A sandwich for breakfast...?

We have two new cooks joining our email circle today, Susan in Dallas, Texas, and Lori in Arlington, Vermont----welcome to both! Lori jumped right in and sent this week's new recipe, a unique lasagna that uses zucchini strips for noodles. I'm sending the link she sent me so you can enjoy all the photos and explore this interesting new website. Later on I'll try to get it into our collection. Lori says:
I am primarily plant based have a great recipe for gluten free vegan lasagna with a non soy, non dairy "ricotta". It does not really taste like true lasagna, but it is delicious!
http://yumuniverse.com/gluten-free-dairy-free-vegetable-lasagna/

It sounds wonderful! Thanks, Lori.

I heard from a few of you since I last wrote. Jana in The Netherlands sent her recipe for Date-Nut Muffins, which got us into a conversation about translations and cultural differences. I learned about something called "vanilla sugar" on the way to getting the translation for "vanilla [extract]"; then I wondered where to put the recipe: would people look for muffins under Bread or Dessert or Breakfast? If you are Dutch, the answer is none of the above! Jana explained:
The category again is a cultural thing: the Dutch don’t eat muffins for breakfast, they have a small breakfast with a sandwich or cereals. They don’t have muffins for dessert either, but usually something like fruits, pudding, mousse or ice cream. We Dutch eat muffins, cake, pies, brownies etc. at “coffee time” (between 10 and 11 am) or “tea time” (between 15 and 16 am).
Delicious Date-Nut Muffins

We wondered back and forth about where to put the recipe and finally Jana came up with the perfect category: Desserts and Sweet Treats. I'm working on getting that title into our collection. Meanwhile I got curious about the idea of a sandwich for breakfast, since in my head a sandwich means lunch. Jana kindly provided a photo of her breakfast sandwich and I have posted the very simple recipe on our website.
I include a typical (in my family) breakfast sandwich: peanut butter and banana :-)
Dutch Breakfast Sandwich
I also like to have a green smoothie for breakfast: for example this morning I made a spinach pear orange banana kiwi smoothie, made from one orange, one kiwi, one pear, ½ banana (the other half went on my husband’s peanut butter sandwich :-) and a handful of fresh spinach leaves (two servings).--Cheers, Jana

What a delicious breakfast! Thanks, Jana.

I also heard from Betsy in California. Maybe you remember that I wrote last time about an article on palm oil and deforestation that mentioned "endangered species" without naming any of them, even the orangutans we know are so threatened by the palm oil plantations. Betsy suggested:
If we mentioned animals then corporations and people would have to begin changing their eating habits so it's easier for the articles to just mention a "soulless" corporation.

Two weeks ago I took part in a meditation retreat in Oregon and had the joy of connecting with several of you there. I brought along a display about our project (inspired by the one Christel did in Germany) which included a new map showing where we all are. I began with a couple of introductory pages telling what we do and why, with quotations from Thich Nhat Hanh on livestock and global warming. I'm attaching it to this letter in case you would like to see it.* The map is already out of date----Lori has just added Vermont!---getting us up to 20 states. I love to watch this project grow.

Last but not least-----our Spring Potluck in Portland is coming up. It was originally scheduled for the end of May but the holiday weekend was a problem for several of us so the new date is: Sunday, June 1 I hope this works for everyone. Please mark your calendar now and I'll send details when it gets closer. Maybe we'll be lucky and have a warm day in the garden!

Happy cooking,
Eve
*The attachment went out to the mailing list but doesn't seem to work when posted on the website. I have posted the text under Kitchen Chat--Letter from Thay---but the map and photo dropped out :-(