Toasted and salted, pumpkin seeds have a nutty flavor. They’re even better flavored with sweet and savory spices.

Ingredients

1 cup raw pumpkin seeds,
rinsed and dried
6 tablespoons white sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 250o. Spread seeds on a foil-lined baking sheet, sprayed with cooking spray, for easy clean up and non-stick. Toast for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until dry and toasted. Larger seeds may take longer.

2. In a large bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons of white sugar, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pumpkin seeds and sprinkle the remaining sugar over them. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts, about 45 seconds. Pour seeds into the bowl with the spiced sugar and stir until coated. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and mix the seeds again for coating. Allow to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Have more seeds than you know what to do with? Substitute pumpkin seeds for peanuts in your favorite peanut brittle recipe.

Sugar and salt, if one isn’t making the news, the other one is. Consuming too much sugar will make you gain weight, considering its calorie count, that’s understandable.  Salt is a more complicated subject. It raises your blood pressure, but how it does this dastardly deed is a mystery to most of us. Salt plays a key role in your electrolyte balance. Too much salt can keep the volume of blood circulating in the body higher than it should be.

When that happens, the high blood volume puts pressure on blood vessel walls. To protect themselves, the blood vessels thicken and narrow. That means the heart has to work harder to push the blood through a smaller space and the harder the push the higher the blood pressure. There may be other factors working at the same time to raise the pressure, but doctors at Johns Hopkins and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake believe salty diets are the main culprit.

Salt peaks the flavor of many foods, but Americans are going overboard on using it. They consume up to twice as much as they should, which could be the reason why nearly one-third of adult Americans have high blood pressure.

Avoiding the salt shaker can help reduce consumption. But processed foods contain 75 percent to 80 percent of the salt in your diet. You never see it and can’t identify it when you eat it. You should only have 150 to 200 mg of salt at a meal, so read packaged and canned food labels to see how much they contain. Choose fresh foods when possible. Processing always includes a lot of salt. A serving of potatoes au gratin from dry mix, for example may contain 50 times as much salt as one baked potato. Rinsing canned vegetables before cooking can help.

Dining out can be a problem. Some meals at chain restaurants contain two to five days worth of the daily recommended salt limit, so eating in is better than eating out.

Whether a simple cake reception or a full service catered event, so many new and fun ideas for receptions are out there and the possibilites are limitless!  What to cater should be determined by several things:  budget, size of your wedding, time of day, and most importantly, what you want.  Remember, a good caterer works within your budget to provide you exactly (or as close as possible) what you want without sacrificing quality.

A nice option for afternoon receptions that is budget friendly is simple but beautiful fruits, vegetables and cheese displays. The addition of melons carved into swans or your names carved into watermelons can be used to highlight the presentation. The addition of mini-croissant sandwiches or a nice spinach dip with bruschetta can round the display nicely.

A noon wedding usually requires heavy hors d’oeuvres or a light lunch.  The afore mentioned reception menu plus stuffed mushrooms, chicken and beef flank steak skewers with dipping sauces, or delightfully filled filo cups.  These may be plated or served buffet-style.  If it is lunch you are serving, let your caterer know what you would like or ask for creative ideas and suggestions.

An evening wedding will warrant a dinner or very heavy appetizers for hungry guests and also serve as a balance if alcohol is served.  Dinners may be plated or buffet depending on where they are held and what facilities are available. Prime rib and steamship round beef carving stations are great additions here.

Let’s not forget about the brunch; a wonderful way for a morning wedding to be followed.  Usually served around ten or eleven in the morning, everything from scrumptious pastries, tasty pasta salads, to ham and turkey carving stations are found in brunches.  Coffee bars with plenty of flavors and condiments to accompany along with mimosas and wine.

Many other creative options are out there as well from mashed potato bars, dessert receptions, themes from around the world and whatever your imagination thinks up. Remember this is your wedding – your food!

In my search of farmers, I’ve discovered that not all farmers grow food. Some, like Regina and Troy Dale of Bartonville, raise animals and plants for the fiber that can be made from their wool or material.

The Dales’ purchased the raw land some 15 years ago. When they saw the huge pecan tree near the front of the property, they fell instantly in love with the land. They have a round pen and adjacent pasture that is home to 9 gelded Huacaya and Suri alpacas, 7 angora goats and 2 Corriedale sheep.

Alpacas are a cousin to the llama. Huacaya alpacas are fluffy outside and crimpy near the base.  On the other hand, the Suri have a curly overcoat and smooth undercoat. The Suris’ outer hair is reminiscent of dreadlocks and is professionally sheared once a year.  Regina uses only that taken from the saddle area of the animal due to its superior quality. Once collected, she either processes it herself or sends it off to a mill for professional processing. She uses the resulting fiber for weaving and knitting.

The fiber sheared from the angora goats is called mohair.  The Dale’s shear them twice a year, resulting in approximately 3-4 pounds of useable mohair with a 2”-3” staple length from each shearing. It’s important, for alpacas, goats and sheep to be sheared in a timely manner to insure they’re kept cool in our hot Texas climates.

The two Corriedale sheep, appropriately named Bo (brown) and Peep (white) weigh about 200 lbs. each.

These animals are sheared only once each year, each providing about 6 lbs of wool.

Since good feed is essential to a good quality fiber, Troy cuts and bales his own acreage of coastal. This ensures they know how the fields are managed and what’s being fed to their animals.

The last fiber grown here is actually a plant – cotton. Did you know cotton comes in three natural colors – white, Mississippi Brown and Nandine Green? These plants are part of the hibiscus family and are grown here in containers from seed as an annual.  The plant flowers for 1 day and then closes and creates the seed, or the bol.

Left alone in nature, the cotton would carry the seed by air for dispersal, but we’ve intercepted that product as a fiber source.

Regina plans to sell her fibers next summer at the Bartonville Farmer’s Market.  To learn more about Regina and Troy and the products they offer, check out their website at www.howlingwolfherbs.com, or email them directly at hwh@pwhome.com

For more local farm info:
www.SlowFoodUSA.org
www.LocalHarvest.org
www.NaturallyGrown.org
www.EatGreenDFW.com

More importantly, if you know of great farm in your community, email me at suenewhouse@yahoo.com