short reflection

Spending a lot of time thinking about death, transience and loving kindness lately.

Can't eat meat anymore - can't believe I did for so long. So much bad kharma. Much compassion meditation to balance it out.

I know I promised to keep writing about the cleanse I did last week, and that I promised I'd post the recipe for the soup I had been eating. I also know that I didn't do either of those things. :)



I ended up only continuing the cleanse until day 3. Other outside factors collided to make it just not possible to keep up the 'not eating anything' plan. However, although I've added some things back into my diet, I'm still trying to make sure that I'm eating more fruits and veg than any other item (raw, when possible), I'm not consuming things with crazy 5 syllable names, and my dairy consumption (as I said yesterday) is now non-existent. Anything processed is really limited now. Without really meaning to, I've sort of adopted a 'cave man' diet. And I have to say, I'm feeling really healthy and great.



So today Chicken, Link and I have the house to ourselves (aside from a very bad little puppy), so we decided to do some cooking for lunch. Chicken had left over asparagus quiche from last night's supper and about 30 lbs of cantaloupe, and I made myself a really beautiful stir fry. As I've said before, stir fries really are my 'go to' food, and pretty often I find myself turning to them when I just don't know what else to make, especially when I have some particularly beautiful veg that I want to highlight. And since I had a bunch of sweet peppers and pineapple that I bought a few days ago on sale, I decided to make a sweet and sour deal. MAN was it great! I'm going to add pineapple to every stir fry from now on!

For me, the key to a really great stir fry is to just heat the veg through. Cooking it makes everything less flavorful, and you lose so much of the nutrients. The very best stir fries are just a happy mixing together of all the flavours. This particular one contained sweet peppers, pineapple, asparagus, onion, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, tamari, and some thai chili sauce. Just a quick flash in the wok and that's all it takes. DELICIOUS!

For dessert, Chicken and I shared a piece of Grandma bread with some of last summer's plum jam (since her typical dessert of animal crackers got dumped all over the floor last night). I just can't get over how awesome it turned out, and I'm really going to miss our plum trees when we move next month. Hopefully we'll have our farm sooner than later, and I can go back to growing all our own produce.

A conversation with my intestines

Being pregnant for the better part of two years really put me in touch with my body. It became integral to really pay attention and listen to what was going on, for the sake of not only myself, but also for the health of my unborn kids.

Because of this, I have a new-found understanding of what it takes to properly fuel my body. I can really feel the difference on the days that I eat primarily raw, unprocessed fruit and veg. When I add in wheat or grains, it starts to go down hill... add in dairy, meat and/or coffee/caffeine and I just feel HORRIBLE. It's gotten to the point where literally every calorie I consume is reflected upon first. I find it so strange that some people eat nothing but processed, crazy monosodiumthalowhatsits infused 'food' and can get out of bed in the morning. That I used to BE one of those people is even more confusing still. I really wonder how much money could be saved on health care in this country if people just slowed down and reflected for a moment on what they were using to fuel their bodies.

That said, I really have to come to terms with the fact that dairy and I just can no longer be friends. Pretty soon I'm going to be eating nothing but nuts, shoots and grass. Maybe though, that'd be a good thing... I think it's closer to what nature had in mind for us as a species.

A Lesson in Loving Kindness

So many times we hear or experience the negative side of the human psyche. Someone cuts us off in traffic, we watch the news and see war, murder, or rape. Maybe we've experienced these things first hand. Either way, it's really easy to see humanity as crumbling around us. But every once in a while something happens to make you take a step back and realize that most people - a really solid majority - are good and decent.

This morning I had to take my mom's dog to the vet for her annual shots. As we were leaving, a man came in. He was dressed very shabbily, had a long shaggy beard and holes in his jacket. He walked up to the counter and handed a pair of glasses to the girl at reception.

'Are these yours? I found them in the parking lot.'

The girl replied that they weren't, but that she was just a temp - the regular receptionist was off sick. Perhaps they belonged to her, or to someone else in the office. The man nodded and asked if she'd mind showing them around to the rest of the staff to see who they might belong to.

'And if you don't mind, if no one claims them, maybe you can take them around to the other businesses in this strip, see if maybe they belong to someone at the real estate office, or maybe the jewelers.'

The girl paused a moment, looking confused. She said she'd leave a note asking the usual receptionist if she could.... she might.....

The man paused, taken aback.

'Well, I should HOPE she'd be willing to do that. These are obviously prescription...very expensive...see, designer name glasses. If someone could take the time to bring them in here, you'd think they'd have the decency to see if any of their fellow tenants lost them. That's just the decent thing to do. If you can't do that, how can you call yourself a human being?'

He shook his head sadly, and slowly walked out. As he passed me, I smiled.

'Thank you.'

Sometimes we all need a reminder that we're all in this together. In these tumultuous times, we need to look out for each other.

Cleanse day 2

Ok, first off I need to confess that I broke down and ate 3 bites of birthday cake at dinner tonight. Since that's the only refined sugar I've eaten in 48 hours, I'd say I'm in pretty good shape. The point of this isn't to deny myself things, it's to get rid of the gunk clogging up my insides, and to reconnect myself to what I put in my body everyday - hopefully a few bites of cake won't compromise that goal. Trying to maintain a strict vegan diet in a house full of devout carnivores is proving really difficult... but more on that later.

Anyway, today's menu was FABULOUS, and I feel I need to share a few things. First, I discovered the most wonderful breakfast cereal ever. It's inspired by biblical scripture, something about God telling man to eat sprouted grains, and BOY did he have something there! If you want the most wonderful taste experience, check out Food for Life's Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grains Cereal in Cinnamon Raisin. One word of advice though, wait a few minutes after adding milk (rice or soy, of course) before you eat it. It soaks the milk up and gets even MORE delicious. Trust me.




For dinner tonight I went nice and simple, and made a really basic stir fry. Stir fries are my standard 'simple' meal that I can whip up in a hurry and I make them so often that I don't even really think about what I'm putting in them. As such, I don't really have a recipe for you tonight. It wasn't until after I started that I realized I wasn't paying attention.


The basic constitution of this particular stir fry was my stand-by Zen Garden frozen veggies (red and yellow bell peppers, carrots, baby corn, water chestnuts, snap peas, bean sprouts), some celery, fresh ginger and garlic, soy beans, and some hot thai chili sauce. That's all for this one. I topped it off with a sprouted grain tortilla and some omega oil, and it was a beautiful, colourful, delicious meal.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to share my recipe (and a pic, of course!) for the soup I've had for lunch all week. It's packed with colourful veg and is super vitamin rich. It was inspired by an article in last month's Shambhala Sun, and I've been really enjoying it.... stay tuned!

cleanse, day 1

Today was the first day of a week long cleanse. I did one of these after Chicken was born, right before I got pregnant with Link, and it was an amazing experience. I normally eat very healthfully, and much better than the average North American. However, I really feel all the crud that's accumulated in my system over the last year. It's like my body has a bunch of filters that need to be vacuumed out, rinsed, and then reset. Everything just seems to be sluggish.

Also, having two babies basically back to back has done a number on my insides, with my organs having to shift back and forth to make room for growing humans. Every once in a while it feels like things didn't shift back properly, and these cleansings really help to reorganize things.

Basically, cleansing my system means that for the next few days I'm not eating any refined sugar, artificial flavors or preservatives, wheat, dairy or meat. Just really great fruit, veg and sprouted grains. I'm sure everyone reading this is wondering what the hell I AM eating, and so I thought I'd blog the recipes I create this week, to show you that you can have delicious meals that don't include all sorts of gross stuff.

Tonight was the husbands birthday supper, and he asked to have tacos, long before I decided that this week would be a cleanse. So, everyone else had tacos, and I created my own cleanse-friendly version. I decided to make the base out of portabello mushrooms, inspired by one of my fave restaurant meals ever. A lovely by-product of this recipe was all the avocado that Chicken crammed into her mouth during dinner. Normally she HATES avocado, so I was overjoyed! Anyway, enjoy this recipe, and I hope you enjoy this week as much as I will!

Mushroom Veggie Tacos

1 portabello mushroom, cut into slices and sprinkled with cayenne pepper, chili powder and garlic powder, to taste
1 avocado, diced
sprouted grain tortilla wraps
whatever other toppings you want, I used chopped romaine lettuce and a yummy fresh salsa

Pan fry the mushroom in some omega oil until cooked. Divide among tortilla wraps, and sprinkle with avocado, lettuce and salsa. Wrap, and enjoy! Simple!

Food for Thought

In keeping with my year of being green, the husband and I had a conversation today about our diets. I've been increasingly eliminating things from our lives that aren't eco-responsible, and I really have a problem eating meat. I've long known the issues with factory farming, but recently had to write a research paper on the industry for my environmental history class. That pretty much clinched it for me... I can't live in my fantasy land anymore where meat is 'okay'. So, today the husband asked me what was 'wrong' with eating meat. And I told him. That sort of sealed the deal... he's going to start hunting us fresh game meat.

Aside from the environmental impact, I don't really have a moral or ethical opposition to eating meat, per say. I don't agree with keeping something in a tiny little cage, torturing it for a few months, and then killing it so that I can eat it. If it spent its days wandering around in the wild, being happy and content, living free and in nature, THEN I can in good conscience eat that animal. THAT is the circle of life of which humans are naturally a part - factory farming is just exploitation of another creature...and that I can't condone.

So, I'm really hoping we can keep this idea in motion. It really is important to me that Chicken and Link grow up with a healthy respect for food and for nature. Those really are the two most central things in my life (besides my family), and I really hope that I can share my love of both with my children.

Now, husband, go out and get us something tasty. I have many recipes waiting to be tried! :)