Home cooked vegetarian food recipe - Mushrooms Soup

This is one of the vegetarian dish that sometimes we serve to our yoga retreat guests here in Langkawi.

Mushrooms soup (serves 3-4 people)

About 500 gm Fresh button mushroom or Portobello mushroom, washed and chopped coarsely

1 Yellow onion, chopped coarsely

About 2 table spoons of cooking oil

About 1 inch cube of butter

About 2 spoonful of flour

250 ml of fresh or UHT milk

About 1.5 litre of hot boiling water

Salt and black pepper to taste

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Heat up cooking oil and butter in medium heat.

Add chopped onion, fried until soft and slightly browned.

Add chopped mushrooms, and about 1 heap teaspoon of salt and some black pepper. Stir well and cover for about 5 minutes in low to medium heat until mushroom softened and fragrant. Stir occasionally.

Add flour, mixed well into the mushrooms. Stir well until the liquid thickened.

Gradually add in a little bit of milk, little by little until all the milk mixed in. Keep stirring.

Add in hot boiling water bit by bit, and stir well. Cover and cooked in low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Turn off the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Blend the soup in a food processor until smooth, or to your desire texture.

Serve hot.

Bon Appétit!

Love relationships - Want to love, and be loved?

When someone is in love with another person, it's natural that one has the 'desire' to be loved by that person, and if the other person also has the 'desire' to love this person, and to be in a relationship with this person, one 'expects' that being in a relationship means there should be 'commitment' among them towards each other, one starts to have the 'possessiveness' to 'own' the other person and the relationship, thinking that this person is in a relationship with 'I', this relationship belongs to 'I', this person is 'mine', this person should be faithful and loyal to 'I'.

One also has the great expectation that since 'I' love you so much, you should be loving me as much as 'I' love you, and expect the relationship to be the way that 'I' think it should be. And one gets so disappointed, upset and angry when the other person also have other 'desires' to be fulfilled, and those desires are nothing to do with 'I'. Anger, hatred and jealousy over-powering the 'love' that we think we have for the one who we think we 'love'. It clearly shows that we don't really love that person, but just want to possess him or her to be 'mine'. And if we don't get what we want, we are not happy and are very angry.

It also shows that we don't love ourselves either, as we are hurting ourselves with anger, hatred and jealousy. If we don't even love ourselves, how can we love another person 'properly', as we will expect that person will give us what we want that will make us feel loved and feel good?

It doesn't have to be like this.

We can just love, and let him or her to be free to be who he or she is, and let him or her go if that is what he or she desires.

If we know how to love without any selfish desires, expectation and possessiveness, we only wish the one that we love will be happy as he or she is, whether he or she loves us or not, or had loved us but not anymore, and whether he or she loves another person and not us. We are happy as we are, as we love unconditionally. Without expecting him or her to love us the way that we want it to be.

May all who desire to love another, or be loved by another, be free to love and be loved unconditionally.

When two people truly love one another, there is no 'commitment' that needs to be observed. There's no need to have faithfulness or loyalty. Naturally they will stay in that relationship, no matter they are being physically close to each other, or not.

By having expectation towards the one whom we think we love to be faithful and loyal to us, clearly indicates that we don't love this person actually. We only want to fulfill our selfish desire to be loved the way that we want it to be.

Falling in love with someone whom we like very much should be something sweet, content, joyful and happy, but it is not necessarily so, if we start to have doubts, jealousy, anger, disappointment, guilt, fear and worry being in that love relationship, as we attached to that love and the relationship, have clinging onto the feelings of love and sweetness, afraid of impermanent changes, or afraid of losing it, or afraid of some other people will come into the relationship and cause disturbance and destruction in that relationship, and so on.

So unpeaceful, anxious and restless to fall in love and to be in a love relationship, if we don't know how to love 'freely' without attachment and expectation. We are not free for loving someone, and the person whom we love 'very much' also is not free for being 'loved' by us.

 

Non-attachment, non-possessiveness and unconditional love in love relationships doesn't mean that one should be engaging in random love relationships with multiple lovers without responsibility, or encouraging one's partner to be engaging in unlimited love relationships with unlimited lovers. That is pure ignorance. It's about one can let go the loveless relationship with someone who doesn't love oneself, in peace, without feeling of hurts or disappointment, if one knows what is non-attachment, non-possessiveness and unconditional love, without encouraging ignorance and ignorant behaviors.

May all beings be free to love and be loved. 

Be happy.