Yesterday was joy. Would have blogged about it then but too busy having the day.
Saturday tried to make Three Sisters Fry Bread with cornmeal, beans and squash, from a VegNews article/recipe by Robin Roberston, website also globalvegankitchen.com. I believe my primary mistake was to make something fried; also I used too much water so the dough was sticky; also I probably used too high of heat. In any case I ended up with oily, hard, overcooked patties instead of something light and nutritious.
I had plenty of dough left so Sunday morning I made muffins with the rest of the dough, which were pretty dense, but edible. I brought these as well as some of my rye bread to the Waffle Devotional, and my daughter came with me. We had a wonderful Giving Thanks themed devotional, met and reconnected with some lovely people, and then went out shopping.
Our hot culture stores of choice were St. Vincent de Paul, Goodwill, and then Hancock Fabrics. We scored some great boots for my daughter and a warm cotton bedspread [for use as a blanket, as I already have a comforter] for me.
At Hancock Fabrics we replaced the sewing kit that people barred her from retrieving from her most recent living situation, and we found some great coordinating upholstery fabric for recovering my dining chairs and making a tablecloth. For the tablecloth I found a linen-type fabric with equal ~4-inch stripes of sand and sage; for the chairs, the same fabric with a sand background and 1-inch sage polka dots.
This may be the first time I actually came home from an outing and turned around and started a project then and there. For recovering the chair seats, I hadn't thought about getting or locating more upholstery tacks, so I had to recycle the tacks I could pry out of the bottom of the seats, and try to hold the fabric in place with wide tape, use minimal tacks, and then reapply the chair frames to the seats. The first one turned out somewhat sloppy, so I redid it.
For the tablecloth, the selvedges of the fabric were finished, so I used cotton crochet thread and a blanket stitch to finish the ends, listening with Pearl to CD's on her computer, and my husband [who had joined us from Eatonville] working on his poetry. It took hours to finish the blanket stitch, and I stopped and made some soup primarily for my work lunches, as well as a late dinner, in the middle of the project. To finish the tablecloth for a fancy touch I sewed decorative wooden buttons at the four corners.
It's such joy, working with my hands, and a luxury I rarely take time for. Pearl found, first my nephew Robin Elwood's My Bird CD, then a CD of my brother's music I hadn't heard before, although I had heard some of the songs, and I felt as if the band Lindsay Street and John and Sally were there with us, sharing our family time.
Pea and Potato Soup
1 cup yellow split peas
2 red potatoes
1 red garnet yam
1 carrot
1/2 onion
3/4 quart plain soy milk
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1/2 portion Golden Curry flavoring
1 clove garlic, chopped
In pressure cooker, saute onions while you cube the vegetables. Add split peas, potatoes, carrot and yam, plus 6 cups water and curry flavoring into cooker and cook on high for ten minutes, with natural pressure release [i.e., off the burner.] When lid can be removed, stir in frozen peas and soy milk to a creamy consistency, heat and serve.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
For My Brave Friend
Woke up with a couple hours sleep yet to fit in, not uncommon for me. Thinking about an upcoming devotional meeting, where the first part is devoted to God, and the second part is devoted to waffles. Fine and good, but people often make scrambled eggs and sausage, yogurt and so on. So my plan is to bring alternative comestibles to share. Still, giving in to the desire to eat those other death-dealing foods was my downfall in the past. I have to remember that just because kind souls provided them, no sausages ever actually leaped into my mouth unaided.
Although my newfound belief in and commitment to saving my eyesight, my hearing, my mind, and my organs and limbs, let alone my life, has given me a new sense of life, and a charge every time I make a choice for life and not death in my food choices, it's easy to lose focus. It's easy for my resolve to become eroded by constant exposure to animal sourced foods. I'm sure eventually it will become second nature to make these choices, as long as I never give in. But it's a white-knuckle experience.
So I was thinking about "getting through" the next few socialization opportunities and retaining this focus, and remembered the 23rd Psalm:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
My enemies being certain foods, of course, not people! And I promise not to dump oil on my head at the table. And I'm still looking for Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. Sometimes they get lost.
I also ran across this quotation from Shoghi Effendi posted on Facebook, which has to do with teaching the Baha'i Faith, not to do with changing my eating style. Nevertheless, with all due respect to the beloved Guardian, these words seemed most appropriate to my journey:
There is no time to lose. There is no room left for vacillation. Myriads hunger for the bread of life. . . . To try, to persevere, is to ensure ultimate and complete victory.
I hope to do a following post soon to outline why changing away from animal-sourced foods is so crucial to the survival of humankind and to the planet, and why it is so urgent.
Hurrah, thank you and all to my brave friend Rachel who is currently choosing life by doing a juice fast, coincidentally with my choice to turn towards a plant based eating style.
Although my newfound belief in and commitment to saving my eyesight, my hearing, my mind, and my organs and limbs, let alone my life, has given me a new sense of life, and a charge every time I make a choice for life and not death in my food choices, it's easy to lose focus. It's easy for my resolve to become eroded by constant exposure to animal sourced foods. I'm sure eventually it will become second nature to make these choices, as long as I never give in. But it's a white-knuckle experience.
So I was thinking about "getting through" the next few socialization opportunities and retaining this focus, and remembered the 23rd Psalm:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
My enemies being certain foods, of course, not people! And I promise not to dump oil on my head at the table. And I'm still looking for Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. Sometimes they get lost.
I also ran across this quotation from Shoghi Effendi posted on Facebook, which has to do with teaching the Baha'i Faith, not to do with changing my eating style. Nevertheless, with all due respect to the beloved Guardian, these words seemed most appropriate to my journey:
There is no time to lose. There is no room left for vacillation. Myriads hunger for the bread of life. . . . To try, to persevere, is to ensure ultimate and complete victory.
I hope to do a following post soon to outline why changing away from animal-sourced foods is so crucial to the survival of humankind and to the planet, and why it is so urgent.
Hurrah, thank you and all to my brave friend Rachel who is currently choosing life by doing a juice fast, coincidentally with my choice to turn towards a plant based eating style.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
In Which I Have Fun in Public
Our Director of Nursing at "Mountain View" is leaving for a post closer to her home, so several of us staff members met at Applebees for dinner to say goodbye. She has such wonderful qualities, honesty, a quirky sense of humor, rarely found in DNS's, and she'll be hard to replace. I will miss her.
When the dinner was planned, I had just committed to the plant based whole foods eating style, so I stopped by Applebees to scout out the menu then. I had steamed vegetables with a house salad, and learned Rule Number One: Always ask questions. The house salad had cheese and bacon on it, and they very kindly made me another one without. So I had found an edible entree and figured I was set for tonight. Honestly, this was the only plant-based entree in the entire menu.
So tonight when the group of us were seated, I scanned the menu through and through and didn't see this entree. Oh, dear. Fortunately I asked the waiter, and he said they still make that entree but it just isn't listed on the menu any more. Not popular enough. So all was well. Along with a salad with greens, cucumber and plum tomatoes, the steamed vegetables included cauliflower, broccoli, baby carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Delicious and ample. So I was able to talk about my change to a whole food plant based diet with the friends at my table and impart a lot of information. For example, that casein contains an opiate-like substance, and some other foods such as chocolate that also affect our brains and keep us "hooked." [See Breaking the Food Seduction by Neal Barnard, MD.]
I'm sure followers will recall that in 2009 I also made this switch, eventually defeated by my occasional, then constant, "cheating." This time I wasn't planning on discussing this in my blog, but I'm feeling so good about it, and feeling so much better, and getting such a charge out of taking control of what I choose to eat, it's hard not to talk about it. So I am. Anyway, I invented and learned so many recipes last time that I was much better prepared to make the change this time.
We had so much fun, meeting in regular clothes instead of scrubs, away from the stress of work, talking about where we were from [Cairo, Ghana, the Philippines for my tablemates], children, marriages, school, languages, travel, cruises, childbirth, surgeries, so on and so forth. I discovered other people at work like me a lot better than I imagined. We had a blast, and decided we should go out more often.
I made rye bread today from the simplest of the recipes I found on the internet. I used a lot of cornmeal, as I had seen in some other recipes, and it turned out hard on the outside, sweet and a little dense, soft and crumbly on the inside. Maybe difficult for sandwich bread, but tasty and filling anyway.
Experimented with kale the other day, plugging it into my formula for pea soup: sauteed onions, vegetables, a star vegetable such as cabbage or beets, and dry yellow peas, plus 8 cups of water, ten minutes in pressure cooker and slow pressure release. It failed miserably. Neither the kale nor the peas cooked thoroughly, so I cooked it longer, then finally pureed the entire mess. If all else fails, puree. So it was rich and satisfying in pureed form, but I doubt I'll try again. I'll just have to learn other recipes for kale. I'm not defeated that easily. Kale is just so full of wonderful nutrients.
When the dinner was planned, I had just committed to the plant based whole foods eating style, so I stopped by Applebees to scout out the menu then. I had steamed vegetables with a house salad, and learned Rule Number One: Always ask questions. The house salad had cheese and bacon on it, and they very kindly made me another one without. So I had found an edible entree and figured I was set for tonight. Honestly, this was the only plant-based entree in the entire menu.
So tonight when the group of us were seated, I scanned the menu through and through and didn't see this entree. Oh, dear. Fortunately I asked the waiter, and he said they still make that entree but it just isn't listed on the menu any more. Not popular enough. So all was well. Along with a salad with greens, cucumber and plum tomatoes, the steamed vegetables included cauliflower, broccoli, baby carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Delicious and ample. So I was able to talk about my change to a whole food plant based diet with the friends at my table and impart a lot of information. For example, that casein contains an opiate-like substance, and some other foods such as chocolate that also affect our brains and keep us "hooked." [See Breaking the Food Seduction by Neal Barnard, MD.]
I'm sure followers will recall that in 2009 I also made this switch, eventually defeated by my occasional, then constant, "cheating." This time I wasn't planning on discussing this in my blog, but I'm feeling so good about it, and feeling so much better, and getting such a charge out of taking control of what I choose to eat, it's hard not to talk about it. So I am. Anyway, I invented and learned so many recipes last time that I was much better prepared to make the change this time.
We had so much fun, meeting in regular clothes instead of scrubs, away from the stress of work, talking about where we were from [Cairo, Ghana, the Philippines for my tablemates], children, marriages, school, languages, travel, cruises, childbirth, surgeries, so on and so forth. I discovered other people at work like me a lot better than I imagined. We had a blast, and decided we should go out more often.
I made rye bread today from the simplest of the recipes I found on the internet. I used a lot of cornmeal, as I had seen in some other recipes, and it turned out hard on the outside, sweet and a little dense, soft and crumbly on the inside. Maybe difficult for sandwich bread, but tasty and filling anyway.
Experimented with kale the other day, plugging it into my formula for pea soup: sauteed onions, vegetables, a star vegetable such as cabbage or beets, and dry yellow peas, plus 8 cups of water, ten minutes in pressure cooker and slow pressure release. It failed miserably. Neither the kale nor the peas cooked thoroughly, so I cooked it longer, then finally pureed the entire mess. If all else fails, puree. So it was rich and satisfying in pureed form, but I doubt I'll try again. I'll just have to learn other recipes for kale. I'm not defeated that easily. Kale is just so full of wonderful nutrients.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Gratitude Day
I'm working Thanksgiving, but in any case, I wanted to say something about the meaning of food, fellowship, sharing, not sharing . . .
I mentioned in a previous blog that a couple of years ago I went to a local restaurant having a buffet for Thanksgiving which included the turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and salad and so forth. I went by myself, went through the buffet a couple of times, and left feeling filled but unfulfilled. And I realized that the celebration of "Thanksgiving" is not eating selected traditional foods. You could eat those any time. Thanksgiving is sharing a meal or get together with friends and family in a spirit of generosity and gratitude.
As I sever myself from 90% of the foods I associate with Thanksgiving feasts, I am thinking about what makes sharing food at an event meaningful. For me, when I go to Baha'i Feasts or to potlucks or holiday dinners and so forth, to be truly honest, sharing the food [all of it, and then some] has been a very important part of the event. If I did not eat some of the foods it was usually because I was on a diet [extremely rare occasion] or trying to go vegetarian or so forth. Not to partake to me kind of means being left out.
Time to stand back, look at myself with honesty, and realize that socializing over a plate of food makes socializing more interesting and bearable. I don't have to be fully present with the other person. I talked with my therapist recently about this is probably one reason people who "drink" enjoy their beverage of choice at parties: for some people this masks social anxiety and smooths the way for them to enjoy the party. And I don't say this being judgmental. This is just being human.
Now that I have opted to act as the pickiest person on earth, someone who doesn't eat meat or fish or eggs or dairy products, I will have to focus primarily on the act of socializing with people and being fully present, rather than focusing on what there is to eat. A challenge for me. I feel as if an outer, unconscious layer of "skin" has been peeled away from my emotions. Raw, alive, and unpeeled.
Which is appropriate if my primary focus is now vegetables.
I am open to any ideas for a whole-foods, plant based menu for Thanksgiving.
I mentioned in a previous blog that a couple of years ago I went to a local restaurant having a buffet for Thanksgiving which included the turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and salad and so forth. I went by myself, went through the buffet a couple of times, and left feeling filled but unfulfilled. And I realized that the celebration of "Thanksgiving" is not eating selected traditional foods. You could eat those any time. Thanksgiving is sharing a meal or get together with friends and family in a spirit of generosity and gratitude.
As I sever myself from 90% of the foods I associate with Thanksgiving feasts, I am thinking about what makes sharing food at an event meaningful. For me, when I go to Baha'i Feasts or to potlucks or holiday dinners and so forth, to be truly honest, sharing the food [all of it, and then some] has been a very important part of the event. If I did not eat some of the foods it was usually because I was on a diet [extremely rare occasion] or trying to go vegetarian or so forth. Not to partake to me kind of means being left out.
Time to stand back, look at myself with honesty, and realize that socializing over a plate of food makes socializing more interesting and bearable. I don't have to be fully present with the other person. I talked with my therapist recently about this is probably one reason people who "drink" enjoy their beverage of choice at parties: for some people this masks social anxiety and smooths the way for them to enjoy the party. And I don't say this being judgmental. This is just being human.
Now that I have opted to act as the pickiest person on earth, someone who doesn't eat meat or fish or eggs or dairy products, I will have to focus primarily on the act of socializing with people and being fully present, rather than focusing on what there is to eat. A challenge for me. I feel as if an outer, unconscious layer of "skin" has been peeled away from my emotions. Raw, alive, and unpeeled.
Which is appropriate if my primary focus is now vegetables.
I am open to any ideas for a whole-foods, plant based menu for Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
No Face, No Mother, No Moo.
Had a good day today and it isn't done yet. Up early for follow up visit to ophthamologist, who AGAIN put drops in my eyes to numb them and more drops to dilate them, which lasts all day. Anyway I gave him the update and he said my eyes look great. Then I decided not to drive back to Puyallup then back again to Tacoma for a later appt so I stayed in town. Whole food plant based lunch at Marlene's Deli, then a haircut, then shopping for more soup cups at Goodwill, then to Value Village [where by a miracle I found what I believe is a pizza peel thing helpful for transferring bread dough to a warmed baking stone] and my other appointment. Then home.
Walked to downtown Puyallup with my daughter and we explored the Library and several Antique shops, then home. If I live that long I wanted to make rye bread and do a hand sewing project. I'm also having a new mattress delivered tonight. Which is good because I'm about ready for sleep.
I may need to bake rye bread another day.
Every time I make a whole food plant based food choice I get an enormous charge out of it. I just never believed in myself before.
Walked to downtown Puyallup with my daughter and we explored the Library and several Antique shops, then home. If I live that long I wanted to make rye bread and do a hand sewing project. I'm also having a new mattress delivered tonight. Which is good because I'm about ready for sleep.
I may need to bake rye bread another day.
Every time I make a whole food plant based food choice I get an enormous charge out of it. I just never believed in myself before.
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