We tried a Nigella Lawson olive oil mousse one night, and though it was too grainy with the monk fruit sweetener and very stiff, but we thought it could be adapted to a tart filling pretty easily. All we needed to do was use a refined sugar substitute like Swerve powdered sugar. It turned out pretty darn good! My guests enjoyed it, too. They kept asking if there were really no saturated fats and sugar in it! I want to point out that this specific diet would not approve of processed sugar sweeteners, but my husband and one of our guests are diabetic. So we need to adapt the diet to work with diabetic needs.

SO before the diet police pile on, we all need to adapt things to work for our own health needs and lifestyles. WE all do the best we can!

AuthorFlora CaputoCategory

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AuthorFlora CaputoCategoryDifficultyIntermediate

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Recipe: Shrimp Linguini Al Napoli

AuthorFlora CaputoCategory

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That means all these COVID pounds need to start melting off because hopefully, many of us will be vaccinated and we can resume semi-normal activities this summer! But holy-moly, sitting at home for a year has not been kind to the body. Trying to stay on track with low carb is hard, and working out at home is hard-especially with the weather being so rough. I have forgotten what it is like to wear pants that zip?! I know I am not the only one. It’s been tough but I also think we need to be kind in forgiving ourselves. We have gone through a pandemic, a tumultuous economy, and a non-peaceful election cycle. None of this is normal. Feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated is normal. Getting tired of the people you’ve been locked in the house with for 12 months is normal. I have to remind myself of these truths a lot lately. I get seasonal depression, and it gets very bad in late February every year. My husband is used to me and tries to suggest things to help, Lord bless him. But THIS seasonal depression has added layers of COVID lockdowns, vaccine anxiousness, and record snowfalls, to name a few. But I keep trying. Especially the low-carb eats. I keep trying, because I know if we aren’t as active day in and day out, carbs will NEVER get used up, and fat stores keep growing. So we have to keep the carbs to a minimum (let’s pretend I didn’t make my way through half a bag of sea salt popcorn last Wednesday….*cough cough*).

I was getting tired of eggs last week, which is the go-to low-carb breakfast with keto/paleo/whole 30. I was craving a muffin or quick bread of some kind and tried this recipe. The walnuts in this bread make it extra filling, and the Paleo Flour Blend from Bob’s Red Mill is my new favorite flour replacement. There are a plethora of natural sugar replacements on the market right now, so try different ones to see what your tastebuds prefer. I find Stevia to have an aftertaste that works in some things, but not in others. I also find that some sugar alcohols upset my stomach, and other natural sugars like Monkfruit are easily digested by my system-yet are not as sweet as other alternatives (needing to finesse the recipe ratios for proper sweetness.) I liked this bread without the frosting, but you can certainly use it to get more of a carrot cake vibe. I spread some vanilla whipped cream with a slice and a cup of coffee and it was quite delightful. So you do you to get yourself through the next 30 days.

Maybe it’s all about balance? If you binge on a candy bar to cheer you up, then have a salad for dinner to get back on track. And don’t judge yourself or any of the choices you make right now. Just keep showing up and trying. That is heroic enough.

Low Carb Carrot Spice Bread

AuthorFlora CaputoCategory

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Looking for something fun to make and occupy the kids on this DAY OF LOVE? Make some hot cocoa bombs! Then, snuggle under a blanket and watch some family flicks on youtube. Doesn’t that sound splendid?

Have some candy melts or cake decorating supplies nearby so you can decorate these any which way you want. I actually use hot almond milk with hot cocoa bombs and it works just as well as milk, so even no-dairy people can love these. Keep a close eye on the chocolate temperature. If the chocolate gets too hot, you will break the sugar crystals. This method is called “tempering”, and there are MANY ways to do this. I went down the rabbit hole on youtube and made myself dizzy with different complicated methods. The one here is what I call “the lazy girl” way. Just go slow, and low, in the microwave, and keep stirring and checking the temp with a thermometer. Don’t get past 91˚F for dark chocolate, and 85˚ for white.

You can use candy melts, or bark, to make the molds, too. But the flavor will be waxy and artificial, so I prefer good chocolate. I use candy melts just for the drizzle on top for decoration.

Show your loved ones lots of cozy love with these yummies! HUGS!

Valentine Hot Cocoa Bombs Three Ways, White Chocolate Rose Hot Cocoa Bombs, Strawberry Hot Cocoa Bombs, and Salted Caramel Hot Cocoa Bombs

AuthorFlora CaputoCategory

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Edible flowers are easy to find at spice shops and on Amazon. You can also dry them yourself, just be sure the flowers are pesticide-free. As long as you store them in an airtight container and out of the sun, they should keep for about a year.

Rose Cookies with Vanilla Drizzle

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As we continue to peruse our seed catalogs that have arrived in our mailboxes (hey, it’s cheaper than therapy!) let’s go deep into one of my other favorite species, Asters. Recently horticulturalists changed the genus name from Aster to a combo platter of various names, depending on continent. As science continues to advance with DNA sequencing, so does the way we categorize plants based on where they have grown and naturalized. A study in 1994 noticed a chromosomal difference between asters grown across the pond and the ones that are native to North America. So it seems that the giant Aster family is divided into Eurasia asters, and North American asters, which gets subdivided into a variety of genus groups-mainly:

As someone who works very hard (by herself) to publish guidebooks to help readers such as yourself choose native plants easily for your own conventional garden, this stuff gives me a headache. This aster family is not the only one that had major name changes from this study. If you pick up an older book at the library for your research (which I have to do for my books) you may find the older Latin names versus the newer ones. Now add to this “naming salad” the common names gardeners use for native plants that get overused-such as “woodland aster”, and you can see why picking and identifying plants could drive a gardener to throw in the trowel. (see what I did there?)

Well, I promise to keep learning, perfecting, simplifying, and sharing the best info I have to help you help the planet. As long as we are all trying, that is a step in the right direction, right?

Planting North American asters (Asteraceae) gives your garden great late season color when most of the other plants have gone to seed. More importantly, asters provide late-season food for pollinators and especially the Monarch butterfly. Pollinators are either gathering for overwintering or fattening up for migrations. The same holds true for the Monarch, who needs to make their way to Mexico in the fall-roughly 3,000 miles. Asters-as well as goldenrods-play a giant role in making sure the migratory species get what they need to travel.

There are about 90 North American species from the family Asteraceae, so to give you a rundown on each of them….well, that is a book unto itself. But here are some top favorites from various footprints in the USA that you can check out, each with its own growing needs, colors, and heights. A few are dainty enough for a pot! And even an aggressive grower can be contained in a pot, too, if you are reticent to add it to your established garden. Finding a spot for a few late-season asters will bring many hungry pollinators and Monarchs! Enjoy the show, and feel good knowing you are helping the biodiversity in your own back yard.

White wood aster (Eurybia divaricate)
We love this aster because it gives you color and pollinator power for shade-loving, drought-tolerant woodland areas! It begins blooming in late August with bright white petals and centers of yellow and red. It grows to 12-18”, with dark green shiny foliage. It can be a vigorous grower.Large-leaved wood aster (Eurybia macrophylla)
Another shade-loving aster, this one gives you pale lavender flowers with yellow centers. This can be some welcome color for shadier areas. It is a late summer-bloomer, with large pale green leaves that spread quickly to form an attractive groundcover. The foliage is a large 6” long with 18” flower stalks.Blue wood aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium)
Blue wood-aster thrives in sun to part shade and is a fall-blooming aster with billowy lavender-blue flowers and heart-shaped leaves. It makes a great urban plant, growing at around 2 feet high. in moist to dry infertile soils. The flowers attract long-tongued bees, short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, skippers, and beetles.New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)
This is a powerhouse pollinator, and ranked as a 3-star nectar and pollen source for honey bees, by “Garden Plants for Honey Bees”. The fall-blooming flowers range from bright purple to pink flowers with yellow centers. They grow to be 2-4 feet high, but a pruning/pinching in July can keep the plants more compact and dense. It prefers part shade and moist soils.

Tall white aster (Doellingeria umbellata)
This tall white aster is a summer to fall blooming aster with large, bright bunches of yellow-centered white flowers, similar to small daisies. This species is a vigorous grower and spreads to become a large colony. It likes moist soil and grows to 3-4′ high.Smooth blue aster / smooth aster (Symphyotrichum laeve)
This aster likes full sun, but tolerates part shade, with loose clumps of smooth blue-green foliage. Violet to purple sprays of flowers with bright yellow centers showers the stalks. It from late summer to fall in drier soils. This aster grows from18″-3′ high.

Flax-leaved stiff-aster (Lonactis linariifolia)
This aster is a daintier species and thrives in drier, more arid conditions. Flowers bloom in medium purple to pale lavender and sometimes white, from August to September. The flowers have pine needle-like foliage. It’s these stalks and leaves that give it a spruce-like feel, similar to flax. It’s these leaves that give it some of its common names like “flax-leaved aster” or “bristly aster”. It is also called “ankle aster” because of how short it is and tends to graze your ankles as you walk near it. This smaller aster would be a great candidate for containers. It grows 8-12” high.Sky blue aster (Symphyotrichum oolentangiense)
True to its name, sky blue aster has blue to blue-violet flowers on 2-3 foot stalks. It’s an easy grower and drought-tolerant, making it a hardy grower for many gardens. It blooms in late summer to fall, like most Asters. It attracts many large and small butterflies, small bees, flies, skippers, and wasps.Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolius)
Aromatic Aster is one of the last asters to bloom in the late fall (as late as November), and grows further west than other species, and is more drought-tolerant, too.  Even though it is called “aromatic”, the blooms are not fragrant on their own. Its name refers more to the aroma of the leaves when crushed or bruised. This species grows about 2 feet tall and thrives in sunny areas.

Heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides)
This aster is a Missouri native plant, with the smallest flowers of the aster family, with delicate white ray flowers (sometimes blue or pink) with yellow centers. It is a bushy, compact plant with many-branched stems creating an impressive spray of blooms. It grows usually 2′ high, and blooms in late summer to early fall, and attracts many butterflies.Fendler’s aster (Symphyotrichum fendleri)
Another small-statured aster, growing 4-16” high, and usually landing in the 8” range. This makes it a great candidate for containers and small gardens. It is the most drought tolerant of the aster family, thriving in full sun. In September these asters are at their peak of bloom time, covered in lavender daisies.

Calico aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum)
Also called goblet aster, side-flowering aster, because it often leans toward one side on account of the flowers favoring on side of the plant. These asters grow to 1-3′ tall. The delicate flowers range from white to a very pale purple. The species gets its common name from the variety of colors of its flowers’ centers, similar to calico fabric. This aster attracts a variety of smaller-tongued insects because of the flower’s shorter nectar tubes.Many-rayed aster (Symphyotrichum Anomalus)
This aster has a very long bloom time, with a profusion of daisy-like flowers with bright purple to violet rays and yellow centers. It grows 2.5-3.0′ high, in a very stiff and upright manner. Butterflies love this aster. It thrives in average soil and full sun.New York aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii)
This aster is a clump-forming perennial with lance-shaped leaves and large flower heads filled with 20 or more purple, pink or white flowers with yellow centers These are visited by Monarchs and other butterflies, and many bees. It grows 3-4’ tall. This species is also called Michaelmas daisy and can thrive in a variety of sun conditions-from full sun to shade.

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One of the things I love most about writing my books about native flowers and plants is discovering how diverse various flower families are. I discovered this specifically when I was researching plants for my BEE NATIVE! FLOWER POT POWER book. The book was all about finding hidden gems in native flower families that could thrive in smaller gardens and in particular, pots and containers. Native flowers are usually clumped together in an “aggressive prairie plant” bucket by conventional gardeners. The reality is that native flower families have species that thrive in a variety of habitats and growing conditions. Goldenrod, for instance, is considered a bossy aggressive flower native to the prairies of America. Yet there is a whole group of goldenrods that are native to shadier woodlands. These woodland goldenrods are more well-behaved than their prairie cousins, and can also tolerate some shade. If you are struggling with finding some native flowers to help the bees that work within your growing parameters, I urge you to dig a little deeper in certain families, there may be a species that works perfectly for your needs.

So in the spirit of garden inspiration, (after all, some of us are dusting off our garden journals as we peruse seed catalogs arriving in the mail) I am going to do some deep dives into various flower families for some of my “Wild Wednesdays” posts. Today it is all about Echinacea—yes, the “bread and butter” of gardens. This species is known to be drought-tolerant, with long bloom times. But beyond the usual “purple coneflower”, there are species that have different petal structures, different colored pollen, and different colors!

Hopefully, this will give you some ideas as you start planning for spring. Don’t give up on native flowers for your garden. Bees are four times more likely to pollinate a native versus a non-native species, and natives provide much more nutrients for bees and pollinators. Adding native plants and flowers can make a big impact in your backyard.

The Echinacea Family

Purple coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
2-4 feet, full sun
The bread and butter of most Midwest gardens, this coneflower is often considered to be the prettiest and very adaptable to a wide range of soils and temperatures.

Narrow-leaf coneflower
Echinacea angustifolia
1.5-2 feet, sun to part shade
This coneflower is the most northerly ranging coneflower. It is also the smallest, and really the hardiest, especially with drought.

Yellow coneflower
Echinacea paradoxa
2-3 feet, full sun
This flower is the largest in the family, with unique yellow flowers, not purple, thus the name “paradox”.

Topeka purple coneflower
Echinacea atrorubens
1-3 feet high, full sun to light shade
A rare coneflower, and with a small native footprint in Texas and states north of it, and is best known primarily to be native to Kansas. The blooms range from red to pink, with thin petals drooping down away from the center disc.

Wavy leaf coneflower/Glade coneflower
Echinacea simulata
2-3 feet high, full sun to part shade
This coneflower has very thin ray petals drooping away from the center disc, with pale pink colors. Its pollen is yellow which helps distinguish it from E. pallida (with white pollen), though they look very similar.

Tennessee purple coneflower
Echinacea tennesseensis
1.5-2 feet high, full sun to part shade
This is a very rare coneflower, and the official wildflower of Tennessee. In 1979, it was one of the first plants to be listed as endangered by the U.S. but was removed from the list in 2011 after successful conservation efforts. A unique aspect of this flower is the upturned ray petals, which are different than the drooping petals typical of the echinacea family.

Pale purple coneflower
Echinacea pallida
2-3 feet high, full sun to part shade
This species produces tall stalks with gorgeous flowers dressed in drooping ray petals, like a ballerina skirt. The pollen on the anthers is white, differentiating it from wavy leaf coneflower, which looks similar but has yellow pollen.

Sanguine purple coneflower
Echinacea sanguinea
1-3 feet high, full sun to part shade
This coneflower is the most southerly-ranging of the species, producing clusters of stately, showy flowers earlier in the season than its cousins. The name “sanguine”, is Latin for “blood”, and refers to the color of the petals.





 These flowers sit atop long elegant stalks, like tall ballerinas.

Smooth purple coneflower
Echinacea laevigata
1-5 feet high, full sun to part shade
This coneflower is a federally listed endangered species found in the Piedmont regions, specifically in Virginia and North Carolina. This plant had much of its habitat destroyed when areas were converted to pine plantations.
 The flower looks similar to pale purple coneflower, yet leaves lay low to the base and are very smooth and elongated, and the flowers are smaller.

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Would you like some native flowers to decorate your wall? My native wildflower poster on Etsy is a best seller, and a percentage of profits get donated to The Bee Conservancy at year’s end! The poster features my own illustrations, all found in my BEE NATIVE! books as well. 

I also created a specific echinacea poster featuring the species in this post! So if you are a coneflower lover and like my watercolors, you can buy the print through my Etsy shop! Click on the poster below.

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