The holiday vortex. It is only when I’ve woken up in January from my sugar filled dreams that I realize I’ve been caught in culinary bliss; blissfully drifting from bite to bite through the month of December. My body screams- it’s time to wake up – time to thin down – time to ‘try’ to leave the sugar and excess poundage behind. Every year around this time I do a gentle cleanse. Now don’t panic, it is not just a juice cleanse, which I doubt I could ever do, but it does strip out a few edible options. The cleanse is gluten, dairy, and sugar free. There are a few foods I can’t eat temporarily, but that makes them all the better when I am done resetting my appetite.
As you may have noticed I took a bit of a blogging break. I wanted to have some much needed time to lavish my family in more attention then they could handle! I considered it part of my reset. Writing is something I truly enjoy, but I felt like I needed a few weeks away to really miss it.
I thought a lot about what I would write. Cooking for me in December is a slightly different beast. It is about making all of those treasured family secret recipes that equate to it becoming one of the best meals of the year. The silly thing about this time of year is that despite how much I cook for the holidays, I seldom have time to indulge in my exploratory cooking. I also realized that with so much prep going into these traditional dishes, my weeknight dinners suffered. It’s a bit of a joke as I could cook all day and then for dinner we get take out!
While on my holiday sabbatical, I read a lot of magazines, most of them pontificating about resolutions. You guessed it. If you thought I was your dream resolutions girl – you’ve got me all wrong. I am the anti-resolution gal. I just hate the idea of making a promise to do something I obviously never wanted to do in the first place to which I then have to feel that I failed.
So my resolutions go like this: My resolution will be to NOT make a resolution about cleaning out my garage! (to which I am already a blazing success!) 😉
It’s not that I don’t find value in the exercise; I do. I just try to limit my promises and make them realistic. So in the spirit of it all, here are a few I am considering:
– Reflection. Choosing a word or short phrase for the year. Then posting this word/phrase in a prominent place so it remains prevalent in my mind. (Peaceful. Kindness. Giving. Generous. Listening. Patient. Living in the moment. Gratitude. Making Dreams Come True.)
– The Giving Tree. Selecting a charity. Instead of saving all of my spare change for parking meters, I will put half the loose change saved in a jar towards a new charity each time the jar is filled. The other half of the money will remain as is — to be set-aside for the parking gods.
– Me Time. Carving out 10-30 minutes a day to do something for myself.
– Brighten It Up. Get 15 minutes of sunshine a day.
– Embracing The Fat. Coconut oil, avocados, peanuts and meat from grass- fed animals all contain healthy natural fats, which our brain and body need to function optimally. To make sure this is resolution is crossed off my list ASAP, I created this recipe to share with you today. Peanut Butter Coconut Balls. This should really count as THREE resolutions (Me Time) as it is so quick and easy to make, I might even be able to grab 1 full hour of spare time to myself while absorbing some much needed vitamin D in my sunny focused resolution (Brighten It Up); all while embracing the good fat (Embrace the Fat).
Peanut Butter Coconut Balls
Ingredients
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup gluten free oat flour
1/2 cup coconut
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions
In a medium size bowl mix peanut butter, honey, vanilla and oat flour. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
In a food processor finely grate coconut.
Divide the coconut into two bowls. In one bowl add in cocoa, and mix well to combine.
Remove peanut butter from refrigerator and begin rolling into 1/2-inch size balls. Once a ball is formed, roll into either mixture and place on cookie sheet. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Looks like fun!