Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Make Something, Give it Away, Watch Joy Grow
















Make Something, Give it Away, Watch Joy Grow










LDK Signature Fingerless Gloves in Black Alpaca






























































LDK Ribbed Line Toque






















Make Something and Give it Away
Chilly winter temperatures, long cold nights and days so cold it can't snow make warm handknits especially appreciated this season.
Knitted LDK Signature Fingerless Gloves in black alpaca and LDK Ribbed Line Toque in brown alpaca the last few days and gave them away.
Nothing like the joy of making something from just yarn and time that someone can wear to keep warm and feel loved. The making of the gift and the giving and receiving fill both with joy.
Try it. It takes surprisingly little time and money to handknit or crochet someone a knit scarf or other winter garment, but the warm feeling you both give and get is priceless.
Make something and give it away. Watch the joy grow.
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Knitting and Photos by Charleen Touchette 2009.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Touchette Talks on Nurturing Creativity at Wellesley in NM


At Museums of New Mexico Women Authors Book Festival

Charleen Touchette signs books while daughter Liesette Paisner serves homemade pie.








Reading from "It Stops with Me - Memoir of a Canuck Girl."









Apples for pie.

















Knitting/Walking practice in New Mexico, on beach in Santa Monica or wherever I travel is a moving meditation that makes people smile and tell stories about creative people in their lives.












Knitting in front of New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts










Painting al fresco at The Station trackside at Santa Fe Depot



































Charleen Touchette talks on "Nurturing Creativity for a Life of Purposeful Fulfillment" at Wellesley in New Mexico Club Event this Saturday, December 5th at 2-4 p.m. at Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe at 401 Old Taos Highway, Santa Fe, NM #505 982-8539.Wellesley in New Mexico announcement -"Meet Charleen Touchette, class of 1975, and share in an afternoon presentation of her books, art and activist work for peace with justice. Touchette is the New Mexico Coordinator for Realizing the Dream, Martin Luther King III's Poverty in America Initiative, host and producer of Mixed Blood Radio Archives and author of "It Stops with Me" and "ndn art."

Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe is at the former Plaza Resolana on Paseo de Peralta and 401 Old Taos Highway in Santa Fe.

Click here for mapquest of address - http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Santa+Fe&state=NM&address=401+Old+Taos+Hwy&zipcode=87501-1203&country=US&latitude=35.691888&longitude=-105.938546&geocode=ADDRESS

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Review by Jessica M. Laccetti for WomenWriters.net of "It Stops with Me".


It Stops With Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl
www.womenwriters.net
Approaching Charleen Touchettes latest textual offering for the first time, readers will be drawn to the unusual cover design. With a smudged grey background, reminiscent of kindergarten pastel-drawing ...

http://www.womenwriters.net/summer06/stopswithme.html















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http://www.oneearthblog.blogspot.com/

Friday, November 27, 2009

Turkey Stuffed with Cornish Game Hen Stuffed with Cornbread Sausage Stuffing
















Stuffing turkey for Thanksgiving. This year, we couldn't get one big turkey, so we stuffed two 13 pounders, one with cornbread, chicken sausage, onions, oyster mushrooms and sage and the bigger turkey we stuffed with a small cornish game hen stuffed with the cornbread sausage sage dressing. Homemade whole wheat mini-brioches were made day before and frozen overnight, then thawed before being baked on Turkey Day. Cutting butter into flour, rolling pastry rounds for apple and apricot pies. Our son sliced the apples for pie, then made his Curried Pumpkin soup for a delectable first course. Roasted turkey comes out steaming from oven covered with sage, rosemary, lavender herbs harvested from garden. Golden and deep red beets roasted in pan with turkey juices, then sliced and served. Mashed potatos, glazed cranberries, giblet gravy and red chile complete a delicious Thanksgiving dinner made by everybody in the family and enjoyed by all with lots of love, storytelling and laughter with flaky apple and apricot pies for dessert. Hope your family gatherings were blessed with love and sweet time spent together as well.





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Photos and text by Charleen Touchette 2009





www.OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving Still Life

























































































































Trips to Farmers Market and La Montanita Coop for Thanksgiving dinner bring subjects for harvest still life home to our kitchen. Colors and textures of fall vegetables are a visual feast as well as being delicious ingredients for family dinner for children home from college for holiday.















Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. It began as a celebration of a massacre of 700 Pequot Indians in the northeast, but has been turned into a holiday perpetuating the American myth using the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny" to justify the conquest of the Americas.















Despite Thanksgiving's dubious origins, for generations, indigenous families have used the Thursday off in November to gather with family, share food, stories and laughter and celebrate the harvest more in keeping with the spirit of the Green Corn Dance held by American Indians for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.















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Photos and text by Charleen Touchette 2009















OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Easy Winter Meal for a Snowy Day









Whole Wheat Bread
& Raspberry Jam










Easy Lentil Soup











Aroma of Baking Bread










Bread Is Moist and Chewy










No Preservatives, Chemicals




or Plastic Packaging










Use Any Vegetables On-Hand for Soup










Bread Dough Should Be Sticky











Kneading the Dough















Water, Lentils, Oil, Salt,
Pepper and Bay Leaves











Rinse Lentils in Fresh Water






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"Easy Winter Meal for a Snowy Day"
by Charleen Touchette, 2009
One Earth Blog

Cold snowy mornings are the perfect time to bake bread and cook a vegetarian lentil soup in the crock pot. Baking bread is a lot easier than it looks and simple if you are at home on a snowy day. If you think you do not have time to cook, try these easy simple recipes and surprise yourself and your loved ones with a wholesome healthy dinner that costs next to nothing.

I began baking whole wheat bread in a farmhouse kitchen in Clinton Hollow in upstate New York while still in college. The first time, I killed the yeast and my bread was as hard and flat as a brick. My boyfriend, who learned to bake bread from hippies in Eugene, Oregon, taught me yeast is a living organism. Everything it touches has to be lukewarm so the yeast can grow. Anything too hot or too cold will kill the yeast and the bread will not rise. Once I learned that it was easy to take any bread recipe and modify and tweak it to knead and bake any kind of bread.

Whole Wheat bread is simple and easy to make and tastes so good, as well as being good for you with no preservatives and chemicals. There is really no reason to buy store bought bread in plastic wrapping.

Vegetarian Lentil Soup is a nourishing inexpensive and easy soup to make for busy young mothers or anyone who needs to make a quick dinner in an hour for pennies that is loved by children and people of all ages.

All you need is a stock pot or crock pot, a bag of lentils, water, a bay leaf, oil, salt, pepper and whatever vegetables you have on hand. Serve with short grain brown rice. This lentil soup is a perennial favorite with our four children and their friends from toddlers to adults.

Lentil soup can be cooked on the stovetop for 1 hour or slow cooked in a crock pot for 4 or more hours. This soup is perfect for days when you need to put dinner in the crock pot in the morning before going to work and come home to a hot meal.

For variety, pour the lentil soup atop fresh washed beet greens or spinach leaves from the garden just before serving. The hot soup cooks the greens instantly. It is a delicious variation rich in iron and other good nutrients. I also sometimes ladle the lentil soup into bowls and top with barbecued or roasted beef, chicken or fish and steamed vegetables.

Baked Apples are delicious and soothing for dessert on a cold winter night. Place 4-6 apples (pricked with a fork) in a Pyrex oven-safe dish, add ¼ inch water, juice or wine and pop into the 375 degree oven with the baking bread to conserve energy. Bake and drizzle honey on top or sift or sprinkle powdered or brown sugar on apples when done and serve.

This easy winter dinner warms the tummy and heart on cold winter nights when snow outside makes you want to cuddle by the fire with a bowl of steaming soup wrapped in a blanket by yourself or surrounded by loved ones.

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One Earth Whole Wheat Bread

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
4 cups warm water
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1 T brown sugar
8 cups whole wheat flour
1 T salt

- Stir brown sugar into 4 cups warm water. (Sugar feeds the yeast.) Water should be lukewarm, warm enough to grow yeast and not so hot that it kills it. Sprinkle yeast on top of sugar water and cover with a dishcloth until it has bubbled up (about 7-10 minutes). Measure out 4 cups of flour into large bowl and add water/sugar/yeast mixture with wooden spoon. Add remaining 4 cups flour plus 1 T salt mixing with wooden spoon then kneading with hands until dough is elastic but still somewhat wet and sticky.

Oil bowl and return dough to bowl turning it to coat with oil. Cover with dishcloth and put in warm place to rise for about 1 1/2 -2 hours until doubled. Punch down. Separate into 2 sections and form into loaves. Let rise in warm place for about 20 minutes until dough is above loaf pan. Bake in 375 degree oven for about 40 minutes.(Optional glaze - Paint loaves with beaten egg or egg white diluted with eggshell of water after 20 minutes of baking. Sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds. Return to oven for another 20 minutes.)

You can put up this bread dough before leaving for work in the morning and put it in fridge to rise slowly all day. When you get home, remove, cut into 2 parts and form loaves, put in warm place (oven with pilot light on or sunny window work well). Let rise and bake for 40 minutes. If it is not ready for dinner, this bread makes a great dessert with butter and is delicious with raspberry jam and honey from the Farmers Market.

One Earth Vegetarian Lentil Soup

Combine in big soup or crock pot the following ingredients -
2 cups lentils (rinsed)
~ 16 cups water (stock pot or crock pot full)
1 T salt
2-3 T Oil – olive or safflower
2-3 bay
ground black pepper
Add coarsely chopped vegetables - I use whatever I have in the refrigerator or pantry.
1-3 potatoes
1-3 carrots
1-2 onions and/or leeks or shallots
1-3 celery stalks (optional)
1-3 tomatoes or 18 oz can (optional)
1-3 garlic cloves (optional)
Optional - Add 2 T Fresh Chopped Herbs as available. I add fresh basil, homegrown, organic, Herbes de Provence (basil, sage, rosemary, lavender, thyme, tarragon, or dill depending on what is growing well in the garden.)
Mix all ingredients into large soup stock pot and put to boil on stove, cover and simmer for 1 hour or place in crock pot for slow cooking all day. Serve over steamed brown rice or noodles.
Vegetarian Variation – Pour over ¼ cup fresh beet greens or spinach in bowls just before serving.
Meat/Fish Lovers Variation – Barbecue chicken, steak or fish and place atop lentil soup in bowls and serve. Steamed fish also works well.

One Earth Easy Baked Apples

Prick 4-6 apples (core, if desired)
Place in baking dish with ¼ inch water, juice or wine.
Bake 40 minutes to 1 ¼ in 350-375 degree oven.

Test for doneness with fork.
Optional – drizzle with honey, sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg and/or confectioners or brown sugar.
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Text, recipes and photos by Charleen Touchette 2009
http://www.oneearthblog.blogspot.com/