Pork On Pork Please!

I didn't get a picture but I'll describe it for you. I took 2 fat pork chops, wrapped them in half cooked bacon, and then poured the cheese sauce I made over them. Toss em' in the over for an hour, and they're done.

This was so fattening I decided against making anything but a giant salad drizzled in oil. Simple as that.

I've been getting ready for Thanksgiving. I went through my menu last night and made a list of last minute items I need to pick up today. So something had been nagging at me for the past couple weeks, like I was forgetting a dish or something. I figured it out, I completly forgot about the cranberry chutney sauce! Could you imagine the disaster that that would have caused? No cranberries? Glad I figured that out. Phew!

I've also been roasting a lot of pumpkins, and still have 2 more to do. Although I'm sure I'll pick up a couple more pumpkins because I noticed I hadn't made pumpkin bread yet, and we love pumpkin bread around here. Yes, more sugar's please!

The Taste Of Osha

Osha root - the root of a flower (from the basil family) that generally grows in the Southwest regions, has been used for thousands of years by the Native Americans. This powerful, and strong smelling root is used for colds, flu, pneumonia, TB, congestion, wards off rattlesnakes, naturally purifies the air, viral infections, bronchial inflammation, difficulty breathing, allergies, asthma, indigestion, promotes productive sweats which in turn expells toxins from the body, and has strong antibacterial properties.

Simply warmed up it beneficially affects upper gastro, cardiovascular, and central nervous systems. It's also beneficial for reproduction, stimulating the the uterus, kidneys and is good for circulation. Why am I talking about Osha root?

My youngest daughter, 15 months, has been fighting a nasty viral infection for almost 2 months. As you know there's no westernized cure for a viral infection. Also, my husband, my 3 year old and myself have been passing back and forth colds and all around ickyness. Sick to death of this, a good family friend who is very familiar with natural medicines, told us to try osha. So I made a trip to the herb shop in hippyville Bellingham and bought my first ounce of Osha root.

For Bel's sake, I made her some tea and put it in her bottle, followed by a bit of honey to help the taste and then mixed it with milk. The very next morning, she looked better, she sounded better and the drainage from her little nose was cut by about 80%. I steam her room with the hot pan to help cleanse the air, mixed with her normal humidifier, she is already all around much healthier.

Wow, I'm so done with medicine in a bottle. I'm not sure why I hadn't really picked up on this form of treating, I grew up with it. My parents are excellant gardeners and can grow anything. Along the way, my mom started getting into natural remedies and always had an herb garden filled with something that tasted aweful in one form or another, but they worked. Ding dong ping and a light goes off.

A Breather At Best

So I took a breather. It was kinda nice, although my time was filled with a thousand other things, it was still nice to not feel an obligation to write. I figured when I started thinking about it again, then it would be time to start. This time I don't expect myself to write everyday, but will learn to enjoy my writing, baking and taking pictures at will.

This past month has been almost disastrous. We are going on 39 days of at least one person being sick, and at times there were 3 of sick at the same time. I've missed a wedding, a dinner party, and a few holiday festivities here and there. I've been holed up and held down. Mia has missed a few days of school, and I've missed teaching days. Remarkably, no matter how terrible my girls have felt, they are remarkably upbeat.

All that said, Halloween still went well, and we managed to do some trick-or-treating. I have 3 sugar pumpkins to roast and a pie to bake, and Halloween decor to put away. I've been deep cleaning a lot of things in prep for Thanksgiving with the Johnson's - I'm pretty excited about this!

So this morning I woke up pretty early (really, what's new?) and immediatly started my coffee cake muffins. I doubled the recipe because it was suppose to be for the kids at the preschool - today was my work/snack day. Five minutes after I pulled the last batch out of the oven, and carefully wrapped my cut veggies, I got a call that school was cancelled. Great, what am I to do with all these extra muffins? Good thing we have neighbors.

Last night I tried this very different recipe for chili. I found it on momswhothink.com. It had things like ground cloves and red wine. Hmm, different - so lets try it. Didn't think to take a picture but it looked and smelled amazing! Mark and the girls ate it right up, but I had some reservations.

For starters, I was 1/2 cup short of a batch of cornbread to go with it, by the time I figured that out, the chili had been on the stove simmering for almost 2 hours and I wasn't going to go the store. So I had some other garnishes that worked just fine. The flavor that the cloves added was different, but good, just not outstanding. The red wine however, was far to overpowering. I really thought it could do without. Anyways, I'll file the recipe away in my box with a sticky note of what not's and see if it see's the light of day again.

Update on my grapes - they still aren't sweet enough to make jam with. By this time, the family of racoons and various birds are eating up what I left behind. This year, they will definitly be feasting. I still test taste in hopes that I'll get enough to make a batch or two, but for sure for sure will NOT be getting my 12-15 batches. 100% the weathers fault. Thanks. Now to start planning Thanksgiving!