Whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Combine egg, milk and canola oil and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
Preheat griddle over medium heat. Lightly grease griddle. Pour batter by 1/2 cupfuls onto griddle; cook until bubbles on top begin to pop and bottoms are golden brown. Turn; cook until second side is golden brown.
Meanwhile, beat together cream cheese and yogurt. Spread over pancakes; top with banana and raspberries. Fold edges over filling.
Nutrition Facts
1 taco: 429 calories, 17g fat (6g saturated fat), 71mg cholesterol, 651mg sodium, 59g carbohydrate (19g sugars, 6g fiber), 11g protein.
Originally published as Fresh Strawberry Breakfast Taco in Taste of Home April/May 2019
Use these home remedies to get rid of fleas on pets and in the home. Remember: He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.
Place a flea collar in the bag of your vacuum cleaner. Any fleas you sweep up will stay put in there.
If you don’t want to use a flea collar with insecticides, active ingredients such as cedar, lemongrass, rosemary, and marigold won’t exterminate fleas, but will deter them.
Give your dog a flea bath with limonene shampoo, and flea-comb him down thoroughly while he’s in the water so the fleas drown.
As a flea deterrent, try adding a teaspoon of vinegar to each quart of the animal’s drinking water. It helps keep pets free of fleas and ticks but is not harmful to the pet itself. Learn about the other helpful household uses for vinegar.
Sprinkle borate powder into crevices of couches and chairs.
Stock your yard with off-leaf larvae-eating nematodes (available at pet and garden stores). Nematodes will also help to bring down your Japanese beetle population.
Getting proper nutrition for your pets is the best flea prevention. Add brewer’s yeast to your pet’s food, as well as essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6. Check out these tips for proper pet nutrition.
Spray window and door screens with distilled water containing several drops of bitter orange essential oil. (Fleas hate citrus scent and will avoid crawling in through the screens.)
Oatmeal Bath: Put uncooked oatmeal or rolled oats into a sock or nylon stocking and run a tubful of warm water over it. Soak your dog (cats will rarely let you do this) in the water for 5 to 10 minutes. Oatmeal-based shampoos are also available at pet stores. Find out more about oatmeal’s soothing benefits.
Aloe Vera: Break off a piece of the plant and apply the thick juice directly to the raw area. Do not let your pet lick the area, as aloe vera can cause vomiting when ingested. Learn more about the benefits of aloe vera or how to grow your own aloe vera plant.
Aggravated skin sores, also known as hot spots, can make your pet miserable. If you see a hot spot developing, clip about one-half to one inch around the sore to prevent hair and other dirt from further aggravating it. Clean the sore with hydrogen peroxide on gauze or a cotton ball, and after it dries, spray the area with cortisone cream. Do this twice a day until the sore starts to dry out or a scab begins to form.
Home Treatment for Cuts, Scrapes, Abrasions
Mix together 1 pint water, ½-teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon calendula tincture.
Soak an injured paw in the solution. If the wound is on the body, put the solution in a squirt bottle or large syringe and gently apply it to the injured area.
Repeat the soaking or application every 4 to 6 hours for the first 24 hours.
Home Treatment for Bites and Scratches
For serious bites and scratches, take your pet to the vet. For smaller wounds:
Rinse out the fresh wounds and punctures with large amounts of this solution: 1 pint water, ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon Echinacea/goldenseal tincture.
Hydrogen peroxide may also be used to clean wounds, but it can damage delicate tissues.
Cat wounds are notorious for forming abscesses. If the abscess is draining, clean it with with Echinacea/goldenseal solution. Always wear latex gloves while handling an abscess.
How to Heal Tissue Trauma
If your pet falls, gets stepped on, is in a fight, or is otherwise bruised, the common homeopathic remedy arnica can speed recovery. Give two pellets of arnica 30c once per hour for three hours following the injury.
What to Do if a Pet Is Choking
You can perform the Heimlich maneuver on animals.
Lift a small pet, or reach over the back of a large one and raise the back legs, so that the rear end is elevated over the head.
Place your hands around the lowest part of the chest and give a quick, gentle thrust inward and upward.
Remember to scale the force of your thrust to the size of your pet. For small pets, imagine you are performing this on an infant or toddler.
Pet Indigestion or Loose Stool
When your dog scavenges something from the compost pile, it irritates the bowel, creating nerve impulses that signal the gut to speed up. When food moves too quickly through the gut, the result is loose stools. In dogs and cats with chronic inflammatory bowel disease, the gut responds as if irritated at the slightest stress or change of diet.
The herb slippery elm, available as powder or capsules, coats the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, counteracting the irritation and allowing stools to firm up. Put 1 tablespoon of the powder (break open capsules) into 1 pint of water and bring to a boil to thicken. Let it cool, and administer by mouth. Give a teaspoon or less to small pets and several tablespoons to large dogs every 2 to 4 hours, until the gut settles down (usually 8 to 24 hours).
For dogs, comb the burrs in their fur with a metal comb immediately. If burrs are badly tangled, rub vegetable oil on your fingers and work the lubrication slowly through the fur until you can pull the burrs out.
Cats typically will want to take care of their own grooming, but you can help by gently working through the mess with a wire brush. Most cats won’t let you cut the fur or lubricate it the way a dog will. (We suggest wearing long sleeves… Maybe even two layers.)
Remedies for Itchy Ears
Aloe vera or the contents of a vitamin E capsule can soothe red or inflamed areas of the ear.
A gentle cleaning with a cotton swab or gauze dipped into vegetable oil can help to remove a buildup of wax and dirt.
Remember that dog and cat ear canals take a right-angle turn at the base of the ear, and be careful not to jam anything deep into the ear canal.
Home Remedies for Sore or Runny Eyes
A simple rinse of saline solution can help a mild eye irritation. Continue eye drops every four hours, until clear.
If symptoms persist, consult with your vet.
How to Ease Pet Arthritis
Massage helps to relieve muscle tension that contributes to pain. Be gentle. Start from the center of the body and work your way outward. If feet are too sensitive, leave them alone.
Nutritional research suggests that supplements containing chondroitin sulfate and glucosaminoglycans can help inflamed or damaged joints. Check with your vet or health-food store.
Egg-crate foam and other creature comforts can bring relief to older and arthritic pets. Buy enough foam for two or three beds, cover the foam with washable covers (easy to make from old towels), and put them into the places your pet likes to sleep.
Bathe your dog in a mixture of 1 quart hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup baking soda, and 1 teaspoon liquid soap. Work the solution into the fur (avoiding eyes), then rinse.
To rid the stench from your pet, douse him with tomato juice, leaving it on for several minutes before rinsing it off. For a large dog, a single washing can require several cans of tomato juice. You may have to repeat the procedure, but the odor will eventually work itself out of your pet’s coat.
Note:The Old Farmer’s Almanac does not have professional vets on staff, so please do not inquire about serious pet health issues on this page. Contact a vet immediately if your pet develops serious symptoms, such as trouble breathing, urinating, or moving, or if s/he shows signs of shaking or weakness, seizures, confusion, fever, vomiting (unless it’s a hairball), swelling, deep wounds, bleeding in urine or poop, or other ailments that may indicate that the pet requires prompt attention. If your vet office is not open during an emergency, there are 24-hour veterinary hospitals that you can call for advice; check with your vet beforehand to get the number of one, or search online. If your financial resources are limited, your vet may be able to work with you to develop a payment plan. There are also other options for financial assistance, including pet insurance (for future ailments); for advice, consult a local animal shelter or local branch of an animal welfare association, such as The Humane Society.
A kitchen garden is simply a space dedicated to growing edible plants that you’ll use in the kitchen! Kitchen gardens are also known as potager gardens, which comes from the French term for this style of garden, jardin potager. Learn more about kitchen gardens.
Before you pick out your plants, make sure your garden site receives plenty of sun and that your soil drains nicely (without pooling after rain). If the soil doesn’t drain well, even after you add compost and organic amendments, consider raised beds.
Finally, if you lack a gardening space, starting a kitchen garden in containers on a patio, balcony, or rooftop works well. Some of us just prefer container gardening!
Kitchen Garden Plants
Cherry Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes are a must-have for your small-space garden. These tiny treasures can be grown one plant per 12-inch pot or in hanging baskets.
How about this for a name? ‘Baby Boomer’ cherry tomatoes are perfect for the patio. Wildly prolific, each determinate bush unleashes a bumper crop of 300 one-inch one-ounce little sweeties bursting with great big flavor. GROWING TIP: Plants call for caging.
‘Patio Choice’ (see below image) gives you the choice of red or yellow fruiting plants. Yellow fruits are 1 inch across and the plants are 18 inches tall. Red fruits are a little larger.
‘Patio Choice’ Yellow Cherry Tomatoes
‘Sweet ‘n’ Neat’ bears clusters of 1-inch red cherry tomatoes on a plant that grows to be only 10 inches tall. Starts bearing fruit in only 48 days from transplanting.
For an even larger cherry, try ‘Totem’. Its red fruits are 2 ½ inches across and each 18- to 30-inch tall plant can bear up to 10 lbs. of them!
Bush Tomato Varieties
You are not restricted to growing only cherry-size tomatoes. There are plenty of bush varieties that don’t take up a lot of room but still bear large fruits. Plant one in a 5-gallon or larger pot.
‘Atlas’ is a hybrid beefsteak that grows only 2 to 3 feet tall but bears gorgeous 1-pound fruits 65 days from transplanting. It is good for container growing or put it right in the ground. Give it a wire cage for support and stand back!
Look for anything with “bush” in its name. We grow ‘Bush Blue Ribbon’, ‘Bush Early Girl’ and ‘Bush Goliath’ in large nursery pots every year, positioning them around the edge of the driveway to take advantage of the day-long sun there. All three grow to a manageable size that can be corralled in a regular tomato cage and bear early, medium-sized tomatoes.
Lettuce
Lettuce is the most practical container plant. They don’t need a lot of root space so a 6- to 8-inch deep pot works great or plant them around the edge of a larger container, leaving room in the middle for a pepper or tomato. Leaf lettuces can be harvested as a cut-and-come-again crop by snipping off the outer leaves as needed and letting the rest of the plant continue to grow.
Choose a variety of colors and textures for an interesting salad mix.
If you want to harvest whole heads, look for ‘Little Gem’, a mini-romaine that forms a single-serving sized 4-inch wide head in only 35 days. The small green heads are perfect for individual salads, and its firm upright habit makes it great for sandwiches as well.
Eggplant is not only a delicious edible, but a pretty plant as well, with its purple flowers and velvety leaves. Plant one in a 2-gallon pot and grow it right out front alongside the ornamentals.
‘Patio Baby’ Eggplant
‘Patio Baby’ grows 18 to 24 inches tall and forms lots of lovely little 2- to 3-inch long tender purple fruits in 50 days.
‘Fairy Tale’ has larger 2-inch wide by 4-inch long fruits that are lavender with white stripes. Forming clusters of 4-6 fruits in 50 days, they are as eye-catching as they are delicious. The plants reach between 18 and 24 inches tall.
Peppers
Whether you like your peppers hot or sweet, they make great container plants. Use any 8-inch or deeper pots you have, one plant per 2 gallons of soil.
‘Tangerine Dream’ bears 3-inch long, sweet orange peppers on an 18-inch tall plant in 70 days. We grew this one last year for the first time and loved its flavor.
‘Mini-Belle Mix’ offers multicolored little 1¼ by 1¼ inch sweet bell peppers that ripen to red, orange, or yellow in 60 days. Plants are only 24 inches tall.
‘Sweet Heat’ bears mildly spicy 3- to 4-inch long fruits on a 12-inch tall plant in 56 days.
‘Thai Hot’ is as pretty as it is prolific, dripping with bright red 3-inch long HOT peppers. The plants are only 16 inches tall and start to bear fruit in only 40 days.
Carrots
Who knew you could grow carrots in a container? Use a very deep one, 12 inches or more, if you are planning on long roots otherwise try these true baby carrots. They’ll need a 6- to 8-inch deep pot. (Once you have mastered carrots, give other root crops like radishes and beets a go.)
‘Thumbelina’ carrots need no peeling.
‘Adelaide’ grows only 3 to 4 inches long in 50 days.
‘Little Finger’ reaches 3 to 5 inches long in 62 days.
‘Parisian Market’ and ‘Thumbelina’ form round carrots in 50 to 70 days.
Squash and Cucumbers
Squash and cukes are usually out of the question for a small garden, but these varieties have been bred to stay bushy and not take over. Plant one each in a 5-gallon or larger container and encourage the vining types to grow up a trellis.
‘Butterbaby’ is a mini butternut squash that bears 1- to 1½-lb. tan fruits on short vines in 100 days. Since the single-serving-size fruits are so lightweight, the vines can be grown on a trellis to save room.
‘Honey Bear’ acorn squash is another small, single-serving-size winter squash that weighs only 1 to 1 ¼ lbs. each. The plants are compact and bushy and bear in 85 days.
‘Pick-A-Bushel’ is a semi-bush cucumber with 2-foot long vines that can be encouraged to climb a trellis. Each plant bears between 18 and 20 3- to 5-inch pickling cukes in 50 days.
For slicing cucumbers, look for old standbys like:
‘Spacemaster’ was developed at Cornell in 1980 and is still popular with home gardeners today. It bears 7- to 8-inch long cukes on 3-foot vines in 60 days.
‘Salad Bush’ the 1998 AAS winning cuke bears 8-inch tender-skinned fruits on 24-inch vines.
‘Fanfare’ isa 1994 AAS winner that bears 9-inch long cukes on 24- to 30-inch long vines in 63 days.
‘Salad Bush’ cucumbers take up little space when grown in a container with a trellis.
These are just a few of the dwarf delights available for your kitchen garden this year. Don’t let a lack of space keep you from growing the foods you crave!
Get inspired by Robin Sweetser’s backyard gardening tips and tricks. Robin has been a contributor to The Old Farmer’s Almanac and the All-Seasons Garden Guide for many years. She and her partner Tom have a small greenhouse business and also sell plants, cut flowers, and vegetables at their local Farmer’s Market.
Carter said that no matter what diet you choose, whether it’s vegan, keto, or Paleo, “The ONLY WAY you’ll lose weight is through consistently being in a calorie deficit. For a ballpark daily calorie amount, he suggested multiplying your goal weight in pounds by 10 or 11. So if your goal is to be 150 pounds, you’d aim for 1,500 calories (if you’re sedentary) or 1,650 calories (if you’re somewhat active).
He noted that “if you have over 70 lbs to lose, or you’re already light, these calories might feel a bit low. If this is you, don’t be afraid to start with a higher calorie goal.” His method is a good place to start, but you can use this formula to get a more accurate number. This too is just a guideline, so in order to determine your exact calorie needs, speak with your doctor or a registered dietitian. If you’re not losing weight after a few weeks, and you’re accurately tracking your calories, adjust your calorie intake.
Step 2: Find Your Protein Target
Protein is a key macronutrient to satiate your hunger and help you build and maintain calorie-burning muscle. Aim for 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of goal body-weight. If your goal weight is 150 pounds, get between 105 and 150 grams of protein a day. Carter noted that if you are vegan or vegetarian, it may be easier to decrease that target number.
Step 3: Make Whole Foods the Focus
Carter said, “If roughly 80 percent of your diet is coming from nutritious foods, then it’s absolutely-positively okay to have ‘fun’ foods for the other 20 percent.” Make sure your diet is made up of healthy foods including lean protein, veggies, healthy fats and carbs, but also allow yourself some treat foods to satisfy your cravings and keep you on track.
There’s your simple plan. You can decide how you want to implement it, based on the foods you like and how many times you like to eat a day.
Mws R Writings 