It Might Get Easier Being Green....

Posted by Deanna Lack comments (0)


My hubby and I were in Franklin  (a Nashville suburb) last week and I had the long-awaited opportunity to go to Franklin Farmers' Market.  It is awesome!!

While I was there I ran into some very cool people from Colvin Family Farms, who sold me these white cukes.  Some of them (the lower one in the picture) were "regular" white cucumbers but some were these super cool translucent glowy looking things that remind me of jellyfish and were delicious (actually they were all delicious).  Unfortunately they can't tell me the variety, they say they only have one variety of cukes.  So I'm not sure what causes this awesome but I love it.

I have an interesting story to tell.  My doctor diagnosed me with Tension Myositis Syndrome... this syndrome  is the result of repressed emotions causing actual physical symptoms in the body.  Lots of cases of degenerative disc disease, fibromyalgia, and other things, are the result of TMS and not necessarily a physical process.  The disease keeps people living in fear of pain.  And I've had both chronic neck pain and fibro type symptoms, and they are getting better with treatment.  

But, when we went to Nashville this weekend, my foot suddenly started hurting, just an ache I thought was arthritis at first, but after we walked for hours at Cheekwood Botanical Garden, I started to worry that it was a stress fracture or something... any pressure on ONE point on the ball of my foot caused excruciating pain.  I hobbled around all weekend.

Then on Monday I started to wonder if maybe this wasn't a new TMS manifestation... once you "conquer" one of them, others frequently crop up.  So I basically told myself I didn't believe there was anything wrong and started walking on it normally, even though it HURT at first.  

Within a few hours the pain was gone.  The mind is a crazy thing.  If you have chronic pain you owe it to yourself to read up on TMS, because there is a CURE.  Here's a LINK for you.

So, we are CSA customers at Miracle Mountain Farm here in Cookeville, and we are getting more produce than I know what to do with (huge head of cabbage... oh my....).   I frequently have way more greens than my husband and I can consume, so I decided to take the 30 day Green Smoothie Challenge.  I have so much produce, I figured, why not?  And if it makes me feel great... well, great!

Follow me on Pinterest if you want to scope out some green smoothie recipes, in addition to my usual repertoire of recipes both healthy and not so much, and also jewelry, horses, animals, and art, and lots of other eye candy because I freaking love Pinterest.   I'll be sharing recipes and ideas here too... also, I'll be posting some stuff here about what to do with all that zucchini, blackberries, and other goodies that nature is pouring down upon us right now.

Green Smoothie, Day One

Around two cups of mixed greens:  kale, beet greens, & collard greens (I think they're collard, not 100%... we're in a CSA and I don't always know what I have!), gently packed.
3 cups of a mixture of:  2 bananas, frozen fresh strawberries, 2 small peaches
I added a teaspoon of chia seeds
2 tablespoons of frozen 100% apple juice concentrate
2 cups of water.

Go Vitamix go!

Assessment:  I'm getting a little bit of aftertaste of greens (probably the beet greens and collards), but all in all I think I can handle this, it's pretty yummy.  Not really pretty, because the red strawberries + greens makes it kinda brown, but good.  With no added sucrose, so yay!  I think it's gonna fill me up just fine, too, but we'll see.

This made way more than I can drink. I put it in the fridge in a mason jar to keep it from oxidizing; should keep till at least tomorrow.

If you're doing the green smoothie thing I'd love to hear from you and trade a few recipes.


Good health to you, and good eating!

 

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Crab Linguine in Marsala Cream Sauce

Posted by Deanna Lack comments (0)

CSA started this week!  Which means, this early in the year, mostly salad :)   

On a tragic note, the Refrigerator Apocalypse happened this weekend... my fridge broke and my epically awesome husband diagnosed it, which meant we did NOT have to buy a new one, and my epically awesome father-in-law knew someone who was willing to come and fix it on a Sunday morning.  Saved the day, but not the food.  I had to throw an awful lot out.  But I was freaking out because I had a bushel of produce coming on Monday.

Considering the Fridgepocalypse (and the fact that after paying to repair the fridge I couldn't really afford to restock it), I'm pretty happy that I managed to pull together this meal.  It was pretty awesome.  You want the recipe?  Sure, I'll share.

Crab Linguine in Marsala Cream Sauce

1 cup Marsala wine
1 cup 2% milk
1 cup evaporated milk
8 ounces uncooked linguine
4 Tablespoons of butter, separated
1 Tablespoon flour
1 stalk of green garlic, chopped
1 green onion, chopped
5-6 Baby Bella mushrooms, sliced
 1-2 Tablespoons of lemon juice (more if you like lemon flavor, less if you don't)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 package imitation crab meat
Parmesan cheese (freshly grated, preferably, or flaky, NOT Kraft)
Finely snipped fresh parsley
Freshly ground pepper

Put your pasta water on to boil.  

Put the Marsala in a small-medium saucepan with the heat on medium.  Cook until reduced to 1/2 cup.  Stir in 2% and evaporated milk, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until reduced to around 1 1/2 cups.  Remove from heat.

Put the linguine in your boiling water and cook al dente.

Meanwhile, put 2 Tablespoons of butter in a deep skillet or wok.  Saute the green garlic and green onion in the butter, until the white parts start to turn translucent.  Throw in the mushrooms and saute lightly.  Remove the sauteed vegetables to the other pan with your cooling milk mixture.

Put the other 2 Tablespoons of butter in the skillet/wok.  Stir in the flour until a paste forms.  Then, add the milk mixture.  Add lemon juice and salt.  Cook and stir (pretty much constantly, make sure you don't burn it) until the mixture thickens to a little smoother than alfredo generally is.  Add the crab meat and cook until heated through.  Keep stirring.

Put your drained pasta in a serving bowl, top with the sauce, garnish with Parmesan, parsley and pepper.  Serve immediately.

This serves around 4 people pretty comfortably and I thought it kinda needed some fresh baked bread, but I think that about almost everything.  Enjoy!