My week in pictures

This week was filled with fun things that I wanted to share with you so instead of posting a recipe today, I decided to share the adventure of my week in photos. 

As you all know, Tuesday was the release of Plum, Makini Howell's new cookbook. I was lucky enough to get an invite to the launch party so Tuesday night I headed up to Plum Bistro on Capitol Hill and got a chance to sample some of the amazing recipes featured in the cookbook.  (If you haven't already entered my giveaway for a chance to win a free copy, hurry! The giveaway ends soon!)

Spring finally hit Seattle this week. We had several days of sun, temperatures reaching into the low 70s, and I sat outside in a tee-shirt and shorts for the first time since last September. I can't even begin to tell you how exciting that is. 

This week I've been playing around with some of my favorite spring produce, including asparagus, rainbow carrots, radishes, greens, and baby turnips (new recipe coming soon!). My spinach sprouts just popped out of the ground and I even found a few baby carrots that were ready to harvest in the garden. 

And, with the aid of several pots of yerba mate tea, the (un)helpful support of my cats, and some really bad 90's music, I've been hard at work finalizing the material for:

Conscious Money, Conscious Eating which is happening live on Wednesday, May 8th at 6 pm Pacific Daylight Time! 

I was so excited to share this with you earlier this week and quite a few of you are already signed up! In case you missed the announcement, Conscious Money, Conscious Eating is the collaborative effort of myself and Mindy Crary of Creative Money. Mindy and I were recently chatting about the challenges of eating healthfully while being able to stick to a budget AND not having to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen. 

Mindy is a total money guru so although she is fabulous at spending her money consciously, she mentioned struggling with how to create a menu plan and find recipes that are delicious, good-for-you, and easy to prepare. (Sound familiar?)

So, we decided to team up and create Conscious Money, Conscious Eating for anyone who has been having similar struggles and feeling challenged by: 

• Wanting to eat healthier, fresher, and/or more seasonal/local foods, but not knowing where to start.
• Feeling that eating healthier will be way too expensive or take too much time.
• Being curious about eating more vegetarian or plant-based meals, but feeling overwhelmed by complex or unfamiliar ingredients.
• Wishing that someone could help you make it simple and easy to get started with cooking more meals at home. 

In this webinar, we'll do exactly that! Mindy will help you to begin implementing the concepts of Conscious Money in relation to food and discover where your relationship with money needs to shift. I'll help you to get started on the Conscious Eating track by understanding what types of foods you should be eating, becoming aware of how your food environment is impacting your body, helping you begin stocking your kitchen with the right tools and ingredients, and introducing you to my unique, simple, and easy-to-implement system that will make meal planning, preparing, and cooking a breeze. 

This webinar is packed full of information and you'll even get a few goodies afterwards, including:

• The slide presentation handout (so you can access the information whenever you want)
• The webinar replay (if you can't make it live)
• The MP3 of the call (so you can listen to it again and again)
• And, a beautiful ebook with over 50 pages of Conscious Money and Conscious Eating strategies as well as over 20 recipes and tools 

I know that a couple of you were wondering what to do since the live webinar didn't work for your schedule. If you're in this boat, that's not a problem at all because after the call, you'll get all of the goodies above (including the webinar replay) emailed to you so you can access this at any time you want.

Are you in? If you're ready to finally change your relationship with money AND make eating healthy simple and easy, check out Conscious Money, Conscious Eating!


I hope you've had a fabulous week and I hope we get a chance to chat on May 8th!

Take care,
Sonnet

Choosing Abundance

I've decided to start a new series here on For The Love of Food based on the personal development work I have been doing in Danielle LaPorte's The Desire Map. I mentioned The Desire Map a few months back at the end of the year as I was working through some changes around the direction of my business and life in general.

As a result of that post, I have received numerous emails from readers talking about how The Desire Map changed their perspective and helped them to shift focus in their life. I hope to use this series as a way to share things that I am working through at the moment while also connecting us as a community for those of you who are also working through your Desire Maps.

In case you are unfamiliar with The Desire Map, here's what you need to know: The idea behind The Desire Map is that most of us plan our lives around achieving certain goals. After we spend years working to reach those goals, we often find ourselves feeling empty when we finally get what we thought we desired.

Instead, The Desire Map helps you to discover your core desired feelings and use these feelings to gude what you want to do, have, and experience in your life. The idea is that when you set out to achieve a certain goal, it's not actually the goal you want, it's the feeling behind the goal, so, traditional goal setting is actually backwards.  Instead of focusing on the goal, we need to focus on the feeling we want that is behind the goal. This may sound simple, but this stuff goes deep.

One of my core desired feelings for 2013 is ABUNDANCE. Last year I began to realize how I mostly focused on what is lacking in my life -- it's "the glass is half-empty" mentality. This perspective often made me feel competitive, tense, and anxious because I constantly felt the sense of scarcity that surrounded me.

Is this how I wanted to feel in my life?  No, absolutely not.
Read more »

Lessons in life... from the kitchen

I've mentioned here before that I am in the process of starting my own business.  I will definitely have more to share with you all very soon, but in the meantime I am weeding my way through IRS tax tutorials and a plethora of website headaches.  I thought it might be fun to take a break from my usual recipe posts to share with you a few lessons I am learning (and re-learning) in life right now.

• We all have to start somewhere.  No one was born knowing everything. 
• Be kind to yourself because you are your toughest critic.
• Know when to outsource.  Sometimes takeout can be your friend.
• The best culinary inspiration doesn't always happen in the kitchen.  It's important to step away and take breaks because breaks are what give us perspective.
• Be kind to others.
• Overeating does not relieve stress.  It only results in bloating and a stomach ache.

Read more »

A little bit of life...

I thought it might be fun to take a break from the kitchen and show you a little bit of life right now.  It's busy.  It's thriving.  It's awesome. 

Before I was a blogger or ever felt compelled to take a photograph of my dinner, I used to create art.  I used to paint, make jewlery, scrapbook, and decorate my house.  Over time I lost touch with these things. Writing and photography has been such an amazing creative outlet for me that other creative projects have fallen by the wayside these past couple of years. 

I think that my brain is so immersed in food and writing projects at the moment that it can't handle much more.  So it's time my hands stepped up.  Over the past month I have become obsessed with making jewelry again.  I used to do a lot of intricate bead work and would make large, flashy, colorful pieces of jewelry.  This is not my style anymore so now everything is simple and delicate. 

A blog friend at Hobby and More recently asked me about donating an item for a fundraiser she is doing for the Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals in India.  I was really impressed with this organization and the work they are doing.  It also seemed like the perfect excuse to hit the bead store and spend some time crafting something new.  If you are interested in participating, you can donate items until April 21st (my item is pictured above). The fundraiser will go live on April 22nd and then you will be able to purchase raffle tickets for $10 for items that you are interested in.  For more details, visit her fundraising page.

Read more »

Fall Celeriac Soup

Two years ago I went on a 5-day silent meditation retreat just before Thanksgiving.  It was the first time I had practiced meditating or taken a vow of silence.  I instantly fell in love with the practice.  Even though the five quiet days felt like an eternity, it was the break from the world that I really needed at that time. 

I promised myself that when I got back home from the retreat, I would continue to practice meditation and find quiet solitude at home.  But, as normal life resumed, my hopes of daily meditation fleeted.  I made a meditation alter, but only sat in front of it once.  I never bought that meditation bench.  And I came up with constant excuses for why I couldn't "find the time" to meditate at home.

Then the next year rolled around and I told myself I was going on the retreat again.  I was going to strengthen my meditation practice and bring it home with me this time.  No excuses.

However, I couldn't find that peaceful meditation on that retreat.  It was probably due to the fact that I was in the middle of a very stressful job transition and spent most of the time at the center on my iPhone answering emails.  Even though I knew phones weren't allowed at the center, I hoped that by getting work done it would alleviate my stress and allow me to focus.  No surprises here, but all it did was cause more stress.



This year I have decided not to go on the retreat. This has been a tough decision and I've waffled back and forth, but I finally realized that if I really want to find quiet time in my life I have to do it at home. It's easy to go away somewhere else and feel relaxed and at peace, but it's much harder to create that same peace in everyday life.

Of course the first place that I'm turning to in my life for inspiration is cooking.  Being at home in my kitchen is one of the best parts of my life daily and I've decided to use it as a space for quiet time and reflection.  My plan is to begin by cleaning and organizing my kitchen to make the space even more inviting and relaxing.  Then I'm going to make soup. 





I'm sure you've heard me rave about my love for soup by now because it's so easy to make. I've already been enjoying coconut squash soup and acorn squash apple soup this season, but I have become so infatuated with celeriac that I declided it needed to have a soup of its own.

Do you cook with celeriac in your kitchen?  Celeriac is also called celery root and usually starts popping up at the market in fall.  It looks like a golden brown root ball and somehow reminds me of the mandrakes from Harry Potter. 

Celeriac has a sweet and delicate celery-like flavor that is perfect in soups, salads, and stirfries. The smaller the celeriac, the more flavorful it will be because it tends to taste woodier as it grows bigger. To prepare it, wash and scrub the skin and then cut the outer layer away using a paring knife. It can be eaten raw or cooked and I particularly like it shredded and added to raw salads or roasted with other root vegetables.

This soup has a sweet, delicate flavor with hints of celeriac, leek, and fennel.  I recommend topping it off with fresh lemon zest, red chili pepper flakes, and a drizzle of olive oil.  This soup will not only keep you warm during these chilly fall days, but hopefully it will inspire more peace and quiet time in your life too. 

Fall Celeriac Soup
Serves 4 - 6

1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 medium leeks, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried sage

3 garlic cloves

2 medium celery roots (or 3 small), skinned and chopped

1 fennel bulb, chopped
2 cups (cooked) garbanzo beans
2 bay leaves
6 cups vegetable broth
zest from 1 lemon
red chili pepper flakes
olive oil for drizzling

Add olive oil to large pot over medium heat. Saute the leek in olive oil for several minutes, until fragrant. Add the thyme, sage, and garlic and sauté for an additional minute. Add the celeriac, fennel, beans, and bay leaves.  Add enough vegetable broth to cover vegetables with liquid (about 6 cups) and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, turn the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the celeriac and fennel are tender. 

Remove the bay leaves. Next, blend the soup by using an immersion blender or transferring it to a regular blender. Add more broth or water, if needed. (If using a regular blender, be very careful as the steam can sometimes cause the lid to blow off.  I recommend allowing the soup to cool for a few minutes, then blending small batches on medium speed while holding the lid down with a pot holder or towel in hand.) 

Serve hot and top with lemon zest, red chili pepper flakes, and olive oil before serving.

This weekend...

This weekend began with a trip to the U-District farmer's market.  I loaded up on plenty of donut peaches, lapin cherries, zucchini, yellow wax beans, golden beets, corn, and these gorgeous little tomatoes. There's nothing like fresh, ripe tomatoes in the middle of summer and I just can't get enough this month.

For lunch I attempted to make pizza from scratch.  It was a big fail.  Major.

This was my first try at making pizza dough and I think I might have added too much flour and/or kneaded it a bit too much. Regardless, it was such a big fail that we ended up getting take out instead.

This afternoon I decided that if my cat could speak, he would sound like Alan Rickman (aka Professor Snape). That's kinda freaky, huh?

We spent the majority of today painting our apartment and adding in this merlot accent wall.  My partner and I live in an apartment in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle and we're working on some big updates over the next couple of weeks. Our landlord is replacing the old carpet with hardwood floors in the living room, the walls are getting a paint makeover, and we're hoping to replace some of our mismatched old furniture for more modern pieces.

Our apartment is 460 square-feet which sometimes feels like a challenge for 2 people + a cat.  Hopefully these changes will give us a much-needed update (especially the carpet!) and make the small space more tolerable.  

Our evening ended by watching Die Hard With a Vengeance (the third movie in the Die Hard series).  We watched the first one a few weeks ago and now are addicted to the 90s action and hilarious stunts.  If you haven't seen Bruce Willis with hair, then you need to get on this.

And, most importantly, this weekend means that it's less than ONE WEEK 'til the Vida Vegan Con in Portland.  Are you excited?  I am super pumped!  I can't wait for all the workshops, the galarama, and the opportunity to meet so many other cool bloggers!  If you are not attending, then make sure to check back here next weekend so I can keep you updated on what's what in the blogging world.  If you are going, then I can't wait to see you there!

How is your weekend so far?