R.I.P. Mille

When I started this blog back in August I had mentioned that my sister's dog, Millie, was really sick. My dear, sweet, "cousin Millie" has made her way over the rainbow bridge to meet up with lost cousins and friends. She died at home early Monday morning.
There are so, so many joys of owning a pet but the one drawback is that 99.9% of the time you outlive them and unfortunately your heart breaks every time one leaves your life.
Millie was a handful when she was younger, but what hound isn't, right? She grew up to be an amazing dog with tons of love for every human she every met. She brought joy and laughter into a lot of people's lives and I hope that she knows that she will be greatly missed.

Done with the tomatoes....

Now what to do with Kohlrabi??? I get my produce delivered bi-weekly from a company here in Boston called Boston Organics. I LOVE them! Every two weeks I get a box delivered right to my front door and it always has some vegetable that I have no idea how to cook. This week is Kohlrabi. I got about a pound and I know I can shred them and put them in salads but I am not really a big salad person. And of course when in doubt...roast! But it is just the start of the Fall veggies so I know I will be roasting turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc until I can no longer stomach another roasted vegetable. And yes, I certainly Googled some recipes and found that you can actually fry these suckers....and who doesn't like fried food, right? This weekend I am going to attempt a Kohlrabi fritter. We shall see how it turns out.

I am also onto the October Photo a Day challenge. Instead of posting each photo every day I am going to post one big collage at the end of the month so you can see all the pics at once. And also, I am not so great at keeping this blog updated : ) I really like doing this challenge, it is a way for me to be creative and have fun, not to mention kill some time in between all my classes. Which by the way I have picked up two more classes starting next week. One Zumba and one Zumbatomic (which is basically Zumba for kids). My kids class consists of 7 kids ranging from kindergarten to second grade. I have absolutely NO experience working with children, and to be honest I am not really a big fan of kids in general, but hey, money is money. Stay tunes for the results of this one....

More green tomatoes

I am working on the the green tomato quick bread. My first loaf came out ok, but it didn't have a lot of flavor. I added cinnamon, allspice and vanilla extract, but it needs something more. I think ginger may be nice, so I will try that and let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime my "roast everything" motto came into play. I was making a sweet potato/black bean tortilla and thought...hmmmm....what about roasted green tomatoes? I roast cherry tomatoes with green beans and garlic so why not try green tomatoes, right?

I started the sweet potatoes first, tossing them with EVOO, cumin and curry, roasting at 350 degrees. After 1/2 an hour I added chunks of green tomatoes and a bit more EVOO.

After about an hour the sweets and toms will be nice and roasted. I sauteed some drained black beans mixed with some more cumin and voila! A lovely multi-colored nutritious tortilla. To keep the wrap from getting soggy from the roasted veggies I added two leaves of torn swiss chard (home grown of course).

All in all it was a very nice lunch.

And now the next batch of green tomatoes are waiting to be made into a more than ok quick bread.

Green Tomato Experiment

So, none of my large tomatoes have ripened, or if they did they had cracks and bugs and were basically nasty and inedible. I brought a few green ones in and have them in a paper bag on my window sill but they still are not doing much. So, because I have so many and I don't want to just throw them away I am going to experiment in making some green tomato bread. I figure you can make bread with just about any fruit or veggie. I have made carrot, zucchini, apple, pumpkin and kiwi breads so why not tomato? I am going to play around with the basic quick bread recipe and some spices and make a couple of loaves. Here's hoping it all works out.
Here is a picture of the weirdness that is going on with my tomatoes:

Like I said: nasty and inedible!

Welcome Brownie!

So, as I mentioned, I have a new foster dog. Her name is Brownie and she is about 2 years old. Obviously you can tell that she is a Chocolate Lab. She is sooooo super sweet, but a bit of a nervous nellie. Loud noises and quick movements tend to spook her but Freddie and I can manage.

Isn't she adorable?

I foster through New England Lab Rescue and Brownie is my second foster in the past few months. She has been here just over 24 hours and has totally made herself at home!

Onto a completely different topic - photo a day! So here are the 3 remaining photos.
Bright:

Everyday:

Natural:

Today's topic is Night. I need to take aphoto at night and seeing as it is just 7:30pm I haven't gotten to it yet. It is also raining so whatever the picture it will not be outside!

Catching up....

I will post the other two days later, but I do have a new foster dog coming tomorrow. Her name is Brownie and she is a 2-year old chocolate lab. Wait till you see her - she is SOOOOO cute.

Day 4 Mailbox
Pretty self explanatory, right?

Day 3 Far Away
This could have been a picture from a distance or something date-wise that was far away. My photo is of a cool cloud in Barbados (a country I fell in love with and visited twice a year for 3 years). So, the country is far away, the cloud is far away and really, not sure when I will get back there.

September Day 2's topic was Father. My Dad passed away over 20 years ago (yes, way to young, he wasn't even 50!). There are so many things that remind me of him so this collage captured just some of them. He was ridiculously handy so one picture is of the drawers we still have in the basement of all his "stuff". And when we were younger we were not allowed to cut across the grass. My dad would actually be out during the first snow fall throwing grass seed out so it would be ready to grow in the Spring.

A Photo a Day Challenge

I have a friend of mine that has been doing this photo a day challenge for several months now and at last I decided to join her. Check out the originator .
The basics of the challenge are to take a photo a day based on the topics provided. It does not have to be so literal either, be creative!

September 1 - You, now

This is me now. One year ago I changed careers and am now office free and a "full-time" fitness instructor. So basically, "Me, Now". Pretty easy right?