Homemade Granola and the Epic nature of parenting and reparenting
Now that I have your attention! For more on this epic photoshop job please read on to the first essay about parenting and reparenting myself as I made my daughter’s birthday cake.
This week I am sharing a ratio-based recipe for homemade granola. My hope is that it unlocks some creativity for yo in addition to being a nice way to save money on a pantry staple. It’s a simple process and making your own is cheaper than store-bought for the most part even though honey and coconut oil and potentially the nuts and seeds you use can add up. Be mindful and work with your own budget of course. But making granola is a treat for the senses and a low stakes place to practice creativity within the bounds of the ratio.
We also have Open Kitchen #2 about what to do when our produce goes off. I loved this question! Please keep them coming. There are also links to my next two mini-retreats AND scroll to the end for a cute tv spot I did where Carol Anne Riddell and I have a moment sharing our feelings and fears as we make stew.
Lastly, this newsletter is totally reader supported so if you value this work I would so appreciate if you become a paying subscriber. When you subscribe you also get membership in the Embodied Cooking Club which means a new live embodied cooking class every week! This week we will be making a Maple Chipotle “Campfire” Cornbread from Good Enough.
Birthday Cake can be Badass and Healing
My daughter, Io’s 6th birthday came and went in a flurry of balloons, cake and big feelings. Every year her birthday hits me so hard and every year I am still surprised by it!
This year I brought her cake to life (all her design idea) with a mess of friends around and Io nipping in to taste the frosting or pipe a rosette or two. And in the back of my mind, I had the feeling that I was doing something special but I couldn’t quite grasp the true why. One of my dearest friends was visiting from Canada and she shared with Io that her Mom would never have done something like this for her. It wasn’t one of those “you should be grateful” conversations. Instead it was pure sweetness on both sides as my beloved friend shared a bit of pain from her childhood and my wonderful daughter listened and noticed the difference.
My mother made me plenty of cakes growing up. Or bought them. She made an effort for occasions and I knew I was loved. But I also didn’t feel safe to express myself. This was for many reasons outside of my mother, the controlling church we grew up in, my Dad and our culture—all of it gave me the message that there was a certain way I had to be to be accepted and loved. And that became a pattern of being in the world that controlled me entirely. To only show an acceptable facade to others. This kind of experience makes birthday parties feel empty and lonely because the real you has never been seen or known and therefore is not what is even being celebrated.
As I put Io’s wild cake creation in the fridge (pictured above) to sit overnight and have it’s debut at the next morning’s birthday party, I commented to my friends that I felt really epic. Like I was closing the fridge and walking away from an explosion kind of like this.
And my friends jumped on this idea, supporting me with their affirmations; saying how incredible it was. They decided they should take a photo and photoshop me with the cake looking truly as epic as I should. The result is the hilarious picture at the opening—created by the amazing Alexander.
And it was epic. Because Io’s cake and her party are just exactly what she truly wants at this moment in time. She can express her truest self with me and she knows I cherish it even when it challenges me deeply—which it sometimes does. To have this connection and security is everything.
And it was different for me too, my friends prompted me to notice myself and my love for my daughter. And to notice the love I have for myself reaching across the years to the young child who did not feel seen. Here I was now being seen by my little community of loved ones; supported and cherished. I had built this for myself so that my daughter can have that from her beginnings.
This moment was made that much more potent with the difficulty that surrounds us. We are going through a divorce and it is so hard and scary and sad. So every moment that Io knows she is loved and important and that will never change becomes foundational. It is badass. Parenting is badass. It requires such courage and selflessness and looking at our darkest parts and saying, yes that belongs and it’s okay, I love you too.
Every day is foundational, and we don’t have to make a big thing out of birthdays or have big special days to do that—we can simply be noticed by our friends and ourSELVES like my friends affirmed with the cake making process. And this kind of experience, where you are centered and celebrated is so important for building your sense of security. Io will always know that she is important, because I show her, and because I also am important and I model that.
We are connected. Two people who are their full selves. I understand and value her perspective and she knows that if I ever hurt her, that she can come to me and tell me that too because what matters is our connection and anything that threatens that—like keeping a hurt in, we will work through together.
Homemade Granola
This is a ratio-based recipe. Meaning that I am giving you the quantities of components you need and then you decide what those should be for your own benefit. In the granola pictured above I added in pistachios, almonds, cashews, goji berries, pumpkin seeds and chia seeds along with the oats and I flavored it with cardamom. If you use honey or maple syrup that also adds more flavor as does the coconut oil. In my book, Good Enough I share 3 granola recipes that use this ratio, each called lemon tart, baklava and chocolate macaroon. See what you can come up with!
Makes 6 cups of granola
TL;DR: Mix oats and granola additions together. Bake at 300F for 45 minutes, stirring a few times.
4 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups nuts/seeds/dried fruit or more oats
1/2 cup coconut oil (or canola oil, sesame oil, olive oil or anything just know it will taste like the oil you use)
1/2 cup honey (or any other liquid sweetener like maple syrup, brown rice syrup or simple sugar syrup)
1 tsp salt
Additions:
spices, citrus zest, cocoa powder will all create their own flavor so get in there and use your senses to create something you like! Experiment. It’s okay to make something you don’t love. You will learn from that.
Preheat the oven to 300 F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Place the oats, nuts/seeds/dried fruit salt and any additions in a large mixing bowl.
Measure out the oil into a measuring cup and add it to the bowl. Then use the same measuring cup for the honey or sweetener. The leftover oil in the cup will make it easier to remove all the honey.
Mix everything until the granola is moist throughout.
Spread the granola out on the prepared sheet pan. Cook until it’s lightly browned all over, taking it out every 15 minutes to stir so that the edges don’t get too dark, about 45 minutes total. (If you don’t do the 15-minute stir, the edges will burn and the middle will be pale and soft instead of crisp!)
Let the granola cool. Break it up into chunks and store it in an airtight container at room temperature.
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Join me for a Mini-Retreat this Spring
Looking to really embrace the fresh new energy of the Spring? Feeling like you have to choose either self care or seeing a friend? Our last March retreat was so special and we all felt like we were shedding the last of the winter’s stagnancy to make way for fresh new growth. And sure, this is a metaphor, but when we do move our bodies together in time with our breath, eat and share together it becomes literal. Our bodies are built to process our experiences and move on, smarter, stronger and ready for the next good things.
Come join me and do it all, Saturday, April 22nd for a mini yoga retreat in my home in South Slope Brooklyn. There are also a couple spots left for the May retreat which will be celebrating parents, so sign up while you can!
Agenda
9:30-10: settling in with tea 🍵
10-11:30 meditation and restorative yoga 🧘🏼
11:30-12 Leanne cooks and shares embodied cooking practice.
12-12:30 Eat lunch and chat/share 🥗
12:30-1 final breathing and meditation
Float away into the rest of the dreamy weekend feeling released and connected.
Open Kitchen #2: The Crisper Drawer Dilemma!
Here is our question of the week for Open Kitchen, the feature where I answer your kitchen (and anything else in my wheelhouse) questions!
“One of the saddest things I sometimes do in the kitchen is to open the crisper drawer and realize that a bunch of asparagus I bought several days ago has gone mushy. Do you have any tips for managing my food purchases and so not to have to cry when composting things I forgot?”
This is quite a deep question believe it or not!
On the surface yes, we have an opportunity to plan our produce buying a little more strategically so we don’t end up with more than we can use. We can do that by planning out meals for the week, either in detail or just broadly having a plan of for example, one night pasta, one night roast vegetables with salmon, one night frittata, and swapping the vegetables as the seasons change. You can be more or less detailed depending on your style. You can also simply make a practice of always checking your crisper before you go grocery shopping and making sure you rotate the vegetables.
So that is one way to attack the issue.
The next would be to get comfortable with a few more recipes where past their prime produce are welcome. So when you see the soggy asparagus you know you have a place for it. Soups are a great place to use up leftover vegetables that are not so beautiful. All it needs is a quick going over where you cut off the yucky parts and chop it up fine and you can add it into a sauté or fried rice or quinoa or sauce. Past prime vegetables are not good for salad, but anything where heat will be added they can usually still be put to good use. You just have to have the fortitude to cut off the yuck and not beat yourself up about it.
Lastly, and I think this may be the most important for our questioner; we must accept that sometimes we forget or we get busy or we avoid and we may waste good food. When this happens it is a major practice to learn to be kind to yourself. You did not mean to waste the food, but it happened. It’s in that moment when we can throw it out in disgust and transfer that disgust to ourselves OR we can choose to breathe deeply, accept our limitations, give ourselves a gentle squeeze and get in there and make the most out of that asparagus by adding it into a soup. I wish you all the best with this lifelong self compassion practice. Know you are not alone.
Please submit your questions for Open Kitchen through this form. The questions will be anonymous so no need to think twice about anything embarrassing. Remember chances are if you are wondering something or having an experience there are many others who are as well and when you have the courage to ask the question you help all those other people too.
Watch me on Book It!
I had a lot of fun cooking and chatting with Carol Anne Riddell for CUNY TV’s Book It feature. We made stew and talked about the many ways we can struggle with feeding ourselves and how sometimes simply thinking we are bad at it is the biggest barrier!
That cake is amazing and so is the story behind it! I also wanted to say that I made the lemon tart granola from your cookbook and it was delicious. I’m excited to try different variations with this recipe- thank you!
Beautiful! And the quilting is amazing… https://www.myeasymusic.ir/