Reading Labels Sucks

What Socrates apparently failed to understand was that while perhaps the unexamined life isn't "worth living," it's a whole lot easier and a whole lot tastier.  

I am planning to do a cleanse aka Paleo/Whole30 where I go 3 days with out gluten, dairy, sugar, legumes, or alcohol.   Samm and I have a big double date already pre-bought for August 11th that will no doubt include delicious wine, so... I'm starting the cleanse the next day, obviously.  One only gets to sip wine at local farm dinner parties so often in life.

I may be mildly obsessing over the cleanse. 

 

Partly because I love food, and looking at recipes means thinking about deliciousness. 

 

Partly because, thank God, my daughter went back to taking naps after a harrowing 4 day strike.  So I have time to plan.  Happiness.  

Partly because I rarely plan meals ahead,  so we eat a lot of the same concoctions from our kitchen with my favorite Trader Joes and farmer's market ingredients. And I order a lot of El Burro nachos.  Because they're breathtaking.  So it's high time for me to experiment with shopping lists and looking forward to the amazing fresh menu I'm crafting. I am open to suggestions, by the way.  

So I'm planning recipes, and I'm starting to realize foods I assumed were 100% fabulous for me contain some not so fabulous ingredients.  Reading labels stinks!  But I guess that's great!  It's the whole point.  Chicken sausage from TJs has sugar, WHAT.  And most devastating of all, today it dawned on me that Sriracha is basically full of crap... Well. "Chili, sugar, salt,garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite and xanthan gum."  [Delicious crap.]

So I may or may not try to make some homemade Sriacha for my cleanse.  Sigh.  

The examined life.  It's exhausting.

Here's why I'm trying to do the cleanse. 

So I know what I'm eating.  

So I can choose what my family is eating. 

So I can see what it feels like to live off sugar/gluten.  Completely.

And THEN I'm hoping I will sleep better, feel better at 4 pm every day (at the moment I tank completely, every day, no matter what).  And if I have more energy, I'll clean more.  I'll read Lulu more books.  I'll think of ways to change the world and get on it.  And then!  I'll be happier because the house will be cleaner, and Lulu and I will have hung out more as opposed to me lying pathetically on the couch with the (HATE to admit this) tv on.  Just sometimes.  Not every day!  Ok sometimes every day.  It depends. 

But I want to change the pattern.  I want to feel better so that I live better.  

And I realize sugar can't be the ONLY thing between me and happiness and peace on earth.  But ditching it might free me up to live a little more the way I was made to.  

I will keep you posted on that.  

Days of our lives

Someone (Annie Dillard?) once said, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.   This either haunts me (why am i on facebook right now!?) or deeply relieves me, depending on the day.  A lot of my days lately have felt... mundane.  You know when you're in high school and college how summer means road trips, traveling to new countries, exploring new internships, new places to live, new room mates, new people to meet (new boys to have crushes on), new ways to make coffee...  Well.  That's what I subconsciously long for in the summer.  And yet this summer, this season, my life is the same as it was spring, winter, fall, the previous summer...  I take a shower in the same shower.  I make coffee the same way.  I go to the same (wonderful) farmer's market.  I wake up in the same (not so wonderful) bed with the same (most-of-the-time wonderful) guy.  Except when we get adventurous and sleep in the guest room because unfolded clean laundry has taken over our bedroom and refuses to put itself away.  

I digress.

The point is, I find myself aching for adventure.  For mountains and beaches and sunsets over unfamiliar landscape.  

But.

My suspicion is that I am living some of the best days of my life right now.  As bored as I feel sometimes, when I stop and notice my toddler exploring the boundary of our nearby pond with her toes, tracing the reflections of clouds in the water with her fingers and watching them dissolve into ripples,  surrendering to her request that I, too, dip my feet in the fishy water.  I imagine I will look back on that moment with such delight and jealousy of my past self.  

I have never actually been happier in my life. 

And I know this. I just keep forgetting.  In fact, I'm wondering, as I type this, if I have not typed almost exactly the same post before.  Several times.  I'm afraid to check.

The problem with memory, like the telephone game, is that you can keep repeating things over and over, but eventually the message gets distorted.  Over time, you have less and less connection at all to the resolve and inspiration and clarity of past moments.  We only really have access to the people and ponds that our feet are dipped in currently.  There is only now.

Which is why I will probably keep on posting the same thing again and again.  Because I have to discover it all over again every day.   

Here's the rest of Annie's quote.  

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern. 

So here I am.  In my little mock up of reason and order.  Blogging.  Working.  Raising a tiny wild little bear.  Falling more and more in love with an even wilder bear.  And following the mysterious trail of the holy.

(Crustless) Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza

So it's that time of year when the basil plants are turning into small trees and the swiss chard leaves in the garden have begun to look Jurassic.

Lulu and walked around the corner to Doug's Market to get ground beef for dinner as I racked my brain for meal ideas. At 6:30 pm.  I do that.

Pre-Baby this little errand took about 3 minutes, 1 minute to walk there, 1 minute to browse the butcher shop/junk food array and check out and 1 minute to walk home.



That was then.  Now it takes at least half an hour.

We have to stop and watch the "tiny ants" and explore the steps of the Metropolitan Baptist Church and step triumphantly in the mud puddle "wa-der under my feet!" And this is with me coercing and/or dragging her most of the way. But the good thing about these laborious trips is I have time to imagine what I will do with the fresh ground beef I just bought.  What needs to be eaten most in my garden tonight?

The answer was definitely swiss chard.  

The leaves were twice as big as my head.  

This picture doesn't show them because when I took it, 

they were already on my cutting board waiting their turn to go into dinner.

Here's what I ended up doing, and lo and behold Samm (who likes pretty gourmet food) and Lulu and I (who like home-cooked comfort food) all loved it.   

It's flavor and pie-shape inspired us to call it Deep-Dish Pizza, though obviously it's a far (healthier) cry from the real thing. 

Enjoy!

1 bunch of Swiss Chard
1 small white onion
2 T olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 clove of garlic + 2 T dry garlic
1 bunch of fresh basil
3/4 cup  canned crushed tomato
1 T honey
2 T (or less) red pepper flakes
1 t oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 lb parmesan cheese

Heat up oil in a skillet.  While it's heating, shop up onion and stems of the chard.  Once a drop of water sizzles in the pan, toss in the onion and chard stems.  Let them brown a bit (3-4 min), stirring once or twice and then add the ground beef. Turn on broiler. Once the beef is very close to being all browned, add garlic and chunky leaves of chard.  Once the leaves are wilted (3 or 4 min), add tomato sauce, basil (reserve a few leaves) honey, and spices.  Stir and pour into pie pan.  Shred the cheese on top and dip the remaining basil leaves in olive oil (or ideally a home-made lemon/oil/garlic/pepper salad dressing to go with your side salad!) and arrange on top of the cheese.

Put in broiler for a few minutes until the cheese begins to brown.   Voila!  Garden fresh, pizza -esque, low carb wonder.  The chard and basil together make a wonderful bright flavor and texture... It's pretty messy to get on the plate, but that didn't stop us from devouring all of it within minutes.  Serves 3 hungry people.  :)

Beet, Pear & Bok Choy Salad

My dear pregnant friend was coming for lunch, and I hadn't been to the grocery store in a while.  The last couple times she's been here, I'm pretty sure I made her white pasta with canned sauce.  Ouch.  I mean, yummy, but... not exactly a shimmering nutritious meal.  I scrounged around for the healthiest things I could find in my fridge and then consulted Chef Google to see if they could be properly combined.  I found a beet salad recipe that was supposed to go on top of arugula.  And I discovered a bok choy asian salad recipe that used raw bok choy as its base.  I cannot believe how easy and delicious and healthy and gorgeous the combination/adjusted recipe turned out.  So I will share it with you.

Ingredients: 

3 beets

2 anjou pears

3-4 stalks of bok choy (leaves sliced, stems chopped) 

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1/3 cup nice olive oil

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 

Instructions: 

Roast the beets on a baking sheet for an hour at 350 degrees, then peel and shred them.  They will stain your hands. You will not mind once you taste this salad. Or you could wear gloves, but who does that?  Rince pears and shred (I left the skin on, added texture and vitamins!)  Mix shredded pear and beet with oil and vinegar.  Spread on top of bok choi leaves and sprinkle with walnuts and bok choi stem pieces.  Enjoy!  

The company and the salad could not have been more satisfying.  

An Adoration

In this snowfall season the birth

Of God’s furious and tender Son

Gives us our holy days by fire. Earth

Cradles once more the hope that Eve

And her winter children will receive

The Sunlit garden; because dear

Has no room in our savior’s castle

All love shepherds us.  The pageant kings

weep for us.  In argent rings

Heavent’s wild gabriels wrestle

For our very souls.  What stables here

Is time for us to give our sin

The shape of kneeling, to perch seven

Times seventy singing robins

Of forgiveness on our tongues

Blessing our enemies, that the bones

Which we have broken may rejoice.

No one is lost, not one, who yields

Himself to Christmas.  The red ribbons

Of his grief adorn us.  The voice

Of his mercy is heard in our fields.  

-Arnold Kenseth 

Recipe for Carrot Yogurt Muffins

Spiced Carrot Muffins 

 These took a little work, but THEY ARE SO WORTH IT.  I usually substitute applesauce for oil in muffins, but the 4 tablespoons of butter are so worth it.  I also found some leftover cheesecake topping or crust that my lovely friend Amanda left in my fridge.  Yes.  The perfect match. 

1/2 cup whole wheat flour +1/2 cup white flour +3/4 cup mix of bran flakes, steel cut oats, flax seed meal  (OR 1 3/4 - cups all purpose flour)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 - teaspoons baking powder
3/4 - teaspoon baking soda
1/2 - teaspoon salt
2 - teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
3/4 - cup plain or greek yogurt
4 - tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 - teaspoon vanilla extract
1 - large egg
1/4 - cup orange juice (OR milk)
2 - cups peeled, shredded carrots or 3/4 - cup pureed carrots
1/2 - cup raisins, optional
1/2 cup crumbled unbaked graham cracker crust, optional BUT DO IT

Preheat oven to 370. Line 12 cups of a standard muffin tin with paper liners; set aside. If not using muffin liners spray each muffin tin with baking spray. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, pumpkin-pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together yogurt, orange juice, butter, egg and vanilla. If using pureed carrots add the pureed carrots to the wet ingredients.

If using shredded carrots fold into the batter last. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add yogurt mixture. Stir until just combined. Fold in shredded carrots and raisins if using.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown or when a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I had to use a small spatula to get them out of the pan because they were very moist, but they held their shape.
















(Adapted from Martha Stewart and mommyskitchen.net) 

Carrots and Post Vacation Stress Disorder

We bought carrots in bulk because Samm has cut out all carbs for a while.  I have NOT cut all carbs, however, and I was craving muffins, which I often do!  so this morning I decided, I'll make carrot muffins.
I'll be honest.  I almost lost it in the process.  I burned the carrots when I tried to steam them.  I poured the brown sugar into the flour mixture before I realized it was essentially a pile of rocks.  I couldn't get the food processor lid on.  Couldn't find the baking powder.  And in the midst of this (fairly close to the beginning)  Mary Lou began wailing dramatically for no discernable reason.  Crying. Bloody. Murder.


I felt certain the gods didn't want me to have carrot muffins.

But.  The carrots (burnt as they were) and I prevailed!

I had to toss Lulu in a bath with baking soda (what won't that solve, I ask?)  And we made it!
And...again being honest here...the muffins were ridiculously good.  Here is the recipe...

Life has been slowly easing back toward normal.  We spent 10 days seeing Samms family and the coast in California. Then samm went to Chile for 9 days and Lulu and I flew home.  We made a very fancy welcome home banner for samm because he was sorely missed.

And now we are back in business as it were. Naps.  Farmers markets.  Playdates.  Big stuff.
 
I loved California.  I loved that you never totally felt indoors.  That you could wear a jacket in the morning and a swim suit later.  That everyone has lemon trees!  And avocados are 10/1$.  This picture is my favorite.  Lulu spent several happy days wandering in Aunt Laurel and Uncle Davids back yard, talking to their chickens, picking oranges with Laurel, playing happily with dirt.  It was very restful.
I'm trying to imagine ways to create some of that rest and connection with nature in our little townhouse life here in Pittsburgh.

Carrot muffins is a start for today.