The EBLT

Ok, so I haven't had the best week of my life...

 This should at least make breakfast memorable.  Nothing says "feel the love" like fresh local pasture raised eggs, organic tomato, uncured nitrite/nitrate free organic bacon, organic sprouted toast and copious amounts of butter. 

YUM.

Make it as crisp or as squidgy as you like it.

She's a beauty.

Lot's of butter on the toast and a sprinkling of organic garlic crystals... Remember to salt the tomato

Top with your beautiful egg ( I prefer mine to be over-med/well in a sandwich) but you can make yours as runny as you like.

Ahhhh, so good.

The Menu has Arrived...

Just a quick note to let everyone know that my prepared foods menu is now available! Just click on the MOD Kitchen Menu in the sidebar and see what MOD Kitchen has to offer!

Hate is an Acid...

“Hate is an acid that harms the vessel in which it is stored more than the person on whom it’s poured”
-Ethel Giddings Short Reed (1873 - 1961) a direct descendant of Miles Standish.

How many times a day do you think that you use the word “hate”? For many of us, it is an unconscious act that erodes us deeply and undermines our ability to manifest love and beauty in our lives.

I received this quote in an email from my Green America business network the other day (thanks Steve!). When I read it to Sofia, my 6-year-old daughter, her immediate response was (gasp) “you should blog on that!”

The quote reminded me of how often I use the word hate and don’t even realize that I am using it. It has become one of those unconscious words that pepper our conversations and modify anything that is remotely unpleasant. I first noticed this when Sofia started using it all of the time, for everything. I couldn’t believe how much she said it and that she could possibly feel such a passionate and intense dislike for that many things. I reminded myself that children at this age mostly parrot what they hear the most and it hit me. Wow, I must use the word hate a lot. Not a personal revelation that I was particularly proud of, I set out to become more mindful of the words I chose and to help Sofia realize the weight of the word hate and how she simply could not feel that intensely negative about something like the sun being in her eyes or the dog looking at her when she eats her snack. We have been practicing rephrasing and renaming so that we both have a better understanding of our true feelings and emotions in a particular situation.

In meditation /or prayer, ask Spirit to help you to become aware of each time you use the word hate so that you can then have the opportunity to reassess and choose a word that better represents your feelings. After a short period of time, ask Spirit to help you to become aware of when you are about to use the word hate in conversation or thought so that you can make a different choice before you even use it.

Keeping our inner life clear of negativity and corrosive words and thoughts is more important than you think. These thought patterns slowly erode us in a way that hardens us from the inside and projects this out into the world, we then manifest and draw to ourselves more of the same. We simply cannot attract love into our lives when our internal dialog is always hate.

Be love.

Maria

Raw Chocolate Truffles

New Years Resolutions….

I am not one for making resolutions, aka empty promises to myself about something that involves the word “should” way too often. Traditional resolutions are a waste of time and only serve to make us disappointed in our lives.

Why not make a resolution to do something that you LOVE more often?

Like eating chocolate. This year, I resolve to EAT MORE CHOCOLATE.

There, I said it. I mean it, too. Real chocolate, raw chocolate. YUM.

At first glance this may seem to contradict my former edict to live a healthier life… but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Raw dark chocolate is the purest and most divine health food on the planet. It exudes pure joy in a way that can only be healing. Not to mention the plethora of actual health benefits:

• Extremely high antioxidant levels: "Cornell University discovered that Cocoa has twice the antioxidants of red wine, and up to three times those found in green tea."
• High ORAC value from 28,000 on up. (An Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) score is a test tube analysis that measures the antioxidant levels of food and other chemical substances. If a food has a high ORAC score, then it means the food is high in antioxidants. The antioxidant’s strength is its ability to eliminate oxygen free radicals. With the ORAC score, a higher score means the food is better at helping us fight diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Definition courtesy of WiseGeek.com, thanks!)
• More than 300 minerals and properties have been identified in raw organic chocolate. Cacao contains copper, manganese, zinc, sulphur, and is rich in B –vitamins.
• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases energy, alertness, creativity, and improves mood.
• Contains very little caffeine
• Is a major source of magnesium, which helps your heart.
• Rich in Flavonoids which has a cancer-fighting antioxidant result
• Promotes healthy blood flow thereby reducing the risk of strokes, blood clots, and heart attacks
• Increased Longevity: Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that those who eat chocolate up to three times each month live almost a year longer than those who overindulge or eat junk food. 

• Cocoa is reported to help brain function. The magnesium is essential for maintaining brain function. Raw chocolate is also composed of brain functioning elements such as tryptophan and anandamide 

• Theobromine in cocoa has been noted as calming the coughing reflex thereby helping to stop coughing.
• Can reduce cholesterol by 5-10 percent
• Decreases menopause and PMS symptoms
• Helps control appetite and supports weight loss

So, even if you don’t believe any of the laundry list of benefits, the following recipe for raw chocolate truffles will leave you believing that life is indeed good.

Raw Cacao Truffles Makes 10

1T Organic raw cacao nibs

¼ Organic vanilla bean, cut into small pieces

½ oz Organic raw almonds

10 Organic Medjool Dates, seeds removed and discarded

1/2T Organic raw almond butter

2T Organic Raw Cacao powder

1T Organic extra virgin coconut oil

I buy my organic fair trade cacao nibs and powder and organic extra virgin coconut oil from Mountain Rose Herbs, see link at the top of the left sidebar or click on links in recipes. They are an amazing company that truly serves the planet and all of us who are lucky enough to live here.

Process first 3 ingredients in a food processor until consistency is a fine meal. Add the rest of the ingredients and process just until it comes together. Do not process for too long as the blade will heat up and begin to denature the oils in the cacao and coconut diminish the health properties and causing the oils to potentially separate from the mix. Roll into tablespoon sized balls and roll in shredded raw unsweetened coconut. Store in the refrigerator if you think that they will actually last that long.

Beware: The theobromine in raw chocolate is highly toxic and can be fatal to our beloved canine companions. Please, keep these truffles out of the reach of your precious pooches. If you wanted to make a delightful treat for your doggie to eat while you enjoyed these truffles you could make the same recipe, replacing the raw cacao nibs and powder with raw carob nibs and powder… howls of happiness, just be sure you don’t confuse them!

Health

Have you ever noticed that the more you take pharmaceuticals for an issue say pain or allergies, the more of them you have to take in order to have the desired effect? Or the generally held belief that a massage has to be painful to be effective or that essential oils have to burn or sting to be working?

Why are we humans so hard on ourselves?

With all of this abuse it is a wonder that we do as well as we do, thrive even, or is it? What magic is at work behind the scenes in our bodies that keeps everything just so…?

Health is not a magical occurrence but a dynamic process that is always at work both when we are healthy and when we are ill.

I would go so far as to say even more when we are ill.

It is our Health that stimulates the immune response that fights infection, it is our Health that makes us sneeze and cough and fills our sinuses with green goo. It is our Health that makes us puke.

Our Health is most present when we feel the most abandoned by it.

So how can we resource ourselves this winter in the midst of all the sneezing and coughing and threats of swine flu??

There are some simple steps you can take that I am sure you all know, this will be a gentle reminder.

1. Drink plenty of water (pH adjusted reverse osmosis/distilled preferred). This will keep your mucous membranes moist and able to act as your first line of defense.

2. Get plenty of rest. Sleep in! It is hibernation season, after all. Be a bear.

3. Eat healthy organic foods, in a variety of colors.

4. Do something every day that makes you smile so long it makes your cheeks ache and laugh so hard that you almost pee your pants.

5. Exercise daily, preferably in the form of play.

6. Wash your hands often (without antibacterial soap, please)

7. Do something everyday that takes you outside of your comfort level, especially when it comes to reaching out to others. Giving and serving others boosts your immune system.

So go outside and play, enjoy the snow.

Maria

Yule Cut Out Sugar Cookies

This time of year always reminds me of when I was a kid and all of the excitement of the impending holidays. But nothing was more exciting than coming home from school to bake cookies with my Mom. I can’t remember what I liked more, the sugar cookie dough or the finished cookies, probably because it is too difficult to choose!

It is interesting when I look back to my childhood and all of “food” that we ate (I use quotations with the word food because of the dubious nature of it’s food-ness). Twinkies, Ding Dongs, candy bars, sugary cereals, and pasteurized milk products…the list can go on but I think that you get the picture. When I think of all of the dead milk, food dyes, artificial flavorings and high fructose corn syrup that I consumed it is no wonder that I was often sick, had frequent headaches and suffered from serious multi-chemical sensitivity.

Although at the time, no one ever thought to link the “food” that we ate to how we felt and even fewer thought that chemical sensitivity existed. Even the homemade baked goods that my Mom made were laced with ingredients that were harmful at worst and not supportive at best.

Take the decorations that adorn most holiday cut out cookies. Yes, they are beautiful and have gotten more so over the years with more vivid colors in the frostings and all of the sprinkles of varying shapes and colors. But beauty at what cost? I ask this question a lot and you will tire of it, I am sure.

But as a culture, we really have a tendency to make the crappiest choices when it comes to esthetics vs. health.

From what we slather on our bodies to what we put in our mouths…if we are going to heal, this has to shift.

If our priority is Health and feeling great, then we need to take a serious look at the choices we make and realize there is a whole wide world of options out there to choose from and we need to start choosing our health first.

Let’s start with food dyes.

This may seem like a simple task but it you have ever read a food label, you will realize that eliminating food dyes can be daunting. Especially if you are still shopping in the regular supermarket and eating processed foods. They are everywhere. Did you know that even Florida oranges are colored with orange food coloring? Also salmon and meats (especially lunch meats) to offset differences in color from storage etc. Artificial food dyes are everywhere even in many pharmaceuticals. Artificial food dyes have been linked by many to ADD and ADHD and the drug that they typically prescribe for these poor misunderstood kids is Ritalin, I find it sickening and ironic that it [Ritalin] is coated in either D & C yellow #10 or FD &C green #3. (FYI: F stands for food, D stands for drug and C stands for cosmetic). The drug also contains lactose, which is milk sugar that most of us cannot digest and can lead to many emotional/behavioral issues. Insane.

So what is a devoted foodie to do? How can we emulate Martha and not use food dyes?

There is a company called India Tree that uses food/plants to manufacture food colorants that are safer to use. I say safer because some people may still be sensitive to ingredients used. Now, like all things, you need to do your homework. I learned the hard way that just because a company makes one product that is a safe alternative does not mean all of their products are safe. This is true in this case. I will only use their products that use natural food dyes, the rest of the sugars and non-pareils are loaded with garbage that should not be consumed.

Let’s Do Organics makes sprinkles and jimmies that use natural colorants and are gluten free. True the colors are not as vivid and intense as regular (cancer causing) dyes but they are pretty and they do the trick.

My daughter loves them and they don’t hurt her. She is also very sensitive and gets extremely irritable and emotional when she eats foods that her body cannot process. Nothing is more important to me than her health; this is why I do what I do.

So, let’s get back to sugar cookies. Who would know that I could go on for so long before getting to the most important part, the recipe! I love a soft sugar cookie so I have adapted an old family recipe to make the cookie soft. It is actually my cousin Cathy’s recipe (thanks Cath!) and the original recipe called for both butter and shortening. Now, many of you probably know that if you want a soft cookie, you usually use shortening because using all butter will make for a crisp cookie. I love the flavor of butter and I will under no circumstances use Crisco so I use organic extra virgin coconut oil. You can also use organic non-hydrogenated palm oil. Both oils are solid at room temperature which makes them a natural substitution for yucky trans-fat shortening. They are also not the villains that they have been portrayed as. We will save that topic for another time.

Yule Cut Out Sugar Cookies

350 Degrees for about 10 minutes. All ingredients listed are organic

½ stick softened butter (use salted or unsalted, your preference)

¼ cup coconut oil

¾ cup evaporated cane juice

2 eggs (preferably from pasture raised hens)

1 t vanilla

2 ½ cups flour (I always use spelt, for this recipe it was white spelt, usually it is half white and half whole spelt)

2-½ t baking powder (aluminum free)

½ t salt (I use Redmond mineral salt)

Mix dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter and coconut oil with sugar in mixer with paddle attachment. Add eggs and vanilla stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix until incorporated. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until dough comes together. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and cut in half, pat into discs, wrap up and refrigerate until firm at least 4 hours. Take dough from refrigerator and roll out on lightly floured surface to about ¼ inch thickness. You want them to be fairly thick in order to stay soft. Cut into desired shapes and transfer to silpat or parchment lined pan. Take remaining dough scraps and “smear”

them back together to fully incorporate the dough and refrigerate. This method will keep the dough from getting too tough with many re-rollings (like when you are making cookies with a 6 year old!) Bake until edges are just starting to brown, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely before icing. If you prefer not to use icing but still want to decorate, you may sprinkle cookies with colored sanding sugars and decorations prior to baking.

Butter Frosting:

6 T Butter

2 T Milk

1 t Vanilla

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

Whip together in a bowl, separate and color with India Tree colorants in desired shades. This is not a flooding type icing but more of a thick butter cream icing. You will need a spatula or butter knife to ice cookies or use pastry bags to pipe icing. We often use colored sugars and the Let’s Do Organics sprinkles to decorate further; I did not buy the India Tree sugars in time to make these cookies but you could color some evaporated cane juice to use instead. I only made green as I am a bit of a minimalist when it comes to cookie decoration unlike my sweet 6-year-old Sofia, see her with her masterpiece(photo above). When she is older, we will play with flooding but honestly, this icing while not fancy just tastes so much better and that is what we like!

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Well, after much hesitation, I finally rented Twilight. I was not planning on seeing the movie, after all, in my forties; I figured I should not be watching movies about teenage vampire love. Then, I remembered 2 things.

1. That I do not believe in “shoulds”

and

2. That I have a thing for tall, pale, gangly English men so I broke down and rented it, well actually, I asked my husband to rent it.

There is so much being written about this movie right now with all the hype surrounding ticket sales and teenybopper screams, everyone seems to be forgetting that this is not an original movie. Or shall I say movie theme. This theme has been getting play in every love story ever written for hundreds of years. Sure, the faces are new and exciting to look at, but it is still the same story.

Let’s recount the themes.

Forbidden love, courtly love, co-dependent love, damsel in distress always needing a rescue from the hero, lover as father figure/protection…

Bella, the heroine, is portrayed as a strong feminine character by the media. Interesting that she is still always in need of a rescue.

This makes me ask the basic question, what in our psyche compels us as women in our world to need rescuing? From whom/ what? Why is it so satisfying on a primordial level to watch this theme being acted out over and over and over again? What, as a culture are we working through? This is what brings me to the computer tonight.

From James Dean to Edward Cullen, the bad boy that we “should” not love but we do.

Symbolically and simply we can look at this in the context of polarity. Good vs. evil or light vs. dark. Religion predictably says that light is good and dark is bad, the light is God and that the dark is the devil.

In the movie, Bella is drawn to Edward who is a dark, mysterious and brooding fella with a piercing stare. He is also drawn to her and while she is not the poster child for light and bubbly, she is a good and gentle soul. Each is drawn to the opposite of themselves, or better yet, the reflection of their shadow selves that they see in the other. Light and dark looking to join with one another for completion.

Many talk of the hero/rescuer in books and movies as being representative of “God” or having god-like qualities. The heroine weakens herself to allow for the rescue and thus reconnects with Spirit. The search for and longing for love is for many, a longing for connection to Spirit. Finding God through relationship is not a new idea but I want to take it a step further and suggest that it is not the masculine God that we are longing for, solely.

In this age, the age of patriarchy, something important has been stolen from us. Hidden away in the deep recesses of our souls, demonized by many religions lies the beauty and force of the Great Mother.

The Goddess.

She is symbolized by the dark, the profound feminine energy of creation. I think that rather than the rescuer/bad boy being the symbolic representation of God and our longing for connection to God, that he is actually the symbolic representation of the Goddess and our deep longing to reconnect with Her, our Divine Mother.

You cannot, after all, be fully connected to only half of a thing, even if that “thing” is God.

If God is the light, where/who is the dark? The devil? The devil as an entity/being was created by religion to scare people into submission and to “demonize” the Goddess. The energy of the devil is just that, energy that lives within all of us. It is interesting to note that the devils actual name is Lucifer, which means light; we can talk about that another time. Let’s get back to the Goddess.

It is fear of the unknown that makes us doubt and question Her existence, but the dark need not be a scary place. In the darkness, we rest, we heal, we create, we gestate. The dark is intuition and the lesson is letting go and trust. The Great Mother calls on us to crawl into her Divine womb and recreate our lives, to nurse at her Divine breast and receive Love and Nurturing. She reminds us that there is no death, just energy and light. Bella, if she were to merge with Edward (Light and Dark, God and Goddess) would “die” and become “immortal “(a vampire). The Great Mother reminds us that it is only our conscious minds that die when Spirit achieves wholeness.

A soul reunited lives forever.

As we move into this new age, with the return to a matriarchal society, I look forward to the return of strong women and men who look to relationship for love, companionship and joy rather than needing a rescue or to feel complete. When we can fully embody all of Spirit, both God and Goddess, we are already complete/whole, there is no battle between good and evil/ light and dark. Rather it is all One and it is all good. Let us all plant this seed of Love in our hearts.

To bring this back around to food, as this is technically a food and healing blog I wish to share a recipe that I am calling Twilight Sangria. Sangria gets its name from sangre or blood, It is made with red wine but the vino and brandy can be omitted entirely, leaving the juice with the fruit as a great party drink for those who are either too young to consume or choose not to. Here’s to a drink that even Edward Cullen would appreciate. Salute!

Twilight Sangria

1 bottle red wine (I suggest Frey as it is organic and sulfite free)

2 cups organic juice (you can use pomegranate, cranberry, orange or apple or a combination of them, if you want it to really look like blood, stick with the pomegranate or cranberry)

1/2 cup brandy (I used chambord, no, it's not organic...)

1/4 to 1/2 cup organic syrup (try raw agave nectar or raw honey and adjust amount to the sweetness that you like, I used 1/4 cup and it was a tad too sweet)

Organic Fruit:

1 apple, cored and thinly sliced

1 orange, in wedges or slices

1 lemon, in slices

1 cup grapes

1/4 cup pomegranate seed

5 limequats (I saw these at the store and they were organic so I could not resist, very tasty!)

First, mix the wine, juice, brandy and syrup together. Next, you will add half of the fruit to the wine mixture. I like the fruit to steep/macerate in the wine/juice/brandy mixture for several hours or overnight. Really pound the fruit to release all of the juices and the oils. Refrigerate. Several hours before serving, strain it and compost the fruit. Then add the second half of the fruit you prepared to the sangria in a lovely pitcher and serve chilled with the fruit in the glass.

Enjoy!