Balancing Act

Living a healthy lifestyle is all about balance. We search for work/ life balance for healthy relationships with our family and friends. We try to find balance in our personal life and make time for ourselves but finding balance in our diet is often over looked.

I've often gone off on long winded tangents about keeping balance in your diet but like most advice I dish out, I often need to be reminded of it myself. I've always tried to feed the toddler as organically as possible and even managed to avoid giving him any refined sugar till nearly his second birthday. The holidays are the hardest time for me to keep our healthy lifestyle going as I tend to get caught up in the nostalgia of holiday meals past. Today was one such day.

Halloween is just a couple of days away and I kept seeing fun little posts on Pinterest about making little pumpkin shaped rice crispy treats and instead of making my Salted Maple Cashew Crispy Treats I decided to make the real deal. As the toddler and I were melting the corn syrup laden marshmallows with my organic butter I started to feel really guilty. I should have bought the organic rice cereal and why didn't I make the marshmallows from scratch with out the corn syrup. Ugh, I'm feeding my child garbage all for the sake of nostalgia! Then a little voice in my head told me to chill out.

Balance, we have always said we want the toddler to grow up with balance. We don't want these types of treats to be treated as taboo or else the second he is out of our sight he is going to feast on the forbidden foods. I don't want to tell him he can't have what the other kids are eating at the birthday parties. So I feel if he gets to eat them from time to time it won't be a big deal. As for today after I cut him a piece of rice crispy s treat (I didn't shape them into cute little pinterest worthy pumpkins after all) he ate a few bites and asked for some carrots, because at two he is already learning balance.

Peasants Pie

 I didn't want to call this Vegetarian Shepard's Pie, Shepard's Pie has meat and this dish isn't trying to pretend to be something its not. Peasants Pie stands on its own with a rich gravy filled with sweet carrots and turnips, earthy mushrooms and garlic, topped with a slightly cheesy mash of baked sweet potato. 

Peasants Pie is a great Meatless Monday recipe that can be easily made Vegan with a few changes. If you are a strict vegan or vegetarian most Natural Food Stores carry a vegan Worcestershire sauce and you could sub out the Parmesan cheese for nutritional yeast. If you are just going for an easy yet hardy Meatless Monday dish forgo the trip to the store and just use what you have on hand. Sometimes ingredients can be hard to track down, especially if you live in a town as small as mine!

Ingredients:
1 Yellow Onion, diced

4 Cloves Garlic, minced

3 stalks of Celery, chopped

8 oz Crimini Mushrooms, sliced

2 Turnips (about the size of your fist), peeled and cubed

3 Carrots, peeled and sliced

1 Tbs Oil

2 tsp dried Thyme

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

2 Tbs Flour

1 1/2 to 2 C Vegetable Broth

2 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce 

1 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar 

For Topping:

2 medium Sweet Potatoes, baked

1/4 C freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

+2 Tbs freshly grated Parmesan Cheese for top

Preheat oven to 375. 

In a large skillet over medium heat oil, then add onions, garlic and celery. Cook for about 5 minutes then add in mushrooms cooking an additional 3 minutes before adding the carrots and turnips. Next add the thyme, pepper and flour stirring well and cooking until the flour starts to brown. Then slowly add in 1 1/2 C of the vegetable broth, scraping the pan to remove any browned bits from the bottom. Turn heat down to low and simmer for 15 minutes adding remaining 1/2 C of broth if gravy gets too thick. 

Meanwhile mash the cooked sweet potatoes with 1/4 C Parmesan Cheese. 

Pour vegetables and gravy into a deep pie dish or 8x8 pan. Spread potatoes over top of vegetable mixture and top with remaining Parmesan cheese and bake for 20 minutes.  

Easy Everyday Pancake Mix

Who says pancakes have to be saved for special occasions like Saturday morning? My Easy Everyday Pancake Mix makes Monday morning pancakes possible!
I was tired of buying the over priced organic pancake mixes and making them from scratch every time was time consuming. Not to mention that I didn't want a huge batch of pancakes for just the toddler and I, so I came up with this mix based off our favorite pancake recipe. I just mix the dry ingredients together and store them in a quart jar. I have a piece of paper I keep under the ring on the lid with the ingredients for the mix on one side and the directions for making pancakes for two on the other so I am never searching for the recipes when I need them! You could make this with whatever flour you like, white, wheat or a mix (you could even make them with gluten free flour and add xanthin gum). I've even started making muffins with this mix, so look for those recipes in the future!




For Mix:
3 C. Organic Unbleached Flour
4 Tbs Evaporated Cane Sugar
4 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Sea Salt

Mix everything together and pour into a quart jar for storing.


For Pancakes...

If I want to just make enough for one or two people I add;

1/2 C Easy Pancake Mix
1 Egg
1/3 C Milk (cow, almond, cashew, whatever you desire)
2 tsp Oil or melted Butter
1/4 tsp Vanilla

For four People I double every thing but the egg:

1 C Easy Pancake Mix
1 Egg
2/3 C Milk
4 Tsp Oil or melted Butter
1/2 Tsp Vanilla

Stir together pancake mix and wet ingredients until lumps have disappeared.  In a lightly oiled skillet over medium heat drop desired amount of batter, I do tablespoons for silver dollar pancakes. When pancakes start to bubble, flip them.

(See how the left and right pancake have bubbles but the middle does not.) Another minute or so and they will be brown on the other side. Grab your syrup and dig in!