Roasted Beet Hummus

                                                                  HOW COOL!

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Prep time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

 

Super creamy roasted beet hummus featuring a whole roasted beet, lemon, plenty of garlic flavor. Perfect with chips, pita, veggies or as a sandwich spread.

Author: Minimalist Baker

Recipe type: Hummus

Cuisine: Vegan

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1 small roasted beet
• 1 15 oz. can (1¾ cup) cooked chickpeas, mostly drained
• zest of one large lemon
• juice of half a large lemon
• healthy pinch salt and black pepper
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 heaping Tbsp tahini
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. See roasting instructions here.
2. Once your beet is cooled and peeled, quarter it and place it in your food processor. Blend until only small bits remain.
3. Add remaining ingredients except for olive oil and blend until smooth.
4. Drizzle in olive oil as the hummus is mixing.
5. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed, adding more salt, lemon juice or olive oil if needed. If it’s too thick, add a bit of water.
6. Will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: ⅙ of batch Calories: 165 Fat: 12 g Carbohydrates: 12 g Sugar: 1.2 g Fiber: 2.6 g Protein: 3.4 g

3.2.1682

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When Less is More: the Concept of Japanese "MA"

Where there is clutter, even valuable things lose their value. Where there is too much, nothing stands out.
The essence of Japanese aesthetic is a concept called 'MA' (pronounced "maah") — the pure, and indeed essential, void between all "things."
A total lack of clutter, MA is like a holder within which things can exist, stand out and have meaning.
MA is the emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled.
(

17 easy-to-start seeds for beginner gardeners

Think you've got a black thumb? Try these easy-to-grow seeds in your garden and change that perception.       Simple and beautiful What more can you ask for ?

Ramon Gonzalez

Mon, Feb 18 2013 at 2:12 PM

 

DIY, Gardening

Photo: Zaretskaya Svetlana/Shutterstock

Starting your own plants from seed is easy. If you've tried to start your own plants from seed in the past without success, give these 17 seeds a try this year. Growing your own garden from seed can be less expensive than buying seedlings from the garden center, and cheaper than buying produce from the supermarket.

 

8 easy edibles to start from seed

Beans: Pole beans or bush beans? It doesn’t really matter because beans are possibly the easiest seeds to start in your garden.

 

Chard: A nutritious leafy green that every first-time gardener should grow. Chard stalks come in a rainbow of colors, but the part we generally eat is the leaf (at right)

 

Cucumbers: Easy to start outdoors directly in the soil when the soil temperature warms up.

 

Radishes: A great crop to plant early in the spring when temperatures can be too cold for anything else.

 

Carrots: Another easy-to-grow root crop for the beginner gardener. Try some of the colorful heirloom varieties for picky eaters, and shorter varieties like "Round Romeo" to replace packaged baby carrots from the supermarket.  

 

Lettuce: Head lettuces are easy to grow, but growing lettuces you can harvest for salads at the leaf stage is easiest for beginner gardeners.

 

Squash: Like cucumbers, squash seeds are easy to sow directly into the soil.

 

Basil: Possibly the easiest herb to start in your garden. There's a wide selection of cultivars with interesting scents if growing basil for pesto doesn't interest you.

 

Growing just a few of these seeds will increase your confidence in your ability to nurture and grow your own food. When you start your own plants from seeds, you know exactly what went into making your food and you can be sure that no harmful chemicals were used to grow what you put on your plate.

 

9 easy annuals to start from seed

Flowers don't just beautify your neighborhood and home. A successful garden needs pollinators, and the flowers you plant in your garden should be thought of as the welcome mat of your garden. Entice the pollinators your vegetables and herbs rely on for pollination by planting these easy-to-grow flower seeds.

 

Cosmos: Airy foliage with daisy-like flowers in shades of white, orange, pink, magenta and yellow. A great annual for gardens with poor soil and for those who want a low-maintenance plant.

 

Sunflowers: Possibly the easiest annual to start in your garden. Sunflowers don't like transplanting, so plant the seed directly into the soil where you want them to grow.

 

Poppies: Annual poppies are easy to start from seed. Sow them directly into a garden bed with poor soil during cool, rainy weather to germinate the seeds.

 

Zinnias: This tough annual comes in a variety of colors and heights. They can tolerate dry and hot conditions. Pinch the buds back to create bushier plants.

 

Bachelor Buttons: Charming white, pink, blue and lavender blooms that do well in poor soil and dry gardens.

 

Marigolds: A classic, easy to grow plant that no garden should be without. They're available in colors and heights beyond the yellow blooms your grandmother grew.

 

Cleome: A great cottage garden plant with an interesting flower form that resembles spiders to some (at right).  

 

Runner beans: Attractive blooms on fast-growing vines that create privacy and shade. Interesting seed pods at the end of the season that are easy to collect.

 

Nasturtiums: Blooms come in a variety of colors. Foliage can be green to blue and variegated. The plant's leafs, blooms and seeds are all edible.

 

Aside from attracting pollinators, the biggest benefit of growing your own blooms is that you have living floral shop just outside your door. Cut your own bouquets throughout the season and give some to friends and family instead of buying costly flowers that have been grown in other countries and shipped around the world.

 

Ramon is the original urban garden blogging male espousing a DIY philosophy to gardening and garden projects. Better known online as MrBrownThumb, he’s been demystifying gardening secrets for average gardeners online since 2005. Besides writing the popular MrBrownThumb garden blog he’s co-founder of @SeedChat on Twitter, the creative director of One Seed Chicago, and founder of the Chicago Seed Library.

 

Related on MNN:

Are You a Minimalist ?

So to everyone who doesn’t think of themselves as a minimalist, just keep in mind that it’s just a word that describes the change in our mindsets from who we were before to who we are now.
Live with less ,but only with the best.  Let this  be a goal!

This means simplicity too !

January 29 2013

How To Be Adaptable - Rule8

Category:  Deepak Quotes

Stop attaching so much weight to being right. In the grand scheme of things, being right is insignificant compared with being happy. 

The 10 Most Important Things to Simplify in Your Life

by joshua becker

“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.” – Thomas Kempis
Simplicity brings balance, freedom, and joy. When we begin to live simply and experience these benefits, we begin to ask the next question, “Where else in my life can i remove distraction and simply focus on the essential?”
Based on our personal journey, our conversations, and our observations, here is a list of the 10 most important things to simplify in your life today to begin living a more balanced, joyful lifestyle:

1. Your Possessions - Too many material possessions complicate our lives to a greater degree than we ever give them credit. They drain our bank account, our energy, and our attention. They keep us from the ones we love and from living a life based on our values. If you will invest the time to remove nonessential possessions from your life, you will never regret it. For further reading on this, consider Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life.
2. Your Time Commitments – Most of us have filled our days full from beginning to end with time commitments: work, home, kid’s activities, community events, religious endeavors, hobbies… the list goes on. When possible, release yourself from the time commitments that are not in line with your greatest values.
3. Your Goals – Reduce the number of goals you are intentionally striving for in your life to one or two. By reducing the number of goals that you are striving to accomplish, you will improve your focus and your success rate. Make a list of the things that you want to accomplish in your life and choose the two most important. When you finish one, add another from your list.
4. Your Negative Thoughts – Most negative emotions are completely useless. Resentment, bitterness, hate, and jealousy have never improved the quality of life for a single human being. Take responsibility for your mind. Forgive past hurts and replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
5. Your Debt – If debt is holding you captive, reduce it. Start today. Do what you’ve got to do to get out from under its weight. Find the help that you need. Sacrifice luxury today to enjoy freedom tomorrow.
6. Your Words – Use fewer words. Keep your speech plain and honest. Mean what you say. Avoid gossip.
7. Your Artificial Ingredients – Avoid trans fats, refined grain (white bread), high-fructose corn syrup, and too much sodium. Minimizing these ingredients will improve your energy level in the short-term and your health in the long-term. Also, as much as possible, reduce your consumption of over-the-counter medicine – allow your body to heal itself naturally as opposed to building a dependency on substances.
8. Your Screen Time – Focusing your attention on television, movies, video games, and technology affects your life more than you think. Media rearranges your values. It begins to dominate your life. And it has a profound impact on your attitude and outlook. Unfortunately, when you live in that world on a consistent basis, you don’t even notice how it is impacting you. The only way to fully appreciate its influence in your life is to turn them off.
9. Your Connections to the World - Relationships with others are good, but constant streams of distraction are bad. Learn when to power off the blackberry, log off facebook, or not read a text. Focus on the important, not the urgent. A steady flow of distractions from other people may make us feel important, needed, or wanted, but feeling important and accomplishing importance are completely different things.
10. Your Multi-Tasking - Research indicates that multi-tasking increases stress and lowers productivity. while single-tasking is becoming a lost art, learn it. Handle one task at a time. Do it well. And when it is complete, move to the next.

693

calm a cold

Seven Natural (and Cheap!) Ways to Calm a Cold

 Photo by Yeron Jeroen van Oostrom/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I've been planning on writing this post for a while, since we're headed into the heart of cold and flu season. Now that I've actually succumbed to a cold myself (after a crazy-busy week last week that pushed me a little further than I wanted to go) it seems appropriate that I get around to sharing my favourite low-cost ways to ease discomfort and promote healing when you've got a bad case of the sniffles.

1. Steam inhalation
A steam inhalation helps to loosen congestion. To prepare one, *carefully* pour boiling water into a heat-proof glass or ceramic bowl. Add 3-5 drops of peppermint or eucalyptus essential oil (or use a combination of both). Place a towel over your head to form a tent and lean over the bowl (be careful not to get too close or you could scald yourself) Remain under the tent for 5-10 minutes, breathing as deeply as possible.


2. Peppermint tea
Not only is mint tea my favourite herbal tea, it's purported to be one of the best herbs for treating a cold. Not only that, if you grow your own, it's also a totally free remedy! Using fresh mint is ideal (mine is still happily growing away in my garden even after repeated frosts); dried will do if that's all you have available. To make fresh mint tea, place several good sized sprigs of mint in your teapot and add boiling water to fill it. Let steep about 10 minutes before pouring.


3. Honey and Thyme Cough Syrup
This homemade cough syrup is simple to prepare and I've found it to be very effective. Pour 1/2 cup of boiling water over 1 tbsp dried thyme. Cover and steep for 20 minutes. Strain into a small saucepan and add 1/4 cup honey. Heat gently until the honey dissolves completely. Cool. Store in a glass jar in the fridge. Take 1 tbsp as often as needed. (Note: honey should NOT be given to children under age one due to the risk of infant botulism).

4. The "Cold Sock Treatment"
A friend turned me onto this a while ago. I know it sounds totally weird, but I have to say that it worked amazingly well for me one night when I was brutally congested and decided to give it a shot.! I had an incredibly restful sleep and was about 95% less congested in the morning. Also, it wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I expected it to be (the thought of putting on cold, wet socks when I felt like crap was not especially appealing). All you need is a pair of cotton socks and a pair of wool socks. The complete instructions can be found here, and you can read more about the theory behind it here. It's recommended that you do this treatment three nights in a row for maximum effectiveness.

5. The Thymus Thump
This is an energy medicine technique that stimulates the immune system. It's very simple and can be repeated multiple times per day.



6. Acupressure
Acupressure can be used both to relieve cold symptoms and to help stimulate the immune system. You can find instructions for acupressure techniques for cold and flu symptoms here.

7. Sleep!
Sleep is the most obvious, and often the most overlooked natural remedy for illnesses. When you get sick, your body's trying to tell you something - it's time to rest! Do everything you can to get as much sleep as possible (that means napping during the day plus a good sleep at night). If you have young children, find someone to watch them for you for an hour or two while you rest. You'll likely get over your cold much faster.

Do you have a favourite, thrifty cold treatment that I haven't mentioned? Please share it with us in the comments!