summer recipes – Menupause

Here is the link to of my latest recipes posted in WVFC:

http://womensvoicesforchange.org/summer-recipes-cucumber-salads.htm

Cubed Cuke Salad

Lemon-Lime Cucumber Salad

ENJOY!!!

If you click on their link, feel free to post a comment. They keep stats on feedback. Thanx! ellensue

P.S. BLUEBERRY BONUS

While visiting my brother and sister-in-law a few days ago, my sister-in-law gave me a no-bake blueberry pie recipe to use for my turn at desserts last night for our Jewish gathering. I made several changes to create a no refined sugar recipe, used more blueberries, and a few other changes, such as local blueberry butter (unsweetened) instead of white sugar. Here is it. I did not take a photo because I did not think I would use it, since the recipe is not originally mine, but it came out so well, I had to share “Aunt Molly’s” idea withmy “improvements.”

(Please use organic berries!)

Quick Blueberry Pie

3 qts. organic blueberries
2 Tbl. flour (can use gluten free)
1 cup apple juice
½ cup fruit only blueberry jam (or blueberry butter)
9 inch pie crust (graham cracker) or pre-baked pie shell

Ice cream, whipped cream, frozen yogurt or Greek yogurt for topping

1. Divide washed blueberries in half. Set aside one half. Place other half in a saucepan. Mix flour with apple juice in a small bowl and add to berries in pot. Cook on medium high heat, stirring often, until berries thicken. Some of the berries will pop.

2. Place cooked berries in a large bowl to cool 5-10 minutes. Then stir in uncooked, washed berries. Mix well and allow to set together a few minutes. Spoon into pie shell. Refrigerate before cutting.

3. Add topping of choice when you serve the chilled pie. Place back in fridge if any is left over.

The end of May and the beginning of June have not been very indicative of a warm and sunny summer. When I went back to State College for three days last week, the forecast was for rain and cold, so I visited a secondhand shop with my daughter Eileen and bought a pair of blue jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, and some odds & ends. (All I had brought were summer clothes.) Wouldn’t it be fun to go on a vacation with just underwear, shoes and sox in a carryon and buy all you need at a thrift store, only to return it at the end of the vacation as a donation? You wouldn’t have to pay the luggage fee (if you flew) and you could get a week’s wardrobe for a song! The day I went to Good Will with my daughter was Memorial Day and everything was half price. My jeans, shirt, necklace, and headband purchases cost me the grand total of $9.00. Now that’s “green” shopping, both ecologically and economically!

Speaking of economics, I had promised some budget ideas in the May posting, but never got to them, so I hope to incorporate them into this month’s food postings and ideas. For example, as a volunteer for MANNA, a non-profit organization where I volunteer, I did a sprout demonstration and featured a chilled rice salad. Rice is one of the least expensive foods you can make, and brown rice is high in nutrition. Here is a photo of my chilled rice recipe which I will post later this month.

Cyndi Dinger, the nutritionist at MANNA, organized the demonstration at The Wellness Community nearby, so I plan to profile Cyndi this month.

Here is Cyndi with her vase-shaped drinking glass in her office at MANNA.

In my health report I will feature the soil sprouts I grew for the MANNA/Wellness Community demo. (Last April I featured jar sprouting.) Below is a photo of me at the beginning of the demonstration. Everyone seemed to enjoy the demonstration and some of the participants took home seeds to do their own soil sprouting.

In Kitchen Nutrition with Recipes I will be featuring summer salads, starting with Susie Fishbein’s asparagus and mushroom salad. I reviewed her new book, Kosher by Design Lightens Up last week, so feel free to go back to the book review.

The June review will be a popular book entitled In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. It is a slim volume packed with interesting and scathing information about the current negative state of our food habits and over-processing or “manufacturing” of our agricultural bounty.

Finally, I have an announcement of my new blog: www.divorce-dayz.info. I was toying with the idea of adding it to menupause, but realized that just because I experienced a divorce and menopause at the same time, not everyone else has, so I made a new blog. Please forward the address to anyone you know that may be going through a divorce or is recovering or even anticipating divorce. I hope to make this blog a supportive connection between the information and the reader. My dream is that readers will subscribe to both blogs!

Here is the flower photo I put on Divorce Dayz. The flower is nicknamed Bottle Brush, and I noted that with divorce, you may need to brush away many of your fears and negativity in order to get through the experience and come out more empowered than ever!

Tag: summer recipes

Two of My Cucumber Salad Recipes in Women’s Voices for Change Plus Bonus Quick Blueberry Pie Recipe

Is it Summer Yet? June 2009