RECIPE ~ Vegan Eggplant Meatballs

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Ingredients:

cooking spray
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb unpeeled eggplant, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 cup cooked white beans (or drained, rinsed canned)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs or panko (use gf crumbs for gluten free)
pinch red chili flakes (optional)
2 cups quick marinara sauce


Directions:

Heat the oven to 375°. Spray a large rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.

Place 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. When hot add the eggplant and 1/4 cup water. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a food processor.


Add the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of oil to the skillet with the onion and garlic and cook until translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add to the food processor along with the drained beans and parsley and pulse until well combined and chopped, but not pureed.

Combine the mixture with the breadcrumbs and red chile flakes if using. Taste for salt then roll into 12 meatballs, about 2-inches in diameter. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet and bake until firm and browned, about 25 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm the marinara sauce and serve with the meatballs over pasta, zucchini noodles or on a whole wheat roll.


Servings: 4 • Size: 3 meatballs with 1/2 cup sauce • Old Points: 5 pts • Points+: 6 pts
Calories: 260 • Fat: 7 g • Carb: 43 g • Fiber: 9 g • Protein: 8 g • Sugar: 1 g
Sodium: 307 mg • Cholesterol: 0 mg

Daily Words of the Buddha ~ May 30, 2014

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Kāyappakopaṃ rakkheyya;
kāyena saṃvuto siyā.
Kāyaduccaritaṃ hitvā,
kāyena sucaritaṃ care.

Let one guard oneself against irritability in bodily action;
let one be controlled in deed.
Abandoning bodily misconduct,
let one practice good conduct in deed.


Dhammapada 17.231

The Dhammapada: The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom,
translated from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita

Creamy Avocado Tomato Basil Pasta

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A quick and easy pasta that you can create on a shoestring budget! Ecco un ottimo pasto … godere di mangiare con la vostra famiglia stasera!

Andrea Giang | Cooking with a Wallflower's avatarCooking with a Wallflower

Pasta tossed in creamy avocado, sweet grape tomatoes, and refreshing basil. With just a hint of garlic and lightly salted, this dish is delicious and healthy, just in time for summer.

Creamy Avocado Tomato Basil Pasta | Cooking with a Wallflower

Don’t you just love summer ingredients? I certainly do. And the ingredients in this pasta dish are simple, delicious, and refreshing, which is what we need for hot lazy summer days.

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Awakening — Going Beyond The Horizon

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It’s often believed that awakening will make us strong and confident, somehow immune to the vulnerabilities of being human. It’s believed that in awakening we are made “perfect”, that every word we say is a reflection of the utmost clarity, that every action is aligned with the highest frequency, that we have somehow transcended the fragility of human expression. But this is not so. What is more accurate, is that awakening has nothing to do with strength or confidence or perfection. It has everything to do with openness and honesty and innocence.
finger of God
The personality vehicle is always “flawed” in some way, it is bent into shape – and out of shape – by the particular storm that passes through our lives, the circumstances of our specific karma and conditioning. For some, this so-called storm is more like a gentle breeze, for others it is a hurricane of immense proportions. The expression of awakeness is inevitably filtered through this vehicle. What matters is not the vehicle itself, not even the perfection of the words spoken, but the capacity to be meet every nuance of the human experience in open discovery, in beginner’s mind and beginner’s heart .. and to be OK with this.
light stream
Awakening brings an often excruciating sensitivity to all movement of energies, both inner and outer. This sensitivity is both a blessing and a burden. There is a sense of rawness, of nakedness, nowhere to hide, no defenses, no running away from the depths of what is. It’s also a transparency, a permeability, in which the personality becomes more fluid, unattached to opinions or ideas of how things should be. It is not the words that matter, but the emanation of light or presence that reveals itself through the spaces between words. Stability comes from inner silence, from the open emptiness of being. It’s like free-falling into the unknown. And it’s unavoidable once the flower of awakeness has revealed itself!

 

Rumi ~ “The Laziest Son”

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As a man is dying he tells the town judge to give all his inheritance to only one of his three sons – the one who is the laziest!  There is a fascinating dialog between each of the three sons and the judge to find who is laziest — in the form of a somewhat long Rumi poem … 

I share with you a segment – the judge’s encounter with the youngest :

The judge then asked the youngest brother,
“What if a man cannot be made to say anything?
How do you learn his hidden nature?”

”I sit in front of him in silence,
and set up a ladder made of patience,
and if in his presence a language from beyond joy
and beyond grief begins to pour from my chest,
I know that his soul is as deep and bright
as the star Canopus rising over Yemen.

And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm
of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say,
and how I say it, because there’s a window open
between us, mixing the night air of our beings.”

The youngest was, obviously,
the laziest. He won.

From The Essential Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

From This Day Forward, Be More Loving … but how?

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Our ability to experience love has nothing to do with getting love from someone else. We don’t need to be good enough or gorgeous enough in order to make love a dominant part of our daily experience. We are the only person who is responsible for how much love we experience in our lives.

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So … take some time out today … each day … and get to know yourself a little better.  You might think you know everything about yourself, but chances are there are a lot of things about yourself that you have ignored or overlooked because they weren’t “important”.  Listen, and ask yourself how you are really feeling.  Get out some nice paper and a nice pen and share these real feelings, as if you were writing to a best friend.  Take this time to listen to yourself, and get used to the feeling.  Ask yourself:  what things are important to you that you are neglecting right now?

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Take action to show love to yourself by honoring something that is important to you, even if someone else might not approve or think you deserve what it is that’s important to you.

As you go through the day, stop to remind yourself that you deserve respect and admiration, just for no other reason than that you deserve love. Let your heart open, and enjoy the feeling. This feeling can become a constant companion, and it becomes something we can share with the world around us.

The Beauty of Gratitude

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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.  — Carl Sagan

Passion … is the element that makes it possible for a real breakthrough in thought to take place. And beauty … goes a long way in establishing the bona fide results of scientific experiments.

Where do you see beauty when you take a closer look?

Take a moment to write down one small (perhaps even microscopic) thing for which you are grateful.

 

France, Pont d'arc, nature, travel
Pont d’arc – France

Inspiration

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Head into the difficult parts. Dive into the things that scare you. For inside the fear, there is wisdom. When you sit with it consciously, it will soften and often like a blossom, transforming into something entirely different. You would not suppose a cocoon held a butterfly if you didn’t know the life cycle of a caterpillar. You would not realize that fear holds within it understanding, if you did not see the Grace that is present in the evolution of all things. With the power of the Light Source flowing through you, fear will dissolve, blocks will dissolve. You will be left loving all, relating to all. The world will exist in your heart. It might have to grow a few sizes, but it will fit.

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