Vegan Raw Weekly Box Scheme - Menus and Reviews

Sprout and Mushroom Celebration Salad

Week One Menu

Savoury
Nut Loaf with Cranberry Sauce
Sprout and Mushroom salad
Lime Dressing with Beetroot, Carrot and Apple Salad
Celebration Soup
Sprouted chick pea hummus
Patties

Sushi with Orange and Mustard Dressing and Mexicali Burgers

Sweet
Mince Pies
Date Squares

Gingerbread from the conscious kitchen

Week Two Menu

Spinach sushi, Quiche and Tart

Savoury
Quiche with Artichoke Hearts, Tomato and Macadamia Cheese
Tart with Mushrooms and Spinach
Sushi with spicy red lentil and wrapped in fresh spinach
Chickpea and Mango curry
 
Sweet
Banoffi Pie
Date Squares
Chocolate and Banana Squares
Chocolate Coconut Balls

Chocolate and banana desert

Week Three Menu

 Seed Bread and Sprouted Hummus

Savoury
Quiche Sundried tomato
Mexicali Burgers
Seed Bread and Hummus
Sushi with Avocado & red pepper, wrapped in Nori Seaweed

Sweet

Lime Tart with Cashew Cream Speckled Hen on top

Lime Tart with Cashew Cream
Apple Pie
Millionaire Shortbread

Millionaire Shortbread - No sugar, no flour, no butter just pure happiness

Week Four
Spaghetti - Slim cut courgette and amazing sauce
Maca and Ginger Blondies with Caramel Drizzle
.... so far!

Weekly Food Reviews

"Quiche was amazing and sweet treats to die for"

"I have to be honest and say that the sweet treats were eaten all straight away:)"

"My daughter really liked the date squares, they were gorgeous, tasted like a bakewell tart, but much nicer!"

"Thank you for leaving the veg whole and the dressing ready, I like to eat a salad fresh."

"Our whole family including grandparents are vegan,  it was great to discover and find out about the great work you are doing!"

"I enjoyed your cooking a lot, you inspired me to some nice recipes:)"

"Thank you for this week's lunches they were all so so delicious, loved the hummus and crackers and mexican burgers and sushi, deserts were to die for too, can't remember what else was there but I loved it all!"

 Maca is my new ingredient of this week. Didn't know a thing about it but I had bought it in Aldi with the raw cacao powder last week. Look what it does for our stamina, men and women!!!

1. PMS, Menopause, and Women with Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

2. Women’s Hormones, Fertility, and Sexual Health -Eggs able to fully mature and increases seretonin - the happiness hormone.

3. Male’s Testosterone Levels and Fertility

4. Energy, Memory and Mood

5. Antioxidant Booster

Maca Root Benefits And Nutrition 

Raw Food Ingredients

What is so nice are the ingredients. Everything nutritious in its own right!

 

And so many people do not know about this stuff. I refer to for instance asking someone in Aldi if they did any natural syrups, to replace sugar. She gave me this jar of white powder made of pure chemical, highly toxic substances they've come up with to substitute as a sweetener. I was thinking of agave syrup. Discreetly, I continued looking around and found maple syrup and organic dates, raisins and figs, all with nutritious properties and all amazingly sweet.

Then I found an article on raw food to treat disease. I suddenly read that cooking food kills ALL the enzymes to start with and that is before the total demise of the food's vitamin and mineral content. It stated that eating cooked food is actually hard work on your immune system rather than a boost. The following article suggests a few foods to boost immunity, including carrots and cacao (raw chocolate).

10 Raw Foods That Improve Immunity 

 

Harmony Hall's Weekly Box Scheme For Ready Meals

One last thought on my first month of special diets catering:
I intended to offer whatever people needed, for example vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free, sugar-free, salt-free or raw but, thanks to my first clients, I've already discovered that all the above can be achieved through mastering raw food. 

What a magic way to live.

 

Do you Desire? Feel Obliged? Or Just Go With It, to Consciously Create 2017?

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The Buddhist wisdom says let go of all desire until there is no more sorrow (presumably sorrow at not receiving some of your desires). Self development books say get over all guilt motivations, like shoulds, coulds and woulds (I think I must have done this as I don’t even recognize the words any more, was wondering if I’ve spelt them right!). My wise friend who understands human nature says to cultivate patience (I wonder if that is in anticipation of ‘all good things come to those who wait’ or if it is a patience based on a contentment with what you have already, not presupposing a future happening at all?).

My contribution this morning is to remind people about joy and glee and our divine spark. I feel that if we don’t individually choose what we want to do with our lives, someone else will decide for us. That would be worse than desire and obligations put together. This amounts to either force or inevitability! To avoid this, I have a new year’s system to share. Write down ten things you would like to do, great or small. Don’t limit yourself by trying to decide between them or write any of them off as impossible.

Revisit the list often and have a laugh with yourself about it. This is generating some positive emotion in itself, which might turn into motivation towards some action steps or might even miraculously bring about one or two things on the list. It is best to keep this process light, not attach any success, failure or trying even, to this process. The objective is to spend a good stretch of every day smiling and dreaming a better dream than the apparent unfolding of the collective. This injection of imagined possibilities opens up new horizons both personally and for the bigger picture.

To this end, yesterday, I put the telly on…well I put some birdseed out on the picnic table so that the cats, dogs and I could watch our winged friends from inside and the pigs and pony could watch from outside and then I applied to Queens Belfast – a university I went to twenty years ago - to do a post graduate research thesis. I am thinking of qualifying as a serious doctor, a formidable legal advocate, the like of which they call upon in court to give psychological profiles etc. My idea is to focus on food justice. Those God-forsaken countries who’s waters have already risen and are in a climate crisis and who got 5 minutes to talk at the climate summit and the people affected. Also, when that abolition of slavery of animals amendment is ratified in 2020, there will need to be legal guardians who enforce the laws, represent them in court and get the cretters in farms and labs out of harm’s way. I think perhaps I’d like to be ready, to be relentless and a match for any corporate legal team.

Maybe something else will happen, like a group of us get the dog shelter and we focus our work on getting a proper network and national data base going and education….but the key is not to mind. Be up for all of it, any of it and savour the infinite possibilities of our lives, each day, each moment.   

Relationship Tips For Men from the Master. Can you force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn?

This is an excert from Robert Masters book: To Be A Man

Many men misunderstand, neglect, or ignore what works and doesn’t work relationally  for the women they’re in partnership with (or are considering being in partnership with). What follows describes some areas of concern regarding what women need from men in relational contexts, and what can be done about each. None of this is meant to imply that women don’t also have work to do in these and other areas to deepen their relationships with men. • Listen to her without trying to figure out solutions for what’s going on, and listen with your whole being.  Your job isn’t to fix it, but to genuinely take in and resonate with what she’s feeling. Stay alive and fully present in your listening, doing so not as a duty but as an act of intimate interest and care. And don’t be passive in this! If your interest wanes or it’s not good timing, don’t pretend to be listening. Either refocus or let her know in a non-shaming way that you’d like to continue the conversation later on when you can be more present. • Get more emotionally literate and attuned.  Become a student of emotion and emotional expression, learning the lessons by heart rather than trying to get good grades. • Don’t give in to any neediness you feel, including sexually.  Instead, separate your neediness from its desperation and manipulativeness, until you’re in touch with the raw need (and emotional pain) that you’re letting morph into neediness. Remember that neediness and sensitivity are not synonymous. • Give her more real and unsolicited appreciation, including for “small” things.  Don’t assume that she’s necessarily fine with not getting this, just because she’s not saying anything about it. And don’t make her ask for it. • Cut through your tentativeness.  If you’re touching her, don’t do it gingerly, as if asking a question or trying to see if she approves. No walking on eggshells — and no going to the other extreme (being pushy or aggressive). When you feel tentative, clearly say so, and tell her what’s going on for you emotionally. • Do what it takes to be trustworthy, being a safe place for her, protective but not possessive.   This is not about being on your best behavior, but about working on yourself deeply enough to be incapable of betrayal or any sort of abuse. • Neither let the little boy in you run the show nor push him away.   Get to know him very well, and make sure she knows him well, too. Keep him close to you, but not so close that his take on things becomes yours. If your relationship with him remains unhealed, you’ll be crippled in your capacity for healthy adult relationship. • Stop making excuses for your crappy behavior.  And don’t run from whatever shame it might induce in you; stay with your remorse and make amends as soon as possible. Explore the roots of such behavior — instead of just promising not to do it again — and include her in your exploration. • Give her some unexpected affection and caring, and not just now and then.  Don’t make her earn your affection and caring. • Cherish her, daily. This means, in part, not taking her for granted.  Keep your gratitude for her and for being with her alive and well. • Meet her fully. Choose to see her as she is, rather than her surface presentation or potential.  Don’t pull back from her when she expresses herself fully (assuming, of course, that she does so nonabusively). • Stop treating her like something to fix when she’s upset.  Put away your repair tools, doing whatever you can to be a compassionate and grounding presence for her at such times, focusing not on her content but her energy, keeping a solid but flexible boundary around her and you as her feelings pour forth. Sometimes all she wants is for you to hold her. • Instead of trying to create closeness through getting sexual,  establish (or re-establish) closeness first, and then — if it’s mutually natural — move into the s*xual. Let s*x be a deeply embodied expression of already-present loving connection. Let your connection with her be the aphrodisiac. • Stop saying “Accept me as I am” when you actually mean “Accept my sloppy or unkind behavior.”  Accepting you is not the same as excusing you or letting you off the hook when you’ve been disrespectful, rude, neglectful, or abusive. • Initiate more when it comes to addressing relationship difficulties.  Don’t wait for her to bring this up; share the responsibility for doing so. If you’re feeling cut off from her, don’t blame her for this, but instead share your feelings regarding being thus disconnected, and do so vulnerably. • Don’t leave your unresolved wounds and conditioning unattended.  Work on yourself, and keep working on yourself. Dig deep, feel more, come more alive, doing whatever healing work is needed, without making her push you into doing so. • Stop trying to turn her on by quickly going for or overfocusing on her erogenous zones.  Slow down. Attune to the whole woman, not splitting her into s*xy and not-s*xy parts, or buttons to be pushed. Let her presence have your full attention, and you may find that her entire being can be an erogenous zone. • Don’t neglect personal hygiene.  Stale sweat is rarely a turn-on. Same with bad breath, food stuck between your teeth, and unwashed body parts. Some women may not bring this up, not wanting to hurt you, but not doing so just keeps their aversion in place, with you staying unaware of why she seems a bit reluctant to physically engage with you. • Don’t compare her to your previous partners/lovers.  Comparisons here can set up unwanted and messy triangulations, impaling both her and you. • Stop overemphasizing the visual in sexual functioning.  Getting too caught up in how she looks keeps you insufficiently focused on the rest of her. By all means appreciate her appearance, but also stay attuned to her energetically — which is much more about feeling than seeing.           • If you and she have children, don’t assume that helping out is enough.  Avoid the attitude that they primarily are her responsibility and that you are “babysitting” them when you’re with them. Truly co-parent. Be aware of what and how much she is doing to take care of them, and step in more, without her having to ask. Don’t undervalue how much energy and attention she is putting into their upbringing. When the kids are little, does she have to ask you to look after them so she can simply take a shower? You may not think about asking to take a nap or shower while she handles the kids; don’t make her ask. • Look deeply enough at her to see more than her surface presentation.  See her vulnerability, her wounds, her uncertainty, her subtle signals. Notice when her facial expression and energy don’t match her words. Sense what she may not be saying. Sense her feeling you seeing her. • If you’re doing something for her in the hopes of having sex with her, while acting as if this isn’t the case, admit this not just to yourself but also to her, explore what’s motivating you to do this, and STOP.  An example: You’re giving her a massage to increase the odds of having s*x with her; she can feel this no matter how “clean” your massage strokes are, and will be much less at ease than if you were giving her massage for no other reason than your love and care for her. Another example: A woman comes home to a beautiful dinner just made by her husband, followed by a special bath drawn by him, with everything carefully and esthetically placed, and she feels a growing unhappiness, knowing that she’ll be expected to be s*xual with him afterwards. Don’t pressure her with your mounting expectations. • Be vulnerable without losing your spine. • Treat these points not as” shoulds” but as invitations. Persist in this, not to be a “good” partner, but a full partner. (Excerpted from Robert Masters book To Be a Man:  http://robertmasters.com/book/to-be-a-man/)

5 Minutes A Day Guide To A Positive and Healthy 2017

I hope to deliver some information that could come in handy! Namely, it will be a guide how to make 2017 a good year. Some people are just rolling with the punches at this stage or holding on tight to a financial toe-hold of a job and I congratulate everyone on their resourcefulness. But give yourself just five minutes every day on this curious wellbeing experiment and I bet you 50 cent you will uncover a wealth of tricks and tools for supporting yourself, mentally, emotionally and physically. You can probably guess that I’m going to ask you to develop a new attitude that is hopeful, constructive and reflective. Next thing you know, you’ll be expected to show loving kindness to all sorts of difficult people who do not deserve it and before long, I’ll be suggesting that you grow your own food and adopt a zero waste lifestyle!

All this mindfulness might crop up but I promise to go easy on you and start with manageable exercises that will get your attention and generate a flow of interest and energy towards your life. So today I want you to look at the entrance to where you live and make one improvement. It could be shaking out the doormat, setting a timer so a light comes on just before you get home to welcome you or watering the pot plant. Also notice what comes into your mind as you approach home. Many people have stopped really looking at their surroundings as each observation had started to feel like a criticism or another thing to do! Let’s get the looking and noticing back but this time accompanied with a sense of having a secret mission. That mission is to find out how you tick, get major perspective and generate a warm feeling in your chest.

I won’t run wild and call it love or gratitude. But the skill is to replace the hollow or stressed condition that you might discover has been your predominant or default position. This awareness and mastery of your thoughts is a crucial skill everyone needs to learn. This is firstly because until we do, we are at the mercy of our old ideas and habits. Also there is reason to believe that thoughts are self-fulfilling prophecies, on the basis that what you think about comes about. Therefore, don’t let your mind go on about this or that, however true or justified. How do you find your way out? I usually set a new question that redirects the mental activity, for example, what was the best thing that happened so far today? It might be as simple as getting through New Year’s Eve without too much of a hangover or although the hangover was terrible, you have managed to live to see another day!

This ability to reframe situations in a different way is another great skill people will need this year. Even in the most dire of circumstances, you will come to pride yourself in seeing the unexpected gift of the experience. In my concerted effort, down the years, to avoid the inevitability created by cynicism, I have actually been called the Queen of the Positive Spin. Actually, I think that could be my title for this daily message to the nation! So good luck getting that flow coming in your front door and let’s see what it brings.

You might be thinking, she talks the talk but did she walk the walk today? In answer, yes! I tidied everything away from outside Harmony Hall's front door, swept the path, washed the car, washed the front door and weeded the winter beans. The energy literally raced into the house once invited and put several little plans in motion. That included writing this in the style of a newspaper column, on the off chance some editor is looking for a lifestyle writer!

None of us know what will be the butterfly effect or repercussions of our actions but for what it's worth my new year's resolution is total mastery of thought, word and body. That will definitely involve the multi-dimensional development of yoga, the synergy of salsa, the steadying pace of meditation and the upift of music but it might also call for a return to the Kung Fu. Not just because martial arts are epic, they're also the epitome of mental and physical discipline and just might provide the power and forward motion, to implement and scale up the positive impact on others. 

I would love to hear what other intentions people have set and of course hope for the best!