Great to see you again! If you haven't already, please subscribe to my RSS feed, to keep updated on life in the middle of the road or follow me via Networked Blogs by clicking the button in my sidebar! If you are interested in mini-guest posting on A Moderate Life I would love to have you! Please check out my Baby Steps to a Rockin' Life Guidelines. Thanks for visiting!

Look what's in the middle of the road today. Photo by Notyourbroom

Sending out the link love!

Happy Friday folks and I hope everyone is getting ready for a wonderful Labor Day weekend in the US and trying to squeeze the last drop of summer into their hearts! We are enjoying a few Red Sox games at Fenway Park in Boston, a concert with the Amazing Blue Oyster Cult and the Connecticut State Fair this lovely long weekend, so I better get cranking with all this great stuff. You may notice a few new items on my list as I always feel the need to shake things up as the seasons start to change.

Congratulations to the Winner of My First Giveaway EVER!

Thanks to everyone who entered my first giveaway to win a Free Kelly the Kitchen Kop Real Food For Rookies Online Class. The lovely Penny of Plate by Plate was the winner and she wrote to say she is actually studying to be a nutritionist and is very excited to get all the real food information. Please visit Penny’s site which is filled with awesome family oriented recipes, and if you are still interested in the Real Food for Rookies Class check it out soon as the registration deadline is on September 5, 2010.

Speaking of Giveaways! Win Palm Shortening from Tropical Traditions!

Amy is celebrating one year of her Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays Blog Carnival so make sure you visit and give her some foodie love. She is also running a great giveaway from the Tropical Traditions company for a whole gallon of their Palm Shortening. As you know, palm oil is a healthy saturated fat that works very well in baking, so go check out the giveaway and enter to win some awesomeness!

Make Your Own Healing Salve at Home from Coconut Oil

Cara of health home and happiness wrote a piece about making a great all purpose healing salve at home from coconut oil. Since I use a lot of coconut oil for skin care and know of its healing properties and high lauric acid content that fends off bad yeast and bacteria, I wanted to share it with you all so you could keep some on hand in your home made remedy kit! You do have a home made remedy kit don’t you? If not, don’t worry, we will be working on that soon in my upcoming foraging/herbal challenge.

Tend to the Roots to Grow Good Fruit

Vina of  A nourishing home has a great spot all about the nourishment of the family from mom right on down the line. She posted a great article on self care based on the idea of feeding your roots to get better “fruit.”  Its a very thought provoking idea for anyone interested in leading a more conscious, presence based life, and I urge everyone to check it out.

Wonderful Blog Hop Recipe Highlights

Blog Hop Highlights

The Two for Tuesday Recipe Blog Hop is growing week after week! Last week we broke the 100 link up mark and we want to thank all the wonderful foodie bloggers for showing their love! We will be making a few changes in the coming weeks to better reflect our own personal mission statement which revolves around a passionate belief that love, food, energy and health are all in one big happy family! Please visit the hop for a ton of great recipes or to link up. Here are some of the links that stood out for me this week.

Debbi certainly does dinner with this awesome slow cooker version of ham and bean soup. I adore anything ham and bean, but have yet to try it in the slow cooker, so I am glad she shared this recipe to again, expand my culinary borders closer to the crockpot!

Another soup recipe you say? Well, yes, I must be craving the comfort food of fall, but this is a summer corn chowder recipe from the Foyupdate where she explains how to milk corn. Since I had never heard of that, I thought many of you might not have either, so here you go, learn something new!

Bonnie of City Home, Country Home put up a very informative post about how you have to make cooking adjustments for altitude, and she shares info for making candy as well. Very important stuff for anyone who is moving UP in the world geographically!

Even-star of the dinner for two project put up a great basic biscuit recipe, which was the first thing she ever learned to cook. What is so great about her post is she troubleshoots all the issues you can come across when baking biscuits and gives solutions. I love it when I learn something new and hope you all do too!

Julie, from Mommiecooks did an amazingly detailed write up on how to cook on a wooden plank. Another thing I didn’t know about. Gee this week’s hop surely showed me that the more you learn about cooking, the more there IS to learn! Please check it out because her photography and instructions are spot on!

Have you ever seen a recipe, or picture of a meal being put together and think to yourself as you wipe away the drool from your mouth that you HAVE to have that meal? City Share put up one such meal while describing how they made Christmas salsas. You will have to visit them to understand what I mean!

photo by S. Kaiser

I Tried It!

This is a new feature that will be as regular as I can make it. I want to try every single blog hop recipe, but I just don’t have the time. Some stuff stands out for me and when I try it, I will take a picture, share my thoughts and link back to the wonderful food blogger who shared it with me in the first place so you can go and grab it for yourselves!

Banana Cocoa Smoothie from Stacie of Delighting in the Days

Stacie at Delighting in the days shared this simple banana and cocoa shake. She makes it with coconut milk, but offers some dairy variations. The reason I tried this was I had just run out of my weeks supply of green veggie smoothie that I make for breakfasts daily and I wanted a change. I had some ripe bananas and some raw milk that was just starting to sour, so I wanted to use it up. Not only was it DELICIOUS and easy, when you see the ingredients she uses, you will understand how nutritious and filling it is for a breakfast or on the go meal! What I love about it is you can make it vegan if you want to. Thanks Stacie!

photo by Jeremy Noble

Rollin’ With my Bloggies!

This is another new feature related to something that I have been doing for a while, which is snooping around other Food Blogger’s BlogRolls to see who inspires them. The Two for Tuesday Recipe Blog Hop has given me quite a lot of wonderful blogs to check out, and through their active BlogRolls, I have been able to expand my horizons in food and lifestyle even further. Each week, I will share some of my lovely finds with you, and also give a shout out to the blogger who’s BlogRoll they came from. Please check them out and tell them who sent you!

Using a BlogRoll is a wonderful way to show those you read that you care about what they are saying and wish to share the love. If anyone is interested in being on my BlogRoll, please leave me a comment and I will visit you and put you on the roll.

I found this lovely site called Dinner, A Love Story while visiting City Share, and what caught my eye was this amazing recipe for grilled peaches because I simply had been CRAVING cooked peaches, but not poached ones. I baked them, even fried them, but this, grilled with pork is so going to hit the spot! The rest of the site is just as crave worthy and worth a visit.

I came along a path from Hey what’s for dinner mom? to the lovely enchanted forest that is Mammaroots. I think some fairies must have led me there because this blogger is everything I aspire to be! She is creative, into herbal remedies, cooking, foraging, dying (yes!) and writing. Please check out her magical well rooted spot!

I followed the path from Coconut Mama’s blog roll to an interesting spot called Thank Your Body, developed by a movement therapist and dancer. Right up my alley as I have been a student of the Alexander Technique and a dancer all my life. What initially struck me was the amazing article she has up about not wanting to fit in. It is a must read for all your Foodie rebels. You will not believe the ads she has up in the article, but they are true!

Thanks for joining me this friday and I hope you all have a great weekend with tons of good food, fun and family!

A Moderate Life also recommends these posts!

Anticipation…is making YOU wait… I know you are all here, looking for Thoughts on Friday from the Middle of the Road. I am here to...

And so it begins! Photo by Forest & Kim Starr Welcome folks to this wonderful place--inspired by my journey--my...

Friday Thoughts from the Middle of the Road… From Grandma Jane's Garden! Photo by Alex Clark Hey all! Happy Friday and time for some "link...

Thoughts on Friday from the middle of the road! Well, actually I am not in the middle of the road right now, but on the highway traveling up...