BlissFullU

Happy (post) Valentines Day everyone! I hope you had a day filled with love in all its many manifestations.

I had a nice day, as well as a tangible example of a principle that I try to live by: what you give out comes back to you. Here is what happened.

Usually I make a big deal of Valentines with my friends as well as with my family, but this year, when we can’t be together, not so much. However, I did make a batch of gluten-free, dairy-free, but-it-had-an-egg-so-not-vegan dark chocolate brownies. I cooked it in a muffin tin I have that has heart shapes instead of the usual round tins, which makes six heart brownies.

I was going to our Spiritual Center to participate in presenting the livestreamed Sunday service, and I had four dear friends to whom I wanted to give a heart brownie for Valentines Day. That would leave me with two–one each for my husband and son to have for dessert for our Valentines Day dinner. Of course, that meant there was none left for me. However, it is quite a common mom thing to be the one who goes without if there are limited quantities of things. And it wasn’t a big martyr thing…I got to lick the bowl and the spoon and that was enough to satisfy me. I really didn’t even think about it.

I got to the Center and handed out my brownies. Then someone else showed up with a plate of wonderful chocolate oatmeal peppermint cookies, which were DELISH. Mine didn’t last long enough to take a picture of them, LOL. Plus one of my friends gave me some strawberries dipped in chocolate that she made herself, and another gave us some cranberry-white chocolate muffins. And when I got home, I found that my husband had brought home some cute heart-shaped biscuits from the place he went for breakfast.

So I gave out the heart-shaped brownie at the top of the picture above. In return, I got the other three items, PLUS the chocolate oatmeal peppermint cookies you’ll just have to imagine. So I didn’t go without dessert–I got to have TWO desserts made by someone else (and just having it made by someone else makes it taste twice as good). Plus chocolate oatmeal peppermint cookies for breakfast (since it had oatmeal, that makes it a healthy breakfast food, right?).

It was just a great reminder that the Universe serves back to us what we put out, both literally as well as energetically.

The savory heart biscuit I ended up serving along with a vegan creamy cauliflower soup I made for dinner, garnished with a Szechuan chile crisp sauce (SANS the traditional peanuts), which I thought made a lovely Valentines first course:

The main course was grass-fed, organic-ish roast beef from the Farmers Market, along with roast asparagus. Because I’m trying to follow the Planetary Health Diet, or so-called “Grandparents Diet” (click here for more details about this diet intended to feed the 10 billion people expected by 2050 in a healthy and sustainable way), I only serve beef once a month, so that is a treat for us. I also try not to buy much produce out of season because of the energy cost of flying it up from South America or wherever, so the asparagus in February was a rare treat as well. But SOOOO good…

Then I added raspberries, another rare winter treat, to the desserts:

With some rose champagne, it all made a lovely Valentines Day Meal:

But my unexpected chocolate-covered strawberry and muffin dessert provided an extra special end to the meal!