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Food in the abstract. People that are vegetarian or vegan commonly balk at the taking of a life too similar to their own for purposes of food. They often consider their diet a function of a compassionate consciousness.

Speaking personally, I am not a vegetarian – I eat all kinds of things and particularly love meat.

Does that mean I’m without compassion? That I am blind to the spiritual miracle of life that is sacrificed for my food?

People that proselytize vegetarian or vegan diets will often demonize meat – you’re consuming the pain, fear and betrayal of the animal as it was butchered, it will lay in your stomach rotting, even suggesting meat fuels cancer before it fuels you.

And the vegetarians may have a point. From a magical point of view, slaughtered animals have spirits and the tragedy of their slaughter could reasonably contaminate the meat of their flesh.

Those of us that eat meat, often if we are not wealthy we are consuming the meat of industrial farms that are especially cruel to their livestock. We are part of the ‘machine’.

In the wild, animals hunt, kill and eat one another. It’s ugly and violent. But the defeated dead animal is honoured, it’s death is honoured and valued as the stuff of life when consumed appreciatively by the hungry carnivore. Carnivores of the wild are not being killed by the meat they consume.

So my reccomendation is simple. Honour your food, be mindful that life, animal and vegetable, is being sacrificed to you – be thankful. The art of preparing food to be nutritious and delicious – this is an expression honouring the sacrifice of life. Ask the food to forgive you for taking life, and ask it to bless you with life and health.

I believe that’s all the angry spiritual baggage of dead meat (and dead vegetables too) is asking for, thankfulness and appreciation. Mindfully intend the food to nourish you and empower you (law of attraction there). And demonstrate your appreciation with good cooking!

Good cooking isn’t simply self serving, it honours the spirit once present in the food you eat.

Now then, how to braise food, for the culinary challenged.
Braising is a matter of slowly cooking, stewing, the food in liquid, it’s ideal for lesser quality, ‘tough’ meats. Braising is very flexible, allowing you to braise a dinner every night of the week and having each meal enjoy a variety of distinct flavours.

This is a skillet technique. The process is simple, start by searing your meat in a high temperature, with just enough vegetable oil to keep things from sticking (beef and red meats do well with butter). Almost any meat will benefit from salt, pepper and fresh minced garlic in the hot oil.

Once the meat is seared, this helps to preserve natural juices in the meat, you’re ready to add veggies and liquid.

Generally with braising technique you cook vegetables with the meat, creating a vary balanced meal. The vegetables may disintegrate in the sauce, but as you’re eating the sauce (with accompanying rice or noodles) you get to enjoy all the nutrition from those vegetables.

If you are unfamiliar with many vegetables, braising is a good way to introduce yourself to almost any vegetable (realize though, many vegetables are best lightly steamed [or lightly fried in olive oil with garlic] to retain crispness and natural sweetness, especially foods like asparagus and broccoli) .

Generally any liquid will work for braising – beer, wine, orange juice, soup stock..etc. If the juice is sweet, a little lemon or cider vinegar will yield a pleasant sweet/sour flavour.

To thicken a sauce, the easiest way is to take a tablespoon of cornstarch in a cup, add a quarter cup of liquid (or just water) and rub the cornstrarch into the liquid until completely blended. Add this to any simmering liquid, and it will thicken it into a creamy textured sauce.

Beef Stroganoff:
Braise a tough cut of beef (about a pound, and better quality meat works too) cut into small pieces. First sear it in butter with salt, pepper (to taste), garlic (fresh is best) onion and mushrooms (regular mushrooms are good, but portobellas are divine – as much onion and mushroom as you want). Once seared, add about a half cup of beef stock and a quarter cup of tomato sauce (or a table spoon of tomato paste) to the meat and veggies to simmer it in.

Seasonings to consider: Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper sauce, rosemary, cayenne pepper, paprika, asafoetida, cumin, dill, coriander

Once the meat and veggies have simmered for a while (1/2 hour) in another pot, start heating salted water to a boil for egg noodles.

When the water for egg noodles is boiling, add a cup of sour cream to the braising meat (fat free sour cream is fine). Cook maybe a pound or less of egg noodles.

Mix the meat, veggies, sauce and sour cream together. If the sour cream hasn’t thickened the sauce to a cream like texture, add just a little cornstarch mixture.

Serve meat and sauce over noodles.

Ghetto version
Sear the meat in oil/butter with veggies on hand – simmer in any Campbells “cream of” soup (mushroom is ideal) – and add to egg noodles when it’s ready.

Vegetarian version: – marinate a pound of cubed tofu in soysauce thinned with beer, spiked with a little cider vinegar – marinate overnight. Precook the tofu in vegetable oil (olive works) – over cook the tofu, cook the moisture out of it so it is tough and chewy.
Follow the recipe above, substitute mushroom stock for beef stock. If you don’t want to use sour cream – there may be a vegetarian or vegan soy alternative you could use.

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