Yum-o

I can't wait to make dinner tonight. I was really enjoying cooking healthy meals there for a while, but I got off track along with everything else. I'm excited to get back into it again! I've been a believer in "all things in moderation" for a while now, and collect cookbooks and diet books aimed at this concept. My latest favorite is Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less by Mollie Katzen and Walter Willett, M.D. I love Mollie Katzen and her Moosewood cookbooks, so already this book had something going for it, but it's got a simple, informative, understandable style that makes food consumption akin to common sense. Go figure. Plus, the recipes are all Mollie's and they're wonderful. Some are super easy, others a little more time intensive, but all of them are yummy. Plus, she makes it easy for me to adapt meals to accommodate both vegetarians, like me, and omnivores, like my husband. Very cool.

The Witch of Portobello, interestingly enough, has just a couple of paragraphs about diet, but I loved them. Almost as an afterthought, the main character, Athena, talks about diets as both unnecessary and unhealthy. Mostly she talks about the struggle to remain thin as we age as a battle that can consume energy that would be better invested in spiritual labors. My favorite part is when she says, "Eat in moderation, but take pleasure in eating: it isn't what enters a person's mouth that's evil, but what leaves it." Oh yeah. So I am taking pleasure in eating my three meals a day, and taking pleasure in preparing those meals as well. It feels so self-nurturing, a practice that I can always do more of.

I'm actually making quite a bit of food tonight, however we'll just be having a little of everything. I expect the leftovers to be yummy. We'll start with Ten-Minute Tomato Soup -- I haven't tried it yet, but it looks simple, garlicky, and delicious. Chicken and Quorn (a vegetarian chicken) cook easily on the grill. I'll bake a couple of sweet potatoes-- SO good and good for you too! I'm going to chop up some broccoli, putting some aside to have in a scramble for breakfast and sautéing the remainder for dinner tonight. And finally, I'm making a grain dish with cashews for a little extra protein and some whole grains. It should be relatively simple, even though with 5 dishes included it's something I never would have thought to have tried when I was working. The extra time is such a treat as I experiment with new recipes and find ways to incorporate extra servings of vegetables throughout the day.

This is part of the re-grounding I've been doing today. In addition to doing a little grocery shopping, I cleaned up, preparing the way to do some organizational tasks tomorrow. I was told today that while it great that I am opening up and connecting to Source, I have to remember to ground myself before I float away. So this is what I'm doing. We shall see how it dovetails with my goal of achieving balance this week, but so far everything I've done has felt absolutely essential. What kinds of things do you find grounding? Perhaps I can add them to the to-do list this week. Namaste.

Post-dinner note, 9pm: That thing about getting grounded before you float away is true. While my intentions were good, I kind of forgot to plan things, which meant I hadn't read all of the recipes all the way through or in a couple of days or whatnot. The gravy took twice as long as I realized and the broccoli ended up getting cold. I completely forgot about the sweet potatoes -- we'll have to have those another night -- and I didn't realize the grains needed to cook for 90+ minutes, so I improvised with some rices and the nuts. The grains actually turned out superb, by the way -- adding nuts is an excellent (and yummy) idea. The gravy was also excellent -- I threw in a little Marsala towards the end, which rounded out the flavors nicely. The soup was a downer -- it would need to be heavily edited before I'd try it again, I think -- but the broccoli was simple and tasty. All and all, I would say this would be a great meal if some of the work was done in advance, along with a lot more planning. But it was still a pleasure to eat. :)