I’ve wait for a couple of months for this baby to be just right before I picked it tonight.
This is what I love so much about gardening! I watched a tiny pepper pop out of a flower.
I watched the little green pepper grow and grow. Towards the end of July, that green pepper started to turn red.
This made me squeal with delight. I can’t believe how exciting it is to have a garden!
I would update Nelly on how the garden was doing since she was at my feet whenever I was outside.
The month of August has been quite rainy, so rainy in fact that today is the first day I’ve watered my garden since July.
I had my eye on that pepper all week and kept telling myself not yet. I bought some lean ground beef to make stuffed peppers with many peppers I’ve grown.
There are still a couple of half-green and half-red peppers. The great news is that I get to do it all over again—waiting until they are just right!
Behold, the photo above of my pepper that I’m so fucking proud of. She’s a beauty isn’t she?
Last week, a friend of mine, Seline, came over to give us some gardening advice for the fall.
She is an avid gardener and has been growing her own food since her childhood.
She showed me her garden journal, which was not only beautiful but full of information and drawings about her garden year after year.
I spent a long time searching for something that appealed to me. The journal I settled for wasn’t exactly what I wanted but it will do for now. I can keep searching.
I’ve been putting off writing in my new journal. I don’t want to mess it up. I’m planning on using pencil just in case. 😝
As a writer, I write about how things make me feel. This journal is to track and keep information that I can refer back to.
I did a practice page, and of course, I wrote too much. I’m going to have to edit myself constantly, which will be a challenge.
I will have to tell myself what I planted, the weather conditions, problems that may have arose, and how I remedied them each month if I could.
When did I harvest the vegetables and how much did the plants yield. Then I will do the same thing with my perennials and annuals garden beds and containers.
I took a lot of photos of my gardens each month to help me compare next year’s to this year’s.
The joy my gardens gave me each morning, seeing how much things grew overnight, isn’t the place for this journal.
How proud I was every time I picked from the garden and ate what I picked for lunch or dinner that night made me feel so accomplished.
We ate food that I grew felt pretty fucking good, especially with the price of food. Well, that doesn’t go into the journal either.
My plans that I have for a fall crop I will be putting in later this week, well, that goes in for sure.
My wonderful blog, which I enjoy writing and sharing with all of you, is the place for these feelings.
Wish me luck writing down only facts. However, there are spots to draw on, which makes me want to use the lightest pencil I own since, again, I didn’t want to mess up my journal. 😜
The grueling hiring process of working for the company Air Methods didn’t take as long as any of us thought.
Sam was hired as a flight nurse with Lifenet NY with his home base in Fort Ticonderoga, NY.
His home base is 1 1/2 hours from his place in Essex, VT, and here. He will have a day in between his two 24-hour shifts a week, meaning he can go to either place.
Last week, he was flown to Denver to Air Method’s headquarters and trained at the academy. There was a lot to learn.
This past week, Sam was in Bozeman, Montana, like in the show Yellowstone, to attend an outdoor conference called Crash and Learn.
Ugh, I wish it had a different name, but I have learned it’s a crash course in learning from top-flight teams all around the country.
The conference takes place outdoors around a campfire so to speak. All the attendees camped in this beautiful setting.
Sam has kept me in the loop by sending me photos. Marty and I are very proud of how hard he worked, he worked his ass off and is one of the youngest flight nurses in the company.
I am still nervous about Sam’s new job, but we have learned that safety is the company’s number one priority. Safety comes first, period.
I’m looking forward to having him here every once in a while. Marty may see him often since his base is one of the helicopters in this area.
I give my worries away over to God every night about both of my boys so I know they are in good hands. 🙏🏼
I opted not to top my loaf with bananas; I just threw them into the blender. I like banana bread with walnuts, so I added a handful to the batter before I poured it into the pan.
Most banana bread I’ve made in the past had a lot of fat and sugar. To top it off, I put mini chocolate chips in the bread of if I was making it for me kids.
It was super sweet and sometimes greasy on a napkin. Now I realize I was not feeding my boys as well as I thought at the time.
They loved it; who wouldn’t? Noah was a picky eater, so when I found something he liked, I was overjoyed.
The banana bread recipe I tried on Sunday afternoon was outstanding. All the ingredients went into a blender then poured into a loaf pan.
I baked the banana bread for 35 minutes instead of the usual 55-60 minutes. From start to finish in under 45 minutes is wonderful.
The first slice came out of the pan with ease.
After it cooled, I tried a slice, and it was super moist. It wasn’t overly sweet, but it was sweet enough from the bananas and maple syrup in the recipe.
One slice of this banana bread is satisfying and filling. The best part was how the house smelled while it was baking.
This is a great recipe for breakfast with a side of fruit or an afternoon snack with peanut butter.
I ate a slice this morning and it’s still moist and delicious. It’s completely bananas that such a simple and healthy recipe can taste so good!
If you like banana bread, I hope you will try this quick and easy recipe; I don’t think you’ll be sorry. 🍌
We had friends over for dinner last night and I wanted to share with them one of our favorite things we’ve been eating this summer.
This was not your regular old fruit salad, this one was epic!
Since we have been eating clean, I’ve learned to cut up fruit beautifully and appreciate gorgeous seasonal eating.
We’ve eaten more fruit this year than ever before. One of our guests, Lee, commented that this was the most fruit he’d eaten in one sitting.
On the fruit platter, there were peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, white flesh peaches, prosciutto and melon, chiffonade basil leaves, and burrata cheese drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
They loved it as much as we did. No, you don’t have to cut your fruit beautifully like I did; that’s just me, and I love doing it—it’s my zen.
It doesn’t matter what your kitchen skill set is; your platter can look like a total mess but will still taste delicious.
If this whets your appetite, run out and get some seasonal fruit and a container of burrata cheese at the grocery store.
Remember the olive oil, salt, and pepper—it’s what makes the dish go from a fruit platter to epic!
As I write this, we are having tea and coffee on the front porch and enjoying a thunderstorm.
Nelly is snuggled on my lap. Living in the moment doesn’t get better than this.
Last Monday, I taught a belly dance workshop at the Manchester library with the help of my dance sisters Kathleen, Emily, Callie, Trish, and Maria.
My sisters.
We didn’t have as many participants as we would have liked, but the ones we did had a lot of fun, and so did we.
One of our dance sisters, Jackie, had to stop dancing when her job transferred her to Manchester where she lives
She saw on Facebook that we would be at the library, and I commented that she should come, not thinking she would.
Kathleen, Jackie, Emily, a past student, Callie, and me.
I loved dancing with Jackie. She was a student who took 6 months to find the one in a song. She was so excited when she was able to do it.
She was a very good dancer and her and I had a special bond. She was one of the first people I met when we moved to Vermont in 1989.
Jackie and I worked together in Manchester at the Polo Ralph Lauren store.
While I was teaching, I saw the front door to the library open out of my peripheral vision. It was Jackie! I screamed and ran to her.
Me & Jackie.
Jackie could jump in and hadn’t lost any of her dance skills since she left before COVID.
Jackie was a fun dance sister and was like a mother hen with newer dancers. She fell right back into that role at the workshop.
For that hour, it was like she had never left. When the workshop was over, which was super fun and went well, I pulled Jackie aside and said, “Follow me.”
I threw a combo she and I used to do, ending with calibrated spins, four spins spinning in sync.
I had no doubt she could do it and she did. Here’s a short video clip of us.
I love teaching workshops and hope we will have other opportunities for more.
I have my fingers crossed we will be invited to dance somewhere as well. Performing is my favorite hobby, especially now that I can dance like I do again.
Thank you to the Manchester Library for asking us to do a workshop. We enjoyed ourselves.
Jackie proved that improv belly dancing is just like riding a bicycle. 🚲♥️
I had a food memory last week when my friend Ann was visiting from NJ.
When I was 7 or 8, I went to my Uncle Steve’s mother’s house. His mother was straight off the boat from Hungry.
I spent a lot of time with my grandmothers, but I also spent a good portion of time with my Aunt Claire and Uncle Steve. I’ve written about her several times.
Uncle Steve’s mother didn’t speak any English and she was old. Her apartment was small so while my Aunt and Uncle sat at her dining table in the kitchen, I watched what she was doing.
She put out a big spread of food, all of Uncle Steve’s favorites and ours too but the first dish she served were open-faced tomato sandwiches.
She started with toasted rye bread. She smeared a small amount bacon fat on the toast then added slices of Jersey tomatoes she grew herself.
She finished the open-faced sandwich by sprinkling red onion on top along with salt and pepper. Mmmmm!
It was so good. We talked about it all the way home Perth Amboy where she lived. I told my aunt and uncle I could make what she made.
A week or so later, they bought the ingredients for me to make those sandwiches.
Since I was so young, I needed help cutting the onions and tomatoes. I don’t recall who did that for me, but I assume it was Aunt Claire.
I used the kitchen table as a makeshift counter for me since I couldn’t reach the real one.
After I pulled the toasted rye bread slices out of the toaster, I carefully spread them all with bacon fat, going to the edges like I watched her do.
I put the tomato slices on next and sprinkled some onions on top.
Then, I used salt and pepper shakers just like I saw the old Hungarian women do.
My parents were also there, waiting to try what I was making. I put the open-face sandwiches on paper plates and served everyone in the next room.
I turned to get mine from the kitchen when everyone started making mmmmmm sounds.
Aunt Claire told me that my version was as good as whatever she called her mother-in-law, I don’t remember.
I’ve been craving that open-faced sandwich all week; I made it for lunch today.
My onions were minced small and stayed on the tomatoes better than when I made it 50 years ago. I should have added more in retro speck.
The taste was the same as I remembered. Marty said the open-faced sandwiches were delicious; this was the first time I had made them for him.
When I was making our sandwiches today, I had a nostalgic moment and prayed for all of them, especially Uncle Steve’s mother who was a very good cook.
Since we had to go gluten-free back in 2010, the only good bagel we had twice in 2022 was at a gluten-free bagel shop in the city called Modern Bread and Bagel.
We couldn’t believe how crispy and chewy they were. They were just like the bagels we grew up on in NJ.
I’ve tried making gluten-free bagels plenty of times all with similar crappy results. I gave up. Sigh.
Since we have been eating a clean diet, I’ve learned how to make amazing things I never would have found just by searching for gluten-free.
Remember those high-protein waffles I made about a month ago? I got the bagel recipe from the same site, Skinny Taste.
Cottage cheese is a big component in clean eating since it helps maintain good gut health. Plus, cottage cheese is loaded with protein.
Even if you don’t like cottage cheese, have you purchased a decent brand like Cabot where the curds are small?
Did you have it plain, that’s boring! You can add preserves, cinnamon & sugar, or savory things like za’atar spice with vegetables or chives.
If you still don’t like cottage cheese, these recipes do not taste or act like cottage cheese. Instead, they transform it into baked goodness.
The recipe for the bagels calls for flour, which can be whole wheat, regular all-purpose, or gluten-free. Yay! These bagels are not vegan.
The directions for the bagels are pretty specific, and I followed them exactly; I now know why they are there.
When we had our bagels topped with veggie cream cheese I made for breakfast, as soon as we took a bite we were like, holy shit!
The recipe is simple and straightforward. There is no rising. You just make the dough, form it into bagels, and bake. That process took me about 20 minutes.
They baked for 25 minutes, which was right on the money according to the recipe. They cooled for 15 minutes and were ready.
My posts have been shorter since this is our high season, but I finally figured out after almost 3 years of blogging, I can share 1 photo with a quick description.
Duh, Julz! Every blog post doesn’t have to be a long detailed or emotional piece.
Oh, believe me, there are still plenty of those to come when we can come up for some air.
This is already turning out to longer than intended. 🤣
Behold, the photo of the sandwich above, such a simple, healthy, and delicious creation which was inspired by an Instagram image.
Toast topped with pesto, spinach, scrambled eggs, a slice of tomato, thinly sliced mozzarella cheese, freshly picked basil, kosher salt and pepper.
So stinking good! This is healthy, clean eating. Yum.
