Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Chickpea Tofu and Vegan Frittata



Chickpea Tofu and Vegan Frittata . Last winter while camping at Yowah a nice lady named Dawn gave me a recipe for chickpea tofu. I got around to making my first batch last week. Then brainstorming with my friend Robyn we wondered if you could use it to make a vegan frittata. Yes you can and its delicious. Here's what you do. For the frittata bit pre prepare some vegetables by stir frying about two cups of your favourite veggies. Zucchini, ginger, mizuna with coriander, cumin, asafoetida, tumeric and a little pepper works well. Once cooked place on the bottom of a flan dish and set to one side. Next you will need one cup of chickpea flour and three cups of water. First place the flour and half the water in a large cooking pot. Mix until a smooth consistency. Then add the rest of the water. Stir well. Now bring the mixture to a boil and turn down to simmer, stirring all the while. You can't walk away from this, you must keep stirring if you want to avoid lumps. The mixture should take between five to eight minutes to thicken to a consistency that looks like one of those bubbling mud lakes you see around Rotarua in New Zealand. Even makes the same plop plop sound. Once it has thickened remove from the heat and immediately pour into the pre prepared flan tray. Smooth the top and let it cool then refrigerate until fully set. Slice and pan fry to rewarm as needed.

We are all just pixels of light - an introduction to "An open connection of the heart"

What I set out to introduce in my latest novel "An Open Connection of the Heart" was the idea that an unbounded connection with each other and the cosmos is more important than our day to day attachments. One of the main characters, Russell, must come to grips with the fact that he is no longer truly physical. Once he comes to terms with it he realizes that he is no longer constrained by the normal boundaries we perceive. Towards the end of the book he explains to Sam, as much as he's managed to work out: 

“I am pixels of light. I’m only solid if I wear this,” he indicated the pendant, “and put my mind into it. My body only exists as a projection of my mind. My body exists within me. Not me within my body.”
Sam nodded. “It’s quite the opposite of what most people think, but go on.”
“You are pixels of light too. It’s just you believe in your solidity as THE reality.”
Sam thought back to how she had pulled Naira out of the stasis pod, using the firm belief that the pod did not exist and that Naira was made of light. “Everything is that, isn’t it? Particles of light in the visible light spectrum which our brain processes as solid with boundaries defining body, self and other.”
“That’s what I’ve been mulling over as I adjust to what I am now, but I think you’ve described it better.”
“So if everything is really particles vibrating at a certain frequency, with no particular boundaries defining separate people or things what makes you you and me me?”
“I haven’t worked that out yet but I’m starting to think those people you’re talking about are our own fictions, characters in a story we’re dreaming into existence.”

The book is much more than a spotlight on my usual non-dual philosophy. It's also an adventure. One with aliens, androids, human scientists and a sentient slime mold. All of them must work together if they are to make a new life for themselves on the surface of a planet that, until now, appeared dead.

Available now at all good online vendors.