Sweet tastes good. End of story. I’m reminded of this each day when Danny accepts his spinach or his beef but really lunges for his sweet potato. It’s a built-in craving.
Ok, so on that note I was in Target yesterday and decided we probably needed some cookies (oh geez, here we go Michelle). Since I wasn’t going to make it to Whole Foods, I figured I’d see what Target had. Like, a bag of good ol’ Fig Newtons must be fairly natural? Not too many weird ingredients, right?
Wrong! Fig Newtons are made with high fructose corn syrup, as are just about every other cookie on the shelf. Including the homemade-looking Archer brand I almost got fooled into buying. Only Kashi cookies were made with regular sugar.
(Which, of course, does not make them healthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I still bought them. I’m human.)
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about sugar and corn syrup is because we are all human, and we love our sweets. This is a recipe you will therefore love. All 3 of us did!
Cranberry Citrus Quinoa
For quinoa:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
big pinch of salt
2 Tbl. olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 cup butternut squash, diced
1 pear, diced
5 oz. fresh cranberries, chopped (although I suppose you could use dried)
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1 handful fresh mint, chopped
1 handful fresh basil, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
Big pinch cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
First, rinse and drain quinoa. Then combine with OJ and water in a pot, bring to a boil and simmer until water is absorbed.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a big pan and add onion. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until translucent. Add squash and pear. Mix and cover until they are soft (about 5 min). Mix in quinoa, then add herbs, lemon, and more salt and pepper.
*At this point, take out a portion for baby and set aside. At least, that’s what I did. Though in retrospect I think he’d have liked the cranberries if they were chopped smaller.*
For the adults, add cranberries, walnuts and cayenne. Mix well.
Serve over cooked or raw greens.
For the record, here are other things that Danny likes to try and eat:
Deodorant, christmas tree ornaments, my leg, the couch, his coat, my nose, the cat’s tail.
You’d think natural selection would have knocked out this dangerous need to eat everything by now! Or else natural selection is what gave mothers eyes in the back of our heads. Sometimes.
There are small moments of the day that are quiet. In that stillness, you can choose to let your mind run at top speed. Or, you can choose to relax and breathe into the space. Notice it. Take it in. Be present. Let it expand until it fills the room, fills your heart.
It’s how I bend time.
Kooky, huh? But it works. My days are “full” of lovely moments: nursing my sleepy son, sitting with my eyes shut and sun shining on my face, sipping hot tea, listening to the birds outside.
In reality, it probably adds up to all of 10 minutes, tops. But nevermind. They are exquisite. The rest of the day, I let all the annoying, stressful nonsense fly by.
Yes, I’m learning to appreciate the simple things.
Like a simple dish of beans, cabbage and potatoes.
I’ve been reminding and reminding my clients to take time for themselves over the holidays. To not overdo it. To step away from work. To keep it simple.
There’s a saying, “We teach what we need to learn.” It’s so unbelievably true.
In honor of my own restful holidays, this post has been magically pre-programmed to shoot out to the Universe while I am hopefully relaxing with my family and eating something nourishing and simple, like this:
Sweet Potato, Beans & Apples
2 cups uncooked mung beans or lentils
2-3 sweet potatoes, washed and diced (skin left on)
2 peeled and diced carrots
1 onion
1 cup vegetable broth, divided into 2 half cups
2 apples, washed and sliced (skin left on)
1 tsp. dried thyme
approx. 1/2 tsp. salt & 1/4 tsp. pepper
Cook mung beans or lentils by bringing them to a boil with 4 cups of water. Reduce heat and simmer until tender.
Meanwhile, sauté in a pan drizzled with a couple tablespoons of oil over med-high heat: the chopped onion, diced sweet potatoes & diced carrots with salt, pepper & thyme. Cook about 8 minutes. Add 1/2 cup vegetable broth, cover. Reduce to medium heat and cover. Cook about 5 minutes or until carrots and sweet potatoes are tender.
Add mung beans or lentils to sweet potato mixture with the remaining 1/2 cup broth and cover. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Spoon into center of a plate and place fresh cut apple slices around edge of plate.
This dish is high in protein from the beans or lentils – there is no need to add meat. You can add a green salad as a side and this is a complete, satisfying meal. This makes at least 4 generous servings.
Sometimes your day (and by “your day” I mean “my day”) consists of a little boy repeatedly unrolling the toilet paper, pulling stuff out the recycling bin, and methodically removing books from the shelves.
Or maybe you spend too much time on Facebook, too little time doing your hair, too much money on the heating bill and not enough on pedicures.
Perhaps you look in your pantry and see nothing except a bag of lentils.
Then you turn around and the little boy has a piece of kitty litter in his mouth. Again. Meanwhile, the kitty ate some kale out of your shopping bag and proceeded to throw it up all over the white carpet. Also the repair guy never came by like he was supposed to.
Well, shit. You’re not feeling very fancy today, are you?
Let’s talk nutritional powerhouses. Foods that are so damn good for you, they practically negate the Dominoes pizza you accidentally ate last week. Oh wait, that was me. Anywho…
I’m thinking about flaxseed. I’m thinking about collard greens. Kale. All those cruciferous veggies, really. Raw milk. Traditionally fermented sauerkraut. Chia Seeds. Sea vegetables.
Well, what would you say if I combined a standard plate of pasta with not one, but TWO of these outstandingly nutritious foods? What would you say if I told you that the result was something your friends and family will totally enjoy, eat with a smile and never even know they were consuming something exceedingly healthy?
Ok, the first was kale. No surprise there. Can you guess the second?
I really wasn’t sure. It was always my guess that children come into the world programmed to enjoy real food. That they don’t need sugary puffs and processed, animal shaped cookies.
Seems like it’s true.
Now, I know this won’t last forever. There will come a day when Danny says, “Hey mom, I want Cocoa Puffs!” because he saw them at a friend’s house. There will come a day when he smears cake all over his face at a birthday party. Or a day when he and I share cookies and milk and tell stories and laugh.
It’s all good.
But for now, his tastebuds don’t know what white flour and sugar taste like (except for a few bits of muffin he picked off the floor of a coffee shop last week) and that’s fine by me. It’s fine by his body too – after all, sugar and white flour do nothing except make us weak and tired.
So for now, my sweet boy gets only the good stuff. For as long as I can hold out without being too idealistic.
In the video he’s enjoying this:
A simple smoothie
2 handfuls green swiss chard
1/2 apple
enough water to create desired consistency (about 3/4 cup)
1. Make a BLT for dinner
Yeah, sounds like crap diner food but check this bad boy out, and remember – bacon fat is naturally occurring and the kind of fat your body needs. Canola oil reused 80 times for restaurant french fries is not.
A Healthier BLT
2 slices whole grain bread
3 pieces bacon (mine comes from a local farm with excellent animal raising practices)
1 handful arugula
1-2 slices tomato
1 smear of mayo
Optional: 1 slice organic cheese
Cook a whole pound of bacon and keep leftovers in the fridge. That makes life easier too. Assemble your sandwich and enjoy, guilt free.
2. Ditch the Seventh Generation products that suck
Sorry, I want to save the earth and all, but first I have to save my sanity. I gave those Seventh Generation trashbags a fair shake and they were horribly leaky, needed to be doubled, still leaked…ugh! The dishwasher detergent? Left gross residue all over my dishes. I know, I know, I’ll probably go to hell for saying this, but if it’s not working, don’t torture yourself by sticking to ideals. Buy the Cascade or the Hefty bags and be done with it. Use the energy you just saved for some other, more agreeable arrangement with Mother Earth.
3. Hang out with people who make you feel good
Yes, this makes your life easier. I promise. The more I surround myself with lovely, positive people, the better I feel and the smoother everything becomes. It is simply easier to avoid people who make you feel like garbage, if at all possible. Like I need to tell you that?
4. Move forward
Take a lesson from my new crawler. He could only go backwards for a few weeks, leaving him half stuck under the furniture and mad. Now that he can motor forward, life is good. Are you insisting on rehashing the past? On drowning yourself in what should have been, what could have been? Stop. Move forward. What’s next? (In Danny’s case, usually an electrical outlet I haven’t yet babyproofed.)
5. Breathe
You’ve made it this far in life. You must be doing something right. I bet you’re going to be ok. So breathe, will ya? In this moment, you are safe, you have a decent internet connection and you have excellent taste in blogs. So relax, inhale, exhale. Repeat.
If you like making healthier recipes for the holidays, you’ll like this one – and don’t forget to check out my Real, Whole Holiday Recipes cookbook. Good stuff!
My husband visited Boston last week. Granted it was a work-related trip, but he got to see all of our friends while he was there. I’m so jealous!! It’s been just about a year since we moved away from Boston. What a sad anniversary.
And honestly, it feels like much longer than a year. When I think of Boston, I see my 18 year old self looking for waitressing jobs on Bolyston Street. My 30 year old self teaching yoga. I remember Cactus Bowls and Red Sox crowds and OtherSide Cafe. Harvard, Porter and Davis Squares. Going out after 6pm. You know. Pre-baby stuff.
It made me homesick as hell thinking about it all.
Anyway, I was trolling the internet looking for a good banana bread or muffin recipe
My husband looked smugly at me, holding a box in his hand.
“What is that crap?” I snapped.
“Banana bread mix.” He said.
Ughh. I proceeded to roll my eyes and give him the usual spiel about homemade being so much better and how store-bought is sugar-laden garbage and banana bread really isn’t hard to make from scratch either.
My whole life, I ate rice pudding that required a knife to cut and was served on a plate. Never really thought to ask my mom why it was called “pudding.” Anyway, the answer would have been that this is how my great grandmother made it. So there.
My great grandmother didn’t speak English, and she didn’t have anything written down when it came to recipes. My mom often told me the story of how she’d watch her bake and step in to measure the handfuls of ingredients, pinches of spices. My mom wrote it all down. Now here I am, sharing it digitally.
I help busy people find balance in their over-worked, over-stressed lives. Trust me, it's not an all-or-nothing situation! A few shifts in diet and lifestyle can rock your world like they did mine. Read on
