Seeking Joy Every Day - December Sanity Challenge 2013

This month my goal for the December Sanity Challenge has been to seek out joy, especially in the small moments. The everyday moments. And honestly after a few days, you suddenly begin to see joy all around you. Today I want to share with you a photo essay of joy I've found over the past two weeks!

 

Joy is: Going to a local production of  "The Grinch" and seeing the wonderful talent of people in your community! 

 Joy is: Seeing the smiling faces of friends & children you absolutely adore in a local Christmas production! 

photo from: Southern Blonde

Joy is: Seeing your finished stacks of Christmas cards and actually being slightly sad you finished them! It's a joy to connect with others on a personal level with hand-written notes through snail mail. 

Joy is: Being old enough to look forward too and actually enjoy the Annual Family Christmas Potluck! 

Joy is: The annual Family Bingo Tournament at said potluck dinner! (And if you don't love bingo, you have to love those bright, vivid buttons!)

Joy is: Seeing little ones fascinated by their picture reflecting back to them from a smartphone (Oh technology, how I'm learning to love you!)

Joy is: Winning a brand new set of crayons at said bingo tournament! Is there anything better than the scent of new crayons?

Joy is: Seeing the local Sudan club drivers at your small town Christmas parade!

Joy is: Getting really excited about your small town Christmas parade even when it's only about 20 minutes long and it's raining!

Joy is: Being grateful for those who give their talent and time as volunteer firemen serving rural areas!

Joy is: Smiling faces and handmade signs!

Joy is: Little boys tossing tootsie rolls from the big shiny firetruck with sirens blaring down main street!

Joy is: Still getting a thrill about seeing Santa show up at the end of the parade! 

Joy is: A hot steaming mug of my great-grandma's Russian Tea.

Joy is: Seeing three snuggling kitties on your bed, as Cheryl said, a big 'ol pile of wuv!

Joy is: A really sweet companion on chilly winter nights.

Joy is: Seeing the contentedness of a 12 year old furry friend.

Joy is: Seeing your "Sammie" hamster run up to you in her cage every time you enter the room!

 

Joy is: Keeping a record of all the amazing things that bring you joy and peace and gratitude! I recommend this really fun and beautiful journal, illustrated by Molly Hahn.

*What is joy to you? Do you look for it every day?*

*******************

A message from our host Cheryl Harris: 

The holidays can be a beautiful time of family bonding, celebration and beauty. They can also be an overdoing, overspending, over stressing time of all flavors of excess. For the last 3 years, I’ve been delighted to host the December Sanity Retreat and the July Self-Care Retreat. This is our 6^th retreat! It’s been wonderful for me to have an extra excuse to focus on self-care and rein in my natural tendency to need to bake (at least) 18 kinds of cookies.

 

I know how powerful it is for me to focus on self-care, and I imagine it’s similar for most of you, so as a gentle extra nudge, we’re doing 2 giveaways.

Giveaway #1: Let us hear your voice!

Prize: a $50 nuts.com gift certificate) they are not sponsoring, I just wanted something with healthy gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, etc. options (US/Canada)

Comment on any of our hostesses’ posts on the Sanity Retreat, like this one. Leave me a comment on how you cultivate gratitude in your life, OR what you’re most grateful for on this week’s post HERE

Giveaway #2: make the challenge your own!

Blog on your own self-care plans, and a post will be chosen at random as the winner. If you don’t have a blog, contact the hostess of the week and they’ll post for you.

Prize: a box of fun things from me.

As always, self-care is whatever it means to you. So the December Sanity Challenge can be on whatever YOU need to work on to stay sane during the holiday season

Balance around food * Joyful movement * Sanity & stress management * Making space for art, expression, and spirituality * Connection with friends and family

Or whatever else speaks to you along those lines.

The challenge—post on what you plan to do to make your holidays sane, happy and healthy.  Make it specific!  Not just “I’ll get more sleep”, but “I’ll get at least 7 hours of sleep, 5 days a week”.  Not just “I won’t go crazy making desserts”, but “I’ll make a maximum of XX desserts, and space them out over XX time”.  You know what you need to do to keep this doable, and writing it down will help you get there!

I’m delighted to be joined by wonderful hostesses with like-minded blogs:

• Kickoff: Gluten Free Goodness 
• Dec 7th Kate of Eat, Recycle, Repeat
• Dec 14th Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl
• Dec 21^st  Valerie of City Life Eats
• Roundup: Gluten Free Goodness

I hope you choose to join us, too.  Grab a badge and we’re good to go!

We’ll also be meeting up in our Facebook group for extra encouragement and support. You’re more than welcome to join us there.

Posts so far:

• Valerie’s Kickoff post
• Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl’s Seeking Joy
• Eat Recycle Repeat’s Joy to the World

Cheryl's 30 days of gratitude:

• Day 1: Gratitude
• Day 2: Grateful for Genghis Khat
• Day 3: Grateful for amazing people
• Day 4: The roundabout road to gratitude
• Day 5: Grateful for beautiful weather
• Day 6: Grateful for New Experiences
• Day 7: Grateful for Local Apples
• Day 8: Grateful for Acts of Kindness
• Day 9 and 10: Grateful for Everyday Miracles

December Sanity Retreat 2013 - Seeking Joy!

I don't participate in too many "blogging carnivals" anymore, but there are two each year that I really love and WANT to be a part of. 

Cheryl Harris created the "December Sanity Retreat" and the "July Self-Care Retreat" several years ago and I think the messages behind these events are so important. Self-care is hugely neglected in this country and I believe it's truly vital to our overall health and well-being, especially during this crazy time of year! 

I have been a much happier and healthier person since I began making an effort to take better care of myself emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Cheryl's online retreats have been a huge part of creating specific times each year to better focus on serious self-care. This month I am choosing to focus on joy. To find joy in every day. I'm also choosing to slow down and enjoy the holiday. We are not attending too many events, not baking too many cookies, not buying too many gifts, etc... 

I've also broken down tasks to do them slowly through the month. I have a bad habit of putting things off until the last minute and then having a major holiday breakdown three days before Christmas! This year I want to find the joy in each day during each small task. From washing dishes, to making dinner, to wrapping presents, to writing cards (yes, I still love sending Christmas cards! I won't give that up!)... I plan on finding joy in the every day of December. 

So this year my focus is on joy. Today I've found joy in the sun coming out this afternoon after a rainy and gray few days.  What can you find joy in every day this holiday season? 

Some joy I found during our recent holiday trip to Washington DC!
Right outside of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, I found lots of kale
in the natural areas. It really made me smile! In all the amazing plants they could have
placed in that little natural area, they placed kale! So pretty and such a delicious
green! I wonder if the squirrels are enjoying it?

Do you want to participate in our December Sanity Retreat? Here's how you can!

More on the December Sanity Retreat & Contests

The holidays can be a beautiful time of family bonding, celebration and beauty. They can also be an overdoing, overspending, overstressing time of all flavors of excess. For the last 3 years, I’ve been delighted to host the December Sanity Retreat and the July Self-Care Retreat. This is our 6th retreat! I wish I could say it was all about altruism, but honestly, it’s been wonderful for me to have an extra excuse to focus on self-care and rein in my natural tendency to need to bake (at least) 18 kinds of cookies.

I know how powerful it is for me to focus on self-care, and I imagine it’s similar for most of you, so as a gentle extra nudge, we’re doing 2 giveaways.

Giveaway #1: Let us hear your voice!

Prize: a $50 nuts.com gift certificate) they are not sponsoring, I just wanted something with healthy gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, etc. options (US/Canada)

Comment on any of our hostesses’ posts on the Sanity Retreat, like this one. Leave me a comment on how you cultivate gratitude in your life, OR what you’re most grateful for on this week’s post HERE

Giveaway #2: make the challenge your own!

Blog on your own self-care plans, and a post will be chosen at random as the winner. If you don’t have a blog, contact the hostess of the week and they’ll post for you.

Prize: um, ironing out details–either a gift certificate or a box of self-care books, meditation CDs, chocolate and other fun things from me.

As always, self-care is whatever it means to you. So the December Sanity Challenge can be on whatever YOU need to work on to stay sane during the holiday season

Balance around food * Joyful movement * Sanity & stress management * Making space for art, expression, and spirituality * Connection with friends and family

Or whatever else speaks to you along those lines.

The challenge—post on what you plan to do to make your holidays sane, happy and healthy.  Make it specific!  Not just “I’ll get more sleep”, but “I’ll get at least 7 hours of sleep, 5 days a week”.  Not just “I won’t go crazy making desserts”, but “I’ll make a maximum of XX desserts, and space them out over XX time”.  You know what you need to do to keep this doable, and writing it down will help you get there!

I’m delighted to be joined by wonderful hostesses with likeminded blogs:

• Kickoff: Cheryl of Gluten Free Goodness 
• Dec 7th Kate of Eat, Recycle, Repeat
• Dec 14th Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl
• Dec 21st  Valerie of City Life Eats
• Roundup: Cheryl of  Gluten Free Goodness 

I hope you choose to join us, too.  Grab a badge and we’re good to go!

We’ll also be meeting up in our Facebook group for extra encouragement and support. You’re more than welcome to join us there.

Pumpkin Chai Latte Cupcakes with Nutmeg Cardamom Icing (Gluten-Free, Soy-Free, Vegan)

No, I didn't throw paleo out the window! This is one of the recipes in my baking cookbook and I've been meaning to share it with you here on the blog because there's actually a typo in the cookbook. And it's my fault! I looked over that recipe 500,037 times and still somehow didn't catch that typo!! Fingers crossed that's the only typo in the book!

But I really want you to have this recipe. It's probably one of my very favorites in the entire book not only because it's gluten-free, but because it contains pumpkin and chai spices, it's soy-free AND it's also vegan. Yep. No eggs or dairy in that lovely cake.

This is the recipe I keep turning too when people ask me to make them cupcakes for a friend or a neighbor, for a birthday or just because. They are spicy and sweet and they make nearly all tummies happy! They are moist and decadent and have a really lovely crumb. And that homemade icing, it's TO DIE FOR.

I actually made the cake this week for a fundraiser for a family in our community. They are going through some really tough times with medical issues and when a neighbor asked if I could donate a cake, I gladly jumped at the chance. Even if it's a treat that I really shouldn't be eating due to sugar or grains, it's still a joy to make them for other people.

So here's the deal with the recipe in cookbook, this recipe is listed on page: 187 in the cakes and cupcakes chapter as Chai Latte Cupcakes with Nutmeg Cardamom Icing. What needs to be corrected is that the original recipe in the book ONLY makes about 9-10 cupcakes and NOT 24. It's a small batch recipe. It can EASILY be doubled, tripled, even quadrupled! For the cake above I actually tripled the recipe and ended up with a 2 layer cake and about 8 cupcakes. How I managed to look at that recipe hundreds of times and miss that mistake, I will never know... but trust me, it won't make 24 cupcakes! (Unless maybe they are minis! lol)

Either way, it's a really delicious cake or cupcake. I'd love to come up with a grain-free version of this recipe without eggs (since there are SO many folks who follow paleo, but who also need to follow an autoimmune protocol or have egg sensitivities), but until then I hope you can enjoy this version! And while you're at it, double the recipe and share them with a friend!

Pumpkin Chai Latte Cupcakes with Nutmeg Cardamom Icing
Created by Carrie Forbes
Reprinted with permission from "The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook" 
Free of gluten, dairy, soy, eggs
Printer-friendly Recipe

Ingredients | Serves 9

Cupcakes
1 cup brown rice flour or sorghum flour
¹⁄³ cup arrowroot starch or tapioca starch
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¹⁄8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 cup almond milk, warmed to 110°F
4 black tea bags
¼ cup light-tasting olive oil or canola oil
½ cup unsweetened applesauce or plain pumpkin purée (I highly recommend the pumpkin) 
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting
1 cup Spectrum Palm Shortening (Or Crisco™ if you're cool with that or butter if you can tolerate dairy!)
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
3–5 tablespoons ice water

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tins with 9-10 paper liners and spritz with olive oil or nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the brown rice flour or sorghum flour, arrowroot starch or tapioca starch, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper. Set dry ingredients aside.
3. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, heat almond milk in the microwave to 110°F. Add the tea bags and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Remove tea bags.
4. In a medium bowl mix together the tea-steeped milk, oil, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you have a thick cake batter.
5. Fill the lined muffin tins 3/4 full of batter.
6. Bake for 25–30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean and the tops are golden-brown. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then turn out cupcakes onto wire racks to cool completely.
7. Make the frosting: In a medium bowl, cut shortening into confectioners’ sugar with a pastry blender. Stir in spices. (If you prefer a less-spicy frosting, use only ½ teaspoon of each.) Mixture will be crumbly. Thin the frosting with ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you get the consistency you desire to frost the cupcakes.
8. Store any remaining cupcakes in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Carrie's Notes:

• To increase the pumpkin flavor in the cake even more, you can easily replace up to 1/3 cup of the almond milk with additional pumpkin puree. 
• Any type of non-dairy milk OR regular milk will work.
• Coconut palm sugar will work perfectly in place of the sugar, you can also decrease the sugar to 1/2 cup without compromising the texture of the cake. 
• For chai tea, simply whisk together the spics called for in this cake and add 1/2 teaspoon of the mixture to your regular hot tea with a splash of almond milk or regular milk. Coconut milk would also be lovely. 

Can you help bring Bomber home?

Ms. Tia, just hanging out with her kiddos! 

My super awesome, eco-hippy, all-natural, dreadlock wearin' friend Tia Colleen needs your help. Let me give you a little bit of a back story Ms. Tia Colleen and her family...

Tia's husband Christopher is in the military, which makes them a military family who must travel whenever they are given orders. Tia's husband was given orders to be stationed in Hawaii about a year and a half ago, so they all went along. It was quite a journey with four beautiful babies in tow, along with with their sweet kitty Bomber.

Well, somewhere along the way Bomber decided she wasn't quite ready to go to Hawaii right at that moment so she took off on her own.

As you can imagine for any family who loses a pet it's tough. It's even more tough when you lose a pet when you're midway across the country headed to Hawaii and you have no way to figure out where your pet went and if they will be okay... and if you will ever see them again.



Tia thought she's never see Bomber again. Her babies were heartbroken over the loss of Bomber and it made the whole move even more stressful than it already was.

Now here we are, nearly a year and a half later and Tia gets this phone call from the Boise Humane Society. THEY FOUND BOMBER! This little kitty has miraculously survived on her own for over a year in the area of Boise, Idaho. (I'm embarrassed to say I had to look up what state Boise was in.. I was thinking Montana... for shame Carrie!) Thankfully another military family at Mountain Home AFB (yes, also in Idaho... now you know!), is fostering Bomber until Tia can raise enough money to fly her to Hawaii.

You wouldn't think something like this would be a big expense, but for a single-income military family, it's a lot as they will have to pay for airfare, vet bills, quarantine procedures, etc...

And I realize this sounds like a crazy request in some ways, especially to those who don't have pets... but it's really important. Tia and her family have been so far from their friends and relatives and they in some ways are having a hard time calling Hawaii home. Tia has such a strong bond with Bomber that she couldn't bring herself to get another cat once they got to Hawaii, she knew that no other animal would replace the relationship she and her children had with this special cat.

So can you can head on over to http://www.gofundme.com/5crji0 and help Tia out? We need to get Bomber safely to her, so Tia and her family can FINALLY feel like they are truly home again. 

Lessons in cooking with Melissa Joulwan

Beef carnitas with homemade guacamole and the occasional handful of
organic corn tortillas. 

(I KNOW, I KNOW... these pictures are terrible!! I could NOT make this pretty! I'm sorry... I promise it tasted much better than this looks!) 

Since going gluten-free in 2007 I eat very differently at most restaurants. At the time (late 2007), one dish I discovered to be gluten-free at our local Mexican restaurant was pork carnitas. They were savory, rich chunks of pork that had been gently cooked down with warm spices until they were super tender. When the liquids cook out of the dish, the pork then sizzles in it's own fat until its crispy and delicious on the edges. Down home Mexican comfort food.

This was my staple Mexican dish when we visited that restaurant. I would crave those pork carnitas, served with warmed corn tortillas and refried beans and sometimes a guacamole salad.

At some point last summer we visited our local Mexican restaurant again (we hadn't been in a while) and I ordered my usual pork carnitas... except... they were NOT my usual pork carnitas. Apparently they had a new chef who had changed all the recipes and now the carnitas were deep fried (and most likely cross-contaminated in a shared fryer) and they didn't seem fresh. This recipe also didn't have the rich, deep flavors that I was used too. In all honesty it seemed like they reheated leftover fried pork carnitas... and they were NOT yummy. 

I was hoping it was a fluke, so we visited the restaurant again a few weeks later. Nope. Same deep-fried pork carnitas that seemed like last week's leftovers. They were not the succulent, slow cooked morsels of delicious pork simmered in Mexican seasonings that I had enjoyed for years and I was really disappointed.

So I went without them and we didn't eat much Mexican for a while... I was bummed. When I wanted comfort food, I really wanted those old pork carnitas.

And then, a few weeks ago I got my copy of Well Fed 2 by Melissa Joulwan, the queen of paleo awesomeness. And as I was flipping through her glorious cookbook, I remembered something... HER FIRST awesome cookbook... It had a recipe for citrus pork carnitas! I had to try them. (For those who don't have the cookbook, Melissa graciously has the recipe posted on her site.)

I'd never made a recipe where you purposely allow the liquids to simmer out of the pot (key word purposefully!)... as Melissa shared in her recipe directions:

"While it's cooking, it will look like uninspired soup! As the water evaporates, the powerful citrus juice tenderizes the meat... (then) watch as the meat magically fries and caramelizes in the fat and fruit juice. It is a thing of beauty..."

(For those of you who would like to write cookbooks, I encourage you to buy Melissa's cookbooks, not only for the amazing recipes, but to see awesome examples of how truly intuitive and helpful instructions should be written!)

And Melissa's instructions were key. The pork did exactly as she described and by the end of the cooking process those juicy pieces of succulent meat had soaked in all the amazing flavors of the broth and spices. The flavors that developed in those chunks of pork were amazing, I remember standing there just picking the meat out of the pot and swooning at each bite. THESE were the pork carnitas I had been missing. (Thank you Melissa!)

So in all this talk about pork carnitas, where does that top picture of beef carnitas fit in? It fits in on a rainy fall afternoon when finances are tight, but you just happened to have a beef roast thawing in the fridge. And I was kinda tired of your "plainjane" beef, carrots, potatoes, and onions "pot roast." It's good, don't get me wrong... but it's not what I wanted.

This particular beef roast I had thawing was marbled with a good bit of fat and while I was thinking about dinner soon after lunch (oh stop, you do it too!), I started to wonder if you could use the same technique with a beef roast as you could with pork. Then I found this recipe online, which sounded similar to Melissa's recipe for pork, and I decided to try it, using some of the suggestions from the commenters. Such as adding a bit of cumin and maybe some cayenne for some additional heat and flavor... and because I loved Melissa's version, I added lime juice as well. A little extra citrus never hurt anything.

And it worked. It worked amazingly well and because I cut the beef into about 1" pieces it was nearly done in an hour, which was very helpful for a weeknight meal. I think what I love most about this recipe is not only how tasty it is, but its lesson in appearances... that "uninspired soup" when you started cooking turns into a gorgeous pan of sizzling, bold-flavored cubes of meat that literally make you smile when you taste them. What seemed like the most simple and mundane of cooking techniques produced incredibly good results.

Have you had any kitchen epiphanies lately?

The guac? It was just two overly ripe mashed avocados with chopped cherry tomatoes, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and lime juice...

The tortilla chips? Rare and organic and work occasionally in my hue of paleo.