#On Stripping the Leaves from the Sugar Beet

[mechanical-drawing]

22 January 1876

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Man-Sized 4/9 If You Have Ghosts

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!OC

Tags: Explicit content, +18 audiences only. Smut, romantic angst, fluff. An unapologetic LOVE STORY. Sexual tension, mutual pining, banter, flirting, developing relationship, strangers to lovers. Simon Riley has a dark past (partly inspired by Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comics).

CW/TW: References to PTSD, depression, past torture and abuse in later chapters.

Summary: A uni student who pole dances at a strip club to pay her rent encounters a mysterious giant of a soldier seemingly incapable of falling in love.

She was just "S" on his phone.

It was a stupid thing to do, but she checked.

He had left his phone casually on the table, and it was such a sign of trust that she was shocked. Not that she could hack into it even if she wanted to – which she did not – but because she could see if someone sent him a text, or called…

At first, she hadn't meant to: what she meant was to dig up a particular photo and show it to him when he came back in from the smoke he was having. An old picture where she was a teen and looked like a little monster with a growth spurt and braces and a Nirvana shirt. But something in her brain told her to send it to his phone with the accompanying words That's a school girl for you and then go check the notification that appeared on the screen.

And she took advantage of that trust in the spur of the moment, like a jealous little idiot.

"What are you doing?"

And another thing that always escaped her was how Simon could be silent if he so wished. A guy of his size should've made more of a ruckus when he came in, but he seemed to defy the laws of physics as he stepped into her living room, quiet as a spectre.

"Um..."

The scene looked exactly as shameful as it was. She stepped back when he went to his phone, picked it up…

"Right… Busted." He was looking at the notification of her text like it was a message from some other girl he didn't want her to know about.

And she was the one who was busted here. The whole situation had left her red as a beet and humiliated to the very core. Everything was going so well, and she had to just shit all over it.

"You have trust issues?"

"I'm sorry. That was totally uncalled for. I…" She spread her hands and sighed. "I have no excuse."

"I asked if you have trust issues." He didn’t look or sound angry. Only methodical.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"Why were you looking at it?"

Ok, he wasn't about to leave her. Instead, he wanted to talk it out like adults. It made her a little too relaxed.

"To see what kind of lock screen picture you have?"

He stared at her with a look that said You didn't pass this test. But then, a warmth settled in his eyes, the kind of soft glint he had when he was amused with something — amused with her.

"I think I know why."

His patience was soothing. It wouldn't hurt to ask directly instead of tiptoeing around the subject and making a fool of herself.

"Yeah. I would just… very much like to know if you have this kind of thing going on with other people."

"No. Do you?"

"No."

Another small smile. The warmth in his eyes had turned into a solid glow. Perhaps it was a test, after all: Simon didn't casually do anything, least of all leave his phone unattended like this.

"Simon… Why do you want to be with me?"

"'Cause you're a Bond girl."

It made her laugh, but on the inside, she was shedding tears.

"I'm not a Bond girl, Simon. I'm a student with a lot of debt."

"I could help you with that, you know."

She was so taken aback by his suggestion that she couldn't speak for a moment. Simon wasn’t joking: he had tilted his head slightly and waited for her to accept his offer.

They hadn't even had The Talk yet, and he was ready to support her financially. It made her delighted and suspicious; was she stepping into an affectionate relationship or a transactional bond if she accepted? The last time he had offered her money ended in her slapping him.

"You want to be my sugar daddy now?"

"I'm serious. You could focus on your studies."

It appeared they were approaching the centre of his issues as well, and she sighed.

"Does it bother you that I work there?"

He didn't betray any emotion, as was probably to be expected from a man who worked in covert operations.

"Does it bother you that I shoot people?"

She, on the other hand, found herself blinking again from Simon’s flat way of describing the nature of his work. To be honest, she hadn't given it much thought. Deliberately, because she had wanted to enjoy him to the full and see where this one would go. It was no use getting upset about something that possibly wouldn't even be a part of her life.

But here he was again, in her living room, after a good round of morning sex, smelling of tobacco and about to finally take her out. She was missing classes because of him, had even lied to him that she didn't have any today — not knowing whether he could tell she was lying and keeping it to himself so he could take her out.

Her answer proved to be quite simple, even if a bit naive.

"No, if they're the bad guys."

His face lit up with a sly smirk, and his words were smooth, gilded gravel this time.

"They are. I'm practically saving the world."

She rolled her eyes at that. Overconfident, cheeky bastard… She would soon catch actual fucking feelings, catch more than just an infatuation for this man.

"I'm sure the whole world would descend into darkness without you," she said dryly, and he laughed, this time in a perfectly spontaneous way. The tight grip on her heart only tightened more.

"Simon, seriously speaking, does it bother you?"

His face slowly straightened again, but he wouldn't give her an answer. She would never have thought that it actually might upset him — after all, he was the one who had visited such a place. He had come there to see her grind night after night.

"I like dancing. It's a good workout."

"As long as the only thing you work out is that pole." It was uttered slightly under his breath, and she tried her everything to hide a confused little grin.

Was he…

Could it be that Simon "I kill people" Riley was not only jealous but possessive?

Of her?

Wow.

---

He didn't take her to a fancy restaurant but to a museum that had Albrecht Dürer's engravings and woodcut prints on display.

"You really did your homework," she commented on his choice. How the hell did he know that she was interested precisely in this kind of stuff? The rich symbolism of Renaissance humanism and the overly gothic Northern period?

"Again, not rocket science."

He had probably seen that the book he had glanced through wasn't a loan but her own. Noticed the hearty amount of notes she had scribbled on the pages... Of course. Not rocket science, but still pretty impressive, especially when the exhibition was on show only for a month. She was studying this stuff, and she hadn't even noticed.

He asked her to give him a tour and curate the display. She laughed and told him that was not exactly what curators did but proceeded to tell him as much about the works as she could.

"I have a soft spot for this one. She's like an angel fallen from heaven. Brooding, because the stairway to heaven is right there, but she can't ascend."

They had stopped to study the print Melencolia I, and she feared that she was boring Simon to death — along with feeling lame for trying to impress him with knowledge that was yesterday's news. But it turned out he had never even seen the engraving that was in her world, one of the most iconic pieces of art history. He even got curious about the heavy symbolism embedded in the work; he asked about the sleeping dog, the hourglass, and the wings on the melancholy figure.

"That's a woman?"

"Yeah. I mean… That's the usual interpretation."

The fact that he hadn't seen it from the start made her smile. Or perhaps it was the notion that Simon seemed genuinely interested in the display and her knowledge on this type of art.

"They used to think that depression was a pathological condition caused by black bile and blamed it on the planet Saturn.”

The smug look on his face told her that the conversation was about to get interesting.

"What causes being pissed off all the time?"

She would never have guessed that Simon had anger management issues. He was always so cool and controlled.

"Anger is associated with being choleric. Too much heat in the body."

"I'm too hot?"

Way too hot.

"According to the Renaissance people, yeah."

He turned to look at her, and she could feel the tingles in the air between them.

"And which planet is to blame for being too beautiful?"

"That would…. probably be considered a gift from Venus, the Roman goddess of- "

He pulled her into a kiss, and she was soaring to the sun again. How a man surrounded by such heavy darkness, who concealed his face with human bones, could hold an entire sun within him was a mystery, even more compelling than the enigmas of the Renaissance. She imagined the man with all that death draped over him and concluded that Simon was the most enthralling piece of art she had ever seen.

He broke the kiss but didn’t let her go, and she finally felt like he was someone she could trust, a man she could feel safe with. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, but she was full, perfectly satisfied under the austere lights of the museum, amidst the whispering tourists who had no idea there was blood and sun and love in the middle of the room. His eyes weren't those of a soldier, not even those of a hungry man in a strip club. Simon was something completely different from what she had originally thought.

"Why do you wear that skull?"

His gaze flickered from her eyes to her lips, a tiny betrayal of her having succeeded in surprising him again.

"Because I used to fear it."

That was solid reasoning, in her opinion. She could respect him for it. She liked the symbolism, the poetic, tragic beauty of it. The whole man was alluring… a tall, dark stranger although he was pale and blonde. His darkness was on the inside, but even that was savagely beautiful.

They went to the museum cafe after, and she ordered sparkling wine because, in her opinion, high culture demanded sparkles. This whole occasion demanded a toast — but then she noticed that Simon ordered tea. Not a glass of wine, or a beer, not even a coffee, but tea.

She had seen him drink at the club, just one scotch, but still. It wasn't a big deal; they didn’t need to celebrate what finally seemed to be a blooming relationship. But what was a big deal was that Simon seemed to disapprove of her having a glass of bubbly in the middle of the day.

"You drink often?"

"Um... no?”

She was feeling giddy, and not just because of the drink she was having. Simon’s question came out of nowhere, and the restless look on his face told her he was sincere. And then, another question followed.

"Have you done drugs?"

The situation had turned from fun to absurd so quickly that she bit her lip to hold back from smiling like a person who had something to hide. She hadn’t expected a man like Simon to give her a lecture about the dangers of recreational drugs.

"No." Technically, she had tried marijuana a couple of times at a party, but that couldn't be described as doing it.

"Good."

"Have you?"

"Never."

He was pleased enough with her answers, and the conversation seemed to have come to an end. She wanted to ask him more about this strict code he appeared to have, but before she could do it, Simon looked out the window and enlightened her.

"Father drank a lot."

It was a piece of information that equaled him giving her his gun. Giving her ammunition to shoot him with if and when the time would come. It also explained a lot.

"That sounds… awful."

"It was."

Simon had joined the army at a young age, and she had thought it meant he really wanted a career in the military, that there was a calling. But it appeared it might have something to do with wanting to get away from home as soon as possible.

"Is he still…?"

"He's dead."

---

She woke up in the middle of the night with the extremely uncomfortable feeling of not getting enough air.

When she came to, the first thing she felt was a forearm of steel pressed on her throat. In fact, there was a massive weight crushing her all around, but the most harrowing thing was the gaze she was met with, his eyes staring at her in a blank, cold, calculated rage.

"Simon..."

Those eyes were like lead, almost inhuman, and she tried to utter his name while her thorax and throat were being compressed with a gradually increasing weight.

"Simon."

He finally woke up from whatever flashback this was a reaction to and seemed to start breathing again at the exact moment the mist of icy wrath drew back from over his eyes.

"Fuck… " He took his arm from her throat, and she gasped for air and stayed still, fearing that the killer would come back any second.

"Shit. Sorry." Simon's eyes were wide and scanning her wildly, inspecting if he had done permanent damage. He slowly rose off of her and scrambled backward as far as he could go without falling from the bed.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, clearly more than a bit shocked.

It shocked her even more than the actual choking episode — to see Simon so visibly afraid.

"It’s okay," she said, wondering how many times she had told him everything was okay when it wasn’t. "I'm okay."

She rose to sit and reached out to touch him, but he flinched. Seeing a man of his quality recoil from her touch wasn’t just baffling. It was chilling.

"Not… right now," he said as he raised a hand to shield himself from her. The fresh frost in her chest only spread.

"Does this kind of thing happen often?"

What she had meant to ask was whether he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although it was pretty clear that he did.

"Don't know. I usually sleep alone."

He swallowed, and she could hear the gulp. Simon was still breathing heavy, and she was rattled too, but the worst thing was yet to come as he got off the bed.

"I'll sleep on the couch," he said without taking even a pillow with him.

"Don't be ridiculous," she grabbed his arm when he was already headed to the door.

"There's nothing ridiculous about this," he said, looking more distraught by the second. And perhaps it had started to dawn on her, too. What if it happened again? What if he used even more power and actually killed her through sleep? If he had really meant to, he could've easily crushed her windpipe just a while ago. Still, seeing him so evidently shaken hurt her even more.

"You can't sleep on the couch every time you come here."

Technically, he could, but she didn't want him to. She tried to find humour in the situation, to crack some kind of a joke, but everything she came up with sounded bad and morbid. Perhaps he needed some space right now. She would just have to deal with it.

"You want to be alone?"

He stared at the floor and gave her a sullen half-shrug. He wouldn't move, and she felt bold enough to view it as a wordless beg for intimacy. She rose from the bed and walked to him, then wrapped her arms around him in an awkward hug when he continued to stand there completely frozen.

The ice melted eventually as he returned the hug. A deep sigh echoed in her bedroom, but her shock had started to shift and turn into something else. Simon wasn't a perfect man anymore, not in a way that made her a helpless woman. He was perfect now with flaws and stretched the space within her heart more and more by revealing he was a human after all.

"What would James Bond do?" She whispered while pressing her cheek against the warm, broad chest that had only now started to represent safety in her world. Even after what had just happened. Something in him finally latched tightly in place, like a puzzle piece that had collided against her the wrong way but now finally found the perfect angle and fit.

He huffed. It was only a little chuckle, but it was a start.

"I bet he wouldn't sleep on the couch," she continued, and he gave her a solid squeeze this time.

"I’m not James Bond," he muttered, and it felt like another magazine to the gun she had lately been provided with.

"That's okay. I don’t even like him."

[iantimony]

tuesdaypost

marginally less depressed this week

listening: I made a playlist called "indiana mentioned" that is just. songs that mention indiana. found some of them organically, some through genius lyrics. once it's more complete I will post a link.

pale green things - the mountain goats

applesauce - sam.sts

still on relistening to the dear hunter acts.

reading: reread panting like a dog at the edge of your bed by bloodletter now that it's finished, as well as some of their newer works that I'd missed. really really fucking good.

watching: bernadette banner's "using 18th century corsetry to drape a flowy gown"

playing: I should really retire this section for a bit. I haven't been doing dnd lately because of aforementioned depression but I will be running it again this Saturday.

making: forgot to go to the studio before Thanksgiving week so I won't be able to see any of my kiln output til the weekend :-( I did go back to life drawing yesterday though!

here is the switch dustcover (see mentioned sad playing section lol)…it's fine. kinda boring. might dismantle and do more pieces do it for variation.

also started some holiday card linocut sketches. will be starting that soon.

am continuing to hang up paintings. so close. finally put up The Big One (my favorite, a clown my mom did as a child), I have a few miscellaneous ones that I have to command strip up because parts of my apartment are drywall directly over brick and I am out of command strips so that's in my miscellaneous home goods purchase for the week. I also want to hang the expensive quilt I impulse bought from a temple fundraiser last year but I am still figuring out the logistics of it (I have a curtain rod but the width of it isn't fix-able so if I try to hang it by a rope it scrunches up…)

eating: there was a thanksgiving potluck for my department last week and we got supplied rotisserie chickens! I brought one home to shred and made deli style cranberry chicken salad with the leftover meat and used the bits and bones to make 10 cups of chicken broth !!!!! let that bad boy simmer for like six hours lol, I tossed it in with some frozen veg that I've had waiting for stock purposes (mostly celery and beet/radish greens), as well as some fresh ginger, peppercorns, bay leaves, a whole onion, and some baby carrots! so I'm going to slowly freeze that in one cup cubes (I love my souper cubes…) to have in reserve in my freezer.

I also made my favorite banana bread recipe which I think is originally from here but I have made modifications (cut the sugar in half!!! and I added choccy chips and slivered almonds and shredded coconut, and replaced the oil with half butter half oil, I also didn't do it in a ziplock I find that annoying I just do dishes lol).

the soup pre-straining:

misc: I won a bottle of wine and a pizza gift card at a temple fundraiser via raffle tickets so at least I have that going for me

[sam-glade]

OC Recipe Tag

Oh wow, this is the best tag ever. Thank you @pheita (tag here)💜 I'll tag: @i-can-even-burn-salad (fully aware of the irony) @acertainmoshke @winterandwords @talesofsorrowandofruin @kittensartswriting @flock-from-the-void @cee-grice and leave an open tag.

Rules: share a recipe your OC would make, either one passed down to them or one they found all by themselves. Bonus if you have an actual recipe to link! Some OCs can't cook to save their lives, but let's talk about the ones who can! :D

Ok, ok. Lissan can cook, and he'd probably make a simple apple pie. Gullin can't so his recipe would be a hardboiled egg (burnt). However, I really want to share a recipe for the cakes Ianim's cooks prepared. I call them brushwood cakes, but I think they're sometimes known as angel wings.

Here's the description from Gifts of Fate:

Ianim had, however, brought them a box of brushwood cakes to lift their spirits — something they didn’t have a chance to dig into last night. The cakes were delicious, so much finer than the ones offered at the winter fairs back in Aritia, and much, much sweeter, but not as aromatic. Ianim noticed Lissan’s confusion, and quickly explained that they were sweetened with beet sugar, not honey. Lissan gulped at how offhandedly he’d said it.

Ingredients:

5 egg yolks

340g extra fine flour

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon 95-97% spirit (as pure alcohol as you can get)

1 tablespoon white caster sugar

1 pinch salt

lard for frying

icing sugar for dusting

Method:

Sift the flour, mix with sugar and salt. Add the wet ingredients and knead until combined.

Roll out the dough, fold in thirds, beat with the rolling pin, roll, fold again, for 45 minutes or so. You want to repeat the process about 20 times, and the dough will be hard to roll. If you have a pasta roller, it speeds things up a lot. Finally roll it out to be about 1 mm thick - the thinner the better.

Cut into strips 12 x 4 cm, and cut a slit in the middle. Fold through the slit.

Melt the lard in a large, shallow pan, to be 2 cm deep. When dropped in, the cakes should puff up and turn golden, but not brown. It takes less than a minute on each side. Fish them out with a metal skimmer and put on a tea towel to soak up the excess oil.

Dust with icing sugar.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Not everyone likes beets but they’re on my top ten favorite vegetables list. They store well in my fridge for several months and the enjoyment and recipe trials are extended. I plant them close together—about 80 seeds using a wire grid in a 24 x 48 inch area. I use the recommended seed priming method described at GrowVeg. Their method resulted in about a 90% germination rate.

I planted them mid-October and over the winter they are established but only size up in the spring with more daylight. I pull larger ones as the season progresses, leaving room for smaller ones to grow. Most years I grow Baby Ball, a Dutch variety from Renee’s Garden. They maintain their quality small or oversized.

With my mandoline, I sliced the harvested beets 1/8 inch thick. The task would have been nearly impossible without the tool.

A beet galette was a new adventure for me. I sauteed spring onions in olive oil then added brown sugar and balsamic vinegar and reduced to a spreading consistency. Herbed goat cheese and fresh thyme proceeded the sliced beets.

In haste, I forgot to sprinkle with fresh thyme. The beet galette was memorable—tender, sweet beets enfolded in a flaky crust. I may repeat this soon.

The three large beets yielded more slices than needed for the galette so I sliced them for salads and also sauteed strips in olive oil as a side dish.

My neighbor who only likes beet greens happily takes beet greens beyond what I can use.

With extra beet slices I also made a black bean and rice entree. Lime juice and roasted pistachios added interest. This is an “every beet season” favorite.

A second sowing of golden sweet snow peas supplements the meager first round.

The patio Bountiful Blue blueberry bush is just starting to produce. This just as I saw a lovely male bluebird in the backyard. My neighbor covers her blueberry bushes, preferring not to leave them for the bluebirds.

The calendulas were just waking up from a cool overnight as I gathered them for Sunday’s church bouquet.

Check the What I’m Planting Now page as I begin to plant the summer garden. Then head today to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres blog and see what garden bloggers around the world harvested last week.

To leave a comment, click on “Leave a comment/Show comments,” enter the comment, then insert your name. Finally, click on “Comment as Guest” to post comment.

[25mn]

What Do Pickled Beets Taste Like?

Beets might look scary and not in any way shape or form engaging. Thus, many individuals who are new to them avoid getting them and never attempt them through and through without thinking about their taste.

This carries us to the inquiry: what do beets possess a flavor like? All things considered, it relies upon who you are inquiring. Beet darlings say they have a sweet, rich, hearty flavor, yet beet critics say they taste like soil. Which articulation is valid?

cutting board with cut red beets What Are Beets? Beets are root vegetables that come as round bulbs with leaves. They have a shape like radishes and turnips. The principal base of beets develops upward under the ground, like carrots.

In North America, they are called beets. In English, they are called beetroots.

Their variety changes, yet they are typically dark red to dazzling purple. Nonetheless, they can likewise be yellow and white. There are likewise striped beets which are most normally called Chioggia beets.

A beet prepared for collect is about the size of a tennis ball, however some become bigger relying upon their assortment and their development. Crude beets are crunchy, so they can add freshness to your dish. Nonetheless, they become smooth and delicate subsequent to cooking.

Canned beets additionally exist, and they taste better than new beets. You can find them in most supermarkets. Beets can be eaten without being cooked; the vast majority even say that crude beets taste better compared to cooked ones.

What Parts Are Edible? All pieces of the beet are palatable - bulbs, leaves, roots, and stems. The entire beet might in fact be eaten crude.

Roots

Individuals know the foundations of a beet as the actual beet. Beetroots can be eaten crude and added to servings of mixed greens. You can broil, steam, heat, pickle, squeeze, or mix them in your smoothies.

Leave no less than two creeps of the stem when you separate the beets from the greens so they won't drain their red tone. It is additionally best to decrease cooking time when the beets are more modest than two inches.

Skin

Some find it trying to strip beets, however fortunately there is compelling reason need to strip them at all on the grounds that their skin is palatable. Simply guarantee that you wash off the sinewy strings and soil from the beet skin prior to eating them.

Nonetheless, assuming you should strip beets, it is ideal to cook them first in light of the fact that the skin will strip off effectively in the wake of cooking.

Leaves

Likewise called beet greens, the leaves of beets are most frequently discarded in light of the fact that it isn't commonly realized that they are eatable. Beets have little, delicate leaves ideal for plates of mixed greens. They can likewise be sautéed, steamed, bubbled, or added to smoothies. Beet passes on are additionally fine options to your pasta, egg scrambles, or omelet.

Stems

New beets have little stems that are not excessively sinewy. These stems can be eaten crude or cooked, however they are best when sautéed in olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice. Steamed beet stems are likewise a famous fixing in soups, while the crude stems are extraordinary when added to smoothies or making pickle beet stems.

What Do Salted Beets Have an aftertaste like? What Do Pickled Beets Taste Like?Cured beets generally have a hearty taste, a sensitive harmony among tartness and pleasantness. Be that as it may, this taste can change contingent upon how you pickle them in light of the fact that the kind of cured beets additionally relies upon different elements of your recipe.

Pickling includes blending food in an acidic arrangement containing salt, vinegar, and sugar. This cycle helps protect food and produces a serious flavor. Some main add sugar and salt less the vinegar, while others add garlic and pepper seeds or fiery peppers.

The sweet, zesty, sharp, and hot blend of salted beets will at first confound your taste buds, yet it is a fantastic enhancement for your tacos. They are additionally great substitutes for cooked beets.

What Does Beetroot Pose a flavor like? At the point when you wash and appropriately get ready new beets, they will have a sweet, hearty, and marginally flower flavor. The pleasantness turns out to be more unmistakable relying upon the beet assortment and readiness.

Geosmin is a natural compound created in the dirt by organisms that is liable for the gritty taste of beets. Different vegetables like mushrooms, spinach, and lettuce additionally have elevated degrees of geosmin. That being said, assuming you love mushrooms and spinach, you will in all likelihood cherish beets.

What Do Simmered Beets Have an aftertaste like? Broiling draws out the concentrated kind of beets, adding a sweet taste to the beets while eliminating their hearty, soil like taste. Along these lines, cooked beets generally taste sweet, with just barely a touch of harshness.

It is not difficult to make broiled beets, which are a superb fixing in numerous recipes. This cycle requires about an hour for entire huge beets, however cutting them into wedges or quarters speeds up the broiling time.

Red Beets Versus Brilliant Beets The distinction among red and brilliant beets is negligible, so they can fill in for each other on the off chance that tone isn't an issue. Nonetheless, there are a few distinctions significant.

Red beets have adjusted to praise shape and a little taproot stretching out from its end. They turn delicate and delicate in the wake of cooking and have a sweet, hearty taste.

Then again, brilliant beets are different beets that need red shades and have a semi-harsh skin. They are round with an unpredictable, level shape, and their foundations are associated with their long, fresh green stems.

Red beets have a more unpleasant surface than gold beets, so it is gentler to strip and cut brilliant beets than red beets.

Brilliant beets taste marginally milder and better than red beets however have a less natural taste than their red partners. Consequently, on the off chance that you could do without red beets that much, there is a generally excellent possibility that you will cherish brilliant beets.

Ultimately, red beets drain while brilliant beets don't.

[ank01-fan]

15 Healthy Smoothie Recipes You'll Want to Drink Every Day

Short on time? Looking for a way to pack more nutrients into your day? These healthy smoothie recipes are the perfect solution!

What Goes Into Healthy Smoothie Recipes?

Smoothies are such a great way to get a nutrient-dense meal! They’re packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. But unfortunately, not all smoothies are created equal. It can be really easy for the sugar content to climb up to 50 grams in just one smoothie. That sugar can come from whole foods like fruits or even added sugars. As a result, a blood sugar spike is caused, which will leave most of us feeling less than our best overall. Whether it causes a crash in energy or makes you feel hungry not long after drinking it. Healthy smoothie recipes contain protein, starchy carbohydrates, non-starchy carbohydrates (like greens), and nourishing fats. To do this, you use what I call the Foundational Five. A Foundational Five Nourish Meal is any meal that contains all 5 elements within the Foundational Five formula. This includes non-starchy carbohydrates, starchy and sugary carbohydrates, fat, protein, and the Flavor Factor. If you’re not familiar with my Foundational Five system yet, you can download my free guide where I share more about it! By following this simple template it keeps food flexible, fun, and nourishing. Our Foundational Five Nourish Meals can be found as smoothies or smoothie bowls, yogurts, oatmeal bowls or breakfast bowls, nourish bowls, salads, soups, stews, and many more. All of the healthy smoothie recipes below contain these components to make sure each one is packed with the nutrients you need to feel your best!

The Nutrition Stripped Community’s Favorite Healthy Smoothie Recipes

These recipes are the favorites from the Nutrition Stripped community! You can make them as smoothies or bowls. If you make them as a bowl, be sure to try my Smoothie Bowl Sprinkle for a crunch topper! Almond Butter Pink Beet Smoothie If you’re a fan of beets, you’ll love this different way of including them in your weekly meal plan. Beets are great to incorporate into our diets for anti-inflammatory and detoxification benefits. They have also been shown to lower high blood pressure and improve both digestive health and athletic performance. Strawberry Banana Smoothie I don’t know why this classic combination of bananas and strawberries is so great, but these two flavors pair so well together. What makes this particular smoothie extra nutritious is all of the antioxidants! It’s packed with phytonutrients like anthocyanins, tannins, flavonols, resveratrol, ellagic acid, and catechins from the strawberries alone. Warming Pumpkin Spice Smoothie Warming spices include anything from fresh ginger and ground cinnamon, to black pepper, cayenne, garlic, and horseradish. You can easily add these spices to any of your savory or sweet dishes such as soup, dips, stir-fry, frittata, or a smoothie like this one. The great thing about this smoothie recipe is that it’s also rich in fiber from the pumpkin!  Strawberry Blueberry Kefir Smoothie for Gut Health This smoothie contains all whole-food ingredients that support your digestive health! From kefir (which is a fermented probiotic beverage) and yogurt, to ground flax seeds, beans, and berries. You can thank these ingredients for this smoothie’s amazing fiber and antioxidant content!

Ginger Strawberry Smoothie If you’re not a fan of super sweet smoothies, this one’s for you. The addition of ginger in this healthy smoothie recipe balances out the sweetness of the strawberries. It’s also a great way to give your regular strawberry smoothie a little change! 5-Minute Spinach Smoothie Spinach is loaded with iron, calcium, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, and fiber. It’s a great food item to be eating daily! I’m sharing not only one of my favorite spinach smoothie recipes, but I’m also giving you a template for mixing and matching all of the ingredients. That way you can have slight variations of this smoothie all summer long! The Stripped Green Smoothie The Stripped Green Smoothie is simply a high-quality, nutrient-dense, easily-digestible green smoothie. It’s simply made of organic raw vegetables, greens, and fruits. You can get very creative with using whatever greens and fruits you have in season! Blueberry Banana Crunch Smoothie Bowl This Blueberry Banana Crunch Smoothie Bowl is packed with antioxidants! You have the blueberries and crunchy homemade granola to thank for that. You don’t see it and you won’t taste it, but this healthy smoothie recipe is packed with greens, too! Matcha Mango Smoothie Green tea, especially matcha, offers a smooth, subtle energy boost. It does contain caffeine, but not as much as coffee, making it a great alternative for people who are sensitive to caffeine. Just as you can enjoy matcha in a frothy morning latte, it can also be used in your morning smoothie. This combines the best of both worlds for a quick and nourishing breakfast to take with you out the door! Creamy Ginger Smoothie  This is my go-to smoothie in the spring when I want something filling, but also “light” on my digestion. It also helps to keep my energy levels up when I’m out and about, writing or shooting content. The squeeze of lemon juice and added ginger are great for digestion. Plus, all those healthy fats from the avocado will keep you feeling full, keep your hormones balanced, and keep your skin glowing. Beauty Green Smoothie This smoothie is loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and antioxidants. More specifically, those I target for great skin, hair, and nail health in my daily routine. Not only are you nourishing your skin on a cellular level with this smoothie, but it’s also simple to make and tastes amazing! Coconut Berry Smoothie This smoothie will make you feel like you’re at a tropical resort! Coconut is the star of this recipe, giving the smoothie plenty of healthy fat, fiber, and flavor. Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie This smoothie tastes so good that it could be a dessert! The healthy fats, fiber, and antioxidants make it a nourishing choice for any time of the day.   Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie This classic combination of flavors is super satisfying and beyond simple to whip together! Odds are, you have all of these pantry staples on hand already, so you’re free to enjoy this easy peanut butter banana smoothie whenever the mood strikes. Triple Berry Smoothie This is one of my favorite tasting smoothies! It’s sweet from bananas, tangy from the raspberries, and the texture is thick and smooth! Not to mention, this smoothie is very kid-friendly! Anyone opposed to adding “greens” to their drinks will love it. You can’t even taste it here!

Which Healthy Smoothie Recipe Will You Try Next?

The fun part about healthy eating is finding new foods and recipes you love that make it easy and enjoyable for you to eat nutrient-dense meals. So, which one of these healthy smoothie recipes are you going to try next? Pick one to make this week and see if you find a new favorite!

Do You Want to Experience More Balance with your Food Choices?

Then find your balanced eating type! Take this 45-second free quiz to find out which balanced eating archetype you are, and what your unique type needs to maintain balance with the way you nourish yourself. That way, you can finally be free from food and diet obsession, maintain a balanced weight, and cultivate a positive relationship with food and your body.  Take The Free Quiz Now Read More Source by Read the full article

[eirist]

Little Bits and Pieces of Heaven

ATTIRE ON FIRE

One-shot #: 26

Disclaimer: One Piece (and its characters) belongs to Eiichiro Oda-sensei.

Reminder: I have no beta-reader. Any grammatical and spelling errors are solely mine.

Warning: OOC possible. One shot.

Rating: T (Slight suggestions)

Note: I’m kinda on a scribble roll here. Well actually, I’m trying to lessen my files. This idea came from an SBS that I read a few years back. I already drafted this one-shot right after that and forgot about it.

Summary: All of a sudden he was standing directly in front of her, looking down at her with a glint in his grey eye that tells her he’s gonna get retribution.

"Alright. Wear this!"

Something suddenly hit Zoro's face without warning. Cursing, he made a grab for it and an irritated expression appeared on his normally stoic face. He stared at the shirt in his hand before shifting half of his gaze to the orange-haired girl across him.

"Why?"

"Because," Nami placed both of her hands on her hips before pointing at the clothes he hastily threw on before running out of the men’s quarters after he heard her screeching his name. "Everything on you hurts my eyes!"

Zoro looked down at what he is wearing and frowned. "Then don't look!" He growled angrily before throwing the shirt right back at her face.

Nami let out a yelp when it hit her. She pulled the cloth away from her face before marching towards him.

"You are changing your clothes Zoro!" She forcefully shoved the shirt back into his arms, earning her a disgruntled ‘oi’. "I won't have you walking with me like this one big, fashion disaster that you are!" She gestured from his head down to his toes with one hand. “Unless you are trying to be a tree, I don’t know how you can think that that green and brown color combination will work!”

"The hell I care about how I look!" The tall lad snapped at her.

There was a pause and navigator's eyes narrowed into tiny, dangerous slits. And everyone who was outside the Sunny’s deck swore that at that very moment the sky turned dark and ominous as lightning flashed and thunder rumbled—a foreboding sign.

Zoro met Nami’s gaze directly, unflinchingly. Petty things like clothes don’t bother him at all. As long as there is something to wear no matter how ugly it is, he doesn’t give any shit about it.

Besides, like he’d let her have her way. Again. He already agreed to accompany her to town and be her pack mule for the day. And that was after she interrupted his post-lunch nap with all her shrieking.

Wasn’t that enough already?

"You. Are. Changing." Nami hissed through gritted teeth, punctuating each word threateningly.

“No. I’m. Not.” Zoro answered back, folding his arms across his chest with a huff.

"You are changing,” Nami repeated tautly. “Or I swear I'm gonna call Robin and have her use her devil fruit powers to pin you down while I change your clothes for you!"

Zoro look astounded for a second. Did she just threaten him with Robin?

Now this is something new. Whatever happened to the usual debt threats Nami loves subjecting him to?

Regardless, like hell he's gonna let the Hana Hana no mi user lay her multiple hands on him.

“Come on Nami, you can do better than that,” he snorted. “Now you’re using that gloomy woman to—”

“Ara, how rude…” Robin cut him off suddenly as she entered the room.

Zoro stiffened despite himself. After all, the story of Franky’s first-hand experience from Robin’s power was enough to give any Mugiwara man nightmares.

Even if that happened two years ago.

The archeologist glanced momentarily at the swordsman, her gaze piercing. Zoro did his best not to move or make another sound lest she breaks his neck.

Nami caught his reaction and a menacing smile appeared on her face. “Robin!” She exclaimed chirpily. “You’re just right on time!”

“Need help Nami?” With an ominous smile gracing her beautiful face, Robin inquired as she headed towards her side of the bed. “Is Zoro giving you trouble?”

Zoro glared scathingly at her. He opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself right in time.

Nami eyes met Zoro’s as she answered smugly. “Yes he is!” Her gaze dared the green-haired man to contradict her.

It was Zoro’s turn to grit his teeth at her. But he still he held his tongue. He learned long ago never to butt heads with two women at the same time.

One is enough. And he already had his hands full with Nami. He didn’t need Robin joining the navigator in making his life more miserable in the ship. Though Robin is sensible most of the times… but she does have this weird affinity for scaring the shit out of her nakamas for her own amusement.

“Need a hand?” Robin coolly asked as she busily perused the pile of books on her night stand.

“No she doesn’t!” Zoro fiercely stated.

“Yes I do!” Nami answered at the same time.

Both glared daggers at each other as Robin chuckled. Oh, she’s used to it by now. After all, Zoro and Nami’s never-ending disagreements are always a source of entertainment on their ship.

“I don’t see what the hell is wrong with what I’m wearing.” Zoro finally grumbled.

Nami scowled in answer. “Everything.”

He snorted. “It’s just clothes woman.”

“An awful choice of clothes!”

“Why the hell do I need to dress up Nami?” Zoro complained, his tone cranky. “You’re just gonna use me as your pack mule for the day. Why do I need to look good for that?”

“I want my mule to look dashing.”

He scoffed. “Then take ero-cook! He does it better.”

Nami raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” she mouthed, a bit exaggeratedly. “So you admit there is something Sanji-kun’s better than you at?”

Silence.

And Robin fought the urge to giggle out loud. With the mention of their cook’s name, Zoro’s bound to hit the roof soon enough.

“That ero kappa will never be better than me at anything!” Zoro exploded.

“That’s not true, Sanji-kun’s better than you at cooking!”

Robin can actually feel Zoro seething from the other side of room. Trust Nami to rile him up so easily. Though she knows that after so much resistance (and shouting) from Zoro’s part… it will still end up the way it usually does. Their swordsman catering to Nami’s whims regardless of how inane it is.

Well, it’s actually good since there’s no need for her to use her powers. With how strong Zoro is, she doubts if she’ll be able to hold him down long enough.

That would be tiresome. She thought with an inward sigh.

Guess it’s just Zoro’s nature to go and face the enemy head on even if there’s no chance of winning.

With her chosen book in hand, the older woman turned to watch her friends. They are still glaring and gritting their teeth at each other. Robin took it as her cue to exit the room.

Whatever happens between her two nakamas after this, she’d rather not be caught across the crossfire no matter how amusing.

“Alright,” Nami suddenly sighed in a dejected manner, surprising Zoro when she gave up easily. “You can go and do whatever you want.”

Zoro stared at her in astonishment.

“I’ll just ask Sanji-kun to accompany me.” She began to tap a finger to her cheek as if she was thinking. "What was it that Luffy said?” Her brows furrowed as Zoro bristled, apparently aware of what was coming. “Oh! Worth a thousand men." She threw a sugar-sweet smile at Zoro. “Guess that is so true after all.”

That was all it took for Zoro to relent.

“Damn it! I’m changing alright!” Zoro barked as he shot Nami a venomous glare while the girl gave him a triumphant smirk that could rival a shark’s.

“Very good Zoro!” Nami gleefully nodded in approval, reveling at the fact that she won against the him for the umpteenth time. “Do it now. I promise I won’t peek.”

Zoro’s glare was enough to rival the coldness of Aokiji’s devil fruit powers.

And Robin just shook her head slightly at the already expected outcome.

“I’ll leave you two here,” she said with a small smile. Zoro was growling as he removed his shirt. Totally unbothered by their presence. “And Nami,” Robin called out to get the mapmaker’s attention who’s attention was fixed quite intently at the now stripping swordsman. We’ll be docking at the island’s port in half an hour according to Franky’s calculation.”

“If you have time, you can check if he is right.” She suggested, moving towards the room’s exit. A disembodied hand appeared to open the door’s knob even before she reached it.

“That is… if you’re not busy trying not to ‘peek’ while Zoro changes his clothes,” she said with a sly wink at Nami before exiting.

“ROBIN!” Nami all but screamed at her friend as the disembodied hand gave them a wave before closing the door and vanishing in a swirl of pinkish-white petals.

But not before surreptitiously locking it.

Nami turned beet red at that. Trust Robin to insinuate that and give Zoro something to tease her about.

A discarded shirt hit her. She scowled and her attention returned to the former pirate hunter who was unbuttoning his pants.

She glowered at him. “Don’t just strip down to your underwear like I’m not even here you moron! You could learn some modesty you know.”

“I don’t wanna hear that coming from you.” Zoro retorted before throwing his pants at her.

“HEY!”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re now being shy and all.” The grin on his face was vicious. “Besides, nothing here you haven’t seen before Nami.”

Blood rushed to her face at his statement. But definitely not because she was embarrassed or anything.

She didn’t answer and instead, grabbed the clothes she had picked for him earlier, throwing them at right at his face.

“Shut up and just get dressed Zoro. We’re wasting time!” She said with a huff. Kami knows how he needs direction with what is appropriate to wear just as how he needs direction with which way to go.

“I swear, you, Luffy and Chopper needs all the help you can get when it comes to fashion,” she muttered exasperatedly, as Zoro finished changing his clothes. She gave him a glance over and nodded approvingly. “That’s a heck lot better. You don’t look much of an eyesore now.”

“Oh good,” Zoro drawled sarcastically. “If this gets you off my back then I’m all for it.”

Nami beamed at him. “Glad we finally came to some kind of an agreement. If I get to dress you, then it would be less complaining from me, ne?”

Zoro remained passive at her declaration. “Great,” he grumbled rather sarcastically. “So you get to dress me now Nami?”

“If it makes you look better, then yes of course.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her before a smirk pulled at the corner of his lips. “Guess I have to return the favor then.”

Nami blinked. And when she realized what he was pertaining to she shook her head vehemently. “Oh no, no, no! You don’t get to dress me Zoro! Not in this life or the next!”

All of a sudden he was standing directly in front of her, looking down at her with a glint in his grey eye that tells her he’s gonna get retribution. “You’re mistaken.” He said with a sneer.

He stole a glanced on the room’s door that Robin conveniently locked earlier.

“What do you mean?”  

“You get to dress me? Then I get to undress you.”

Addendum: According to SBS Volume 37: Luffy, Zoro and Chopper cannot dress up on their own. If they do, it’s because either Sanji, Usopp, Nami or Robin is with them. It has merit. Remember that blue tank top in Skypiea that made Zoro look so hot? We have Nami to thank for that.

And Zoro does not really care about clothes and all but it’s just fun to play with this fact.

[dwellordream]

“...The woman was on the ascendant over the reformer. Separation from David grew more bitter as the nineteenth of October, their wedding anniversary, approached. She determined to be with him even if it meant borrowing the fare for the trip. Again she wrote to Loring: "It is better to be dead outright, as not to have somebody to love and somebody you've a right to love." John Hopper was one floor beneath her bedroom as she strained toward Northampton and her husband, and Maria was a woman more than usually affectionate and in need of her husband to counterbalance the pressures of New York and make her whole again. She tried to visualize David's face, but the image blurred and all she could see was a tall, stooped figure with deep lines where a face should be. She wanted him—she wanted to be alone with him in that ugly shanty they called home. There were too many pricks and prods in New York for her to remain stable. 

Desperately she wrote again to Loring: What shall I do? The temptation is to quit reform but that is of the devil, for there is clearly more work for me to do in that field. I suppose I must go on casting a loving, longing look toward the star-keeping clouds of mysticism . . . while with busy hands, 1 row the boat of practical endeavor. I wish I were at one with myself. Always the two Marias. She dreamed of stars and love until a chill of mood thudded her straight to earth. Whenever she could, she had sent Loring as her Boston attorney a few dollars toward lifting David's burden of debt to her father, and she had asked the lawyer to get a receipt each time from Mr. Francis, because the old gentleman's memory was not to be trusted and she would not want James ever again to be able to say that the Childs had not tried to pay what they owed. The nineteenth of October drew closer; no salary and no story payment appeared, and she still needed the carfare. 

She borrowed it at last from James Gibbons, wrote enough editorial material for the Standard for her absence, and set out for Northampton brimming with love and excitement. Home fell far short of her hopes. David was thin and worn, the house more dreadful than ever, and she spent half of her holiday in trying to straighten out both problems. David's coats were out at the elbows and his toes poked through his stockings and she had not time enough to go out to the bam to see the new calves. Evidently David himself was beginning to live like an animal, what with neglect of his home and self. He had used up most of the provisions without laying in more for the winter because, like the grasshoppers, he never worried about the future as far as his personal comfort was concerned. He just drifted. Maria or someone else would see to his necessities. How he had changed since she left! 

Nowadays, perhaps because he was run down and weary, he acted almost bored by her flights of mysticism or her accounts of the Hoppers. She blamed the farm with its vile odor of rotted beet scum, cooking sugar, and his odious routine for the loss of his affection. Was it possible that he was content to live out here with rough workmen and beasts—he, a scholar of the classics—while her need to seek beauty was as strong as ever? Had they drifted so far apart? She clung to the memory of Roxbury and of their courtship and tried to feel that nothing had changed. She found a colored "goody" to clean, wash, and cook for him, give him one good hot meal daily and watch over the new stock of supplies so that he would not give them away. Then Maria attacked the house like a whirlwind. She stripped the rooms of the last ornaments rather than leave them to the dust, and her eyes smarted as she put her bits of wedding silver into a little horsehair trunk under the rafters. 

The stellar lamps, Emily Marshall's gift of long ago, went into a wooden case wrapped in an old flannel petticoat. David would probably not notice the ordinary oil lamps she substituted. Cobwebs streamed from the prisms in the window, but there were no rainbows. She unhooked each piece of glass, wrapped it in old Standard pages, and packed it in the lamp case. She hung David's winter clothes in the sun to air, brushed the seams of his one good brown coat, flung tiny bags of camphor and crumbled tobacco into every dark corner, scrubbed out the kitchen cupboard with soap and extra lye, and laid fresh newspapers on the shelves, opened doors and windows to the air on clear days while the cat and kittens were shooed off a pile of clothes she wanted to rehabilitate. By the time she left, the place smelled clean and sweet. Her burst of energy boosted her morale and she prophesied that she would not allow David to get into such a foul state again no matter what. 

John was waiting on the pier when she got back, but the first sight of New York in November slush plunged her back into depression and re-emphasized her determination to shorten her exile from David. Those weeks at home had sharpened the ache of longing for her husband and her ambition to earn enough so that he could keep his horrid farm if that was truly his wish. She would simply have to bury her own silly dreams. She almost forgot poor John's existence while, night after night, she wrote until her cramped fingers could not hold the pen. She met deadlines for the Standard and for the Courier while she wrote stories, articles, and essays for any periodical that would buy them. The sun barely glimmered on the rooftops before she was at work. Sleep was a waste of time; she barely took the necessary minutes to comb her hair. There was one interruption that she never questioned. Every so often, when all the city was asleep, a knock on the front door brought her hurrying down the stairs

Whispers, muffled sobs, and the creaking of the cellar door echoed in the darkness. Sounds carry in the night. Alert and ready, she tiptoed down with a bundle of clothes and a packet of food to pass on to the shivering fugitives in the cellar. The Hopper house was an important link in the Underground Railway System, and in the flickering candlelight Maria and John helped to dress and disguise the wretched runaways for their rush to the docks where a ship would carry them to freedom. Maria forgot her own weariness during these hectic hours, and the danger shared brought her close to John once more. The emotional pit was yawning wide again but fortunately she was too busy to notice his mournful expression. She seldom went to theaters or public functions any more because, for one thing, the dramatic offerings were too sensational for her taste.

…This was an irritable Maria, made more so by all the old reasons plus a few new ones, including a case of severe eyestrain brought on by overwork. Her eyes were so sore that she was waspish to those who had known only her gentler side, even to Abby Gibbons' children, who had become accustomed to running to her with all their little problems. A doctor told her that her retina was inflamed and that she must rest. Rest! Of all stupid prescriptions. How could she rest? Yet pinpricks of fire maddened her with each blink, her eyes streamed, her nose was stuffed, her pockets bulged with wet wads of handkerchiefs, and the pain was so bad that she wished she could die. She tried to cut down on the work by doing only what was necessary for each day, but her New England conscience pricked as hard as her eyes. To leave undone for tomorrow what she might do today was a sin. 

Besides, if she were not visibly busy, John popped in with offers of fruit, sweets, and pleadings for her company. It was not much comfort to know that her eye complaint raged as an epidemic, that William Page, the artist, could not paint, and that Longfellow was unable to put a word onto paper. The doctors prescribed the same cure for all of them—to rest, and since Maria could not afford to follow his advice, she unearthed one of her old homeopathic cures. She bathed her eyes in weak, lukewarm salt water morning and night, and used a salve of sulphate of zinc. She rested when she could, and John, ever undiscouraged and kind, brought "flowers and music with unwearied love and the ever-ready sympathy of a generous heart." This, plus more sleep and the avoidance of work by lamplight, lessened the soreness and improved her health and disposition to the point that she was ready to joke about her breakdown and threaten to raise a small statue to Zinc. 

Once she was really better she faced the reality that work alone had not caused her trouble but that the Standard bitterness was part of the fault. David, in fact, urged her to give up the job at once; and James Gibbons, who had sacrificed his personal family comfort to keep the paper going, was as disgusted as she with the political trend toward Third Partyism among abolitionists and the ambition for power that certain of the leaders showed. Maria felt caught between the factions and said that the unpalatable position in which she was held was "just too much for one little woman." The praise that readers heaped on her "Letters from New York " made up for much of the acidity which the Garrisons and Chapmans had hurled at her. Dr. Channing wrote to her: I have been delighted to see in your "Letters from New York" such sure marks of a fresh, living spirit, to see that the flow of genial, noble feeling has been in no way checked by the outward discouragement of life. 

He could not have chosen a better encouragement and she set out with redoubled energy to make her "Letters " live. She covered every corner of the city, from prisons to church meetings, from phrenological experiments to valentines. Because of her outgoing sincerity, people told her anything she asked, and she in turn found them jobs, clothes, or food if they needed them. Sometimes her reports were fantasy and moonlight, but a keen eye could discern propaganda for Women's Rights, temperance, and abolition neatly interlarded. She told James Russell Lowell: I am a reformer being constrained thereto by conscience, but please, henceforth never think of me thus. If antislavery made me take a particle less interest in the sad music of the moon, the birth and death of flowers, and above all, the rosecolored dreams of youthful love, I would abjure it tomorrow, even at the risk of the Calvinistic hell for my disobedience to conscience. 

Her radicalism offended many, but as ever, when Maria wanted to make a point, she cared not whom she hit. She denounced city councilmen and the wealthy men of New York for the number of prostitutes in the city prisons. The men who made them such, these men live in "ceiled houses" of Broadway and sit in Council in the City Hall and pass regulations to clear the streets they have filled with sin. She sympathized with the poor ignorant girls who were reduced to crime and debauchery because men had made them promises they did not keep. Maria's most popular story of this period was about such a girl, a foolish youngster whose head was turned by the attentions of a handsome nobleman until she stole silk to make herself a dress worthy of him and was sent to prison. It was a true story; she got her facts from the prison files and from Friend Hopper who, after making the young man pay for the girl's mistake, saw to it that she had a fresh start in life and made a successful marriage. 

"The Umbrella Girl," which first appeared in a "Letter," found a place in other magazines and annuals, and was read and cried over by hundreds of sentimentalists who were sure it could not be true. The "upper ten thousand," if they had believed her work, would have disdained it, for they certainly did not want to be reminded of the disagreeable aspects of their town. Wrapped in furs, they sleighed down the margins of Broadway or danced at fantastically elaborate balls until the sun came up. The Boz Ball in honor of Charles Dickens, on which affair the committee spent thousands of dollars to prove to the writer that Americans could be civilized, was a boomerang, because Dickens remarked that the money could better have been used on the Five Points, an area so foul that "debauchery makes the very houses look old." His hosts of the ball weakly countered that Dickens' manners could stand improvement even though he was an Englishman. 

Maria's heart warmed toward Dickens for his exposé of Five Points where she had observed the filth and misery he so condemned. When a cartoonist sketched Boz dancing at the Points with, as the caption read, a "great, splay-footed nigger," she and Dickens were both pleased because the satire revealed that the Englishman's criticism had hit home. The Ladies' Companion, edited by Mrs. Sigourney, carried an editorial on Dickens' Notes on America: His indignant remarks on slavery are the effects of a lack of education. He had neither the time (when here) nor the judgement to acquire a thorough knowledge on this important subject and therefore may be considered as crude and prejudiced in the extreme. It was at the Five Points that Dickens had seen how the Northern free Negro had to live—furtive, filthy, and unwanted. 

Dickens was part of the great surge of humanitarianism of the mid-nineteenth century, as was Maria Child. The public generally must have been receptive of Maria's stories, many of which were full of loathsome detail of crime and disease, would not have found so ready a market. Or was it her chatty style of journalism on contemporary scenes and events? The New York papers copied her "Letters" from the Courier and the new Tribune used them to advance grotesque little Horace Greeley's plans for social reform. That pint-sized dynamo was impatient to get things done, especially in Five Points, and used her colorful copy as spadework to impress politicians and philanthropists. On Christmas Day Maria and James Gibbons went to the Points with baskets on tbeir arms. As they walked, the church bells at St. Marks rang out Christmas greetings and neighbors called good cheer from house to house. 

During the half-mile stroll, they caught whiffs of delicious roasts and Christmas puddings. The air was crisp and dry, the sky was blue, and Christmas walked with them. How different when they reached the Points—intersection of White, Bayard, Elm, Canal, and Pearl streets, where the grog shop stood and grimy little boys kicked at the drunkards that lay in the gutter. Cold though it was, the area stank and beggars lolled in their rags in the doorways. Mr. Gibbons doled out cakes from his basket to children who had never tasted sweets before, let alone had a whole piece to themselves, while Maria tried not to show how she shrank from their sore and scabby touch. Sharp blows from his contemporaries stopped any child who tried to grab for more than his share, and parents, dazed by kindness that was foreign to Points way of life, simply stared. One poor Irish father rubbed his head and exclaimed: "Did my eyes ever see the likes o' that? A gintleman givin' cakes to folks he don't know and niver askin' for a bit o' money for the same." 

Gibbons and Maria, with her full basket, went into one of the tenements where the wind whistled through the walls, but the atmosphere was "morally and physically . . . like an open tomb." A mother lay on the floor with her three-day-old baby wrapped in borrowed rags, and, while the child wailed with a thin cry, a neighbor fed its mother a greasy, gray broth with the only spoon in the house. Maria shivered in her own shabby cloak, unloaded her entire basket on the spot, and hurried out with a promise to return soon with help. She thought her lungs would burst of the stench and her heart with pity, but she went back later in the day fully loaded with warm blankets, food, and baby clothes. Her Christmas ramble resulted in an effectively sad "Letter," but she could not fall asleep that night. In the darkness she saw a procession of bony babies and haggard parents, cold, starving, and so alone in the great city. 

…It was an exciting time to be in the city, but even so, Maria could not fill the void of homesickness for the New England way of life. The Hoppers' new house on Grand Street was larger and more comfortable than the burned one but it still gave Maria no space of her own to entertain. Mr. Hopper was genial enough and glad to welcome her friends, but she craved the flights of fancy in her conversation, far too exotic for that plainest of Friends, whose conversation, like his furniture, was solid and unadorned. When Whittier or the others from home came to see her, they waited bolt upright on the black horsehair sofa in the parlor until she put on her bonnet and then escorted her to the Tappans' or other mutual friends. Maria's domestic leanings were frustrated with no parlor of her own but she enjoyed Whittier's company whenever and wherever she saw him. The poet, with his burning eyes and helpless air, had a way about him that women could not resist and his frail health gave Maria an excuse to mother him. 

His blend of poesy and practicality was exactly the right diet for her, for Whittier combined reform, poetry, and politics satisfactorily. He and Maria spent evenings with Lewis Tappan and Charles Marriot, another Friend who had been disowned by the Cherry Street group, mulling over antislavery problems, encouraging Maria's Standard policy, and wondering at the increasing factionalism in the antislavery partisans. They were terribly concerned over a rift that daily loomed more unavoidable. The men tried to compliment Maria for her editorial work possibly with the thought, malewise, that a few kind words were all she needed to keep her going, but they could not have been more mistaken. Other visitors to Grand Street were the Osgoods, neighbors from Roxbury. Maria wrote to Loring: "Mr. Osgood had a delicate moustache resting on his chin like a fairy moss which a zephyr had wafted there and might blow off again . . . rather a ghost of a moustache," the only light note in her mail for weeks. 

Reminders of Roxbury and the old, uncomplicated days of her marriage dispirited her further, and she wondered if she had sacrificed her happiness for a misdirected purpose, if the golden-haired Mrs. Chapman, who had urged her in the beginning to "pour oil on troubled waters" of the Standard and now was all for controversy, was the true reason for Garrison's loss of interest in the paper. Mrs. Chapman obviously had him under her thumb. Maria had formerly considered Mrs. Chapman one of the most remarkable women of her time and had been amused when Harriet Martineau had described her as being very tall. "Miss Martineau evidently measured her by the soul," Maria commented then, but the picture was distorted now and Maria said that Mrs. Chapman was Garrison's "evil genius and acted her own plans through him and that she could magnetize the Devil himself." Whittier, though he appreciated beautiful women, no longer spoke to Garrison's "evil genius" at all. 

The most welcome visitor of all should have been David, and would have been too, if he had not brought disagreeable news—the forced sale of their furniture and most of their personal belongings for bankruptcy. All the things she had so carefullly packed away were gone except for her love rings and a few books. The farm was there but it remained in her father's name. David brought bad news and found a packet of it for him on his arrival. It began to appear that the Standard itself might have to suspend publication because the accounts showed that even with the increased circulation there was not enough backlog for salary arrears for the printers and typesetters. Maria's argument was that the paper could succeed with a business manager, one who knew efficient business practice, not she with her head half in the clouds of mysticism. She refused to go on with the job no matter how Gibbons and the others connected with the paper pleaded with her. "I am willing," she said, "to take any kind of position as long as it has no connection with the antislavery treadmill." 

She finally agreed to stay on until a new editor-manager could be found and then go back to free-lance writing. The editorial experience had taught her to keep free of organized reform. She lashed at Mrs. Chapman: In the first place I feel no vexation. I know not where you received the impression that I was so sensitive to the opinion of others. I care not the turning of a copper whether the Channingites or the Quakers approve my course or not—and I care as little whether the Chapmanites and the Garrisonites . . . give me a blowing up. I am glad they should do it if it is any relief to their minds. Every day I live, I thank God more and more that He gives me the power and the will to be an individual. No Philothea, no mysticism, no moonbeams here but an angry, determined woman. David had never seen his wife behave so. Her illness must have been worse than she had written to him, for her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy, her hair lusterless, and her hands given to quick, nervous flexing. 

She flushed and paled easily, while sudden noises made her shiver. He begged her to give up the job then and there but she had given her word; and besides, thanks to the bankruptcy, she wanted more than ever to try to salvage a part of the salary due her. David's deficiency in business matters was an undeniable fact, an "incurable flaw," as she confided to Mrs. Shaw. He, completely routed by her disappointment and disregard for his expressed wishes, went back to Massachusetts while she finished her stint on the paper. After he left she discovered that Loring had withheld four hundred dollars which the Anti-Slavery Society had finally raised to help out the Childs. He had held it back to keep David from using it for experiments. Maria demanded furiously that Loring send it on immediately and allow her in the future to make her own decisions about her money. 

She flared that her purpose in working in New York had been to help David, "the best and kindest of husbands," and that their immediate need for cash was to settle old accounts, not to set up new experiments. She was too fond of Loring to whip him verbally with the fact that the money might have saved some of her precious keepsakes from the auctioneer's hammer. Loring's implications stung her to think analytically, and a few days later she wrote to him to say that she had decided to separate her earnings from David's from then on "in self-defense to pursue my own way without reference to his whereabouts or whatabouts." Henceforth her husband would have to finance his bubbles himself. Bitterly she added, "Water pumped into a sieve for fourteen years is enough to break the most energetic spirit." 

John Hopper, her business adviser in New York, may have been slightly responsible for her change in attitude, for she made it clear all around that she hoped to resume her literary life to live permanently in New York in a household made up of David, John, and herself. She ignored what other people would think of this setup. She announced her resignation from the Standard in June, 1843, in explanation of her efforts to keep her promise of "diligence and fidelity and respect for the freedom of others"; and though she had made mistakes, none of them had originated in personal or partisan feeling. She reiterated her lack of faith in the political trend of the antislavery movement and complained that she personally had been pulled to pieces for the moderation she had practiced in preference to intrigue and duplicity. 

She regretted that she had pleased no one, not even those to whom she was most sympathetic. In closing she said: To those friends who have urged me to remain at the post which from the beginning had been most irksome to me, I return cordial thanks for their kind and encouraging words. To all their arguments I briefly answer that the freedom of my own spirit makes it absolutely necessary for me to retire. I am too distinctly an individual to edit the organ of any association. That was to be her valedictory. Her hurt was deep and she turned her back on the Standard and vowed never to write another line for it. She was done with the dreary round of the "demnition grind."”

- Helene G. Baer, “The Demnition Grind.” in The Heart Is Like Heaven: The Life of Lydia Maria Child

[didanawisgi]

The Stevia Myth

Dr. Bruce Fife

“When I first learned about stevia years ago, I was excited. Finally, here was a sweetener derived from an herb rather than from some chemist’s laboratory. It was a product of nature and not of man, so it had to be good. Since it contained no sugar, it was believed to have no effect on blood sugar levels and could be safely used by diabetics. It was many times sweeter than sugar so you only needed a tiny amount to give foods the same sweetness as sugar but without all the calories. It seemed like a dieter’s dream.

Marketers promoted stevia as a natural, herbal sweetener that could help control blood sugar, ease sugar cravings, aid in weight loss, and improve digestive health. It had an exotic appeal because it was derived from a rare herb found only in the wilds of South America. Stevia took on the persona of a natural, wholesome sweetener that was a far healthier choice than sugar or artificial sweeteners.

I was whisked away by all the hype and believed, like many others, that stevia was a wholesome natural sweetener that promoted good health. Stevia was added to my diet at home and I encouraged others to use it in place of sugar or artificial sweeteners. I developed many recipes using it.

However, I began to notice side effects with stevia that concerned me. I began to wonder if stevia was really as wholesome and healthy as promoters claim. This prompted me to look beyond the hype and delve into the science to uncover the facts. What I found shocked me! Much of the information we are told about stevia is more marketing hype than truth. The more I researched, the more I discovered that most of what we believe about stevia is simply not true – they’re myths and misconceptions created by promoters trying to sell a product.

Through my research, I have found many problems with stevia, more than I can include in this article, but I would like to highlight six major myths and give you the facts, all of which are verified by published medical studies and plain old common sense.

Myth 1: Stevia is harmless because it comes from a plant

Herbs are natural, harmless, and often beneficial right? That’s the image marketers give us and we have fallen for that lie hook, line, and sinker. Just because something comes from a plant does not make it wholesome or harmless.

There are many natural substances that are poisonous or otherwise harmful. Have you ever experienced the consequences of touching the leaf of a poison ivy plant or felt the pain of stinging nettle? Many poisons, such as cyanide and ricin, are derived from plants. Many dangerous drugs also come from plants.

Simply because stevia is derived from a plant does not make it harmless, let alone healthful.

Myth 2: Stevia is an herbal sweetener

We’ve all been told that stevia is an “herbal” sweetener. Nothing can be further from the truth. The sweetener that is sold in stores shares no resemblance to the stevia plant. In fact, these sweeteners should not even be called stevia, but by their chemical names rebaudioside A and stevioside. It’s all a part of the misconception that stevia marketers use to deceive the public.

The stevia sweetener you buy in the store cannot be called an herb or even a natural product; it is a highly processed, refined, purified chemical. The sweetness of stevia comes from chemicals called steviol glycosides. In the refining process, all of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, essential oils, and other plant components are stripped away leaving purified steviol glycosides. Some manufactures purify their products into individual steviol glycosides, primarily rebaudioside A and stevioside.

Stevia is no more natural than is sugar or cocaine. Sugar is extracted and refined from sugar beets. Cocaine is extracted and refined from cocoa leaves. Likewise, stevia sweetener is extracted and refined from stevia leaves. To call stevia an “herbal” sweetener is like calling sugar a “vegetable” sweetener because it comes from beets.

Like sugar and cocaine, purified stevia extract forms a white crystalline powder. It has no resemblance to the original herb in any way, shape, or form. It is more like a drug than it is an herb. It’s most potent drug-like effect is its sweetness, which is 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar.

Myth 3: Stevia is not addictive

One of the major problems with sugar is that it is addicting. In fact, studies have shown that it is just as, and even more addicting than cocaine. For example, when lab rats are given free access to both cocaine and sugar, they prefer sugar over cocaine. Even rats who are already addicted to cocaine quickly switch their addiction to sugar as soon as they are offered a choice.1

People, too, become addicted to sugar. That is one of the reasons why we have an obesity epidemic. Like cocaine, sugar triggers pleasure centers in the brain that drive us to eat sweets and encourage us to overindulge. Haven’t you ever eaten a piece of chocolate and then just had to have another and another? You just had to eat more even though you knew you had eaten enough. When you ignore sound judgment and make decisions based on cravings, you are addicted.

The addiction to sugar is not isolated to just sugar, but extends to all non-caloric sweeteners as well. It is not as much a “sugar” addiction as it is a “sweet” addiction. We become addicted to the sweetness rather than to sugar itself. Non-caloric sweeteners trigger the same pleasure centers in the brain that sugar does and causes the same cravings and addictions.

Researchers tested rats using saccharine, which is completely different chemically from sugar. The results were the same. The type of sweetener didn't matter, it was the sweet taste that triggers the powerful effect, not the type of sweetener or the specific chemical makeup of the sweetener. Stevia has the same effect. When rats are given the choice between saccharine or stevia, their preference for stevia is just as strong as it is for saccharin.2

Addiction to stevia was one of the characteristics I first noticed. People would switch their addiction from sugar or aspartame to stevia once they began using it. Instead of eating desserts and junk foods sweetened with sugar, they were eating the same types of foods sweetened with stevia. And they had the same cravings for sweets. Stevia does not curb your sweet tooth at all, it feeds it, keeping sugar cravings and addictions alive and active.

Myth 4: Stevia aids in weight loss

Most people use stevia to eliminate the calories from sugar and reduce their total calorie consumption as a means to lose or maintain their weight. Yet, those people who use it are not very successful with weight loss, and those who do manage to lose weight, work very hard at it and must reduce their total calorie intake drastically, making their weight loss journey a constant, unpleasant struggle. The simple truth of the matter is that stevia and other non-caloric sweeteners do not aid in weight loss, but promote weight gain!

Studies show that when people add non-caloric sweeteners into their diets, they tend to gain weight, not lose it. This is clearly demonstrated with those people who drink diet sodas. This effect isn’t because people with weight problems tend to drink diet soda and so are more susceptible to weight gain. Even normal weight people who drink diet sodas gain weight more rapidly than those who drink the same amount of regular soda.3

Animal studies have proven that non-caloric sweeteners, in comparison to sugar, lead to greater total calorie intake, greater weight gain, and increased body fat deposition. Several large scale human studies have found the same thing.4​ The type of non-caloric sweeter makes no difference; they all have the same weight promoting effect, including stevia.5

The reason for this is that sugar activates taste receptors on the tongue that relay messages to the brain and gastrointestinal tract to release hormones and prepare for the incoming sugar calories. When non-caloric sweeteners are consumed, they activate the same sweet taste receptors on the tongue and set into motion this same process. However, when the anticipated sugar calories don’t come, hunger is intensified, which encourages overeating and weight gain. There is also a metabolic effect. Sugar stimulates metabolism immediately after eating, non-caloric sweeteners do not. So after eating a meal containing non-caloric sweeteners, more of the calories are converted into fat and packed away in storage.6

Although non-caloric sweeteners all have different chemical properties, their effect on weight gain is the same. The reason has nothing to do with their chemical makeup, or whether they come from an herb or a laboratory, but has everything to do with their intense sweetness and their lack of calories. If weight loss is your goal, you would be better off consuming real sugar than you would stevia.

Myth 5: Stevia is good for digestive health

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is the home for trillions of microorganisms collectively called the gut microbiota. Some of these bacteria and yeasts are important to our health because they help digest food, produce vitamins, and support immune function, among other things. Some, however, are not so useful and if present in too large a number can disrupt the intestinal environment and wreak havoc on digestive function and overall health.

The overconsumption of sugar and sweets is believed to feed these potentially harmful microorganisms causing them to proliferate and disrupt the balance between the good and bad microbes. The theory is that replacing sugar with stevia will limit the amount of nourishment going to the bad bacteria, thus limiting their ability to grow and multiply, resulting in a healthier digestive tract. The major problem with this concept is the fact that both the so-called good and the bad microbes feed on the sugar and carbohydrates in the diet. So eliminating sugar “starves” the good bacteria just as much as the bad.

When you eat sugar, taste receptors trigger the release of hormones that prepare the GI tract for the incoming sugar calories. Non-caloric sweeteners produce the same response. After eating food containing non-caloric sweeteners, the GI tract is primed to receive an incoming load of sugar. When the anticipated sugar calories do not arrive, changes occur that cause a shift in the bacterial population in an unhealthy direction.

More than 90 percent of the bacterial species in the gut comes from just two major subgroups – Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. The percentage of these two types of bacteria greatly influences a person’s weight. Obese people have 50 percent more Firmicutes and 50 percent fewer Bacteroidetes than normal weight people. Firmicutes are better adapted to breaking down foods and extracting nutrients, which causes a higher percentage of calories to be removed from digesting food. They also influence genes causing a higher rate of these calories to be converted into fat and stored in the body.7 For this reason, some people refer to Firmicutes as the obesity bacteria. The more Firmicutes you have living in your gut, the more likely you are to be overweight or obese.

Studies have clearly demonstrated that consuming non-caloric sweeteners increases Firmicutes and decreases Bacteroidetes populations in the gut, thus promoting obesity.8Researchers can take fecal samples from obese mice and transplant them into normal weight mice and cause them to become obese as well. They can also cause normal weight mice to become obese by feeding them food containing non-caloric sweeteners in place of sugar. The same thing occurs in humans. All non-caloric sweeteners, including stevia, have this effect.

Stevia disrupts the normal gut environment leading to metabolic changes that promote weight gain and alters normal digestive function.

Myth 6: Stevia is good for diabetics because it does not affect blood sugar

You would think that replacing sugar, that strongly affects blood glucose levels, with a non-caloric sweetener, which has little effect, would be of benefit to diabetics. For this reason, stevia has been promoted as a better choice than sugar for diabetics. While stevia has little effect on blood sugar levels directly, its long-term effects greatly increases the risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.

Most non-caloric sweeteners, including stevia, are not easily broken down or digested. This is the reason why they do not provide any calories. This may sound good to people who want to reduce their calorie intake, but it causes a serious problem. When glucose enters the digestive tract it triggers the release of hormones that aids in its digestion and assimilation, as a consequence, glucose is quickly absorbed and removed from the intestines. This is why it has such a dramatic effect on raising blood sugar levels.

Stevia, and other non-caloric sweeteners, also trigger the release of these same hormones. However, since non-caloric sweeteners do not break down, they are not readily absorbed. They remain in the digestive tract for extended periods of time and continually trigger the release of hormones needed to process glucose.9 While eating stevia does not have much of an effect on blood sugar levels, it does exert an enormous effect within the GI tract. As stevia travels down the GI tract it continues to activate glucose receptors. Consequently, it has the same effect in the GI tract as that of downing massive quantities of glucose. This huge hormonal influx and corresponding lack of sugar calories causes changes in microbiota colonies, alters pH, disrupts insulin regulation, causes metabolic dysfunction, and promotes weight gain, leading to insulin resistance and an increased risk of developing diabetes. If someone is not diabetic, stevia use can make them more susceptible to developing it; if a person is prediabetic it can push them into full-blown diabetes; if they are already diabetic, it can make their condition even worse.

Stevia should never be used by anyone who is diabetic or who is concerned about becoming diabetic.

Now that you have the facts about stevia, you can make an informed choice whether to use it or not. This article only touches on some of the major problems with stevia and other non-caloric sweeteners. When you look at all of the evidence, it is revealed that stevia promotes weight gain, GI disorders, and diabetes to a greater extent than sugar does. If you would like a more detailed report with accompanying references to studies, I highly recommend you read my book The Stevia Deception: The Hidden Dangers of Low-Calorie Sweeteners.”

References

1. Magalle, L., et al. Intense sweetness surpasses cocaine reward. PLoS One 2007;8e698.

2. Sciafani, A, et al. Stevia and saccharin preferences in rats and mice. Chem Senses 2010;35:433-443.

3. Fowler, SP, et al. Fueling the obesity epidemic? Artificially sweetened beverage use and long-term weight gain. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2008;16:1894-1900.

4. Blum JW, et al. Beverage consumption patterns in elementary school aged children across a two-year period. J Am Coll Nutr 2005;24:93–98.

5. Swithers, SE, et al. High-intensity sweeteners and energy balance. Physiol Behav 2010;100:55-62.

6. Yang, Q. Gain weight by “going diet?” Artificial sweeteners and the neurobiology of sugar cravings. Yale J Biol Med 2010;83:101-108.

7. Ley, RE, et al. Microbial ecology: Human gut microbes associated with obesity. Nature 2006;444:1022-1023.

8. Suez, J, et al. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature2014;514:181-186.

9. Mace, OJ, et al. Sweet taste receptors in rat small intestine stimulate glucose absorption through apical GLUT2. J Physiol 2007;582(Pt 1):379-392.

About the Author

Dr. Bruce Fife

brucefife.jpg

Dr. Bruce Fife is a certified nutritionist and naturopathic physician. He is the author of more than 20 books including The Coconut Oil Miracle, The New Arthritis Cure, and Stop Alzheimer's Now!: How to Prevent and Reverse Dementia, Parkinson's, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders. He serves as the

[yeojaa]

SUGAR HIGH, chapter xv. (w. JJK)

You're not entirely sure when it happened, though you'd come to terms with it. You'd counted the days, waiting for the inevitable. You'd truly thought you'd be okay, but by the broken, half-beating thing in your chest - you knew you'd never really been prepared.

alt summary.  You thought you’d known real love and maybe you had - it just wasn’t with who you thought.

pairing.  jeon jungkook.  mentions/involvement of ot7.

tags.  angst, break up, post-break up, comfort, OT7, slow burn, friendship, moving on, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, emotional baggage, fluff, canon compliant, jeon jungkook is bad at feelings, jeon jungkook is a good friend, jeon jungkook is a sweetheart.

rating.  general (for now?)

word count.  1900

chapter 15.  Bandaids

Instead, he regards you with the most unfathomable expression he’s ever given.  “So what?”

“What’re you sorry for?”  He sounds so confused, every word dredged in the word.  His brow furrows, following the question that tips off his teeth and crashes against you.  His fingers flex in his lap, furl and unfurl in unconscious motions that immediately catch your attention.

You watch the way the ink moves over his skin, stretched taut over his knuckles and disappearing into the sleeve of his shirt.  You think to reach out and bottle the nervous energy, tuck it among your hidden words of affection and cobweb-lined shelves.  Instead, you shrink further into the side of the couch, gaze bouncing around the room.  It finds his face – briefly, with guilt – and then darts to the painting of his hung on the far wall.  Off it goes to his hands again, the silver that glints around his wrist, and then the hangnail adorning your own thumb.

The silence has stretched on, immeasurably long, but he doesn’t push you – as much as he wants to.

Not for your sake, but for his.  He’s walking on eggshells, terrified one false move might send a glass into his vein.  Shards of the home that’s been crumbling right before your eyes, reduced to ghost of its former glory.

“I’m sorry,”  you repeat as if it’s the only thing you can say – the only words you know how to speak.  Perhaps it is, because there doesn’t feel like there are any that can properly convey your emotion.

You owe it to him to try, though.  That much is clear.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”  Unless being too good, too kind, too perfect, was a crime.  You knew it wasn’t and yet, with each offer of patience – of unconditional love – it felt like a cleave to the heart.  It wasn’t his fault you were bleeding out before him.

The reassurance only serves to confuse him more, the emotion heavy in the pretty dark brown of his irises.  You both love and hate when he’s like this – not your precious best friend but a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  It doesn’t fit his boyish charm, the sunlight that spills out of every pore.  It’s too much.

“Then what’s going on?”  You’re both surprised by the hard edge and how it forces itself into the equation before he can even consider it.

Your eyes meet for the first time since you’ve sat down and you regret it immediately.

Because your dear sweet Jungkook has oceans in his eyes, moisture threatening to spill over like a crashing wave.  They’re so glassy you feel lost, trapped in the galaxy and the stars and unknown. 

How could you keep doing this?  Time after time, he’d sought you out and each time, you were nothing but a godforsaken mirage, promising him everything and stripping him bare.  When he needed you most, parched and on his last legs, you’d compelled and beguiled him only to leave him just as quickly.

When had you turned into this person?

The sound that escapes your chest isn’t human.  It’s hardly even a sound.  A breath that hasn’t quite formed and cracks itself in two, lodging one half in your lungs and the other over the threshold of your teeth.  How fitting – like a heart split in half.

You see the way he instinctively leans toward you, caught in your gravitational pull, but holds himself back at the last minute.  The movement almost reads like a flinch, as if he’s afraid he’ll hurt himself by getting too close.

That’s right, you think.  I’ll only hurt you.

Another sob comes, tearless and miserable.  You wish the burning behind your eyes would abate but they won’t come that easily.  The settle like poison and wine, corroding your insides.  They sink into every part of you, climbing each vertebrae and slotting into every crevice.  No part is left untouched by the miasma.

Except for the Jungkook-shaped hole in your chest, centered in the throbbing muscle of your heart.

His silhouette remains lily white and lovely – a silver lining.  A beacon in your darkest times, a lighthouse in the storm.  It calls to you and reminds you of better days, of unconditional love and soulmates.

“I love you.”  It’s meant to be an apology but to his ears, it’s the same three words you’ve repeated your whole life.  He doesn’t understand why you’re saying them now, on the precipice of coming apart at the seams, torn open by something you won’t share.

Regardless, he says it back.  Needs to.  “I love you, too.”   

“No!” 

Your rebuff explodes out of you, followed by another cry that lands like a bull’s eye between his ribs.  He thinks he might finally crack, feels the carefully constructed resolve splintering.  Was it so terrible to be loved by him?  He shrinks back, suddenly far smaller than he’s ever seemed.  He’s almost to his feet, blinded by the wetness gathered there.  He can’t be here right now.  He’d been an idiot to try.    

It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  Yours, and his, in tandem.

“I’m sorry.”  You’re across the couch in a single motion, fingers seeking his wildly.  “Please.  Don’t go.”  It’s the first time you’ve ever had to ask this of him, and it feels foreign coming from you.  That, and it’s barely coherent, spoken around tears that have suddenly made themselves very apparent.

You don’t miss the look he gives you, a mixture of exasperation and heartache.  You’ve never seen that specific combination and it cuts like a knife, severing your seeking hands with one fell swoop.

“Why, Soom?”  He’s begging for a reason to stay.  (A part of him thinks he shouldn’t, but he’s never been able to think straight when it comes to you.)

“Because I love you,”  you repeat, like that’s an answer.  He doesn’t say it back this time – too afraid of whatever explosion will shatter the remains of his ribcage and eviscerate his heart. 

Instead, he regards you with the most unfathomable expression he’s ever given.  “So what?”

Whatever you’d expected, it wasn’t that.  It’s a smack to the face, a backhand so severe you’re winded by the blow, staggering back on your haunches as you look up at him.  So what?  What did he mean, so what?  Even through your tears, you can see the flat line of his mouth, his teeth sucking his bottom lip into submission.  The beauty mark smack dab in the centre winks at you.

He’s tired of the dance you’re doing, exhausted by the choreography he hasn’t been taught and is expected to somehow know.  He’s done his very best, poured every ounce of himself into it.

“I’m always here.  I always come running.”  Gone is the golden maknae, replaced by the same, uncertain boy you’d met all those years ago.  “Even when I don’t know if you want me, I come.  I would do anything for you.”  The words are a searing brand straight into chest.  “But you can’t even talk to me.”  There’s something hidden amongst the sadness – resentment, maybe?  You’ve never heard it from him, so it rings unfamiliar and strange.  “I’m trying so fucking hard!”

The way he snaps, words ricocheting off one another, has you alarmed. 

All this time – you’d thought you would hurt him.  So you’d held yourself back for fear of doing so and yet, you’d already done it, torn him to shreds without even thinking.

The knowledge has you babbling, tripping over yourself.  If you’d already hurt him, what did it matter now?  The damage was done.  One more nail in the coffin wouldn’t make a difference.

“I love you!”  How many times you can say it, you’re honestly not sure.  Each time, it’s more agitated, more broken – only held together by the red string that’s connected you all your lives.  It’s barely hanging on though, frayed at the edges and in terrible disrepair.  “I’m so in love with you I don’t know what to do with myself!”  You don’t mean to shout but it comes nonetheless, clawing its way out of the cavity of bones and careening off your lips in a wet sob.  “I feel like I’m going crazy.  I’m so afraid of losing you and everything we have.” 

You’re like a meteor tearing through the upper atmosphere, hurtling toward your doom.  You can’t stop, speaking a mile a minute.  You’re not even looking at him, blinded so by the saltwater in your eyes.  “Being around you is so hard.  It’s impossible to act normal around you after—”  

The silence is deafening as you slam to a stop, beet red and embarrassed.

“After what?”  You hadn’t noticed he’d fallen back into his seat, his face mere inches from yours.

“What?”  You squeak out a hiccup and scramble back, though go nowhere.  A steady weight holds you in place, strong fingers curled around the dainty turn of your wrist while the other forms itself to the slope of your neck.

“After what,”  Jungkook repeats.  He’s so close you can count each individual lash, the way they shimmer with fallen tears.  Gone is the resentment, the anger, replaced by what closely resembles awe.  You don’t have time to consider the meaning behind that when he asks again, harder this time.

You answer without thought, compelled by the heat of his breath and the way his eyes twinkle.  “After I dreamt about you.”  Hesitation because you hadn’t expected the relief that washes over his every inch, releasing the tension in his jaw.  “About us.”

His mouth is on yours in an instant, swallowing the last word whole. 

It’s better than any dream.  Because he is real and he is home and every pass of his soft, dry lips is like sinking further into bliss.  It holds you up in the form of his hands and slots itself in the broken places you’d never fixed. 

You get lost in the sensation and the way he sparks electricity everywhere he touches.  You’ve finally got an outlet for the current that surges through your veins, standing the hairs on the back of your neck and thundering in your ears.  It’s far from perfect – too much clumsily knocking teeth – but the passion is there, years of love swept into the drag of his tongue and the sweet ache of his bite.   

“I love you so fucking much,”  he pants when he’s forced away, cursing the necessity of air and breathing and anything that isn’t you.  “I’ve wanted this since— forever.”

It’s music to your ears, sweeter than any song you’ve ever heard because it’s his voice.

“I love you, too.”  This time, it sounds different.  More.

But more doesn’t seem like enough to him, because he’s pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses across every inch of skin.  The corner of your lips, the line of your jaw, the column of your neck that he’s wanted to devour a million times before.  He dresses you in sweet nothings and affection, sucking his devotion into the sensitive point beneath your ear.  He likes the way red blooms beneath your skin – a reminder of his love – so he does it again and again, creating the prettiest mosaic.

It’s all for him, at first.  He’s waited his whole life for this and he takes his time.

When he hears your voice, the soft breathy calls of his name, he realizes he wants to give you more.  Needs it like he needs you.

notes.  here it is, people!  after fifteen excruciating chapters, the cat's out of the bag.  who knows if that's a good thing, tho.  kidding!

[danielpowell]

Archive 81 Season 2 Outpost Cast Menus - Text Only

The full menus from my two Outpost members’ menus posts here and here

Dan:

Drinks - chocolate drink plus French vanilla cappuccino;  mint hot chocolate plus instant coffee plus cream plus shaved chocolate ration on top; pink lemonade plus raspberry drink powder; tutti fruity drink mix; tea plus sweetened condensed milk

Candy - Lemon-lime chewing gum; spearmint chewing gum; Mentos; Tic tacs; mints; M & Ms; Reese’s Pieces; Sour Skittles; strawberry boiled sweets; cola bottle candies

Snacks - caramel; jams (strawberry, raspberry, grape, plum)

Lou:

Breakfast - 

Apple and cinnamon muesli with milk; pork sausages plus mashed potatoes; chicken sausages and beans

Lunch - Bean pasta salad; beef stew; lamb korma plus yellow rice ; spicy sausages and wedge potato; savory mince

Dinner - Chili with beans and white rice; lamb and chickpea tagine plus golden raisins plus crushed red pepper plus mixed nuts; beef meatballs and spaghetti; Tuscan beef with cannellini beans, lentils, and vegetables; butter chicken plus jasmine rice; sausage casserole; grilled jalapeno cheddar jack beef patty plus hamburger bun; sweet and sour chicken 

Beverages - Water; lemon-lime sports drink; grapefruit sports drink plus sugar; Orange sports drink; French Vanilla cappuccino; instant coffee plus vanilla protein drink packet; hot chocolate plus vanilla protein drink packet; tea plus sugar plus beverage whitener; tea plus bourbon 

Desserts - Blueberry turnover; mince pie; blueberry and cherry cobbler; marble pound cake; fruit cake; rice pudding

Sweets - Black currant boiled sweets; licorice; Smarties; fruit pastilles; Fizzers

Snacks - BBQ peanuts; corn nuts; pretzels; mixed dried fruit nougat; biscuit jam sandwich; cream biscuits; chocolate multi-grain bar; beef jerky 

Clara:

Breakfast - Chocolate banana muffin top; fruit muesli with milk; blueberry granola with milk; oatmeal block; dried cranberries plus porridge

Lunch - Tuna with light mayonnaise plus vegetable crackers; lemon pepper tuna plus white rice; vegetable curry and rice; beef taco meat plus chipotle tortillas plus Mexican rice

Dinner - Pasta Bolognese; cheese tortellini in tomato sauce plus Italian bread sticks; creamy fettuccine with spinach and mushrooms; beef ravioli in meat sauce; Mexican Style chicken stew; BBQ chicken patty plus hamburger bun; sweet and sour chicken plus sweet chili sauce 

Desserts - Oatmeal chocolate chunk cookie; trans fat free assorted shortbread cookies; apple turnover; fudge brownie; chocolate ration; Berry fruit discs; mint Lifesavers 

Snacks - Trail mix; mixed nuts; pineapple, mango, and papaya fruit mix; mango and peach applesauce; raspberry applesauce; carbohydrate-enhanced applesauce; spiced apples; blueberry and apple cereal bar; cookies and cream cereal bar 

Drinks - Water; sugar free orange sports drink; grape sports drink; lemon sports drink; citrus drink; tea; tea plus cream 

Caroline (Suit):

Tea blends - 

My Gift: Purple tea leaves, cloves, cinnamon, raw sugar

My Warrior: Bergamot, Lapsang Souchong tea leaves, Pingshui gunpowder tea leaves, licorice root, milk, sugar

My Clarity: Jô Sencha tea leaves, apple pieces, jasmine petals

My Defender: Rooibos tea leaves, passionflower, chamomile flowers, rose petals, rose hips, honey

My Judgement: Silver needle tea leaves, apricots, marigold flowers, peach juice, fresh ginger, honey

My Song:Ginger root, lemongrass, lemon peel, fennel seed, turmeric, raw honey

My Realization: Wuyi oolong tea leaves, blood orange slices, candied pineapple, hibiscus petals, chrysanthemum petals, beet root

My Musician: Yerba mate, sage, elderberries, goji berries, mint, coconut, orange peel, agave

Rat (Jacob):

Concoctions - Cheese biscuits plus cheese spread; wheat snack bread plus chunky peanut butter plus plum jam plus buffalo hot sauce; ‘Asian-style’ beef strips with vegetables plus noodles plus chili lime hot sauce plus fried shallot; chocolate pudding plus peanut M & Ms plus sweetened condensed milk; Canadian bacon plus maple muffin top plus table syrup; Irish cream cappuccino plus French vanilla cappuccino plus mocha cappuccino; hazelnut hot chocolate plus hot (milk) chocolate plus white hot chocolate plus French vanilla hot chocolate plus orange hot chocolate plus mint hot chocolate 

Stolen Items - F.R.E.D. ; reusable stoves; scouring pads; a handful of rubber bands; the leftover water from the flameless heating pouches; empty cans; matches; used spoons; tubes of yeast extract ; 

Beverage - a single cup of coffee with cream, left till tepid and stale 

[sterling-ace]

Recipe Collection - Evening Primrose

WARNING: Follow recipes with caution, ensure you do not have adverse reaction to any of the ingredients, DO NOT EAT if you have bleeding disorders (can’t take blood thinners), are pregnant, or have a history of seizures or epilepsy 

Evening Primrose w/ Walnuts - 4 Evening Primrose roots (finely grated) - turmeric - 1 pinch ground coriander seeds - chives (finely chopped) - 1 tsp mustard - 1 tsp lemon juice - 2 tbs tahini - sea salt - walnuts (for garnish) - In medium bowl mix roots with turmeric, coriander, and chives - Add mustard, lemon juice, and tahini - stir well - Season with salt and pepper to taste (1)

Evening Primrose Stew w/ Stinging Nettle Pesto - STEW: 2 yellow onions (cubed) - 2 carrots (cubed) - 1 small celery root (cubed) - 1 small savoy cabbage (finely chopped) - 6 potatoes (cubed) - 8 evening primrose roots (cubed) - (1/4 cup total) sage, bay leaves, clove, thyme, lovage - 2 tbs olive oil - 1 1/2 quarts vegetable broth : PESTO: 2 handfuls baby spinach - 1 cup bread (cubed) - 1/4 cup olive oil - salt. - In large pan sauté vegetables with seasoning and herbs in olive oil for 20 minutes - Add vegetable broth and simmer until tender about 15 minutes - Transfer to serving bowl - Blend pesto ingredients until smooth - Serve with stew. (1) 

Roasted Evening Primrose Roots - 3 Evening Primrose roots (w/out blooms), 3 carrots, 2 beets, 2 parsnips, 1 sweet potato, 2 cloves of garlic, olive oil, cinnamon, ground rosemary, salt, 2 tbs brown sugar, 3 tbs primrose seeds - preheat oven to 425 F - wash and chop roots - toss roots with oil and seasonings - cook on baking sheet for 1 hr (2)

Baked Evening Primrose Seeds - harvest in fall from seed pods, place on baking sheet, preheat oven to 325 F - cook 15 min (can be eaten alone or added to salads, oils, etc) (5)

Steamed Seed Pods - collect seed pods in late summer, steam as one would green beans, done when tender (6)

Evening Primrose Flowers - may be added (raw) to salads, soups, and (cooked) to other cooked greens (5)

Tea - All parts may be boiled for tea (mixes well with green tea, lemon balm, honey, and mint) - plain evening primrose tea can be used externally to treat acne and other skin issues (3)

Fried Evening Primrose Root - cut roots into strips - dip into egg batter - fry in oil (4) 

Primrose and Potato Gratin - wash, chop, and parboil roots of evening primrose and potatoes - cook with cream and cheese into a gratin (4)

Evening Primrose Horseradish - wash and finely grate evening primrose root - mix with vinegar, salt, and honey - optionally may add mayo (4)

As a medicine/take daily - Infuse 1 tbs of dried/powered/ground evening primrose root in 2 tbs or honey. (3)

Sources: 

https://publicism.info/gardening/curious/12.html

https://www.herbalrootszine.com/articles/practical-primrose/

https://enchantersgreen.com/evening-primrose

http://hungerandthirstforlife.blogspot.com/2010/10/wild-about-evening-primrose-root.html

https://herbalpicnic.blogspot.com/2013/08/evening-primrose.html

http://www.gardensablaze.com/HerbEvePrimroseRec.htm

[striving-toward-170]

The juicing and weight loss correlation explained – Plus 7 juicing recipes

The truth about juicing and weight loss  Did you know that juicing is one of the most effective weight loss tools around? When combined with regular exercises, juicing can help you lose the entire unhealthy artery-clogging fat in your body. So your juicer is the equivalent of your treadmill now. Juicing and fresh juices have innumerable health benefits and weight loss is just one tiny part of it. But how can juices help in weight loss when fruits and vegetables do not burn any calories? This is an interesting question that has many answers to it.

 Kill the cravings  There are different fruits that help in different ways to lose weight and control appetite. The first universal reason is that fruits and vegetables are devoid of any unhealthy fat or cholesterol. So if you can replace one of your meals with a juice, then you are eliminating that much fat, oil and cholesterol from your diet. In place of these harmful substances, you are giving the body quality nutrients, vitamins and enzymes. So juicing can give you a fat-free low-calorie meal, which is what you are looking for while trying to lose weight.

  Fresh juices  have also been known to reduce the craving or hunger. This is a big positive in weight loss programs. Oftentimes people will consume diet pills, cosmetic products or sugar filled drinks in a desperate attempt to kill their appetite. Some even smoke to suppress their appetite (I know)… When you have a healthy alternative to it, then why go for all these toxic stuff? Fresh carrot juice is a prime example. It helps the body to maintain the healthy blood sugar level thereby eliminating any hunger cravings. Parsley is another good source of appetite-killing juice.

  Related:  Skin beauty and diet tips for today’s working women PLUS healthy snack tips 

  If you are facing a problem caused by water retention in your body, then some juices like cucumber juice, cranberry and watermelon can help you out. These are natural diuretics and will help you to get rid of the water in your body. Green vegetables have been known to possess abilities to clean and heal the liver. So mixing those greens into your juicing recipes might just be a great idea.

   There is no fixed recipe for fruit vegetable combinations. You can let your imagination run wild and do a lot of experimenting with juicing. While there are certain  recipes which taste good , you can always make the others taste better by adding your own secret ingredient. A few grapes might improve the taste of otherwise bland-tasting juices. So also honey is a good ingredient which improves the taste and is a great alternative for sugar. After you start off experimenting with juicing, you are bound to have your own menu and recipe list of healthy super tasty juices. So start off now.

 Juicing for nutrition  The popularity of juice beverages extracted from fruits and vegetables has grown in recent years for several reasons. The development of high-powered electric juicing machines makes preparation easier than ever. At the same time, more information is available about the nutritional and health value of the vitamins and minerals contained in fruits and vegetables. Current national dietary guidelines emphasize the importance of consuming lots of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis.

 Many people believe that juicing is one of the things they can do to generate good health and prevent disease. People view juicing as a way to increase personal energy and avoid common health problems. Aficionados of juicing believe that consuming fruits and vegetables in a liquid or pureed form offers several important health and  nutritional advantages. 

    Direct digestion  When fruits and vegetables are consumed in liquid form, the vitamins and minerals and other nutrients reach the body’s bloodstream more quickly. The digestive process required for whole foods is bypassed and the nutrients in the juice are delivered directly to the intestinal walls. Juicing in a sense “pre-digests” the fruits and vegetables.

  Raw foods  Juicing provides an alternative to cooking, which is thought to reduce and even destroy some of the nutrients present in fruits and vegetables in their raw form. These nutrients — vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and enzymes — are often stripped away when the food is cooked or preserved.

  Metabolic boost and weight loss  Enzymes play an important role in metabolism but are found mainly in raw foods. Enzymes have a direct impact on your metabolic rate because they convert food into body tissue and energy. Thus, it is believed that increased consumption of enzymes will boost your metabolic rate, causing you to burn more  calories and lose weight. 

  Longevity  The absorption of antioxidants plays a role in promoting longevity and delaying the effects of aging. Antioxidants neutralize the free radicals that are thought to play a role in degenerative diseases such as cataracts, high blood pressure, and cancer.

  Combat diabetes  Persons with Type 2 diabetes have a resistance to insulin, a substance generated by the pancreas. In healthy people insulin regulates sugar levels in the bloodstream. However, diabetics’ bodies are incapable of producing the insulin in the quantities needed to process and digest sugars. Experts sometimes advise diabetics to avoid sugars altogether, including those found in fresh fruit. However, recent research has shown that certain raw fruits and vegetables provide key nutrients — including vitamins A, B, and E, iron, and potassium — that may help diabetics to manage their disease in a natural way.

  Vitamin B7 — found in mangoes, nectarines, and peaches — is particularly helpful in assisting the digestive process and activating enzymes.  Manganese — found in carrots, celery, cruciferous vegetables, garlic, beet greens, parsley, and spinach — helps reduce insulin resistance and improves the metabolic rate.   The bottom line is that juicing offers a delicious way to improve your health and  boost your energy.  There are many health food stores and restaurants that cater to the savvy consumer who values a variety of power drinks and smoothies. But you also can easily prepare your own juice drinks at home using high-powered electric juicers and a variety of juice recipes recommended by the health experts.

 Like every good thing, the best juicer is an informed juicer. A little time spent studying the benefits of the various vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to determine the best combination for treating your specific condition, disease, or disorder might be well worth the effort in terms of living a longer, healthier, happier life.

 You already know the amazing benefits associated with consuming fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. If you’re juicing for weight loss, you need a balanced diet of the right fruits and vegetables. To help get you started, consider these seven must try recipes for an entire week of juicing. Just juice in the order listed for best results (and taste).

  Day One   ½ Pineapple (core it and cut into cubes)  1 cup Strawberries  1 Pear  30 Leaves of Mint    Day Two   1 Orange (include everything)  1/8 Pineapple (cored and cut into pieces)  2 Carrots (scrub, but don’t peel)  ½ Lemon    Day Three   2 Oranges  3 Red Beets    Day Four   2 Apples  ½ Cantaloupe  ½ Honeydew Melon  6 Kale Leaves  6 Swiss Chard Leaves    Day Five   2 cups Romaine (wash first)  2 Granny Smith Apples  1 Orange (whole)  2 Stalks of Celery  ½ Cucumber (include skin and seeds)    Day Six   2 Comice Pears  2 Fennel Bulbs    Day Seven   6 Kale Leaves  2 Cups Spinach (rinsed first)  ½ Cucumber  4 Stalks of Celery  2 Green Apples    Each recipe is enough to serve one person. These delicious, healthy drinks are perfect for those who are juicing for weight loss, even if you’re just looking to shed a few pounds for the summer. Juicing packs your diet full of healthy, fulfilling calories while still allowing you to lose weight. Replace your high calorie snacks and meals with a  low calorie juice.  After just one week of juicing you’ll instantly notice you have more energy, your skin looks better and you even sleep better at night. If you’re new to juicing, start with the sweeter juices first. Slowly work your way into the green, more  vegetable-packed recipes.  This will help adjust your taste and before long you’ll be craving the deep green drinks!

 Brought to you by…

        The post  The juicing and weight loss correlation explained – Plus 7 juicing recipes  appeared first on  Technology Watchpost .

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[prabhashchy]

How to prepare a quick soft Indian roti out of wheat flour and millet flour?

Take a cup of wheat flour; you can mix it with other healthy powders like millet powder or soya powder as another option and some salt to taste. Make balls out of the dough by slowly adding water to it. Now roll a thick wooden stick roll over each ball to flatten them well and the Indian rotis are ready for cooking. Heat a pan and apply some oil on it. Now cook the Indian roti on the pan until done. You can stuff some cooked vegetables and curry in the bread and wrap them in a tissue for a quick serving.

Now, do you have leftover rotis? And is your tongue ready to try new sweet dishes?

Then try this recipe surely: Tear the left over bread into pieces and grind them in a mixer with some water sprinkled on it. Mix a little of unrefined sugar to this finely crushed roti pieces. Make a ball out of these two ingredients and if required, you can other ingredients like coconut powder etc, refrigerate it and have these as snacks. This will surely be your delicious meal.

Stock up dry fruits that have a long shelf life like ripe prunes, dates and oats. For a quick meal, you can blend them with milk. Add cut fruits to this drink and enjoy this, before you start your day. For your noon time recipes, your best salad base will be cucumber to which you can add tomato, radish, beet or carrot. Boil them a little for the salad to be nutritious. Add greens like coriander or lettuce or celery with olives and serve it with a pineapple or apple topping.

The main course of your meal could be of course any thing that you like the most. If it is your breakfast, then ensure to add the soya tofu if not meal maker chunks in the sandwich or salad instead of cottage cheese for a difference. This is fibre rich nutrient and fills your mouth, as well as makes you feel full. If it was your lunch, then take a little of dry fenugreek leaves in your soup or mixed with spicy stew of pulses. You can even add a liquid stew of pulses to any of your favourite side dish. This not only makes a meal complete, but as a known fact, the bad cholesterol in your tissues comes under a checkpoint.

Well, what on a beautiful evening time and when seems to rain? Have you got a tip for any quick dishes? Try this out. Prepare Rotimatic out of Finger millet powder and add two spoons of curd for a cup of porridge and salt as required. Drink it hot with a piece of Citron pickle. This is a tasty dish which increases your appetite as well.

As we know, a cup of veggie crackers shallow fried or even one chicken strip deep fried in vegetable oil accumulates its share of cholesterol in our body on regular basis. A quick tip here is to cut down these calories in the next immediate meal by including items like soya meal makers, may be in any form. Having grated the soya chunks in the form of powder is suggested. Sprinkle it or add teaspoonful of this powder as often as you prepare Indian rotis: which are unleavened soft Indian flat round breads.

Children need whey protein and omega 3 rich foods for their mental growth. So beware of products that are rich source of it. They are the ones who like to explore all food that are colourful. Try to check out of edible colour safe products in market and use them in their dishes, which will surely reduce their food intake from outside home. Every one can become a master of cooking, if you smartly try out in your kitchen.

[digitalsavy15]

Best Ways To Drink Vodka

If you have any desire to upgrade the kind of your vodka, however are don't know, this article discusses the most ideal ways to drink vodka.

 Probably the best brands of vodka, as Immaculate Vodka, are loaded with unobtrusive notes and complex flavors. Despite the fact that they taste astounding when drank alone, they are not overwhelming to such an extent that you can't explore out of the line and go a little off the deep end.

 Here's to all the vodka sweethearts, evaluate the most ideal ways to upgrade the flavor of your number one beverage which can now be ordered online as well

 Astonishing Ways Of drinking Vodka

Prime Vodka Shots

Assuming you have been spilling vodka shots straightforwardly out of the jug to the glass, this is committed to you. That is an incredible method for demolishing an exemplary beverage. To have vodka shots, the principal thing is to pick a quality vodka that doesn't pose a flavor like a sanitizer.

 The second thing you want to consider is the base from which it is made. The primary element of vodka is wheat, rice, or rye, yet it can likewise be pounded from certain vegetables like vodka, beets, natural products like apples and grapes.

 Some specialty vodkas even come from extraordinary fixings like maple syrup. The fact is in the event that you are wanting to chug it solo, pick a scrumptious fixing. Vodkas produced using dull fixings like potatoes have a smooth taste.

 Assuming that you would like something better, pick something natural product or corn-based. The ordinary vodka you get from the supermart is produced using a mix of grains and will be a lot plainer than their fancier partners. Conclude what suits your taste.

 Put It In The Cooler

On the off chance that you demand purchasing a specific brand of vodka, which has very little taste however leaves a consuming inclination, then think about relaxing the edge. Put it in the cooler for a couple of hours. It will dull the sharp edges, and you will get a lot creamier beverage.

 However, be careful, this is for less expensive, normal vodkas that are not exceptional quality. Putting quality vodka will do exactly the same thing, dull the edges. This implies, with less expensive vodkas, you get a smoother drink. With great quality vodkas, you lose flavor. Here is the reason you ought to never place great quality vodkas in cooler.

 Assuming that you think your beverage is excessively sharp for your taste, that is a superb contender to be placed in the cooler. Vodka freezes at - 15 degrees C, which is far past typical coolers, so you don't need to stress over the jug breaking or freezing.

 Soft drink Water

Soft drink water will constantly be the ideal base for vodka. Whether you have a premium or modest vodka, placing it in some seltzer or shining water will give you the ideal taste you want. This will not overwhelm the genuine taste of the vodka. On the off chance that you are very little into mixed drinks or attempting to watch your weight, this is the ideal blend.

 Carbonated Water

The exemplary bar blender has been a riddle to numerous for quite a long time. At the point when the barkeep spills one out with your vodka, it tastes eminent. At the point when you purchase carbonated water from the store, it poses a flavor like hack medication. All things considered, to take care of the secretive taste issue, we recommend putting resources into some quality specialty carbonated water and not the nonexclusive stuff that you find in the ice chest. In any case, do recollect that most tonics will have a ton of sugar, so select your pick cautiously.

 Squeezed orange

This is maybe one of the most mind-blowing innovations of humanity. Nothing is preferred with vodka over new squeezed orange (not the boxed juice from the store). Screwdriver is an enormously famous beverage. There are numerous alternate approaches to upgrading your vodka without the juice.

 A vodka shot with orange strip is the Russian screwdriver. You might in fact pick a few sugar coated oranges from the store and absorb them the vodka to improve the flavor. Or on the other hand pour some vodka with new cut oranges in a punch bowl style blend. The mix of sweet and tart organic product removes the chomp in the beverage and makes it taste totally delightful.

 Spindrift

This is certainly not an extremely normal blender however is radiant when you need to partake in a light beverage. The effervescent blender is a fantastic friend of vodka. You can decorate it with lemon and ice 3D shapes. The blend is an exceptionally light and new beverage ideal for partaking in some quality drinking time.

 Albeit this is certainly not a typical fixing you can find all over, you will see this in Target or Amazon. Most bars will likewise have it accessible on demand, which is uplifting news.

 Pineapple, Guava, And Mango

Vodka isn't your standard tropical mixed drink, yet when it works, it works. The flavorless beverage goes all around well with organic products, and pineapple is the same. Despite the fact that you may be more agreeable and acquainted with pineapple and rum, it is ideal for vodka as well. The juice is serious areas of strength for a that will mix out major areas of strength for the of the vodka to taste the alcohol and spotlight on the buzz.

 With guava, the most effective way to drink vodka is imbue it with the juice. Yet, remember the bean stew and salt edge icing, which is the most amazing aspect of the beverage. The hot and pungent touch will upgrade the flavor of guava and overwhelm any consuming notes in the vodka.

 Finally, we want to sit quiet about mango. Pour essentially anything in mango, and you have a heavenly beverage. Improve your vodka cooler style.

 Lemonade

How might we forget the humble mojito while we're discussing vodka. For the overwhelming majority of us, it was our most memorable prologue to the universe of hard alcohol. Make your own new cluster of lemonade with mint leaves, or get some readymade from the store. It's light and invigorating and ideal for a hot day. You could in fact make some lemon chilled tea and make it a LIIT.