Recipe for Spring - Romaine Salad with portobello mushrooms and avocados

Spring is a time for rebirth and renewal. The vernal equinox marks the beginning of this season of rebirth and renewal ("vernal" comes from the Latin word "ver" meaning "spring"). When spring arrives, I am reminded that I get to celebrate life and light. One of the best ways to do this is by enjoying simple fresh foods, especially those that are green.


Green is the color of spring, of new life, of new beginnings. Green is the color of the fourth chakra, the heart. So, how perfect it is that romaine lettuce, featured in the recipe, nourishes the heart. With a strong heart, we enjoy a healthy life. The heart is more than the beating organ that pumps our blood, which nourishes our bodies. It is also the seat of the mind/consciousness, at least according to some poets and philosophers. As we strengthen the heart, we find emotional stability, compassion, and forgiveness. When our heart is healthy, we readily discover self-acceptance. When our heart is healthy, we will also have powerful empathy with others and deeper relationships with better communication. When our heart is healthy, we have a healthy mind and a healthy body: animus sanus in corpore sano.

Recipe for Spring - Romaine Salad with marinated mushrooms and avocados

(photograph by Jon-Erik Lido)

Prepare the mushrooms:

Special equipment: food dehydrator

Ingredients:

• 2 portobello mushrooms
• 2-3 TB first cold-press extra virgin olive oil (preferably organic)
• 2-3 TB balsamic vinegar
• 1 TB nama shoyu or tamari
• Italian seasoning spice blend

Directions: cut the mushrooms length-wise into 1/2 inch strips. Then, whisk together the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Toss the strips in this mixture until they have almost fully absorbed all the liquid. Place the strips of mushrooms on a teflex sheet. Sprinkle them with an Italian seasoning spice blend. Dehydrate for about an hour at 110 degrees. (N.B. - If you do not have a dehydrator, you can just let the mushrooms marinate at room temperature for an hour.)

These mushrooms are absolutely delicious. The balsamic vinegar leaves them with a sweet essence and they are very juicy. The inspiration for my recipe came from Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney.


Salad Ingredients:

• 1 head of fresh, crisp romaine lettuce - leaves torn into pieces
• fresh or dried oregano - enough to toss throughout the entire salad
• 1 - 2 avocados - cut into cubes
• diced tomatoes, if available (I like cherry or grape tomatoes cut in half.)
• 3-4 TB first cold-press extra virgin olive oil (preferrably organic)
• 1/2 of a fresh lemon juiced
• sea salt to taste
• fresh ground black pepper to taste

Prepare the salad dressing: wisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Then, in a large bowl, toss the dressing with the remaining ingredients -- romaine lettuce leaves, oregano, avocado, and perhaps, tomatoes.


Serve: arrange the mushrooms on the top of the assembled salad. Although, you could serve this salad as a first course or alongside something else, it is certainly filling enough to eat as a main course.

So, with this recipe, celebrate spring! Renew yourself, renew your heart. Let yourself be reborn into a new moment. From there cultivate your awareness; discover compassion and empathy; practice forgiveness; and, through your heart, give to yourself the gift of self-acceptance.  Let this be a new beginning.

Recipe for Harmony - Fresh Spring Rolls

All of us are multi-faceted creatures.  Many of us, including myself, see ourselves as having a different aspects of ourselves: physical/physiological, mental/psychological, social, spiritual/religious, and perhaps even others.  Sometimes it seems that we are out of balance.  When we recognize that we are out of balance, we want to harmonize these different aspects of ourselves.  When we are in harmony with ourselves, we experience life with joy, gratitude, ease, peace and tranquility.


Life is full of obstacles, challenges, and circumstances.  Sometimes it may seem that these obstacles, challenges, and circumstances exist only to block us, impede us, or even destroy us.  Alternatively, we could choose to see these things as an evolutionary force that is actually guiding us to create harmony.  The obstacles, challenges, and circumstances of life may be compelling us to look at something in way that we had not previously seen before.  They may be letting us know that we are out of balance and we should seek to create harmony.  Perhaps, they may even be the harmony that we had previously been seeking.


As we meet obstacles, challenges, and circumstances in life, we get to surrender, embrace, and use them to create harmony.  Just as when we bring all the aspects of ourselves into harmony, certain foods seem to become more delicious and enjoyable when they are brought into harmony.  Eating harmonious foods may give us the energy we need to find and create harmony in our lives.


B.K.S. Iyengar says "When your body, mind and soul are healthy and harmonious, you will bring health and harmony to the world--not by withdrawing from the world but by being a healthy living organ of the body of humanity."

This is a picture of an unrolled spring roll.  The ingredients layered from bottom to top: fresh basil, avocado (sprinkled with Mrs. Dash), sliced cucumber, sliced tomato, shredded carrots, alfalfa sprouts.  (photograph by Patsy Feimster)

Recipe for Harmony - Fresh Spring Rolls


Basic Essential Ingredients:

• 6-8 tapioca wrappers (not a raw food); rice wrappers will also work
• 1 avocado sliced length-wise into 6-8 pieces
• cilantro or basil leaves (even spinach or torn lettuce leaves will work)
• fresh sprouts (your preference: alfalfa, radish, broccoli)
• shredded carrots and/or shredded beets
  

Additional Ingredients (use at least 3 of the following in your rolls)

• 3-4 sliced baby bella mushrooms or 1 sliced portabella (tossed in nama shoyu, soy sauce)
• 1/2 bell pepper sliced into long, thin strips
• thin sliced strips of cucumber
• thin sliced strips of celery
• thin slices of Roma tomatoes
• daikon radish - sliced thin or spiral cut (using a spiral slicer) or shredded
• zucchini or yellow squash - spiral cut (using a spiral slicer)
  

Assembly:
Gently dampen one piece of tapioca paper at a time with warm water.  In the center place a few pieces of cilantro or basil (or other leafy green).  On top of that put one slice of avocado.  Then add a small amount of shredded carrots/beets.  Next add any of the three additional veggies of your choice.  Finally add a layer of sprouts.  Fold the bottom and top parts of the tapioca paper in towards each other over top of the veggies so that they almost meet.  Then fold one of the other open sides in towards the middle.  Now keeping the spring roll tight, continue rolling toward the open side until it is totally enclosed.


Tips:

• Make sure the stack of veggies isn't too thick; this makes the wrapper difficult to roll, or your wrapper might tear.
• If the water is too hot or if the tapioca paper gets too wet, it will tear and disintegrate.
• Assemble on a clean surface or bamboo mat.
• Purchase the tapioca wrappers at an Asian market if possible; you'll pay less for them and support a local business.

Although this is not recipe is not 100% raw, it is 100% vegan and 100% harmonious.  Putting this recipe together teaches us about creating harmony.  As you layer the different vegetables in the wrapper, you are invited to think about how the indiviual aspects of each ingredient creates a harmonious whole.


Consider yin and yang...how the yin yang symbol represents balance and harmony with seemingly contrary forces...how everything in the natural world is interconnected and interdependent.  This is the harmony that we get to generate within ourselves and in our world.