Eating

Cold Peanut Noodles
- half packet of Ling pasta

- Vegetable stir fry:
* bunch of broccoli rabe
* 3 shredded carrots
* 1 tbsp thinly sliced ginger
* 2 cups beet greens strips
* 2 tbsp chopped crystallized
* ginger soy sauce

- Sauce:
* ½ cup peanut butter
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* 2 tbsp ginge
* 4 garlic cloves
* 2 tbsp water, more if necessary
* soy sauce

Boil salted water and add pasta. While cooking the pasta, mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a blender until smooth. Adjust the sauce for taste and thickness as desired.

Steam the broccoli rabe.

Add the oil and ginger to a pot. Cook until very light golden brown. Add all the stir fry ingredients and cook until you get the type of "crunch" you like.

Remove and drain the pasta. Allow it to cool. Mix in any leftover chopped crystallized ginger you might have, then mix in the sauce and stir fry. Serve cool or cold.

Barking

A simple, happy, healthy life... with dogs?

Owning a dog would seem to bring a complexity to our daily routines that runs completely counter to living a life that is simple as well as healthy and happy. There's the walking, feeding, fetching, grooming, pooping, and barking. How about owning more than one dog? How can life possibly be simple or healthy or happy for any of us -- the dog included -- in today's busy, demanding world?

Remember: living in today's world is all what you make of it.

If you choose to bring a dog into your home, the key to living a simple, healthy, happy life is to train the dog.

Jon Katz brilliantly illustrates the importance of training:
"Training isn't just about power or control; it's a dialogue between two species. The dog lover is literally forging his relationship with the animal, showing his dog how to live in the world."

Dogs only create complexity when we -- their human owners -- fail in our responsibilities. Creating simplicity, health, and happiness with and for the dogs in our lives requires us to build a constructive relationship with the animal and to show her how to navigate her way through this human world. Doing so requires patience, persistence, and compassion. It requires us to commit time and energy up front and over time.

I would never suggest that building a relationship with a dog is inherently simple -- no relationship of any sort ever is -- but it is only as complex as you make it. My health and my happiness are the best they've ever been because of the relationship I have with our two dogs.

If you are interesting in building a better relationship with your dog and training him or her to succeed in this human world, here are three books I recommend:

"Katz on Dogs" by Jon Katz. It is well written, very easy to read, and based on Katz's years of experience with dogs. There are countless practical techniques.

"The Culture Clash" by Jean Donaldson. The book provides wonderful insight into why dogs behave the way they do and how we humans should interact with them in order to build a constructive relationship.

"Cesar's Way" by Cesar Milan. While the Dog Whisperer has a gift that I can't even pretend to have, his book -- and his TV show -- provide tremendous inspiration for what is possible.

Eating

We tried and were wowed by a recipe from Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen. Here it is:

Cheezy Chickpeas
- 1 can of chickpeas
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/4 c nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp fresh basil or 1 tbsp dried basil
- salt

Drain the chickpeas and rinse. Fill a pot with water. Add the chickpeas, cover and boil for about 10 minutes until the chickpeas are soft. Drain the water and keep chickpeas in the pot. Add butter, nutritional yeast, basil, and salt. Mix until “melted” and the chickpeas are a light golden brown.

Check out the Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen blog and see the original recipe.

Eating

Monday is "box day".

It is the day we pick up our weekly box of produce from the Los Poblanos Organics farm.

For only $26 you get a box loaded with locally-grown, organic produce. You get many things you know (oranges, baby spinach, carrots and red onions, for example) and a wide variety of things that may be brand new (blood oranges, red chards, Japanese sweet potatoes and purple carrots). The items are seasonal and will vary throughout the year.

Here's what we got in our box this week:
Oranges
Bunch Carrots
Mixed Onions
Sweet Baby Lettuce Mix or Head LPO Lettuce
1 lb Zucchini
3 Kiwis
Cauliflower
Bag LPO Spinach
First Strawberries of the Season
Red Chard

At first, it was awkward using all of the produce, especially the new and unfamiliar items. What do you do with red chards? But we made a promise to eat every item in the box and enjoy them. Amanda made it her mission to cook something fun with each of the items and has demonstrated fantastic skills at using these ingredients. You will see all of her creations within the pages of this website... simple, healthy and fun creations.

To learn more and sign up, visit the farm's web site. You can customize your box in certain ways, have additional items included for additional costs (like Fair Trade coffee and grass-feed ground beef) and even have the box delivered straight to your home (for an additional $4.95 per box).

Los Poblanos is local to the Albuquerque area. For readers in other areas around the country, do a web search to see what comes up in your local community.

The Los Poblanos Organics web site can be found at http://www.lospoblanosorganics.com/.

Eating

Cheezy Brown Rice Pizza
- 1 c brown basmati rice (sticky short grain rice is recommended)
- fresh or dried herbs (parsley, basil, marjoram)
- 1/4 c tomato paste
- any toppings
- any cheese (or you can do without)

Boil rice in 2 cups water and cook until done. Make sure the rice is sticky enough to stay together. Mix in the herbs. Spread the rice on a pizza pan with a rolling pin that is covered with a bit oil. Make it round like a pizza crust and press hard with oiled hands to make sure the rice sticks together. Bake for 5-10 minutes at 350 degree. Take the "rice crust" out of the oven and spread with tomato paste (or you can use pizza sauce). Add your toppings. Sprinkle with enough cheese to cover the toppings. Put the pizza back in the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until the cheese becomes light golden brown.

We did three different kinds of toppings on our pizza. On 1/3, we added just cheese. On another 1/3, we added chopped onions and cheese. On the final 1/3, we added capers, roasted pine nuts and cheese. It tasted amazing.

To see the original recipe that inspired this pizza, go to Dreena Burton's blog - Vive Le Vegan!

Eating

Sweet Potato Gnocchi
- 2 lbs peeled sweet potatoes
- 1 c flour
- 2 tbsp butter

Boil the chopped potatoes in water and salt until soft. Drain the water and press/mash the potatoes until smooth. Add flour and butter. Stir until well-mixed like dough, making sure there are no lumps.

To start making the gnocchi, pinch off some dough and roll it into a ball about 1 inch round. Roll the ball across the tines of a fork with your thumb to get the gnocchi "stripe". Do this with all of the dough.

Boil a new batch of water and put the gnocchi in. Cook until they float on top of water.

Cheezy Sauce for Gnocchi
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1 c skim milk
- 1 c nutritional yeast
- 1/4 tsp vegetable broth paste or miso paste
- 1/4 c basil or 1 tbsp dried basil
- salt/pepper

Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Stir in flour. Pour in milk, nutritional yeast, paste and basil. Mix until smooth. Sprinkle with salt and pepper as desired. Drop in the cooked gnocchi. Lightly mix until the sauce becomes slightly thick and covers the gnocchi.

Added bonus: Grill some asparagus and throw it on top.

Eating

White Omelet
- egg whites from 3 eggs
- two chopped green onions
- 1 tbsp chopped feta
- extra virgin olive oil
- pepper to taste

Put a bit oil and the onions in a pan and simmer until light golden brown. Add the eggs over the onions and stir until cooked. Add feta and pepper on top just before serving.

Garlicky Collard Greens
- chopped collard greens
- three chopped garlic cloves
- extra virgin olive oil
- crushed red pepper

Combine a bit oil and the garlic in a pan and cook until golden brown and crispy. Stir in the collard greens and crushed red pepper. Cover and cook until the collard greens wilt. (You can use chards, kale, or any dark greens.)

Sweet Potato with seasoned pecans
- small sweet potato
- extra virgin olive oil (or butter)
- 1/4 cup of pecans
- nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice
- 1 tbsp of sugar (any kind)
- salt/pepper to taste

Pop a whole sweet potato with the skin in the microwave for 6 minutes.

While the potato is cooking, toast the pecans in a pan for a few minutes. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice, sugar, salt/pepper, and a bit oil. Allow the combination to cook for another few minutes until the spices stick to the pecans.

When the potato is done, split it length-wise. Dice the inside but allow the skin to hold it all together. Spread the pecans on top.