Magical Future Board

I haven't really been cooking much.  The heat makes the kitchen completely unbearable.  The sun shines in my kitchen in the afternoon making it about 2 million degrees above my comfort zone.  We've been eating out a bit (don't ask about why you may or may not have seen us at IHOP eating pancakes at night for dinner).  Beyond pancakes, I also love eating fruit salad for dinner or yogurt or ice cream or plain spinach.  In other words, food has been a bit hap hazard.  If you come to visit me these days, I'm likely to suggest going out to eat, especially with the early bird group.  And then, I'll talk you into going out for really good ice cream at Acushnet Creamery, where I always have coffee oreo.

I have, however, been cooking up plenty of ideas.  I have been drawing on the ol' toolbox and using meditation to chill my anxiety and to invite new stuff into my future.  I decided to make a future board.  I don't think this is an official title or anything, but I wanted to do a deep meditation followed by creating a collage.  The intent was to invite my future, to invite possibilities, to invite change, and to have a concrete product to look at to remind me of the intention.

The Recipe
1 to 2 Cups of meditation - any type will do:  deep prayer, mindfulness, guided meditation with a tape, speaking to your higher self, journaling - Get yourself in a quiet place where your doubts and anxieties are gently put to the side for the moment
10 or more magazines
Rubber cement or other easy to use glue
Canvas paper or another type of firm paper or poster board
Scissors
Clean table to work upon

After meditating, set your intention to invite your best possible future - not pushing for specifics, just asking for ideas of what's best for you, and always I add "this or better."
Cut out all the words and images that call to you.  Don't over think it.  Just cut them out.  If your brain starts to spin out about something, just notice where it is going and then bring yourself back to the task at hand.  You may want to sort words from pictures or just make one big pile.  Find things of beauty that call you.

After you have a nice pretty pile of intentions, start to arrange them on your board.  If you notice you need more images, go back and get more.  Arrange and start to glue.  It's usually easiest to do pictures then words but it depends.  Try the best you can to stay in the meditative place, keep bringing yourself back there.  It may help if you have a lot of stress to write your intentions down and keep repeating them to yourself.

Continue to cook your ideas and images until done.  How will you know you are done?  You will think of adding something and it will feel wrong.

I recommend looking at it every day.  You may want it out in the open in your bedroom or keep it private and spend time with it daily.  It may reach a time when it is done and the wheels are in motion.  Or it may be time to make a new one.

I've been working with mine for a few weeks now and I am ready to share it with you.

I love this board so much, and I have to tell you that my life has shifted in so many ways since I made it.  I was thinking that it might be fun to get a bunch of people together and all make one.   Would you like that?  Please say so in the comments and maybe ideas about time?  The whole thing will take about 4 hours.  It's the most magical thing I have done in a long time.

Healing

I am so frustrated with things with my health I don't even have the energy to explain right now.  Suffice it to say, I'm working on it, but it is a LOT to manage.  I'm too grouchy to discuss it tonight.  Maybe tomorrow will bring bright sunny perspective and fresh muffins in a basket at my door.

Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce

There probably is a lot to update in the healing department but I think I will talk about the recipe first.

I have made this salad a million times, a different way each time.  When I thought about making it I realized I was missing some things I like to put in it.  My horoscope, however, said not to spend any money today, and that seemed really pertinent since right now I have no money.  {Side note:  I do not normally make any decisions based on the horoscopes that show up on my google home page.  Today however, I was feeling very spend-ish.  Like I might go to the health food store and spend money on tahini, tamari, and sesame seeds.  Instead I decided to make a fabulous dish with whatever was in my cabinets.  Kind of like the show "Chopped" only there is no chicken intestines or olive loaf.}

I was invited to a small gathering of some teacher friends.  We really enjoy each other but don't have enough time to see each other.  So I would be cooking for 4.  So, of course, I made enough for 20.  Learning cooking first at a restaurant  really warped my ability to figure out how much to make.   I only make this salad in the summer, and the trick is to make the noodles early before the heat of the day makes it impossible.  I cooked a whole box of organic whole wheat spaghetti at around 8 am.  Then I decided, I might as well do the whole thing.  The only risk with this is that my sauce may really soak into the pasta, but I will bring along a little rice vinegar to brighten up the flavor.


Ingredients:
1 box spaghetti
1/4 C chopped onion
1T of ginger paste or grated ginger (very optional)
1 crown (3 C chopped) broccoli
2 handfuls of baby spinach (amount is not important)
1 1/2 C peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
3/4 cup hummus (you could use tahini, but I only had hummus available)
{Side note:  Up to this point in the ingredients I was meticulously measuring what I was eyeballing for measurements because I don't measure.  It turned into a game of guess how much onion that is.  I am freakishly right on the money for eyeballing measurements.  Huzzah.  After this, I got in the zone of sauce making and the amounts are approximate (or maybe exactly right since I am a genius at eyeballing)}
Olive oil
Toasted sesame oil
2T Braggs Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce, or tamari)
1t fish sauce (optional)
1T sugar (honey would be better, but I was sticking to cabinets)
Now you need about 1/4 to 1/2 C of liquid.  I used to use orange juice.  You could use lemon juice but then you need more sugar to balance it.  Today I used peach-lemonade.  Perfect.
Rice Vinegar (about 1/2-3/4 C)

Directions:
Pasta
Cook the pasta in generously salted water.  Drain.  Add about 1/4 C olive oil to the pasta to keep it from sticking.  This is salad and it will be chilled.  The pasta needs to hang out without sticking together.

Use olive oil to keep noodles from sticking together

Transfer to a large bowl

Veggies
In a medium pan, cook onion in some toasted sesame oil.  Add some ginger paste.  Add broccoli with a little liquid (2T) (water, wine, whatever) to steam it a little.  Add 2 handfulls of spinach and cook until they are wilted but not so cooked they disappear.  If you're smart, you would cook garlic at this step.  I totally forgot.  Add this mixture to the pasta and stir.

My guess was 1/4 cup chopped

Sure enough 1/4 C

My guess was 3 C and 1 crown chopped was indeed 3 C

Sorry that it's blurry but Ginger Paste is so handy to have around 

Cooked broccoli and onions are underneath a couple handfuls of spinach

Sauce

Stir cooked veggies into pasta with sauce

In a food processor:  Put in peanut butter and hummus and blend thoroughly.  Then add Braggs and fish sauce.  Blend and then taste.  You'll probably say, wow that's too salty, I want to bring back the sweetness of the peanut butter.  Add the sugar, blend, and taste again.  You'll say ok, now I just need liquid.  Add juice - start with a small amount, blend and taste.  I would be surprised if you need more saltiness, but you can add more Braggs if needed.

Add the sauce to the pasta.  Yum.  Taste.  You'll say, wow that's good but it needs something.  Add in a little rice vinegar.  Stir and taste.  You'll say, wow yes.  Cool, more of that.  And so on until you have achieved perfection.  Serve on top of a bed of spinach.  Garnish with sesame seeds if you have them.  I used more leaves and cherry tomatoes on top.  If you're alone, just eat right out of the bowl until full and you'll say garnish, shmarmish this is so good.  This picture is deceiving.  It is not a regular sized plate.  It is a large serving plate.  This recipe would easily serve 12 as a side dish and 8 as a main dish.

Health Stuff
When I last blogged, I hadn't yet seen the surgeon and he had told me to stay home and rest.  Well, I couldn't quite stay home because I stopped getting pay checks and I started to feel panicked about money.  Sometimes I forget that I am in a we situation and my husband has money to give me to hold my individual stuff over and can pay our house stuff without my help.  Anyway, I went back for the last 5 days of school which felt great anyway, because I got to finish everything up and talk to the students.  I'm really going to miss my AP Biology class.  There were some awesome people in that class.

I saw the surgeon, and he had a student intern with him.  They concluded that things were not going well.  I had concluded this a while ago.  It felt like they were just staring at me and nodding in collective pity.  What do I do?  Wait and see.  Rest and walk.  Wait and see.  Continue on medication for now.  Up this one so you can lower that one.

My hopeful hypothesis is that I am a very slow healer and I have too much inflammation in there.  I am all for getting another steroid epidural but I guess they don't want to mask what is happening.  My hopeless hypothesis is that I have permanent nerve damage from compression of the nerve root for all those years.  Thankfully I have two hypotheses to bounce back and forth between.

At times, the pain is so intense I cannot imagine going back to work ever.  Other times, I feel like I have some management of it.  At times, like in the middle of the paragraph I hit a point where I MUST nap.  I just slept for two hours.  Sleep is necessary sometimes.  I'm not quite as weepy as I was, but falling apart always seems like a possible option.  Cooking is definitely a time to reflect, to focus, and also to escape.  I get very absorbed in the moment and think of nothing else.

Home and Spanikopita

So surgery number 3 is done.  Only minor tinges of leg pain here and there - which is the least leg pain I have had in over 5 years.  Back pain of course from the surgery but that's totally different than nerve pain.  For those who haven't kept track - Surgery 1 last June - attempt least invasive option of removing bone on my nerve root (lumbar S1), Surgery 2 in December - full fusion with lumbar cage and three screws.  Then no leg pain for 3 weeks but then grew new bone spurs on nerve b/c of bone enhancing meds to encourage fusion.  Surgery 3 yesterday - remove all the bone spurs and scar tissue to free up the nerve root.  I am trying to hold this line of desperately hopeful and realistically staying in the moment.  I can't really imagine being able to deal if it doesn't work and I don't want to live in the fear.  So, I feel my fear as it comes, cry a bit, and move on.

So I made Spanikopita on Monday and ate it last night.  Can I tell you that this cooking ahead thing was a great idea!!!!

I've posted this recipe on FB but wanted to share it here.  I learned about this easy version from my friend Kim.  You can make it in about 20 minutes and throw it in the oven.  If you don't eat it all at once, it stays great in the fridge.  If you were going to freeze it - I would say you could freeze it before or after baking.  I was thinking of using those cute little brownie pans with no edges to make individual ones without depending on weird folding mastery of phyllo dough.

Spanikopita Recipe (adapted from Kim Shute)

1/2 package of phyllo dough (thawed)
Olive oil - lots (3/4 cup maybe in total)
1 box spinach
1 C frozen peas
1 small onion chopped
2-4 garlic cloves chopped finely or pushed through the garlic gadget that I don't have.

1 small container of ricotta
1-2 packages of feta to taste.
lemon zest
2 eggs

In a large pan, saute the onions in olive oil (1-2 T) until nice and soft but not crispy.  Add in whole thing of spinach (stems and all) and the peas.  Cook until wilted not cooked down entirely.  Add garlic for last 30 seconds of cooking - keep stirring.  Burnt garlic is gross.

Put in food processor and chop until all integrated.

In large bowl, combine the spinach mixture, the ricotta, the eggs, the feta (crumble it in as you go), and the zest (maybe 1/2 T).  Salt and pepper to taste.  (I don't use pepper ever, but you might).

Assembly:
Use large pyrex glass baking dish or 2 small ones.  Unravel your phyllo dough so you can get the layers out.  Get a small dish of olive oil and pastry brush ready.

Brush a layer of oil on bottom of dish.  Add one layer of dough.  For this recipe you do not need to go crazy making your layers of dough neat at all.  Even if edges fold over each other, it won't matter one bit.  Add 5-6 more layers to the bottom with a little bit of oil brushed on between layers.  You also don't need to vigorously oil each one, there's a lot of moisture that moves down through it from the spinach stuff.

Add half the mixture.  Put on another 5-6 layers of dough with a little oil in between the layers.  Then add the rest of the mixture.  Top with another 5-6 layers of dough.

I bake with aluminum foil on top, which I take off at the end to crisp up the top,  I think it takes about 40 minutes at 350, but you want to keep an eye on it.  It's done when nothing is giggling in the spinach mixture (the eggs will have pulled it together).

This is completely easy and delicious.  It is not the same as the more authentic version with a million layers and tons of butter, but this way is way easier and actually tastier in my opinion.

I squeeze a little lemon on top when I serve it.

Sorry - I forgot to take pictures this time, this is from last time.

Chicken and Veggies in an Indian Sauce

The situation:  Need to use up organic chicken in fridge before the weekend.

The solution:  I'll find a new recipe!  No, I'll make something up.  No, I'll find a recipe.  Ugh.

What went down:  I put half a chopped onion in a pan and threw some oil in.  When I don't know what else to do, I throw an onion in a pan and wait for inspiration.  So then I put in a hearty squeeze of ginger paste (have you discovered this stuff in the produce aisle?  it's great).  I added a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil to the mix.  I chopped 2 celery stalks finely and added them.  It started to smell lovely.  I decided to boil chicken in another pot.

After the onions were translucent, I added about two teaspoons of flour, stirred, and let it cook a little.  Then I deglazed the pan with some chicken broth (about 1 cup- add more if you need it saucier).  I remembered I had half a can of chopped tomatoes in the fridge.  I tossed them in.  Then I added the last half of a red pepper chopped coarsely.  By now, it was a good looking thing.

Spices.  Hmmm.  I was thinking the whole time about a sauce I made in February when I attempted malai koftas (Indian veggie meat balls with a yummy sauce) so I sort of went in that direction.  I added 2 teaspoons coriander, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoons turmeric, 1 teaspoon cumin.

Oh.  You might be assuming I measured this stuff for real.  Nope.  I don't measure for stuff like this.  But I was thinking of you the whole time so I looked at about how much I was adding.

Salt to taste.  Hey, wait.  I have cilantro!  So I coarsely chopped what I had and tossed it in.  Side note: Cilantro seems so yummy, tangy and mild to me yet people completely HATE it.  Why is cilantro so polarizing?

Then I tasted it.  Yum.  I added some lemon zest.  I shredded the chicken breast that had been boiled and let the whole thing cook together on very low heat.

You could serve this over rice and it would be lovely.  I can't really digest rice right now so I had it straight up in a bowl with organic crescent rolls on the side.  (Whatevs, don't judge.  LOL).  I squeezed a lemon wedge on top.  Oh my.  So delicious.  

Here's the recipe in a list like normal people would do:

2 chicken breast, boiled, shredded

8 oz canned chopped tomatoes

1/2 large yellow onion

2 stalks celery

1/2 red pepper

1 T ginger paste

2t flour

1 C chicken broth

olive oil and toasted sesame oil

2 t coriander

1 t cinnamon

2 t turmeric

1 t cumin

 chopped fresh cilantro

salt

This makes enough for two hearty servings.  I made my lunch for tomorrow (bottom picture - sorry it's weird and upside down).

Healing 

I had an awesome session with my counselor yesterday and she said this great thing.  I can't paraphrase it right - Lighthouses can go out in the sea looking for ships to save; they stay on the shore shining their light to guide.  For me, this is about holding boundaries, not giving my power away, being the light that I am.  

She also said this cool thing:  

Time for a mental garage sale:  time to let go of a belief that is not supportive of the life I want to be living and replace it with one that is.

Also - biggie for me - I really am working on receiving.  Receiving love and care from others.  Receiving gifts from the universe.  Letting it happen.  Less controlling.  Yeah.  Hell yeah.  

Cute Little Chicken Pot Pies

This is me in my fantastic cooking chair.  Nate calls it the captain's chair.  You see how tiny my lil kitchen is and how I can basically push myself all over.  The chair cost about $150 and it's from Staples - it was their last one so you'd have to order it online.  The gate is to keep Misty the Cat from being under the wheels.  When I cook, Misty thinks it is all for her and will hang out under me.  I think she may have possibly noticed how much stuff falls to the floor when I am at the helm.

Over my February break, I made these chicken pot pies for the first time with my friend Cindy.  We knew we would want lots of them so we made tons extra and froze them.  Since then, I have made them twice more - making tons extra for freezing.  Freeze them before baking.

Today I came home feeling a way-too-swift return of my leg pain post-epidural.  No doubt made worse by the fact that I never got to really sit down today.  I didn't really get great sleep last night so the combination of low sleep and a stressful day may have increased my inflammation overall.  While I'm at the complaining part of this post, I will say that my esophagus was in full spasm several times today too.  I don't have great management of the esophagus right now.  The medications for the esophagus are all heart medicines that relax cardiac muscle.  They also relax the smooth muscles of the esophagus.  I was on one that worked amazingly well until it led to EXTREME ankle swelling (sorry for yelling it).  The next one I tried didn't work at all.  Now I have a new one to try but apparently it gives everyone terrible headaches (the dr said that's how you know it's working - wtf?).  So I'm sort of holding off on that.  I've been getting by using the medicine I have for acute esophageal spasm.  Eating and drinking remain a challenge.

I used to have salad type things every day for lunch at school.  Now, I usually have a yogurt and some fruit.  Yogurt is so easy to digest and swallow.  I have eaten more yogurt in the past 2 months than ever before in my life.  I'm totally hooked on chobani.  Right now, I'm all about strawberry.

So I had big plans of making a new recipe for dinner so that I would have something to share here.  I guess that will have to wait.  I was so grateful that I had these little chicken pot pies left in the freezer from a few weeks ago.  I based them on this recipe from the Food Network by Melissa d'Arabian.  I never have followed the amounts - I just make large amounts of the chicken mixture and 2 packages of puff pastry.  Here are the amounts approximately that I have used:

1 large onion chopped
1 bunch celery chopped
4-6 carrots chopped
5 cloves of garlic
3T flour
1 C white wine
2 C chicken stock
2-3 T dijon mustard
1 C peas
2 packages of chicken breast, cooked and chopped small (I boiled the chicken)

Follow her recipe for cooking, deglazing the pan, etc.  You end up with a beautiful gravy surrounding chicken and veggies.  Roll out the puff pastry.  I made each turnover a rectangle about 4X6 inches then fold it over and seal the edges.  Freeze them like this, then you can just pop them out onto parchment paper and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  If you cook right away, you end up with a better puff pastry.  This is sort of a labor intensive meal because you have to boil and cook all that chicken, and then stuff the pastries.  It's worth doing on a weekend when you have time and making tons of it.  Trust me, you'll be glad to have these little babies in your freezer.