flavored water to replace 1 cup of the regular water. Voila - Mex flavor.

Breakfast Potato Mix
1/2 C Chili powder
1/4 C Roasted Garlic
1/4 C dried Cilantro
1/4 C dried parsley
1/4 C dried Chives
2T Fine ground Mustard

This mix is good as a final sprinkle on those breakfast potatoes. It’s also good to mix 1T with a 1/2 cup sour cream or soured Kefir to use as a dip for veggies or a spread for “burgers”. I usually add salt and pepper to the final product thus leaving it out of the mix.

Apple Sprinkle
1 cup organic Cane sugar
2T Cinnamon
1t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg

As it says, this is good to sprinkle over apples. It’s a good mix for baking but equally good if you just slice up some apples in a bowl and sprinkle this on top.

Knitwise
The time off has been good. The house isn’t any cleaner but I did get time to knit. I finished the Worsted socks for my girl

And then I finished those wretched Jiffy ones.

Then I worked on an old shrug to get it finished but I need to rip. It’s a self designed one and I need to redo the collar, it’s not exactly how I envisioned it. Actually, it’s one of those times that I thought fancy is better than plain and I was wrong. Sometimes plain is just as good. I’ll use the fancy somewhere else. But since it’s in the frog pond, I don’t have any pictures.

I did cast on for 3 new projects though….
I have to make you wait. I need to go shovel out the shop and get a load of shipping done. I hope those of you that are celebrating the New Year tonight, that you are safe and happy.

I raise my tea mug and wish everyone a happy and fiber filled New Year!