Fabulous, easy (GF) dinner | Animal rights stop sign

On Sunday night our middle son cooked us dinner. It was a simple but amazingly delicious meal that can be served to company with little stress, and much appreciation from the diners. The bowl you see above contained hot, freshly cooked quinoa topped with roasted vegetables, raw arugula, chickpeas and creamy tahini sauce. The vegetables were cauliflower, sliced carrots and onions, which were tossed with olive oil and roasted approximately 30 minutes at 450˚ F. The idea is to let the veggies get brown and tender but not let them burn. The sauce contained several tablespoons of tahini, thinned with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and water to make a thick but spoon-able sauce. My son used a food processor to get a creamy texture.  The tahini sauce was seasoned with garlic, parsley, salt and pepper to taste. You might want to add a tiny bit of sweetener to the sauce, depending on your taste and the sweetness of the veggies. The carrots Aaron used were so sweet that I first mistook them for sweet potatoes, and I think the ultra sweet carrots played that role in Aaron's dish. The combination of quinoa, chickpeas, vegetables and tahini sauce made a very pretty and satisfying meal. I might just make it tonight with broccoli.

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Animal rights on the corner — it's a sign 

This is the stop sign on my corner. It really is. It was spotted by my friend Bethany the other day when we were coming back from a walk. For those who might not know what shark finning is, it's the despicable practice of cutting off living sharks' fins, usually at sea, and throwing the sharks back into the ocean.  The mutilated sharks, who can no longer swim correctly, either slowly starve to death or are eaten by other fish. You can read more about shark finning here or here. Shark finning is a cruel but lucrative practice, and fins sell for shocking amounts of money.

The fins are a delicacy used for making shark fin soup, which is very popular in Asian countries, where it's believed to be health-enhancing. Its great cost also makes it a status symbol. However, shark fins contain high levels of toxic mercury, and soup made from them is not a healthy food. A new study has also found that shark fins contain a neurotoxin that has been linked with Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease.




If you can stand to watch the video, you'll see Chef Gordon Ramsey learning about the shark fin industry. He starts out eating a bowl of soup, but quickly becomes shocked and disgusted by what he uncovers about the process of obtaining the fins. Ramsey isn't the most compassionate person when it comes to eating animals, but he is appalled and sickened by his experience. He starts out saying he might be willing to accept shark finning if the fins tasted good, but I doubt he still held that opinion by the end of his experience. Watch if you want to learn more about shark finning, and why it should be banned.