Yam-bars and Recipe Development

I hope everyone's having a beautiful day--hump day, midweek, or however it feels. No more domestic mishaps here, although I've been putting cabinets together all day and come close. The sun is bright again and that foot of snow is running away rapidly.

Today, I want to share some (of my idiosyncratic) thoughts about (idiosyncratic) recipe development, and share a recipe.

Idiosyncratic or not, it's almost uncanny to me how often it happens that when I start to explore some idea or go down some avenue, there are others thinking the same thing. These yam-bars that I'll share today are a tribute to Pure2Raw's recent pumpkin squares.

I will happily produce all kinds of food, far beyond the bounds of my preferences, tastes and allergies, and feel that it's an enjoyable part of my  culinary artistry. However, when it comes to making food that I'll be eating too, I really prefer that even 'treats'--perhaps especially treats--should be food that I feel good about eating. With all the baggage that I carry around whether given foods are beneficial or not, etc, a treat is definitely undermined for me if it's full of sugar/the wrong kind of fat, etc.

So, although my expanding line of non-dairy cheesecakes is delectable and sought-after, and continues to be very low sugar, and although cashews are some of the lowest PUFA nuts around, the cashew-basis of those cheesecakes and the inevitable PUFA load is something that I'm wanting to minimize for now, for myself. The trouble is, when we start making our own definitions of what foods are helping us to feel optimal, we often run the risk of falling outside of clear definitions.

To wit: I'm dreaming a whole bunch of raw creamy goodies where the cashew base is replaced by...pureed cooked root veggies! Watch this space for some examples soon. The problem: it's not completely raw anymore! Fortunately, around here that's not a problem: most of the people who love my cheesecakes don't even think of them as 'raw' or vegan, just as 'delicious' and 'beautiful.' And I've been feeling so good with the addition of cooked roots that I'd far rather eat a dessert based on them than based on cups of nuts. And it looks like Lori had the same idea recently too, speaking of shared thoughts resounding all over the universe.

I don't often bake bars/cookies for myself. It's partly an ideological issue: the components of baked goods have often undergone several degrees of processing before you make the brownies, and that doesn't sit quite right with me. However, I had baked several yams all at once, and had just made coconut milk, so had about two thirds of a cup of pulp, and baked yam and milk pulp seemed like suitably minimal preprocessing for my neurosis. So, inspired by the Pure2Raw ladies, I made bars!

 A cup of yam puree (which was almost two whole yams, so I can stop thinking that one whole yam for dinner is a lot), which I mixed with:
a quarter cup of coconut oil...

Two thirds of a cup of coconut pulp, topped up with:
one third of a cup of arrowroot, and a quarter teaspoon each of xanthan gum and baking soda.
I added a generous amount of cinnamon and ginger, a pinch of salt, a quarter teaspoon of stevia, and about an eighth cup of xylitol syrup (homemade) that was waiting to be used up. The wonderful thing about the yam/cinnamon tastescape is that it's so sweet without much further sweetening.

It was a fairly thick, gooey dough...

 ...and after 30 mins in the oven at 350, it yielded these dense, gooey bars. They could probably have baked for longer and become crispier, but they hold together so well and the gooiness is quite pleasant!

Although they might seem strange to those who are accustomed to and demand white flour and butter-shaped texture, I think they're yummy!

I'll be writing more soon about the whole process of defining what makes a feel-good treat, in terms of ingredient membership. The challenge of figuring this out, especially the 'feeling' part and the 'treat' part, actually feels like a very affirmative action, since there have been so many years in my life that I didn't allow myself to acknowledge what really appealed to me, but used strong self-persuasion that what I thought I should like was what I liked. Of course, the ideal is if you feel good about eating your favorites, and right now I'm feeling pretty good about baked yams, cooked or not. 

I'd better get back to cabinet-wrassling. What do you think about cuisine that falls between clear definitions? Which lines are you willing to eat outside of? 

Comedy of Errors/Putting a Sock in It

Yesterday, I promised to share the comedy of errors that involved this picture.

Today, I have the story for you, but I have to warn: there are no cool action shots to accompany it. One of the pleasant things about blogging about food is that it's so easy to slow down time and take step-by-step photos (OK, or not, when it all comes together at once, but you know what I mean!) In the rest of life, sometimes things happen too fast for on-the-spot photography. And even if I wanted Phil to pose to recreate some of the antics with the truck, with six inches of snow since this morning...

yes, we've set up our rowing machine platform...

...I wouldn't be able to reproduce the muddy Saturday scene I'm about to write about!

So, my words will have to suffice:

Our cabin has only one door to the outside. Equipped with a handle rather than a knob, on purpose, so that you can open it even with both hands full, it is a high-traffic zone: we only lock it if we're going to be gone for several days. So, when I stepped outside on Friday evening, I never expected that I'd have to re-enter through the window.

It was around 10pm. I was beginning to move toward bed after writing intently all afternoon. Phil was still reading--he had barely looked up for two days, since Amy had sent his way a 900-some page fantasy novel from the Library's new acquisitions: all projects were on hold. And the pee jug was full! 

Gallon jugs are our indoor bathroom: when everything's frozen outside, it's better than making yellow snow haphazardly and freezing our nethers, and it allows us to use the valuable nitrogen discerningly. Earlier in the winter, when the snowshoe hares were decimating our raspberry canes, thwarted from eating more of the tree nursery by his aggressive tree-wrapping program, Phil had tried a short-lived and malodorous experiment involving the use of high volumes of saved-up yellow stuff all around the canes as a concentrated pheromonal repellent. Otherwise, he masterminds a complex and varied rotation so that all the trees, raspberry canes, raised beds and rhubarbs receive the sustenance in turn. I had taken over the task, these last couple days of his submergence. With a jacket over the meager singlet I'd been wearing in the solar-heated cabin, I grabbed a headlight and the jug, and headed out. 

Our overburdened coat rack is right by the inward-opening door. A bulky wad of jacket and carhartt's bloomed from the pegs and blocked the door from closing. Reaching in and pushing them aside for a brief moment to pull the door shut was a sped-up version of many of the dances we play in this cabin, where we're always circumventing one thing to reach another. I tell people our cabin is like one of those kids' puzzles where there is a single tile missing, and you can only slide one tile at a time to get everything in order. 

The door had been sticking for months anyway, so I wasn't worried about the slam as I pulled it past the treacherous clothing.

When I came back with the jug empty, the handle turned a little more than is normal and stuck there distorted, leering at me. The door would not open. I roused Phil from his book: he couldn't open it either. There was some rattling, thumping, cursing. He spent twenty minutes or so removing the handles, poking around in the latch mechanism, lifting and pulling. I did what I could from the other side, leaving my headlight off so as not to blind him through the hole where the handle had been. Pyramus and Thisbe, I thought, incongruously. I lifted, shoved, leaned as he requested, getting chilly now, wondering whether removing the hinges would work or how else to get in. "OK, I think you're going to have to come in through the window." Ah, yes: the window in our little side room. "Will I even fit through it?" "Sure!" It is a crank mechanism, and doesn't open very wide. I lumbered around through the mud with the jug, climbed up on the Little Chief smoker under the open window, and stepped through into Phil's arms. For the night, we put a sock in the hole where the handle had been. 

Next morning, I put the finishing touches to a cheesecake order, while Phil wrestled with the door some more. He'd taken the hinges off, but had to squeeze out of the window himself after breakfast to get to the outhouse. When he came back, he called, "Can you come and catch the door?" I set down the piping bag, wiped my hands, and assumed my 'door-catching position.' Several thumps as he got a run-up, a louder crunch as he impacted, and the door tipped into my upraised hands. 

By the time we'd gutted out the latch mechanism and rehung the door, I was running late for my writing class and Phil was supposed to be dropping off the cheesecake, so we put the sock back in the latch-hole, gathered everything up, and headed to the truck. 

Phil turned the key: nothing. The lights had been left on. The truck was facing inward, so we got ready to push-start. Backward. And this is early April: the cul-de-sac is one big mud boil. The wheels were sunk a good half inch into gooshy mud. As I took my position in the driver's seat, selected 'reverse' and pushed in the clutch, the overcast skies opened up to sleet. So, while the clock ticked, I got to watch Phil in his carhartt's, with his bad back, planting a 2x12 board deep between the front wheels of the truck and levering it up with all his might to move us backward through the mud and sharp drizzle. The back wheels sank every few yards and he would curse, throw the board down and go to find more boards to build tracks for the wheels to run on. 

After much zig-zagging through mud and boards, we finally got off the boggy plateau toward the sloping part. At this point, mindful of the ditch on either side, Phil took the wheel and had me push. When he popped the clutch, a sighing noise with a sudden halt slammed me into the hood. And again. This truck wasn't going anywhere.

So? I rode my bike to class and arrived a mere thirty minutes late, breathless. Phil put the cheesecake back in the freezer, biked to the library, borrowed Amy's car, and jumpstarted the truck. Spenard sold him a new latch that doesn't fit our door, so although it's back on its hinges, for security and insulation we still have to put a sock in it, for now.

Preview to a Funny Story, and a Few Updates

When I got finished with my Write-a-thon on Friday (which I _loved_ doing, btw), Phil suggested that I'd just blazed through a huge amount of energy and things might go a little awry (as I spilled my tea).

Well, did they ever go awry! Yesterday morning started like this:

That's the front door (and only door) to our cabin. I'll tell the story tomorrow: there was much more.

But since it's Sunday, I'm going to keep this short. One of our regular errands in Anchorage is a Costco run: I get all kinds of large bags of vegetables. This time, I came home with these huge bags of garlic and limes...

...I'm going to take seriously my Naturopath's injunction to eat lots of garlic during my yeast cleanse!

And I've already used ten whole limes making another coconut lime cheesecake that was commissioned.

A couple of our friends (who are a couple) have birthdays coming up, and I've made a cake for them too: white and dark chocolate--

 I love the energized feel of getting to play in the kitchen, the dance of fixing these treats and timing it to do other things with the Vitamix and cuisinart at the same time. Right before breakfast is perfect for making the filling: making my breakfast smoothie is a blender-cleaning operation!

For those of you who know and love Phil, these will be some familiar pictures: he was glued to a 900 page fantasy novel for two full days this week, and of course, that called for a popcorn dinner:

 Yes, it's still this light in the evening--until 10pm, almost!

I'm off to work some more on our kitchen remodel and to write my poem of the day for NaPoWriMo.
I hope you're having a lovely weekend! More very soon.

NaPoWriMo and Write-a-Thon, Snacks and Team-mates

Today, I'm going to be unplugged all afternoon, because I'm going to be participating in 49 Writers' Write-a-thon. 49 Writers is a literary organization based in Anchorage with which I'm involved in a volunteer capacity (I put together the weekly round-ups, and sigh over all the exciting Anchorage events that I won't make it to). So, a poem a day for this month, and now 4.9 hours of write-a-thon. A shame it's not tomorrow, which would be 4.9 hours on 4/9 (but I'm not sure I could have done it tomorrow).

Up in Anchorage, people are teaming up and collecting pledges. I think I may be the only 'writer-a-thoner' down here in Homer, and I certainly haven't scaled the fundraising heights of some people in the big town. My notebook, with all its inspirational little teabag tags, and cute little netbook, will be my team, together with my trusty Dr Grip pen.  I'm hoping that switching back and forth between pen-and-paper and typing will minimize stresses and soreness.

I'll be fueled by a whirled peas smoothie at some point. Yes, I do tend to make the same things over and over again. I have been having some thoughts about the whole issue of variety in diet that I'll share soon.

And some of those little lemon goodies too, no doubt...

...and lots of lovely water!

I'm hoping to write my poem of the day, work on some already-existing drafts, and also do my assignment for my essay writing class.

Happy Friday! What-a-thon are you doing?

NaPoWriMo On the Road; Foodie Finds, Spiraling and Revisiting

How did I follow through on writing a poem every day for a month and then go on a road trip? How do I follow through on any aspect of regular life on a whirlwind road trip? It went well...

We got home from our Anchorage trip after 10pm last night (still some light in the sky!), having left around 9am the day before. With all the appointments, errands, visits with dear friends and, of course, all that driving, there wasn't a spare moment anywhere. I didn't even crack open the netbook! This has happened on previous trips, but with the tiny little computer and bag this time, it was certainly a far less encumbered progress than it has been before.

It also snowed yesterday!

that's Phil and yes, he's had a haircut!

 Back home now, with melting snow, blue skies again and a formidable inbox (including a software upgrade for one of my translation projects and a whole new system to learn) and seemingly bottomless blogroll, I'm feeling so grateful for my general feel-good and sense of calm. This trip hasn't sideswiped me as it sometimes does.

Sure, our truck came home looking ridiculous...
Phil picked up some new-to-us tires from someone on Craigslist...

 And guttering for our 'bunker' project... And of course, the coolers, produce, drybag with extra clothes (unfortunately, the drybag leaked)...

I think that part of the answer to why things went well was acceptance.
Even as rushed and all-over-the-place as we were, I had time for some indulgence. I visited the Natural Pantry, perhaps the only natural food store in our entire vast state, and enjoyed browsing around, both the latest in natural comestible creations and the "foodie toys" section...

 I used to feel guilty about this proclivity of mine, judging that it was time-wasting, flippant, unworthy. This time around, that voice was absent, and I enjoyed the bright colors, the bamboo, the Japanese bowls, the fabrics, the ideas that the cool tools tweaked in my head... I bought some gifts for a wonderful friend who is undergoing a major life transition...
...And I picked up a couple things for my own ensemble:

I got a bamboo 'spork' to go in my little lumbar pack, and enjoyed eating my packed lunch (salad and baked yam) with it very genteel-ly when I joined Phil and his friends at a cafe. I got a wicker strainer for my kefir grains. I'm no longer using that super-labor-intensive procedure for my coconut kefir-making: instead, I'm straining them twice, first to get the grains out, then, through two layers of cheesecloth, to separate the whey from the curd. So much faster and easier, but kefir doesn't love metal and I hadn't been able to find any other kind of non-metal strainer. This is flimsy, but works.
The Cultured Coconut Milk was pricy, but I've been wanting to try it for a while. It's good. Kind of sweet even without added sugar (a little tapioca dextrose and inulin is all), and a little 'artificial-tasting,' kind of like canned coconut cream. It is good, especially as an option for 'on the road.'

Sticking to a Practice
Having the commitment to write a poem every day actually helped me to feel good during this trip! I might have thought that as an extra 'thing to do,' it would have added to the stress. In fact, it was something that I love to do that I was looking forward to. As it turned out, both days, I wrote my poem right at the end of the day, after getting into bed. In neither case is it anything like a polished poem, but in both cases it's definitely something that I will continue to work on: last night's start was especially intriguing to me. Although 'catching up' is going to take up much of today, I am looking forward to having more time to create something new today!

Spiraling and Revisiting
Despite the time pressures on today and the desire to be succinct and coherent here, I want to add this final thought. Another part of my current 'feel-good' stems from a recent transformation in the way that I think about and use my past life experience. Until recently, I have tended to look back on previous phases of my life with dismay and judgment, all the things that were 'wrong' at those times. Lately, I've been finding myself revisiting past times with appreciation, seeing all the ways that things were good at those times. Not surprisingly, there's a 'food' index here: as I let go of my demonization of fruit of the last couple years, I am remembering and appreciating--and reliving in my body--all the positive aspects of the days when I was mostly frugivorous. I'll write about this more soon, but it feels like such a gift. And of course, it has me looking forward to being done yeast cleansing!

I'm feeling so much awareness of the cyclic shape of the passage of time, from this revisiting of earlier times in my life to the onward movement of spring happening here (amid the snow showers) and the recollections of last year's spring season, the looking forward to this summer's garden. Last winter was really hard for both Phil and me, and this time last year, we weren't feeling great. I had had concerns that the end of winter might be a rough time for us, as it was last year. Driving home together last night, through the snow showers and into the long, late sunset, we agreed that we're both of us feeling so much better than this time last year. Here's to upward spirals!

How are you noticing cycles and spirals in life?

Updates and a Recipe: Yeast Cleanse, PUFAs and NaPoWriMo

Happy Sunday! Day 3 of NaPoWriMo and I'm loving it so far. Since my major New Year intention for this year was to be a more excellent reviewer and stayer-on-track, I want to dedicate this post to a few updates. I plan to do some review and updating at the beginning of every month: this didn't happen quite so well last month, but now I'm back on track. So, today is an update on my yeast cleanse, which is now one-third through; my latest thoughts on nutrients, particularly PUFAs; and I also have some additional thoughts about Poetry Writing for this coming month to share.

Yeast Cleanse Progress
I've finished my course of ketoconazole, which I was taking along with grapefruit seed extract for a bacterial infection. I have two more months of the restricted diet (which still seems quite lenient to me, with its permitting of root veggies and even some fruit), together with probiotics and berberis tincture (to eliminate more bad-boy bacteria). I'm happy with progress so far: it has been fairly uneventful, for the most part.

Better yet, my energy has been returning, even since before I quite finished the ketoconazole. This medication is hard on the liver, and together with die-off and toxins exiting, it promises a debilitating time. For the first couple of weeks, I was slammed. In Chinese medicine too, Liver governs anger. I have often seen the connection, and definitely these past four weeks. I've been cranky! And even with Tapping, and all the other tools I have to help me, it's been hard to curb that. Sometimes emotions have such a strong physiological base that they can be hard to neutralize with the mind. I try to remember this when I'm dealing with others and it helps me to be compassionate when someone is being unpleasant.

So, no more cranky, is my intention! :)

PUFAs and Others
When I started the yeast cleanse and shared its restrictions on here, Bitt asked the very sensible question: Would I continue to restrict PUFAs, as I have been for a few months now, in addition to those other restrictions? At the time, I wasn't sure of the answer. So many experts do insist that omega-3's are not only essential, but anti-inflammatory and otherwise beneficial. Many people, especially plant-based types, share the experience that the omega-3 seeds help tremendously with mood regulation. I was seriously considering incorporating flax and chia seeds again.

However, I just carried on doing my thing, opening myself to guidance, tuning in and listening to my body, and I haven't added them back in. I'm not restricting all PUFAs completely: I've been eating some beans, which have a few, and when I've made cheesecakes, with cashews (fairly low in PUFA as nuts go), I've had a taste of them. I've also been having a little avocado (zealous PUFA-avoiders would avoid all of these). But otherwise, I haven't felt moved to add any of them in. I can't guarantee that I'm feeling generally 'better' as a result of PUFA avoidance, as it could be due to the added starch alone, and at some point I should probably try adding omega 3's and keeping everything else as close to the same as possible.
For now, though, I'm not even putting olive oil on my salads most of the time: they're plenty juicy with some lemon or lime juice, tomatoes, julienned beets--

 --and I've been making my snacks mostly out of some form, or several forms, of coconut. Coconut pulp from making my coconut milk, shredded coconut, coconut butter. These bars (sorry for the poor picture)--

--are made from the zest and juice of a lemon,
about a cup and a half of coconut pulp,
a quarter cup of shredded coconut,
a quarter cup of coconut butter,
a quarter cup of irish moss gel,
an eighth cup of xylitol,
a teaspoon of ginger--all whizzed in the cuisinart.

These are really good, but a little more crumbly than most snack bars. Maybe best kept in the freezer. But isn't this odd? I was making energy bars with 'chia sweet' for such a long time (and there are tons of posts on it)--stevia-sweetened chia gel replacing dried fruit because I was avoiding sugar--and now I'm replacing the chia! Doesn't it seem a little reductive?

Well, part of the reason that this cleanse is feeling so easy is that I'm enjoying the starches so much. It's been a while since I mentioned that I'm feeling so good eating a fair amount of starch : before embarking on the cleanse, this included increasing amounts of fruit. And my blood sugar has only gotten better since making these changes. Until the last couple of years, I'd been a big fruit-eater (and fruit geek) my whole life. I feel that I have had enough of a break from fruit, and no longer need to demonize it, nor to demonize high-glycemic foods (I think the whole concept is far too reductive anyway, and will talk about it more if there's interest). So, come June, watch out for some recipes on here that feature fruity goodness again after all! Yes, I'm a nutritional whirling dervish, but I do feel that I get closer to the truth, for me anyway.

NaPoWriMo
I set myself a few additional guidelines for my daily poem effort. While part of the attraction of a daily poem is that it places the emphasis on generating material rather than on polishing it, I have required of myself that every poem I write, even if it isn't polished, should be worthy of polishing later, should be taking me somewhere. I've also decided that using ideas that are scribbled in my notebook waiting to be born into poems is allowable too: what a good opportunity to give them birth! I want to use the opportunity to play with some forms that I haven't yet played with, although not all poems need to be form poems. Finally, I've suggested to myself that I produce at least one 'funny' poem per week.

I'm not going to reproduce poems in full on the blog here, but I will share snippets and updates.

Thus far, Friday's poem was a braided poem, whose first line is "Panorama has no intentions."
And yesterday's poem was my first try at a Triolet.
Today's is yet to be written, and I'm off to do it!

We're off to Anchorage tomorrow again for a couple of days. Hopefully my wonderfully slimmed down new bag and netbook will make the whole thing easier and smoother.

April Fool Pics and Announcement--Na Po Wri Mo: A Challenge and Commitment

Before I get into the content of this post, here's my favorite April Fool. Don't his eyes look so much better?

 Maybe we'll get round to a haircut sometime soon...

 Happy "April Fools' Day," everyone! Or, as I saw it on a calendar at the laundromat today, "All Fools Day."

Many of the blogs that I enjoy periodically take on and feature a theme or challenge for a certain period of time. Often, it's some sort of culinary challenge like blogging one's way through a particular recipe book, or a fitness challenge like a marathon, bodyrock, or PG90X. I even joined up for Tina's 'Thirty Days of Self Love' last September. A blog is a great accountability tool and means to share insights and goals, setbacks and achievements. There's that feeling of camaraderie, especially if it's a group challenge, and of having an audience, a virtual safety-net as you ride the high wire.

Although I'm definitely doing my best to get in shape for hiking (and generally manic-summer) season, I haven't felt drawn to taking on a 'fitness challenge' in public: partly because it's not the locus of my main passion. And since I'm no kind of recipe follower, passionate foodie/nutritionalist though I am, blogging through a recipe book hasn't yet appealed to me (perhaps one day I'll be blogging my way through writing my own recipe book)!

I am ready for a challenge, though, and a slightly different direction also. Although I knew that April was National Poetry Month and had some plans of my own for that already, I hadn't even heard of Na Po Wri Mo--a counterpart to the more famous NaNoWriMo (I don't love those truncated not-quite-acronyms) until Erin mentioned it earlier this week. The challenge is to write a poem every day of the month, or at least create a new draft of one. You can share them on your blog, or just leave them in the notebook, or carved in rock...

beach boulder with its own native artwork

I'm in! I'm part-thrilled, part-daunted, as I'm already facing a full plate this month. Erin suggested that a benefit she gained from doing the challenge last year was that being required to create a new draft every day mandated thinking outside of the box and encouraged fresh, striking, new ways of thinking. This consideration was a major enticement for me to throw in my lot, although perhaps the fact that I wanted to do it as soon as I heard about it (the way some people feel about running races or climbing challenging rockfaces) is a good index of where my passions lie. I will say that although it's definitely true that generating drafts is a very energetic, thrilling part of the process, I have come to learn that when I'm several drafts into a poem and have really been working with it for some time, that is often the most exciting and compelling, lie-awake-at-night phase of all. So the best dividends may come after April, when the challenge is over and I can start revising!

I'm not going to blog every day, but will stay with my usual rhythm of three-to-four posts per week. I am going to write a poem every day, but I'm not going to post it on here in its entirety (or maybe at all). I don't think it would be fair either to me or to you: getting a draft polished usually takes me more than a single day!

And I will still write about food! Two poems that I'm currently working on are both about aspects of food, and it's been enjoyable to start writing poetically about something I so often write about prosaically.

These julienned beets are an ode to spring coming! I hadn't had beets for months, had almost forgotten how good they are. And they grow so well here. I feel invited to look forward to growing season.

 Together with mashed parsnips with a little miso, coconut, curry powder, with peas stirred in, they have been making life colorful and delicious around here.

What challenge are you taking on this month?
Have a great weekend!