Weekly Words: "Collaborators in love"

"Love is a many-splendored thing. This classic saying is apt, not only because love can emerge from the shoots of any other positive emotion you experience, be it amusement, serenity, or gratitude, but also because of your many viable collaborators in love, ranging from our sister to your soul mate, your newborn to your neighbor, even someone you’ve never met before...

At the level of positivity resonance, micro-moments of love are virtually identical regardless of whether they bloom between you and a stranger or you and a soul mate; between you and an infant or you and your lifelong best friend. The clearest difference between the love you feel with intimates and the love you feel with anyone with whom you share a connection is its sheer frequency. Spending more total moments together increases your chances to feast on micro-moments of positivity resonance. These micro-moments change you."

- Barbara Fredrickson

Steel Cut Oats with Grilled Stone Fruit & Banana Cashew Cream

I've always been a big believer in the phrase "everything in moderation." So in our home, we don't really limit our diets to one category.  On the average night, however, you can finds us whipping up a vegetarian or vegan meal because they tend to be easy and make our bodies feel vibrant and healthy. We still enjoy our weekly libations, and the occasional summer barbecue fare. But through exploration, and the elimination diet, we try to bring a sense of consciousness to the way we eat in order to make ourselves operate well. 

One of the most interesting parts of our cooking journey as a couple has been exploring the realm of just how much you can do with good produce, hearty grains, and a little bit of seasoning. This weekend's Sunday brunch was a great example of that exact kitchen manifesto: a warm bowl of steel cut oats topped with grilled stone fruits and banana cashew cream.

I first wandered into the world of steel cut oats a few years ago when my parents began making them regularly, and my father reported the emergence of his abs, which seemed as good a reason as any to add it to the repertoire. They take a little bit longer than your average oat to cook, but that's because they're more whole and less processed, meaning they tend to keep you satiated for a longer period of time. This is a trade-off I'm willing to make. 

Slow cooking oats gives you time to come up with a whole slew of delicious toppings. Because it's stone fruit season, I chose to sprinkle apricots and plums with Celtic sea salt and grill them up alongside fresh figs on my cast iron skillet, which renders the flesh succulent and decadent. I then whipped up a batch of cashew cream mixed with bananas, which is so painfully easy that the end result leaves you wondering why you don't always have a jar full of this stuff handy. 

The end result is a comforting and nutritious bowl, drizzled with flaxseed oil and sprinkled with hemp seeds for an extra Omega boost. It was a great way to plant-power a day spent at the beach, and kept us nice and full until an al fresco lobster roll beckoned in the late afternoon.

Steel Cut Oats with Grilled Stone Fruit & Banana Cashew Cream

(Serves two, generously)

1 cup steel cut oats

1 cup raw cashews

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon maple syrup 

1/4 cup filtered water

1 teaspoon sea salt (we use Celtic sea salt)

1/2 banana

Seasonal fruit (I chose apricots, plums, and figs)

Flaxseed oil

1 tablespoon hemp seeds

For cashew cream:

1. Measure 1 cup of cashews and place them in a bowl. Boil water and pour over cashews so that they're completely submerged. Let sit for 1-2 hours, covered. 
2. Drain and rinse cashews and place in food processor. Add 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, vanilla extract, maple syrup and 1/8 cup of filtered water and blend until smooth.
3.  Add more water as needed to achieve your desired consistency (I like my cashew cream on the thicker more creamy side for this dish).
4. Add banana and give one final whirl in the processor until mixture is combined and whipped.

For steel cut oats: 

1. Measure 1 cup of steel cut oats and place them in a large saucepot. Cover them with 3 cups of filtered water. 
2. Cook over low to medium heat for about 30-40 minutes, or until the water has been absorbed. Oats should be creamy, so if they appear dry, add 1/2 cup more water and cook for another 10 minutes. 

For grilled fruit: 

1. Set grill or cast iron grill pan to a low-medium heat. 
2. Halve each piece of fruit, and sprinkle with remaining sea salt. Place fruit flesh side down on grill for 3-5 minutes, and flip when grill marks have appeared. 
3. Grill for another 3-5 minutes and remove, letting fruit cool on a plate. 

To assemble bowls, add cooked oats first, top with the fruit, and scoop in cashew cream.  Drizzle with flaxseed oil, top with hemp seeds, and enjoy!

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It has been one hell of a hot summer week, and it's capped off this evening with a spectacular rare Blue Moon. Full moons are a great time to remember that life is full of cycles - in our relationships, jobs, and chapters - and having an awareness of the ebbs and flows that naturally occur can help you honor and be present to the shifting phases you experience.  I hope you stay cool and have a great weekend. Here are a few things I've been loving this week:

• Grooving to the sweet jam "What You Don't Do" from Lianne La Havas. 
• Lightening up my summer moisturizing routine because oil + sweat = grease. A few favorites include: Weleda's Wild Rose Milk, John Masters Organic Vanilla & Blood Orange Body Milk, and Farmaesthetic's Nourishing Lavender Milk. 
• Loving the appearance of stone fruit in the farmer's market. Last summer, my favorite thing to do was make grilled stone fruit open face sandwiches. Divine. 
• And finally, St. Augustine once said "You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones." Here's a poem from Mary Oliver that brings personal perspective to the notion that we should be patient in our journey to becoming who we truly want to be:

"Things take the time they take. Don't worry.

How many roads did St.Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?"

Weekly Words: "Time really stops"

"We call ourselves homo sapien sapiens. That's the species name we've given ourselves. And that means from the Latin sapere, which means "to taste" or "to know." The species that knows and knows that it knows. So that means really awareness and meta-awareness. And it would be nice if that were actually true, but I think it's a little premature to call ourselves that. And now maybe we need to live ourselves into owning that name by cultivating awareness and awareness of awareness itself and let that be in some sense the guide as to what we're going to invest in, how we're going to make decisions about where we live, where we're going to send our kids to school, how we're going to be at the dinner table. Whether we're going to take our bodies and our children and our parents for granted or whether we're going to live life as if it really mattered moment by moment.

And that's not some kind of prescription for more stuff that you need to do in order to be happy. This is getting out of your own way long enough to realize that you already have the potential for tremendous well-being and happiness right here, right now. Nothing else has to change.

One thing it does is it really slows down time. When you're in the present moment, time really stops."

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It has been a very busy few weeks, and I've had so much to write about but little time to do so. Currently, we're enjoying Lake Champlain with extended family, and the air is beautiful and even a bit crisp! Here are a few things that I've loved this week:

• Listening (and meditating) to the beautiful 2009 album "East of Eden" by Taken By Trees. 
• Loving this study on how the brain benefits from walking in nature. Green spaces, for the win!
• Vibing hard with this amazing podcast on mindfulness and opening to your life, featuring scientist and zen maestro Jon Kabat-Zinn. 
• And finally, a quote from Alan Watts on learning to live, truly, in the present:

"The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the “I” out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate “I” or mind can be found.

To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening."

Weekly Words: "Living in the moment, and then letting go"

“The chaos in nature is quiet, latent,” she says. “A lamb’s death is quiet; so is the gradual death of a crop of flowers.” Sitting on the lawn, birds singing from the trees, she remembers that long-ago bunch of black dahlias and sighs. “People look at flowers as objects — as a decorating element, not a living thing. But sometimes the most beautiful thing is the most fleeting. The most fragrant, delicate rose — often those wilt in minutes. Flowers are about living in the moment, and then letting go.”

- "Into the Wild With Sarah Ryhanen"

Warm Summer Herb and Vegetable Noodle Salad

Friends, hie thee to your local farmers' market immediately, because things are getting good. 

Here in Boston, we're starting to get into the ripe summer season, where hot heat is whipping the typical week's bounty into a pure abbondanza. Our markets are ripe with berries, zucchinis, herbs, and more, and I can't help myself, but I may have hit three different farmers' markets this week alone. Last week, I took our summer salad game to a new level by finally purchasing a spiralizer, and I've noodled just about everything possible in my fridge since then. 

This warm summer herb and vegetable noodle salad is a more updated version of the the garlic and butter sauteed zucchini I ate frequently during my Italian-American childhood. You could substitute any seasonal vegetable that you have on hand here, as long as it can be easily shredded with a peeler or run through a spiralizer, as well as any fresh herbs. But the concept remains - keep the flavors simple, and let the season's gifts do the talking. 

In my version, yellow zucchini and broccoli stalks (yes, you read that right) have been spiralized into noodles, quickly sauteed with olive oil, garlic, sweet onion, and turned through summer savory, basil and oregano. The resulting dish is sprinkled with Pink Himalayan salt, a hefty squeeze of lemon and red pepper flakes. It's chocked full of flavor, good-for-your-gut dietary fiber, and rounded out with a delicious citrus twist.  

Warm Summer Herb and Vegetable Noodle Salad

(Serves 2)

2 medium yellow zucchini, top cut off

2 large broccoli stalks, florets trimmed off

1/8 cup each of summer savory, basil, and oregano, finely chopped

1 lemon, halved

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium sweet onion, diced

A glug of olive oil

A pat of butter (optional)

Cracked pepper

Good salt (I use Pink Himalayan Salt)

1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes (to taste)

1. Trim your zucchini and broccoli stalks so that each end is cut flat. Run through your spiralizer on a thin spaghetti setting, or, peel/julienne to a thin 1/8 inch strip. Pat noodles dry, and trim using a knife or scissor as some noodles can be quite long!
2. Over medium/low heat, swirl olive oil and butter in a frying pan until melted. Sautee garlic and onions for 3-4 minutes, sweating them out until soft, but not browned. 
3. Place your noodles in the pan, and using tongs or wooden spoons, flip gently as they cook. 
4. Toss 2/3 of your herbs over the noodles in the pan, and fold in. Season with salt and pepper. Cook noodles for about 5 minutes on medium heat, until softened, but not mushy, and remove from heat. 
5. To serve, divide noodles in two bowls and squeeze a half a lemon over each bowl. Sprinkle with remaining herbs and red pepper flakes to taste. 

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It has been a very busy post-holiday week. This weekend is one of our only weekends at home, with no concrete plans, and I am utterly thrilled. Have a great weekend!

• Listening to this sexy throwback cover by Caught a Ghost. 
• Spiralizing vegetables and making our plantpowered life that much more fun. Last night it was organic Atlas Farms zucchini noodles with a Thai red curry peanut sauce. We have this spiralizer, but I've seen versions of this smaller handheld one as well out there that seem pretty effective too!  
• Wondering if there's truth to this study on the physical stability of stable relationships.  
• And finally, some tips from Parker Palmer on finding peace with the whole of ourselves:

"How can we learn to embrace with love the whole of who we are — a task that need not and should not await our elder years? Of course there are tried-and-true aids such as meditation, journaling and therapy, all of which have been helpful to me. Here are three others that I’ve found equally helpful, sometimes even more:

1. Spend as much time as you can experiencing the natural world. Nature constantly reminds me that everything has a place, that nothing need be excluded. That “mess” on the forest floor — like the mess in my own life — has an amazing harmony and hidden wholeness to it.
2. Move toward, not away from, whatever you fear. I try to remember the advice I was given on an Outward Bound course when I froze with fear on a rock face in the middle of a one-hundred-foot rappel: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!” If, for example, you fear diversity, get to know “the other’s” story face-to-face and watch your fear shrink as your empathy expands.
3. Reach out to the younger generation—not to advise them but to learn from them, gain energy from them, and support them on their way. That’s a life-enhancing act that Erik Erikson called “generativity,” an alternative to the “stagnation” of age that sooner or later leads to despair."