"God is Good" Wrap - adapted from Life Alive

For the greens, I used Asiatic dayflower. I weeded them up from the garden last week but this week there were new young ones. Truly, they are tenacious!

It felt good to eat the new ones rather than just putting them directly in the compost!*

You can just see a couple peeking out on the left and right.

I added tamari almonds and avocado. Used both tofu and sprouted mung beans (short sprouts). The rice is short grain GABA.  Not sure if tahini is in the recipe, but I used it.

A Tiny Butternut Harvest

These nuts are a cross between butternuts (white walnuts) and Japanese walnuts. It's hard to find the purebred ones. I checked it out online because a number of the seedlings were planted by squirrels in the lawn, and I wanted to help restore the species.  They still taste great!

Pure butternut shells are spikier, and do not clearly show the central ridge where the halves meet.

This first nut opened beautifully, I must have hammered it just right. The other two came out somewhat mangled!  Thinking about getting a good hardshell nutcracker.

Previous research said to let the nuts dry in their green hulls, just keep them exposed to dry air, such as by hanging in onion bags, until the hulls dry on their own. Well that didn't work for me, they still molded on the inside. I had too many. You know they're dead when the get very lightweight.

Finally the best advice came this third year of knowing the trees, from Leda Meredith in Northeast Foraging. She said to go ahead and remove the husks with a hammer; they'll be less likely to mold.

Next, when to shell them? Unlike her recommendation for black walnuts - to dry a couple months for the best flavor - she doesn't mention waiting for butternuts. Anyway, maybe I can put some loose in the fridge to dry out more quickly... Perhaps they'll be ready to shell and replace with a new batch before they get piled up... 

Wild Tea

Clockwise from top: black raspberry, mint, ground ivy, purple coneflower (echinacea), goldenrod, mulberry.

Just one leaf of each.

This cup steeped at room temperature for 5 hours; even this dark, it didn't taste tannic. Just green and mildly minty, refreshing. I drank it down fast, and now I have a bright feeling down my throat to my belly.

Also i had one cup steeped in boiling water for a few minutes, it was light in color.  The dark was just more flavorful but not intense. So I recommend a long steep, or else blending the leaves in water and straining. Or just blend whole leaves in a smoothie.

Some Forages

So i'm amazed at everything out there... God's generous bounty, so overlooked, especially in the city!

With foraging eyes open now, two days ago I saw these curious fruits on 7 ornamental trees near work. Not wild, but I know they weren't planted for their fruit, so I took one and looked it up. A Kousa dogwood. The fruit is amazing, like peaches and very ripe guava, the skin thick and a bit bitter with phytonutrients. It is edenic. Some websites are not thrilled with the fruit - all I can think is, this must be a better variety! This should not be missed on earth! So I picked more! One leaf is still attached in the photo.

I pulled out of the strawberry patch this weed that looked familiar from my attempts to absorb "Northeast Foraging" by Leda Meredith. Indeed, there it is - purslane! I've never eaten it but it tastes so familiar, liked cooked celery? No, I cant't place it!

I added to my salad today a bit of peppergrass, (on the right of the photo), young plantain leaf, lamb's quarters, and yellow wood sorrel.

Also today I saw in the garden some kind of thistle that I think is edible, will have to check it out more closely.

The hay covering the strawberries came from a farm and I believe it brought the seeds of the purslane, the thistle, and some fuzzy leaved plant that I hope turns out to be a squash! Or, that must have come from my kitchen compost.

Down by the river, a big patch of mint, lady's thumb, jewelweed, sumac - not in flower, need to confirm it's not poison - with groundnut vines twined through it. And of course, red mulberries - I got about a quart, and some leaves fell, which make a very healthy tea.

Nearby the house too is echinacea, clover flowers, Asiatic dayflower, wild carrot, dandilion, goldenrod, and black nightshade, and of course, maple trees....

Here are the mulberries drying; with some sweet orange cherry tomatoes from a plant given me by my father's wife. The sweetest tomatoes ever, they fulfill their identity (bright, tangy) fruits.

Purple Pear Smoothie

Purple Pear Smoothie

1 scoop (18 g) Optimal Plant Proteins (or Raw Protein powder + healthy sweetener)

1 bosc pear, seeded

Blueberries

Black nightshade berries (safe to eat when they are fully ripe - shiny black)

Water or soy milk

Well I only had 1T of berries so this isn't quite purple! But it could be!

Note: enchanter's nightshade or deadly nightshade (sometimes called black nightshade) are a dangerously toxic similar looking plant. Note The edible black nightshade berries in the center if the garnish - they are grouped together, not growing separately. Also the green sepals behind the berries are small and barely extend beyond the base of the berries. Also the flowers on this plant are white, and the leaves are usually dotted with insect holes.

The Symmetric Property

Scriptures related to the poem posted a couple days ago, "Father of Lights":

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.  (James 1:17-18)

   Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him."
    Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."
   Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, 'Show us the Father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake. 
    Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 

    If you love me, keep my commandments.   

   I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,— the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.

    I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.   Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
   One who has my commandments, and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:6-18)

"[...] Giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:12-15).

His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance. (Hebrews 1:3a)

GK Chesterton wrote in St Francis of Assisi,

"It may give a much milder shock if I say here, what most of us have forgotten, that if St. Francis was like Christ, Christ was to that extent like St. Francis. And my present point is that it is really very enlightening to realise that Christ was like St. Francis. What I mean is this; that if men find certain riddles and hard sayings in the story of Galilee, and if they find the answers to those riddles in the story of Assisi, it really does show that a secret has been handed down [...]"

Christ was like St. Francis and we can know Christ better, because we know something of St. Francis.  We accept and can recognize as truly historical - as something that really happened, based in some true source, the flavor of St. Francis' joyful dependency on God.  The haze lifts when we understand that these truths really were embodied and lived.

Christ is the very image of the substance of the Father and we can know the Father better, because we know something of Christ.  Who is this Father, this invisible God, to whom our religion calls for such devoted affection?  He seems so out of reach.  We must believe Christ's word on this.

"If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him."   

We must grapple with this co-identification of qualities until we believe it. We must remind ourselves daily until the recognition becomes habitual. Based on the symmetric property,

if a=b, then b=a (where "=" refers to spiritual characteristics), 

we can and should, without hesitation or fear of approach, apprehend the Father, who otherwise seems so hazy and hidden, as being so full of comfort and grace and human sympathy as Christ.

Source: mreiafrica, http://www.slideshare.net/mreiafrica/math-6-project-alice-in-wonderland-ch46

And so, in every humble thing that St. Francis loved, in the daily elements of our life where ever mercy and humility is found, there is Christ and there is the Father.  Father, we want to know you more. Let us open our hearts to the real You. 

That is enough to rest upon and absorb for our whole lives. But Christ goes on, audaciously, to say that the same symmetric property can be applied backward to us, we who are abiding in Him... and the love, intimacy, fellowship, and submission flash like light through a circle of symmetry, between us and Christ and the Father and to us...

Chocolate Cherry Milkshake - Vegan

What a huge milkshake! Or, what a tiny cat!

My cat waited patiently for attention while I took this shot.

Chocolate Cherry Milkshake - Vegan

Recipe from http://nutritionfacts.org/video/healthy-chocolate-milkshakes/

(For 1 serving: These are the approx. amounts I used; adjust to taste.

To make it creamier and even richer, could add cashews. But it was delicious as-is!)

Frozen unsweetened cherries (11)

Dutch cocoa powder (2 t)

Date puree or date sugar (2 1/2 T)

Unsweetened soy milk (1 1/2 - 2 c)

(1 T raw cashews)

Blend.

(Garnish with a cherry and a compostable paper straw.)

Dr. Greger also offers some other uses for these ingredients: