Vegan Eats - YUMMY - and Current Projects

Lately I have been eating this for breakfast: spouted lentils, mixed with a handful of spinach leaves, a cup mixed berries, a tablespoon of hemp seed, and a sprinkle of raw oats. It is very satisfying, and delicious. With it I enjoy a cup of black coffee with a tablespoon of raw cacao stirred in, just lovely. This breakfast starts my day with 14 grams of protein, 9 grams of fiber, 916 mg of potassium, 33% of my daily iron needs, a bit of calcium, almost all of vitamin C needs, and a nice hit of vitamin A.  All good! Some days I have overnight oats with berries and flax seed and spinach, again a very satisfying breakfast.

lentils and mung beans in various stages of sprouting

Later in the morning I have a kale, berry, banana smoothie with 2 tablespoons of Dr. Shultze Super Food, this gives me a great dose of daily vitamins and minerals.




Lunch is a salad of kale, red cabbage, bok choy, a tomato, some summer zucchini or cucumber, a bit of yellow or red bell pepper, sprouted mung beans, a pinch of raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds, kimchee, and a bit of date/dijon mustard dressing. It is so yummy, nutritious, and filling. I make the dressing, it is a cup of water, 12 dates, 6 tablespoons of dijon mustard and a sweet onion, blitz in the blender then store in the fridge, this lasts me all week.

Date/Dijon Mustard dressing

Delicious mega-salad!

In the afternoon I have an apple for a snack.

Dinner is a salad of collard greens, spinach, tomato, cucumber or summer zucchini, 2 teaspoons of spirulina, 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, kimchee and some date/dijon dressing, and with it a piece of toasted sprouted rye bread made by a German bakery, Delba. For dessert I usually have a couple of dried figs, they are wonderful.

So good and so nutritious.

A curiously strong, very dense rye bread, lovely toasted with a slice of tomato.

Sometimes I don't have a salad, but instead have a large bowl of fresh fruit, melon, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple and top it with flax seed or hemp seed, a very refreshing meal on a hot summer day.

Fresh fruit topped with hemp seed.

Throughout the day I drink water, and occasionally herbal tea, green tea, and hibiscus tea are my favorites.

Spirulina is essentially algae, it is dried and comes in a very fine powder, it is a very dark bluish green, it makes my salad look super dark green, and while I eat it my lips and teeth turn green, so I usually only eat it at home, it doesn't stain though. Spirulina adds a really nice flavor to a salad, some people add it to smoothies, personally I find it dominates the smoothie but not in a pleasant way. Spirulina is tagged as a super food, it is extremely nutritious, high in iron, and protein, it is considered the most nutritious of all foods.

One of our favorite places to go out to eat, which we do very infrequently, is Pizza Hut, they have a wonderful salad bar that we both enjoy and it meets my needs as a vegan and Dave's needs a non-vegan. Another place that I find affordable and vegan friendly is Subway, I get the veggie delite sub as a chopped salad, and if I wish I can have avocado added. I usually eat one avocado a week, eaten over two days, it is a good source of fiber and healthy fat, but a little goes a long way.

Our salad creations on a recent trip to Pizza Hut

We have gone out to eat at restaurants specializing in vegan food, but I am always disappointed, the food tends to be very expensive, even though it is a sparse serving of veggies and a bit of legume or grain, and always coated in oil and heavy (salty) seasoning. I don't add salt to anything I eat, so I am rather sensitive to it when it is added to foods I eat, it really stands out.


I am working on three projects at this time, foxy baby quilt and a crochet blanket for our soon to born 10th grandchild, and a London Double Decker bus print nap quilt to replace the very well worn one currently in use.

A Little Break

Last Friday evening we packed up the car and left Indiana to visit my parents in Orlando. We had a great drive down, we arrived around three on Saturday afternoon.  Usually I do not do well with the long drive, it takes my several days to feel recuperated, this time I bounced back almost immediately. I think the culprit is coffee! On past trips I would drink coffee like a fiend, a cup purchased each time we made a stop, but this time I did not do this. On Saturday morning I had my regular cup of joe and that was it, just as I do everyday, and I drank water the rest of the day, just as I always do. I truly think the previous drives were hard to recuperate from because I was way overloaded with caffeine. Will test my theory further when we head back to Indiana on Friday.

Yesterday we drove to Daytona Beach, it was a beautiful sunny day, the ocean was amazing, it was breezy and the waves were quite strong, but a lot of fun. We sat in the sun, we played in the surf, we sat in the sun, we played in the surf, it was a amazingly relaxing day. We both got too much sun, and due to my hat and sunglasses I have no sun on my forehead and eyes, but lots of sun lower on my face, I was amused by my new look!

Today I am going with my mum to the quilt shop to select fabric for a baby quilt for soon to arrive grand baby number 10.  I am busy crocheting a blue and yellow striped shell stitch blanket for the baby while vacationing and riding in the car, it is coming along nicely.  It has been a few years since I last made a baby quilt for a grand child.

It is good to vacation, it is nice to have a week with no schedule, no "have to do" lists, it decompresses my spirit and makes me feel refreshed and renewed.

The Big Sort Out

Wow what a whirlwind of activity has taken place in our home and how refreshing it feels. I started to de-clutter our home two weeks ago, I have now gone through almost everything and have donated four van loads of stuff to a variety of charity shops throughout Fort Wayne. I have a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

My kitchen counters are clear of all stuff, my cabinets are organized and contain what we need, the drawers are neat and tidy, items are easy to locate. The pantry is pleasing to look in. My book shelves are a treat, all of our rooms look peaceful, tidy, calm. My husband caught the bug, he cleaned out his side of the closet and his dresser and end table, he is keeping everything picked up and put away too. Hubby is talking about sorting our the garage and barn, this will be quite an accomplishment, I will help, but he needs to lead the sort out as the bulk of the stuff is his and it is not my decision to make in regards to what we will keep, sell, donate, or trash.

Cleaning the house is so easy, there is no picking up to be done, simply dusting as needed, and vacuum as needed. I give the bathrooms a good wipe down each morning so they stay fresh and clean until the next deep clean. I have a few small areas to finish sorting, some shelves in my sewing room,  a few storage bins in the attic, some paperwork in a file cabinet drawer, and my sock collection, that is it. I cannot believe how much I got taken care of in just two weeks, and some areas I did twice!

All my closets are organized and I know where everything is, as there is a place for everything and everything has a place, what a wonderful feeling. And my basement, it is neat and tidy again :) I even tackled a lot of the attic, just a little more to go.

My concerns. I read that due to the "Marie Kondo Effect" charity shops this year have had record amounts of donations, in fact have received so much stuff that many have had to resort to renting storage space. And, I would think, the flip side of this is that as people are realizing they need less, and want less, they are perhaps not shopping as frequently at charity shops so they are maybe having a harder time shifting the overwhelming haul of stuff they have had donated. I hope that all the people who have rid themselves of excess possessions and stopped mindlessly consuming will continue to do so, it is good for them, good for their bank account, good for the environment, but it is not so good for the manufacturers and the retail outlets and I hope it doesn't result in people at the low end of the totem pole being laid off because less of the items they help produce are wanted. Knowing human nature, many who have had a good old clear out and want of life of minimalism will pursue it for a while but will find old habits die hard and unless vigilant will find that "stuff" will again enter their homes. I hope I am vigilant, I hope I continue to feel motivated by the peace and harmony created by a neat and tidy home, and hope this is a way of living that continues for the rest of our lives.

My best suggestion if you want to begin a big sort out, start small, decide to sort a book shelf, perhaps one kitchen cabinet, a bureau drawer, do something each day, baby steps add up fast and before you know it you are on a roll. The more you do the easier it gets. Watch some YouTube videos, The Minimalist Mom and Joshua Becker are both excellent and offer practical advice. A book on YouTube, The Joy of Less by Francine Jay - an excellent primer, listen to it as you purge areas of your home, she will motivate you with good advice and sound philosophy. Whatever you decide to do don't feel intimidated, just get going and I don't think you will regret it.

Bean

PLASTIC!

We have recently made a concerted effort to reduce the amount of plastic we bring into our home. Let me tell you, it is extremely difficult to do, and I feel our efforts to date have only made a minor dent in our consumption of plastic.

What we do:

I always take my own shopping bags with me, no matter what store I go to, they are not just for the grocery store.

In the grocery store I look for glass jars, cardboard or paper packaging, or cans when I need pre-packaged food. For example, marinara sauce, almost always is available in glass, the same with peanut butter. Ice cream, my husband is an ice cream addict, I only purchase the brands packaged in cardboard.

Being Vegan I purchase a ton of produce each week, thankfully many of my staple items can be purchased package free, and I never use the plastic bags that are available to put the items in. A lot of fruit can be purchased and it has not packaging, but berries and grapes are always in plastic bags or plastic clam shell containers. The plastic clam shell containers are eligible of recycling, so that is a very slight plus.

Household cleaners, they all seem to come in plastic.

With personal items I purchase soap that is either free of packaging, or packaged in paper or cardboard. But most other items we use are not in eco-friendly packaging.

I am pleased that it takes almost two weeks before we have a bag of trash to take out, but I am distressed that it basically contains only non-recyclable plastic.

Almost everything comes wrapped in plastic, is on plastic hangers, has plastic components and it is nigh on impossible to simply rid yourself of plastic. And I don't think I would want to, there are many benefits to plastic, it is light weight and very durable. I dropped a glass jar of strawberry jam one day when walking out of the store, the glass smashed and there was a rather hazardous mess created. If the jar had been plastic I doubt it would have broken. I am not sure we would want cleaning products in breakable containers, the damage caused by spills and breakage would surely negate the benefit of eliminating the plastic container.

I don't know what the answer is to all of the plastic waste that is generated, it appears that recycling is not the answer as almost none of the plastic is recycled and most is simply shipped to poor countries around the world to pollute their environment, which personally makes me feel sick.

What is the answer? I think we ALL need to do our part to consume less plastic, always opt for the most environmentally friendly packaging, and still recycle as some of the plastic is recycled. But don't fool yourself into thinking recycling is the cure all because it has become more and more apparent that it is not.

Reducing Things

Lately I seem to be in a bit of purge mood. At least once a week I wake up and one of my first thoughts is that I am ready to get rid of something specific. Last week it was shoes, I suddenly realized I owned a ridiculous amount of footwear. Tons of flip flops, slippers, sandals and shoes, many times I have thought about weeding out what I don't wear, but always felt unsure about parting with them. Last week it was a waking morning thought, so I cleared out my shoes, the nicer quality ones in good shape I donated to Goodwill, and the rest were cheap and well worn so I threw them away. How many pairs of sandals and flip flops does a person need? I still seem to have a lot of foot wear, but for the most part I know I have worn each pair a few times in the last six months and that seemed a reasonable way to decide if they were keepers or discards.

This week it was cleaning out some junk drawers and the cabinet over the refrigerator, do we really need a WII controller from ten years ago and we no longer have the WII console? No we don't, so I tossed it. Camera boxes and instructions for cameras we haven't owned in years, instruction books for household items we no longer have, just an accumulation of stuff, it is all gone, some into the trash and some into the recycling.

Yesterday it was my jewelry drawer, why was I hanging on to one half of a pair of earrings, the other half lost years ago, necklaces, bracelets, and rings I never wear. I simply purged the drawer, kept what I wear regularly and like, and put the rest in baggies to donate to Goodwill. I really own no "good" jewelry, all of mine is inexpensive, thrift store finds, or craft booth purchases. The drawer needed a good clean out and it looks all the better for it.

Earlier this year it was the basement, we had years and years of cans of paint on shelves under the stairs, it was time to dispose of it, and a bunch of other discarded household items that found their way to the basement. Why is it sometimes so hard to just get rid of things we no longer need or that are no longer working? My basement, still needs some serious purging, but it is more organized than it was.

All of this purging, it is freeing, I feel lighter, it makes me feel calm and peaceful, just knowing there is less clutter and unnecessary stuff lurking in my home makes me feel good. I like too that the thought to purge specific things has been a specific thought upon waking, and I know that I am absolutely, totally ready to let go of whatever items it is that I am to purge.

Around the House

Here we are, the final day of May! So far a cool, wet spring. The peonies are beginning to open, the trees are fully in leaf, summer is almost here even though the temperatures don't feel like it.

This morning while out walking I turned a corner and was wowed by the sunrise, the sun was just a large orange-pink-red circle, it was truly beautiful, my picture does not do it justice.

This is not a good picture, because it was really beautiful and rather stunning in reality.

Also on my walk I came across a strange creature, something I have not seen before, and I do not know what it is, if you have any ideas let me know. It was about eight inches long, appeared to have many teeny-tiny legs, and moved rather like a worm. It was in the road heading into grass, not too far from a pond and a wetland, it looks as if it is more at home in a wet or damp environment.

What on earth is this creature?

This week I learned about sprouted grains, the health benefits of eating them and how to sprout them. Armed with my new information I went to my favorite health food shop and picked up three whole grains, rye, wheat, and spelt, and a fine mesh strainer lid for my mason jars. I started the sprouting process on Wednesday, and this morning the sprouts have started to emerge. I will store the fully sprouted grains in the refrigerator to retard further growth, and enjoy some with each of my meals. Sprouted grains are good to add to salads, cooked foods, and to my morning oats. The benefits of eating sprouted grain are many, there are numerous YouTube videos to watch if you wish to learn more.

I attempted to make Vegan Yogurt this week with unsweetened soy milk and probiotics, using a recipe I found online. The yogurt thickened up somewhat, more like a buttermilk consistency, but it was so tangy, and I mean tangy, that I ended up throwing it away. I am going to look for another recipe to try. As the saying goes, try, try, and try again :)

The other week my grandsons brought over a dragon fruit, a fruit I have no experience with. We googled to find out how to eat it. I must say it was rather odd, the pulp inside is an unappetizing gray color with little seeds, rather like a kiwi in texture and taste, but the color is so off putting. The outside of the fruit is beautiful, a ruby pink fading to a yellowish green, it is so shocking to cut it open and be faced with a very bland gray pulp. I think I can honestly say I have had dragon fruit and doubt I will ever choose to eat it again.

Last weekend Dave and I went shopping for glider for our front porch, we had a porch swing for many years, but it eventually fell victim to the weather and was no longer safe to use. I missed the porch swing, but decided a glider would work better on the porch as it would not need a frame to hang from, the frame takes up a lot of room.  We went to several stores and eventually picked out this glider, we really like it and it fits well on the porch.

We decided to really limit the amount of plastic we bring into our home, we now take our own bags to any store that we visit, and I choose glass containers over plastic when there is a choice. But to avoid bringing any plastic into our home seems to be an impossibility, so many items are in plastic and I can understand why, it is a versatile material, lightweight, not easily broken, but when we are done with it what do we do with it?  Due to years of not using our own bags we have tons of plastic grocery bags in our home and I was feeling frustrated about what to do with them and then I discovered PLARN, lol.
Plarn is yarn created out of strips of plastic bags, there are many tutorials online to see how to turn your bags into plarn. Once the balls of plarn are rolled you simply crochet with the stuff, I am going to make a tote bag. I think this is an excellent way to up-cycle our plastic bags. The tote will be useful, practical, and long lasting, and those plastic bags get to live a second life, a much, much longer life of usefulness. I will post an update on this new to me project, wish me luck with my plarn adventure.

I really like that I am fifty-five years old and every week learn or experience something new to me for the first time. What new things have you experienced or learned recently?

Peace be with you,

Bean

Reading and Random Thoughts

Our grandchildren on Easter Sunday

Yesterday evening I finished The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. This book is NOT a fast read, and it should not be, it is a read a bit everyday and absorb the wisdom kind of book, it took me five weeks of daily reading to finish, and I am sad I reached the end. An autobiography of faith is the blurb on the cover, and that is an accurate description. We start with the arrival of Thomas Merton into the world, his nomadic childhood living in France, the US, Bermuda, France, England, back to the US. His mother died when he was a young boy, Thomas roamed the world with his restless artist father while his younger brother remained in the US with the grandparents. 

The book is so much more than historical detail, it is a book of a spiritual journey and a "coming home" to God. As a child there really was no formal religious practice in the Merton family, but the few exposures Thomas had left a deep impact. 

.he book quickly moves to the college years and Thomas seeking more in life rather than drifting with no real purpose, perhaps a desire to be grounded, in a way his own father never was. Thomas becomes Catholic and then the spiritual journey goes into overdrive, the steps of the journey are told beautifully and in a slow, meaningful way, allowing the reader to journey too. I cannot imagine that anyone reading this book could walk away unchanged. 

I was deeply moved by the writings of Thomas Merton and am grateful that this book found me. My next daily spiritual reading book is another by Thomas Merton, Sign of Jonas. 

Yesterday morning, I am an early riser, getting up at 4:30 to say my prayers and read the daily readings, and then do a couple of crosswords before starting the rest of my day. The sun had begun to rise and I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, I was filling my glass when I looked up and out of the window and saw the MOST GLORIOUS rainbow I have ever seen in my life. The colors were so vibrant, the entire rainbow could be seen, it was simply spectacular. I took a few pictures but they hardly do it justice, better pictures can be found here: RAINBOW PICS.  

After a short while the rainbow disappeared but nature continued to stun, the western sky was dark, due to rain moving into the area, but the eastern sky was bright with the rising sun, this created a golden light that spectacularly lit up our morning. 

And last but not least, isn't this just the cutest Cutie you have ever seen? I don't think in all the years I purchased bags of Cuties I have ever seen one with a leaf still attached, it just looks so perfect!