Thank-you Sweet Stuff

Yes Maple Syrup is good for us... ScienceDaily reported that University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram; who is famous for his research on plant healing! Working foods and flowers into the plan of healing the human conditions.  Helping us understand that adding some dark colors of food to our plate can help us fight cancer, diabetics and pain.

Maple syrup was used by the Native Americans to help them though the winter months. They used it as food and as medicine.  They would reduce the syrup by adding hot stones or letting it freeze and removing the frozen water layer. The settlers are the ones that would use the big  cast iron pots to boil down the liquid. For the sugar from the Indies was highly taxed so the maple sugar was a local item....

They found that maple syrup has anti-oxidant, anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, which have been shown to fight cancer, diabetes, heart disease,  Alzheimer's and bacterial illnesses. 54 beneficial compounds, anti-oxidant compounds, and a unique compound that they believe is created when the sap is boiled to the syrup............It contains  manganese. It is also a good source of zinc.0 trans fats, and 0 cholesterol, ok I am getting silly here but it is a great product that normally we wouldn't think that it is a super food!!

So remember it must be real maple syrup (you know the stuff that is more expensive...


Store in the refrigerator after opening, if you find a good price or stocking up for the months it is hard to get (getting from the farmer market??) You can freeze the wonderful liquid...  just make sure you defrost it before use,  like place in the refrigerator when running low... 

So pour that golden ymmness over your pancakes.....add that real maple syrup to your oatmeal, tea or whatever.  Thanks to Rachael Ray I also use it for a sweetener for a glaze or a marinate.. It is healthy for you... And I ran out!!

Good for your hair recipes

Rinses

Lemon juice
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup of water
Makes hair shine

Beer
For body and softness - doesn't matter if it is stale!

Rum
Light conditioning.


Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup vinegar 2 cups of water
For shine and bounce

Tomato Juice
1 cup tomato juice
Removes odors

Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon
1 cup of water
Removes the sprays and gels.



Highlighting Rinse
2 cups water
Chamomile tea
Steep Chamomile tea and cool

Darken Hair Rinse
5 cinnamon sticks
2 cups of water
Put broken sticks into boiling water.
Steep until cool
Strain before using.

Deep Conditioning
Dry Hair
Coconut oil, banana, avocado, Mayonnaise

Normal Hair
Mayonnaise, egg, olive oil, Plain yogurt

Oily Hair
Mayonnaise with lemon juice added,
Plain yogurt with lemon juice added,
mashed Cantaloupe

Beauty From the Kitchen

Non-Petroleum Jelly
1¼ oz. grated beeswax
3/4 cup sweet almond oil (or olive oil)

Place in a microwave proof container and heat till the wax is almost melted about 1 minute. Mix until wax is melted and pour into containers

I love this stuff. You can had herbs or flower petals to the oil and let steep for a day or two if you want a nice smell or the healing properties of the herbs and flowers. Plus you can always add vitamin E for open sores and healing... Pour oil with herbs or petal threw a cheesecloth before heating with the bee wax.



My Make-up Remover
1 tablespoon Castor oil
1 tablespoon light olive oil
1 teaspoons almond oil
Add together in a glass bottle. Mix together.
Some times I have used vitamin E oil and once I got for a good price some Jojoba oil (very good for dry skin I used it in the winter time) and did 1 tablespoon and 1 tablespoon of almond and the rest of the oils 2 tablespoons.

My Face Scrub
2 part ground oatmeal
1 part wheat germ
1 part corn meal

Ground to a fine powder. I use the blender. I have sensitive skin so I use more oatmeal then the recipe calls for just to be safe.

Things I use for a all body scrub:
Sugar
Brown Sugar
Ground oatmeal (great for sensitive skin)
Coffee grounds (used coffee grounds will work)

Honey Mask

Honey
Apply honey to face
Pat face gently until tacky
Rinse with warm water

Fruit Masks
And some vegetables and others......
Add fruit mashed up directly to face.

Dry to Normal
Apple, Grapes, Oranges, Honeydew, Pears, Watermelon, Nectarine, Avocado

Normal
Tangerine, Banana , Peppermint , Cantaloupe Citrus, Carrot, Peach, Zucchini

Oily
Banana, Cherry, Lemons , Grapefruit, Strawberry, Avocado, Tomato, Peppermint

All skin Type
Yogurt, Cucumber, mayonnaise , eggs

Carrot Yogurt Acme Mask

2 tablespoons carrots
2 tablespoon yogurt

Slightly cook carrots
Mash with yogurt

(Can also grade carrots into yogurt Blend in blender until smooth)
Apply to face Rinse with tepid water
Tepid= kinda like room temperature

      

Yea it's like That!

If Mother Earth could she would do that !

Look what I Found

Signs of Spring in my front flower garden............

Nice to see after a hard winter...
But then I see I do have some work to do with the flower garden...... sigh.... But I can't wait till the weather is warm and I can dig in the dirt!!

Super Moon! TaDA!

Tonight the moon was the closet to the earth that it has been since 1993....the moon was at a distance of 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers ). The moon looked huge in the sky, I tried to take a picture and it just made the moon "glow"...
But as you can see.  You can see  my neighbor's house and my tree with the huge grape vine growing around around in a really cool way..... 


I had to work tonight then I did some errands.  I wonder if I could have gotten a better picture earlier in the night like right at dusk....

So there are so many different stories out there about the super moon making the tides higher than normal.... the moon effect the tides but it doesn't really do all that for the super moon...  There is talk that the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami was from the effects of this super moon.... that or that it starts the "Mayan calendar"  and it is the beginning of the end of the world as we know it..Supposedly  the calendar that ends on December 21, 2012.  So I guess Prince was wrong, we should party like it's 2012..... 

Wow isn't that something!

So today I am just relaxing reading a butch of sites here online... I find some really creative sites! Well we have a woman; Margaux Lange that uses barbie pieces to make jewelry. It has to be seen to believe! Plus she has a blog right here on blogger! Not sure if it is appropriate to post her pictures as in copyrighted!

She uses Barbie Parts that's right Barbie parts.  You have to check out her stuff... I like the necklace with Ken holding Barbies face necklace!!


 

Detox

I think I am going threw detox or something,  I have mistakenly smoked a cigarette here and there, ok so lately it been more than that........ It's been a very hard month and a half, with funerals and other real live stuff that can be depressing....  I keep saying I have done it this long not to go back to smoking.  Then I say why bother I am going to get me a pack of cigarettes after _fill in blank_ and then I forget about it........ I realize that hey I made it all day!!

But the last couple of times I quit smoking I went threw times that my taste buds changed... well I went threw this I don't like the taste of most things.... strange I know....

I went threw the only thing that tasted good was fruit last time.  Dried fruit.. specially cherries. With blueberries as a close second.... This time I find myself using the hot sauce bottle a lot... maybe I have been fighting a head cold last month... but ... maybe allergies....


Now I have been cooking more from scratch and thought dang my skills are rusty because most of my food has no taste....... that is one more thing I think is why this is happening.... I don't like the taste of over processed foods...I do however at times (usually at someone else house or dinning out...) have eat them.... Now they have a metal taste or a over powering chemical taste...  Unless it is a candy type add a couple quarters to the machine quick bite... then it is overly sweet... sickly sweet.... but I feel bloated and uncomfortable... but I not eating much because of this and my lack of taste...

I have visited a couple quit smoking site that say the bloating is due to my body's digestive  flora.... ummmm ok, but it just saying give it a while to work it self out.... but really this my  6 months anniversary  well last week was.... so it was the couple of cigarettes I smoked last week? I just getting a little irritated at the lack of enjoyment for food... kinda bums me out..........

Plus how could I gain 6 pounds if I don't eat???  Doesn't seem fair...........

Plant Bottles!

The heinz ketchup bottle is becoming Green!!!
Heinz press release  where the company that will make 120 million PlantBottle™ packages in 2011.... they plan on production to start soon and the bottle hitting the shelves in June!! I just wonder if they will do this for the ketchup made without the high fructose syrup... the organic or the Simply Heinz ketchup.... That would be great the organic ketchup in a plantbottle....

They also state on their site that they use NO genetic-modification, that just traditional breeding techniques.  But as many gardeners will tell you that tomatoes are hearty plants.... for the most part.  Plus they have had years and years to get this right! They started making ketchup in 1876....

Really how can you turn down a sassy label like that? Unless you want the labels that says things like Take me to your Burger.... I never saw a french fry I didn't like  or I'm your secret ingredient!!

Spring get here Soon!!

I am running out of berries!! I had to gasp buy some raspberries from the store for my muffins..

I used that last of the tomatoes not to long ago for the chili. Oh the tomatoes taste so fresh when I freeze them and then use them in cooking.... takes me back to summer threw my taste buds!

Bummer thing is that I am running out of the wonderful veggies from the freezer and now spring needs to get here so I can do it all over again!!

The National Center for Home Food Preservation
is where I find out what to do for my freezing of my garden and farmers market finds (you know: to freeze it before it goes bad!!!)