RAW Living and Learning

The garden went in pretty easily this fall and I am hoping I can harvest some great produce. My neighbor was sweet enough to give me 4 cucumber plants (love yah!) that he started from seed. Unfortunately one of them did not survive a tropical downpour that we had a few weeks back. But the remaining three look just fine. I also planted some marigolds as a border, they remind me of my Grandma and Grandpa that are no longer with us--memories flood back each time I look at the beautiful flowers--you'll see those down below in the updated pics. I decided to plant the majority of the garden from seed. As you can see, the plants planted are tomato and peppers. And as I said the cucumbers against the fence were grown from seed, thanks Bubba!!! In the front row I planted seeds for Chinese Cabbage;  the second row is all Romaine; the third row is Collards; the fourth row is Kale. One of my cutie pies is in the backround modeling our banana trees. We have 3 hands on the trees right...

First I want to mention that I harvested my first batch of Swiss Chard from my square foot garden!!! I used it for my dinner the other night, making my, all time favorite, chard salad. I posted my recipe here . Today's fabulous lunch idea was inspired by Lisa's post . She made a very simple stuffed cucumber recipe and I decided to jazz it up a bit. I started with a bed of sprouts (sea of sprouts) that consisted of broccoli sprouts, red clover sprouts and sprouted French lentils. Next I hollowed out a very fat and stubby cucumber .  For the filling I used one avocado and some grated white onion as did Lisa but then I added in some lovely Grape Tomatoes, cumin, coriander, turmeric and Himalayan pink salt.  To finish it off I drizzled on the slightest bit of Bragg's apple cider vinegar. The result was spectacular! What an amazing and easy raw lunch recipe. On a sad note, a great deal of suffering has been going on this last week. My one and only sister, has been fig...

There is PEACE in P-E-N-A-N-C-E . (Can you find it?) It is so easy for me personally, to find true peace in penance because I trust that God's mercy abounds. It is during this time that we prepare to renew our baptismal vows through penance and reconciliation. This is a time to enter into the healing spirit of this season and restore relationships with our household, neighbors and most importantly, God. It can also be a time to heal the body with raw living, life giving foods. When I think of this time of year not only do I think of fasting, abstinence and penance but I think of reconciliation and NEW LIFE. The word "lent" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for springtime, lencten. The importance of the integrity of life and the preciousness of life. Life represented in new growth and life being protected from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. And life as seen in the planting, sprouting and growing of life giving plants, nuts and seeds. I...