How to Live in Joy
Day 9: How not having all the ingredients creates a recipe for joy!
In this series on how to live in joy I am exploring for 30 days during this time of lockdown how I can find little sparks of joy in living and in my home. It is a great time of reflection, of slowing down and of noticing. This is so good for our spirit and our souls. I find it uplifting to look for something to find joy in each and every day. My hope is that this exercise helps others as well. Join me in finding joy in your home in the next 30 days!
Today I am reflecting on the joy and creativity I am finding in the kitchen right now. Since the lockdown we have been very careful to avoid too many unnecessary outings. We have now started to order our groceries online and pick them up every week. It’s one of the highlights of our week. I actually have found it fun to see what things we can get, what we can’t and what substitutions are made. We are finding joy int the little things.
I think it is a great exercise in creativity and a lesson in not wasting food to become more creative in the kitchen. It is a lesson we are all learning right now and it is a beautiful thing. We are learning to appreciate the abundance we already have in our pantry. We are beginning to become much more grateful for our food. We are wasting less. We are all becoming cooks and bakers. We are using our hands to create. We are thankful the great gifts we have been given.
One of the examples of becoming more creative in the kitchen was this week. I wanted to make tamales for Cinco de Mayo. My son really loves tamales and I learned to make them a few years ago and developed a recipe using coconut oil in the masa mix to make the tamales. However, we tried to get corn husks in our grocery order, but they couldn’t find them at the store. I wondered how I could still make tamales. Then, I thought: I have parchment paper! I figured out how to make them with parchment paper, how to devise a steamer basket to steam the little paper packets and they turned out great! In fact, they were much more moist than the versions in the corn husks so I have decided to use parchment paper from now on! What an amazing discovery.
Another discovery I made is that I can make cappuccinos and lattes using a combination of evaporated milk and a tiny bit of sweetened condensed milk. This is delicious! We were out of milk two days before our grocery delivery. I have to admit, although I love coffee, I always put milk in it. So, I remembered that I had some evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk in the cupboard. We are fortunate to have an espresso machine at home, and much to my delight, the combination worked great! It is a very rich, delicious and special coffee I may even make on occasion even when we do have fresh milk! How lovely!
Our latest treat was: yogurt scrambled eggs! We were gifted some amazing yogurt starter by my husband’s co-worker many months back. Ever since then we have been making our own delicious yogurt with our instant pot cooker. It’s so yummy! Today, since we had run out of milk and cream, my husband decided to cook the eggs with a little bit of yogurt. They were very tasty!
I love the culinary discoveries you can make with simple substitutions and with creativity! What creative ideas have you cooked up in your own kitchen? What discoveries have you made? Which ones did you love?
With lots of love and light,
Trista
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Here are three more of my How to Live in Joy Series Articles:
