The Art of Intuitive Eating
Our lives,
so seemingly small,
ripple out
to the whole universe
as tiny whispers
like the sounds
of butterfly wings,
and the clear voice
of the living truth.
—J.L.D.
Changes on the Healing Feast! Buckwheat Ragout
Craving something cooked? This buckwheat veggie dish really delivers that cooked food taste and feeling, without any loss of enzymes or nutrients. Start in mid-afternoon for a hearty dinner, and enjoy the fabulous aromas filling your house. As the tomatoes dehydrate, their flavor intensifies. We scrape the glass baking dish for every single bite of this yummy meal! Be sure to warm the plates too (put in dehydrator for 5-10 minutes before serving), to help hold the warmth for a bit longer.

Sprout Salad Ingredients (Serves 2-4)
1 and 1/2 cups buckwheat, sprouted*
1 and 1/2 cups tomatoes, sliced, and chopped
1/2 to 3/4 cup zucchini, super thinly sliced
4 tablespoon green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, optional
1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Sauce
1 cup tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons sweet onion, chopped
1 tablespoon Herbs de Provence mix
1 tablespoon Stone-ground mustard (not dry mustard)

Put tomato, mustard, herbs, and onion, into blender and blend until smooth.

Directions
Put a layer of buckwheat on a glass baking dish, spreading out evenly.
Pour sauce over buckwheat. (I goofed today and poured the sauce last over the veggies. It really works best to pour the sauce over the buckwheat before layering on the veggies. It dehydrates much prettier too.)
Put tomatoes, green onions, and zucchini in a bowl. Add olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic, and mix well.
Layer on top of buckwheat like you would for a pizza.

Garnish with fresh sprigs of rosemary, optional.
Put into dehydrator at 110 degrees for 3 hours. Eat immediately.

*Sprouting directions: One of our readers tipped us off that buckwheat only needs to soak for 30-60 minutes. We were amazed to hear this, tried it, and it has worked even better. All the sprouting charts we've seen indicate the soaking time at about 8 hours. We figured it out that this is for buckwheat with hard hulls that will be grown for buckwheat greens. The shortened soaking time speeds up the sprouting time, so if buckwheat is started the morning before you want to eat it, it's ready by noon the next day. That's about 30 hours of sprouting time. It can sprout longer and still be great.

Soak 3/4 cup buckwheat for 30-60 minutes.
Rinse and drain. We do this by pouring the buckwheat and soak water into a clean strainer, giving it a good long rinse under cool running water, followed by a final rinse with fresh, pure water. Then it's covered with a clean plastic bag. Rinse, drain, and cover every 12 hours until it's ready—about 1 and 1/2 days.

Changes on The Healing Feast: Bi-monthly Format, and Janet's New Book!
We're close to the three year mark for The Healing Feast (we started in November 2007), and now we're feeling it's time for a change from the weekly format: beginning this month, our recipe and story will be sent bi-monthly.

Part of this is due to my new book—Temple Food and the Body as a Sanctuary for Spirit—that will be coming out soon! It's creation (writing, painting, photographing) was a process that was inspirational to be a part of, and we're so happy that it's now ready to share with the world. It will be available as an e-book, and hopefully—if the color comes up to standard—as a printed book. It's size is 8 1/2" x 8 1/2", with content of 130 pages just brimming with full, glorious color!

Temple Food About Temple Food:
Temple Food is about transformation, healing the body and mind, and integrating Soul's energy in a fusion that affects every aspect of our lives. To seek and find the perfect diet is to know oneself. This search is an exploration of the deepest roots in the garden of our being. Food. Love. Life. Such small words with enormous implications, applications, and practices—words that are often intertwined and synonymous with how they make us feel.

In Part One, the book chronicles the story of the various changes that Rex and I have experienced in our diet over the course of forty-two years, and the effects that these shifts have had on our lifestyle and consciousness. (Some of this has been shared on The Healing Feast.) How did we come to view food as a gift that we could bring to a temple as an offering of gratitude and celebration? How did we realize that what we eat is temple food—sustenance for the body that houses Soul? And how did Spirit guide us over the course of many years, always leading us to greater levels of health, awareness, and reverence for life?

Part Two is a feast of contemplation pages about what food has come to mean to us physically and spiritually. Hidden aspects and metaphors about the purpose of eating are presented through poems, prose, and paintings (one of which is used for the cover). Here, the inherent and often more subtle qualities that build abundant health—such as compassion, humility, kitchen yoga, and divine nourishment—are explored and offered as a springboard for everyday, or devotional, practices.

Also Coming on The Healing Feast: Beautiful 16" x 20" ready to frame, archival quality giclee prints from the paintings and poems in the book. No matting is necessary—just pop in a standard size frame and hang on the wall.

And...Upgrading the Archive: this is part of the plan, to do as soon as we can! We want to make the archive a lot easier for you to use by creating the same categories that you'd find in any cookbook: salads, soups, breads, treats, drinks, and so forth.

So even though we won't be dropping by as often in your email box, good things are coming, and more good things are on the horizon. We thank you for all the love and support you've given us these past years. Blessings be!












The Healing Feast is about:
healthful practices,
following our intuition,
& eating life-giving foods.

It's about:
transformation, joy,
inspiration, peace, gratitude,
and soulful beauty.

It's about:
living a life filled
with abundance and love,
& giving what is the best
within ourselves to the world.
"A smile from the heart is a gift to receive."
—JLD