Listen to this. Haunting. Beautiful. Uplifting. I've been listening to this a lot in the past few days.

Libera - Locus Iste (Sanctus)

Sanctus

Sanctus, Sanctus

Benedictus qui venit in Domine

Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbaoth,

Pleni sunt coeli et terra Gloria

Benedictus in nomine

Qui venit in nomine

Here's a close translation:

This place was made by God,

A priceless offering.

Holy, holy

Blessed, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The holy master/lord, God of Hosts -

The heavens and the earth are full of his glory.

Blessed is he who comes in his name, in his name.

Ash Wednesday

So it's Ash Wednesday. We did not go to the service tonight. Didn't even talk about it. We haven't gone in a while. I think I wish we had. I generally like the service, but I am not really interested in having the ashes placed on my forehead. It's a day of mourning and in ancient times the ashes on the forehead were a way to express repentance. I'm not certain why we do this tradition now. When I was growing up it was just the Catholics that did it. They would go to early morning mass and the kids would come to school with the ashes still there on their heads. I'm not really a fan of that kind of public display. I don't judge it. It's just not for me.

Much is discussed about what people are going to "give up" for Lent. Traditionally it's meat. When I was growing up the Catholic kids would have fish on Fridays. People today like to give up something during this period, but I suspect it's for another reason than the original penitence reason. It seems like now people use the period for a challenge or to try to establish a new habit they would like. Or to abolish some old habit they dislike.

Yogi Liz decided to become vegan for Lent. She's vegetarian so this is a bit more of a stretch for her. Mindful eating and culinary adventure are her two main reasons. But in her classes she's also talked about ADDING something during lent. A daily walk, a daily meditation, a daily asana. Something that is adding rather than taking away.

I like that.

Having just finished 6 weeks of vegetarianism and no refined sugar, I'm not really inclined to do something more for lent. But all this is food for thought.

La Vie en Rose

This weekend I watched La Vie en Rose, which is about the life of Edith Piaf. I'd never actually heard of Piaf, but ordered the movie because it was probably mentioned to me.

A fantastic, tragic, riveting story! It was done in that annoying manner, though, where they jump from present day to past and back and forth and back and forth? I've never really had a great appreciation for that technique.

Piaf was raised in a French bordello by her grandmother, who ran the place. Her mother was a street singer and her dad a circus contortionist. She was discovered by a cabaret man while singing on the street and made her way from there to New York and then to Hollywood in the 50s. She suffered a car accident in 1951 that left her addicted to morphine and barely able to move.

Amazing movie.

The Vegetarian Experiment is Over

And I think it's going to become a lifestyle. (yes Mom, I can actually HEAR your eyes rolling)

It's been a great 6 weeks. A very easy 6 weeks, actually. Well, except for the memorable pork roast incident. Other than that, I've really had no desire whatsoever for meat. Not. Even. Bacon. NOPE!

So I'll keep it up. But I'm leaving the door open. If meat appeals to me, I'll eat it. If not, I won't. I'll continue preparing it for the guys and plan to do something slightly different for myself. But I think I'm going to try spending more money on meat for the guys and buying free-range poultry and grass-fed beef. I figure since we'll be eating so much less, we'll be saving money anyway.

One of the things I've really enjoyed during this time is exploring my New Moosewood Cookbook and some of the recipes by Martha Rose Shulman on the New York Times website.

Another experiment also about to become a lifestyle is not consuming refined sugar. There is no denying that the inflammation in my body has reduced considerably. Yes, it's true that it could be the sugar, it could be the vitamins I started in January, I could be the three-times-daily meditation and breathing I've been doing...it could be all of those or any one of those. But cutting the refined sugar has done the main thing I wanted it to do: It made me a more mindful eater/snacker. I've found some great dessert recipes with honey, molasses, maple syrup and agave, and have found some nice snack bars with evaporated cane sugar or beet sugar. I've even found chocolate with no sweeteners at all that is quite good! I've received chocolate from people in the past six weeks...people who know that I like it and want to give me something...and I've just accepted it enthusiastically and then passed it to someone else. It's been very simple.

And so that's my recap. Tonight for supper Taylor, Erin and I had samosas from the Moosewood cookbook and on the counter are two loaves of 'Cracked Wheat' Bread from NYTimes.com. The "cracked wheat" is in quotes because Shulman actually used bulgur instead of wheat. And so did I. I haven't tried it yet. Because we are still finishing a half loaf of Wheat Germ Honey Wheat bread I made yesterday.

Blueberry Corn Muffins

BlueberryCornMuffins
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

I have a muffin cookbook I received years ago and I've used it so much that it's falling apart. The book is called "Gloria's Glorious Muffins," by Gloria Ambrosia. The book is comprised of muffins made with no refined sugar and lots of whole grains, fruits and nuts. They are NOT intended to be low-fat muffins, but they are definitely nutrition powerhouses.

So this morning, inspired by Yogabuddy's facebook post yesterday about blueberry muffins, I whipped out the book and subsequently these muffins.

Blue Morning Muffins
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

3/4 C whole-wheat flour
1 C unbleached white flour
3/4 C blue or yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt

Sift all these dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Toss in:

1 1/4 C fresh or frozen blueberries

Stir them around to coat them with flour so they won't bleed too much into the rest of the muffin.

Whisk together in a smaller bowl:

1/2 C applesauce (which I made from two apples that were getting soft...I just peeled them and simmered them with a little lemon juice, adjusting the sweetness with a little agave--because one was a Granny Smith apple)
1 C milk-soy or cows
1/4 C Canola oil
1 egg-a nice, fresh yogabuddy chicken egg, I might add...
1/2 C blueberry or grape all-fruit preserves
1 tsp vanilla

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until all the flour is moistened. Do Not Overmix!

Spoon the batter in equal amounts into paper-lined or greased muffin tins. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool in the tin for another 15-20 minutes. Brush the tops with a little Canola oil.

Brownies

Brownies
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This is the brownie recipe I made Friday night. I found it on the 'net a couple of weeks ago but can't remember where! If you recognize it, please let me know so I can credit the author and website.

I found this recipe while googling for brownies made with no refined sugar. I added the rest of the grain-sweetened chocolate chips I'd bought for the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I made a couple of weeks ago.

2 eggs
1/2 C honey
t tsp vanilla
1/2 C maple syrup
1/2 C butter
6 TBSP cocoa powder
3/4 C whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Whisk together the eggs, honey, syrup and vanilla.
Melt butter and then stir in the cocoa until well-blended.
Blend into the egg mixture (just to be sure it's not still too hot, temper the egg mixture by whisking in small amounts first)
Sift together the dry ingredients
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix just until blended and all the flour is moistened. Do Not Overmix!
Pour into a greased 8 x 8 baking pan
Bake 30-35 minutes (however, mine took almost 45) or until a toothpick inserted in the middle come out clean.

Iced In

So we have been pretty much iced in since yesterday morning. Not totally. The guys and I went out to Showmars for lunch yesterday (we were heading to the new pizza place, Amici's, but it was closed), and then to Target. It was pretty nasty and slow going. I took advantage of my status as resident female and made them drop me at doors so I wouldn't have to slog across slushy parking lots.

Showmars was dead enough that Erin was able to sit and visit with us while we ate. That was nice. We don't get to see her much when Nate's not home. Target was devoid of shrieking toddlers and their equally-shrieky mothers. And I popped into Ulta to get more foundation and blush. I hate going in there because their employees must be screened for a high level of grouchiness before they get hired. But it beats going up to Southpark to the Bare Escentuals shop.

I made brownies Friday night with a recipe I found that uses maple syrup and honey for sweetener. I then dropped in the rest of the grain-sweetened chocolate chips that I had left over from the peanut butter cookies. They have been delicious, if perhaps a bit TOO sweet, and made a delightful breakfast yesterday as well as a pre-bedtime snack last night. There is only one left. I really should shoot it and put up the recipe. I'll do that.

The "no refined sugar challenge" is working pretty well. I did snap Friday afternoon when I came home from school. Mensa Boy brought back some "extra sauer" gummy worms from the Frankfurt airport. Taylor ate some and left the rest on the counter. I love those things. With just a millesecond pause I opened up the bag, dug out a red one, and popped it in my mouth.

Grapefruit. What a waste! Serves me right, I guess.

Yogabuddy Liz wrote on her facebook page a moment ago that she is making blueberry muffins. I have a TON of blueberries in the freezer. I dug out my favorite muffin cookbook and there is a recipe in there that calls for all-fruit jam as a sweetener. It wants blueberry or grape. I have two jars of apricot. I wonder how that would taste? I'll have to think about whether I want to do that or not. They are cornbread blueberry muffins.

The vegetarian challenge is going even better. I have absolutely NO CRAVINGS for meat. I've had fish once and crab once. The tuna casserole was just "ehhh." The artichoke crab dip at Big View Diner was so artichoke-y that I couldn't even taste the crab. Last night I made salisbury steak for MB and Taylor for supper. I really didn't have anything similar to make for myself. Hmm...I didn't think of it at the time but I could have made "salisbury mushrooms." I have leftover 'shrooms in the fridge that need to be used. Well anyway, I had leftover pizza and a salad.

So that's it. Lots of resting and movie watching and book reading yesterday. I have bread in the oven this morning and probably will cook something this afternoon. The bread is wheat in the middle and white on the outside. I had an odd amount of wheat dough leftover so just "cladded" it in white.

WoYoPracMo Jan 20 Post

A Little of This, a Little of That.

I'm still doing yoga every day, even if it's only 10 minutes. But honestly, I think my minimum time is more like 20 0r 25. I think, to be honest, I'll be glad when WoYoPracMo is over because then I won't be all OCD about WRITING about it! Doing the yoga is not the issue.

"Why not just stop?" you say.

Hey. It took me 46 years to be able to put down a book I hated instead of soldiering through to the end. "Finish what you start" has always been my one big thing! I only have 10 days of WoYo blogging. I can do it.

I haven't written about the Yin weekend. And I should. I think I'm still processing it. It was pretty mind-blowing, and not really about the yin itself. It was all the other life lessons we had along the way. It was definitely more than I bargained for. Was it fun? Well, kinda. I'd say it was more "cool" than "fun."

More on that later. I'm baking up a pizza pie for my guys before heading out to yoga.

WoYoPracMo Restoration, Meditation, Pranayama

Days 11 and 12

Lying Around in the Woods

This is kind of a typical hanging-out style for me and yogabuddy Liz. This afternoon we were on some rocks in a creek shooting photos. I don't know why, but we always seem to be lying around somewhere!

The light was great for about 45 minutes this afternoon. Liz is much better at seeing photo ops in this kind of condition. I tend to need flowers or color or something like that. She'll no doubt have a few good ones from this afternoon, even though all was brown with a little green.

WoYoPracMo Jan 10 Post

Yin Sunday

WoYoPracMo Jan 8 & 9

Two Classes to Warm Up the Day Saturday

WoYoPracMo Jan 7 Post

Something

Just about Snapped!

Last night as we walked into the kitchen after yoga, we were greeted with the most delicious smell. Pork Loin roasting in the crockpot on a bed of (by then) caramelized onions! Oh. My. Gosh.

I told Liz it was just so so tempting.

"Me too," she said. "I've always been a big fan of roast pork."

That made me feel better. She's been a veggie for more than a year.

I lifted the meat and onions into a container for the refrigerator. Liz tipped up the crock to pour in the pot liquor.

Neither of us licked our fingers.

yiiiikes!

Roasted Vegetable Stock

VegStock1
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This is my favorite recipe. It's from the new Joy of Cooking (although there might be an even newer one than the one I have).

400 degree oven. Lightly oil a roaster. Drop in whole mushrooms, cut up turnips, carrots, garlic, onion. Cut them all big. Smash the garlic. Roast for an hour. The veggies should be browning around the edges.

Put the veggies in a crockpot. Deglaze the roaster with a little water. Pour that into the stockpot. Fill up with water. Add celery tops, red pepper flakes and some herbs. I put some dried thyme in a teaball and dropped it in (I don't have any fresh herbs right now), along with a couple of bay leaves

Simmer for an hour. Strain and refrigerate/freeze.

WoYoPracMo Jan 6 Post

Restorative Class-FAIL!

Fish Decision Deferred

I haven't decided whether or not my 6-week foray into vegetarianism will include fish. As of 6:45 last night I had decided it would not. I pulled some frozen flounder that was lurking in the bottom of the freezer and put it in the oven to bake. Intention: big salads with a nice fillet on the side or top. We all like salads with salmon fillets but there was no fresh salmon to be found at Harris Teeter. By 6:46 the decision was reversed with yogiLiz showed up to take me to a restorative yoga class. I ran out the door throwing instructions for dinner completion over my shoulder.

Today at lunch I thought I'd have the leftover fish and a salad. It was gone, taken by Mensa Boy to work in HIS lunch! I'm quite delighted that he enjoyed it well enough to do that.

So I'm still fish-less. And undecided.

The Initiatives

I said the other day that I would write out some resolutions. But I prefer to call them initiatives. Why? Mainly because everyone calls them resolutions and I hate to be average. Also because the word "resolutions" makes me think of the usual stuff like lose weight and de-clutter, which usually lasts about a week and then are forgotten. I don't need to lose weight and I de-clutter all the time (it seems to be a never-ending process). But also because the word "initiative" just sounds important and somewhat inflexible and, most of all, self-driven.

So. The 2010 Initiatives

1. And this is the biggest: Go vegetarian until February 14. At least until then. I came up with that date because, for as long as I can remember, my mom has gotten rid of sugary-snacks on January 1. Why? To lose weight. I don't know how she actually did with that...I guess we should ask her. But she has always said "On January 1 we are all going on diets and there will be no more cookies and fudge and candy and all that around."

So I've been around "THE BIG ANNUAL FOOD CHANGE" a lot. And I do it myself still. I continue that tradition by purging the house of sugar on January 1. This year I figured if I was going to be doing that, I might as well give vegetarianism a go too.

I started thinking about it in early December. My yogabuddy Liz is a veggie and we love to cook together. We've played with our food, and I've enjoyed working on new vegetarian entrees that would pass muster with my guys. So I figured why not do it full-time for 6 weeks?

In a nutshell, I'm not going vegetarian because of the animals. Yes, I do feel badly about them and how we do terrible things to them in the name of mass food production. But I still see the value of meat...and firmly believe that God intended us to be omnivores. No, I'm going vegetarian to flex my culinary muscles. Can I keep it up even when there don't seem to a lot of quick choices in the house? Some days when I'm tired I like to just zap a pound of burger, boil up a pot of macaroni and toss it all together with some tomatoes. We'll see. (by the way, when I was thinking about doing this, I asked Mensa Boy if he wanted to think about it too. "No." He said. Didn't even pause)

2. No refined sugar until Valentine's Day. That goes back to #1, I know. But it's a little harder. Rather than just stopping with all sugar until V-Day, I've decided just to forgo REFINED sugar. This will also flex my cooking brain. I will have sweet, but it has to be sweetened with honey, molasses, fruit, agave or what have you. Only natural sweeteners. Tricky, huh? I think that will allow me to make it all the way until V-Day. I never have before. I've gotten close...

3. Waste Not. This is also about food. And water. I end up throwing away eggplants that I bought and forgot. Or half a head of cabbage or leftover meatloaf. It's ridiculous. And water...that's just crazy. I think we run about 3 gallons of water in the kitchen before it gets hot. And I think that's a pretty conservative estimate.

So my plan is to take a look in those crisper drawers every morning. Scope out the contents. Noodle around with that during the day, and then cook from there at night. ALSO...I'm doing a pantry purge right now. I found 4 half-empty bags of various kinds of beans in there. They will all get eaten. Four kinds of rice? To be eaten.

The water situation. The only thing I can think there is to actually run water into the teakettle and bring it to a boil on top of the stove to add to the dishwater. But then I'm using gas on the stove instead of gas in the water heater. My main plan is to get an under-sink point-of-service water heater before the year is out. (note to self: mention this to MB. I think I've forgotten to do that)

4. Yoga every single day. No time limit. Could be 5 minutes, could be two hours. Could be by myself, could be in a class. Could be any kind of yoga. I never understand when people say they don't have time to do yoga. 5 minutes? That's brushing my teeth twice! Gimme a break!

5. Back to the camera. I wish I could say I'll take at least one picture a day. But then I end up at 8:15 p.m. thinking "I need to shoot something, quick!" That's not real. But I will try to photograph more. Kind of a lame statement, I know.

I just realized this embodies all my hobbies and in every one I say I'm going to do more. More cooking, more yoga, more photography. More fun!

That's all. There might be more but I can't remember them right now. I don't think there are more. If so, I'll post again.

WoYoPracMo Jan 5 Post

Side Attraction

WoYoPracMo Jan 4 Post

Meditation & Yoga Nidra