Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. This year was quite special because it was the first Thanksgiving for my small family, and included my mom, aunt, and cousin. It was all of my favorite people eating some of my favorite foods.
The key to making your food memorable is purchasing or growing the best quality food that you can find. For my family that means buying a fresh turkey from Doko Farm every year. Each turkey is raised with love, and care. And they taste amazing! When you buy local you are supporting a local artisan producer and you are receiving a high quality product. My family loved the turkey they said, it was the best turkey they have ever eaten! When they said that it warmed my heart, and made me realize the importance of high quality food.
I was able to decorate the house with fresh flowers from my Pinehurst garden. It was my last opportunity to bring in the beauty of the outdoors in before the frost hit the flowers and they faded away. Anytime you can bring in outdoor beauty into your home do it! It creates warmth, beauty and a uniqueness to your home. Now that Christmas is coming I am looking forward to purchasing a fresh Christmas Tree and bringing that smell of Christmas into my home.
These are all easy tips to create a warm, happy and memorable holiday season. Sending you all the love and happiness!
XOXO,
Frolicking Americana
Another day...another food that you can not eat due to food safety issues. Romaine lettuce has just been added to that list. The CDC is now warning that Romaine lettuce is unsafe due to E. Coli bacteria. It is so scary that the food in the grocery store can make you really sick!
An easy way to combat that fear is to grow your own food! I know it can seem like an hard task, or impossible. But leafy greens such as kale, collards and mixed greens are very easy to grow. All you have to do is put the seed in dirt and let it grow. Watering on time is a very important factor to grow, but on an upcoming blog I will let you in on an super easy way to water that takes little to no time.
If you don't have a lot of space, just get a large pot add good dirt and the best part is you decide what to grow. You can research what varieties that you love to eat the most and grow them. And when you are growing your own food you don't have to worry about the food safety issues such as E. Coli, you are growing your own local organic product that you will enjoy even more that the store bought greens because you grew it with love.
One last thing it is important to have great soil! I learned the hard way, by trying to grow carrots. The first batch of carrots I grew I just put them in the dirt in my Pinehurst Neighborhood garden, and let them grow. Let me tell you they didn't do much growing! When I pulled them up they were so small, like the length of a quarter. The second batch of carrots I grew them with Re-soil, which is this amazing compost that has all the things that veggies love. Those carrots grew to a beautiful tasty size about three inches. When I harvested those carrots I literally jumped for joy! I took those carrots home and cooked them up for my new little one and he loved them!
Growing your own food is such an amazing thing to do for you, your family and for the environment. I encourage everyone to try it out!
Sending you love, and happiness,
XOXO
Frolicking Americana
There is nothing better than a hot cup of perfectly roasted coffee in the morning. It is a refreshing, delicious way to start the day. Some nights right before I go to sleep I think in happy anticipation of the wonderful cup of coffee that will greet me in the morning.
Coffee has a way to brighten up the day, and make everything seem fabulous. There are many ways to brew that perfect up of coffee, and everyone has a way that they think is the best. But few can argue about how to roast the perfect cup of coffee. One reason is that most people do not venture to roast their own.
Being the frugal and adventurous person that I am, I decided to roast my own brew. The first time, I was extremely nervous that I would ruin the coffee, and personally I didn't know anyone who roasted their own coffee. At the time my pastor of my church was Ethiopian and I had heard through the grapevine about a coffee roasting ceremony that members of the church had attended. Everyone said, that it was the best coffee of their life. I thought if roasting coffee on an open fire created amazing coffee surely I could try to roast coffee on my stove.
With that in mind, I attempted by first batch and it was terrific, I was able to create my own personal blend, bold, dark and warm. It was such a great feeling of accomplishment, and I was left with a terrific product! My very own, personally blended coffee to my exact specifications, and it was delish! .
Roasting my own coffee, made me realize that you can make every day special and unique if you just take the time to stop and make the simple things special.
Sending you love, and happiness this holiday season, and wishing that your every day will be special.
Xoxo
Frolicking Americana
P.S. If you are interested in having your own unique and personal blend of coffee for the holidays. I am currently consulting with private clients to create their own specially curated blends. You can reach me on Facebook, Instagram.
