Glorious Grains

Since beginning my love affair with quinoa, I’ve been slowly expanding my horizons with other grains. First I tried millet (I’ve got a YUMMY recipe to share… once I make it again and write it down…), then amaranth (which ended up all over my living room rug, thanks to our cat). I’d used some buckwheat (also called kasha) in my granola recipe and kind of loved the way it tasted, so thought I’d give it a go as a savory dish.

Turns out googling recipes for millet, amaranth, and buckwheat doesn’t yield as many results as I’d hoped.

Anyway, after some digging, I found two recipes (this one and this one, if you want to know) that seemed somewhat promising so I combined them and added a little flair of my own. The result was a whole grain pilaf that was delicious and satisfying.

Multi-Grain Pilaf

2 1/4 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/2 cup kamut
1/3 cup pearl barley
1/3 cup kasha
1/3 cup bulgar wheat
1/2 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 T olive oil
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup roughly almonds

1. First of all, toast your grains in a dry pan until they are warm and fragrant, and then set them aside

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2. Chop your onions and brown in the olive oil.

3. Add the garlic for a few minutes, watching it to make sure it doesn’t burn

4. Pour in the water and chicken broth (you could use all water or all broth, or do vegetable broth or whatever… Since it’s such a large amount of liquid I chose to dilute the broth so I didn’t use up all my backstock)

5. Add all your spices (thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, salt, pepper)

6. Bring to a boil, then turn down to medium heat

7. Add the kamut and cover, cooking for about 25 minutes (kamut takes around 30-45 minutes to cook, and since the other grains take about half that time, you want to give the kamut a headstart)

8. Once the timer goes off, add the rest of the grains and cook (again, covered) until the water is absorbed (you might need to add a little more liquid at this point to make sure the grains are cooked and aren’t too crunchy/chewy… I did)

9. Chop the almonds (just about any nut would taste delicious… One of my inspiration recipes called for walnuts, the other called for pecans; almonds just happened to be what I had on hand)

10. Once all the water is absorbed and your grains are cooked, remove the bay leaf, stir in the almonds, and enjoy!

PS: This recipe made a LOT for two people… We both ate our fill, and had 3 portions leftover for lunches later this week. If you aren’t serving a crowd or don’t want the leftovers, definitely cut this recipe in half.

PPS: You could probably use just about any grain you want. I added the kamut for texture since all the other grains were short and stubby, but you could easily leave it out and substitute millet for the bulgar and have a gluten-free version. I’m wondering what quinoa would taste like in this…

Floating Bookshelves

Slowly but surely, our little apartment is becoming a home. It’s amazing how just a few simple upgrades really add a lot of personal touch. Being a book lover, I came with boxes and boxes of books (with more sitting sadly in storage at my parent’s house until we get a bigger place). Our wonderful, big Ikea bookshelf held a lot more than I thought, but I also wanted to incorporate books into my decor, too. I had 3 of these shelves from my old room that I was dying to put up. And here you go:

Before (poor, blank wall!)

After getting them successfully secured to the wall (I measured the space from the edge of the shelf to the light switch to space things evenly)

My wonderful floating bookshelves!

I still haven’t decided what (if anything) to put on top of the books. In my old room I had various knick-knacks adorning them, but I’m not so sure that’s the look I want to go with for my living room. So for now they won’t have anything fancy going on, but eventually I’ll probably add something.

More Than Perfect

It’s just funny the places you find wisdom sometimes… Like on the front of my bottle of facewash.

Kind of ironic, really, that I would find this quote on the front of a product that's supposed to keep my face looking presentable. Especially when lately about the only thing that will help my blemishes is a brown paper bag (think Charlie Brown). I don't think it's the product's fault, but I've had lots of brown paper bag days lately. And so every time I go to wash my face, it's a little annoying being reminded to not take my appearance so seriously and I hate my facewash a little bit for not letting me have a pity party.

But then I read it again.

It’s become one of my favorite quotes:

If skin were perfect then you wouldn’t be real and you are more than real, you are one of a kind. There will never be another you.

The realization of being more than real and being one-of-a-kind starts, I think, with the realization that we are more than perfect. More than perfect, not less.

Perfection is engrained in our thinking as the goal, the pinnacle, the image we should all reflect. We wind up spending so much of our lives spinning wheels, trying to get somewhere we can never go. This is especially frustrating to hopeless type-A personalities such as me.

But perfect isn’t real.

And we are more than real.

Living an authentic life is hard. It isn’t easy to love me when I’m not perfect, when I don’t live up to my own expectations. And I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with that.

Life isn’t about looking good and having it all together. Life is about living. About experiencing all the moments we encounter – good and bad – and letting them continue to shape us into more of who we are meant to be.

Perfection is a constant state of existence. It can’t be changed, or else it ceases to be perfect.

I don’t want to stay the same as I am. I want to keep moving forward, to keep learning more about myself and the world around me.

I am not perfect.

I am real.

And I want to live my life being the unique me I was created to be.

Homemade Granola

First of all, let me start by saying that making homemade granola is WAAAYY easier than I thought.

Second, it’s pretty cheap, too, as long as you aren’t buying tons of super expensive dried fruit to put in it. The bulk food section of your grocery store is definitely the way to go for all the ingredients… I always buy mine at WinCo, but Whole Foods also has all the ingredients in bulk (for several pennies more, though) except the fruit, which is always the most expensive part.

Third, it’s healthy to boot!

In my pursuit of healthier eating and whole foods, I came across this recipe for granola. I had tried another recipe before, which was good, but this one is just really so over-the-top delicious that it’s in its own category.

It’s super quick and easy to assemble, smells amazing while it’s baking, and tastes simply delish in the morning with my almond milk. Ready to try it yet? Here’s my version:

Quinoa Granola

1 cup oats
1 cup buckwheat
1/2 cup quinoa
2 tablespoons chia seeds
2 tablespoons flax meal
1/2 cup raw almonds, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup dried fruit*
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

*The first time I used cranberries, this last time I did 1/2 cup dried apricot with 1/2 cup candied ginger… Feel free to mix it up! I even saw dried strawberries at WinCo I might have to try next.

1. Chop your nuts in a food processor. Be careful to avoid creating nut flour!

2. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

3. Melt coconut oil in a small pan with molasses and maple syrup.

Coconut oil is delicious, by the way! A great alternative to other cooking oils... Just wish it wasn't so spendy.

4. Pour liquid over dry ingredients and stir together until well mixed.

From the first time I made it with dried cranberries.

5. Spread onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

6. Bake at 225 until crunchy (I usually end up leaving mine in for 2 hours or so).

Yes. Yes, that is a spoon. For sampling purposes, of course.

OMNOMNOM!!

I’ve stopped eating other cereals (even “healthy” ones) in an effort to cut back on the amount of processed foods and sugar that I consume, so this (and Better Oats oatmeal) have become my go-to for breakfast. It’s pretty high in protein (the quinoa, nuts, and chia seeds all contribute) so it keeps me from snacking until lunch.

Best part about this recipe is how flexible it is… If I accidentally get too much of one ingredient, I just add it in and have extra. It isn’t an exact science. This last time I made it, I added wheat berries for some extra crunch and protein. You could do different amounts/varieties of nuts if you wanted, as long as you kept the same general ingredient proportions the same.

Happy eating!
Sarah.

P.S. Elsie at Hungry, Hungry, Hippie has some AH-MAZING recipes… Much of my cooking of late is thanks to her inspiration!

Lemons

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth…

Just been keeping busy making lemonade.

Life can be oh-so-very unexpected at times. The out-of-the-blue kind of unexpected that knocks the wind out of you and leaves you wondering what just happened. The kind that happens just when you think things are about to get better, but instead get worse.

Don’t think anything too drastic happened – nobody died or anything – but circumstances definitely took a turn I did not see coming. So it’s just been a month of regrouping, and figuring out where to go from here.

And realizing that wrong may not even be the word for it.

Just different.

I so quickly interpret events as being good or bad, when really it’s sometimes life’s (God’s) way of re-directing my path the direction it was intended to go. So I’ve been learning that while lemons may not be what I expected, making lemonade out of them is always a better alternative to letting them rot.

And things always work out. Always. Sometimes I see it, and sometimes it’s simply a statement of faith that I choose to make my perspective.

Hopelessness doesn’t suit me.

I will not let it suit me.

A quote I read from a friend today really says it all for me:

My life strategy summed up in one compound sentence: FORGET HOW HARD IT IS…REMEMBER HOW GOOD IT IS.

Life will always be challenging. It will never go according to my plan. There will always be another mountain to climb, another desert to face, another storm to weather.

But there will always be grace for the day and strength for the moment.

And life can still be good.

Graciousness

gracious (ˈɡreɪʃəs)
— adj
1. characterized by or showing kindness and courtesy

Cleaning out long-forgotten drawers, boxes, and file folders is a little nostalgic for me. I tend to have a hard time throwing away sentimental papers, so I stuff them away somewhere until I can come back and revisit them more objectively. Which sometimes still doesn’t work. The other day, I was doing a little box-purging and came across this:

Yes, that is a bit of garbage-schmear from the trashcan on it… I was in psycho-clean mode, and threw it away, and later had to go back and dig it out so I could at least take a picture of this before permanently disposing of it. Because I just kept thinking about it as I sorted through everything else.

That note was written on a calendar that hung in the bathroom my sister and I shared growing up. It was written by my Aunt Diane, who is probably one of the most extraordinary women I have ever known. I want to be like her when I grow up. She wrote it in 2005, when she had her soon-to-be daughter-in-law flew up from Texas to visit my family. She passed away a short two years later.

Aside from making me miss my Aunt, what struck me about finding that ripped-out calendar page was how gracious it was. My Aunt was the epitome of everything a Southern lady ought to be, and gracious was one of her most outstanding qualities. Such a small gesture, but that note was meaningful to me. Clearly; why else would I have kept the page of a calendar from seven years ago? But Aunt Diane left a trail of graciousness behind her wherever she went. Like that note. She knew how to be a gracious host, and a gracious guest. She was a breath of fresh air.

I want to be like that.

I hope that when I leave a place, a lingering sense of being refreshed and uplifted stays behind me. Courtesies like that are so few and far between; I hope that I can be one of the people who chooses to lift other people’s lives. Even in the small ways.

It’s those little gestures that validate our sense of worth to the other person.

I want to communicate to the people in my life what they are worth.

And they are invaluable.

Got Milk?

This post is scary to write, mostly because I feel like if I write it, what I’m writing about can’t just be a good idea anymore, but something I actually have to stick to.

A couple weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try going dairy-free. I’m not lactose intolerant (or at least, I didn’t think I was at the time…) but I just keep hearing about how cow-milk really isn’t all that good for humans to drink. Since most of what I’d heard wasn’t necessarily from “factual” sources, I decided to research it out for myself. And now I’m pretty compelled to be as dairy-free as possible. To be honest, now knowing what I know, I really don’t think I could go back to consuming cow-milk even if I wanted to.

For the sake of full disclosure, if you’re not really committed to going dairy-free (or at least mostly dairy free), don’t read on; sometimes, ignorance really is bliss. And for further disclosure, this is not an educated paper, but rather me just explaining what I’ve learned the way I understand it… I’ve included resources I found helpful (and easy to understand!) at the end of the post.

1. Humans can’t really digest cow’s milk.
The main sugar in milk, lactose, is what our bodies have a hard time with. The enzyme humans produce (lactase) that helps digest milk stops being produced by age 5.

2. All the processing our milk goes through only makes it even less digestable.
Pasteurization and homogenization, while making milk more sanitary and allowing it a longer shelf life, also destroys a lot of the good naturally found in milk. These processes destroy what enzymes are in milk that help us digest it, not to mention decreasing milk’s nutritional value by quite a lot.

3. Cow hormones are no good for humans.
Now, I’m no member of PETA or anything, but the majority of milk cows really aren’t treated well. They are typically skinny and diseased, and are fed food and medicines to make them produce more milk and keep them alive. One drug commonly used is rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone. Injecting this hormone increases the risk of udder infections in cows (see point 4).

If there’s only one thing you gain from reading this, at least consider buying milk from dairies that don’t use this hormone. Brands that don’t often have it labeled on the front, like you would see a label for something that’s organic or vegan.

4. There are legal limits of blood, pus, and urine in your milk.
True story. Urine makes sense… Still a total EWW factor, but at least it’s logical. The blood and pus, though, really gets me. It comes from infections the cows get on their udders that are because they are so overmilked.

5. Percentage of people are lactose intolerant.
Somewhere between 40-75% of people are lactose intolerant to some degree. Northern Europeans seem to tolerate it best, while people from Asia and Africa are least tolerant.

6. If you insist on milk, find raw milk and drink that. Or, better yet, drink goat’s milk.
Raw milk still has the enzymes destroyed by processing (see point 2), and it seems from what I’ve read that all the hype about raw milk being unsafe really is just a lot of hype. Goat milk is easier on the human digestive track to begin with, so it also makes a good alternative.

There’s so much more, it’s crazy. And kinda overwhelming. I found it interesting that in addition to the obvious signs of lactose intolerance (gas, diarrhea, bloating, etc.) that there are many much more subtle signals our bodies send us. Headaches, cystic acne, some forms of cancer, and iron deficiency, among others, have been attributed to lactose intolerance. There is also evidence that milk might actually work against healthy bones by preventing calcium absorption.

Now, going dairy-free completely is a pretty radical attempt. I’m taking baby steps, and really, my personality in these types of things tends more towards “all things in moderation” than “all or nothing”. So personally, I’m eliminating cow-milk completely from our house, but I’m not trying to avoid it as an ingredient in things I purchase or eat while I’m out. For those instances, I try to order things that have less dairy in them (i.e. I order pasta with marinara sauce instead of a creamy cheese sauce).

I also love cheese waaaaay too much to try living without it. But, I am starting to try and substitute goat cheese in things where I can (it works especially well replacing feta and gorgonzola and other crumbly, sharp-flavored cheeses). Eventually, I’m going to experiment with non-dairy cheese… I’ll let you know how that goes.

Useful Links to start your own research:

A good overview of the whole no cow-milk idea

A very long and detailed article about why you shouldn’t drink milk

Milk and your bones

Milk and acne

Cooking Therapy

Work was rough.

You know how those days go… Things just don’t seem to get better no matter how hard you try to keep a good attitude. On my drive home, I was dreading trying to figure out what to do for dinner. I was tired, hungry, cranky, and didn’t want to stand on my feet for another minute.

I wanted an easy recipe, and even though we just had this last week, it sounded yummy and so I decided that’s what we were going to have. Got home, changed, started cooking (begrudgingly), and was surprised when my frustrations started disappearing.

I know, I know… I’m odd. But cooking really is therapeutic. I think it’s because, to me, cooking is a form of art and beauty. And nothing helps me relax more than creating beauty.

Thus, I don’t follow recipes exactly. I improvise. Substitute. Invent. It’s very relaxing.

Getting to chop stuff with a knife probably helps too.

So anyway, not only did cooking help, but the result has become one of my new favorite go-to foods. I can’t take all the credit for it by any means – I found the recipe here and adapted it to my own tastes (I really don’t care for spinach). Best part about it is how stinking easy it is!

Quinoa Risotto with Goat Cheese

1 1/2 cups quinoa
3 T. Olive oil
3/4 cup(ish) chopped onion
3(ish) minced garlic cloves
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
3 cups(ish) chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onions, cooking until soft (about 5 minutes).
2. Add the garlic and cook for about a minute.

3. Add the quinoa, wine, and cayenne pepper, stirring until wine is mostly absorbed.

4. Add chicken broth until it covers the quinoa.
5. Cook over medium heat until liquid is absorbed.
6. Add more broth to cover the quinoa again, and cook until that liquid is absorbed.
7. Repeat the process until the quinoa is done. By nature, quinoa remains somewhat crunchy even when it is fully cooked. You know it’s done when the seeds split and the little curly white tails start showing.

8. Next, add the goat cheese and stir to mix.

9. Enjoy!

We had ours with a favorite side dish: sliced cucumbers sprinkled with salt. Yum!

Quinoa works great as a dish all on its own because it actually forms a complete protein. Made for a delicious, filling, healthy, and comforting dinner tonight!

Sarah.

P.S. This recipe makes quite a bit. As our main dish, it was enough to fill both of us up and I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. If I were making it as a side dish to go with some meat I would probably cut the recipe in half, unless I wanted lots of leftovers.

Also, it takes about 30-45 minutes to cook.

P.P.S. Hugs from my hubby and some chocolate indulgence have made everything better… Guess eating a healthy dinner makes up for this…?

My Mind is an Excel Spreadsheet

You may wonder how I got to this conclusion, and rightly so. Well, the other day as I was working out next month’s budget I was trying to recall what terms Dave Ramsey uses to describe financial “personalities”. I could remember the “free spirit”, but for some reason could not for the life of me remember “nerd”. So instead, in my half-crazed and sleep-deprived mind, the best thing I could come up with to describe my mind was an Excel spreadsheet.

Sad thing is how accurate it is.

I am a chronic categorizer, organizer, and compiler of information. I can’t help it. The wheels in my head just dot stop turning, not for a moment. It’s a strength, but also a weakness; makes for some sleepless nights for sure!

But if my brain is an Excel spreadsheet, my husband’s brain is the iTunes visualizer.

Not disorderly, but definitely not lines and columns, either. His brain is colorful, symmetrical, imaginative, and entertaining for hours.

And I can’t fit him into my spreadsheet.

And that’s a good thing.

I just have to laugh realizing just how black-and-white, overly orderly, and perfectionistic I really am, and be grateful I am surrounded by people who don’t let me take myself so seriously all the time. Life needs whimsy.

I used to hate those things about myself – the structure, the “unfunness” of my personality. I guess we’ve all hated something about ourselves at some level or other. And while I do some days need to just relax and not be so gosh-darn type-A, it’s also a strength about me I’ve learned to celebrate.

I’m a much happier person when I choose to celebrate who I am instead of fighting it.

I will always need to learn to balance my strengths, but fighting them only leads to comparison and discontent. It’s true for all of us; we have to learn to love who we have been made to be. And occasionally poke fun at ourselves.

If my mind is an Excel spreadsheet, what would you compare yours to?

Plus Wall Shelf

Let me preface this post by giving you a little more insight about me.

I am a projects girl.

If I don’t always have some project or other that I’m working on, I will go crazy. Having my own space to decorate and do what I want with has really only made this addiction worse… Now, in addition to the usual crafty things I spend my time doing, I also have decorating and organizing projects to undertake. Woo hoo!

Now, for another thing.

I am incredibly impatient.

So when I get an idea, I pretty well have to instantly jump in and do it or else I will endlessly obsess over it until I do get it done. This lack of patience also means I can tend to skip over directions and just jump in, giving it a go, before I may properly know how to do something. It usually works out. Usually.

Therefore, there will be DIY-project posts on this blog of mine. The arts-and-craftsy ones I’m pretty confident in; the home-improvement ones I’m less sure of, and have little experience in. So if those are – very! – basic in their explanation, bear with me. This is all about the learning process for me.

So now, to my shelf.

We can’t paint the walls in our apartment, but we can hang stuff on the walls according to our desire to patch nail holes. Thank God, because bare white is just pretty boring and hospital-esque. Thus I’ve been scheming since we moved in about what I plan to do with each of the walls in our little home. Pinterest has been a terrible thing for fueling my plans.

After seeing this idea, I decided I just had to have one.

So to Ikea we went, where I got this shelf and these brackets, all for the lovely price of $24.99. Other tools I borrowed from my parents, and my wonderful husband let me recruit him to indulge my inner DIY.

First thing I learned is the value of a stud-finder. (Insert witty joke from husband about finding studs here.) I didn’t know this, but since it’s a shelf that will bear weight, I couldn’t just go screwing it in any old place on the wall, it needed to be anchored better. Just for anyone else (like me) who doesn’t know what one is, here you go:

Second was to measure it all out (again, my headlong impulse being to just but the thing up just eyeballing it without properly measuring). We found the studs, took the length of the shelf into account, and used a pencil on the wall to approximate where we needed things to go. Then we screwed the brackets into the shelf first. Side note, you’ll definitely want to be using a drill.

Drill pilot holes first before you screw in your actual screws.

After that, we took it into our bedroom where we made sure it was all level. I held the shelf while Derek screwed it all in place, starting with the lower screws on both sides and then the upper ones so it wouldn’t get uneven.

And then, voila! We had a shelf in our bedroom!

Note the progression from no shelf, to shelf with husband passed out on bed, to decorated

I few other notes on this whole thing:

If you’re doing this above a bed, consider moving the bed first… Yeah, didn’t think through the whole wall-dust thing.

Also, flat-head screws probably aren’t the best choice… Note that there is now a small ding in our wall next to the left bracket! (Meaning: there will be a post on How To Patch Your Walls when we move out…)

And not a huge deal, but I also didn’t think about getting black screws to blend in with the black brackets. I’ll be painting/Sharpie-ing them so it’ll be fine from a distance, but just a thought for you.

So there is my (very) simplistic how-to on putting up a wall shelf. Stay tuned to see more on what I end up putting on the shelf. For now, it’s a beautiful canvas of one of our wedding pictures my parents gave us for Christmas, a framed wedding picture, and monogram letters from Michael’s that I painted. There will be more.

Sarah.