What’s Cooking – Recipes & Tasty Bits

Stuffed Artichokes

In our house food is more than just something we do to stay alive.  Most days it is an exercise in mindfulness (though there are definitely, can of soup, I can’t face cooking days). We have decided to take time to consider not just what we put in our bodies but how we make it and how it effects the world at large. We are learning, over time about seasonal cooking and enjoying the way seasonal ingredients change the taste of our foods.

Vanilla Scones

This learning process has become especially important since Cyndi was diagnosed with Cancer in 2014 (there was a lot of stress baking going on the first month or so, hundreds of pies and cakes and random things).  For me, cooking is therapy and a way of creating healing on a deep level.  A way to transmute love  into a physical manifestation that will become a part of the person eating its very cells. What could be more holy than that?

Basil, Dill & Potato Quiche

With this in mind, I try to take a moment before each meal and light a candle and take a breath and hold the intention of love and healing I want to add as my special ingredient in everything I make for us. Some days, that’s all I can manage because the stress of care giving is too much or the medications make her nauseous and all she can stomach is white toast.

Either way, this means my kitchen is a holy space, the counters are my altar and our bodies the temple we partake of the gifts we create there. In this too busy world, when it is hard to find time for quiet meditation, making normal daily acts a part of my meditative practice helps me find the mindfulness that allows me to handle our stressful life with grace.

Blueberry Panna Cotta

I also cook for several of my friends regularly. I enjoy it and they like to eat my food so it’s a wonderful way to trade services (they help us with other things). We often have what we call Family Dinner, which is an open invitation to the people in our lives to gather for a meal and time to connect. It’s amazing how much closer we all feel when we have these dinners regularly.

The recipes I’m listing are some of our favorites. I will credit the books/websites/authors so you can go exploring.  I will also note what changes I make to suit our tastes. I love to make large amounts of things from scratch (broth, sauce, soups) and pressure can or freeze them so that we have healthy scratch made foods when we want it and can avoid the additives in packaged foods. It’s nice to have the choice when time or energy is short.