Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #12

So Friday night I taught my first Community Class at 3 Sisters Yoga + Fitness and had my first class as the "permanent" yoga teacher at Fitworks in Highland Heights. Spent the rest of Saturday cleaning out closets and getting rid of clothes which is what happens when you lose 50 pounds in two years. Sunday was a fun day with a Marni class (of course), lunch with my friend Jenny, and trying my hand out at Lentil, Chard & Sweet Potato Curry from Forks Over Knives. It was delicious!

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about. 

Verse 12

Colors blind the eye.

Sounds deafen the ear.

Flavors numb the taste.

Thoughts weaken the mind.

Desires wither the heart.

Memorial Day Weekend 2016

Had Caitlin Hawkins​ and Barbara Hawkins​ over yesterday for Memorial Day, my birthday, George Hawkins’​ birthday, my graduation from Marni Task’s​ Jivasara Yoga Teacher Training and Caitlin's graduation from grad school at Case, the finding of an apartment, and landing a job here in Cleveland!

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, I wanted something "traditional". So I decided to try carrot dogs as a replacement for the typical hot dogs. To be honest, I was skeptical. In addition to the fact that I'm not really a fan of trying to recreate "meat" foods with veggies, since that's like an alcoholic drinking near beer (not really a good idea) I'd rather just go straight for a new thing altogether.

Much to my surprise, though, it was actually really good. The liquid smoke I think is really what makes it, but I topped it with arugula, mustard, Ketchup and caramelized onions.

I also tried out two new recipes this time from the PlantPure Nation Cookbook. Three actually since one them called for Tofu Cashew Mayonnaise also from the PlantPure Nation cookbook. The first was a Thai Tofu Wrap which was only okay. It'll be good if I can figure out something else but it needs a little more moisture, more of a kick, and more peanut butter maybe. It called for Sriracha which we didn't have so I used Cholula which we did, but probably not enough.

You can see the wraps on the plate covered in saran wrap. There's a pun in there somewhere.

The second recipe used a quarter cup of the Tofu Cashew Mayonnaise. For my fellow no oil friends, this recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of tahini. I bought tahini that had no extra oil added but it was still quite oily. I like the flavor of tahini I just don't want the oil. But for yesterday I used 1/2 teaspoon of tahini.

Other than that though the tofu cashew mayonnaise was fantastic. Here's the recipe

Recipe

1/4 raw cashews soaked for 2-3 hours

7 ounces extra firm tofu

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (I used less)

1/2 teaspoon tahini

4 teaspoons lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard

2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar (I bought the Braggs because of Theresa's comment at the last PlantBaseCle meeting)

2 1/2 Tablespoons Agave Nectar (I only used 2, but will probably use 1 next time)

2 Tablespoons Water

1/4 teaspoon xanthum gum (I didn't have any so I used potato starch as a kind of binder

Tweak to your heart's content, particularly perhaps just grinding sesame seeds up yourself will reduce the oil.

I used this mayonnaise for the Eggless Tofu Salad. For what it is worth I never really liked egg salad so I don't consider this a replacement :-) The Tofu Salad was fantastic, the dill adding it the perfect flavor. The bowl bigger bowl in the picture to the left is a Quinoa salad my wife Arisa featuring Chayote.

I used my friend Lori Palmer’s (website) suggestion to make "chips" out of Engine2’s Sprouted Ancient Whole Grains Tortilla (you only need to bake for maybe 5 minutes, I had mine in a just a little bit too long), and used them to scoop the tofu salad. Thanks Lori that was a fantastic suggestion!

For scheduling reasons we started earlier than we would have normally and we finished earlier as well. Which was just as good because by the time we would have normally just been settling in to eat we were inundated with rain.

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Council Rejects Lease Settlement - No Gas Wells in the Park

As I posted here and here, Highland Heights City Council has been deliberating an resolution that would allow Mayor Coleman to sign a lease with Bass Energy to place two gas wells on property within the Community Park as part of a lawsuit settlement. This last Tuesday while I was in Chicago on business City Council voted on the resolution.

Highland Heights Gas Well Info - Important Meeting

I received this in an email from a concerned citizen.  It's really surprising to me that they would want to start fracking in our community park.  I get the idea that it's generate money, but at what cost?  

Happy New Year from the Neohawk.org Family

I tweeted and posted very short messages at midnight. However, those were scheduled as I really didn’t want to struggle to get them through to the network as the rest of the United States did as well. I wanted to take my time for a real New Year’s greeting.

Hopefully this post will fulfill that greeting.

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2011 was a year of transition for the Neohawk.org family. Overall a good year but what’s a good year without some stress to make sure the gray hairs arrive. Here’s the rundown.

Elly finished her freshman year at American University on the Dean’s List and now an “Honor’s Student”. She spent the summer at home working at Target but took off for AU as soon as she could. And this time she pretty much took everything with her, sort of a message to us that she ain’t coming back to Cleveland “to visit”. It’s bittersweet. I cannot help but be proud and excited for her. At the same time it’s sad to think that it’s over already and that she’s her own person now and not my little Elly.

One of the best things for us her parents was the fact that Elly has had the chance to take up dancing again. She is taking a Ballet class as part of her schedule but she also participated in two other performances as well. Arisa and I went to see the AU in Motion (Facebook page) in November. The show overall was tremendous. Given there was wide array of dancers from good to bad, from classical ballet to hip hop and Bollywood. The dancers clearly had worked hard on everything and the show was fun. To be honest though Elly stood out. That’s largely because her piece is designed that way (she was the Sugar Plum Fairy) but also because she was the by far the best ballet dancer.

Pizza at Crostatas

This last Thursday night Arisa and I, just the two of us, went out for dinner. This is not an occurrence that happens often. In fact, it's been pretty rare. Though I expect it will start happening a lot more than it has in the past since Elly and Ken are off at college and George isn't far behind.

In particular, on Thursday during the day at work Arisa had her OBP1 certification test at Hyland Software. Yes, Arisa and I now both work at Hyland. Anyway, Hyland has a fairly extensive training program for new employees with "certification" tests afterward. Needless to say all the training is in English as are the tests. So for Arisa it was a very long and mentally tiring day. George wanted to go see the Mayfield Varsity Soccer team play Shaker in the District Finals at Brush High School so we dropped him off and went to eat.