Carrot Cake

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For years, I’ve been making vegan carrot cakes from recipes I find online or from vegan cookbooks, but recently I wanted to play around and create my own recipe. The recipes I had been using were good, but I always found something I didn’t like about the recipes – either they were too springy/spongy, too sweet, too clove-y, etc. I love carrot cake and I hadn’t yet found the recipe that mirrored what I wanted the cake to be when I imagined eating it. So this is the result.

It’s moist, dense (but not overly so), not-too-sweet, and I think the lemon cream cheese frosting is a nice contrast to the cake. I’ve included raisins in the recipe, which are optional of course. If you’re a nuts-in-cake kind of person, you might want to add 1/2 – 2/3 CUP chopped walnuts either to the cake batter when you add the raisins and carrots, or you could finely chop them and sprinkle on top of the frosting.

The Recipe

Makes one 13 x 9 pan

2 1/4 CUP all-purpose flour

3 TSP baking powder

1 TSP baking soda

1 TSP salt

2 TSP cinnamon

2 TSP ground ginger

1/8 TSP nutmeg

1 CUP nondairy milk

2 TSP vanilla

1/2 CUP applesauce

1/2 CUP vegetable oil

2/3 CUP sugar

2 1/2 CUPS grated carrots

1 CUP raisins

Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan (I used a little coconut oil). In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, oil, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing only enough to combine. Fold in the grated carrots and raisins. Spread evenly in the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). While the cake bakes, you can make the frosting.

FOR THE FROSTING:

1/4 CUP vegan cream cheese

1/4 CUP coconut oil (I used refined coconut oil so it wouldn’t have a coconut taste, but you can use unrefined if you like the coconut flavor)

~3 CUPS powdered sugar

1 TSP vanilla

2 TBLS lemon juice

1 1/2 TBLS lemon zest

In a food processor or with an electric mixer, blend the coconut oil and cream cheese together until smooth. (You can do mix this with a spatula or spoon by hand if you’re feeling strong.) Add the vanilla and lemon zest. Add a cup of the powdered sugar and the lemon juice and blend to combine. Add the remaining powdered sugar a cup at a time. Taste and adjust vanilla, lemon juice, zest. You can also add additional sugar if you like a stiffer texture and to add more volume. There’s lots of flexibility with this frosting recipe and I often just eyeball the measurements and taste as I go.

Cool the cake completely before spreading the frosting evenly over the cake. You can zest a little lemon on top for decoration, if you’re feeling fancy. Store the cake in the fridge until you’re ready to eat it. Enjoy!

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Blueberry Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

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Hello! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the summer so far! It has been so freaking hot here in Seattle this summer so far. I’ve been doing a lot of sitting front of the fan writing and eating cold watermelon, popsicles, and icy smoothies. I’m finishing up my book manuscript right now and it’s actually been fun being in a regular writing routine.

Anyway, I’ve spent the last 6 or 8 months doing a lot of not cooking, but the last few weeks I’ve definitely been starting to come out of this rut of not being inspired to cook. I’ve just finished up my last quarter of teaching for the school year (today was my last day!) and did some baking for our last couple of classes. For today’s class, I made this blueberry cake with lemony cream cheese frosting. Last week, I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (I’ll post the recipe for that one soon).

I wanted to do something with the blueberries we had in the fridge since it’s blueberry season and I love the combination of lemon and blueberry. This cake is moist, sweet and with a nice brightness from the lemon.

The Recipe

Makes a 9 x 13 pan

FOR THE CAKE:

2 1/4 CUPS all-purpose flour

3 TSP baking powder

1 TSP baking soda

1 TSP salt

1/2 TSP cinnamon

1 CUP non-dairy milk

2 TSP vanilla

1/2 CUP vegetable oil

3/4 CUP sugar

1/2 CUP applesauce

2 TBLS lemon zest

2 CUPS blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat the oven to 325° F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan (I used a little coconut oil). In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, oil, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing only enough to combine. Fold in the blueberries. Spread evenly in the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). While the cake bakes, you can make the frosting.

FOR THE FROSTING:

1/4 CUP vegan cream cheese

1/4 CUP coconut oil (I used refined coconut oil so it wouldn’t have a coconut taste, but you can use unrefined if you like the coconut flavor)

~3 CUPS powdered sugar

1 TSP vanilla

2 TBLS lemon juice

1 1/2 TBLS lemon zest

In a food processor or with an electric mixer, blend the coconut oil and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the vanilla and lemon zest. Add a cup of the powdered sugar and the lemon juice and blend to combine. Add the remaining powdered sugar a cup at a time. Taste and adjust vanilla, lemon juice, zest. You can also add additional sugar if you like a stiffer texture and to add more volume. There’s lots of flexibility with this frosting recipe and I often just eyeball the measurements and taste as I go.

Cool the cake completely before spreading the frosting evenly over the cake. Store the cake in the fridge until you’re ready to eat it. Enjoy!

Also, if you’re on Instagram, I’d love to connect over there. I’m @veganserenity

Ethics of Zoos

Thank you all so much for your kind words and sharing your experience both publically and privately about Maizy’s death. It means a lot to me to be part of this broader online community.

Last month I had the opportunity to do a short interview on the local KUOW radio station. The topic was the ethics of zoos. This was in the wake of Bamboo and Chai, the last two elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo, being moved to the Oklahoma City zoo. This move was highly contentious, especially with a California sanctuary for elephants offering to take in the elephants so that they could live out their days in a sanctuary.

Here’s the link to the interview. And if you scroll down further on the page, you can also listen to the pro-zoo perspective.

What do you think about zoos and their place in society?

Connect with Serenity in the Storm on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and/or Twitter. To check out and/or purchase Serenity in the Storm’s new e-book, Gently Raw, CLICK HERE.

On Death and Dying, or Mourning Maizy

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At the beginning of October this past fall, we found out that sweet Maizy had a large cancerous tumor in her chest, surrounding her heart. She stayed in hospital for a couple of days, while they ran tests and tried to get her heart rate under control. We were able to bring her home – and continued to consult veterinary specialists, surgeons, and our regular vet about what, if anything, we could do. She was not a good candidate for surgery and we made the decision to just try to keep her comfortable and happy for whatever little time she had left. The specialists predicted she wouldn’t have more than a few months.

It was the first of October when we got the diagnosis. By the first of January, Maizy was gone. In the months leading up to her death, I thought a lot about death and dying and what it means to be in a position of deciding when and how an animal whose care I was responsible for would die. Eric and I talked at length about the ethics of making these decisions – the power relations inherent to deciding to kill, or end the life of, another being. We wanted, more than anything, for her to have as many good moments as possible and no moments of pain and suffering. Sometimes, in the difficulty of letting go of those we love, we can hold on too long and cause those who are dying unnecessary or lingering pain. We didn’t want to do that with Maizy.

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From living with dogs, I think I understand that they live in the moment – her joy in moments of play, her ecstasy while having her belly or her butt scratched, her glee at tearing the stuffing out of her stuffed hedgehog and watching eagerly as I stuffed it back in so she could pull it out again. We wanted her to have as many of these moments of joy as possible. But lurking behind this hope was also the knowledge that living in the moment might make moments of pain and suffering all that much worse.

Euthanasia literally means “a gentle or easy death” or “a good death.” We spent the fall preoccupied not only with trying to make every day a good one for Maizy, but also worrying about what a good death would be for her. We watched her closely, trying to ensure that she was properly medicated with her pain relievers and calling the vet to adjust medications so that she would be more comfortable. We took her on her own walks, separate from the beagles so she could have alone time with us and go at her own pace. We got her some new orthopedic dogs beds to try to make her sleeping during the day more comfortable. She would paw at the edge of our bed at night and we continued to lift her frail body up onto the bed so she could sleep with us. I got her hedgehog out each day and let her pull the stuffing out over and over. We snuck her extra treats when the beagles weren’t looking.

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After her diagnosis, she had almost three months of good moments and then, suddenly, the moments weren’t good and we knew it was time. My dad was staying with us when we took her into the vet to be euthanized. It was early in the morning and Eric rode in the back seat with Maizy, petting her and telling her what a sweet dog she was. I drove. In the room at the vet, we sat around her petting her and talking to her, trying to put her at ease and make sure she felt loved and care for. She wagged her tail. And then the vet injected the drug and she laid her head down on the bed and Eric felt her heart stop.

Mourning Maizy has preoccupied a lot of my conscious and subconscious energy these last months. I still wake up before dawn and expect her to be there sprawled across the end of the bed. I still sit at my computer working and catch a glimpse of her wiggly yellow self out of the corner of my eye or I imagine that I hear her tail thumping on the floor, reminding me that it is time for a walk. Every time I see a yellow lab on the street, I tear up. I replay her death over and over in my mind. I hope it was a good death. And I hope she had a good life with us. I think she did.

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I learned so much from Maizy about joy and love and forgiveness and healing. Knowing her and loving her taught me how to love in a whole new way. She was the first dog I had ever lived with and being with her opened my heart so much to thinking about other animals and the impact we have on their wellbeing and care. She had already gone through so much neglect and hardship when we first met her. Our neighbor had taken her in temporarily while she was looking for a permanent home for her, and I remember the first time I saw her so vividly: I came out into our yard, looked over our neighbor’s fence, and there she was – a big smile on her face and her tail wagging emphatically. I loved her immediately.

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Winnie the Pooh once said, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” I feel so lucky to have shared these years with Maizy, so lucky to have learned from her and loved her, and I feel so sad that she is gone.

Piglets at Pigs Peace

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I’ve been trying to decide what would be a good subject to blog about as a return to writing here on the blog. This has been a rough year for a number of reasons and, in the midst of everything, blogging has felt impossible. I’ve been doing lots of other writing this year, but somehow the idea of writing something for the blog has felt momentous and weighty. I have started blog posts a dozen times and abandoned them, unable to make it past a few sentences.

It had been months since I had not only blogged, but also since I had visited Pigs Peace Sanctuary. Then, a couple of weeks ago, we went to volunteer at the sanctuary and visit some new piglets who are living there. There’s something about being at a place like Pigs Peace that opens your heart up, even if you didn’t know it was closed off. Sanctuaries are places of healing not only for the animals who live there, but for the humans who volunteer and visit. Being at Pigs Peace again reminded me of the love and light in the world and the enormously moving experience of being in relationship with other species. I felt something shift inside me while I was there.

In that spirit, here are some light-hearted pictures from Pigs Peace – it’s difficult to look at them without smiling.

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As a sanctuary, Pigs Peace does not breed animals, so there are rarely, if ever, baby animals at the sanctuary.

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Now and then, Judy Woods (the founder/director) will take in an orphaned piglet or two, but this was the first time piglets were born at the sanctuary. Judy recently took in one new mom and her piglets and two pregnant pigs, both of whom have subsequently given birth at the sanctuary.

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One of the volunteer jobs right now is to hang out with the piglets and help them get socialized to humans. You can guess where I spent my volunteer hours. That’s right – lollygagging around in the piglet area, covered in hay, letting the babies climb all over me and nibble on my fingers and clothes!

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What a treat to see piglets get to play with their siblings and nurse from their mom, knowing that they will get to spend their whole lives together as a family at the sanctuary. Most farmed animals are separated from their siblings and parents just hours or days after birth, so there is a real poignancy in these pigs getting to enjoy being a family.

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It’s always hard to leave Pigs Peace – it is such a special place. There is a fundraising drive currently ongoing for Pigs Peace to get a much-needed new van for transporting pigs to and from the vet, and to support other dimensions of sanctuary life like daily piglet care! If you feel so inclined, you can donate here.

I hope you are all doing well and finding things each day to inspire you.

Teaching & Learning at Pigs Peace Sanctuary

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This summer, I taught a course called Animals, Ethics and Food: Doing Multispecies Ethnography at the University of Washington in the Comparative History of Ideas Program (CHID). The course was unique because we got to travel to Pigs Peace Sanctuary for one day per week. While at the sanctuary, students were each paired with a singular pig for the quarter and wrote ethnographies of the pigs’ lives and experiences of life at the sanctuary. They learned their histories from before the sanctuary, they came to understand certain features of the sanctuary as a place in the world, and they learned about the care of pigs as a species in general. Judy Woods, the director of Pigs Peace, shared so much wisdom and experience about how she learned about pig care and how the sanctuary evolved based on the needs and preferences of the pigs. The experience was *wonderful* and I can’t wait to teach it again (hopefully next summer). Here is a short article just published in the CHID Newsletter recapping the quarter and talking a bit more in depth about our work together with the pigs at the sanctuary.

Everyday Oatmeal

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The weather has started to turn here – it’s starting to feel distinctly like fall. The days are shorter, the weather cooler, and we’re starting to have more rainy, cloudy days as we head toward the winter months. But we are still enjoying the last of the summer produce. As the seasons shift, I like to incorporate warmer breakfasts into my routine, rather than the usual smoothies or fruit. Oatmeal is one of my favorites.

I’m a bit horrified to realize how long it has been since my last blog post. Since Charlotte died, the other chickens – George and Jane – have been really subdued. I think they were attached to Charlotte and her absence from the flock is definitely noticeable. This summer has proven to be enormously busy with projects and work of my own creation. I’m in the midst of applying for jobs, prepping for the two classes I’m teaching at UW this fall, working on writing projects, travelling for conferences and some new research, and – excitingly – working on a book from my dissertation on the lives of cows in the dairy industry (stay tuned for more details on that in the coming months). At the same time, I’ve been extremely unmotivated in the cooking department and even more unmotivated in the recipe creation department. All this to say that these conditions have not been so great for consistency in posting on the old blog.

Oatmeal, of course, is ridiculously easy to make, so this is not really a recipe. Just follow the cooking instructions on whatever kind of oats you buy. I’ve been enjoying steel cut oats lately, which take a bit longer to cook, but have a chewier, nuttier texture that I like.

Preparation

Cook oatmeal according to package instructions

While cooking, I like to add a pinch of salt and a sprinkle of cinnamon (you could also add more spices to make it more fall flavored – like ground ginger, clove, nutmeg, etc. if you like)

I like to top it with nuts, fruit, seeds, etc.

Here, I’ve done a combination of the last of the summer nectarines, raw walnuts and unsweetened coconut flakes. Perfection!

If you like a sweeter breakfast, you can had some brown sugar, molasses, or maple syrup to sweeten it up.

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I hope you all are doing well out there in your various corners of the world!

Goodbye to Charlotte

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Charlotte died on Friday, and I feel really sad. She was a beautiful and expressive chicken, who was also bossy and opinionated – and a little cranky a lot of the time.

I noticed she was looking a little droopy and not very energetic and, when we checked her out, we discovered that she was in horrible shape. When we looked at her back end, it looked like her insides were coming out of her vent (the opening out of which she lays eggs and poops). I immediately called the vet and they said it sounded like a prolapsed uterus (common in chickens) and we should bring her in immediately. Eric rushed her to the vet and it turned out to not be a prolapsed uterus, but a tear in the abdominal wall. The ‘insides’ that we were seeing were not her uterus, but her intestines and other organs. Tears in the abdominal wall, according to the bird specialist who treated her, are not uncommon in chickens, but they are usually small (smaller than a quarter). This tear was as large as a tennis ball. The vet says this happens for all kinds of unavoidable reasons (the skin tissue can get too dry and tear easily, they can happen from getting pecked aggressively by other birds, and they can just occur from getting injured in normal chicken day-to-day activities exploring the yard).

The vet recommended euthanasia. She said that she could do a series of heroic measure surgeries, but she was not hopeful that Charlotte would recuperate even after those. So we made the decision to have her euthanized. The vet microwaved some fresh corn and Eric fed it to her by hand as her last meal. She hadn’t wanted to eat her favorite treats at home earlier in the day, but she gobbled up all of the corn and Eric was with her when she died.

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It was a year or two before we went vegan that we got chickens. We were committed to the locavore/so-called ‘humanely raised’ lifestyle at the time and thought that raising chickens for eggs in our backyard would be a way to embody a greater ethic of care while still eating eggs. We bought chicks for $1.75 each from a country feed store. We named them Emily and Charlotte after the Bronte sisters. They lived in our office under heat lamps until they were old enough to move outside into the coop we had built for them in the backyard. The first few nights after we brought them home, Eric and I set our alarm to go off periodically in the night so that we could check to make sure the heat lamp was the right temperature – we were terrified of accidentally killing them with too much or too little heat.

It was actually raising the chickens in our home like that – and coming to love them – that made us stop eating chickens first and then other animals. Soon after we raised those two chicks, we bought two more chicks to join our backyard flock – Jane (Austen) and George (Elliott). The four of them lived pretty good lives in our backyard, having free reign of the whole fenced-in yard – lots of bushes to hide under, grass and bugs to eat, dry dirt areas where they would take their dust baths, and a safe coop with food and water where they slept, ate, and laid eggs.

A chicken can live up to 15 years, but most hens who are kept as pets and backyard flocks don’t live longer than 5-7 years (much longer, of course, than commercially raised hens, but still only a fraction of their potential life course). Hens, even non-industrial breed hens, have a certain amount of suffering and truncated lifespan written into their genetic code. Chickens have been bred to over-produce eggs and this intensity of egg production leads to serious problems with their reproductive systems, and these complications often lead to death.

A few years ago, Emily started looking droopy and we took her to the vet, only to discover that she had ovarian cancer (common in hens bred for laying eggs). Over several months, she battled the cancer – we gave her regular antibiotic injections to fight infection in her body, the vet drained fluid from her abdominal cavity regularly, and her quality of life was deteriorating fast. In the last days, I worked at my computer with Emily on my lap and petted her soft feathers while she made her sweet soft cooing sound. After several days of that, she grew so weak that we made the decision to euthanize her. I called the vet, told them we were on our way, and, as I was lifting her into the carrier, she died in my hands.

When Emily died, Charlotte was grief stricken. For several months after, she would spend her days wandering the yard, making a moaning sound that we had never heard before. Eventually she settled into life with just Jane and George as her flock, but she had felt the loss of Emily keenly (they were very bonded).

Raising chickens for eggs (even non-industrial breeds) supports a system of exploiting animals for their productive and reproductive outputs. When we bought those chicks at the feed store, we supported a system of breeding animals with a predisposition for suffering. We supported the interstate transport and shipping of live chicks, many of whom die in transit, but are worth so little (in economic terms) that there is a high margin of ‘acceptable losses’ – in fact, some chick-shipping companies state explicitly that you should order twice or three times as many as you actually want, since so many die in transport or soon after. Some companies will use male chicks as insulation, placing them on the outer (cold) edges of the shipping containers in the hopes of keeping the female chicks warm enough to survive transport.

It wasn’t until Emily got sick that it really hit home for me how bizarre it is that chickens lay so many eggs. Average ‘laying hens’ produce about 300 eggs per year – nearly one per day. What other bird or animal produces one egg every day?! The strain on the body and the nutrients leached from the body in egg laying are immense. When I did my research for my dissertation and visited several sanctuaries for formerly farmed animals, I asked each sanctuary what they did with the eggs the chickens laid. The response was that they hardboiled them, crushed them (shells and all), and fed them back to the chickens as a way to replenish the important nutrients they lost in laying them. When I got home from my research, we started this practice with our chickens. Hopefully this helped them be a little healthier.

Eric brought Charlotte’s body home and let the other chickens, Jane and George, say goodbye. Jane pecked at Charlotte’s body and stayed close by while Eric dug the grave. We buried Charlotte next to Emily and marked her grave with a nice rock. I don’t regret that we got to share our lives with Charlotte and Emily (and still share our lives with Jane and George). We learned a lot from them and they set us on the path to becoming vegan. I don’t regret any of that, but I do regret that we bought them in the first place – that we supported and perpetuated a system of animal use and that they suffered at the ends of their lives as a result.

Chocolate Peanut Rice Crispy Treats

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So yesterday was the last day of my summer class on doing multispecies ethnography and we spent the day at Pigs Peace Sanctuary. The students turned in their ethnographies on Tuesday and presented them for the class and so yesterday we spent our time volunteering at the sanctuary – it was raining hard the whole time and after we were done working, we all had lunch in the education center with Judy Woods (the director of the sanctuary) and Michelle, a volunteer. I brought the fixings for tacos and then made these rice crispy treats for dessert. They are vegan and gluten free.

(What makes regular rice crispy treats not vegan, you might wonder? Well, the butter for one, but that is easily replaced. And marshmallows contain gelatin, so I used vegan marshmallows from Dandies company, which you can get at natural foods stores like PCC or Whole Foods, or Vegan Haven in Seattle).

I’ll do a full post with a recap of teaching soon, but for now here’s the recipe for these tasty treats, which are so easy and quick to make.

The Recipe

Makes a 13×9-inch pan

1/4 CUP vegan shortening or coconut oil (plus a little for greasing the pan)

5 CUPS vegan marshmallows (I used Dandies brand)

7 CUPS rice crispies (I used brown rice crispies)

1 package vegan chocolate chips

1 TSP vegetable oil

1 CUP lightly salted peanuts, chopped

In a large saucepan, melt the shortening/coconut oil on low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir constantly until the marshmallows are completely melted, gooey and combined with the oil/shortening. When there are no lumps remaining, turn off the heat and stir in the rice crispy cereal. Stir until fully combined so that the marshmallow has evenly coated the cereal. Grease the 13×9 pan, and press the rice crispy mixture firmly into the pan. Let cool completely. Melt the chocolate chips over low heat (in a double boiler, or just very carefully in a well-insulated pan) and stir in the 1 TSP of vegetable oil. Turn the rice crispy treats (as one solid block) out onto a clean cutting board. Pour melted chocolate over the top and smooth out with a spatula evenly, letting it drip down the sides if you like (for dramatic effect, of course). While the chocolate is still warm, sprinkle the peanuts on top. Let cool completely. When cool, cut into squares and serve. Store in an airtight container if you’re not planning to eat them all at once.

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Red Lentil Artichoke Stew

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Things with Maizy have been rough. She spent last Friday in the ICU trying to get her IBD under control. She’s stable for now and home with us. Her spirits are pretty good, and she’s been resting a lot at home. It was an emotionally taxing weekend for all of us. During stressful times like these, it’s nice to have some nourishing comfort food. This stew is really easy to make, filling but light enough to eat in summer, and it’s also not bad cold. This is even good (and even more simple) without the artichoke hearts, if you don’t have any lying around.

The Recipe

Serves 4-5

1 medium onion, diced

1 TSP ground cumin

1 TSP ground coriander

4 CUPS water or vegetable broth

1 CUP dried red lentils

1 16-OZ can diced tomatoes (with liquid from can)

~2 cups quartered artichoke hearts (canned with water drained OR frozen)

salt and red chili pepper to taste

1/2 CUP chopped cilantro

juice of 1 lime or lemon

Saute the onions in a little water (or splash of oil of your choice). When slightly softened, stir in the cumin and coriander and let the spices bloom for a few minutes. Add all other ingredients (except the lime and cilantro). Bring to a boil, cover, turn down to low, and simmer for 25-30 minutes until lentils are well-cooked and falling apart, and the flavors are mingled. Add the fresh cilantro and the juice of one lemon or line. Adjust salt and spice as desired. Enjoy!

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