Love is all you need: Ruby Red Juice

I used to think that love is all you need. Love was enough, would fix anything, transform, nurture, save and secure. Love conquered, rescued, nursed, took care, listened, asked and held. Love could envelop, wrapping you in cotton wool while setting you free at the same time. What a magical world love lived in.

As a kid, I thought these things because it's what princes did in cartoons and Fred Astaire did for Ginger Rogers. I'd watch the longing and the bliss play out on screen as she carried out all the tap shift moves he did, only backwards. As a teenager, I read books about protagonists searching for something in themselves, in their lives, overcoming battles in their world and in their minds and understood that it was love for their beliefs, for another, for their country or for themselves that drove them beyond fear and into courage. I listened to music that stirred feelings in my soul of the joy and pain that love caused in and out of daily routines, how it led to Bon Iver hiding away in a forest for a year only to burst out of the woods reborn with a new voice, pain and joy hand in hand. I listened to JJ Cale and BB King and Nina Simone, Fleetwood Mac and The Frames. They all taught me the shifting waves and tides that were inherent in the concept of love.

I understood, even then, that love wasn't as simple as two red curves dipping to a sharp, singular and well directed point at its end. It wasn't soft, precise perfection. Love had folds, curves, hidden angles and unexpected lulls. And love hurt. I knew that it hurt the most when it was unrequited. I clearly remember studying a Shakespearean sonnet at school, aged fourteen and learning the word, though I already knew what it meant. Unreturned, unloved, uncared for. It's what all those blues songs I listened to were ever about. It's all I ever worried about.

My definition of love was always manifold but my definition always pertained to my perspective. You see, my definition was everything I was willing to give a person I loved. I give everything of myself to those I love because I don't know any other way. It comes naturally to me to be that loving and caring. I feel empty when I don't. The problem is when I give so much to others to the point where they start to think my reserves are everlasting, that the love I have to give to friends, family and a partner are limitless, the reserve magically ongoing. So it came as a surprise to many when I would simply shudder, stall and stop, like a tired old van. Stop interacting, feeling, giving, loving. I'd gather my resources quickly so I could continue to support, care, listen and help so that they would all feel incredibly loved again.

I repeated this pattern because I was proud to be all about the love. So why was the one thing that I did naturally, with enthusiasm, pride and great energy, slowly but surely bringing me down? I've floated the idea around in my murky mind a lot in the last few years and always swam up to the surface, out of breath and without any answers. Until last week.

Writing my post last week, admitting to myself and everyone I love the true details of my depression and anxiety gave me the answers I was looking for to the great blue debate going on in my head. For so long, everything was about fear. Fear of unrequited love, misunderstanding, lost friendships, isolation and loneliness. By clicking the publish button, I challenged my biggest fear of all; telling people I loved the true extent of my problem. This act transformed and elevated the level of love I have in my life. Friends, family, workmates and travel buddies got in touch from near and far, publicly and privately to tell me how much they loved me. I received one message, call and text after another and two words shone through each and every message: brave and love.

And then I realised. I understood what had been bringing me down. I had been ignoring two basic needs: to admit to my friends how much their voicing of their love to me was important and how much I had neglected to love and appreciate myself. I would listen to the black king on his throne residing in my mind; the voice of unreasonable and cruel reasoning who told me no matter how much love I sent out, it would be unrequited. No matter how much I created, it wouldn't be good enough. No matter how much I cared, it wouldn't make a difference and no matter how much I tried to truly believe that I was worthy, loved, appreciated, cared for and unique, I was not good enough.

There is no way that I would ever speak to another person I love the way I allow that voice to speak to me. I would defend a loved one with my life if another spoke to them in that way, with those words and those sentiments. So why would I not encourage such praise and love and respect to be directed at me? Why would I not put the same thought, energy and care into myself and the unique person I am? Why wouldn't I just be myself?

The beautiful words of love I received from all over kick-started something unexpected. I'd like to get to know myself again, to learn what animates me, makes me smile, sing and create. I'd like to become friends with myself. Love is not just about prince charming or your passions. Each love quote is not about the other man or woman in your life. It starts with you. I don't think it's about finding a man I can lose myself in when I look into his eyes for a sense of recognition, understanding and acceptance. It's about looking at myself in the mirror and recognizing and embracing the person looking back at me. The black and the white. The dark and the light.

Today's recipe is about embracing that love. Beetroot looks like a forbidding, hard and unwelcoming vegetable but when eaten fresh, it has the most beautiful and earthly sweet and fragrant taste. The juice always looks so vibrant and energizing. It's like the perfect mix of masculine sturdiness and feminine vibrancy. Before the frost arrived, I dug up the last of my beetroot from the garden. Dark, rustic, ruby red, covered in wholesome clay, all the growth and energy that they had absorbed from the damp clay and the sunshine of the summer was captured in each round. I made this juice to capture the last of the autumn and to remember that energy comes from the sun and the air but also from below the surface, in the darkness and when mixed, the combination is vibrant and electric. Something to remember.

Ingredients:
Serves 2
1 fresh beetroot
2 apples
1 large chunk fresh ginger
1 pear
1 lemon

Method:
Wash all the fruit, peel the beetroot and chop them into manageable sizes for your juicer. Juice, add ice, serve and relax.


To everyone that sent their love my way, thank you x

Girl time, memories, birthdays: Dark chocolate snaps

I'm very lucky. I've met a whole cast of fun, intelligent, creative, loving, unique individuals in my life so far. Friends made in hostels in the middle of nowhere in Australia, in cafes sharing mutually distasteful stories of strange customers, at  beaches and bus stops, airports, small one-horse towns and swarming cities. Each friend has been unique onto themselves, to who I was at the time and the place we were both in.

Dee and Eibhlin are two such friends. We met in a small town in Tipperary in August three years ago. It was on a permaculture course that changed my life in many beautiful ways. One particularly beautiful part of that ten day intensive course was meeting them. I arrived on my own, determined to finally do that permaculture course that I had promised myself I would complete for over four years. I was broke, confused about my life direction and utterly determined to do this course and point my life in the direction I wanted. I remember turning up, pulling into the carpark opposite the hostel and then having a mini freakout in my head. How was it I was capable of travelling solo across the world for ten months but couldn't gather up enough courage to go into a hostel in Tipperary on my own? I checked in and went to put my bags in my room. There, lying on the bottom bunk resting after a train journey was Eibhlin, my little pixie herbal remedy genius. Talking to her was so easy. Then this smiley girl arrived into the dorm with a bright yellow cardigan and wooly socks and jeans. The three of us started talking and I was instantly absorbed. There was something completely familiar about them. It was only when other people from the course filtered into the room and asked why the three of us had decided to come together and how we knew each other that we had to explain we had only just met.

Within an hour of meeting, everyone on the course had made the presumption that we had been lifelong friends and we had to correct them, even though correcting them felt wrong to me. It did feel like we'd always known each other. Some people mistook me and Dee for sisters. Dee and Eibhlin are like the extra sisters I never had. They have a sense of wonder about nature and music that only children still possess: wide eyed wonder with even wider smiles. They are my pixies and two of the kindest, strongest, honest, most beautiful women I have ever met.

Yesterday was Dee's birthday and it brought back the memory of her birthday while we were on the course three years ago. I had to go home just before the end of the course and returned a day later. All through the course, me and Dee had cooked up big meals for the rest of the group and so we were always in the kitchen. When I got back from my quick trip back home, I had to think of something easy and gluten free to make as a birthday treat that would also feed the other 25+ people on the course. Rice crispie buns. Winner. Keeping her out of the kitchen was tricky. Hiding a tower of rice crispie buns at the back of the fridge was even more difficult. Days before we would start a relationship, John kept guard and kept me company while I stealthily stacked one chocolate covered snack on top of the other. Then Alan got everyone in the living room to close their eyes and relax through a meditation (since we were all a little stressed with our end of course projects). Meanwhile, Eibhlin convinced everyone in her beautifully calm way to get involved as a distraction. I remember the loving sense of everyone working together to make the surprise work so that Dee knew how much we all cared. A little community all working together because we all love Dee so much. It was a success.

I'm not going to tell you how to make rice crispie buns. I have something so much more refined. Dark chocolate is for fancy women who are as awesome as Dee is. There is no greater combination than that of dark chocolate and toasted almonds, unless of course you also add sea salt and candied ginger. If the rice crispie buns were a child-like wonder version of a chocolate-laced birthday treat, these dark chocolate snaps are the food loving, heart warming, grown up version of deliciousness.

The recipe can be adapted with a variety of toppings. At Christmas, I usually get very creative with goji berries, hazelnuts, himalayan salt and mint essence. These birthday treats called for toasty, warming versions of the chocolate snaps. One, because I know Dee loves the combination of toasty, smoky almonds and sea salt and secondly, summer seems to have finished here. Rainjackets and September drizzle call for fireside flavors.

Here goes...

Ingredients:
300 grams dark chocolate (75% cocoa or more)
10-15 whole almonds
6 (ish) pieces of candied ginger root
pinch good quality sea salt

Method:
Break chocolate into small pieces into a metal bowl and place bowl over a pot with 2 or 3 inches of boiling water. You don't want the bottom of the bowl to touch the water; it's the heat of the steam that melts the chocolate. This should only take 3/4 minutes. Make sure not to stir. Just let it melt of it's own accord.
While this is happening, get a baking tray and place a sheet of non-stick parchment paper on it, ready and waiting. Chop the almonds into halves and the ginger into thin slices.
Once chocolate is melted, using a tablespoon, spoon 1-2 spoonfuls onto the parchment paper, making chocolate disks. You can smooth them down with the back of the spoon. Arrange five or so pieces of ginger on half the disks and the almonds on the other half of the batch. Sprinkle sea salt onto the almond ones.
Place baking sheet onto shelf in the fridge (make sure it's level or they will drip out of shape)
Leave overnight if you can. Wrap up in a little box and gift them as the thoughtful present they are.

Happy birthday Dee, you amazing, beautiful soul sister. Happy un-birthday Eibhlin. You are every bit as awesome. Big love to you ladies. You both truly rock my world.

Thanks to Ben Bear from the Big Blue house for the photo from the street feast X

Summer nostalgia: Cucumber zinger juice

Apparently, this is what summer looks like. I could handle last weekend's weather while being sick but this is not what I had in mind for the weekend. I do my best to be honest in my blog posts. I don't pretend to be an upbeat, effervescent, yoga guru nutritionist that never has a bad day and is ready and willing to change your diet and transform your life. This blog is about real food, real opinions and real feelings. I like it that way.

As a result, I write about how I'm really feeling and what is going on in my life as well as writing and photographing a recipe I am proud of and think will make others happy, healthy and full. Part of being real is stating when life sucks. As an English teacher, there are a variety of adjectives I could use to replace 'sucks' but sometimes it's the best use of an adjective to describe times in life that are falling flat on their face.

The last few days, emotions have been running high and the weather's grey skies and freak showers have only served to exacerbate that reality. Today did not cooperate. Today didn't even begin. Summer is drawing to a close and the reality of that realization is unsettling. I don't handle dark evenings, heavy rain and gloom well. Today's weather was a warning about the looming autumn and winter. As part of a strategy I've been working on for the last year, no matter what the upsetting or worrying situation is, I recognize it and then focus on a positive outlook about the situation at the end. How do you create a positive spin on weather that is only going to get colder, wetter and more miserable? It can't be a good idea to hold onto past summer day memories; clinging onto the feeling of sun on shoulders, reflective patterns on water, warm nights cycling home in a dress, the refreshing sensation of diving into the salty sea to cool down from the day's heat.

Reminiscing is a temporary solution to a long-term problem. I was stuck until I resurrected a mantra I had used for months: "be where you are". This meant creatively changing the gloomy day into something that was of value to me. If I missed the sunshine, the stark bright colors of plants and murals and water, highlighted by the sun's rays, I would have to create my own color amidst the gloom.

That's where this juice came from. As bright and refreshing and energetic as the lush greens of summer growth, this juice saved my day. The cucumber's refreshing juice mingled with mint reminded me of summer time beer garden cocktails. The ginger warmed my belly and my soul and the energized, illuminated green color of the juice itself brightened up my day. It was a simple idea but one which helped me find the brightness in the day. From now on, juicing is going to be an integral part of my diet and my everyday joy. I found the silver lining and realized that there will be days like this one.

So when you are feeling overwhelmed, upset, dragged down, tired, lazy or uninspired, feel those feelings in your gut, acknowledge those uncomfortable feelings by sitting with them. Then go do something to change the circumstances. Kick start a new phase. It's worth it every time.

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1 lemon
1 large chunk of ginger
1 handful of mint
Ice to serve

Method:
Wash all fruit/vegetables. Using your juicer, put in mint, ginger and lemon first, then follow with the cucumber. Stir well with a few cubes of ice and enjoy. (Don't forget to compost all that great juice pulp!)

This post was inspired by the super moon that is calling us all to attention tonight. The moon drags me around like a rag doll sometimes but in the end, always has wisdom to share. If you are interested in the meanings of the moon and how it can affect our emotions and life, have a look here. 

Breakups & Beetroot: Beetroot and ginger juice and fresh starts

Breaking up is hard to do. There are no two ways around it. Avoidance feeds the ugly void within. Keeping busy merely to avoid thoughts, emotions and memories is a waste of time. The simplest of triggers come crawling back in to the psyche and settle there for a period of time of its own choosing. There is no great sense of control or time or calm after a break up. It is what it is. An unholy mess.

I've never been good at them, even though I've had limited practice, meaning two previous breakups in total. The first was a best friend from teenage years, though looking back, can two horny teenagers ever really be best friends and not be thinking about getting together in their minds? When we broke up I was crushed and put energy into being angry for quite a while. It was only when I was setting off to New Zealand for the first time that I realized life was too short to hold a grudge and so went all-out Irish and sat down and had a cup of tea with him. That started the resolution. When I came back from NZ, I realized a more concentrated effort was necessary. In the space of a few hours we were laughing our asses off at our naive teenage selves and admitting that neither of us had a clue what we were doing when we were younger, much less now. I heard the words I needed to hear from him. The first was "I may have been 18 but I didn't have a clue how to be a man, never mind a decent boyfriend". The second was "even though you were younger (by two years) you knew more than me about relationships". The third but by no means less important, was "I'm sorry". He meant it and we've been honest, trusting, joking, caring friends since. The second relationship was just plain awful, something that should never have begun in the first place.

This breakup will have been my third. August bank holiday last year. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago and a parallel existence mixed together in some dishwater mess that struggles to go down the sinkhole drain. I've been happily busy, genuinely, for the last few months. The struggles that I've gone through have tapered off and I'm enjoying life with a renewed sense of vigor I can't remember having before I was ten years old. I've fallen back in love with my passions, built a sense of community around me and focused on the now rather than worrying about the past and being anxious around the future. I'm far happier in myself these days. All positive, tick-the-box moments.

Then there's this weekend coming up and the inherent realization that a full year has gone by. It's over. It's been over and that time is gone, he's gone. That's tough. It doesn't seem real. It's something I never wanted. Living in Dublin for the last year has meant flashbacks from various points around the city, places I skillfully avoided by cycling detours around them to avoid seeing them so as not to get upset. Trinity Gates and the Spire were the meeting points before a date. The Bernard Shaw was our Friday pizza meet up at the end of my working week and the beginning of his. The canal is where we finally got to relax with a few beers after work, the swan gym the place where I'd meet him before or after a swim in the pool. Boojum Burritos was the holy grail of takeout. He would even bring some back to Sligo when he came back from working in Dublin. The Grand Social was where we went to various gigs and the Cobblestone was where we cheered on our friend in her Blues Grass band. The front steps of my work is where he'd meet me some days at 6 pm. O'Neills is where we had that fight out of the blue about travelling. Temple Bar is where I cried and Dame Street is where he got on the bus and I waited for him to turn around and say it was all a mistake and he didn't. It wasn't until a few months later that we both realized we had both looked back to search for the other's forgiving eyes. We just hadn't seen the other looking. We stopped making each other's hearts go boom in that beautiful way love encourages lovers to do.

A full year of changes and memories, good, bad and ugly. A full year of challenges and doubts and new friends and new experiences. A full year from forcing myself to write a blog post about renewing my blog and fresh starts. Even in the chaos of the aftermath of a breakup, I still managed to redesign my entire food blog and mean it. I have spent the last year applying baby steps to changing things in my life for the better and it worked! Life is better. Life is fresher, friendlier, more interesting and much closer to the type of life I wanted because I went with what felt good, what my gut and my heart felt right with. I learnt so much about myself. I learnt to forgive. I learnt just how far my love goes for someone I truly care about and love. I learnt to love myself more too.

What does any of this have to do with food then? Again, small steps. This time last year, I had spent what felt like an eternity neglecting myself; emotionally, mentally and physically. One major booster of energy, enthusiasm and emotional and physical stability for me is good food. It was one of the key reasons I set up the blog and the main reason I wrote that post this time last year to take the food I consumed seriously and realize just how much good food affects me.

The first step I took to looking after myself was increasing my intake of colorful, beautiful, glossy, sunshine glasses full of juice. I had taken to making juices for my Mam, constantly thinking of better, healthier, tastier versions of vibrant juices for her but of course, didn't think about myself. Juicing, when balanced with a healthy diet literally re-energizes and re-invigorates your body like no other food I've come across. By taking the small step of aiming to have one juice a day, I've felt healthy, energized and alive.

Taking care of yourself when you are used to taking care of others or going through an emotional time seems insurmountable. It seems that way but it's not. Taking time out to make a juice and feel better by seeing it's healthy glow and then drinking it down each day makes a massive different to your health and happiness. When bad days, break ups, illnesses and shitty days are weighing down on you, honestly, making a juice is the difference between another shitty next day and a real goodie.

So many people ask me what they can do to 'be healthier'. I generally say, cut out the crap and get more veggies into you. I never thought to say "drink more juices", so I'm saying it now. Incorporate it into your daily life. Here's a great one to start. It looks beautiful and healthy and despite what you might think about the ingredients (really, let's be real and state the obvious, it's the beetroot, isn't it?) it tastes AMAZING.

Ingredients
1 beetroot
1 pear
1 apple
1 carrot/orange/a few mandarins (if using oranges/mandarins, remove the peel first)
1/2 lemon
1 chunk ginger (about the length of your thumb nail)
handful of mint

Except for the oranges and mandarins, the peel/skin/core of all the other ingredients can stay on

Method
Wash all your veggies and fruit. Using your juicer, blend the juice in the following order: (gets the best out of your ingredients and the juicer) Beetroot, lemon + ginger + mint, pear, carrot, apple.
Add a few ice cubes, stir and drink slowly.

Enjoy every last drop and remember, baby steps and be good to your amazing self. It may lead you to have the energy to get up and go, despite the breakup, to places where you can see views like those below in person and not just trawling through facebook feeds :) Views and feelings and passions of different sorts that make your heart go boom in another beautiful way.

Happy Friday. Now get juicing.

Feijoa and ginger crumble

We had a storm. Well, a cyclone. It brought with it a bucket load of rain for the garden, dripping window pains that were intermittently flooded with gusts of wind and extra spatterings of water droplets. The windows fogged up in the end and all I could see was a grey misty expanse, shadowed by the palm tree out front. It got colder. I got soaked walking home one day but was comforted by a warm shower and wooly socks I packed for this summer trip because with New Zealand weather, you never can tell. I got worried that the last of my beautiful sunshine had gone and my last few days in this beautiful country were going to be rain filled. Doubt crept in. I really dislike the word "should" and everything it implies but in this case, I really should have just trusted nature. I had forgotten that yummy feijoas, those crazy bitter sweet fruits of bounty had to ripen and summer wasn't over until the feijoa glut was finished doing its thing.

Lo and behold, the sun came out again. Soothing rays of warmth reached my shoulders and face. My sunnies were back out, my hair dried in the balmy morning air. The surf came back and I was back to barefooted bliss once more. With all this sun filled goodness came the feijoas. To me, they're like a kid's version of figs. Similar in size with a tough, smoky polished skin protecting a strange, soft , perfumed, seed-filled interior. They are usually cut in half, making two scoop fulls of sweet and sour perfumed yumminess.

I remember arriving here nearly four years ago and after the avocado glut where I consumed more avocados than I had in a lifetime, everyone starting talking about feijoas. "What the hell is a feijoa?" I kept asking. Then I tasted one and then another and another. I couldn't stop. Now that I'm back for a visit, I couldn't help get excited about eating them again. Calling over to my mate Anna's house yesterday, she told me she had an awesome suprise for me. One big beautiful bowl of feijoa goodness. It would seem rude not to stay for dinner, eat her amazing food and then cook up a feijoa crumble so here is the recipe in all its awesomeness. There were four of us. We politely took our first portion and then sneakilly stole spoons of the last portion in mid conversation until it was all gone. That's when you know it's a goodie!

Serves 4 hungry people and 6 polite tasters

Ingredients
3 or 4 large cooking apples
10-15 feijoas depending on size
8 pieces of stem crystallised ginger
4 tablespoons of raw brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

6 oz flour (wholemeal or spelt are yummy)
1 handful of oats
3 oz butter, cubed and slightly soft
2 oz raw brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 half teaspoon of ground ginger

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Get an oven proof, preferably clay or glass dish for your crumble. Peel and core apples, then slice into thin chunks and put into dish. Half the feijoas and using a teaspoon, scoop out the flesh, chop finely and mix with apples. Finely chop ginger and stir through, then add sugar, cinnamon and vanilla essence. Spread the mixture so it fills the bottom of the dish.

In a seperate bowl, add flour, nearll all the oats (you want to leave a few to sprinkle on top) and butter and mix with your finger tips until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add sugar, cinnamon and ginger and mix through. (I find this relaxing but you can easily put all the crumble mix into a food processor and blitz). Press mixture down onto apples and feijoa mix and then sprinkle with last of oats. Bake for 30 to 35 minutee until bubbing hot and browned on top. Serve with custard, ice cream or yoghurt.

Enjoy and remember that it doesn't rain, it pours. When life seems to have hit a stagnant point, rest, refresh, take time and wait for the next glut so you can make the most of it. That's what I'm learning and trying my best to practice. Some days it works, others it's tough but feijoas and blogging bring a lot of ease and joy into my day. Hope reading this and making the crumble brings lots of joy into your day too!