Veggie Chili

Here's a simple recipe for a veggie chili that's kind of a hybrid between minestrone and actual chili, but delicious none-the-less!
Jessi and I created it yesterday ;)

1 large can diced tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes)
2 cans kidney beans (or fresh beans)
4 stalks celery
1 bunch carrots
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 zucchini

spices of your choice (we used: paprika, cayenne, cumin, salt, pepper)

Chop up all the ingredients, drain and rinse the beans, open up the can of tomatoes.
Put everything in one big pot, add the spices and a bit of water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 45 min - 1 hour or until everything is stewed nicely together.
Make some brown rice or another grain to serve it with and enjoy!

"French Toast" Sweet Potatoes

“French Toast” Sweet Potatoes

2 Japanese white sweet potatoes
½ can of coconut milk
coconut oil (to oil pan)
allspice
cinnamon
sea salt

A delicious side dish that can even be served as a dessert! Named after the glorious aroma produced.

Preheat oven to 425 F. Peel then slice the sweet potatoes into thin (1/4 inch) round slices.
Spread some coconut oil along the bottom of large baking dish, then begin layering the sweet potato slices. After each layer is laid down, spoon some coconut milk over the top and sprinkle some allspice and cinnamon and small dash of sea salt. Depending on the size of your baking dish, you can stack the layers to form a lasagna-like dish, or keep it to 1 or 2 thinner layers.

Cover with a sheet of aluminum foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Check on them frequently, as the baking time will vary depending on how thick the layers are. Once the potatoes are soft, uncover and let them cook for 5-10 more minutes to brown the top.

Remove from oven, savor the aroma, and pretend you’re eating French toast!

Rainbow Chard & Beans

Rainbow Chard & Beans

1 bunch swiss chard (rainbow kind)
1 leek
2 cloves garlic
1-2 cans kidney beans (optional)
sea salt
rosemary
olive oil

Separate stems from chard leaves and chop both separately and put them aside. Slice leek horizontally to form little circular pieces. Mince garlic or use a garlic press.

Begin by sautéing the chard stems and leeks in olive oil in a large pan. Add some sea salt and rosemary to taste. As the leeks begin to soften, add in the garlic and continue sautéing. If you are adding the beans, add them in (rinsed and drained). Once the leeks and chard stems are somewhat soft, add in the chopped leaves. You may need to add a few splashes of water to the pan if the bottom is getting dry, but don’t overdo it or it will get too watery. Continue cooking until leaves are wilted.

Brown Rice Pilaf

A different twist on your usual brown rice...

Brown Rice Pilaf

1 cup brown rice (we used long grain, but I would imagine it working really well with short grain or even jasmine brown rice)

2 cups water

1 leek chopped into rounds or small slices (or ½ chopped onion)

3 stalks celery, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

coriander

cumin

dulse flakes (or other sea vegetable)

sea salt

olive oil

Heat some olive oil in a pot and stir in leeks, celery, and carrots. Add in spices, dulse, and sea salt. In a separate pot boil 2 cups of water. Add the dried brown rice to the leek-celery-carrot mixture and continue cooking on medium heat. Once the water boils, add into rice mixture. Then bring it down to a simmer and cover and cook for 40-50 minutes or until all water is absorbed.

The New Moon

No, I’m not talking about the newly released movie.

Tomorrow night (December 16^th), the moon will sit directly between the sun and Earth, leaving its dark side facing our planet and making it invisible to the naked eye. This phase of the lunar cycle is called the new moon; it begins a new cycle, and the moon will begin to wax, or grow, again shortly.

The new moon happens to occur in Sagittarius (November 23^rd to December 21^st) and just five days before the winter solstice. Sagittarius is associated with optimism and intellectuality, which might encourage you to project your thoughts into the future. At the same time, we are about to come to true winter, passing through the shortest day and longest night of the year, the solstice. Our annual cycle has yet to come to and end, which might make you want to hold on just a little bit longer and look back on the year. This ambivalence between past and future, holding on and letting go is normal and necessary.

Winter is traditionally a time of taking stock, reflecting, and then planning. These same actions apply to growing food. In winter, the fields are fallow. Farmers must assess their harvest from the past year and begin to plan the crops to be grown in the spring. They used the winter months to evaluate what worked, what didn’t and what to change the next time around.

Take a tip from the farmer, and apply that same attitude to your life. Slow down a minute and think about it. No action yet – just thoughts.

• What have you accomplished or been working on?

• What areas of your life have you been focusing on most?

• What changes might you want to make in the future (near or far)?

Again, you do not need to put these changes into action yet. Just relax in this interval between the before and after.

As we lose more daylight hours, and the moon turns her dark side to us, we inevitably feel that something is coming to an end. Just take this time of closure in stride. Remember that you have time to take action, and that soon, no matter what, we too will emerge from these darker days. Just like the moon and the farmers’ crops, we too will renew our cycles and begin to grow.

Recipes

The recipes today are actually nothing special. No new foods for you to focus, no kitchen tips, no nothing. That way, you can try them, or not try them, and focus the energy you want to on collecting your thoughts and planning. They also can be made ahead of time and stored, giving you ample time for the rest of life.

Collard Greens and White Bean Soup

Simple, no-nonsense goodness.

1 large can (1 lb 13 oz) White Beans

1 large bunch Collard Greens (10-15 big leaves)

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

1 large Sweet Onion

2 Leeks, ends chopped off, soaked and rinsed

2 cloves Garlic

1 tsp Allspice

1 tsp Ginger

1 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Cumin

Salt and Pepper to taste

6 cups Water

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Chop the onion and leeks and toss into the oil. Mince the garlic and add to the pot. Stir occasionally, being sure not to let them brown. If they start to get translucent too quickly, turn down the heat.

Meanwhile, wash and de-stem the collard greens, and tear them up into large bite-size pieces. Drain and rinse the beans.

Once onions and leeks are translucent and soft, add the water and all the spices. Turn heat to high and stir occasionally.

Once the water is boiling, add the greens and beans together. If your pot will not hold all the greens at once, add them in batches, allowing them to cook down before adding the next batch.

Turn heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve warm, or store in the freezer or refrigerator until you’re ready to enjoy it!

Sweet Potato Kasha Balls

1 ½ cups Kasha, cooked

1 large Sweet Potato, peeled and chopped small

3 Tbsp olive oil, separated

Pinch of Salt

Pinch of Ground Black Pepper

Dash of Cinnamon, Cumin, and Allspice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roast sweet potato chunks in 1 Tbsp olive oil for 30-40 minutes. Cover pan in tinfoil for shorter cooking time.

In a large mixing bowl, combine roasted sweet potatoes, remaining olive oil, and all other ingredients. Mash with a potato masher, fork, or your own two hands if you don’t mind the mess. Once fully incorporated, scoop and mold balls of the mixture.

Place balls onto a lightly oiled pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Serve warm.

Good for the Earth, Good for the Body

Many Native American farming systems grew corn, squash, and beans together, calling them the three sisters because they grew harmoniously and provided well-rounded nourishment. They planted beans right next to the corn, so that the corn could act as a beanstalk, and the space between each cornstalk/beanstalk would be used for squash planting. In terms of most effective space utilization, this process makes absolute sense. But the logic extends further. Growing corn depletes nitrogen in the soil, and growing beans replenishes it. Some farmers practice crop rotation in order to balance the soil’s fertility over time. This process of growing the three sisters in conjunction, though, automatically balances and nourishes the earth, which in turn nourishes the plants. This is a sustainable and nutritious farming method.

Industrial agriculture right now really encourage single-crop growing, which is not only highly detrimental to the earth – depleting soil fertility, encouraging pesticide overuse, and contaminating water – but also diminishes the quality of our food. This happens in several ways, including diminished soil and water quality leading to depleted nutrient content, as well as overproduction leading to cheap and abundant food commodities being used in a variety of processed forms. It is estimated that somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of the foods available in grocery stores contain some processed form of either corn or soy. These may be obvious (soy lecithin or high fructose corn syrup) or hidden (maltodextrin, caramel color, MSG, and xanthan gum to name a few).

So while the American diet still largely consists of corn and bean (soy in particular) products, they are most often in their derivative forms and not consumed as whole foods. Government subsidization of commodity crops, such as soy and corn, lead to their overproduction, which creates incredible competition in the food market. Food industries spend billions of dollars trying to create and market new food products, which ultimately could feed the nation almost twice over. We have so many food products that we are tricked into an illusion of variety, but so many include corn or soy products (or both) that our bodies are becoming resistant to them. Soy is also a fairly new food to the Western world, and in excess, its phytoestrogens can wreak havoc on the body. We’re not only doing a considerable amount of damage to the earth, we’re hurting our bodies.

Some people have begun to vilify corn and soy, blaming the poor little foods themselves and insisting that they should not be consumed at all. While it is true that the average American consumes too much of both, it is only their by-products. Consuming the foods themselves is not dangerous. Returning to the three sisters, in agriculture and in eating, can actually be very beneficial to our health.

Traditional Chinese Medicine tells us that winter is the time to focus on our kidneys, which filter our blood and turn the waste products and excess water into urine to be excreted. They are also closely linked to your adrenals literally – the adrenals are located right atop the kidneys – and in their functions – kidneys regulate adrenal function by increasing sodium reabsorption and potassium secretion, and the adrenals regulate fluid tonicity. In winter months, or any time when we experience some fatigue, in order to support our adrenals, we must also support our kidneys, and vice versa.

In order to support these vital, bean-shaped, detoxifying little organs – our kidneys – TCM encourages eating (surprise!) beans. Also, if you’d like to bring it back to Western medicine for a moment, in order to support our kidneys detoxifying abilities, maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance is very helpful. Almost all Americans consume too much sodium and not enough of its counterpart, potassium. Winter squash and beans both have good amounts of potassium, and will help restore balance. Pantothenic acid is also really important for your adrenals, because a deficiency can lead to adrenal atrophy. Pantothenic acid is abundant in several foods that are just plain good for you, like whole grains, salmon, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. It is also rich in – you guessed it – legumes. Nuts, peas and beans.

Native American tradition, Chinese philosophy, and Western science all in some way encourage eating squash, beans and corn (especially together), either for general health or to specifically support your kidneys.

Looks like we might be on to something.

So here is one blogger’s little effort to get back to the three sisters, both philosophically by encouraging sustainable living and eating, and nutritionally by eating kidney-supporting beans, potassium-rich squash, and energy-dense good old corn.

I encourage you all to try buying as many of the following ingredients as possible from your local farmers market. The food is likely to have been grown using less pesticides (although not always – you should ask the vendor) and not as a monoculture crop (as in, it grows in rotation with or alongside other foods). Also, it probably hasn’t traveled as far, meaning far less greenhouse gases emitted by the transportation vehicles, fresher food, and therefore more nutrients! Also, buying organic usually means less pesticide use, and sometimes more sustainable land use (although, again, not always, so do some research if you’re interested).

And, of course, the recipes!

You might be wondering how in the heck squash, corn, and beans can be interesting. Well, I think I’ve come up with something pretty good here, so give it a try!

Roasted Winter Squash with Corn and Black Bean Relish:

Relish:

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 cup cooked fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels

1/3 cup cooked black beans

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add corn and black beans, stirring mixture frequently until the corn is cooked through. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients. Mix well and set aside at room temperature.

Squash:

1 medium winter squash (acorn or butternut work well)

2 cloves garlic

3 Tbsp olive oil

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel squash and cut into 1” cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Toss squash, garlic, and all other ingredients in a large glass pan. Roast in oven for 30-45 minutes (varies depending on desired texture, oven temperatures, and glassware), turning every 10 minutes or so.

Top the warm squash with the corn and black bean relish and enjoy! Your kidneys will thank you.

Demanding Down Time: Respecting the Different Stages of Your Cycle

Let’s talk about periods.

Even among women, through the informal and mostly-anonymous forum of a blog, many of us find it very difficult to acknowledge and discuss our menstrual health and cycles. Some of us hate our periods, regarding them as inconvenient interruptions to our otherwise productive and active lives. Others have just developed coping mechanisms for dealing with the changes we experience during menstruation. Few of us, however, are able to celebrate our flow.

That’s understandable. Men do not experience the same hormonal cycle we do each month. Because we have fought for equality in this society, though, we are expected to behave equally. Therefore, we are indirectly or blatantly asked to behave in the same manner throughout the month, the year, and our lives. This is problematic. Our moods and energies shift in relation to the different stages of our cycle. During ovulation, we may feel more energized, productive, and creative. This is an excellent time to really engage with your masculine energy. When we menstruate, though, we tend to turn inward, yearning for alone time and wanting to nurture our bodies and ourselves. Most often—due to our own expectations of ourselves, as well as those imposed on us by our jobs, families, or friends—we ignore these desires and our changing needs. Coffee, sugar, and energy drinks become extremely attractive at this time as potential “cures” to our desire for rest. As we know from last week’s post, though, these foods actually make our bodies work more and crash harder, creating a difficult cycle of false energy and heavy fatigue. What’s more, we also crave “comfort foods” during menstruation, including salty and fatty foods like dairy, meat, and crackers, pretzels, or chips. These foods are contractive, and in excess can make us irritable or even aggressive. In other words, we crave foods on opposite ends of the energetic spectrum, and they compete with each other creating hormonal and mood imbalances. It’s no wonder we end up tired, drained, depressed, and angry during our periods.

It is time to change our perspective. Moving out of ovulation and into menstruation, begin to notice your body’s changing needs. Do you feel like you want more alone time? Does your body need rest? Are you craving different foods? Once you can answer all these questions honestly, acknowledge those responses and do your best to cater to them. In a society where our periods are, at best, nuisances that need controlling, and at worst, dirty, messy, shameful, and unnatural, it can be hard to ask for the time and space to nurture yourself during menstruation. But be strong. Nobody can advocate for yourself like you can. Take pride in every part of your cycle, because it is normal, healthy, and the most wonderful feminine gift—it allows you to bring life to this world.

Winter is a good time to redirect your focus to your menstrual health and to the phases that require more introspection and rest. Chinese traditional medicine encourages focus on the kidneys and adrenals during winter, which are closely linked to your reproductive organs. Your kidneys are more open to the nutrients you give them during winter. Also, as our bodies are already adjusting to the cold weather by craving warmer, more comforting foods as well as more rest, this is a great time to channel those same needs during menstruation. We can take care of our bodies better by acknowledging our changing needs throughout the month and throughout the year. These cycles are natural, and sustain us best when we move through them without resistance.

The Satiated Sage guides you through the sometimes overwhelming of food in order to understand what best nourishes your body in all its various needs. However, we can give our bodies a different kind of nourishment for healthy and happy menstruation (and winter months): rest. So the first of the recipe for today is to nap. Snooze. Slumber. Decompress. Chill. However you want to put it, do it, and don’t feel bad about it. You will be more energized when you wake, your mood may be more stabilized, and the day will be fuller and brighter if you allow yourself the time and space to truly, peacefully rest.

We can’t skip out on the food, though! With all these cravings, it would be a shame to ignore our tongues and tummies. For a couple delicious and soothing treats, try LSW recipes below.

* This one is a recycled favorite. We’re bringing it back for its simplicity, nutrition, and just plain yummy-ness!

Easy Morning Miso Soup

Why start the day with something cold and sweet, when the weather outside dictates that you stay as warm as possible?

1½ cups water

½ cup sliced button mushrooms

½ cup baby spinach leaves

2 sheets of nori, torn into bite-sized pieces (nori sheets are used to make sushi rolls – they can be found at most health food stores)

1 tsp fresh miso paste (we like the Miso Master brand – any flavor you prefer is fine)

Boil water as if for tea.

Place mushrooms, spinach, and nori in a bowl. Pour hot water over the vegetables and let it "cook" them for a minute or so. Then add miso paste and stir until dissolved.

Sit and sip, or put it in your travel thermos and take it to go!

*Here’s a new one from my own kitchen. It’s a tasty way to start the day or can make for a delicious treat at the end of the day. Plus, it’ll satisfy the sweet tooth without throwing your adrenals out of whack.

Honey-Nut Granola

3 cups oats (not instant)

1 cup sliced or chopped almonds (can use any kind of nuts or seeds desired)

¼ cup crunchy peanut butter (I recommend Arrowhead Mills brand. Nothing but nuts!)

¼ cup honey

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a roasting pan over two burners on medium-low heat. Once hot, add the oats. Stir frequently for 3-5 minutes, until the oats become fragrant and begin to change color to a golden brown.

Add the nuts. Continue stirring and roasting for another 3 minutes (times may very depending on individual burner temperatures). Meanwhile, microwave peanut butter, honey, and spices for 20-30 seconds on high and stir together.

Once oats and nuts are sufficiently roasted (should be fragrant), turn off the burners. Pour the peanut butter-honey mixture over the oats and nuts, and mix together thoroughly. Spread the mixture evenly across the pan and put it in the oven.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring every 4-5 minutes. Be sure to check your granola often – it can burn easily, depending on you oven temperature and the depth of your pan.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with raisins, and mix again. Let cool on a wire rack. Crumble it into an airtight container, and it will keep for a few weeks.

Enjoy the down time, your beautiful feminine body, and the goodies above.

Here’s to a happy period!