Although I choose to eat a Vegan diet which does not include seafood, it is a very personal choice, and I believe the only person that knows what is best for you, is you! That being said no matter what your diet or lifestyle, as human beings I think we should be as environmentally conscious with our food choices as possible. For that reason I am happy to share with you a lovely guest post and eco-friendly seafood recipe!


The following is a guest post by Kate McLaughlin from Blue Ocean Institute

This year, as you look for new ways to be more eco-friendly, why not resolve to be happy?

Just as you’re thoughtful about other environmentally-responsible choices you make (like recycling, or buying farmers market vegetables), you can   be thoughtful about your seafood choices and be happy with the results! When fish are caught or farmed in ways that protect the ocean, that’s something all seafood lovers can be happy about.

For me, being happy is sitting down to a plate of farmed mussels—these guys are ocean-friendly rockstars. 

First off, did you know that half of the seafood produced globally comes from fish farms? That’s a lot of seafood!  Next time you’re at the store, look for signs on the seafood that note whether it’s farmed or wild, and you’ll see there’s more farmed seafood out there than you might have guessed. 

Mussels are an ocean-friendly farmed seafood because you don’t have to feed them—they naturally filter their food from the surrounding water. They can filter 10-15 gallons of water a day—that means they’re eating a lot of microscopic plankton.  It also means we don’t have to go fishing to catch fish to feed to them (as is the case with some farm-raised seafood, like Atlantic salmon).

Mussels are delicious and nutritious on top of all their ocean-friendly qualities (and kids love picking them out of their shells at meal time). 

friendly options, and you and your kids can sign a pledge to support ocean-friendly seafood or post a pic of your best fish face showing your support for the ocean. 

For now, share this farmed mussels dish with your family, and Be Happy!

INGREDIENTS

(Serves 4)

4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 28-ounce can Italian tomatoes in purée  
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound linguini pasta
1/4 cup drained capers
2 pounds mussels, rinsed and debearded
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

DIRECTIONS

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a heavy, large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and pepper flakes and sauté until light golden, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, 1/2 cup of the wine, thyme and tomato paste.
Bring to a boil, breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon. Reduce the heat and
simmer until the sauce is thick and flavors blend, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the remaining 1/2 cup wine and capers to the sauce and bring to a boil. Add the mussels, cover and cook until the mussels open,
about 4 minutes. Discard any mussels that do not open.

Drain the pasta and add to the sauce. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and stir over high heat for 1 minute to blend. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Divide the pasta and mussels among 4 plates. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve immediately.

*HINT FROM THE CHEF
When you get the mussels home, remove them from the plastic bag,
half fill a bowl with ice and place the shells on top. Serve them that same day. Mussels are cooked through when they open; discard any that do not open.
To prepare mussels for cooking, scrub the shells with a stiff brush. Remove any threads extending from the shell (called beards) by grabbing with fingers or a cloth and pulling towards the hinge end of the shell.

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Human beings have a way of taking simple things, and making them difficult. Consider the lawn. We cover our yards with grass – a plant that is simply not meant to grow everywhere. There may be too much or not enough sun, or too much or not enough water. We battle weeds and moss and dogs who would poop on our lawns. We spend large amounts of time and money making the grass grow, only to complain about having to mow it. Why do we do this? I honestly don’t know, and I do it too. It’s just what’s expected of us, and so we plant, maintain and complain about our lawns.

Because of our love of complicating things, we often reject simple answers. “It can’t really be that easy,” we say to ourselves. But what if it was really that easy?

I love that the name of this blog is “Give Love Create Happiness”. It speaks to Wendy Irene’s mission to bring more love into the world. It also reminds me that love is a very simple answer to many of the problems that we encounter in our lives. I really believe that if we could love more, we would lead happier and more fulfilled lives. We would be offering our best selves to the world, and receiving the best from others in return.

There are lots of different kinds of love. There’s romantic love. There’s the
love that a parent holds for a child. There’s the love we have for our families,
the love we have for our friends, the love we have for the people who inspire us and the love we have for people from our past. Biggest of all, there’s the love we have for ourselves. They’re all important, they all make a difference, and if we can hold all of them, we’ll be helping to create a better life for ourselves and others.

I’m a mom, which means that I spend a lot of time doing things for other people. Preparing meals for my children and getting up in the middle of the night when someone has a bad dream come with the territory. As I do this, it’s easy to let my own needs fall by the wayside. I’m very good at giving love, but I’m not always so good at accepting love. And, somewhat ironically, the person I have the hardest time accepting love from is myself.

How would things look different if I placed the love and compassion I have for myself on equal footing with the love and compassion I have for my children? I imagine that I would beat myself up less for making mistakes. I would offer myself understanding if I hadn’t slept well and I was hungry and it was all making me cranky. I would take better care of myself, and make sure my own needs were met. I would make time for the things that I like to do. As a result, I would probably be a happier person. In turn, I would likely be a more patient mother and wife, and better able to offer genuine love to the other people in my life.

Love is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Many of us have spent so long ignoring our own needs that we’re not even sure where to start. It takes time to rediscover where our happiness lies, and to learn how to practice compassion. The good news is that over time you can become better at accepting love, from others and yourself. You just need to be willing to start.

way to teach something to our kids is to model it in our own lives. I want my kids to grow up loving themselves. This means that I need to learn how love myself, so that I am setting a good example for them. Taking time for myself isn’t something I do because I’m selfish, it’s something that I do to increase my own happiness, which makes me a better mother. It’s also something I do so that my children can see how to take care of their own needs.

My own journey towards living a more authentic and purposeful life has grown into something I call Crafting my Life. Crafting my Life is a set of online tools for busy moms who want to create positive change in their own lives. It’s targeted to moms because we have some special constraints in our lives. It’s hard for us to get out of the house to take classes or spend time by ourselves. Crafting my Life is something that you can do on your own schedule, at your own pace, without ever having to leave your house.

We don’t have to make everything in our lives complicated. We can embrace the simple answers, like giving and accepting love. In the process, we’ll be
creating a better world for ourselves and our children. Nothing could be better than that.

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Amber Strocel is a writer, life-crafter, dreamer, and rather shoddy housekeeper who lives in the Vancouver area with her husband and two kids. She’s devoted to simplifying and living a more sustainable life. She helps moms follow their bliss at Crafting my Life, records her daily adventures on her blog Strocel.com, and works as the Content Manager for VancouverMom.ca.

The following is a guest post by Chad & Tammy from Notes on Adding Kindness & Health to the Daily Grind

Eating a Vegan diet does not mean that we only eat granola and berries.  Here is a wonderful meal that we prepare often.  Both of these recipes are from our favourite cookbook, Whole Foods to Thrive(called Thrive Foods in the US).

Kudos to Tammy since it was her night to cook and she had me walking by snapping photo’s while prepping dinner.

 

Assemble the ingredients:

Dressing (makes 4 servings, 1 cup of dressing)
¼ cup cashews
¼ cup water (or less to make a thicker dressing)
¼ cup olive oil
2 ½ tbsp red wine vinegar (we like to use balsamic vinegar)
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 cloves garlic
1 ½ tsp miso paste
3 tbsp wakame flakes (bull kelp or dulse also work)
1 tsp Dijon mustard


Throw them in the blender or food processor.

 
Then let the magic of electricity do its work on the raw ingredients.

Toss a few spoonfuls of the dressing with torn romaine lettuce, and add some fresh cracked black pepper.

This is a great tasting simple salad and doesn’t contain the cholesterol in traditional Caesar Salad dressing. 


Onto recipe number 2!

This is an absolute favourite of ours, I beg Tammy to make it all the time.  The key to making this meal work is the Truffle oil that you drizzle on after. If you don’t have it, you need to get it.  It is a little pricey for a
bottle of Truffle oil, but the flavour is so intense.  With Truffle oil, you only need a little (just enough to make you want more), if you use too much it will overpower your food. 

Yes we use canned artichokes.  We tried using the raw uncut ones once.  It was such a disaster and was so time consuming that we now cheat and use the canned variety.  

Purée Sauce
1 – 2 leeks, cleaned and sliced/diced
4 tbsp olive oil
1 cup artichoke hearts
1 cup peeled and diced parsnip (less is better than more as too much parsnip can be overpowering)
Vegetable stock (enough to cover)
2 tsp nutritional yeast
Salt and Pepper to taste

Additional items
Truffle oil!  
Ground nutmeg
Fresh or dried parsley

Nutritional yeast is a staple in Vegan pantry’s since it is a powerhouse of B vitamins, including the B12 that Vegan diets often lack. Nutritional yeast, sometimes called noosh, has a cheesy taste and can be added to soups, sauces, or sprinkled over popcorn. It is a product of the molasses making process and is available in most whole food grocery stores._Place the leeks in a sauce pan with the oil over medium-low heat to soften

When this is done, make your pasta of choice.  We opted for some pre-made Vegan friendly Sweet Potato and Basil Ravioli. 

Voila! 

Total time to prepare this meal was about 30-40 minutes.  The time taken to eat was much shorter and very delicious.

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Chad and Tammy are both active professionals living in Victoria, BC, Canada.  Between them they have finished 17 Ironman Triathlons around the globe. A year ago they completed their last Ironman and now focus on more simple general health and wellness.
You can follow them on their blog at: http://chad-dalrymple.blogspot.com/
Also, Twitter: http://twitter.com/engineerchad

I’m busy, and my kids are busy. Sometimes there’s little time left to bond as a family. My family spends time together at the dinner table on weekdays making breakfast and watching cartoons on the weekends, but I’ve still had to face the sad fact that quality time is limited. The kids have to do their homework, go to soccer practice, and compete in karate matches. I have to work overtime, study for the online classes I’m taking, cook dinner, and prepare lunches. My husband has to travel a lot for his job, and the time he has to spend with the family is even more limited.

As the days seem to pass by more and more quickly, I realize that my kids are growing up a lot more rapidly than I would have hoped they would. And I also feel as though there’s a pressing need for each member of the family to coordinate schedules and carve out some time to spend together. We’ve started setting aside a few hours every week to dedicate to family bonding, and I think it’s been beneficial for all of us, especially the kids. If you’re struggling to think up simple family bonding activities that will be meaningful but not too time-consuming, consider these:

This is something you can dedicate an hour or two to a week. You can get all of your old family photos together and paste them in a scrapbook. Kids love being able to look at their baby pictures and reminiscing about when they were younger. Be sure to take some recent photos together and include those in your scrapbooks. Your kids may also like to include pictures they’ve drawn, concert and movie ticket stubs, and small things like bookmarks in the scrapbook.

Doing good makes you feel good! Kids often love volunteering at animal shelters, cleaning up parks, and helping plant trees. Helping out the community can be a great way for the family to embrace selflessness and spend quality time working together. Before you volunteer, you’ll have to call local non-profits and figure out which ones allow kids to volunteer.

If the whole family loves ice cream, why not throw an ice cream party every once in a while? You can all set aside some time to just eat ice cream and talk at the kitchen table. If you have some extra time, you could even make your own ice cream with milk, sugar, flavoring, rock salt, ice and Ziploc bags. If you want to mix things up, you could have a family ice cream party one week and a root beer float party the next.

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Author’s Bio: Lisa is a visiting blogger and mom who writes about everything from family relationships to Mario birthday party supplies.