Roasted Cauliflower, Beer & Lime Tacos with Cilantro Coleslaw

This recipe for vegan cauliflower tacos is the first dinner recipe I’ve come across in a long time I actually felt I could recommend on the BLOG. That’s probably because it is a modification of a recipe from Thug Kitchen: eat like you give a fuck

Note: our vegan cauliflower tacos weren’t technically vegan in the end because I had to add sour cream. Just giving you a little truth in journalism since there doesn’t seem to be much of that these days. Enjoy your tacos.

Another Note: ThugKitchen recipes are a staple in my kitchen and should be for anyone looking to start or expand their vegetarian and vegan cuisine options.

Make the Cauliflower Filling

Taco Ingredients
1 Head cauliflower ( I used yellow cauliflower)
3/4 c beer
1/4 c vegetable broth
1 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp hot sauce
1 to 2 cloves garlic minced
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp garlic powder
pinch of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 yellow onion chopped
6 corn tortillas
1 avocado sliced

1–Chop cauliflower into small florets no bigger than a quarter. In a saucepan, warm the beer, broth, lime juice, soy sauce, hot sauce, and garlic over medium heat.

2–In a large bowl, toss the spices, salt, and olive oil together. Add the cauliflower and onion and still until coated. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees until it is browned. This should take about 20 minutes.

Make the Lime and Cilantro Slaw

Slaw Ingredients
1/2 head of cabbage (I used red for drama)
1 small carrot
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
dash of salt
1/3 c chopped cilantro

3–To make the lime and cilantro slaw, cut the cabbage into thin strips or dice into small cubes. Dice the carrot or cut it into strips as well. Mix together, the lime juice, vinegar, oil, and salt. In a bowl, combine the veggies and the sauce and mix well.

Put Those Vegan Cauliflower Tacos Together

4–Warm the tortillas in the oven and pile them high with the cauliflower filling, slices of avocado, lime cilantro slaw, and salsa.

Quick, Hold My Temper

Today, on my flight from San Diego to Sonoma, I received a lesson in the importance of context in relationships from the couple seated behind me.

The couple was bickering behind me:

Lady: hold this
Man: what is this? Are you going to have me hold your water?
Lady: yes
Man: well, what are you holding?
Lady: my temper
Man: okay

Nice work, lady. You sure told him, I thought.

Later, as they deplaned and I watched her patiently guide him down the aisle between the seats, I realized that what I had registered as a smartass comment from a bitter husband was actually a legitimate inquiry from a blind man who just wanted to know what he was holding.

Context is EVERYTHING.

Namaste.

This article originally published on http://www.groundingup.com. Go here for more real life application of yoga philosophy

I wonder if the dry cleaner is open

For those of you just catching up, my family and I evacuated to Lodi, California last Sunday when the Northern California wildfires first struck in our hometown of Santa Rosa.

Seven days later and we are still here in Lodi, but packing up to go home to what is left of the town and surrounding communities.

Lodi is just 2 hours away, but here, you would never suspect that anything is amiss back at home. The skies here are blue, the air is fresh, and nothing is on fire.

Our little clan has much anxiety around going home for obvious reasons. What will it be like? When will it feel normal to live there again? How can we go to work if the kids aren’t in school and our nannies are still evacuated? How to we get the utilities turned back on? Do we really need a gas mask? These are all very valid questions and concerns. But what about the seemingly trivial ones?

My morning meditation was plagued with these. A list of questions an concerns harassed me today as I began to anticipate the return home. And they made me feel like a real shit head for thinking them. For example,

“I wonder if my dry cleaner burned down; I have those meetings next week and I really need those dresses.”

Will Amazon still deliver to my house? If not, when will they resume that service?

“I hope I don’t have to start using a different grocery story; it is a complete pain to learn where things are in other stores.”

This can’t be who I am, right? People have lost their lives, homes, and livelihoods, and I’m worried about my work wardrobe, two day shipping, and finding a new milk aisle.

Maybe it’s just too much to even comprehend from this far away. Hopefully, when I’m home and faced with the reality of what happened there, I can be the person who finds meaningful ways to contribute and rebuild.

This article originally published on www.groundingup.com

Truth on the Train

Sorrento, Italy – Today on the train to Pompeii, I heard a man from Southern Florida tell a Napoli local that it gets so hot where he is from that even the animals die from heat stroke.

As a matter of fact, a few years back, a black cat just up and keeled over on the hot pavement right in front of him. He went on to explain that he immediately submerged the heat afflicted animal in a nearby river where the cat was promptly revived enough to scratch up his bare arm somethin’ terrible.

Watching this man tell his bullshit story I could see that he believed every word was true. It was also clear that the train passenger he was telling it to didn’t speak english and didn’t likely care if the story was true or a complete fabrication.

But the story made me think about truth and its subjectivity.

It is entirely possible that the cat was just laying down in front of the man hoping for a scratch behind the ears and instead ended up a victim of near drowning at the hands of a South Floridian with a hero complex.

I’m on the Amalfi coast this week at a yoga retreat, so truth or Satya is top of mind for me. Yoga, asana and meditation, offer a path to seeing things as they truly are, without the layers of bullshit we as humans pile on. Witnessing and understanding things just as they are.

Maybe he really did save the cat, maybe it was just a grim misunderstanding. But getting to the truth is a life’s work and in the case of this man’s story, we will never know what exactly went down. So chalk this up as another of life’s great mysteries.

This article originally published on GroundingUp