The smell of books and new dishes

Tonight made new dish as published in Sobey's recipe magazine - sweet potato rice pilaf, pretty fall colours and delicious spices - happy that I can have a tiny bit more for a lunch treat tomorrow... Also happy with book I picked up at my library - author Neil Pasricha talks about little things to be grateful for such as bakery air, and the smell of books - Awesome!

Books and bugs

Inside, I'm reviewing library book titled 'Ginger and Ganesh' by Nani Power - "she takes the reader into a culture, a cuisine, and the female psyche, with recipes and stories from each chapter revealing the struggle of modern women, both American and of Indian descent". Isn't the cover photograph gorgeous? Outside, I'm noticing bug and butterfly visitors on my marshmallow, valerian, and St. John's wort plants. Now if we can only get rid of the mosquito's!

Real Food

Reading both these books about food - one is by the author Bill Phillips (of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Body for Life) with a book titled 'Eating for Life'. I can not believe the foods he recommends in this book, from sugar free jello puddings and soy protein powders to sugar substitutes such as Splenda. He focuses mostly on fat-free foods and products that substitute for sugar.

On the other hand, author Nina Planck of the book 'Real Food' highly recommends you eat your foods the way your grandmother prepared them - with the skin, cream, butter. She focuses on traditional foods and how they are healthy for you. I just started reviewing this book and got so hungry for a 'real' egg, that I picked up a few dozen free-range eggs from my local farmer - can hardly wait until we have our own girls in the back!

Colour popping up everywhere!

Everywhere I look, there are happy colours popping up around the 'Workshop' gardens -from the rose-purple field milkwort and red poppies to yellow evening primrose, yellow meadow parsnip and multi-coloured zinnia's. I had never seen field milkwort before, so the Peterson Field Guide for Wildflowers came in very handy!

Snuggle time...

As I was putting a nice pot of soup on this morning, our two cats really decided to snuggle up together - they are the best of friends. I look forward to snuggling up later with this library book - 'Earth to Table' by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann -Michael Pollan states on the cover "This is a beautiful book in every way" - I agree!

Wise Child lives with the local wise woman

A young homeless girl, Wise Child, is sent to live with the local wise woman, Juniper, in a place that might be Scotland, and at a time that might be the Middle Ages... Wise Child learns Latin, mathematics, herbal and healing lore, and a bit about the making of magic.
If this book sounds interesting, there are two that follow: Juniper and Colman (Wise Child is my favourite). I found them in the 'teen' section written by Monica Furlong.

Growing sprouts is fun and easy!

Sprouts are inexpensive and easy and quick to grow - makes for a fun project with your kids as well! Ann Wigmore, author of 'The Sprouting Book' started growing them many years ago to relieve her colitis symptoms and she states in the book that by eating sprouts and greens, she healed her body of colitis and arthritis!.

Long, but lovely day in the kitchen

Look what I created on one crispy day - beautiful plain and poppyseed whole wheat breads - I tried a new recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown - was delicious, worth the time it took!

Also, made an autumn-coloured Fall Pinto Bean & Yam Soup from the book 'The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook' by Alissa Segersten - you should have smelled the house! Some of the good digestion ingredients were pinto beans, garlic, onion, yams, carrots, cumin, and paprika. It tasted absolutely heavenly and luckily there was a little bit left over for lunch the next day...

Moving the gardening fun indoors...

These pictures were only taken 1-2 weeks ago and you wouldn't believe how different the garden looks already after a couple of nights of frosty temperatures! So frosty that I created some gardening fun indoors today - I put up some alfalfa sprouts and then made blue elderberry syrup for the upcoming winter colds. The recipe is in Rosemary Gladstar's book 'Family Herbal' - she makes it very clear to never eat elderberries that haven't been cooked first - good to know! The finished product makes a beautiful colourful addition to my fridge...