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Come for Tea!

Tuesday, February 12th, 2019

One of the best ways we have discovered to stay healthy and away from those things like colds, the flu and other such diseases and infirmities is through drinking different kinds of tea.

NO – not the tea bags you buy in the store which you bring home and drop into hot, boiling water thinking you have done something great for yourself, but the drink you have thought about, analyzed and see as helping you and giving you lots of enjoyment and nutritional nourishment during the drinking.

We will give you one of our tea recipe’s if you respond and give us one of yours.

BETTINA TEA Number One

For this tea you will need the following:

Organic parsley

Organic ginger root

organic lemon

Fill a pot full of water. Which size pot depends upon how much tea you want to make. This tea gets better with age. Brew it today and let it sit on the stove overnight so you can have more when you re-heat the pot tomorrow.

and for all of you southerners – you will need, in addition, organic turbinado sugar to turn this innocent drink into ‘sweet tea.’

Squeeze a lemon into the pot of water. If the pot is quite large squeeze two or three lemons into the pot.

Chop the lemon, after you have squeezed the juice into the pot of water, rind and all, into small pieces and put this into the pot so the only thing left is the end of the lemon which attached to the tree. It may be perfectly respectable to use this piece of the lemon, but we prefer to throw it away.

Ginger Grater – one of many kinds. The sharper the teeth the better the grater. Steel, ceramic – they all suffice.

Using a ginger grater, grate a fairly large piece of the organic ginger into the pot of now boiling water. Again the size of the ginger root you use depends upon the size of the pot of water and your taste buds.

Pick the parsley leaves off the stems and put a generous hand full of parsley leaves into the still boiling water.

Cover the pot and let it simmer for as long as it takes the parsley leaves to dissolve so when you drink the tea practically every drop has a remembrance of parsley.

For those of you who can’t resist – immediately before serving, put your organic turbinado sugar into the pot and let it simmer about two minutes.

Or, if there are those who don’t want sweet tea and you do, put the sugar in your cup and then pour in this BETTINA TEA Number One.

The taste is fantastic. It relaxes you instantly and just think for a moment about the incredible nutrients sliding down your throat and going into your body to increase your well-being.

Enjoy! And may you live as long as you have something to give or receive.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

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Peanut Butter Popcorn Bettina Style

Tuesday, September 11th, 2018

What a great discovery!  You won’t believe the fantastic taste of this popcorn!

First – buy organic popcorn.  There are several brands, but it must be organic.

Then you will need an air-popper.  This helps because you don’t need oil for the dried corn to pop.

Then use the measuring cup that comes with the air popper – or use about 1/2 cup dried corn into the popper.

Turn it on with a bowl in front to catch the corn once it has “popped”.

While this is happening melt 1/2 stick organic butter (salted or unsalted, your choice).

Into the melted butter put two large tablespoons organic peanut butter which you ground yourself or purchased from the store and ground it in the store.  No store bought/store prepared peanut butter even if it is organic.

Stir the butter and peanut butter together until the peanut butter has melted into the butter and pour this onto the freshly popped corn.  You can make the sauce ahead and let it come to room temperature while you pop the corn.

Mix the sauce you just made with the popcorn until they are thoroughly mixed together.  Add organic himalayan salt and cayenne pepper to taste until everything looks totally mixed and all of the popcorn is covered.

Instead of cayenne pepper, I add several good splashes of tabasco sauce, but not everyone has that kind of taste.

Best if eaten freshly made, but you can eat it hours later and it still tastes amazing.

This is also the best laxative I have ever taken.  Amazing what it does for your bowel movements the next day.

Enjoy!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

A Great Snack – Elvis Style!

Saturday, May 26th, 2018

I was sitting in my kitchen enjoying a cup of tea and a guest comes along with a snack she brought with her.

My tea was accompanied by one of my favorite snacks from my days living in Mississippi.  A sandwich made up of organic or home baked raisin bread with peanut butter – oops! organic peanut butter – and sliced bananas.

This was also one of Elvis Presley’s favorites.  It was fairly common for children where I grew up. We didn’t have peanut butter and jelly.

She brought peanut butter and apples and wheat crackers.  She put peanut butter on the crackers and topped each cracker with a very thin slice of apple.

It was nothing short of sensational.  Quick to make.  Elegant to serve and I enjoyed every one of her crackers.

When I repeat this for myself, however, the peanut butter will definitely be organic – her peanut butter was out of a jar with lots of ugly stuff processed in and her apples were not organic.  In spite of those transgressions, it was a delicious snack.

My peanut butter will be the kind I grind at the store myself or grind at home of organic peanuts – apple crisp organic apples – and organic wheat crackers.

I highly recommend this!  It makes a great lunch or afternoon snack.  It is also quite healthy – what more could one ask!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

Cooking Rice Elegantly!

Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

What if Colonialism had not happened and we gradually moved to a world community – discovering new ideas, ways of doing things, different foods that we are used to eating and cooking, etc. instead of developing a society which claimed some foods and ways of cooking as superior and some to be shunned.?  What a rich and very fantastic place this would be.

What if today we shun that Colonialism and come together as a one world community giving and sharing what we have with others on an equal basis.  Mine as just as good as yours and yours as just as good as mine.  What an incredibly rich place this would be and the knowledge which circulates using the new technology would facilitate an awesome life.  Instead that technology is used to manipulate, persuade, lie to, and we are all the poorer for it and enamored forever in war, brutality, white supremacy, nazism and its cousins, and so much more that destroys us and totally damages our children.

Assuming this first, we look for greatness in societies and cultures and discovered a way of cooking rice that is great.

I didn’t much care for rice, but then I only knew white rice which took 7 minutes to cook and had a skim covering on top that looked like and probably was talc powder. Hope I’ve missed the cancer that kind of rice is rumored to cause and that I discovered organically grown rice in time.  Now, today, with my new found knowledge,  I buy organically grown rice and I am careful whose organically grown rice we buy.

Problem with that was in the cooking.  It would take a long time and I could never count on the rice being great.  Sometimes it turned out in a sensational way and sometimes it was not something you wanted to eat – either too hard or too soft.

A friend came over to show me how to cook this rice and we put on a cooking show for our Bettina Network Hedge School guests.  This now very close friend is not someone who my mother would have allowed into the house as my playmate, nor would she have been a part of the many “play dates” I was taken to as a child.

Those who joined us for dinner were in my Bettina-Hedge-School-Home to learn special cooking skills and so thy were invited into the kitchen to help prepare the dinner.

Rice was the main dish since that was the reason for my very-skilled-at-cooking friends’ presence.

She started by putting what to my eyes and sensibility was a very large amount of butter in the glass corning pot in which we were going to cook the rice. I winced as I saw all of that butter.  (It actually was three tablespoons – but if you try this you should use your own judgment and your own taste.)

She let the butter melt and bubble awhile and then added the rice.  She cooked the rice in butter for several minutes and then added water, a little salt – Himalayan salt, turmeric and I added a dash of cayenne pepper (because every dish I cook has a dash of cayenne).

We put the top on the pot and in about 15 minutes we had the fluffiest rice I have seen.  And the tastiest.  I think I will give up potatoes and take on rice.  Well, maybe I will just add rice cooked in this way as another food I can add to my menus.

Everyone at dinner thought the rice was spectacular.

A SUGGESTION:

If you are vegan, you might want to start this rice in coconut oil, or some other kind of oil with a high smoking point.  I would not use the famous Olive Oil because it goes rancid quickly in heat.  We only use Olive Oil for cold dishes like salad dressings, etc.  As a society we have become so accustomed to what we call th “Mediterranean diet” which is anything but, that we assume Olive Oil is a universal oil and we try to use it in everything.  So much so we have become accustomed to the taste of rancid olive oil and assume that is normal.

Enjoy!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

Food – Vanilla – Chicken Stock – Horrors!

Friday, February 9th, 2018

I have had to turn off the cooking shows.  I keep looking for one that does something other than season its desserts and sweets with vanilla flavoring and its savories with chicken stock.

Ever wonder why describing how dishes taste you always have to add – they taste a little like chicken, don’t know why, but I enjoyed the dish.  Or, describing a sweet you can’t really define the vanilla taste, but it is present.  That is probably because every dish made today that is not sweet is full of chicken stock and every dessert has vanilla flavor.

What is that about?

Well, the desserts are easy to fathom.  We use white conventional flour, white over-processed sugar, low-fat milk which has been over processed and is roughly equivalent to sugar water.  Debased – with the taste stripped out as well as the nutrition.  So,  you have to put in desserts  something to restore the flavor.  Thus comes the addition of vanilla.  Try baking without vanilla.  Let the ingredients win the day.  Try a cake with real organic cherries in the batter for a flavor component.  There is always raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, hazelnuts, and so many more.

Try baking, cooking, saucing your desserts with organic whole wheat or whole any grain or whole anything else.  Organic eggs add incredible taste;, whole organic milk, organic butter, organic turbinado sugar, organic maple syrup or something equivalent  and you will see an amazing difference.  I very seldom use vanilla and get lots of compliments for the flavor of desserts.  Don’t totally eliminate vanilla, but use it on purpose for the taste not to carry the entire dish. Why?  Because flavor comes from all the ingredients and does not have to be restored by adding vanilla.  That just dumbs down your taste buds.  Once you get them back to rally tasting what you are eating you will really see how bored you can get with vanilla.  That is a real shame because vanilla is an excellent and adds great flavor, but not to everything sweet.

That is difficult to do when using almonds since the FDA has decided there should not be organically grown raw almonds.  Before you get the almonds, those dubbed ‘organic’ have been toyed with and those that are not organic or have no such descriptive label have really been trashed.  Someone decided almonds must be, at the very least, pasteurized or they will deliver mold, etc. to your gut.  Sound like the processed food industry looking for graft or profit where it would otherwise receive none?

Organically grown raw almonds are very good and not at all a threat to your health.  That is very far from the truth. Whatever the economic benefit to those delivering such an edict to all of us won the day.  Those raw almonds, not organically grown, have been chemicalized to avoid the mold.  Whenever I see something like that I think “shelf life”.  Don’t know if that is the case, but it is my fall back reason and it has been right in the past so I have no reason to doubt it today.

With everything savory using organic ingredients, that also makes a huge difference. Put aside the chicken stock and try water for a change.  The dish you are cooking provides a unique flavor all its own without the use of a “cheater” ingredient.  The chicken stock industry must have paid a pretty penny to get not that position.  There are other stocks on the market, but chicken stock seems to be the one used in just about everything.  Whoever came up with that must have made quite a load of money.

When cooking, you can taste the difference between grass-fed and hormoned/chemicalized meat.  You can also taste huge differences between wild and farm raised fish.  Wild fish tastes the way one would expect fish to taste.  Farm raised fish has a strange texture and the taste leaves something to be desired so additions are necessary to make a decent dish, probably the addition of chicken stock – and on and on it goes.  And you can bet any salmon with Atlantic in front of the name is farm raised.

Who is behind all of these changes to our food supply?  They are coming fast and furious and a stop sign is needed for all our benefits.

Homes that are a part of Bettina Network Hedge Schools are either totally organic – like one in Harvard Square – or they are on their way to becoming organic in their toiletries, food, paper products, cleaning products used and more.  Any way we can move the Network in the direction of using products that don’t destroy the environment or your body that is the direction in which we are headed.

Any suggestions to help that movement are welcome!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

Madeleines – A Delicately Fabulous Tea Cookie

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

madeleineWe bake Madeleines every day, yet by the end of the day they are gone!

It is one of those light delicacies that won’t let you have just one.  And they stay in memory for long after they have been eaten.

They are the tea cakes which give meaning to the reference to ‘delicacies’.

They draw you back to that lovely plate for more until you simply have to leave the area.

AND, they are super easy and quick to make.

Within one-half hour, from start to taking them out of the oven,  you should have about 36 of these beauties.

They must, however, be made of the finest organic ingredients you can find – which is the secret to their success.

INGREDIENTS    and    PROCESS

Turn on your oven and set the temperature to 350 degrees

In the bowl of an electric mixer put

three eggs

one tablespoon organic vanilla syrup (or organic vanilla)

2/3 cup organic turbinado sugar 

start the mixer and let these ingredients whirl until they are light and fluffy

meanwhile, melt one stick organic butter (salted or unsalted – your choice)

In another bowl put the following

One cup organic whole wheat flour

One tablespoon organic corn starch

One teaspoon baking powder

a touch of himalayan salt

Mix these together with a wire whisk until they are well mixed, light and fluffy

Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and let the electric mixer whirl for a few seconds

Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture – mixing by hand because at this point you have to be careful not to over mix the ingredients and using the mixer might just do that.  Once you have a feel for this mixture you can use the electric mixer, if you so choose.

Have on hand at least two Madeleine tins – no aluminum please!

No “non-stick” pans

simple, traditional, tin,  Madeleine pans buttered properly will not stick

Preferably, using a brush, with a bit of melted butter, brush the Madeleine tins with the melted butter – brushing the areas around the indented parts as well.

Do not stint on the butter as you “butter” your tins – the secret to nonsticking cakes

Put the Madeleine mixture in the tine – we use 1/2 tablespoon for each tin.

That might seem like a very little bit, but these are very little bit cakes.

If the mixture in each indentation does not quite come up to the edge you are in good shape because these cakes will rise and you don’t want them to rise above the edge – that takes away from the look of these beautiful cakes.

Enjoy:  You can add a small dollop of homemade marshmallows to one of the cakes and put two together for a different treat.  Or you can do the same with jelly or preserves or anything else you can think of.  You can add chocolate chips or shredded coconut, etc. to the mix just before spooning out into the Madeleine pans.  But I think you will find these perfect just as they are.  Our only vice is putting two tablespoons of organic syrup into the mix because that intensifies the taste that makes these so special.  It is really a way to mainstream vanilla flavoring.

We keep them on a cake plate on the kitchen counter and they last about three minutes.

Proust isn’t the only one who will go down in history as having sung the praises of these fantastic little cakes.  You will too!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net


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