yumminess

john came home thursday with a tomato sicilian pie from his brother-in-law franco's pizzeria. mmm mmm mmmm was it GOOD! i topped my slice with some fresh basil, dried oregano and sauteed chard from the garden.

i had an eggplant ready to be picked so i decided to give eggplant "bacon" a try. i used a potato slicer to shave thin slices and marinated them overnight in a mixture of olive oil, shoyu, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, smoked paprika, garlic and onion powder, salt, and cayenne pepper. i baked them at 350 degrees in a casserole dish for about 10 minutes. i would have liked them a bit more crispy (yet another reason i want a dehydrator) but the taste was surprisingly close to bacon. the eb-l-t (eggplant bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich) was phenomenal. with a bit of vegenaise and sliced avocado...*drool*

when i got a nice little round watermelon in my organic co-op box this week i got the idea to make watermelon soup in melon bowls. i didn't feel like following a recipe - just read through a few to get an idea. i added strawberries, diced cucumber, ginger, mint, and rice milk to the chopped watermelon in a blender. quick, easy, and yummy.

where, oh where have my recipes gone?

oh where, oh where could they be?

my organization skills are pitiful but i managed to compile all of my hand-written and printed recipes into a nice plastic blue folder so i wouldn't lose them, but now the folder is missing. i like that most of recipes are right here on this blog but of course not the apple cobbler recipe i created myself and won't be able to find anywhere but in that blue folder!

my grandmom says to pray to St. Anthony when something is missing, so St. Anthony, will you pleeease help me find my recipes (and my sanity while you're at it)??? thank you in advance!

(hey, in this day and age i'm sure saints even read blogs. missy is a latter-day saint and she reads my blog :P)

update: i found them in my room hiding under my duffel bag that is half unpacked from last week's stay at my mom's - at exactly 4:44! (i love when i catch 11:11 and triple number times =) thank you Saint Anthony!!!

linner

we were hungry hungry hippos this afternoon so i made us a mexican lunch/dinner = linner (or dunch). very yummy but it looks like a mexican food bomb went off in my kitchen. i'll get to it later.

the soup was a modified version of Vegan Yum Yum's black bean soup. the corn fritters recipe was also from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook, but i made them with gluten-free all purpose flour. before i dug in i topped the fritters with a bit of tapitío and guac. for the taco salad i sauteed bell peppers and squash and topped with guacamole.
(i ♥ guacamole)

i'm off to indulge in my newest obsession - online scrabble.
ta ta for now!

attention deficit disorder?

perhaps the "professionals" are mistaken.

i like what Osho wrote in his book Joy: The Happiness That Comes From Within -

The teacher goes on telling small children, "Pay attention to me! Be attentive!" They are attentive, but they are attentive to something else. A bird is singing with all its heart outside the school building - and the child is attentive to the bird. Nobody can say he is not attentive, nobody can say he is not meditative, nobody can say he is not in deep concentration - he is! In fact, he has completely forgotten the teacher and the arithmetic that the teacher is doing on the board. The child is completely oblivious to all that, he is utterly possessed by the bird singing its song. But the teacher says, "Be attentive! What are you doing? Don't be distracted!"

In fact, the teacher is distracting the child! The child is attentive - it is happening naturally. Listening to the bird, he is happy. The teacher is distracting him, the teacher says, "You are not being attentive" - the teacher is simply lying! The child was attentive. The bird was more attractive to him, so what can he do? The teacher was not so attractive, the arithmetic had no appeal.

We have been distracted into unnatural preoccupations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the birds is not going to give you money. Listening to the birds is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching a butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not profitable - but these things make you happy.

A real human being takes the courage to move with things that make him happy. If he remains poor, he remains poor; he has no complaint about it, he has no grudge. He says: "I have chosen my way - I have chosen the birds and the butterflies and the flowers. I cannot be rich, that's okay! I am rich because I am happy."

first image source
second image source