Sweet potato/ green bean pasties

Pie crust
1 cups flour (half white and half whole wheat works)
1/4 tsp salt
cut in 1/3 cup plus 1 TBS lard, shortening or margarine
add in ice cold water a TBS at a time until dough forms a ball but is not hard.

Filling
1/2 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 TBS olive oil
1/2 tsp fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp dried
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp mustard powder
2 TBS water or stock
One large sweet potato cooked and mashed
1/2 cup cut green beans

Fry onion and garlic in oil, add in rest of ingredients, and cook 4-5 minutes on medium. Roll out 4 circles from pastry, and divide the filling among them. Use water on your finger to wet the edge of half of each circle, then fold dough over filling (the water will seal the dough together) and press the edge of the half circle with a fork all the way around. It will look like a big pierogi. Place on a baking tray, poke once with a fork, and glaze with milk or egg if you wish. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

I always double this recipe, for it seems to not be enough for my family. I also have made these small, cutting the pie crust with a biscuit cutter and taken them to parties as a finger food and they are a huge hit, especially with some chutney to dip them in.


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I have been thinking a lot about post marital sex. I swear it just kept coming up all weekend, how women just don't want sex after marriage, and men still do. Quite frankly it was pissing me off. It is a real problem, yet everyone seems to joke about it. Men tend to be flippant and dismissive about it, probably as a knee jerk reaction to the rejection they must feel. At the same time, women feel guilty and sad for the loss of something they once thought of as thrilling and special, and grumpy at the thought of being pressured.

It is a viscious cycle. The more we are pressured through jokes and guilt trips the less we feel like having sex, the more work is needed to get in the mood. The less we feel like having sex the more men feel rejected and the more flippant and blaming they get, and the less they try to get sex.

What is it that changed?

I do know that for many women the thing they like about the sexual expirience is the process. I used to tell my husband that the best forplay is a man doing the dishes. Women need to connect on an emotional level before they feel like having sex. They like the dance, the looks, the brief touches, the doing things for one another before they are in the mood. Men are the opposite. They use sex to feel close. Have sex with a man and you will find the man you are emotionally attracted to. When men have regular sex they feel connected and show it.

The disconnect comes when the sex slows for any reason, usually a baby. For a while the woman is fat, uncomfortable, and obsessed with motherhood. After the baby is born, the woman is no longer a woman, she is a mom. I cannot stress the change which occurs with this. It is vital it occurs to some extent for the child's sake, yet it is also vital the woman can go back to being a woman for the marriage's sake.

SO the disconnect happens. This is what happened in all the marriages I have seen. Husband gets home from work. The first thing he says is business like, "someone left something in the driveway" because if he doesn't say it then he will forget. She is now in defensive mode, the interaction has been set. Dinner is served, husband needs to go unwind, wife needs to get away from children, more disconnect. Kids go to bed.

Man may now be ready for sex. But the woman is in mom mode, and has not connected with the husband all day. She has no interest in sex.

I guess the ideal solution would be to just do it. Once started the problem takes care of itself. Unfortunately the men very often stop even trying at this point. Rejection is not easy to take, especially sexual rejection from your partner.

So she is not in the mood, he cannot take the extra step to start the process, both are tired, so they go to sleep.

Days go by. Weeks, months. That is life. We don't even see them slide by until we try to think when the last time we actually fooled around was.

It is heartbreaking. The most special thing two people can share, sitting right there for the taking, and we cannot reach out.

Add in the media constantly trying to fear monger and make us resentful of men, and you get a recipe for divorce.

We fear and covet sex. We label it evil and worship it at the same time. The dicotomy is such that a sexual woman and a married woman are incompatible. How many women cut their hair shortly after marriage? My friend just got married and chopped off her hair on the honeymoon. I guaruntee that she has no idea why she did it. But we are taught that once married, women must grow out of that dating sexual phase. Long hair is sexually attractive, and one of the easiest ways to visably change is to cut your hair.

I have other ideas on this, but they will have to wait for another day.

Tabouleh (or bowl o' fiber)

2 cups bulgar wheat
2 cups hot water
2 cups minced fresh parsley (3Tbs dried)
1/4 cup minced fresh mint (1 Tbs dried)
3 scallions minced
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tps cumin
2 chopped tomatoes
1 chopped cucumber
3 Tbs lemon juice
3 Tbs olive oil

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romaine or other lettuce
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In a bowl combine bulgar wheat and hot water. Let sit for 30 minutes. Add everything else but oil and mix well. Chill 1-2 hours, add oil, and serve on bed of lettuce as a salad, or plain as a side dish.Makes for a filling and really healthy lunch the next day.

My younger son Tom calls this bowl o' fiber, but he always has at least one big serving so I guess it is a compliment.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks. I went to camp two weeks ago, for the whole week. It was a dog camp at a farm dedicated to Border Collie rescue. Of course fuzzy butts aren't my thing, I like the short coated bull breeds myself, but the camp includes all kinds of dogs. I was teaching flyball, and had a very good week. I was busy, active, and had a schedule which meant I was very happy. I got a phenominal tan too! A week out of the house was great, I rebonded with the dogs which was really needed, and made some new friends and gt to spend time with some old ones.

It has been hard coming home, as the lack of schedule and adult company gets tough. I love my kids, but just as I cannot replace friends for them they cannot replace adult conversation.

However, I tried my best to stay busy this week. Tom started swim lessions, where in one clas he tripled his swim speed! Finally someone could explain the over arm stroke to him. My husband taught him the breast stroke, which is his favorite, but Tom is too young to do it well, so he just swam like a frog who ate too many lead pellets (Twain anyone?) We picked strawberries and I make over a dozen jars of jelly and have plently left over for other use. I have some frozen rhubarb, maybe I will try a strawberyy rhubarb crumble. I also found a recipe for s/r jam which looks good.

I have been working the bees too. I went to Jessies where my hive was on Thurs morning. He says *oh, your hive is so small we don't need a veil* so we open up my hive, check everything over. I have brood!!! Which proves there is a queen! You could look into the cells and see the little eggs, and on another frame the little larvae. Very exciting. My bees were of course very good natured.

We then open one of his hives to do some work. He has a colony he just split, which means he forced by crowding the laying of a second queen, then split the hive into two, one queen each. We located the new queen in the second hive, clipped her wing and painted her back blue for quick identification. So far so good. Until we got into original hive. the first frame we took out had the queen on it, and they were pissed. I walked away but several guard bees followed me and I got stung above the eyebrow.

All was ok, I calmed down, and I put the new frame of brood from his hive into my hive without gloves.
Well, that night I started swelling. By morning I couldn't open my eye at all! It looked like someone had clocked me! The funny thing is that not one person said a word to me all day. I got funny looks but no one asked. Dave says if he starts getting funny looks we will know what they were thinking.

Last night I brought my hive home, and set it up behind my garden. It looks very small, sitting under a tree in the tall grass, but I can kind of hide in the weeds and watch them go about their business. It was cool today but is supposed to get warmer, so i should see some good activity tomorrow.

I picked all the spinach, it was starting to bolt, and it amounted to one bag of frozen! Note to self~plant much more in the fall!

The peas are ripe..how I love fresh peas. I picked and froze two quarts, well, Tallulah the bull terrier and I ate as much as we froze! She loves her peas. Nick also ate probably another quart in the car on the way home.

We hit a barn sale and boy did I hit the jackpot! I found a huge old trunk in awesome condition, with leather good wood and velvet, all intact, and the names of to and from shipping on the top and sides. Can you believe only $25! I told her I was expecting her to say $200, and she looked disappointed. Of course I wouldn't have bought it either. Anyways, I also found 3 really unique insulators from power lines, 5 old cigar boxes for my collection, and a stack of schoolbooks from the late 1800's early 1900s. $45 bucks for everything. Oh, and a cute little milking stool and a pair of cow horns. I love barn sales.

My dining room looks awesome. It is pumpkin orange, with a back area rug filled with brightly colored designs of grape vines, birds, flowers. On the window ledges and sills I put all the stuff we find on hikes and walks~ rocks, feathers, snake skins, leaves, pine cones, bird eggshells, snail shells, plus old bottles and a couple of small wooded boxes shaped like birds. I have some photos i took of our last hike in the Adirondacks, all mushrooms, close up. They look like little scenes. I think I will frame them in black. The fish tank does not clash like I thought it might. The room went a different direction than I thought, but it is a good one.

I have been thinking a lot about what makes people happy. Are the things that you do out of habit making you happy, or are they filling a void, or putting off dealing with feared knowns. As I surround myself with things that make me happy, I still cling to old habits which do not.

It is easier to live in the internet than to interact with my neighbors. If I stayed off-line I could walk next door and invite one of the neighbors over for tea. I met a new neighbor who invited me to stop by, and I haven't. Why the heck not? She seemed very nice, and right up my alley (she said ~give me a mud hole and I am happy).

I really think that the internet is a double edged sword. I am lonely during the day, but pacifying myself with cyber conversation makes me reclusive. Maybe if I tried harder to make good conversation with Nick he would learn to converse more as opposed to talking at me about cars and stuff. And if I get off-line more I could take longer walks with Tom, which we both enjoy.

So I guess the lesson is too much of anything is bad, moderation is good. Gee, and less fat and more whole grains and veggies is good for you too, right? Why does it take so long for the simplest messages to sink in?