Mind Body Soul Nourishment

My mind is full of thoughts these days.  It feels like it's on overdrive sometimes.

The things I'm reading, for work and for personal growth have been rich and thought provoking. I want to underline and highlight it all and meet up to discuss every insight! It's inspiring and overwhelming! It feels like a feast.

Parenting my kids, each with unique needs and ever-changing situations, is requiring me to dig deep and get creative and think hard.  No coasting going on here, no cruise control- being fully awake is a must. It is purposeful and deep, joyous, exhausting and heart wrenching.


All the while, I'm trying to physically nourish my family and myself every day.

On busy days I am looking for fuel.  One of my go-to’s is Granola.  I try to always keep it on hand.  I love it for a power snack and it is one of my favorite breakfasts- especially with plain Greek Yogurt and fruit.  When my body feels out of whack, it’s usually because we are out of granola. 

I tried this new Granola recipe recently (though I am very loyal to my granola recipe I’ve been making for years).   I thought I would give it a go.  I got the inspiration for the recipe from My Father’s Daughter cookbook by Gwyneth Paltrow, which I checked out of the library.  She calls it "Favorite Granola" so I thought it was worth the shot.  It doesn’t have refined sugar and has substantially less oil than my regular recipe. I added and deleted a few things, but used her instructions, sweetening with real maple syrup and agave nectar.  It is really good. (After my last post of Monster Bars/Slice with gobs of sugar, chocolate chips and M & M's, it seemed like a good balance.)  Everything in moderation is a guidepost in my life. 

Here is the recipe for the Granola.

And HERE is my "standard" granola recipe.  And HERE is a Peanut butter granola recipe that I love. 

(I always double the recipe if I have enough ingredients because it freezes so well.  I leave one batch in a jar on the counter and the other in a ziplock in the freezer. ) 

Granola

2 cups whole rolled oats (Old Fashioned Oats)

½ cup whole raw almonds

¼ cup sunflower seeds

½ cup shredded coconut

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

(I sprinkled a couple of tsp. Chia seed in mine too, or you can sprinkle wheat germ for some added umph!)

½ cup real Vermont maple syrup

3 Tbsp. light agave nectar

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil (or coconut oil brought to liquid temp)

½ cup Craisins and dried cherries (and/or golden raisins), roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together the oats, almonds, seeds, coconut, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl.  Combine the maple syrup, agave, and vegetable oil in a small bowl and then mix with the dry ingredients.  

Spread the granola out on a baking sheet LINED WITH PARCHMENT PAPER (I learned the hard way about the importance of this). 

Bake for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until evenly browned.  Remove the pan from the oven and push the granola so it's about 1/3 inch thick, letting it cool completely and then breaking it apart into small pieces. 

Combine the cooled granola with dried fruit.  

Keeps well for several weeks in an airtight container and in a ziplock in the freezer for a few months!

And here is some mind/soul nourishment from some of my current readings:

(I highly recommend each of these books.)

From Mary Pipher’s The Shelter of Each Other about counseling with families:

 “Whatever the family is ashamed of must be discussed.  As Adreienne Rich wrote, ‘That which is unspoken becomes unspeakable.’ We are diminished by living with problems we try not to see.  Secrets keep families from dealing with reality.  They create alliances and estrangements.  They keep things from changing and make people feel ashamed.  Secrets teach people the destructive lesson that certain events cannot be handled.  For families or individuals to be healthy, they must be able to integrate all of their experiences into their lives. “

And from Brene Brown’s fabulous new book, Rising Strong about “rumbling with disappointment, expectations and resentment“, she says this:

“Here is what you need to know about disappointment: Disappointment is unmet expectation, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment. The way to address this is to be up-front about our expectations by taking the time to reality-check what we're expecting and why.  Expectations often coast along under our radar, making themselves known only after they have bombed something we had high hopes for into rubble."

And Anne Lamott’s classic, Traveling Mercies, a section about coming to terms with her aging body.

“Over the years, my body has not gotten firmer.  Just the opposite in fact.  But when I feel fattest and flabbiest and most repulsive, I try to remember that gravity speaks; also, that no one needs that plastic-body perfection from women of age and substance.  Also, that I do not live in my thighs or in my droopy butt.  I live in joy and motion and cover-ups.  I live in the nourishment of food and the sun and the warmth of the people who love me.”

I am hoping you too can feed your body or your mind/soul on some of this, and "live in the nourishment of food and the sun and the warmth of the people who love (you)".

Energy Bites: Healthy & Delicious (For Real!)

I don't know if you have made energy bites of some sort, but I have become a fan of these yummy and healthy snacks.   A while back, my friend Connie gave me a few of these she had made to sample.  After I had one, I immediately texted her, "YUM! I tried them and I need the recipe!"  Then, a few weeks ago it was my snack-bringing week for church and I felt the need to make something a little more substantially nutritious than the biscuits and coffee cake I had made the previous months.  I looked on my Pinterest breakfast board and found this recipe that was pretty much Connie's recipe but with peanut butter instead of almond butter. I had forgotten about the recipe! 

I made a double batch- which yielded 40 something balls.  They were all gone within a few minutes of serving them.  I don't know if people were desperately hungry or they really liked them.  We have lots of kids that congregate around our snack table at church, so I think we can call these delicious when kids and adults ate them, and we can call them healthy since they are chock full of flax seed, chia and oats! 

I made them again for my family this week and we have enjoyed having them for a quick snack or for a breakfast on the go.  I even had one for dessert the other night (though my son believes that despite that fact that they are laced with chocolate chips, they do not qualify for dessert) !

I'm trying to have things on hand that are protein-rich, as my kids tend to reach for crackers, chips, and starches for snacks.  Lately, I've made Hummus and Texas Caviar to have in the refrigerator and try to always keep yogurt and smoothie-making supplies on hand.  If I get my act together to have the good stuff within reach, and prep a couple of things for the week, they have good, tasty, healthy things within reach.  

 

Energy Bites

Makes about 20

1 cup (dry) old fashioned oatmeal

2/3 cup coconut flakes

½ cup peanut butter (or almond butter- take your pick)

½ cup ground flaxseed

½ cup mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup honey

1 Tbsp. chia seeds

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Stir all ingredients together in a bowl.  Let set in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.  

Form into small balls (about golf ball size).  

Put in an air tight container and keep in refrigerator. 

If this inspires you to get into healthy oatey bar/bite making, I have two granola bar recipes I love that I wrote about HERE and HERE and my favorite go-to granola recipe HERE, oh and the lovely chewy peanut butter granola HERE.  If you are short on time, these simple but nutritionally dense bites are super easy and quick to put together.  

Chewy Peanut Butter Granola (& Confronting Stereotypes)

We've been talking about Stereotypes in my Human Diversity class this week.  It's been intense and meaningful.  We discussed how stereotypes are those attributes that we project or assume about a person because they belong to a certain group.  (And though this attribute might be true about some people of that group, it is not necessarily true for all people of that group.) 

I asked the students to be courageous and consider stereotypes that they hold – that might be obvious or more latent for them.  We talked about the damaging effects of stereotypes and how they can cause "micro aggressions" to occur.  Micro aggressions are those comments we make or actions we take, that might be careless or jokey, or derogatory to a person that wound people perhaps unbeknownst to the perpetrator.  They might be unconscious acts but they have painful consequences. They occur repetitively, and their impact can be cumulative, "like a thousand paper cuts as opposed to one deep wound".  (Miller, J. & Garran, A., 2008)

This reading asked us to take a personal audit and consider how we might confront stereotypes in our lives.  

1. Think of a racial stereotype you hold that makes you feel uncomfortable.
If you have difficulty identifying one, try to think of something about a person from a different racial or ethnic group that you would not want to discuss with him or her but would be willing to confide to somebody who shares your racial or ethnic identity.
2. What is the stereotype? If you were trying to teach this stereotype to someone else, how would you explain it?
3. What uncomfortable feelings surface when describing this stereotype? It can help to list them.
4. Where might you have learned this, and from whom? (Include multiple sources if you like.)
5. What might have been the historical and social contexts from which this stereotype evolved?
6. What in society or your daily life perpetuates and reinforces the stereotype?
7. What do you know or believe that contradicts this stereotype? 

These thoughts were swirling around in my head today, when I was starting to write this blog about Granola.  (I know… I have a lot swirling around in my head and this is going somewhere). I have a granola recipe that I love and make all the time, and share with people, and serve at brunches.  But I recently made this recipe, that my friend Kirsten sent me from SHAPE magazine.  It's peanut buttery and oatey and it is great! But it's different from my other one- this one is chewy, and richer. and doesn't need fruit, and stays in clumps.  It may not be your stereotypical granola. :)

So, I thought I would look up the definition of Granola in the dictionary to see what exactly constitutes Granola, by definition.

Here's what it said:

granola |grəˈnōlə|nouna kind of breakfast cereal consisting typically of rolled oats, brown sugar or honey, dried fruit, and nuts.• [ as modifier ] chiefly derogatory denoting those with liberal or environmentalist political views, typified as eating health foods.ORIGIN late 19th cent. (as a trademark): from gran- (representing granular or grain) + -ola. The current term dates from the 1970's.Interesting.  Granola, in its second definition is a stereotypical group of people.  "You know that guy, he's Granola".  So...if you are environmentally bent, and eat healthy foods then you must be "Granola".  I feel that by this definition, I might fit the description. However, I don't think I've ever been called Granola (at least to my face).  Come to think of it, I don't know what group I would be ascribed to.  And maybe that's because I don't want to be pigeonholed, judged, reduced to a label like that.  But who does, really?  

Peanut Butter Granola

adapted from SHAPE magazine

 

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup honey

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups oats

½ cup wheat germ

anything you want to add-in: mini chocolate chips, dried fruit, chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325˚. Spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray (or line with parchment paper) and set aside.

Combine peanut butter and honey in a bowl and microwave until peanut butter melts, approximately 20 seconds. (Or do this in a pan on a stovetop). Stir.

Stir cinnamon and vanilla into peanut butter and honey mixture.

Add oats and wheat germ and stir until oats are completely covered in peanut butter mixture.

Spread out oat mixture onto prepared cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until granola is slightly browned.

 

Let cool until granola is crunchy. Remove from sheet in clumps.

Keep in an airtight container.

(if you decide to add nuts- do so before baking, and if you add a lot of nuts, you might need more of the goo to cover it well). 

If this is way too deep, social justice-oriented, and serious for you, I apologize (kinda).  I couldn't keep myself from sharing this stereotype challenge with all of you- especially on the week we celebrate the life and work of Dr. M.L. King!   Regardless, if you like peanut butter and granola, I recommend you try this easy and delicious recipe.