Tag: vegan

Adaptable Pesto Sauce (Vegan + Gluten-Free)

This summer, as I’ve been working to change my relationship with sugar, I’ve also been trying to eat more greens. I’m preparing lots of green smoothies; growing basil and mint indoors; and learning to make sauces from spinach, kale, and chard.

Many of these sauces are adaptations of pesto, thinned with water to make more of a dressing or dip than the typically thick and oily spread. I call this “adaptable pesto sauce,” because there are many ways to prepare it and because I’ve come to this recipe through studying variations on vegan pesto.

The idea is to combine the following ingredients (all of which can be adapted to what’s on hand) in a Vitamix or another high-powered blender.

Ingredients:

  • Greens—approx. 5 cups of any combination of basil, spinach, kale, swiss chard, or the tops of carrots or beets
  • Walnuts— 1/2 cup
  • Water—1/3 cup
  • Olive oil—1/3 cup
  • Lemon—juice of 1 small lemon (~2 to 3 tablespoons)
  • Garlic—6 bulbs (more or less, depending on how much you like garlic :-))
  • Salt—1+ teaspoon (to taste)
  • Pepper—1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon (to taste)

I appreciate that this recipe is simple, taking no more than 10 minutes to gather and combine ingredients. I appreciate that it helps with achieving my goal of eating veggies as at least half of every meal. I appreciate, too, that I can eat a single batch for several days.

To illustrate, with the serving shown here, I ended up with three distinct meals:

(1) Adaptable pesto sauce became the focus on this dinner with roasted mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, crackers, and sliced peaches all as options for dipping.

On a blue plate appears a large serving of green pesto sauce (in the front) with sliced peaches, rice crackers, roasted mushrooms, and a mix of orange and purple carrots and yellow-white potatoes.

(2) The next day I served the sauce with carrot and celery sticks and two veggie burgers topped with slices of avocado.

Two veggie burgers topped with slices of avocado appear on a blue plate, along with carrot and celery sticks and pesto dipping sauce.

(3) What remained I used in a pasta casserole, drizzling the sauce over a layer of kale and textured vegetable protein (TVP), which topped a layer of gluten-free rotini (spiral pasta). After repeating these layers, I topped the casserole with Follow Your Heart vegan cheeze and baked for approximately an hour at 400 degrees.

These three meals are only a few I’ve created with this adaptable pesto sauce, as it’s becoming a familiar friend.

And as a friend, vegan pesto reminds me of the connections between self-care and community care, between fueling the self and fueling the long haul toward justice. It’s not by accident that this recipe and all on this blog are vegan. What we eat impacts not only ourselves but also other humans, non-human animals, and the earth.

Small actions matter.
Finding joy in food matters.
Loving ourselves, even a little bit better, matters.

Adaptable pesto sauce isn’t a cure-all, but may it bring about more healing. May it help with building healthy relationships with food and with linking creativity and commitment.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Roasted Veggies with Tahini Sauce: Linking Creativity and Self-Care,” “Three Chocolate Smoothies for Fueling the Road Ahead,” and other vegan + gluten-free recipes. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!

Single-Serve Chocolate Avocado Pudding

This summer, in the midst of a cross-country move and big career changes, I’ve found myself falling into old patterns with sugar. I’ve been binge-eating sugar only to propel myself into a downward emotional spiral and increased inflammation—stirring up old back, neck, and other embodied pains.

In the process, I’ve been getting clearer on what I want to change about my relationship with sugar and noticing when—and why—I’m craving sweets.

With greater awareness of the cravings, I’m more often choosing to drink water and vegetable broth instead of turning to sugar. At times, I’m making my familiar banana, cacao, and peanut butter mash that typically satiates cravings. And, because my naturopath recommends daily avocados, I’ve been allowing myself avocado pudding with dates used for sweetening.

Here’s the recipe for single-serve chocolate avocado pudding. It’s not only sweet and chocolatey (fulfilling emotional cravings for sugar), but it’s also vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free, and refined-sugar-free.

There are many recipes online for chocolate avocado pudding or mousse. What I like about this one is that it’s simplified (few ingredients and no refrigeration required).

Combine the following ingredients in a Vitamix or other high-powered blender, and blend until creamy:

  • 1 large avocado (or 1 and ½ smaller avocados)
  • 2 tablespoons of cacao powder
  • 2-3 dates, depending on the sweetness desired (more dates = sweeter)
  • ¼ cup of unsweetened almond or other plant-based milk
  • ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon

This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled, if making for two or more people. It also keeps well in the refrigerator and can be used for snacks throughout the day.

My relationship with sugar, as part of my larger relationship with food, is important for healing—for turning inward and learning more about who I’ve been and who I want to be. Though I’ve shown up to this relationship inconsistently, I want to build a more loving, truthful, and committed relationship for the long haul.

This long-haul commitment to self-love is the same long-haul commitment I make to staying in the work for social justice. May I keep showing up to/for myself and to/for work that matters in the world. May I invest in a nourishing relationship with food toward participating in nourishing, affirming, and accountable relationships in all aspects of life.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Banana, Chocolate, and Peanut-Butter Mash: Changing My Relationship with Sugar and Rethinking Self-Care,” “Three Chocolate Smoothies for Fueling the Road Ahead,” and other vegan + gluten-free recipes. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!

A New Spell for a New Space

These past few weeks I’ve been focused on moving and settling into a new home. The move has called attention to all sorts of stuff, habits, and emotional swings—things I’d like to keep and release, to shore up and tear down. This process has reminded me, too, of the contemplative practices that contribute to a sense of grounding: grounding needed to stand TALL for justice.

One of these practices is spell-casting, which I learned from activist-writer-healer adrienne maree brown. In Episode 10 of the Healing Justice podcast “New Years Practice: Cast a Spell with adrienne maree brown,” brown shares what I’ve similarly come to believe from my experiences writing, teaching writing, and researching writing. That is:
(1) Words have power.
(2) We can channel this power through writing.
(3) Writing mantras and other wishes-desires-intentions helps bring them into reality.
In other words, writing supports manifestation. To put these beliefs into action, I write what I want to manifest in life.

As I did back in January, when recovering from a concussion, I’ve written a spell of mantras to help ease the shifts (the letting go and calling in) that I’d like to experience in my new space. This spell now lives under my bed and again taped to my bathroom mirror.

Printed copy of the spell (words that appear in this blog post) taped to a bathroom mirror with a colorful shower curtain showing part of a tree reflected in the mirror. The photo has a pink tint.

I share this spell here as an accountability practice—holding its potential not only in physical space but also in digital/online space. I hope it might motivate others to write. I can already see that it’s inspiring me toward further writing to make commitments to justice actionable in everyday life.

A New Spell for a New Space

I detangle my self-worth from my productivity, release goals of perfection and positivity associated with white womanhood, and believe instead that “I am enough” (neither better-than nor lesser-than)—affirming my own and others’ humanity.

I release the pattern of “butt in seat” to get work done and instead allow myself to write-work-play-move wherever I am called, including curled on the couch and sitting alongside the bouldering wall.

I embrace play: swimming, hiking, climbing, and moving my body regularly toward shaking up/off what I’ve internalized and still hold within my body as trauma, as pain, as injustice.

I make decisions based on my “strong YES,” asking regularly which way brings me closer to my divine purpose, listening for what’s next, and engaging in discernment, even/especially when the answers don’t seem to make sense.

I look for direction in everyday life, slowing down to practice divination as a meaningful, woven-through-the-day contemplative practice.

I keep talking with my future self and my ancestors, working to heal backward and forward in time.

I get comfortable working on my own and enjoying my own company, while noticing who shows up as accomplices, companions, and guides in the work for social justice.

I read “for fun,” and I learn through reading-listening-witnessing how to amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), especially feminists and womanists of color.

I nourish my physical, emotional, and spiritual self: heart, head, and hands. In doing so, I invest in my relationship with food, building a relationship that’s full of integrity, consistency, forgiveness, appreciation, and love. I absorb nutrients and release inflammation. I show love to myself through the foods I take into my body.

I learn more about what it means to show up as my authentic self, getting to know Beth.

I treat myself gently, with tenderness and humility. I open my heart to forgiveness and peace. I allow myself to receive and give love.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Spell-Casting and Other Contemplative Practices for Reflection and Recovery,” “The Pain and Pleasure of Moving,” or “Mantras to Stand TALL for Justice.” Please also consider liking this blog on FB and following the blog via email. Thanks!

Wellness Tonic

Recently, I’ve been sick in a sort of “full system reboot”: weeks of allergies turned into a sinus infection, grounding me with multiple days of self-care through sleep and solitude. I’m still healing through Reiki, acupuncture, a simple diet focused on rice and veggies, and this wellness tonic.

I make this warm drink throughout the year—both for everyday wellness and whenever my body needs a little extra support. It’s vegan + gluten-free, and it’s sweet without sugar.

Simply combine the following ingredients:

Image of these ingredients sitting side-by-side on a wooden table.
View into blue and white patterned mug with wellness tonic on the inside and tea label “Traditional Medicinals” on the outside.

Certainly, this tonic can be simplified or modified: I sometimes leave out the turmeric, use fresh ginger, or add more lemon. Other herbals teas like chamomile or licorice can also be made into tonics by adding vinegar, lemon, and ginger. The idea is to create a warming, comforting, and soothing beverage with a lot of taste and wellness reinforcement.

Throughout my journey with back pain, I’ve learned to see food for its incredible healing potential. Now I think about the heating and cooling, anti-inflammatory and GI-strengthening properties of food. To help with my full-system reboot, this tonic gives a full-system boost.

My wish is that this tonic may come in handy at the time you need it, as I need it now.

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With gratitude, this post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Roasted Veggies with Tahini Sauce: Linking Creativity and Self-Care,” “Three Chocolate Smoothies for Fueling the Road Ahead,” and other vegan + gluten-free recipes. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!

Revisiting Fear Through Walker’s Essay “Everything Is a Human Being”

Book cover for Alice Walker’s Living by the Word: Selected Essays 1973-1987.This spring I’m reading Alice Walker’s Living by the Word slowly, mindfully, as part of my “Contemplative Writing” course. I appreciate this book of essays for many reasons, including its title, which makes an argument that we live by the words we put into the world. As a writer committed to everyday living for justice, I am taken with this idea of “living by the word.”

I am taken, too, with Walker’s reflections on her many relations, including with her father and daughter, readers and publishers, ancestors and elders, horses and snakes. Across her essays, Walker shows the interconnectedness of all beings, tracing lineages of trauma and healing as well as fear and (in)justice.

Recently, the essay “Everything Is a Human Being” stood out to me. As a keynote address Walker gave at the University of California, Davis, in 1983 for MLK Day, this piece weaves together reflections on fear and humans’ destructive impact on the earth and each other. I found myself lingering over words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and pages …

In class, several students read aloud from the following passage, one I’d earmarked, as it spoke to my recent blog post on interrogating fear (fear of spiders and people alike).

Screenshot of blog post “Do Vegans Kill Spiders? Recognizing Fears and Others’ Right to Exist”

Here’s a bit of Walker’s reflections on fear, which resulted in a neighbor killing a small garden snake:

“Everything I was taught about snakes—that they are dangerous, frightful, sinister—went into the murder of this snake person, who was only, after all, trying to remain in his or her home, perhaps the only home he or she had ever known. Even my ladylike ‘nervousness’ in its presence was learned behavior. I knew at once that killing the snake was not the first act that should have occurred in my new garden, and I grieved that I had apparently learned nothing, as a human being, since the days of Adam and Eve.

“Even on a practical level, killing this small, no doubt bewildered and disoriented creature made poor sense, because throughout the summer snakes just like it regularly visited the garden (and deer, by the way, ate all the tomatoes), so that it appeared to me that the little snake I killed was always with me. Occasionally a very large mama or papa snake wandered into the cabin yard, as if to let me know its child has been murdered, and it knew who was responsible for it.

“These garden snakes, said my neighbors, are harmless; they eat mice and other pests that invade the garden. In this respect, they are even helpful to humans. And yet, I am still afraid of them, because that is how I was taught to be. Deep in the psyche of most of us there is this fear—and long ago, I do not doubt, in the psyche of ancient peoples, there is a similar fear of trees. And of course a fear of other human beings, for that is where all fear of natural things leads us: to fear ourselves, fear of each other, and fear even of the spirit of the Universe, because out of fear we often greet its outrageousness with murder.” (Walker, Living by the Word, p. 143)

Walker’s words not only touch my heart but also remind me of the deep work I have to do with confronting, befriending, and watching for fear. I notice, for example, that fear of snakes is close-at-hand when hiking. I’m fascinated by and try to learn all I can about snakes, yet I still have much to do to quiet the learned/internalized fear that drives me to keep watch along trails.

Similarly, fear of myself and other humans is never far away. Such fear leads to literal and figurative murder—from police and state-sanctioned violence to dehumanization and discounting others. It erupts in microaggressions and denial of anger and grief. It leads to destruction of the earth, disproportionally impacting people of color. It’s also why we all (and white folks especially) need to strengthen emotional literacies for racial justice.

Fear blocks the ability to see beauty, the potential for human connection, and the work of striving for justice. Fear tears down instead of building up.

In Walker’s words: “[W]e should be allowed to destroy only what we ourselves can re-create. We cannot re-create this world. We cannot re-create ‘wilderness.’ We cannot even, truly, re-create ourselves. Only our behavior can we re-create, or create anew” (p. 151).

With humility, I commit again to revisiting destructive fear and re-creating behaviors aligned with justice. To do so, I see the value of “living by the word”: words of relationality, connectedness, and kinship. Kinship with spiders and humans, snakes and structural change. Kinship linking why I’m vegan with why I’m committed to social and racial justice. Kinship toward blocking destruction and creating anew.

View of the book’s inside binding coming loose and pages falling away.
Speaking of destruction and re-creation, here’s my well-loved book on its way to physical destruction, but ingested as nourishment and fuel for ongoing action.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For related posts, check out “Do Vegans Kill Spiders? Recognizing Fears and Others’ Right to Exist,” “Refueling with Feminists of Color,” and the series of posts on why I’m vegan. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!

The Austin Airport Meal, Or Why I Love Potatoes and Cabbage with Salsa and Refried Beans

As someone who’s both vegan and gluten-free, I think a lot about food, especially when traveling. I travel with tea bags, snack bars, and other packaged food. More often than not, I prepare or buy meals from outside the airport to eat on the plane. Occasionally, however, I’ll crave a warm meal and find myself looking for chili, steamed veggies, or rice and beans (with guacamole, tortilla chips, and salad).

A few years ago, I wanted a warm meal in the Austin airport, where the options were slim to none. A Tex-Mex place I thought would have rice and beans had only an option of breakfast potatoes (home fries or hash browns) with refried beans. I ordered the potatoes and beans with large amounts of the available vegan toppings: shredded cabbage and salsa. An odd combination, I thought, but I sat down to eat and enjoyed the meal far more than expected (and more than any airport food in memory).

Since this discovery of the “Austin airport meal,” I’ve re-created versions of it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Though I typically roast or fry potatoes, I’ve used frozen hash browns in a pinch. I then open a can of refried beans, a jar of salsa, and a bag of shredded cabbage. A meal comes together with few ingredients and little time (about 10-15 minutes). I have comfort food (with potatoes as the base), and I meet my goal of eating vegetables as at least half of every meal (by piling on the cabbage).

So, with gratitude for food discoveries in the unlikeliest of locations, here’s my “Austin airport meal”—a meal that’s great when traveling, over-scheduled, or exhausted in the spring semester (for students and teachers alike).

Ingredients:

  • 1 bag of potatoes (more or less depending on amount desired) with approx. 2 tablespoons of olive oil and water and ½ teaspoon of salt (and possibly pepper or chili powder) for frying
  • 1 bag or head of shredded cabbage
  • 1 can of vegan refried beans
  • Few tablespoons of salsa (to taste)

Instructions:

  1. Slice potatoes if frying, or cut into wedges if roasting.
  2. For fried potatoes: add potatoes, oil, water, and spices to a large frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are soft and browned.
  3. Heat the refried beans.
  4. If not already shredded, chop the cabbage.
  5. Combine potatoes, refried beans, and cabbage in roughly equivalent proportions (I tend to add more cabbage). Add a tablespoon or two of salsa.
  6. Enjoy!

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “When Times Get Tough: Simple Sautéed Spinach and Tempeh,” “Potato & Kale Casserole (vegan + gluten-free): Finding Comfort in the Growth Zone,” and other vegan + gluten-free recipes. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!

Warm Quinoa Cranberry Breakfast Cereal

Recently, I’ve felt the heat associated with anger flushing through my body, asking to be recognized. As I tend to this anger, I’m seeking nourishment that provides fuel for committed action—fuel that is sweet, but not sugary.

2018-02-12 07.11.13
Warm cereal with blood orange slices, cranberry-banana smoothie, and tea.

One of the meals I’ve been making for myself is quinoa cranberry breakfast cereal. I simply combine the following ingredients, press the “porridge” setting in my “fuzzy logic” rice maker, and wake up to warm cereal and sweet smells:

  • Quinoa — ¾ cup
  • Frozen cranberries — 1 cup
  • Pumpkin seeds — ¼ cup
  • Almond milk — 3-4 cups (2 cups at the beginning of cooking and more at the end)
  • Vanilla — 1 teaspoon
  • Stevia — 1 teaspoon

This warm cereal has been helping me feel well cared for despite being worn thin. I have been feeling incensed (burning up) and fatigued (burning out) by a constant barrage of sexual assault, institutional racism, ableist policies, gender policing, xenophobic rhetoric, and other bullshit. Not to mention the violence and open wounds on display vividly in headlines and news feeds.

Toward attending to anger and showing up with resilience, I recognize the need to care for myself especially well. I feel grateful for a programmable rice maker that allows me to press a few buttons and have warm cereals, rice and beans, and other grain-legume combos ready to eat a few hours later.

I mention the rice maker because I’m often asked about how I prepare home-cooked meals when juggling a LOT, including a lot of emotions. This device, along with my Vitamix and electric tea kettle, save time and mental labor. While these appliances are a true privilege, on the one hand, they are also a true investment in self-care, on the other. They are hands-down my favorite kitchen items and have replaced a lot of pots, pans, and other gadgets, simplifying the cooking experience.

So, with deep gratitude, I share this simple and sweet vegan + gluten-free breakfast that is supporting me right now—with the hope that it may support you, too. Whatever self-care may be calling to you, may the care involve attention to emotional intake, emotional readiness, and emotional resilience for the long haul toward justice.

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This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For more posts like this one, you might try “Three Chocolate Smoothies for Fueling the Road Ahead,” “Banana, Chocolate, and Peanut-Butter Mash: Changing My Relationship with Sugar and Rethinking Self-Care,” and other vegan + gluten-free recipes. Please also consider following the blog via email. Thanks!