He was a bold man who ate the first oyster

I think the most inspiring animal in the world is the oyster. Just think about it. Oysters are slimy, dirty, and ugly looking with a very hard shell that does not open up easily. In spite of this, they are strong enough to withstand the sands of time and all of the elements of the ocean. They stay all together in various corners of the sea, come in many varieties, and congregate in many parts of the world. Despite all of this, with everything that goes bad in their lives, be it dirt or parasites inside their body, oysters persevere and transform all the bad things into a beautiful pearl.

Pearl formation in mollusks is actually a sort of defense mechanism. Pearls are formed when a bit of sand, grit, or any foreign object makes its way between a mollusk’s mantle and shell. The clam recognizes the object as an irritant and coats it in layers of nacre (what the inside, pearlescent part of clam shells are made out of), making a larger, but less rough and prettier version of the intrusive object.

Nowadays, the round pearls you see used in jewelry are cultured by humans inserting small, perfectly round objects into a certain species of freshwater oysters to make them produce perfectly spheroid pearls. It’s essentially an art of perpetually annoying the oysters to have them produce beautiful things.

The Butcher, The Baker, and the PUMPKIN BANANA PIE MAKER

I just whipped up some beautiful pumpkin banana pies this afternoon using just one banana and a small pumpkin... like one of these:

After gutting the pumpkin and baking those delicious seeds, you are going to peel the rind and skin off the pumpkin like you would potatoes. You are definitely going to need a peeler for this job!

After nicely peeling the pumpkin and chopping it into bite size pieces, bring to a boil some hot water with 2 tbsp of pumpkin butter and 1/2 cup of apple cider. Add the pumpkin to the boiling mixture and cook till its nice and soft.

Drain the pumpkin chunks in a strainer very well. After letting it cool for a minute or two, add the pumpkin chunks to your blender*. Then add 4 eggs, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 peeled banana, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp of pumpkin butter, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cloves, 1 tsp sugar. Blend it all up!

Pour the blended mixture into your pie crusts. You can buy pie crusts at the grocery store or make your own. Today I took a shortcut and used pre made pie crusts. Bake in the oven for 40 mins on 400 degrees. After 35 mins, check your pies. Pull them out and apply "toppings" :) Bake the pie with its topping for the last 5 mins. Remove pies from the oven and let them cool.

Here is one of my pie topping recipes:

"Honey Walnut Pie Topping"
You will need:
a high powered blender*
3-4 cups of walnuts
1 tbsp raw honey
1 tbsp pumpkin butter
1 tbsp sugar
drizzle a little olive oil

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend well. Apply topping to pie AFTER it has baked for 35 mins at 400 degrees. Bake for with topping on for 5 mins.

Rosemary ALL DAY



There really is nothing else quite like rosemary. As one of the most fragrant herbs, it usually gives a potent flavor to any recipe that it is used in. Being that I absolutely love the flavor and aroma of rosemary, it has become a signature ingredient in so many of my recipes.

The benefits of this herb are amazing in combating illness. Rosemary has strong antibacterial and antifungal properties that benefit the entire immune system. It is recommended for the digestive tract, the circulatory system, brain health, the respiratory system, and the skin. It's also a natural insect repellent - rosemary oil or lotion works great to repel pests if you are spending some time outdoors.. and works especially well in warding off those awful beach flies that we get here at the Jersey Shore. Rosemary is excellent for your skin and hair. I recommend buying rosemary shampoo and rosemary body lotion. You can find these products at health stores or novelty bath shops along the coast.

Besides the health benfits of rosemary, it is also one of the most useful culinary herbs combining with meats such as steak, lamb, or poultry and also casseroles, tomato sauces, bean dishes, baked fish, rice, egg dishes, casseroles, breads, butters, vinegars, and oils.

I love when rosemary is fresh, green, and alive! Utilizing the leaves from the live plant makes its healing powers more effective. Here is one my beautiful healthy rosemary plants growing in my garden in late October.

Now what are we going to eat?  The following recipe is so simple and easy but the best things in life are! We are going to make Buttery Rosemary Quahogs :)

Purchase an abudance of quahogs. (Quahogs may also be referred to as "middlenecks")

These will be baking in oven at 350 degrees until they pop open

Make a simple rosemary herb butter:

3-4 sticks of quality butter
1 tbsp of fresh chopped rosemary
2 tbsp of fresh chopped flat leaf parsely
1 tbsp of fresh chopped garlic
1 tsp of sea salt
1/2 tsp of pepper

After mixing these ingredients in a mixing bowl with just a little olive oil, put the finished butter spread in the oven to melt. Once the clams pop open and the butter is melted, marry the melted rosemary butter and clams together in any way you like. Dont forget to have some warm crusty bread for dipping!

Best Pumpkin Seeds Ever

 

Here is an easy pumpkin seed recipe to try during the October/November season.

You will need fresh raw pumpkin seeds right out of the pumpkin, a little fresh chopped garlic, sea salt, pepper, and one or two chopped red chillies.... like one of these from the my garden:

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and pour the seeds into a baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees until the seeds begin to brown slightly. They are best eaten when hot but they stay fresh for a long time if you want to stow them away. Makes an amazing snack packed with protein and flavor! The chillies are a natural anti-inflammatory and the garlic is a powerful antimicrobial with anti-bacterial and anti-fungal power!

Herbs are the cure

You wouldn't believe how beneficial herbs are to consume for illness. Its like a free prescription drug in your backyard if you can learn how to grow and harvest your own. Growing and consuming my own herbs literally saved my life.. and it also made my food taste better too! I began figuring out ways to use utilize the herbs that i grew in my garden to make relaxing herbal teas with wonderful flavors and aromas. It is always the season that is the deciding element as to what exactly I am mixing in my teapot. The most important ingredient in my tea mixture is always mint.. and lots of it! I grow all different kinds of mints because each kind has its own unique flavor. For example, in my garden i currently have an abundance of spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, orange mint, grapefruit mint, ginger mint, and pineapple mint. Most of the time I just combine together whichever mints have the freshest leaves growing at the time. I like to combine the mint leaves with lemon balm, sage, catnip, and fresh edible flowers like rose pedals.. or lavender in the spring and marigolds in the fall. It really all depends on whats growing best at the time and what flavors combine well.

Here are some tea mixes I gathered.

I always pick the freshest and ripest parts of the plant and rinse the leaves and flowers thoroughly so that i get all the bugs and dirt off. After an initial first wash, i use scissors to cut up the plants into smaller pieces.

Once they are all cut up, I wash them again in a pasta strainer. While boiling water, I'll add the cut up herbs to a ceramic teapot and then transfer the boiling water from the teapot on the stove, to the teapot with all the herbs in it. Before pouring, let it sit for awhile to allow the herbs to release their flavor. After about 5 minutes, pour the tea through a fine metal strainer into a teacup and enjoy! :)

How to make a bloody roman cocktail

Bloody Romans

Use a juicer to juice the following ingredients: heirloom tomatoes, garden chillies of your choice, flat leef parsley, capers, olives, greek oregano, shallots, garlic, fish sauce. Combine ice, vodka, and roman mix and garnish with fresh chopped parsely, olives, a rosemary sprig, and few whole oysters. Relax and enjoy!

Eating for healing

Cooking and gardening have always been a part of my family and the wisdom of making delicious food has passed down generation to generation. My grandmothers and mom are very talented cooks and all of them have their own special styles and methods. My grandma's best recipe is homemade polish perogies, my nanny's best is her delicious angelfood cake, and my mom's is her hungarian chicken popikash.
Over time, I began to have a very different pallet than most of my family members and the reason why I believe I developed such a liking to more exotic foods and herbs is partially due to my battle with lyme disease throughout my twenties. Being sick motivated me to cook for myself and strive for a gluten free, vegan, whole foods diet. I do not consider myself a vegan because I will eat meat time to time, especially fish and turkey. During my battle with lyme, I did extensive research on healing lyme disease naturally through diet and exercise and with a lot of work, I succeeded in fighting off almost all of the symptoms that were plaguing me at the time.
When my diet reverts back to the classic Jersey Shore favorites like PIZZA, SAUSAGE, PEROGIES, BACON, CHEESE, STEAK, CANNOLIS, BAGELS, PANINIS, (and the list goes on!!)... I will usually begin to feel my lyme symptoms again, which include fatigue, joints cracking, muscles soreness/stiffness, headache, memory loss, irritated skin, sore throat, anxiety, depression, muscle tension, earache, and many more! It's realy tough to cut these foods out of your diet when you live at the Jersey Shore because they're available everywhere! Instead of enjoying what most people at the Jersey Shore crave, I had to cut almost all of those foods out of my diet completely. The last lyme relapse I had forced me to eat beans and lots of fresh organic vegetables and fruit. Straight up. So I began whipping up all kinds of crazy stir-frys, fruit smoothies, and bean chilies that were yummy and satisfied my cravings and hunger. Its really hard to cut out heavy carbs, cheese, and meat if that's what you're conditioned to eat. But after some dedication, the payoff is something that money and prescription drugs can't buy! A healthy, limber body!!!! Cutting out the carbs, meats, and cheeses in my diet turned out to be incredibly successful and I made a full recovery. I was able to surf the North Shore of Hawaii during the winter of 2012, symptom free! I also picked up some culinary wisdom along the way out there. A few months after Hurricane Sandy, I returned home to Jersey to help my community and be with my family until a more opportune time comes to return back there. One of the best dishes I created out there (specifically aimed to improve my health) was fresh salmon with a papaya relish. Packed with protein and essential fatty acids along with the nutrients of organic Hawaiian papayas and fresh herbs such as lavender, I could literally feel this dish healing my body as I ate it. Here it is: