Healthy Mother’s Day Recipes by Carolyn Scott Hamilton

It’s the day we ask mom to stop, relax, kick her feet up and be pampered by the very people she pampers all year long. Be sure you shower her with gifts, take her to be primped at her favorite spa and finish the day with a lovely meal. Check out these healthy and vegan Mother’s Day recipes as well as last year’s brunch menu!

Pink Le-MOM-Ade

• 10 sliced lemons
• 2 cups raspberries
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 cups water
• 2 1/4 cups tequila (optional)
• Mint, for garnish

Combine lemons, raspberries, and sugar in a large pot. Pound the mixture firmly with a large wooden spoon, extracting as much juice as possible, about 10 minutes. Stir in water. Pour through a sieve into a large bowl. Press the solids until all juice is extracted. Discard the solids, stir in tequila and serve over ice.

Water-Cado Salad

• 2 avocados, pitted and peeled and cut into small chunks – about 1/2 inch
• 1 1/2 lbs. watermelon, seeded and cut into small/med chunks – about 1 inch
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1/2 red onion, peeled and sliced thin
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste

Add all ingredients into a bowl and toss gently.

R & R Risotto

• 3 quarts water
• 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 1 stick vegan butter
• 8 ounces mixed fresh mushrooms, such as porcini, chanterelle, and oyster, sliced if large
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup grated vegan Parmesan (recipe below)

Bring water, dried porcini mushrooms, and peppercorns to a boil in a medium pot. Reduce heat, and simmer gently for 1 hour. Strain stock (you should have 7 to 8 cups); discard solids. Return to pot; cover to keep warm.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook mixed mushrooms until tender and slightly browned all over, about 3 minutes; transfer to a plate.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion until tender and translucent, about 5 minutes. Season with salt. Stir in rice, and cook until coated, 1 to 2 minutes. Add wine, and cook until almost completely absorbed, 3 to 4 minutes.

Ladle 1 cup reserved stock over rice, and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until almost completely absorbed. Continue adding stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly and waiting for each addition to be almost completely absorbed before adding the next, until grains are al dente but not crunchy, about 30 minutes. (You’ll probably only use 6 to 7 cups stock. Add remaining stock to loosen the risotto, if desired.)
Remove from heat, and season with salt and pepper. Stir in remaining 2 tablespoons butter and the vegan Parmesan. Top risotto with sauteed mushrooms (reheat if necessary), and garnish with some more Parmesan.

Vegan Parmesan

• 1 cup soaked and dried Brazil nuts
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• ⅓ teaspoon salt
• Pinch nutritional yeast
• Pinch oregano

Place all ingredients in a food processor with the “S” blade on. Process until well incorporated and the consistency of bread crumbs.

Sweet and Spicy Sorbet Sandwiches

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted vegan butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup plus 5 teaspoons sugar, plus more for rolling and flattening
• 1 egg replacer
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
• 1 pint vegan strawberry sorbet
• 1 pint vegan lemon sorbet

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk flour, ground ginger, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves in a bowl.

With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Mix in egg replacer, then add molasses and candied ginger. Reduce speed. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Wrap dough in plastic, and refrigerate until slightly firm, 15 minutes.

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop balls of dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Roll each one in sugar, and return to sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Using the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar, press dough to flatten into 3-inch rounds. Bake until edges are golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool completely.

Sandwich one scoop of sorbet with 2 cookies. Repeat, alternating sorbet flavors. Serve immediately, or freeze in airtight containers up to 3 hours.

Technorati Tags: dessert, drink, entree, gluten free recipes, Healthy recipes, mother's day recipes, salad, vegan recipes

LISTEN: Sacred Union ~ Deepening The Love in Relationships with Robert Gass and Judith Ansarra

VividLife Radio’s Ed and Deb Shapiro welcome Robert Gass and Judith Ansara, internationally recognized spiritual teachers to discuss Sacred Union ~ Deeping the Love in Relationships

With over 40 years as internationally known teachers and life parnters Robert and Judith offer us their well seasoned guidance on how to deepen the love in our relationships and how to really connect on a more conscious level.

Robert and Judith offer couples retreats across the globe assisting couples in sharing the path and reconnecting on a more conscious level. The would like to extend a personal invitation for you to join them this July at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York click here for details http://sacredunion.com/site/?page_id=6

Judith Ansara, MSW has served as a teacher, consultant, and coach for over 35 years in her commitment to foster a conscious, just, and sustainable world.

She serves as a private coach and mentor to leaders, individuals, and couples.
Her decades of spiritual study and work as a psychotherapist add an exceptional breadth and depth to her coaching.

With her husband of 40 years, Robert Gass, Judith leads retreats for committed couples throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. http://www.sacredunion.com

Robert Gass, EdD is internationally-recognized for pioneering work in training and coaching leaders, organizational transformation, and human development for over 30 years. Holding a doctorate in Organizational and Clinical Psychology from Harvard University, his work synthesizes an unusually diverse background in social change, humanistic psychology, organizational behavior, business, music and spiritual studies. http://www.sacredunion.com

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Supermodel Carre Otis: Beauty Disrupted ~ A Memoir

Ed and Deb Shapiro welcome Super Model Carre Otis to discuss her new book Beauty Disrupted, a memoir. Carre has long been one of the most recognizable faces in modeling, headlining in campaigns for Guess, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Revlon and has graced the covers of Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan

Andrew Harvey on Sacred Activism

Ed and Deb Shapiro hosts of Going Out of Your Mind on VividLife Radio welcome, Andrew Harvey renowned mystical scholar, Rumi translator and explicator, poet, novelist, spiritual teacher, writer, and architect of Sacred Activism  to discuss Sacred Activism as a transforming force to take radical action in the world.

READ: Is Your Health Powered by Love? by Mache Seibel, MD

Huey Lewis sang about “The Power of Love.” Now a relatively new field called interpersonal neurobiology is proving your brain is constantly in a state of being rewired based on life and love. And the basis of it all is our interpersonal relationships; those contacts we love deeply, and those we love, well, a whole lot less.

The thought is that all our relationships change our brains. The hard wiring may not really be that hard wired after all. From our first reactions following birth with our mothers, brain scans reveal an unspoken bond between mother and child that imprints his or her brain so powerfully that many of our future relationships evolve from it.

But this new science suggests that the story is far from over at birth. Sure, heredity plays a part, and childhood engraves an etching in our minds, but we now know through imaging studies that friendships, love affairs, romance and love also wield a powerful imprint on our minds; a longing for our initial intimacy with our mother puts us in a an unending quest for an adult equivalent.

How powerful is this quest? Potent enough to influence how our genes express themselves. And this is where the impact on health and wellbeing comes in. Relationships that are caring and loving have the most significant ability to affect our brains by affecting our mental health, our happiness, our wisdom and even our medical health and longevity. All that from being in a loving and supportive relationship. In fact, positive relationships may be the most important predictor of these positive life experiences throughout our lives.

If you think about it, when we choose our mate, we are also choosing a new group of friends and family, new perspectives, new rituals, foods and favorite places. All of these experiences plus the hormones that come with passion and excitement are believed to be a major way in which our brains are altered and rewired, and our health and perspective are affected. In essence, the other person imprints our brain and forever alters it. Thinking back to who we were before we met our mate, it certainly makes sense. Who doesn’t feel “changed” after living with and loving someone for a long time. Like Cole Porter said, “I’ve got you under my skin.” What the interpersonal neurobiologists add is, “…and I’ve absorbed you.”

New brain studies by Naomi Eisenberger of UCLA showed that when a person feels rejected, the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex of their brains “light up” in the same areas as the brains of persons experiencing physical pain. It’s why as the song goes, “breaking up is hard to do.” Her studies also showed the opposite for those that are close and who give support to a loved one; giving also stimulates the pleasure centers of the giver’s brain. Related work by James Coen of the University of Virginia showed that the negative impact of giving a mild electric shock to a woman who is in a happy, committed relationship will produce much less of an impact on her anxiety, pain and blood pressure is she is holding her partner’s hand.

So mad and passionate sex isn’t the only way to warm our hearts; sometimes just the feeling the support of a held hand as we face life’s sometime challenging journey will do the trick. All because our brains transform that support into insulation for the “shocks” life sends our way. Stormy relationships do not get this protective effect from handholding or being supported.

I remember my wife taking a favorite photo of the two of us into labor and delivery when she was in labor with our first child, and a photo of our first child into labor and delivery when she was in labor with our second child. Looking at those photos was a great comfort to her. Now functional MRI or fMRI as it is called is able to show that images of loved ones can light up the reward centers of our minds. Even more impressive are studies that show the brains of couples that are madly in love light up the same areas of their brains as cocaine addicts do, with the exception that cocaine addicts also light up the areas of anxiety and fear whereas those in love demonstrate calmness in the brain areas associated with anxiety and fear. The brains of those in love also light up areas linked to pleasure and pain relief.

So what does this all mean for you and me? Quite a lot, it seems. Our brains can change as we grow and as we grow old – for the better or for the worse. To take advantage of this new information, we must shed bad relationships and surround ourselves with friends and loved ones – people who make us feel safe and loved like a mother makes her baby feel. It’s one of the major paths to a healthy relationship and to a healthy you. I’ve made a few additional comments in my video below. Find more of my videos on http://www.YouTube.com/DoctorSeibel.

Machelle (Mache) Seibel, MD is one of America’s top health communicators. Whether speaking, consulting, writing or composing he teaches people the health information they need and the perspective they require to stay well. His passion is to help America stay well. “It’s better to stay well than to get well.” Professor and Director, Complicated Menopause Program, University of Massachusetts Medical School 2004-Present Founder of HealthRock®, reshaping health education with music and entertainment Harvard Medical School faculty nearly two decades Past Medical Director, Inverness Medical Innovations (now Alere) 2008 Recipient, Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus Award, the University of Texas Medical Branch’s highest honor Multiple national awards for research, writing, music and patient education received Author/editor 14 books, over 200 scientific articles, past editor-in-chief of the medical journal Sexuality, Reproduction & Menopause Advisory board of Dr. Mehmet Oz’s HealthCorps initiative to fight childhood obesity Repeatedly voted into Best Doctors in America Hosted PBS and NYC TV episodes, frequent media expert http://www.doctorseibel.com/ 

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Yoga ~ A Menopause Alternative to HRT by Mache Seibel M.D.

Twenty years ago during a particularly stressful period of work, I began taking a yoga class as a non-pharmacologic antidote. I was running a center for reproduction and women’s health, working 24/7 and needed a way to relax. I had the good fortune to enroll with a yogini named Hari Khar Khalsa, and I took classes from her for a period of time. One day after class I asked her if she would be interested in teaching a yoga class to my patients to lower their stress. We began a series of yoga classes with the first hour consisting of us sitting on mats on the floor with my patients and discussing a health topic. I called them “Mat Chats.” The second hour was devoted to yoga with a focus on the medical topic we had just covered.

Hot Flash Treatments for Breast Cancer Patients by Mache Seibel, MD

One of the most common concerns among breast cancer patients is how to deal with hot flashes. They are a huge problem that affects the quality of life for over half of women treated with endocrine treatments. In fact, hot flashes are the number one reason they think about stopping treatment. HRT is very effective but it can almost never be used due to risk. So I want to share some of the alternative treatments to HRT for you to discuss with your doctors. There are also many women who don’t have breast cancer who either can’t or don’t want to take HRT for the low estrogen symptom of hot flashes. This will help you as well.

 

READ: Sex, Love, and Spirit by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

Evolution is an integral aspect of each life form. We evolve physically, mentally and spiritually, in ever ascending spirals, moving from order to chaos, and from chaos to a higher level of order, and so on ad infinitum. The chaos factor is necessary, in order for old patterns, which no longer serve us, to break down and dissolve. As we discover how to accept these life changes and learn from them, life becomes ever more rich and inspiring with each new cycle.

An area where evolution of body and psyche is very apparent is the arena of relationship. It is considered normal for two people to feel sexually attracted to each other, and jump into bed to experience sexual ecstasy together. The heat of sexual experience, if lived deeply and totally, will naturally give rise to feelings of love and a desire for emotional intimacy. The couple may then decide to live together, and explore the shift from ‘honeymoon hormones’ to ‘nesting hormones.’ This phase may include giving birth to children and raising them. However, life should not end there.

In the usual scenario, a couple will move from parenthood to grandparenthood, and from there into old age and into assisted living, waiting for inevitable death. This pattern brings with it, feelings of depression and even desperation, the reason being that life has much more to offer. And if we do not live what is offered by existence, we feel, quite rightly, like we have missed the train.

If individuals and couples learn meditation and apply this to sexuality, love and relating, as happens in Tantra, a wonderful opportunity opens up. Powerfully lived sexuality, coupled with awareness, naturally blossoms into love. And when love is deeply lived as a path of meditation, it very naturally evolves into prayer. My definition of prayer is, when each cell of the body is attuned to source, and we sense ourselves to be an open conduit for ever-flowing divine energy.

Sex, love and prayer is all the same energy, lived in different ways. It is like having a 3-story house. It is the same house, but the experience of the 3 floors will each be uniquely different. Our life experience goes on expanding to include more of our evolutionary potential. In this sense, as we get older, we do not have to degenerate, but can continue to evolve, discovering more of who we are in relation to the whole.

That is why, in our ancestral past, elders were highly respected. It was understood that they had evolved into higher wisdom, having more of an overview of the full spectrum of life.

And there is another step, which is even more profound than linear evolution. If we are able to expand our consciousness to include all three aspects at once, we become one with all that is. The merging of sexuality, love and spirituality as one organic unity, is an enlightened state of consciousness. It is a big yes to life in it’s totality.

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WOMEN’S SEXUAL ANATOMY

Sarita is a world renowned Tantra master and mystic offering courses and retreats across the globe. Having received a direct transmission from Osho, she is true to the spiritual essence of Tantra and leads us on the path to self realisation. At the same time she takes care to help us transcend the psychological blockages that we carry as a result of our cultural background and past experiences. She is also a master healer, author and consultant. website: http://www.tantra-essence.com

 

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Tantra and the Divine Feminine by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

In the last 2000 years or so, women have been considered to be the weaker sex in much of the so-called civilized world. In actual fact, women have simply forgotten how to access their own power, the Divine feminine. In Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, he says:

Tantra and the Divine Masculine by Mahasatvaa Ananda Sarita

The Divine Masculine is a timely subject for 2012, as this is the year when the old world transmutes into a new world, according to the famous Maya predictions. Bring it on! The old world has been dominated primarily by an imbalanced masculine, which shows itself in the number of wars and general raping of planetary resources. This has happened because the masculine has been divorced from the feminine for a few thousand years, and by so doing has gone into a fevered testosterone fueled orgy of competition and destruction. I am by no means saying,…

READ: Because I Can by Edie Weinstein

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.”

Stephen Grellet (2 November 1773 – 16 November 1855), a French born Quaker missionary was the  likely author, according to Wikipedia, but this quote has been attributed to William Penn, Mahatma Gandhi and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I have long appreciated these words because they speak so clearly to a calling I heard as a child and was modeled for me by my parents who in addition to their full time jobs both in and out of the house,  were dedicated life long volunteers into their 80′s. It wasn’t a sense of less- than- greater- than in terms of relationship with anyone to whom they lent a helping hand. Sometimes it was anonymous. They were also just plain kind people, smiling at ‘strangers’ on the street, laughing and playing with children who crossed their paths, offering a listening ear to anyone who happened to need it. In my childhood home in Willingboro, NJ,  we had a ‘helping hand’ sign in our front window as a signal to the neighborhood kids that ours was a ‘safe house’ in case they were in any danger.  When my parents retired to sunny South Florida, the children in the condo community would stop by to visit. The last Halloween my mom was alive, some of them came into her living room, dressed in costume and were greeted with a hug and candy. I was heartened by witnessing that they were more focused on time with her than the treats she gave them.

They encouraged us to be grateful for what we had and to share it when we could, whether it was material, financial or experiential.

I was on a trajectory throughout my life to become a ‘helping’ professional and these days, it takes the form of being a licensed social worker, interfaith minister, transformational writer and inspirational speaker. I am also known as the ‘go to’ person for promotion of folks’ service work in the world. On a daily basis, friends approach me with the request…”can you spread the word about my writing, music, art, cause…..?”  I always say yes, simply because I can. I’m not a saint, believe me, but I also know that if I have the wherewithal to do something, and if in any way possible, I can use my gift as a connector to stir up more love in the world, then it feels incumbent on me to do so. I have many friends who feel the same way and am gratified to see them do it and delighted to see the results of their kindness. On the flip side, I have also sadly observed that out of fear of competition, there have been others who haven’t been as free with their energies. My experience has been that when one succeeds, all succeed; when one reaches a hand out, it elevates all of us. Through the years, I have been the recipient of the sweetness of ‘fairy godmothers’ and ‘fairy godfathers’ who have opened doors for me and I have willingly done the same for others. I invite you to take any opportunity to don your invisible wings and flap them in support of those who cross your path.

http://youtu.be/f2H-GiiDfnE Try A Little Kindness by Glen Campbell

Rev. Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW is a Renaissance Woman and Bliss Mistress who delights in inviting people to live rich, full, juicy lives. Edie is an internationally recognized, sought after, colorfully creative journalist, interviewer and author, a dynamic and inspiring speaker, licensed social worker, interfaith minister, offering uniquely designed spiritual rituals. In addition, she is a PR Goddess, promoting events and transformational teachers, healers, writers and artists. She speaks on the subjects of wellness, spirituality, sexuality, creativity, time management, recovery, body image, mindfulness, self esteem, stress management, re-creating yourself, caring for the caregiver, loss and grief. She is a frequent guest on radio and TV. Edie is currently writing her first best selling book entitled The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into The Extraordinary and is offering a workshop for women who want to re-create their lives, based on those concepts. A 20 year old journalistic vision came to pass in July of 2008 when she interviewed His Holiness The Dalai Lama. It was a potent reminder to never, ever, ever give up on our dreams. Over the years, Edie has written for mainstream and transformational publications. She has interviewed hundred of notables in the transformational fields, including Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Debbie Ford, Leonard Peltier, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Beckwith, Jonathan Goldman, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsch, Mary Manin Morrissey, Dan Millman, Alan Cohen, Ram Dass, Jack Canfield, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Patch Adams, Ben and Jerry, Donna DeLory, James Twyman, Elizabeth Lesser, Michael Franti and Jean Houston. Her website is http://www.liveinjoy.org 

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Crazy Whirled by Edie Weinstein

Music feeds my soul and singer songwriters are the farmers whose craft of cultivating fertile fields of rhythm and rhyme, harmony and lyric, bring to the table all manner of nourishment. I am blessed to know many talented musicians in this genre. Among them are a foursome that call themselves…

How to Deal with Anxiety Using the Power of Positive Affirmations by Chantal Beaupre

It can be difficult to do anything with your normal passion and excitement if you are feeling anxious. Anxiety can squelch your motivation and control your life – if you let it. If you have experienced an anxiety attack, you may be fearful of having another one; but living in such fear means you are living in a state of perpetual anxiety. This can happen just because you are afraid of the anxiety itself!

 

Technorati Tags: Glen Campbell, Mahatma Gandhi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stephen Grellet, Try A Little Kindness, Wikipedia, WIlliam Penn

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