Roasted Pumpkin Seeds are a Garden Bonus

By John Lenaghan

Are you growing pumpkins in your garden? Don't waste one of the best parts of the pumpkins when you harvest them - the seeds. Roasted pumpkin seeds are a tasty and nutritious snack - find out how to prepare them quickly and easily

The reward of gardening is enjoying the fruits and vegetables of your labor. You may be overlooking a delicious and nutritious crop that right under your hoe - roast pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkins have been a popular part of vegetable gardens for centuries. The word comes from the Greek word "pompon," which means large melon. Native Americans ate roasted pumpkin and wove dried strips into mats. Today, we include pumpkins in our vegetable gardening mainly for their decorating and pie value. We often throw the seeds away.

Next time you carve a jack-'o-lantern or cook a pumpkin for pie filling, save those seeds. They make nutty-flavored snacks that are a good source of protein, fiber, iron and phosphorous.

Below is an easy, fun recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds. The whole family will enjoy making and eating this new treat from the garden. Some people like to wash the seeds before roasting. Others leave any pumpkin particles for added flavor and nutrition.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 Cups Pumpkin Seeds
1 Quart Water
2 Tablespoons salt
1 Tablespoon Melted Butter or Vegetable Oil

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees

2. Bring water and salt to a boil. Add the seeds and boil for 8 to 10 minutes

3. Drain the seeds in a colander and spread them on a paper towel to dry.

4. Melt the butter. Put the dry seeds and butter in a large bowl and toss until the seeds are evenly coated.

5. Spread the seeds in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

6. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until they reach a light, golden brown color. Stir seeds every 10 minutes during cooking.

7. Cool the seeds completely before eating.

You can remove the hulls from the seeds after roasting or eat the seeds hull and all. Keep roasted seeds in airtight containers.

Gardening Tip: Set a few seeds aside before roasting. These free seeds will start next year’s pumpkin patch.

John Lenaghan writes about vegetable gardening for

http://www.vegetable-gardening-4u.com where he provides valuable tips and advice about seed companies, garden accessories, container gardening and other vegetable gardening topics.

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TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL: DOUBLE AGENT

Product Description:

Sam Fisher and the other characters of Tom Clancy’s popular Splinter Cell universe return with Ubisoft’s TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL: DOUBLE AGENT for the Xbox 360. This time around, players get to experience life as a double agent as they help Sam infiltrate and destroy a terrorist cell from within. Veteran agent Sam Fisher has been on many dangerous missions, but none as dangerous as posing as a double agent within a terrorist organization. Sam has no contact with his NSA superiors and agents, leaving him to complete his mission of stopping the terrorist cell alone. Even worse, to keep his cover, Sam may have to perform acts of treason himself. Keeping Sam’s cover is at the heart of Double Agent. At many points in the game, players will have to choose to stop the terrorists and expose Sam as an NSA agent or actually work with them, sometimes against other agents, to keep Sam in their good graces. The storyline branches at many different points depending on players’ actions, and there are multiple endings to the game. It’s up to the player to decide if Sam kills a man in cold blood, helps plant or defuse bombs, and other actions that can either hurt or help his standing with the terrorists. Gamers who love the Splinter Cell universe will love TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL: DOUBLE AGENT. The branching storyline makes for a very exciting adventure that gamers will want to replay over and over.


Special Features

Dual objectives to fulfill: NSA government agents and terrorists will each want you to accomplish opposing tasks at the same time.

Discover the tension of being a double agent: Use actual tactics employed by today’s real-life double agents to sabotage the terrorists’ plans.

Explore a branching storyline with multiple endings: Your choices have an impact on how the story and game play unfolds.

A world of international espionage: Missions from all over the world, from Asia to Africa to the heart of the US. Experience extreme situations: underwater or in a sandstorm, hiding behind the dust or smoke – and even skydiving.

New authentic gadgets: Master the latest weapons and gadgets used by NSA government agents in addition to black-market terrorist weapons.

Innovative online play: The critically acclaimed multiplayer action of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is back with entirely new innovations for each platform., Branching storyline; respect level with both terrorists and NSA agents that can turn other characters into friends or foes; missions take place all over the world; Xbox 360 version includes two extra single-player missions, nine versus and co-op maps, and underwater and sandstorm battles.


Warnings
Blood, Language, Mild Language, Realistic Blood, Realistic Violence, Violence


Details
Players: 1-2 Players
Controller: Gamepad, Joystick
Memory Card: No

Click here ~ Find it New on eBay!

World of Warcraft Power Leveling Guide

By Steven Golden

This is the method the power levelers have used since closed beta and I finally got one of them to give it up. It is by no means the way to go if you want to maximize your experience in the game as this method will bypass almost all the content in the game and essentially ignore many of the fun, unique aspects of WoW. This is not recommended for new players and is meant for players who already have experienced the content and just want to level up an alt to play with their level 60 friends (i.e. your level 60 instance group needs a priest and there are no priests to be had). As a benchmark to how successful you are with this, download cosmos (Cosmos) and use the clock feature to measure your xp/hour. At level 50 you should be getting about 40,000+/hour.

1-20: Newbie lands, stick to the friendly zones (not contested). Just grind. The quests are a waste of time up to level 20 if you are focusing on maxing out xp per hour. 20-26: Wetlands quests and raptors/slime/orcs for grinding. Redridge mountain Lakeshire quests.

26-30: Duskwood quests and undead for grinding. Hillsbrad critter roamers for grinding.

30-35: Did these all in a day on Daggerspines in Hillsbrad right next to Southshore along the coast. Huge spawn, very fast respawn rate, easy mobs to kill. Purgation isle (island in the very far Southwest water area of Hillsbrad) also a nice secluded place you can grind on undead.

36-40: Hillsbrad southshore quests. Desolace quests and kodo grinding for 36-38, then Undead Ravagers in the southeast for 38-40. Cresting exiles at the circle of outer binding in Arathi also for 37-41; extremely easy mobs with a fast respawn. Alterac ogres from 35-40 for grinding. Drywhisker kobolds in Arathi east of Hammerfall for 36-39 for grinding.

41-45: Hinterlands trolls, owl beasts, and wolves for grinding and quests. Badlands ogres, gnolls, and quests.

45-48: Tanaris quests and pirates on the eastern peninsula for grinding. Stranglethorn vale quests (only if you need rewards imo). Badlands greater elementals for grinding.

48-52: Felwood deadwood gnolls for grinding and quests from the sanctuary in the south. Blasted lands dreadmauls for grinding. Un'goro crater (best started at 50) for primarily quests and grinding off the plants and tar elementals. Azshara undead highbornes and thunderhead hyppogriffs for grinding.

52-55: Azshara blood elves for grinding. Burning steppes dreadmaul rock ogre caves firegut ogres (very low AC) for grinding. Felwood irontree woods and cave for grinding (great spot). Western plaguelands questing for argent dawn and grinding on undead throughout the various camps.

55-58: Eastern plaguelands quests from the sanctuary, grinding on undead at the ruined towns. Winterspring grinding at winterfall village or Lake Kel'Theril undead highbornes (my personal favorite camp. Blackrock Stronghold in Burning Steppes for grinding.

58-60: "The" yeti cave in Winterspring, due Southeast of Everlook (very nice place). Grosh Gok compound ogres in Deadwind pass (great spot, no one knows about it). Eastern plaguelands Fungal Vale undead grinding and argent dawn token farming. Moonowls in northeast winterspring for grinding.

Copyright 2006 Steven Golden

Steven Golden has conducted research into online game for several years. He is currently a part time researcher for some game sites such as http://www.gameusd.com/ , http://www.world-of-warcraft-gold.us/ & http://www.bankofwow.com/.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Golden

Lobster Recipes

By Steve Valentino

Lobsters are a seafood delicacy and are considered quite easy to cook. While they can be boiled or grilled, they are also delicious when just broiled or steamed. For cooking them, you need to get hold of a large stockpot and some good recipes to turn out exotic lobster dishes!

First you must ensure that you get a good quality lobster, preferably live. Then cook within prescribed time limits according to the weight of the lobster. For example, if boiling a lobster, it is recommended to boil it for 10 minutes for the first pound weight and 3 minutes each for subsequent pounds. So a 2-pound lobster needs to be boiled for 13 minutes. Cooking a lobster longer than the recommended times can make the meat too tough to eat. But when properly cooked, lobster meat is a creamy white and shells are bright red. There are many ways to prepare and garnish this seafood and one can get easily confused as to which recipe to pick up first. It is better to start with an easy recipe first and slowly go on to try a little complicated lobster dishes.

There is a lot of variety that can be churned out using lobsters, like lobster bisque, sauce, bakes, rolls, salads and stews. They can be made in American, Italian or Chinese flavors, depending on your taste. Some of the well known recipes of lobsters include chopped vegetable and lobster salad, grilled lobster with barbecue mayonnaise, lobster club sandwich, lobster pizza, lobster and white bean salad, lobster tails with Thai curry, hot and sour soup with lobster dumplings, lobster with coconut, corn and lemongrass. Whatever recipe you select, you can surely get succulent and delicious dish of lobsters.

It is very important to present the prepared lobster dish properly since the lobster is not the Adonis of the ocean. So its appearance should be made attractive and appealing enough to relish the dish and get the praise it deserves. To prepare lobster, you can get hold of a good lobster recipe book or search on the Internet to find numerous savoring recipes of lobsters!

Lobster provides detailed information on Lobster, Lobster Tails, Lobster Recipes, Maine Lobster and more. Lobster is affiliated with Salmon Fishing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Valentino

Tulips and Their Role in Different Cultures

By William Berg

Tulips have been, and are still, being admired by people in many different regions and cultures. Wild Tulips are found in Europe, Africa and Asia. Their native area stretches from southern Europe to northern Africa, and proceeds eastward into Asia from Anatolia and Iran. The most prominent Tulip habitats are found on the steppes of Kazakhstan and among the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains, but wild Tulips can be found all the way into the very eastern parts of China and Japan.

The Tulip has always been held in high esteem by the Middle East cultures and the European name “Tulip” is actually derived from the Persian word for turban. Some etymologists claim that the name was selected since a budding Tulip resembles a traditional turban, while other etymologists suggests that the term is instead the result of a misunderstanding – Tulip flowers were commonly used to decorate the folds of the turban. If you study traditional folk art from Persia and Turkey you will see.

Today, the Tulip is the national flower of Iran as well as of Turkey and the tulip is even suggested on the Iran flag. If you look at traditional Persian and Turkish folk art you will clearly see how important the Tulip motif is and has been.

The Netherlands in Europe is another country strongly linked to the Tulip. The Netherlands will, for instance, send Tulips to the Canadian capital, Ottawa, each year. During World War II, Canada aided in liberating the Netherlands from the German invasion and also served as a refuge for the Dutch Crown Princess who was later to become Queen Juliana.

In Europe, as well as in the Ottoman Empire, episodes of so called “Tulip Mania” when tulips have been used for speculation have occurred. Historians still debate exactly how severe these waves of speculation were and how damaging the Tulip booms and subsequent crashes were to the respective economies. Some even claim that Tulip Mania strongly contributed to the final financial decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Historians do not now exactly when and how the Tulip was introduced to Western Europe for the first time. Perhaps Tulips were brought to this part of the world several times before the flower really became appreciated and famous.

One story claims that ambassador Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq brought Tulips to German attention as early as 1554. Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq had been sent from Ferdinand I of Germany to Suleyman the Magnificent and in one of his letters he write about seeing "an abundance of flowers everywhere; narcissus, hyacinths, and those which the Turks call tulipam, much to our astonishment, because it was almost midwinter, a season unfriendly to flowers". Botanists are however askepticeptic to this letter, since Tulips do not bloom in midwinter, not even in the warm Middle East. Perhaps Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq confused the winter journey with an expedition that he participated in during a warmer part of the year of 1558. We know that Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq wrote and dated all his letters after his journeys, not while he was actutravelinglling.

Tulips are just one of many flowers that have an important cultural significance in numerous religions. Others include the cherry tree and the Bamboo plant.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_Berg

Garden Photography

By TJ Tierney

As the seasons change the colour of your garden will change with it. Most gardens are a rich source of great colours, patterns and vivid textures and can make for a perfect setting to practice all different kinds of photography - especially close-up nature photography.

Your garden can be one of the most wonderful places to take images of flowers, insects and a variety of small birds - and if you are lucky, occasionally other types of wildlife might wander into your garden.

You don’t need great sunshine to go out into the garden - overcast days are always great days to get into the garden and capture the majestic colours of flowers.

Flower photography can be challenging, but when done right is most rewarding. The key to getting good flower pictures is pretty straightforward - get in close. You don’t need to buy a macro lens to achieve this, a good telephoto lens on a tripod should do.

Use a large aperture (low f/number) to isolate your flower. This will get rid of any unwanted background, which sometimes focus attention away from your flower portrait.

Don’t be afraid to use your flash - even on a bright day. This will get rid of any unwanted blur and help make your flower picture sharp.

These are simple tips to follow and should help to make your garden images better.

Photographing insects in many ways is similar to taking pictures of flowers. You need to get in close; your focusing has to be perfect and you also must minimize motion. If you are having trouble photographing insects try the following:

Pick a single flower on which you focus. Place a light fabric around any other flowers to isolate your shot. Now its time to place the bait - perfume is ideal to attract bees, butterflies and other insects into your outdoor studio. Use your strobe unit to freeze any motion with fast moving insects. This should be used in the brightest conditions and will stop any movement in your nature portrait. Now it is time to sit and wait until your bait attracts your prey.

Your garden is also full of all kinds of other creatures. Garden birds will make an attractive image; they will be up and out at an early hour so it’s best to join them. Try building a hide in the garden and get up before sunrise - you will be surprised what creatures will wander in front of you at an early hour. Lay some bait around the garden to attract them in.

Use the elements of the weather to create more impact in your garden images. Early morning mist will leave droplets of water on leaves and flower petals. Use garden statues and other garden objects to create attractive silhouette images at dusk.

One of the biggest attributes of nature, wildlife and garden photography is patience. Even though you are at home great patience is required to get the best results from your garden photography…happy shooting.

TJ Tierney is an award winning Irish Landscape photographer and a freelance writer. He frequently writes for the Art site www.Goldprints.com and the Gift ideas site www.shop-4us.com . To view or buy some of his images visit his on-line gallery of - Pictures of Ireland and flower pictures.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=TJ_Tierney

Chinese Hot-and-Sour Soup

An authentic recipe both delicious and healthy. Combined here are healing and health-enhancing mushrooms and lily buds in an enticing broth.

5 oz boneless pork loin, cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips (2/3 cup)
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
4 small Chinese dried black mushrooms* (available in Asian markets)
12 small dried tree ear mushrooms*
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
12 dried lily buds* (sometimes called golden needles)
1/2 cup canned sliced bamboo shoots*, cut lengthwise into 1/8-inch-wide strips (from an 8-oz can)
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce*
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 to 4 oz firm tofu (about a quarter of a block), rinsed and drained, then cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil*
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallion greens
2 tablespoons fresh whole cilantro leaves

Toss pork with dark soy sauce in a bowl until pork is well coated.

Soak black and tree ear mushrooms in 3 cups boiling-hot water in another bowl (water should cover mushrooms), turning over black mushrooms occasionally, until softened, about 30 minutes. (Tree ears will expand significantly.)

Cut out and discard stems from black mushrooms, then squeeze excess liquid from caps into bowl and thinly slice caps. Remove tree ears from bowl, reserving liquid, and trim off any hard nubs. If large, cut tree ears into bite-size pieces.

Stir together 1/4 cup mushroom-soaking liquid (discard remainder) with cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, soak lily buds in about 1 cup warm water until softened, about 20 minutes, then drain. Trim off tough tips of lily buds. Cut lily buds in half crosswise, then tear each half lengthwise into 2 or 3 shreds.

Cover bamboo shoots with cold water by 2 inches in a small saucepan, then bring just to a boil (to remove bitterness) and drain in a sieve.

Stir together vinegars, light soy sauce, sugar, and salt in another small bowl.

Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Pour peanut oil down side of wok, then swirl oil, tilting wok to coat sides. Add pork and stir-fry until meat just changes color, about 1 minute, then add black mushrooms, tree ears, lily buds and bamboo shoots and stir-fry 1 minute.

Add broth and bring to a boil, then add tofu.

Return to a boil and add vinegar mixture.

Stir cornstarch mixture, then add to broth and return to a boil, stirring. (Liquid will thicken.)

Reduce heat to moderate and simmer 1 minute.

Beat eggs with a fork and add a few drops of sesame oil. Add eggs to soup in a thin stream, stirring slowly in one direction with a spoon.

Stir in white pepper, then drizzle in remaining sesame oil and divide among 6 to 8 bowls. Sprinkle with scallions and cilantro before serving.

*Available at Asian food markets

Makes 6 to 8 first-course servings.