Leftovers: Chicken tacos

The other night, I "roasted" chicken in the slow cooker for dinner (supper?). The next night, I shredded the leftover meat, tossed it with Trader Joe's Green Salsa, warmed a can of TJs black beans (BPA-free can!), and whipped up a side of hold-the-mayo slaw with red cabbage, carrots, and cilantro, and served it with all the fixings (grated cheese, plain yogurt, salsa). Such an easy, quick, and delicious meal. I took a photo of the slaw on the side, but I ate it on the taco. Yum!

Hold-the-mayo Slaw (serves 4)*

1/2 red cabbage, sliced thinly

2 small carrots, grated

Fresh cilantro, chopped

Extra virgin olive oil

Juice of one small lime

Splash of apple cider vinegar

Black pepper, to taste

Mix veggies and cilantro in a bowl. Add as much cilantro as you like (we love it around here, so I always add extra). Drizzle olive oil over mixture, add lime juice, vinegar, and freshly ground black pepper. Toss and serve. 

If you don't like cilantro, dill or other fresh herbs can be used in it's place. If you prefer a creamy slaw, add a couple of tablespoons of organic yogurt.

The salad can be made a day before and left to marinate in the fridge. I ate leftover slaw today with the "super cow" beef stew I set up this morning in the slow cooker to cook while we were off getting a Christmas tree. 

*Disclaimer: I don't measure when I cook, so everything is a guesstimate.

Eat Your Veggies, the Fall Edition

Roasted vegetables are the perfect fall comfort food, accompanying roasts, poultry, fish, eggs, or just on their own. Best of all, they are super easy to make:

1. Preheat oven to 425°
2. Cut veggies* and arrange in a single layer in their own sect

ions on a baking sheet. Don't crowd.
3. Drizzle with olive oil.**
4. Season with your favorite herbs and spices (not salt, not yet), such as pepper, rosemary, garlic powder, Italian herbs, cumin...
5. Cook for 20 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and lightly sprinkle with sea salt.

Some veggies will be crisper than others; if you like them more "well done," remove those that are to your liking and leave the others for another 5-10 minutes. Enjoy!

What is your favorite roasted veggie?***

*Veggies cook at different rates. Sizes are approximate: broccoli and cauliflower into 1-2" florets then halve; carrots 1/4-1/2" slices; sweet potatoes/yams 1/2" cubes; beets 1/2" cubes; zucchini cut in half and quarter (depends on width of zucchini). Arranging them in their own sections allows "done" veggies to be removed easily with a spatula.

**Cut veggies can also be placed in a bowl and tossed with oil (~ 1 Tbsp per lb of veg), but if using beets, toss them separately to avoid turning. I'm not a fan of dirtying dishes (or washing), so I prefer the drizzle method.

***I love beets. And Brussels sprouts. Yams...no, wait, I love them all!

Breakfast

Eggs. Click here to read all about it on my Facebook Page post.

Get Grounded

It's autumn in the Pacific Northwest, which means rain, rain, rain. I usually tend to my urban farm  chores wearing my faithful Hunter boots, but the weather has been so warm I occasionally run outside in my bare feet. The chickens are confined to their pen, so there are few "surprises" I step in, other than some really squishy mud or a slug *shudder*. I find it so much easier to just wipe off muddy feet than deal with muddy shoes, and to be quite honest, I like walking barefooted outdoors. I don't mind mud, but prefer cool green grass or warm sand on the beach. I've even made the mad dash outside in the snow sans shoes or socks.

I grew up being told to always wear shoes. For years I wore "impractical" shoes, high heels with pointy toes than may have been too small for me but, oh, they were so cute and what was a little pain? Yes, this is coming from a doctor trained in foot reflexology. Maybe it's age, but my favorite shoes to sport these days are my Acorn TEX-MOC slippers and my Hunters (of course).

An email newsletter arrived today that reminded me of "grounding" or "earthing," which I first learned of when I was in naturopathic medical school. Benedict Lust, one of the fathers of naturopathic medicine, wrote about the health benefits of walking barefoot way back in the early 1900s and Father Sebastian Kneipp promoted "dew walking" in Germany even before then. Recently, researchers at the University of California have been studying the health effects of walking barefoot (or indoors, connected to systems that conduct energy from the ground into the body, simulating the outdoor effects). They found that connecting to grounded conductive systems (including walking outdoors) "may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease. The research recommends "earthing," weather and conditions permitting, for 30 to 40 minutes daily. 

So go ahead. Take off your shoes. Wiggle your toes in the grass. Get "grounded."

Journal of Environmental and Public Health

Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3265077/

Handmade Halloween: Horrifying Headstones

Clever epitaphs make homemade tombstones unique. I borrowed ideas from celebrity stones: "in" was Jack Lemmon's epitaph, "That's all folks" was Mel Blanc's, and "Nevermore" was part of Edgar Allen Poe's.

It's no secret that Halloween is my favorite holiday. Perhaps it was my past life as an art student in the '80s (yes, I was goth for a brief period of my life), but I really get into the costumes and I decorate the whole house, inside and out. I tend not to be too over the top in my outdoor decor, opting for a more subtle, haunted house look. This neighborhood has always been a big draw for trick or treaters, but now that several episodes of Grimm have been filmed here, I felt I needed to step up my game. I headed to Home Depot for supplies.

Horrifying Headstones

• 1 Styrofoam Insulation Sheet (1/2" x 2' x 8')
• 1 can Stone Textured Spray Paint
• Sharp knife or saw
• Assorted Acrylic Paints and brushes

Cut tombstone shapes from stryofoam board using a knife or thin bladed saw. Do this outside, as it gets pretty messy. First, I plotted out the general size of the tombstones and marked with pen on the plastic my initial shapes. I cut out the rectangles first and then cut out the domed top.



Peel off foil and plastic protective skins from the styrofoam. Using a sandpaper block, sand down the rough edges. Wear a mask, because styrofoam dust gets everywhere. Dull any "sharp" corners and edges. Remember, these tombstones have been sitting out in your front yard for ages and are weathered and worn.



Next, line up tombstones on a tarp and evenly apply stone textured spray paint. If you spray each stone individually like I did, you may run out of paint (I ran out of paint), so try and do them all at once and get a light, even coating, then go back and add more "texture." The paint will need to dry overnight if left outside in a garage in the Pacific Northwest. It may dry faster in a drier environment.

Once dry, the fun begins! I applied black and green splotches to the sides of the stones to look like moss and mildew, using a piece of sponge and acrylic paint. After researching epitaphs online, I sketched the designs using chalk, then I painted the final art using latex acrylic paint.

One sheet of styrofoam will make four assorted sized tombstones. Dowel rods can be inserted into the bottom of the stones as supports to prop them up in the yard. Happy Halloween!