herbs – Five Little Duckies

Summer Salads…yum!

Oh boy do I LOVE salads! There is truly endless possibility here but I want to talk about “summer salads” which, in my mind, tend to be a little lighter and include some more exotic items and toppings. My mouth is watering just thinking about this post!! 🙂

One of my favorite things to add to summer salads is fruit! Certain fruits pair better with certain greens and dressings. You also really can’t go wrong pairing nuts and seeds with summer salads, either. I’m going to list for you some of my favorite ingredients by categories so you can reference this post to mix and match as your taste buds guide you! I’m also going to share with you some of my favorite combinations 🙂

Greens

Arugula is my personal go-to green. I LOVE arugula. It happens to be one of my favorite foods of all time…I know, I’m weird. 😉 Other bases can include spinach, baby mixed greens, iceburg lettuce, romaine, kale, mesclun, butter lettuce (also love this one!), red leaf, and redicchio.

Fruits

For summer salads, you can’t go wrong adding fruit! In fact, don’t forget the almighty but often overlooked fruit salad. Every now and then, you just need a cool, refreshing plate of fruit! Pears, strawberries, peaches, blueberries, and grapes are some of my favorites to add to salads with greens. As far as dried fruit, I also love adding raisins, dried cherries, coconut, cranberries, or dried cherries.

Seeds and Nuts

Sunflower seeds, pepitas, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans are my favorites but obviously there is a host of other options in this category. Others I can think of off the top of my head are flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, peanuts, and pistachios.

Cheeses

Ahhh….cheese. One of my main food groups 😉 If you are vegan, leave this one out. My favorites are cheddar, feta, provolone, smoked gouda, goat cheese, parmesan, romano, robusto, and fresh mozzarella. Of course the list of cheeses is endless so I’ll let you be adventurous and Google the heck out of this category for some new ideas!

Veggies

Avocado is great for summer salads. Same for tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and pretty much anything else that is growing in your garden right now! I do love going out to the garden and just freshly picking whatever is there but if you aren’t growing a garden (you should try it!), then just pick up whatever veggies look yummy at the store. Carrots, radishes, mushrooms, and sweet peas are a few more favorites of mine!

Herbs

I L-O-V-E putting fresh herbs in my salads. I’m not sure if other people do this regularly, but everyone should! 😉 My favorites are chives, dill, parsley and basil but I also add cilantro, oregano, or mint when it’s called for!

Other toppings

Well you all know I’m into sprouts right now. Did you know there are LOTS of different sprouts? Broccoli and alfalfa are my favorite but there’s also sunflower, radish, chickpea, mung bean (and various other beans), lentil, buckwheat, and the list goes on and on. And of course nothing beats a little fresh ground black pepper on top of the salad 🙂 Yum!

Dressings

I can’t even get into all the dressings out there. But I’m into low-sugar dressings for sure. And my favorite thing to do is make my own dressing. Usually with olive oil and balsamic but I’ve also looked up recipes for whatever mood I’m in when I’m ready for my salad 😉

Delicious! And here are a few of my favorite combinations (so far!).

Mix #1: Arugula, blueberries, gouda cheese, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, broccoli sprouts, dill, chives, parsley, and black pepper.

Mix #2: Mixed greens, pepitas, avocado, tomato, fresh mozzarella, onions, yellow bell peppers, fresh basil, black pepper.

Mix #3: Spinach, strawberries, cashews, feta cheese, fresh mint, black pepper.

I have so many others! But these will be a good starting point for you if you don’t have time to mix and match right off the bat because these are three very different “styles” of salads

. Just be creative and experiment. If it sounds like it’s going to be delicious…it probably will be 🙂

On Pins and Needles (Exploring Chinese Medicine)

Of late we’ve had lots of reasons to turn to alternative healing. I’ve always been a huge fan of acupuncture–it helped significantly reduce my chronic migraines more than 10 years ago–so it felt almost like a homecoming to be turning to it now for my latest ailment. And by latest I mean something I’ve been dealing with for about a year and a half now.

What I didn’t remember about those acupuncture visits a decade ago was the fact that the practitioner also had me on Chinese herbs. They were capsules, so pretty easy to take. This time around, I’m on an herbal tea concoction. Now…I use the term “tea” VERY loosely here. Because it’s more like an herbal MUD. Which, consequently, is roughly what it tastes like. This mama is having trouble getting these babies down! One pouch a day. Here’s what my delicious cocktail looks like:

Aren’t you salivating just looking at this?! I know you want to try some…

But the whole idea of turning to Chinese herbs is very comforting to me. There is something about the deep-rooted tradition of this approach that is appealing. Around the same time I started the acupuncture, I also started taking my son (the 30-weeker preemie) to a craniosacral therapist who also suggested Chinese herbs for the littles. Coincidence? I think not. So now we turn to these when the kiddos come down with a fever or a sniffle.

Now a few things should be said here…do not EVER buy herbs from anyone who is not board certified. That is first and foremost. Also, there is an “art” to taking these things. So listen to your practitioner and follow her/his instructions very closely.

I will say this…my four-year-old is the worst patient EVER in the history of sick people (well…maybe besides my husband 😉 ). He just whines and is clingy and can’t get comfortable and has a poor attitude if even a sniffle comes along. The first time we turned to the herbs for a virus he had (fever and cold-like symptoms), he was like a different child! He was totally happy and calm and low-key (like his normal behavior) even when the fever hovered around 103. I was a believer from that point on! His virus was short-lived, thanks to the herbs and our essential oils, and we avoided a trip to the pediatrician.

Don’t get me wrong…we do lots of other things in this house to build immunity, ward off germs, and shorten the lives of illnesses (i.e. our essential oils, incessant hand washing, and changing our clothes when we get home from school just to name a few of the biggies). I’ve enjoyed bringing these Chinese herbs into my home as an extra line of defense. I will always choose plants over chemicals whenever possible. But there will be many more posts on that!

Now for some fun facts about Chinese Medicine 🙂

I’m currently reading “The Web that Has No Weaver” (Kaptchuk) and it is a phenomenal read so far. It was recommended to me by my practitioner, as it was actually a text they used in her master’s program. Some of the below information comes from this text.

Perhaps two of the preliminary concepts for you to consider before trying to understand Chinese medicine are Yin and Yang and Qi (“chee”). We’ve all heard of Yin and Yang (and if you are a child of the early 90’s, you wore those extremely trendy Yin/Yang necklaces that hung low over your bodysuit and you layered that with your flannel shirt), but there’s much more spirituality to the concept than good vs. evil. The basic concept in TCM is that instead of viewing these things as opposing forces, they are viewed as complimentary and interdependent forces where the whole is greater than the parts. So TCM strives to balance the Yin and Yang of the body. Qi translates as “gas” or “air” and is known as the “life force” of the body. TCM believes that Qi runs along meridians in the body. It is the same concept as “prana” in the Hindu culture or “mana” in the Hawaiian culture.

In Chinese medicine, a “diagnosis” is reached through examining what’s happening in the body as a whole and what is causing the issue–not by looking at what a bunch of symptoms tells you. For instance, 6 people diagnosed with fibromyalgia by Western means may have 6 different diagnoses in Chinese medicine. Kaptchuk says that a practitioner will look for “disharmony in the body”. Two ways your TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) practitioner will evaluate your whole body health at each visit is by feeling your pulse with three fingers and checking your tongue with a quick visual. Why is this done?

TCM uses the tongue as a “map” of what’s happening in the rest of the body. I found a fairly detailed online resource that matches much of what Kaptchuk says so you can peruse while you wait for your copy of his book to arrive 😉 As for the pulse, I turn to Unschuld because I feel his description is concise and easy to understand:

“One method was based on the notion that at the high point of the styloid process below (medial to) the wrist there was an imaginary line, called the “pass,” as a narrow passage through mountains. When a finger feels the pulse with light pressure above the “pass,” i.e., toward the wrist, the pulse offers evidence about the state of the lung and heart. The connection lies in the fact that the imaginary line, the “pass,” corresponds to the diaphragm in the human body. The lung and heart are located above this separation, in the yang area of the body. The lung and heart therefore manifest in pulse above the “pass” in the yang region. Below the pass, in the yin region, the pulse reflects the condition of the liver and kidney, organs which lie below the diaphragm in the yin region of the body. Right on the pass, the middle of the three fingers feels the state of the spleen, the organ that lies closest to the diaphragm.”

Pretty interesting stuff! Before this turns into a full-fledged research paper, I will close 🙂 If you’ve been suffering with an ailment long-term and Western medicine has failed you, I highly recommend opening your heart and your mind to TCM. And soon I will post about my beloved essential oils and good ‘ol nutrition, which I also highly recommend as alternatives to Western medicine. You have many, many choices to take control of your own health!

For anyone local to Westchester County, NY looking for an acupuncturist, I highly, highly recommend Andrea at Scarsdale Acupuncture. If you call to book with her, please mention that I sent you over 🙂 (I don’t get any perks for this, I just want her to feel the love.) ❤

How Does Your Garden Grow?

It’s raining like crazy here. Not good for a Mama cooped up inside with three littles ones, but great for the garden!

I am blessed to have a beautiful yard in which to grow some yummy fruits, veggies, and herbs for my family. But it wasn’t always that way. Before this home, we were in a small town home with ZERO yard. But I did a deck garden. I started with a couple of pots of tomatoes my first year. Then I added some chives and other herbs. The next year I tried adding peppers and beans…and now each year I delve deeper into foraging the wild stuff, companion planting, natural pest control, composting, and many other aspects of my green thumb habit 😉 So much to post about, so little time!!

Making the decision to start a veggie garden is a big one. It’s extremely overwhelming and most people don’t know where to begin, so they just don’t. Which makes my sad face come out. Have no fear–I am here to help! Please, please do not forego a veggie garden because of intimidation. You may think I’m being dramatic, but being out in your garden just might change your way of thinking and your way of life. Yes, it’s that amazing.

Here are my tips:

1.) Have a plan. This is the biggest and most complicated step. But you will be glad you did this, trust me. A lot of people just wing it and things don’t grow or they end up wishing they had planted different items or the plants get out of control or they are overtaken by pests….you need to have a plan.

Your plan should take into account which plants grow well (or poorly) next to one another. Look up companion planting to learn about this. You should also think about how much space you have vs. how much space your plants will take up once mature. A deck garden with pots…not the best space for squash, zucchini, melons and the like. A good garden plan also maps out a planting schedule. Some items need to be planted earlier in the season and some later. Some veggies (like broccoli, spinach, lettuce, and many others) actually can yield two crops each year–a mid-summer crop and an early fall crop. Others still (asparagus, for one) are perennials and will come back each year so those plants need a permanent space in the garden. So read your seed packets. Finally–and this may seem obvious, but it needs to be said–think about what you actually want to eat! Don’t grow 5 tomato plants because they work well in pots and you only have a terrace garden, if you don’t eat tomatoes!!!

There are lots of options out there. Figure out what you’ll eat and want to grow, how it can fit in your space, where things should be placed, and when to plant. You can Google most if not all of this information or you can pick up some books at your local library. I’ll leave a list of some of my favorite resources at the bottom of this post. Here is a photo of my garden plan for this year for inspiration–feel free to use all or part of it!

2.) Do some research and think about pest control. I personally don’t do chemicals. I use the plants themselves to control pests (again, check out companion planting), barriers, and my own homemade essential oil pesticide. Which works like a charm, might I add. I’ll be posting more about this as the season goes on and I can show you some pictures of my thriving, pest-free garden! 🙂 But for now, below are the oils I use in my non-toxic pesticide. Are you sitting there scratching your head going…Essential oils?? What is she talking about?? Then you need to click here. Want to get these oils so you can make this pesticide for yourself? Then you need to click here! 🙂 Do some research if you plan to use fences or barriers. Some little critters are very tricky! For instance, rabbits will dig right under your barriers (deter by angling 90 degrees at the bottom and burrying a few inches deep) and deer can be very swift! They will jump over a fence unless it is roughly 6 feet high. A quick Google can help you with all of this.

3.) Check your calendar and get a garden-sitter when needed. Seriously. The first year I didn’t do this or even think about it and I went on vacation for a week in July…guess what I came home to? Bingo! A shriveled up garden 😦

4.) Water, water, water! Don’t forget to water your garden DAILY. It really does need daily watering (unless it rains of course!). If you slip up and skip a day, don’t beat yourself up, but watering your garden daily is a must. The best time to water is early morning or late afternoon. Best not to water during mid-day heat if at all possible and be careful not to water too close to dusk, as certain plants are susceptible to mold and mildew if the leaves do not have time to dry off before the cool of night.

5.) JUST GO FOR IT. When you are out in the garden with your hands in the dirt, when you are caring for those plants like pets, when you are teaching your children about where their food comes from, when you are picking beans and putting them into your basket or eating a blueberry right off the bush at harvest time…You will be glad you did.

Resources I like for gardening:

Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening: Companion Planting – September, 1994 by Susan McClure (Author), Sally Roth (Author)

The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, 1991 by Valerie Ann Worwood (This one contains amazing information regarding pest control with essential oils)

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, February 13, 2008 by Deborah Martin (Author), Barbara Pleasant (Author)