Double Happiness Soup – Hot and sour pear and matsutake soup

Iron chef pear continues… Matsutake’s the much loved and famed “pine mushroom” are highly prized in Asian cuisine. Here in the Northwest we are lucky to have them growing in our own backyard. Hunting grounds are well kept, jealously guarded secrets, and issues have been known to happen between amateur and commercial pickers. This year [...]

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Perfect for fall: Pear and onion soup

Many of you know that I have a pear tree. Every year it produces abundantly and I have an Iron Chef Pear competition with myself. Joel helps out as well and it’s pretty fun.One of my best “invented” recipes to date is this soup. Feel free to vary the spices according to your taste. ( Less [...]

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Health benefits of beans

So, you ate your beans just like me and then thought to yourself, “I wonder what the health benefits of these lovely beans are?” Lucky for you, I too had this thought, and then thought I’d pass some info along to you. Beans help lower cholesterol (lots of bile binding fiber), in turn fighting heart disease, and lowering the [...]

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Weekend menu planned!

I have my weekend menu planned and will do some shopping this evening. Saturday Breakfast: Mediclear smoothie with rice milk and mixed frozen berries (Trader Joe’s has the best price on these) AND one nitrite-free Turkey sausage (again, Trader Joe’s) Mid-morning Snack: 1 banana Lunch: mixed vegetable and romaine salad with olive oil/ balsamic vinagrette [...]

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