Eating Cake on the Rooftop

On at least three separate occasions I have been asked if I’m still doing Meals with Morri. The short answer is yes. The longer answer obviously has more to it than that. 

When I first started, I was cooking and posting and writing on the regular, and in doing so I learned how to cook and post and write. I met a lot of talented and amazing people along the way. Companies and publishers reached out to me to write reviews for their products and cookbook authors. I learned to be picky, and when to say no.

But with the evolution of Meals with Morri, particularly the person behind it (i.e., yours truly), I started to become very critical of my art. If it wasn’t something I thought people wouldn’t like, it wasn’t posted. If the photos I took were not good enough, the recipe itself would have to wait. This doesn’t particularly bother me, because I have really blossomed with the food I’ve made, and the stories I’ve written about them have refined. The problem I am facing now is the realization as to why I love to cook, and why Meals with Morri has been lacking in recipes per month recently.

My motivation in making food is just that: making food. Not for me, but to share with others. Eating the same food with other people is such an important ritual for me. It’s a sacred act of connecting with others at the table. I had experienced a similar revelation while I was in Malta. When I lived alone, I just made food. There was nothing more to it than insuring I was eating enough. But when CK and I visited each other or I made food for the office, suddenly the creative juices were flowing in overdrive. And perhaps the underlying reason is to validate my art, to see that Meals with Morri was doing something positive in person. But really, I’ve come to realize that, like my previous aspirations to be a chef, I really love it when people eat and enjoy the food I make for them. 

Living with my parents after over a year of not doing so has meant that what they eat and what I eat doesn’t mesh as often as it used to when it was my responsibility to make dinner for the family. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but not sharing food I make with other people has affected my motivation to create and share recipes online. I like there being a reason for my art, and I want to experience that shared moment in person, in real time. CK and our two dear friends H and J have risen to the challenge in helping me see that it's equally important for me to enjoy my art, and are more than willing to help give me ideas in what to make (thanks, guys).

Last night, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party, and although I wasn’t asked, I made a cake that I knew I’d be able to eat. It was a rooftop party, one that overlooked other Washington, D.C. apartments and offices, the Washington Monument blinking lazily far away. The already present cupcakes had been eaten, and to my surprise, my cake was used to sing to him “Happy Birthday” (which I unashamedly conspired with his girlfriend in making happen). The cake was said to be quite good, and only a few people knew that it was gluten free. 

Rooftop Carrot Cake with Honey Sweetened Cream Cheese Frosting

For the cake
120 g White rice flour*
1/2 tsp. Baking soda**
1 tsp. Cream of tartar**
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
150 ml olive oil
200 g coconut sugar
5 Carrots, grated

Preheat the oven to 350°F, and grease (I used butter) and flour (I used the white rice flour) one 9-inch pan.
In a medium bowl, sift together the rice flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, sea salt and cinnamon.
In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a larger bowl with a hand mixer), combine the eggs, olive oil, coconut sugar, and vanilla, and beat on medium-low speed until the mixture is slightly frothy.
Reduce the speed to low, and add the flour mixture in small increments, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula each time.
Stir in the grated carrots, mixing until combined, and pour the batter into the prepared baking pan.
Bake for 40 - 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (for me, this was 50 minutes).
Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a parchment lined wire rack to cool completely.
Once cooled, decorate the cake with frosting and other toppings you may enjoy (such as unsweetened coconut shavings).

Makes 1 cake, or 12 slices.

For the frosting (courtesy of this recipe)
8 oz package or 240 g Cream cheese, softened
56 g Unsalted butter, softened
85 g Honey
Unsweetened coconut shavings, as topping (optional)

Whip the cream cheese in a standing mixer until soft, then add the butter and honey to blend.
Mix on medium speed until smooth and creamy.

Makes 12 – 18 servings.

* NOT to be confused with sweet rice flour. If you do, you’ll get a mochi-like consistency.

** The baking powder equivalent is 1 1/2 tsp.

To Adult or Not to Adult, it Still Calls for Ice Cream

Upon returning to the states over a month ago, a dark cloud enveloped my disposition. The job searching and applying seemed to be going nowhere. I was constantly reminded that, at twenty-five, with a Master’s Degree, I was living at home in my childhood bedroom with a depleting savings account. The distance between CK and I was a hard one, especially with him traveling with family around Italy for a couple weeks, and our long talks cut short. Triggers of abandonment and rejection bombarded me, and I kick myself now in falling for the fears. 

If there was a time where I felt like a small and insignificant child, it was from May to June. I stopped caring about the things I used to be so passionate about. Every email to a potential employer felt like a desire to be accepted and integrated in the career path I so wanted to participate in. I felt like a child with the weight of adulthood bearing down on my shoulders. I felt that I had the experience and the passion to make things happen, only to be told that it wasn’t enough.

Depression is nothing less than a merciless bitch.

The other tragic event that took place just this last Saturday was the death of our newest member of the family: our cat Clyde. He had developed FIP before he came into our home, but it took him regardless. He was just a few weeks short of his first birthday, and his death was a heartbreaking blow. Lilli, our other cat, has thankfully not contracted the incurable disease (fingers crossed that it remains that way), but she has lost two friends in the span of ten months, and it hurts to watch her grieve.

He was such a bundle of love, and unremorseful in being in the middle of it all.

But Clyde’s death did something positive for me. It’s hard to explain, but whatever depression I had (smothering me to the point I had sincerely thought of packing a few days worth of clothing and food and driving my car somewhere without telling anyone) lifted. The child feeling went away. I learned what it means to be an adult, and I learned it while holding Clyde as the vet put him to sleep.

In all the kitties that have come into my life, their deaths happened without my being physically present. Luna, the cat before Lilli, also had FIP, but I was young and Mama Dazz took her in the middle of the night and held her while she died. Miette, who developed kidney disease (common in Abyssinians), died while I was in Malta. Clyde was the first death I had ever witnessed in any being bigger than a hamster, and I was adamant that I was there no matter what happened.

When you’re in your teens, you dream about being an adult. It means making your own decisions, running the show. In your twenties, you have this checklist of Being Adult. It means having a job with insurance and unpaid internships are a thing of the past. It means moving out of your parents’ house. It means having enough money to live off on. It means paying taxes. It means being out of school. Based upon my Being Adult list, I was out of school, but I didn’t meet the other requirements, and I felt less for it. 

I spent all my energy and motivation trying to fulfill this stupid list, when in reality I was looking at it in the wrong way. I am very grateful and appreciative to have this time to live at home so I can find a job on my terms. I have a partner that I always cherish seeing. And instead of looking at job after job after job, I realized that it isn’t a burden to have such an inclusive career path. It means I have a lot of options to choose from.

Being an adult means that you make the final decisions in every choice that is presented in front of you. It means knowing when to say goodbye. It means knowing when an opportunity presents itself, and taking that leap forward.

It also means being able to have dessert whenever you bloody well feel like it.

As I’ve said, my desire to make recipes waned significantly since returning to the states, but for a few weeks now I’ve really wanted to post summer fun foods that can be enjoyed after a day’s worth of Adulting.

And like any sad moment, this calls for ice cream, or gelato.

One of my favorite memories in 2014 was Chris surprising me with a trip to a gelateria that made a few gelato flavors with fructose, and thus Morri-friendly. Since then, the craving to make homemade gelato was constantly on my mind. Mama Dazz had mentioned that she had a hand-churning ice cream maker (old school and awesome), and so the challenge was accepted.

Only this time, instead of fructose, it was made with coconut sugar.

Ice cream, gelato, and sorbet are relatively easy things to make at home. And like most things, I felt empowered that I could indulge on my terms without the fear of being glutened, sugared, or soyed. Yes, it’s a little time consuming on the prep, but it is a labor of love that is well worth it.

The recipe I found for authentic Italian gelato is from the wonderful Memorie di Angelina, and it speaks for itself. Even though the coconut sugar changed the coloring of the gelato to appear darker, the texture is exactly what I remembered enjoying in the park with CK as kids kicked the soccer ball around.

And it’s a naturally gluten free food, a plus in my book.

Gelato bionda (Blonde Gelato) (adapted from this recipe)

500 ml Whole milk
150 g “Blonde” coconut sugar, pulsed to a fine consistently
4 Egg yolks
1 Vanilla pod, split down the middle

Pour the milk, half of the coconut sugar (75 g), and the vanilla pod or lemon zest, into a saucepan and bring the milk nearly to a boil.
When the very first bubbles begin to appear, take it immediately off the heat and let it cool.
Cover the saucepan, which will slow down the cooling process and prolong the steeping process, thus drawing out more of the vanilla flavor.
When the milk has cooled (at room temperature or a little warmer, but not too hot or it will cook the egg prematurely), put the egg yolks into an electric mixer together with the other half of the coconut sugar.
Beat at a high setting until the egg yolks and sugar have been thoroughly combined and the mixture is creamy.
Lower the setting and slowly add your cooled milk mixture (after removing the vanilla pod) in a steady stream, and mix until everything is well amalgamated.
Transfer the mixture back into the saucepan, and heat it gently until the eggs thicken it into a thin custard (thick enough to coat a spoon lightly, but not so much that the egg curdles).
Stir continually and raise the heat very gradually (medium to medium-high) until said thin custard is observed.
Once the mixture has thickened, remove it from the heat and pour it into the mixing bowl previously used.
Let it stand to cool for ten minutes before transferring to the fridge to chill for at least one hour to overnight (I personally chilled the mixture overnight, and was very pleased with the result).
Pour the now chilled mixture into your ice cream maker and proceed to churn per the instructions that came with the machine (mine ended up with a soft serve consistency in about 20 minutes), a place the final product in the freezer* to continue the firming process.
Serve as soon as it is out of the freezer with your favorite ice cream accompaniments.

Makes 6 – 9 servings.

*Tips from Memorie di Angelina: “If you are keeping your gelato in the freezer for a longer time (gelato will keep for quite a while in the freezer) then remove it from the freezer about 15 minutes or so before serving, as it hardens further over time, and the texture of gelato can be firm but never hard.”

Why Cooking Together is the Best Thing You Can Do as a Couple

Yesterday, CK and I celebrated his birthday. During the time when he is in Rome and I am in Malta, we have gotten really good at the whole long distance thing. I've had quite few people ask me how it is we're able to handle the distance, especially since it's been almost 1.5 years now. The truth is that the situation isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes, the distance gets to us. Sometimes, it feels like we'll be long distance forever. But the way we combat it is planning the future (be it trips or what it will take for us to be living together at the start of 2015) and using Skype during our time apart.

Skype has made long distance relationships so much easier to manage. We Skype daily and do things together that way: gaming, reading to each other, watching movies, doing our own thing while the other is working on something else, and cooking. Cacio e pepe was the first of much foodie fun we’ve done via Skype, and it’s brought me to the conclusion that cooking together provides a series of lessons in improving how you interact as a couple.

CK and I in Rome a couple weeks ago. (Yes, I've cut my hair...)

Photo's courtesy of CK's Mama Bear

CK is the first person that has consistently shown interest in cooking with me from start (prep) to finish (on the plate). Quality time is so important to me, and that it can be done in a tangible way that we can both enjoy has made our relationship so fulfilling. For years I made meals for my family, usually by myself (it was my responsibility at home when I wasn't at school or working), so imagine my surprise when someone insisted on being part of the process! 

I believe the reason why Meals with Morri has been so quiet lately has to do with the fact that I’m not cooking meals for others anymore. It takes out all the fun to make something when there isn't anyone to enjoy it with you or to say it's "blog worthy" (thanks, Mama Dazz). Since coming to Malta, I’ve cooked plenty, but the desire to make recipes and take photos just didn't seem so appealing anymore. But with overcoming homesickness and loneliness, I’ve started working with baker’s yeast again. I am healing from various fears that revolved around eating (like fried food and treating myself to dessert now and then), and I’m actually eating to thrive and not to simply eat enough. And finally, after months of being in a funk, making recipes with the aim to share it with the world seems like fun again.   

Cooking together is an amazing form of communication. I’ve struggled with being upfront with my emotions and what I needed, but you can’t be anything less than direct in the kitchen. You can’t say “Maybe I need you to crack some eggs” or “You don’t have to grate the cheese if you don’t want to even though I need it done and I'm currently sauteing the onions.” You can’t expect someone you’re making a dish with know that you wanted them to preheat the oven or get water boiling unless you let them know that’s what you want. A chef doesn’t expect their kitchen to be mind readers, and neither should you expect or be expected to read your partner’s mind. You also learn to honor your feelings without the need to justify them.

Another aspect of cooking together is honoring the support you give and receive, and understanding the balance of giving and taking. Sometimes that means there is a kitchen leader, where one of you calls the shots (gives directions), and the other follows and does what is needed as instructed. Having a gluten free blog doesn't automatically make me the leader all the time. In fact, when he makes me soup or takes over cooking when I'm stressed out or sick is the most amazing thing ever. From this balance of power I’ve learned it’s okay to be selfish and to say no once in a while, that you can and should make time for yourself when the need arises. Having the right to say no and not be sorry for it is a new commodity for me, and it also means giving you and your partner some slack to not having to be on all the time.

My motivation to posting also declined when a recipe wasn't just right...

I try to tell him how much I appreciate our time together in the kitchen as often as I can. I know he isn’t doing it because he thinks it will make me happy, and that is really important to the both of us. He doesn’t feel obliged, and it isn’t one-sided. He tells me how empowered he has become learning the art of gluten free (and vegetarian) cooking, making more things from scratch than he ever did before we met. And he’s transitioned from the stance that the ‘gluten-free’ aspect of the recipe has to taste like it isn’t. Like everyone new to gluten free cooking, we initially try to replace and substitute wheat/gluten in such a way that is has to look and taste and act like it isn’t gluten free, so now it isn’t ‘gluten free’ waffles or ‘gluten free’ muffins… just waffles or muffins. He doesn’t say “Hey! This is pretty good… for gluten free.” He says, “Oh my God, this is amazing” or “We should try it [this] way next time.” I cannot emphasize the importance of sincerity, and that is a very significant piece as to why our relationship works so well (both in and out of the kitchen, while we’re together and when we’re doing the long distance thing). Throughout the stress of finishing up grad school, living alone in Malta, and job searching for 2015, he helped bring back the spark in making amazing meals and enjoying good food. We have quite a list of foodstuff we want to make, and hopefully we can turn it into a webshow soon after I’ve gotten a grasp on filming and editing.  

One of CK’s favorite flavors in baked goods is lemon poppy, so we decided to make lemon poppy quick bread and drink margaritas over Skype. It was a combination of Ruhlman’s ratio for quick bread and this recipe. Neither of us had a zester, so we used lemon juice instead. He also used yogurt instead of milk, and he said that it worked really well. After singing him happy birthday and cheering as he blew out the tea light candle, we toasted with the margaritas and enjoyed our lemon poppy creations.

CK's photo of his Lemon Poppy Quick Bread

The moral of the story is that love doesn't just happen. True love isn't true because it's perfect: it takes work, communication, honesty, sincerity, and appreciation. If you want to improve any relationship, be it parent-child, partner-partner, sibling-sibling, friend-friend, or me-myself-and-I, try being in the kitchen more often and make something that you can enjoy together. 

Lemon Poppy Quick Bread / Muffins

120 g Brown rice flour
120 g Garbanzo bean flour
120 g Honey
1 tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Baking soda
240 ml Whole milk
2 Large eggs
120 g butter, melted (if salted, omit sea salt)
4 tbsp. or 80 ml Lemon juice
4 tbsp. or 28 g Poppy seeds

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 175°C, and grease the pan (a 12-cup muffin tin or a 9.5” pie pan) with your oil of choice.
In one medium-large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flours, salt [unless omitted], baking soda, and poppy seeds and set aside.
In another bowl, combine the eggs, milk and honey, and add the mixture to the dry ingredients.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the batter, and pour it into the pan.
Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until the top is golden brown and the knife is clean when you check for doneness.

Makes 1 quick bread/12 muffins, or 8 – 12 servings.

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week: My Journey

A few years ago my cousin introduced me to Post Secret, a movement created by a very compassionate individual by the name of Frank Warren who created an outlet for people to anonymously mail secrets to him. The secrets can be funny, ridiculous, serious, sad, and anything in between. Every Sunday, he posts new secrets that millions of people read. Every Sunday, I am one of those millions of people that do. It’s a way, I think, for people to feel connected with others around the world. Sharing these secrets is a way to let go as well as bringing people together. It’s a relief know that there are others who are going through similar things or thinking the same thoughts.

Last Sunday’s secrets really hit home for me. They revolved around eating disorders. Here are a few examples:

(Probably the one that was the most personal and relevant for me.)

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week brings into light a very personal matter for a lot of people. It doesn’t just affect a certain weight, gender, age, or nationality. It affects a wide ranged of people for different reasons. It mostly is about a sense of control or the desire of being this ideal image or weight, but those aren't the only reasons.

I remember becoming extremely offended when this fight of what ‘real women’ look like started. Suddenly, naturally slender women were subjected to scorn in the media. I have friends of various height and weight combinations, and they are all exceptionally beautiful people. They have shown me that there is no one-size-fits-all aspect of beauty.

One of the things CK told me (and that I love him for) is that there is no such thing as the fairytale relationship. And so, this past weekend, he asked me a very hard question: “So then, why do you demand for the fairytale body?” This applied not only to my appearance, but also my health. It was one of those questions that not only broke down everything I tried to ignore, but once I let it out I couldn’t stop.

I don't refer to having had disordered eating as an eating disorder  because I believe the term 'eating disorder' places blame on the person suffering. Disordered eating is also more inclusive and, in my opinion, something you can rise from and have the power to change. Disordered eating has traveled with me like a codependent ally, needing me to need to control what I ate, when I ate, and how much. When I went to college, I lost a lot of weight. In total, my weight loss journey resulted in over 40 pounds. Most of it was due to changing my eating habits and preferring healthier options and exercising more. But when I became ‘thin’, I was deathly afraid of gaining it back. I’ve had panic attacks in the past because it was so terrifying to me to go back to that time when my body was a prison to the wonderful person underneath.

*Photos are from 1990 - 2012.

The evolution of my disordered eating habits became more about earning and deserving food than not eating. To be fair, I didn’t decide one day to be anorexic my sophomore year in high school. I just felt I didn’t have time to eat in the mornings and simply wasn’t hungry for lunch (and believe me, the food options in the cafeteria were not appetizing). So I would go almost twenty hours without eating, snack when I got home and then eat dinner. I drank hot tea in the mornings with lemon and sugar, but that was it. By the end of the first quarter, I was under 140 pounds, a first since I started puberty.

And then I got sick and began vomiting blood. The trip to the ER showed stomach ulcers from drinking tea (which is extremely acidic) on an empty stomach, and put a slight hole in my esophagus. I called this experience the time I was “accidentally anorexic”.

By college, I went gluten free (soy free and cane sugar free came about a year or two after). I started eating healthier and exercising and was rather happy with where I was at body image-wise. I changed my appearance often, even cutting my hair in a pixie cut. My exercising, however, became something I had to do and a way to cut calories. I would do the math and think: “Okay… I’ve burned a certain number of calories, enough to have burned off breakfast, and maybe that smoothie I want to have later.” (This is also known as exercise bulimia and a very common form of disordered eating.) I looked at my body more critically, wondering why I wasn’t getting the body I wanted. At one point I tried to survive on 1200 calories a day. I guesstimated my intake, so I’m sure I ate more than that. But it still stands that, while I was active and walking to class, I wasn’t eating enough. I think I even blacked out while driving at one point on my way back to campus housing for lunch.

When I started this blog, the first post began with me being hungry really early in the morning. The echoes of healing are apparent in many posts and recipes I’ve published in the last three years. Seeing a holistic nutritionist (Cheryl Harris of Harris Whole Health and Gluten Free Goodness) probably saved my life. She encouraged me to take small steps, read Johnston’s (2000) Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationship with Food Through Myths, Metaphors, and Storytelling, and I slowly changed how I perceived eating and food. My self worth and image built itself up and, in increments, stopped focusing on calories and focused more on what my body needed and when.

Being diagnosed with hypothyroidism in 2011 also changed by body image and eating habits, and it really helped in knowing my struggles with weight weren’t entirely my fault. Yes, I could have eaten healthier and exercised more, but growing up with an underactive thyroid literally makes you the underdog. Not only does your metabolism suffer, everything does. How could I be healthy when I was sick all the time? How could I get better if it was my body that wasn’t working?

Since receiving treatment, I’ve noticed my body doesn’t get sick as often or as easily. And the slow change of feeling like I have to exercise to wanting to exercise as well as removing ‘good’ and ‘bad’  as labels for food (also called orthorexia, or a fixation of only eating what the person believes is healthy or ‘good’ food) really helped transform my mindset toward loving my body. I still have old paradigms rear their ugly heads when I’m stressed or feeling vulnerable, but I know where I am right now is a pretty awesome place to be.

The last thing that really changed everything for me was doing the Insanity Challenge. I went from 125 lbs to 142 lbs, eating up to 2500 calories to maintain efficiency. I started learning how to take cues from my body, and was absolutely fascinated how I became more solid, but didn’t get bigger. In horror, I realized just how much I denied my poor body nutrients in the name of fairytale beauty. I knew in theory that not eating enough will actually keep you from losing weight because your body is trying to keep you alive. But after completing the Insanity Workout, it finally resonated.

Even today, while I have moments (and they are fleeting, I’m happy to say) where I think I’m not pretty enough, smart enough, thin enough, whatever enough, I have a fantastic support system and I am dulling the words of that harsh Inner Critic we are all capable of having. I cook and eat because food nourishes my body and my soul. I exercise to see how my strength has improved physically and mentally. I have learned to treat myself with compassion and empathy, and am learning what situations open the door for negative thoughts (usually sleep deprivation, sickness, or getting stuck inside my own head for too long).

The one thing I really hope the world comes to realize is that people who suffer disordered eating do not do it for attention, and telling them about how there are people without food in other parts of the world do not help. And while it helps to receive reassurance (because I admit to needing reassurance from time to time), the only thing that will change their outlook on themselves and the need of control is their desire to change it. It may mean getting professional help (as I had), changing the environment that encourages this disorder, and taking as well as celebrating the little steps. And while I believe it is most certainly acceptable to change yourself to feel better health-wise, I have learned that seeking perfection is impossible, mostly because there is no such thing as the perfect person. It's okay to be any weight that makes you feel comfortable, so as long as you don't risk your health or happiness to get there. It's also okay to have a 'type', but just remember that the other types out there are equally awesome.

It also means looking at body shaming as it is: a form of violence and bullying. We need to stop focusing on beauty as a surface phenomenon and looking to create the word to mean something that is all-inclusive. Let's stop comparing ourselves to one another and looking for acceptance based on what the scale says or what the media tells us. We need to stop diminishing someone's worth based on their appearance, and STOP STOP STOP saying someone isn't beautiful in order to make someone else feel that they are. It is NOT okay. And the first step to achieving this is inward.

I am so grateful to my family, friends, and partner for changing my life. And thank you all who were so brave as to sharing their stories, with me personally, and on Post Secret. And for those who are still suffering, are recovering, and everywhere in between, I want to say this to you:

• You are beautiful in the present. At this very moment, you are the perfect you and you are on the path you need to take.
• You are the ideal you.
• You matter.
• You are loved, honored, and appreciated for being yourself.
• No one’s opinions of what you should look like or be like is important. The only thing that matters is how you feel.
• It does get better. I promise you.

I made this recipe as a way to honor those struggles, and to reach out to others. Following this recipe are some stories about disordered eating and body image. I cannot express to you how much I appreciated the bravery of these individuals to share their story. It will be updated throughout the week, but feel free to leave a comment also.

Mashed Potato Biscuit Hearts

420 g mashed potatoes*
75 g Garbanzo bean flour
100 g ground almonds (i.e., blanched almond flour)
65 g Brown rice flour
60 g Flaxseed meal
120 ml Whole milk
1 Large egg
1 tsp. Sea salt
3/4 tsp. Baking soda
3/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar

Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
Mix together the wet ingredients (potatoes, milk, and egg) in a large bowl and add the dry (the dough will be a bit tacky).
Let the dough sit for five minutes.
On a floured surface, take a handful of dough** and flatten it to about an inch thick.
Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter (or any for that matter), press through the dough and place the cutouts onto a greased baking sheet (or parchment paper).
Continue to do so until all the dough has been formed, and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and let them cool for about 10 minutes before eating.
Can be served hot or cold.

Makes 11 or more biscuits, depending on cutout size.

* I used the potato ricer to make the mashed potatoes and didn't add anything to them.

** I found it easier to take a handful of dough at a time than to just roll it out and cut.

Other's Stories (Coming Soon)

Story 1: The Legacy
The Influence of family: My first negative body image messages came from my own mother when I entered puberty. She made me self conscious about my weight gain. (Replaying the messages from her own mother about her struggles with weight gain. To lose weight that she gained during her own puberty, she ate only mayonnaise sandwiches for an entire summer. She did some severe dieting after each of her children to lose the baby weight, which affected her mood and energy levels.) I also remember my father making comments that 125 lbs was an ideal weight (for my mom) so that was a weight goal I strived to attain. No matter that I was actually 3 inches taller and actually looked ghastly at 125 lbs. As a result, I went through puberty and early adolescence (in the 1970’s)  “knowing” that I was “fat” and unattractive. As a result, I became anorexic in my mid-teens, something that was acerbated by a bout of mononucleosis.

The influence of media and product advertisements: Dress size, body weight, body image, attractiveness and perceived sexual desirability have always been interconnected. No matter that I actually felt my best when I weighed a certain amount. In order to fit into certain styles of clothing, I had to be a certain size. In order to accentuate my eyes and my cheekbones I needed to have a certain contour to my face (achieved only by dieting). The mirror: It lies. What I see is not what others see. As a result I have to use a tape measure; it doesn’t lie.

My regrets: I hate how I look. I have always hated how I look. Once in a while, when some time has passed and I see a picture of myself, I think, “Wow! I look really great in that picture.” But, if I think back to when the picture was taken and how I felt about my looks, I would say that I felt ugly or at least not attractive.

Legacy: I have watched helplessly as my own daughter has struggled with this amorphous monster, wondering what I could have done that I didn’t do; how I could have better protected her from the jaws of this gaping beast. I tried to offer unconditional love and support as she has struggled. I tried to keep my own self criticism and self esteem issues to myself. I tried to make every effort to not taint her with the family legacy of toxic messaging. I have tried to be her best cheer leader. But, as evidenced by her very public struggles with disordered eating, love isn’t enough. This dis-ease is insidious. It’s in our wiring, it’s in our cells…

Reminiscing the Old and Planning the New

I am a planner. I like to plan things out, lay it out in manageable stages of logic of where I’ve started and how it will end. Starting things and ending things have always been a relatively easy task for me. The middle part on the other hand… not so much.

December passed by in a blur of anxiety, accomplishment, illness, sorrow, and people. There was a week following my final papers that consisted of a 101°F fever, coughing and sneezing and fairly vulnerable. All the plans I had for December, all those recipes, climbing problems, and yoga practices, didn’t happen. And for once, my plans to have everything done on time, precise and accurate, were tossed to the wind to make way of a much-needed break from it all. I slept. I wept. I ate. I loved.

I feel so grateful for this “shift or be shifted” year, with months of “aha” moments and triumphs and changes:

January was all about trying new ways to be physically active and making the perfect cornbread recipe.

February was a month of adventure, learning about various eating lifestyles, and the start to taking photography seriously as an art form/science.

 
March was the month of honoring my progression and loving myself, regardless of the bumps along the way.

April celebrated my one-year blogversary with what I learned and what I planned to learn before April 2013 rolled around.

May was the start of understanding how diet and exercise helped in healing a hypothyroid condition. Oh, and let’s not forget Graduation, which inspired me to continue my academic career in the graduate program in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

June was an honest month, and finally realizing how important taking care of myself really is.

July was the start of experimenting with pareve bento box snapshots, heartbreak on multiple levels, becoming adamant in weekend farmers markets, and supporting local food sources with a social justice twist.

August brought with it a movement of fermentation and homemade nut butters, personal growth and graduate school classes.

September gave me my first product review and coming face-to-face with hidden depths of life's grievances and growing pains.

October brought series of hard lessons, new priorities, a deeper relationship to family that will always be there no matter what, and loving all things simple.

 
November was my month of experimenting with Primal Blueprint eating, playing with gluten free beer, and twenty-three things I learned by my twenty-third birthday.

 
And December finished the year on a sweeter note than I could have ever hoped for.

With the last day before the New Year, I thought to share a recipe I was quite proud of. Even with many of December’s plans (there’s that word again) left undone, I have had plenty of time to get ready with January’s plans, more so intentions than they are resolutions. 

Happy New Year, everyone. Have fun and be safe!

 

Winter Gingerbread Cut-out Cookies (inspired by this recipe)

150 g Garbanzo bean flour
75 g Flaxseed meal
75 g Coconut flour
50 g Mesquite powder
1 tsp. Baking soda
2 tsp. Ground ginger
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Raw cacao powder (regular cocoa powder is fine)
1/4 tsp. Sea salt
1/4 tsp. Cracked pepper
125 g Unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
175 g Honey
1 Large egg

Measure out the flours, baking soda, and spices and pour into the bowl of the food processor to mix (a few pulses should do for mixing just fine).
Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs, and then add the honey and egg until a sticky ball of dough forms.
Remove the dough from the food processor and mold into a thick disk to wrap in with parchment paper or saran wrap.
Place it in the fridge for 15 minutes to set.
Preheat the oven to 350°F, and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
Roll the dough out to a 1/4-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface (I used additional garbanzo bean flour).
Using your choice of cutters (I used my Ikea animal shapes, plus a few people, hearts, trees, and moons), cut out the shapes and place on the baking tray, leaving a gap between them.
Bake for 12-15 minutes (my oven’s baking time was between 13 and 14 minutes), or until lightly golden-brown.
Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Continue cutting out the dough and baking until all of it has been used.*
When cooled decorate with the writing icing and cake decorations of your choice, but they are delicious as is and perfect for dunking into hot drinks.

Makes (roughly) three dozen cookies.

*Be sure the baking trays have cooled down completely before adding another batch!

The "Whey" I'm Heading

While Mama Dazz is off on one of her super duper important job adventures, I have taken the liberty to implement my plan to change the way we eat food... and using the majority (if not all) the kitchen's counter space. 

Those with healthy eating blogs and websites eat healthily, and I thought I was healthily eating healthy foods in a healthful sort of way. But then something clicks for you, in my case a hike in the woods with HL who told me how she discovered her love of fermenting food, and then I started doing research about what and how I was eating. 

You could say I saw a new “whey” of thinking.

Fermenting food, with salt, whey, and sugars of all sorts, is changing my life for the better. It rippled into other aspects of health and I began questioning: why I was drinking whole milk products that were homogenized and pasteurized and not raw; for that matter, why I was eating anything pasteurized to start; why I was drinking caffeine every morning (more on this later); why there was "edible" wax on certain fruits and veggies I ate*; why I wasn’t soaking or sprouting grains/legumes/seeds every time I prepared to eat them (more on this later also); and why not everything I ate was either organic, from an eco-friendly sustainable source, something I grew or helped raise, or local? I need to be the change I wish to see for the world. A lot of things weren’t adding up, and I didn’t like it.  

So today, as an experiment, I went shopping for this week’s provisions, all organic from Trader Joe's and from the farmers market**. It turned out it essentially cost the same, in some cases less to buy our food this way! I plan on getting raw milk from the Amish farm to make my own yogurt/kefir, soft cheese, and whey, and ordering our legumes and grains online. Until then, I’m using up the food we have, enjoying goat milk in my hot drinks, dreaming about lacto-fermentation (both the whey way and the sea salt way), kombucha, and getting ready to soak some sprouts. 

This post marks the journey of how Meals with Morri is looking at and treating food differently, and the usage of many, many mason jars.

* "Edible" by these standards means "non-toxic".
** I went to the Cascades Farmers Market this time, was thoroughly impressed, but be sure to bring cash with you since few accept credit cards.

The Great Green Experiment

To celebrate the majesty that is the spring season, albeit a little late, I took photos of all things green around the house. 

Oh, and inside of course.

I love the color green. It’s the color of life, found on many of the fruits and veggies we eat on a daily basis. And besides purple and dark blue (and sunflower yellow, dusty pink, sunset orange... I think you get it.), all shades of green are beautiful to me.

Except, that is, for this color. I call it "muck monster vegan muffin green". 

I shudder to think of the monster I created with spinach, banana, and way too much almond milk in my experimenting with vegan baking. It tasted… okay, I suppose. But it was a spongy pudding type of creation that even I couldn’t pass off as a delicious accident. 

Maybe it was just an off day (or week), but I’ve been feeling like my recipes/posts have been less than awesome. There was a sense of “going with the flow” experimenting and naïve optimism in the beginning of this blog. Now it seems to have progressed into wanting perfection every time I take something out of the oven.

But perfection doesn’t happen every time. Sometimes there’s something missing and you don’t know what it is. Sometimes it takes two or three (or five) times until you get it right. And if everything I made was a godsend to the tongue, I think I’d get rather bored.

No, having flops keeps me humble. It’s like a science equation or mathematical theory you were [un]certain of its success, and when they sometimes fail I look on to figuring out why. 

I think the reasons why this particular recipe failed had to do with the following: I didn’t pay attention to the ratio of ingredients; the batter was too wet and didn’t have the correct binder to keep the muffin together or help it to rise; and, probably the most relevant, my ignorance of working with vegan binders.

So for those who are vegan AND gluten free, I give you major props.

Despite the recipe not turning out as well as I’d hoped, I did enjoy the combination of flavors and think it would be delicious in a smoothie. It also gave me the stubborn perseverance to make a green muffin, even if it wasn’t vegan (or as green). This time it turned out as scrumptiously as I’d hoped it would, with exceptionally green ingredients to add to its already bangin’ nutrition content.  

Sweet Green Spiced Muffins

60 g Garbanzo bean flour
15 g Coconut flour
15 g Flaxseed meal
30 g Pumpkin seed flour*
1 tsp. Matcha powder
1/2 tsp. Sea salt
1/2 tsp. Baking soda
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Allspice
1/4 tsp. Spirulina powder
75 g Dried cranberries
14 g Cocoa nibs
240 ml Unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or your "milk" of choice)
122 g Unsweetened applesauce
2 Large eggs
Stevia, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Mix together the ingredients thoroughly in a medium-sized bowl, and then pour the batter into greased muffin tins.
Bake for 40 minutes, and then transfer them onto a cooling rack for a few minutes until serving.
Serve warm with your favorite nut butter and enjoy at any time of the day.

*If you don't have pumpkin seeds on hand to turn into a fine powder with your food processor, feel free to use pistachio or opt for hemp protein powder instead.

Makes 9 regular sized muffins.