I
tried painting,
but it was easier to fly slicing
potatoes - Rabia
(Image / Natashas's Kitchen)
Rooting Within Yourself / Barley and Vegetable Stew
2 tablespoons butter or gee
1 tablespoon neutral oil
1 small red onion, finely chopped
3 cups mixed, 1/2-inch diced root vegetables, peeled and cut in a uniform size - red beets, sunchokes, fingerling potatoes
½ cup frozen or fresh sweet corn
½ cup roughly diced red cabbage
¼ to ½ cup minced beet greens
½ cup pearled barley - rinsed
A handful of radishes for garnishing – cut into match sticks
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth – adjust as needed
1 tablespoon lemon zest
Sour cream or plain full fat Greek yogurt – for garnish
2 - 6 tablespoons chopped dill - plus more for garnish
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper - to taste
Actions
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot melt the butter and oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the root vegetables and cabbage, cook until they are browned in spots, about 5 minutes.
Add the barley and broth and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables and barley are tender, about 25 minutes.
Transfer 1 cup of the soup to a blender and puree until smooth. Return the pureed soup to the pot and stir in the corn, cook for about 5 minutes, add zest, beet greens, and dill, cook for about 3 more minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. After placed in a bowl top with sour cream or yogurt, radishes, dill and sauerkraut cradled on top.
Narrative: This dish brings understanding that the body is the present focus of personal consciousness and that cosmic consciousness is not “out there,” but that it resonates within you; being sacramentally rooted in Self and surroundings; knowing that your environment is alive and reacts to your awareness; being commander of your own form and reality; pleasure in being alive.
You might serve this dish to achieving the awareness that life does not happen to you; ending internal isolation by merging with the divine and bringing goals to fruition through focused attention and activity leading to a happy, secure, abundant life.
Stars of the Dish
The following are the subtle energy signatures featured in this soup
Beetroot: this penetrating vegetable opens the door to your inner realms, including past-life recall, family linage, cellar memory, and supports the conscious mind in exploring many aspects of the self previously unknown, restoring and integrating these aspects for use in daily life.
Beet Greens: the leaves of the beet plant can help you keep with your long-term goals with faith, perseverance, and endurance.
Red Cabbage: helps heal the sensation of loss of success or abundance and feelings that because you didn’t succeed in the past you cannot succeed in the future. This vegetable supports the need for individuality and a life-path direction informed by soul.
During sauerkraut fermentations, lactic acid bacteria change vegetable sugars to acids and flavor compounds. Energetically fermentation brings the vibrational signature of understanding the distinctions between the parts and the whole, the word ‘phase’ comes to mind which suggests the distinction between the invisible cycle and the visible phase through which the cycle is manifested. This essential paradox, which leads the mind beyond the frame of senses, is that cycle, the whole, the invisible but yet contains visible phases--nevertheless the visible comes out of and falls back into the invisible—like being born and dying and being born again. This energy is unending and uninterrupted, permeates all things, and is shown in which flowering in decay and fermentation, indestructibility in the midst of destruction.
Corn: brings fertility and supports alignment with the earth’s energies, opening you to the cornucopia that life offers and providing an earthly groundedness. A sacred plant of Native Americans, it ushers in abundance on all levels, especially the joy and pleasure associates with the feminine. Corn supports increased creativity and birthing the projects that result, and is useful for fostering friendships and associations based on mutual support and growth by promoting the synergy needed to achieve goals larger than your own.
Jerusalem Artichoke/Sunchoke: this species of sunflower creates a sense of relating to and understanding what is occurring on Mother Earth politically, geologically, and emotionally, and it brings a greater awareness of Earth as Gaia, a living being, as it nourishes the desire to live in harmony with all of creation.
Fingerling Potato: brings a deep awareness of your roots and supports connection to your family and soul group. It promotes the desire to create healthy communities by supporting farmer’s markets, small local businesses, restaurants, musicians, artisans, authors, and so on.
Barley: stimulates the root chakra, which anchors groundedness and an understanding of what abundance means to you such that you can enjoy your earthly experiences more. This grain also helps you access past-life and sublimated current-life memories and eases any aggravation around these issues. It can bring awareness to constructive experiences, past or present, where you did something positive and created benefit, and can draw your attention to some event that may have been uncomfortable but helped you learn an important lesson, and the result was valuable to your soul’s evolution.
Onion: helps direct energy and intention to where you want it to go. A focal point.
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Every mindful bite cultivates the traits above, eat and be awakened!
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This recipe is based on the book Vibrational Nutrition by Candice Covington