Meditation in the Kitchen {An Escape from Election Day Madness}
I set aside plenty of time today to make sure I could go vote in the election. As always, it is important to me to make sure I exercise that right. No, there are no easy answers, nor do I feel like any government always has the best interest of the governed in mind. However, as with all aspects of life, just because the answers aren’t easy doesn’t mean we opt out of the decision-making process. Given that so many people voted early this year, the voting process on election day turned out to be extremely quick and efficient, giving me much of my afternoon free.
Instead of agonizing over the results which may not be official for days ahead, I am opting to keep busy by sharing some of my kitchen projects from the last week. October was Mental Health Awareness Month, so while I’m a few days belated, I wanted to tie in how food preparation acts as one of the tasks that helps keep me grounded, especially in uncertain times. Plus, perhaps some of you could appreciate a few easy recipes to make at home to keep your own mind settled as your hands create food to nourish the body. If nothing else, taking the time to read about something so mundane might just calm you anyway (or put you to sleep). 😉
First up is not so much a recipe, but more an excellent way to dive into something repetitive and mindless. Yes, that can actually be a good thing sometimes. I’m sure many of you have read how coloring is good for anxiety, or knitting can be excellent for stress relief. Many task in the kitchen, especially when preserving a garden harvest, can act in the same manner. We tend to tend to have our brains turned on all day long and be bombarded by so much stimulation from social media, television or radio. Sometimes taking the time to quieten down the noise and settle in to a simple task can calm the mind and help reduce stress, even just temporarily.
I think I mentioned that last week we were without power for almost two days after the tropical storm passed through. It was stressful for me given that some of my work these days is online, and I keep a full refrigerator and two freezers with wonderful food that I was anxious to lose if the power stayed off for too long. Very much first world problems I know, but we all have things in our world that can cause us stress at a given moment. The first morning after the storm as I was sitting in the kitchen as the day was finally getting light I decided to sit down and attack my White Whippoorwill Cowpea pods that I had dried from the garden.
The pods had just been sitting on the table for weeks waiting for such a time when I had the opportunity to sit there and shell my harvest. I had been dreading it for some time as I knew it was a task that could take a while and yield such a seemingly small result. However, it turned out to be just the thing to calm me down and make me realize that the stress I was feeling was fleeting. I ended up with a good sized jar and will definitely enjoy cooking these up soon as I’ve never tried this variety of bean before! Not a bad haul from a single plant that survived our first attempt at growing them.
Next up on the list of easy homemade items is a batch of plant-based milk made from hemp hearts. I’ve shared this before, but it had actually been quite a while since I had made my own at home. I had gotten a bit lazy in buying store-bought non-dairy milk lately as things have been a bit busy with work and otherwise. I think after losing the power for a few days, I was reminded how nice it is not to rely on the store for everything. Our local grocery store lost power, too and was out of a lot of their refrigerated items until they could restock what they had to toss out in the outage. That also reminded me of how much waste is in the grocery system.
Making things like milk at home really is such an easy way to reduce our impact in just a tiny way. I always have different nuts and seeds on hand at home, so it really is as simple as popping some in the blender with filtered water to come out with a jar of homemade plant milk. It will last for a week in the refrigerator and has much more nutritional value (and less stabilizers/preservatives) than just about anything you find in the store. Plus no wasted container to throw out when the jar is done! Hemp hearts are especially easy since you don’t even have to soak them. I just poured half a cup of hulled hemp hearts in a blender with 4 cups of milk and a few dates for natural sweetness. Easy as could be!
If you really want to relieve some stress, make sauerkraut. This is another item I hadn’t made in a while, but the fresh seasonal cabbages are popping back up at the farmers market now that are just perfect for homemade kraut. Massaging or just straight up banging the heck out of the shredded cabbage to start breaking it down for the sauerkraut is a lovely way to get out the nasties in your head. My hands always get sore after my efforts, but for the 10 minutes or so it takes to manhandle the cabbage into submission, my mind is in another place.
This time in making this I made sure to actually weigh out my cabbage to properly add the amount of salt. In the past I have had fine results just using about a tablespoon per head of cabbage, but after reading some posts about proper salinity for the good bacteria to thrive I opted for a more scientific approach. The consensus seemed to be about 2% solution, so after weighing my cabbage in grams I multiplied that by .02 to get the amount of grams of salt needed to ferment my little green friend. Another few weeks or so and we’ll have a jar of the good stuff to add to our autumn dishes.
I’ve got some other cabbage goodies to share from the cooking endeavors of the week, but I think I’ll stop there as it is just about lunch time. No fun blogging on an empty belly, especially when writing about food!
I hope the foray into the kitchen helped distract any troubled minds today. If this post wasn’t enough, then get in your own kitchen and do some experimenting. Turn off the news for a bit and find something to do to nourish your mind and body. Ultimately no matter how the results turn out this or any other time, the best thing you can do to take control of your own little world is take care of your mind and body. Eat well. Make food at home. Grown some if you can. Then put out some of that good energy into the world around you. 💚
