Sweet Potato Leaves~

 

♡♡♡

Ahhh the sweet potato! Sweet, delicious, nutritious along with its many other attributes. 

I was happily minding my own business one day, scrolling Facebook, and happened to notice this post by Merriwether's Foraging Texas . Intrigued, I set out on a quest to purchase an organic sweet potato the next time I had to go to the grocery store. No luck. They were out of organic ones, so I thought I would roll the dice and purchased a conventionally grown one. 

I got that baby home, stuck it in a glass of water and waited. In the meantime, the next grocery shopping trip, I struck gold! (Or should I say orange? 😉) I bought two organic sweet potatoes and ferried them home to join their step-sweet potato siblings on my windowsill. And I waited for the first tiny slips to sprout. 

And waited. Patiently at first, but as each passing day went by and my hopeful expectation every time I walked into the kitchen to gaze upon my (non existent) crop turned into exhasperation, I began to research. And I found Deep South Homestead. Danny suggested planting the sweet potatoes in the ground, not in water to get the slips started. AND BOY WAS HE RIGHT! I took the three tubers that had been languishing in glasses of water, plated the two organic ones in a large container filled with soil, and the non organic one in a garden bed, just for comparison of the two methods (garden soil vs container planting). I'm not surprised at how much more prolific the garden grown plant is compared to the other. But I am surprised at the abundance of leaves I am harvesting. I am SO excited! (Especially about the money we will save by not having to buy so many greens for our diet. It has particularly been a godsend in combating high food prices.)

Note: I am specifically growing them for the leaves, but hey, if we get some sweet taters outta the deal too...win-win! 

So far I have only used the leaves in smoothies, but I do plan on using them as one would with spinach or other similar greens. Hearty winter soups, stir-fries, sautéed with garlic and anything else I can come up with!

I have harvested some leaves from this organic sweet potato, but not many

If you are hungry (😉) for more info on sweet potato leaves here's an interesting article, and another.

Do you grow sweet potatoes for the leaves? I would love to hear how you use and prepare them.

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ 

This Week's Meals in Review ~ Hurricane Harvey Edition

from my snapchat~username: dflombard

Wow! What a week this has been with our area dealing with hurricane Harvey. Thankfully, our family and home remained high and dry, although there were some scary moments when water was creeping up towards our home from the street.

Below, I share some meals we enjoyed from our food stock. Of course this is not the only meals, snacks and beverages we consumed, only what we ate from what we had on hand. I hope it encourages you to assess the food you may already have on hand and challenge yourself to come up with tasty meals and treats, seemingly from nothing!

Breakfasts

•  fried eggs and toast
•  oatmeal with raisins

Lunches/Dinners

•  spicy pintos with chorizo, cornbread
•  grilled cheese sandwiches
•  macaroni and cheese
•  lentil and broccoli soup
•  ham sandwiches

* meals listed above only reflect what I had on hand in the pantry, fridge or freezers and may have had additional side dishes added that were recently bought during my weekey grocery shopping trip.

Snacks, Sweets and Treats 

•  peanut butter cookies
•  one bowl cocoa powder brownies

Beverage 

•  fruit smoothies

I will be adding a post soon with more about our Harvey experience so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you are able, please consider donating to the folks affected by the hurricane or helping in whatever way you can. If you are unsure of places to donate, I strongly suggest, believe in, and donate regularly to, the Salvation Army . Also, my beloved Avon, is gathering donations to be able to transport toiletries and home goods to those in need. You can donate as little as one dollar also. It all adds up. You can read more info on my Facebook page or go directly to the Avon website to be taken directly to to donation page.

PLEASE NOTE *I DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSION ON THESE DONATIONS* 

This has been set up strictly to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey

Wherever and however you decide to help, I, and my neighbors THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!

Here's wishing you sunny days from Texas! 

Thanks for stopping by ~TJ

Happy 4th! And Green Onions too!

Happy 4th! 'Round these parts, that means the beaches will be packed with families, couples, lone sun worshippers and fishermen trying to catch a fish or two. Firework displays will begin around 9pm. And in between, the smell of grilling and barbecue will fill the air.

I'm not sure if we will venture out into the heat this year as hubby had to be taken to the emergency room last Thursday suffering from a TIA. He's been resting a lot since then. I will be happy to spend the day with him and the kids (if they are around) and flitting from one project to the next. I know there's some figs that need picking and pears that need plucking. I might just pull out my countertop grill, throw some burgers, hot dogs and sausage links on there & call it good!

Here's a little experiment I tried and am surprised at the results:

 

The last time I had a bunch of green onions (from the grocery store) I was cutting up, I decided to save the lower 1/2 to 1 inch of the whites that had a fair amount of roots growing and stuck them in my strawberry pot, watered them daily & soon, they began sprouting more green onions! These will come in handy as I snip off what I need for meals until my green onion seeds do their thing. 

 

Have a safe, sparkly Fourth!~TJ

Wheatgrass

We were out shopping in the wee hours of the evening (my favorite time to grocery shop 'cause it's nice & quiet), and strolling through the produce section, at the organics (teeny tiny) area, what do my wondering eyes should appear? A patch o' grass. Not just any grass mind you, but Wheatgrass! 

I asked my consultant, and right hand girl (DD) if she thought we should get it. After a bit of girly chit chat and debate, we decided, YES, we should. YOLO as she always says.

So, we put it in our basket and handled it with the care you would when bringing a newborn home (except we had the cashier put 'er in a plastic bag in case she leaked o: )

Got home and felt compelled to give hubby the disclaimer of what the latest crazy, growing oddity *cough*kombucha*cough* he would walk in on in the kitchen would be. He gave me that blank guy look, indicating he had no earthly idea what I just said, just wanting to be able to get back to watching whatever it was he was watching.

So far, I've snipped of about a one inch square to add to a smoothie (don't plan on buying a wheatgrass juicer~right now my highest hopes is that it lives).

If anyone reading this knows anything about taking care of wheatgrass, please share...

For now, I need to research this thing...

Thanks for stopping by to meet my wheatgrass!~TJ

Hugs~TJ

PS~Hey y'all, I'm on Instagram! Come "follow" me why don'tcha?!

High Blood Pressure...yikes!

The past couple of weeks I haven't been feeling so good. Mainly queasiness that I attributed to the high heat of summer. I went online to see if it could possibly be related to (gasp!) perimenopause. One article said it could be, but wasn't common. Another caught my eye, suggesting that it could be due to high blood pressure. Hmmm...

I went on my queasy way making a mental note to check my BP soon. One evening after looking for a BP machine at our local Walgreens and not finding one, I asked DH if he would show me how to use his at home monitor. The reading? 170/115! DH immediately made me take one of his blood pressure meds. (I know it's not recommended to take others prescription drugs but...) I went through shock and disbelief for a while but made an appointment with my doctor the next day, last friday.

Blood draws, an ekg (of which wasn't normal, but the last few I've had have shown abnormalities), a urine sample, a prescription for BP meds and a referral to a cardiologist for a nuclear stress test. (I'd been through the stress test the first time a doctor found my ekg readings weren't right). So begins that process. In the meantime, I began research into what I could immediately do to help bring the readings down.

I began walking on our treadmill for 30 minutes, with a goal to add one minute each day for thirty days so I will be walking an hour a day in a month.

I began drinking teas with hibiscus as one of the main ingredients as that has been found to help bring BP numbers down. I also am getting back to drinking more tea in general for the antioxidants.

I have been faithful to take my supplements daily, which for a long while was hit or miss with me.

I have also began drinking 8 oz. of pomegranate juice daily, having read that it helps with cardiovascular health. (Drinking Pom Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice) I'm also trying to get in at least one green or fruit smoothie a day.

My diet will be the challenge. I love to eat. I love all the "bad" stuff. I don't have one sweet tooth, I have many. But I had already stopped eating meat about a month ago, I have begun to drink only decaf coffee and will do my best, taking it one meal/snack choice at a time, to eat more healthfully.

Oh...and I am trying to lasso that salt shaker.

I'm already beginning to feel MUCH better! And the numbers are down!

I say this all the time but, I STILL plan to live to be 144!!!

Let's ALL do something today, even if it's just ONE thing, to care for our hearts!

Vegetarian Yumminess!

After watching Food Inc. a couple of weeks ago, DD & I decided: no more meat. Since then, I've been trying to hunt down delicious, filling vegetarian recipes. While I've made a couple of clunkers, this one does NOT fall into the clunker pile. This one is definitely a keeper!

I found it in my Good Housekeeping magazine and it will be safely filed away in my new "veggie meals" recipe folder.

I doubled the recipe and instead of using canned beans, I took a 16 oz. bag of black beans and threw them in the pressure cooker for a few (cooked with a steady stream of steam for about 7 minutes, turned of the fire and let them release pressure on their own. Less than thirty minutes for a more frugal bunch o' beans.) I substituted frozen corn kernels and made a guesstimate on the amount. I also substituted heart healthy EV olive oil for the canola.

Hope you are having a wonderful start to your summer!!

~TJ