Porta Pizzas

What you'll need:

1. skillet
2. casserole dish
3. oven at 400 F
4. knife + board for chopping
5. spoon for scooping out mushroom caps

Ingredients:

1. olive oil
2. yellow onion, diced
3. 1-2 cloves garlic, smashed
4. 4 large carrots, diced
5. 4 large portabella mushrooms
6. 3 handfuls fresh greens, baby leaves or rough chopped
7. salt, red pepper flakes to taste, dash of balsamic vinegar
8. pasta/pizza sauce
9. optional: cheese, fermented bean paste, ground beef

What you'll do:

1. preheat oven
2. sauté onion, garlic, and carrots in saucepan with desire amount of seasoning
3. scoop out gills and inner flesh of mushrooms, chop, add to veg sauté 
4. add greens and balsamic vinegar to sauté, wilt
5. place portabella caps in casserole dish
6. fill each cap with 2 T. bean paste (optional) and 2 T. pizza sauce
7. pile veg sauté in caps, placing any extra directly in the dish  
8. sprinkle with cheese (optional)
9. bake 15-20 mins. until cheese is melted and caps are soft

without cheese + with cheese

prep cook

 sub sweet potatoes and artichoke hearts

Short Ribs + Sweet Potatoes

What you'll need:

1. crockpot
2. knife + cutting board
3. cheese grater

Ingredients:

1. 1.5-2 lbs. grass-fed and finished short ribs from Moon Dance Farm
2. 1 organic apple, finely chopped
3. 1/2 yellow onion from Stuart Farm
4. 1/4 c. olive oil
5. 2-3 T. balsamic vinegar 
6. 2 cloves garlic, pressed
7. 2 sweet potatoes, rough chopped
8. 3 handfuls fresh spinach 
9. 1 carrot stick, grated
10. salt and pepper to taste, a pinch of ground clove
11. pat of grass-fed butter or 1 T. coconut oil

What you'll do:

Pour olive oil and balsamic vinegar into crockpot. 

Add apple, onion, and garlic.

Add short ribs (I put mine in straight from the freezer).

Mush (yes, technical term) the ribs right down in the sauce, sprinkle with spices.

Add sweet potatoes and cook on medium-high (depending on your crockpot) for 10-12 hrs.

Wilt spinach and grate carrot, set aside.

Remove ribs from crockpot.

With a whisk or potato masher, mash sweet potatoes adding butter or coconut oil.

Plate spinach, sweet potato mash, ribs, and finish with grated carrots.

What mine looked like:

Turn and Face the Change

I am often telling my loved ones to "be good to yourself" and a few days ago I thought "what exactly does that mean, what am I asking them to do when I say that," so I wrote.

Be kind, be true, be good to yourself. Be true to your heart and trust your gut--you know it knows! Be gentle and loving by allowing yourself to follow that truth. 

Trusting your gut is an amazing gift; because, even when you know you're doing what's right it can be scary. How do you know if you're anxious because you're just scared to make a change or because you are about to go down a path that isn't true to you? 

Try this: 

When you think of what you're about to do and you get nervous, anxious or begin to question if this is really the right thing...

1) Do you feel open or closed? (I know, what the heck does that mean right, keep reading!) 

Look at your body language do you look pulled in? Are your shoulders pulled forward or back? Is your head up and lively or slanted downward and drained? Do you gesture out, up and away from your body or in, down and toward your body? 

2) How does your energy feel when you think or talk about the thing for which you are seeking clarity? 

Do you feel more alive or less so? Do your eyes sparkle or dim? Does your face glow or ashen? 

3)You say trust your gut, but how do you know when its butterflies "the good nervous" or a pitted knot "the bad run-away-like-your-life-depends-on-it" ('cause it does) nervous? 

For me butterflies feel floaty, jittery, and light. A pitted knot feels heavy, weighty, and sinking. Learn to notice the difference, it's there.

4)When you've commited to something and then you hit a bump-in-the-road, do you feel instantly defeated or irritated with the slow down but feel you'll make it through probably with greater insight? 

This is often where that pesky little voice in your head comes in, is your self-talk deprecating or triumphant? 

5)When you're on this path, do you feel physically sick often--colds, flu, headaches, and draggy or do you feel pretty invincible, energized, and clear-headed? 

For me, this is that place where I can spend hours upon hours reading, working, or researching and come away feeling energized and clear when it's true-to-me. 

Or, that place where I spend hours doing what I (or other people) think I should be doing and feel like I was hit by a train, fuzzy headed and drained.

Basically it's doing two of the hardest things there ever were...listen and trust, truly. 

Good Greens

Mildred and the Cross Country Bus

Any of you who keep goats, or have any dealings with goats, probably know that they are notorious fence escape artists. At this moment, honestly at any given moment, our little herd is open ranging it. When you live on Hog Trough Road open range goats + the local high school cross country team training = Millie's first bus ride. I say first as there will likely be others. This sweet, but forward little girl has no idea she's a goat.
So the story goes... The cross country team has been training on our road lately. We see them run by, a little while later the bus goes by to pick them up at the end of their run, and hauls them back to school. Evidently Millie saw them running yesterday afternoon and thought it seemed like a great day for a jog. So, she joined in and followed the kids all the way to their destination. When the driver came to pick up the runners, Millie being one of the group now, loaded up.
You can imagine the surprise (well maybe not so much surprise, when you've had goats as long as we have their antics transition from surprising to mostly amusing) amusement of my dad and daughter (and Dad will say he is NOT or NEVER has been amused by goat antics, but WE know he wouldn't have it any other way) when the bus slowed in front of the farmhouse, the doors opened and Millie trotted off. My daughter couldn't wait to retell the story at dinner time while laughing hysterically. As my brother said, "only on Hog Trough."

With a face like this, we should have known she was gonna be trouble.  ;)

The Writing was on The Door

This most amazing thing happened to me yesterday, what a gift!
In the past week my sister, her husband and I have been preparing a space at Bem General for massage therapy and reflexology sessions. I was replacing a door, which I had removed when we first moved into the store to create more space. As we continue to refine our offerings and create a place for community to gather once again, we arrange and rearrange, paint and repaint, add and remove until we get it just right. Yesterday I went to the upstairs loft to retrieve a door for REhanging, I noticed a yellowed piece of paper pasted to it just above the door handle. I was in a hurry as our first client was arriving in a few hours so I thought, I need to read that later-- see just what it says.
After hanging the door, I was checking the latch and that yellowed piece of paper was right at eye level.
These are the words:
It is only in giving that we receive.
It is only by sharing that others believe.
How can we have if we don't even give
A bit of our love so that others can live?
When we open our hearts and our dreams up to see
We take a big chance, just between you and me
People may laugh, some may scoff at our style
But finding a dreamer makes it worthwhile
So see the big picture it's easy to do
Don't let the dream stealers take it from you
Know in your heart what you're doing is right
Fix firmly your goals and keep them in sight.

That last bit really got me, took my breath away really. How could it be that right at that moment, those words were revealed!? My heart is grateful to the author who wrote those words down, the paster who pasted them to the door, and the dreamers AND doers that live and work with me daily.
I repasted the peeling edges and sealed them with several coats of mod-podge, which I just happened to have on hand...let's just say I pretty much carry that stuff around in my back pocket.
Here's to open hearts, minds, and dreams, friends!

There is no greater beauty than that which is nature.