Spicy low-fat vegetable soup

No way to get around chopping all those veggies.

Carrots, garlic, onions, asparagus stalks, mushrooms...

Then crumbing the 8 oz of tofu (after drying it) then marinating it in soy sauce with cilantro.

Each ingredient was oil-free saute'd in my non-stick skillet. Then added to the crock pot.

I had to add more onion flakes because half my sweet onion had gone bad.

Since I didn't have celery, I found cutting small discs of the aparagus stems gave me just the right crunch.

I used 3 cups of vegetable stock and 3 cups of water, then a cup or more of Rice Dream after all the veggies were cooked (about 3 hours in the crock pot).

I added frozen peas and corn just long enough to cook them.

I may have added more Cayenne (maybe 1/2 Teaspoon) and Cumin (just 1/4 Teaspoon) than I usually would...but I wanted a "hot" spicy soup. I threw in a half can of white beans, a bit of baking soda, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a tablespoon of molasses.

And as I served it I added a big scoop of non-dairy sour cream on top of my bowl. I ate it with crackers too, since it was still pretty darn spicy! My first serving was 2 cups. I had 3 quarts remaining to refrigerate for later!

Today's quote:

The Buddhist tradition is neither a path of denial or affirmation.
It shows us the paradox of the universe, within and beyond
the opposites.  It teaches us to be in the world, but not of the
world.  This realization is called the middle way.

The middle way describes the middle ground between
attachment and aversion, between being and non-being, between
form and emptiness, between free will and determinism.  The
more we delve into the middle way the more deeply we come to
rest between the play of opposites. 

Learning to rest in the middle way requires trust in life itself.

Trusting in the middle way, there is an ease and grace, a
cellular knowing that we, too, can float in the ever-changing
ocean of life which has always held us.

We come to rest in the reality of the present, where all the
opposites exist. T.S. Eliot calls this the "still point of the 

turning world, neither from nor towards, neither arrest or 
movement, neither flesh or fleshless."

The middle path describes the presence of eternity.  In this 
reality, life is clear, vivid, awake, empty and filled with
 possibility.  When we  discover the middle path.....we can
 be with all our experience in its complexity, with our own
 thoughts and feeling and drama as it is.  We learn to embrace
 tension, paradox, change. Instead of seeking resolution, waiting
 for the chord at the end of the song, we let ourselves open and
 relax in the middle. In the middle we discover that
 the world is workable...

Jack Kornfield
From: The Wise Heart

And because I'm about to change the header photo...

I want to keep this one for the memory

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘀.
"Santas" of Northern Russia: on very left, Yamal Iri, the "White Elder" of the Yamal Peninsula, belonging to the indigenous Nentsi people; Second from the left is Russian Ded Moroz himself; Third from the left Chyskhaan, the "Bull Man" of the Sakha people of Yakutia, in Northern Siberia; next one, the lady, is Tugeni Eneken, "Mother Winter", of the Evenki and other tundra nomads; after her is the visiting official Santa Claus of Finland; and then Pokkaine, the youngish "Santa" of the ethnic Karelian people.
Photo: Vladimir Sevrinovsk