Archive for ‘January, 2014’

Friday morning moon set

This morning, Bear and I headed down the road home at 8:10 a.m. to catch moon set.

My moon phase app said 8:40 for moon set.

We went prepared: water and treats for Bear, coffee for me.

Beautiful.

To the West.

Friday morning moon set.

Turmeric Cayenne Eye Opener

I am a morning person. I am typically up and starting my day somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. Partly this happens because I am NOT a night person and am usually in bed between 8 and 9:00 p.m.!

I like a big breakfast and I like my coffee but as I’ve gotten older, I found that I’m not ready for breakfast right away and even coffee I prefer after a cup of lemon water or herbal tea.

In September, I saw a blog post for a homemade tea blend: Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks, Turmeric Tea

Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory herb and I like the taste. I typically add it to fish, I buy a curcumin-salmon oil capsule that both Bear and I take and I like turmeric, cayenne and black pepper on a hard boiled egg.

Heidi’s tea blend appealed.

I experimented off and on.

Then, I saw Martha Rose Shulman of the New York Times’ Tonic and Teas article

Ms. Shulman ran with Heidi’s honey-turmeric paste idea as well as additional blends, particularly a Meyer Lemon-Ginger-Turmeric-Cayenne and a Ginger-Lime-Coconut-Honey-Turmeric blend.

As Heidi notes in a second tea post (Ginger-Mint tea), blending and making your own herbal tea vs using tea bags is a bit akin to making homemade soup vs canned soup – you control the flavor and blend and can change it up however you like.

And as a person who enjoys puttering in the kitchen, I am finding this early morning ritual of making my own blend of tea to be a relaxing and almost meditative start to my day.

My current favorite takes a little from several recipes.

I knew I wanted lemon, honey and turmeric. Black pepper is added with turmeric as it makes the turmeric bio-available to the body. And after seeing Ms. Shulman’s addition of cayenne, I added that also. Cayenne is another spice with many reputed health benefits – particularly for the heart, blood pressure, circulation and digestive health. Plus, I LIKE it!

While the water is heating to just below a boil, I fix a paste of a spoonful of honey, 1/4 tsp of turmeric and 1/4 tsp of cayenne.

I juice a small Meyer Lemon and get the pepper mill ready.

When the water is hot, put the honey spice paste spoon in the cup, pour in the hot water, then the lemon juice. Add some fresh ground pepper, stir well.

This morning I sat in the sunroom with the light of the nearly full moon reflecting on the snow and ice in the yard, sipped my tea and enjoyed the quiet comfort of Bear and Auggie near.

Perfect.

The cayenne has heat but with the lemon, honey, turmeric, black pepper and water – it is not the kind of heat you think of when you add cayenne or other hot peppers to food. It is a warming heat – more like a shot of brandy kind of heat, but without the head spinning effects of alcohol. It is a comforting heat, to me.

Now, the other thing that turmeric needs to help the body get the most benefit, is some fat. Some people commented that they took a spoonful of coconut oil. My choice is a spoonful of peanut butter: fat AND some protein. This works for me as that bit of protein is plenty to keep me going until I’m ready for my actual breakfast. And I like it.

Martha Rose Shulman’s blend of Ginger-Coconut-Lime-Turmeric and honey is wonderful as well, but takes a bit longer as the coconut has to brew. I liked the coconut water, though, so when I cut the lemon for my morning tea, I cut a few slices, add the slices to coconut and water and let that steep in the refrigerator.

I’ve been using the coconut-lemon water as a base for a small smoothie later in the day if I need a picker-upper between meals. I blend the contents of the jar, a little yogurt, flax or chia, kale or spinach – more spices and the result is a mini-green smoothie.

Another great way to combine the fat, pepper, turmeric and cayenne is on a hard boiled egg.

One morning this week, with a perfectly ripe avocado in my fruit bowl… I mashed it, added the hard boiled egg with spices, sweet grape tomatoes, a slice of toast – and I called it breakfast.

***Edit 1/29/2014 I’ve had some wonderful fresh organic mint lately and have been adding some mint leaves to the brew – even better. Also, I’ve noticed a decrease in some shoulder and hip discomfort. But even more – I often have some rapid heartbeats when I lie down at night…Dr. says not abnormal. In any case, since increasing turmeric and cayenne, those have gone away.

Midweek Mess

Mid-January.

Temperatures in the 40’s daytime, freezing overnight.

Frozen ground = nowhere for melting snow to go.

Midweek Mess.

Chicken Noodle Soup: homemade egg noodles

This is not the best food photo I’ve ever taken…

BUT.

It IS the best Chicken Noodle Soup I’ve ever made!

Slow cooked, falling off the bone chicken.

Kale & Carrots.

Fresh chicken broth.

A chunk of parmesan rind.

Homemade noodles.

I think I had some beginner’s luck with the noodles. In the past years, I’ve read about making pasta and knew there was a kind of “holy grail” in the proportion of flour-eggs.

I use Wheat Montana flours which are hard wheat, tending to need a bit more moisture than a baseline Gold Medal kind of flour.

My recipe:

1/3 white flour
1/3 semolina flour
pinch of salt
1 large egg
1/3-1/2 T olive oil

Knowing my flour, I measured 2 T or so light on the white flour.

The dough came together beautifully.

I wrapped it in Saran and let it rest for 30 minutes.

I “practiced” with a 1/4 piece of the dough. It rolled out, very thin, easily.

I cut roughly with a knife and added to my chicken-broth-kale-carrot-parmesan soup that was softly boiling.

Two minutes later: Chicken Noodle Soup.

I do Windows 8.1

If you are an Apple or Linux user with no interest in Windows…skip to the end for an Auggie and Bear photo :) !!

But, if you wonder what the hype and/or hate is about Windows 8 (8.1 now)…read on.

I am not an Apple or Linux hater at all, at all…to each his own. I’ve looked at both and always come back to PC/Windows, but that is me. Thank goodness for choices and variety and all of us with our own preferences, i.e. viva la difference!

Me … I do Windows.

The Windows 8.1 start screen. I guess this is what has some people discombobulated. It is called the “Metro” interface. The squares, called Tiles, can be “live” meaning that they reflect the current state of whatever it is they are linked to.

Above…Photos and “The Road Home” I have set as live tiles and they will reflect the current favored photo or the first photo in the first post on my blog respectively.

The Tiles are customizeable.

You can select (“Pin to Start”) for any app from all of your apps.

You can re-arrange to your heart’s content.

You can resize.

Is Easy to make this screen look the way you’d like.

Me, I like simple, uncluttered, just what I use most.

And if you do not LIKE this start up thing which apparently a lot of people don’t…click on “Desktop”…

Desktop looks E-X-A-C-T-L-Y like Windows 7.

You can use Desktop E-X-A-C-T-L-Y like Windows 7.

WHAT is all the fuss and rending of clothes and weeping and wailing???

Jeez!

***see bottom of this post for a link to a 12 minute video introduction to Windows 8.

OK.

Windows Phone.

Hang on…Windows Phone uses the same Tiles as Windows 8!

And they are customizeable and live in the same way.

Above is what my phone looks like – from top…left to right:

Weather!! My primary Email (liz@beardogco.com)
Phone 2nd email* Alarms Calendar
Kindle Explorer Messages(Texts) People(Contacts)
Liz’s List(my shopping list) The Road Home(blog)
TAGG(Bear’s tracker) NOAA MT Road Info Phone Settings

*You CAN link email accounts and so combine all into 1 if that’s what you’d rather do…ifn’ you have more than 1 email address. Flexible. All is flexible and customizable.

If you tap and hold, i.e. a long tap – on a tile, you can unpin or resize a Tile.

From the apps menu on the phone you can select “Pin to Start” to include any app on the start screen.

Is easy!

***video at the end of this post shows customization options in more detail and for more apps. Me, I am a bit boring! Microsoft Guy in the video has more varied interests.

This is the Montana Road Info screen which refreshes when the tile is tapped from the start screen.

I “pinned” it to start from Internet Explorer as it something I look at frequently in Winter. This Spring, I will remove it, but now it is handy and I can view road conditions if I’m wondering about a trip to town.

“Liz’s List” – my shopping List. The list is a Word Document that resides on Microsoft’s Sky Drive. BUT, the last “downloaded” version also resides on my phone and my computer. When I access the list from my phone or computer AND my phone or computer has Internet access, I get the latest version. So…I keep stuff like my grocery list as well as any other info I’d like to have easy access to, on Sky Drive.

Apple has their own flavor of Sky Drive, Amazon has Amazon Cloud, etc., etc. Unless you have terabytes of stuff to store, the cloud storage is typically free with related software. For example, I have Sky Drive room that comes with my Office365 software subscription. I have Amazon Cloud storage space that comes with my Amazon Prime account. If you have a Flickr account, you probably have Flickr Cloud storage. Get it?

In addition to storage space accessible from anywhere, storing things on Cloud servers means they get backed up, which means you mitigate the loss of important stuff if your own personal device storage fails.

Right…backing up. There are various backup services which back up to a Cloud server, example: Carbonite.

It was a week of new stuff for me, but it went mostly well because instead of allowing myself to be frustrated, thinking I OUGHT to know how this stuff worked, I looked at the video links and dealt with the changes in small increments. I had been using my Windows 8 computer off and on since I got it in April!! – BUT it wasn’t until the Windows 8.1 update (a LONG download but worth it)…and my old (3 years old) phone dying that I finally decided to see if I could do all on the new computer and phone.

For me, it is my work software that is the worst to get working on a new operating system. There are several Microsoft issues as well as third party tools that have to be installed and configured. The 2nd complicated thing is my Photoshop installation as I have several plug-ins and actions. All is now done. I am very happy with all and if you are a Windows user and have been hesitating about making the change, I encourage you to watch the videos below.

AND, watch the Xbox videos. I am NOT a gamer but there is some extraordinary technology that I guarantee you will be part of your future. Watch!

Back on the home front:

Bear and Auggie are just happy to be having their Greenies…

“If Mama’s happy, we’re happy!”

Windows 8 Videos:

Windows 8 Phone Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=SQZEkXCE_fY&NR=1

XBOX