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?

A Fantastic Friday!

Started the day off with some 7 grain waffles and pears drizzled with syrup.

Then spent the rest of the day at the beach. I typically miss a spot or two with the sunscreen and end up with some weird burn marks, but not today!

For dinner

Fried Eggplant with some sautéed cherry tomatoes and garlic, topped with fresh basil and parmesan cheese all over angel hair pasta.

To top the night off - some True Blood.

Like I said - a fantastic Friday!!!

Another Guilty Pleasure

I love to read and am not partial to any one genre, though I must say mystery is not really one of my favorites. For the past few years (yes, years) I have been trying to get through the Random House Top 100 Novels. Seriously, there are only so many books that I can read in a row about the wild frontier or mid century England. More often than not I go off the list and read supernatural/fantasy/young adult books. And yes, I did read the Hunger Games Trilogy in about 6 minutes. LOVED IT. Another YA trilogy that I devoured was Scott Westerfeld's Uglies Series After watching the first season of True Blood I requested all 11 books from the library and ripped through those as well.
My latest and greatest escape is George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. This too has been made into an HBO series, which seeing as I do not have cable, I have yet to see, but will most likely add it to my NetFlix queue. I have finished the first two and just put in a request the other day to the library for A Storm of Swords, Book 3. It's strange because typically I am not into the Lord and Lady/King and Queen type of book, but for some reason this one has got me hooked. Which would explain where I have been for the last few days : )

Sunday Salads

So I tend to cook/prepare a lot of food on Sundays so that I have things to snack on during the week when I run in and out. Today I went with two different salads and attempted kale chips. The salads came out really good, the kale chips, not so much.

Asian Cucumber Salad
I love this salad during the summer with fresh picked cukes. Technically it is a salad but I really eat it a few slices at a time whenever I open the refrigerator!

Super easy and yummy.

Two cucumbers peeled, seeded and cut however you want them
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp Honey

Whisk all the seasonings together and pour over cut cucumbers and toss to coat. I like to add sesame seeds over the top as well. Chill for at least 1 hour.

The other side salad I made is also SUPER easy!

Broccoli, tomato, chickpea salad

1 head of broccoli
1 pint of cherry tomatoes halved
1 can drained chick peas

Pretty simple, steam the broccoli, half the tomatoes, add chickpeas. Done : )

For a dressing I use the juice of two lemons, a few teaspoons of EVOO and two cloves of crushed garlic.

I mentioned that I attempted kale chips too. Well, let's just leave it at this - I set my fire alarm off and my house stinks right now!!! Oh well, I am growing more kale anyway.

I am BatGirl

Ugh...so I know that there is a decline in the bat population. I know they are super beneficial as bug killers. But, really? They are not welcome in my house! Over three years ago I had several bats in my house over the summer. The first three times I captured and released. By the 4th time I had had enough! That sucker got whacked with a shovel and promptly discarded.
Last night, well actually this morning, at about 1:30 Freddie woke me up because he was scurrying around the living room. I got up to see what his issue was and in the dark with no glasses on I saw something fly right in front of my face. BAT! Dammit. It was weird it was just zooming around in a big circle around my living room - kind of like those toy birds on a string that you used to swing over you head. I got my broom and in my left-handed baseball stance I waited for it to fly past me. I think I had three strikes before I made contact, but no one was counting. I swatted him to the ground then whack. He was dead on my floor. Swept him up and put him (or her) and the dustbin on the back porch and crawled back into bed. Let's hope he (or she) was a loner. Sorry BatBoy. BatGirl was on the prowl.

Money saving tip of the day

So, being a fitness instructor I teach 3-5 classes a day and go through a TON of clothes during the week and need a gajillion pieces to make it through the week with only doing laundry once. I just realized that a boy's large/Xlarge (depending on the make)is the same as a Women's small!!! Go figure - I have been paying $20+ for pants/shorts in the women's section and I could have been paying $7-10 if I shopped in the boy's section!!! I could never fit into any type of top for boys, my shoulders are too broad and yeah, well I have a chest, so that doesn't work, but jog bras are less than pants so I can deal with that. The same holds true for sneakers. If you are a woman's size 8 you will be a boy's size 6. I should have figured this out long ago because back in the day when I had to match my sneakers to my outfit and collected them like crazy, I worked at Olympia Sports and used to buy the boy sizes of Barkley's and Jordan's all with my employee discount. There is a 2 size difference in shoes so if you are a women's 8 or under you can totally check out the kid's section and save some serious cash!!!

Fall Planting Time

Well, actually I am a little late with the planting but today I transplanted my Avalanche peas, some cauliflower, broccoli and wild kale. None of these did really well in the Spring, so hopefully they will produce now.

I harvested very few tomatoes, the last of the edamame and a few more beans. This has to be, by far, the worst season for veggies! Normally I am tomato-ed out and still I have nothing. One of my other volunteer tomatoes are ready and apparently that one is a SunGold or something similar. Whatever - I will take what I can get.

So check out my harvesting bag -

It is obviously an old T-shirt. You cut off the arms and the neck and sew up the bottom. Pretty friggin' easy! Because this T-shirt was so long I cut a good amount off the bottom after sewing it up and use that extra piece to either wrap around my waist of tie it together and sling the whole thing messenger bag style across my body. I made this when I originally thought I would be harvesting cucumbers and zucchini out of my eyeballs. Needless to say I haven't used the "bag" too much.

Life's Little Necessities

So, you know the saying "Necessity if the Mother of All Inventions?" And of course you have seen those articles about people that were looking for the perfect "insert product here" and couldn't find it so they made their own and now they are millionaires? Why can't I do that? I have a few things that I feel need to be invented/improved upon that would make my life (and I am certain others) easier.

1) Hair Wax. I used to have a great one from John Frieda, it came in a low blue tin and the wax was pink. It was discontinued years ago and I have been searching for a replacement ever since. I want a wax that holds a messy, textured look without getting all hard and crunchy. It should not dry out my hair and about all it should work. I don't think I am asking too much on this one.

2) Cuticle Cream. It should just work. Period.

3) An App that synchs CheckIns, Wages and My Calendar. Ok, so I know this is kinda a tall order but being self-employed and an independent contractor I don't have taxes taken out of my pay checks. I also can right off my mileage come tax time. I am also in and out and all over the place any given day. Keeping track of everything and working that stupid Excel spreadsheet is not my idea of fun. Developers are you listening????

4) Sunscreen Applicator. I love going to the beach especially if it is in another country and I tend to travel alone (much easier that way). The only drawback is applying SPF to that hard to reach area in between you shoulder blades. I need something like a long tube of toothpaste that is filled with SPF (and can be refilled) that attaches to some sort of hand so that it is easy to apply SPF without asking the creepy, hairy guy on the chair next to me. Think carnival prize back scratcher but for SPF.

Nothing to earth shattering here just simple every day items that I need to make life easier. The only one I can really even attempt to create is the sunscreen applicator. Hmmm...do I sense millionaires-ville in my future????

Gardening Woes

Ugh...I was so thinking that I would have a ton more zucchini and cucumbers to harvest but now I have pulled out 3 of the 5 zukes due to squash borers and the remaining plants do not look so hot. The cucumber plants have some sort of mildew issue and are dying on the vine, or they aren't getting pollinated not too sure what the problem is here, but I am none to happy! And now there is blossom end rot on the Ananas Noire tomatoes that I bought from Territorial Seed

As for all the other tomatoes I planted I have harvested about 15 total cherry tomatoes. I planted 9 plants and found 2 volunteers that I left to grow and still I have nothing. This has been a crappy season for veggies. The beans are not doing so well either. As of today I have just enough picked to make one side serving. Typically I would have been begging my neighbors to take some off my hands. I love to garden, I find it very relaxing and it also alleviates the grocery bill, which I am always trying to save money, but this year nothing is going as planned. Tomorrow is the day Arlington Farmer's Market and I just might have to make a visit, if not for veggies then at least for the Vietnamese Coffee made by Flora. I hate spending money on vegetable that I know I can grow myself. Oh the gardening woes....

Happy Monday : )

Just winding down from my day that started at 5:45am with a nice walk with Freddie. On Mondays I teach 3 classes. The first at 9am at SkyZone which is a ridiculously fun class held on a trampoline. My second class was at Fitcorp in Copley Square - a 20 20 20 class that is hi/low, weights and abs and rounding the day out was my Zumba class in Arlington. I just got in and got a text from my sister telling me that she has to take her 12-year old blue tick coon hound to the emergency hospital because she has been throwing up and has diarrhea. My sister lost her cat to cancer earlier this year so I am hoping Millie will be ok. I don't think my sister can go through that again. I know I couldn't. It's already past 8pm and I still need to eat dinner. Thank goodness for leftovers. I made enough carrot zucchini slaw last night so all I have to do is grab a fork and open the tupperware container. Easy, breezy : ) Off to eat and shower and then I do it all again tomorrow. Happy Monday!

So today is where my story begins to be told. This is where I will document the good, the bad, and the ugly of all that I encounter during my daily life. Right now we are in the midst of the summer harvest so I will be posting some of my trials and errors of trying to use ALL those cucumbers and zucchini in random recipes. Right now I am in between foster dogs but I am sure another will be arriving soon. In the meantime Freddie (my 12-year old black Lab mix) and I will be going for random hikes and hopefully we can make it out to the Doggie Beach in Nahant for a little swim (him, not me). I hope to share tips and tidbits that I know in order to save money, get the best deal and over all how to live happily but frugally. Stay tuned.....