Tag Archives: grounded

Coconut Lime Butternut Squash Soup

If you haven’t noticed already I really enjoy soups. I used to be a terrible soup maker and then one day they started to all taste really good. Putting together a nice hardy soup is the perfect meal to have on hand for days you don’t feel like cooking or get home late or don’t feel like cooking. 🙂 This is another week of transitions with the time change, it won’t make you sleepy but it will fill your belly. This batch made several tasty meals.

I started with this recipe here. Below are my adaptations.

  • 1 medium butternut squash (spleen/stomach)
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil (lung/large intestine)
  • 1 onion (lung/large intestine)
  • 1 large sweet potato, cut into cubes (spleen/stomach)
  • 2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon chile pepper, or 1 tablespoons fresh minced chile pepper
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 cups chicken stock (lung/large intestine)
  • 15 oz coconut milk (lung/large intestine)
  • Juice of 1 lime (liver/large intestine)
  • 2 cups spinach leaves (liver/large intestine)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • rice (spleen/stomach)

1. Cut squash length wise and deseed. Cook at 375 until tender about 45 minutes.

2. In coconut oil cook onion until fragrant and translucent. Add sweet potatoes and cook until tender 5-10 minutes or so. Sprinkle 1/2 of cumin and cinnamon and cook. When squash is cooked, scoop out in chunks and add to sweet potatoes. Add the rest of the spices and chicken stock, bring to boil and then lower to simmer. Mix in coconut milk and let simmer for 15 minutes.

3. 5 minutes before serving add spinach and cooked rice.

Enjoy!

p.s. You can turn this into a creamy soup if you put in the blender but I recently broke my blender and we really enjoyed it this way. It felt more filling. If you are feeling adventurous add some raisins! 🙂

Natural Remedy for Staying Grounded

I’ve had lots on my mind lately. Apparently I’m not alone or the theme of the week wouldn’t be on staying grounded! 🙂

Sunday I met a friend and her son for a walk at Cuba Marsh and it was there that I knew we needed to talk about nature and movement this week. When you are feeling out of sorts the best thing you can do for yourself and your sanity is to turn the computer/cell phone/every electronic you own OFF and get outside ASAP. If you are feeling a little “crunchy-granola” touch a tree, hug it, sniff it even. Ha! But seriously get some fresh air and let your feet make contact with the Earth. There is no better grounding then that, at least in my humble opinion.

In regards to Chinese Medicine it is encouraged to spend some time outside no matter the season. This is important because it helps your body adapt to the climate. My mother and her friends tell me all the time how they would bundle their babies up put them in a buggy (a stroller if you’ve never heard of the term buggy) full of blankets and let them take their nap outside. I don’t know about a nap but a few minutes a day with the proper clothing is definitely not a bad idea.

 

If you are struggling to stay grounded because of worry or over thinking.  Get out into some fresh air and walk. When you move the opposite arm with the opposite leg (how you probably normally walk anyway) it works both sides of your brain and stops the cycle of obsessive thought. Some fresh air and new scenery will give you a new perspective as well.

What do you do to stay grounded? I’d love to hear about it. 🙂

Meditation for Staying Grounded

This week’s meditation is all about staying grounded. You can practice this anywhere: seated at work, waiting in line at the grocery store. In yoga we call this pose Mountain Pose. Think of how solid and grounded a mountain is. The key is to pay attention to your feet and how they are making contact with the ground. Start with that awareness first. Without changing anything take notice of how you are sitting/standing reading this. Then notice how you feel.

Now readjust yourself so that your feet are hip distance apart (hip distance is the width of your knuckles) and the whole surface area of the soles of your feet are on the ground. Adjust your posture so that your spine is tall and shoulders are relaxed. Lift your toes off the floor and notice how this action also lifts your arches and roots the balls and heels to the floor. (if you’re standing you will also notice your thigh muscles engage). Once you feel the engagement in your feet you can float your toes back to the floor as well. Imagine your feet are like roots of a tree burrowing into the ground and allow each exhale to deepen until you feel like your breath is as anchored to the earth as your feet are. Take 3 breaths to center and continue on your day!

Southwestern Stuffed Acorn Squash

The spleen/stomach diet consists of root vegetables and full sweet flavored foods (think sweet potatoes, squashes etc). The spleen/stomach is always active around times of transition and there is constant transition happening in our body every time we digest the food we eat. We’ve been talking about the fall diet (lung/large intestine) alot lately but you can consider the spleen/stomach diet the staple or foundation items.

If you are going through alot of changes, feeling “off”, under too much stress, or have a tendancy to “over think” add some more yellow to your diet especially now when everything is in season. If you are looking to feel grounded, ground yourself with whole foods that grow in the ground! Potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, beets are a great place to start. Squashes typically grow on the ground and sprawl out so if you are in a place where you are looking to grow spiritually, mentally look to squash as a metaphor to stay close to the ground as you spread out. 🙂

Here is a tasty dinner that is great for keeping  you grounded and is a little different if you are sick of the same old things. I have been cooking squash on Sunday nights to ground my family for the week ahead. I’ll have a few more tasty squash dishes coming up. 🙂

Southwestern Stuffed Acorn Squash

I originally found this recipe here. Below our my adaptions.

What you need:

small onion (lung/large intestine system)

2 garlic cloves (lung/large intestine system)

1 lb of ground beef or ground turkey

2 bell peppers (I like to use baby bell peppers for added colors) (spleen/stomach system)

15 oz black beans (kidney/urinary bladder system)

2 cups cherry tomatoes (or yellow pear tomatoes if they have over taken your garden!) (spleen/stomach system)

3 Acorn Squash (spleen/stomach system)

Cumin

Chili powder

salt

Oregano

Shredded Cheese (I used a blend)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F. Half squash and deseed. Place squash face down on baking sheet. I add a small amount of water to pan so the squash won’t stick. Cook 45 minutes or until tender.

While squash is cooking brown chopped onion and garlic in skillet. Add ground beef and cook for a few minutes. Add peppers and tomatoes while continuing to brown the meat. Sprinkle cumin, chili powder (we use Chili Coban from Guatemala it has a smokey flavor and isn’t as spicey), salt and oregano. Add beans at the end to warm and simmer for about 10-12 minutes.

When the squash is ready place meat and veggie mixture into the squash sprinkled with shredded cheese and cook at 325 or under cheese is melted.

Garnish with avocado, cilantro and plain Greek yogurt. This is a hardy meal alone or you can fill warmed tortillas with stuffed squash to make it go further. We usually eat the extra meat in tortillas as left overs but I would recommend eating the squash on the first day it doesn’t usually taste quite so tasty the next day. 🙂

Enjoy!

How to Stay Grounded During Transition

This week’s theme will be around staying grounded. The fall is a time of transition between the brightness, lightness of summer to darkness and a returning inward of fall.

 

Especially in the Midwest many people have trouble with the darker times of year. Check back this week for a recipe, medicine cabinet essential, meditation, and natural remedy geared towards keeping you grounded as we move into the colder, darker months of the year.

If you have questions or want more information send me a message and I will post more in our facebook page. Don’t forget to “like” the page too! 🙂