Is There Anything Spiritual About Mindfulness?

Mindless muddy brain attacks until you are slipping into a careless coma from chaos

Shoes on sunglasses on sun so bright just one foot in front of the other

music on blasting sadness out
Nature in action
mindful spirituality frees us from inner struggles and conflicts of our human condition no longer in the grasp of ego

Existential mindfulness
Adversity. Been down so long it looks like up. Courage or Fear?
A defining moment to become who you really are. Rise Up!
Feel your meaning and purpose
The Universe is open to you... come and live inside my heart

Run away? I don’t think so.
I’ll take a mindful existential reset for $2,000 Alex

It’s the Daily Double 

©jg2019

#walk #mindfulness #existentialism #discovery #naturephotography #peace

Chicken with tomatoes and beans in the slow cooker

Just putting this here so that I would remember how to make it.  Found pictures online of stuff I used, but not necessarily these brands. It was soooo good.

This is the finished dinner!!

I dumped all of the above into a crockpot, seasoned the chicken with season salt, crushed and grated 5 cloves of garlic into it and cooked it in the crockpot for a few hours on high. Super easy and really good.  I don't eat rice, but if I did, I would have served this with brown rice and poured the juice it made, over the brown rice. 

I did hot roast broccolini though, and ate that with it.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

THE Original RECIPE for SLOW COOKER CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

CAME FROM MELISSA DARABIAN ON THE FOOD NETWORK

I of course changed it a bit

Ingredients
3 chicken thighs, skin removed (i used left over turkey that was cooked & added it the last hour)

10-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (i rinsed mine before using)
1 1/2 cups chicken broth ( i used Swanson Chicken Stock for cooking 26 ozs)

1 1/2 cups water
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 jalapeno, finely chopped (i did not have a jalapeño so i used a large can of chopped chiles)

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
Juice of a lemon
i used tortilla strips and crunched them on top of the soup
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (i used this cheese maybe a couple T per bowl)
Salt & Pepper to taste
Put 2 - 4 slices of ripe avocado on top of each bowl of soup

Directions
Place the chicken, tomatoes (and juices), beans, broth, water, onion, garlic, jalapeño (or chiles)  cumin, and chili powder in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 3 to 4 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. (i cooked on low for about 6 hours. at hour 5 i added the turkey. i would use chicken thighs though)

Uncover the slow cooker and use tongs to remove the chicken from the pot. Once cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred, then return the meat to the pot. Stir in the lemon juice. Crumble a few tortilla chips into each bowl and cover with some soup. Serve sprinkled with cilantro and grated cheese.

If you want it hotter, add hot sauce while it's cooking.

This was my Instagram post since it was the first time I made it and it came out SO freaking good!!

Per serving: Calories: 275; Total Fat: 8 grams; Saturated Fat: 4 grams; Protein: 22 grams; Total carbohydrates: 29 grams; Sugar: 7 grams; Fiber: 6 grams; Cholesterol: 56 milligrams; Sodium: 364 milligrams

Original recipe from Melissa Darabian

Organic Black Bean, Turkey, 'Shroom Chili with Dean and Deluca spices

Chili for someone else because it has no GARLIC in it and 

I L O V E Garlic!!  

But, I have a good friend who just had back surgery, and she and her husband like my chili that I make just for them. The first time I made it, their request was no garlic, no onions, no mushrooms and not spicy & made with ground turkey and black beans.  SAY WHAT?!? That isn't chili!!  But over the years, they have decided that everything but the garlic is ok, so this is how I make it now, just for them. Since it's a pretty good dish, I decided to blog it.  At the end I'll tell you what I would add to it for me!  

First, I bring out the big crock pot so they can have some to eat and some to freeze.

I used over a pound of Shelton's ground turkey from happy pastured turkeys with a little S & P and I sautéed that in a little bit of olive oil just to brown it, then put it in the crock pot with the tomatoes and tomatoe paste.

Then I sautéed the shallots and mushrooms in a little olive oil and added that in. If you wanted to make this vegetarian, the mushrooms are meaty and hearty and make a great meat substitute or just a great addition to chili with meat or turkey.

Then I dumped in the rest of the ingredients and spices and turned it on low in the crockpot where it will stay for the next 8 hours or so.

Ingredients

1 or more pounds of ground turkey or beef

2 cans of organic black beans, drained and rinsed (if you remove these, it becomes #PALEO
2 cans of organic petite diced tomatoes
1 10 oz package Trade Joes crimini mushrooms, chopped up fine
2 medium shallots chopped up fine
1 jar yellow and red roasted peppers from Trader Joes chopped up
Equivalent of 1 can of tomatoe paste, though I squirted it out of a tube

2 small turkish bay leaves  

Dean and Deluca Chili Powder Blend which is what sets my chili apart from other chili because it is a rich dark perfect blend of spices!
Dean and Deluca Hungarian paprika, greek oregano, basil, thyme and cumin to taste. they don't like things 'spicy' so i never use more than a teaspoon of anything and mostly just a pinch.  Last time I made it they said it was kind of boring, because I barely used any spices, so i upped the chili powder blend in this one!  They just don't like 'hot' spicy things I think . . . or garlic!

If I was making it for me, I would add a ton of fresh grated garlic, greek black olives chopped up, red chili pepper flakes, Louisiana hot sauce & more fresh peppers chopped up. 

I would serve it with greek yogurt and colby/jack cheese shredded on top of it and maybe some more olives chopped up on top.  I USED to serve it with crushed up fritos and sour cream and cheese on top.  It was yum, but I don't eat fritos anymore :( 

Mish Mash of Italian Paleo one pot dish for dinner or whenever . . .

Paleo Spaghetti . . . kind of . . . sort of . . . but not really

So, I haven't made anything new for awhile until tonight.  This is really a mish mash to resemble spaghetti/italian something because I was missing Italian food. Basically Spaghetti and Meat Sauce.

I started with:
one sweet onion, chopped
about 6-8 ounces of brown crimini mushrooms chopped
sautéed in a little olive oil because i don't like cocoanut oil but that's what i should have used

Then I added 1 pound of Shelton's ground turkey to the veggies

Season with whatever you want but I used S & P, garlic, Dean and Deluca Oregano and Basil

I then added the threads from one pre-cooked spaghetti squash that I had roasted in the oven and pulled the 'spaghetti threads' out  ( here is how to do it in case you need directions: http://www.kitchentreaty.com/how-to-cook-spaghetti-squash-two-different-ways-in-the-microwave-or-in-the-oven/ )

I also had some crunchy roasted cauliflower that i chopped up and added to the whole thing, 3 big florets

Then I added about 3/4 of a jar of gluten free, organic pasta sauce and heated it all up. You could also just use fresh tomatoes cut up and some organic tomatoe sauce, maybe a little tomatoe paste instead. Add some red pepper flakes to make it hot. Grate some cheese over the top of it and even mix it with real spaghetti to make it go farther if you aren't doing paleo.

It actually tasted really yum, even though it's not the prettiest thing i have ever made.  

Baked Tilapia with Olive Tapenade & Cauliflower Mash

Another (sort of) Paleo friendly meal

As I might have mentioned, I am eating dairy on my new lifestyle change of eating, way of life, so not pure Paleo. Though I still say that none of us were there at the time of the cavemen, so who really knows!?  

This was the easiest meal to make because I used some pre-prepared foods.

Trader Joe's has a new Mediterranean Olive tapenade that has a lot of good stuff in it.

I took a piece of tilapia and covered it with the tapenade, baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350.

Then I made a variation of my favourite cauliflower mash with cheese and garlic in it.  I used a bag of microwave cauliflower and placed whole garlic cloves in with it, to soften the garlic & some butter with S&P to taste.

added the garlic and some shredded cheese then used my immersion blender to get it smooth.  Yum!!

Healthy Vegetable Soup #Paleo #Diabetes #vegetarian #South Beach

Big batch of healthy vegetable soup!

One thing I have always loved is soups.  I have started making them in the crockpot and pretty much throwing in all the veggies I have and letting it be different every time. I eat it before dinner so that I get vegetables and it fills me up so I don't eat as much for dinner.  

I made a big batch of this the other day and then froze individual portions to have at a later time. I also sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top before I eat it.

I always put two things in for the base. One large can organic diced tomatoes,and one box Trader Joe's Organic Hearty Vegetable broth.

This is what I put in the soup this time.  Trader Joes sliced crimini mushrooms, a whole bag, two organic golden beets peeled and sliced, one organic sweet potato sliced, one sweet mayan onion sliced, one large organic broccoli crown broken up,  three organic carrots peeled and chopped, & three stalks celery chopped, some organic green beans cut in half, a couple of yellow summer squash and at the very end, a half a bag of organic spinach.  I like big chunks of vegetables in my soup so I do a rough large chop. I try to buy everything organic.  I season with S&P, lots of grated fresh garlic, Louisiana Hot sauce and  SPIKE .

This was the finished product in the crockpot! It's really good! Use your imagination. Cook on low in the crockpot 8 hours or 4 hours on high, depending on how crunchy you like your vegetables.

What's for Paleo breakfast, Part Two!

These are another variation on eggs in muffin tins.

This time I used one of my new favourite things, chicken apple breakfast sausages by Aidell, sliced them up and put a couple slices in the bottom of each of the sprayed muffin tins. For the 6 muffins, I cut up 3 green scallions, and divided those between the 6 muffins.  I then took 3 eggs and about 3/4 cup of egg whites, beat those with some S&P, put in a handful of shredded cheese and poured in some Louisiana Hot Sauce, to taste.

You can also make these by dicing up a bunch of veggies like peppers, green onion, broccoli,mushrooms, artichokes diced up & use canadian bacon or ham all diced and added into the sprayed muffin tin, then just beat the eggs that you have added the shredded cheese & S&P, i also add hot sauce, pour OVER the veggies & meat, and bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes.