Getting your gut right: veggies in the morning

As habits go, getting a veggie in with every meal- including breakfast- is hard to beat. Vegetables are the core of every truly healthy diet.  A plant-based diet doesn't cause any long-term damage, unlike keto which can lead to heart problems and organ failure. Sorry, but its true.

Last night we went a little nuts and had a tempurafest. Sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, shrimp. We wanted to make broccoli but just ran out thanks to something else earlier in the week. Jasmine rice with a tasty dipping sauce and a variety of beers were consumed as well.

In the hangover haze I realized a great many sweet potatoes and onions remained. Sitting out on the cutting board. Drat! What a waste. Well, gentle reader, what happened next I don't recommend ANYONE do, but I have survived too many slices of cold pizza for breakfast still found in the box on the counter the next morning to not do this. As the cutting board was otherwise pristine, and the ambient temperature cool and humidity low, I cut everything up and made it into breakfast tacos.

To reiterate: I do not endorse this. And I would disavow anyone suggesting I told them to.

But, to continue the recipe, dear reader, I persist. I live on. I thrive. And sweet potatoes fueled me that good spring day.

The sweet potatoes and onions were in 1/4" slices already, prepped for their sacrificial batter bath and dip into the oil volcano. All I had to do was basically quarter them. I don't know about you, but I like my sweet potatoes sweet and smoky, and I want to put an egg on anything sweet and smoky. and eggs before noon make me think of breakfast tacos. Not the most coherent of thought connections, perhaps, but in the end it made glorious sense.

The ingredients

Corn tortillas- however many fulfill your taco lust
Pinto beans- about a heaping tablespoon per taco. Possibly chili powder or adobo sauce to season
Sweet potatoes- for this I used about half a potato's worth. Sliced then quartered
Yellow onions- three or four slices of a medium onion, quartered
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tbl water
1 tsp soy sauce- to flavor the cooking water
sesame oil- one squirt, for same

Sriracha- a good drizzle, exact amount up to you
1 tsp-1 tbl sweet and smoky BBQ sauce
1 tsp taco sauce per taco
Scallions
Eggs- I fried one and split it across two tacos. One per, if you're that kind of person, and you know if you are. Poached would be delicious too.
1 tsp cooking fat, more if cast iron or steel probably. Was adequate for non-stick
Cheese- slice or two or some crumbles. I actually prefer a fake cheese for tacos, Daiya American style- but I'm weird. Use whatever you like- Monterey Jack, Asodero, go nuts.

The method

The sweet potatoes are going to take the longest. Heat up your pan to medium to medium low, melt your fat (in the case of butter or coconut oil) or bring up to temp if olive oil. I don't recommend a polyunsaturated oil for this. Sweet potatoes are sweet, like water is wet, and sugar sticks like crazy. Drop in the sweet potatoes and onions. Warning- following my recipe will render your onions well-browned- the way I like them. Hold off adding the onions five to ten minutes if you don't like the idea of that.

While the sweet potatoes and onions cook, bring beans up to temp in another vessel. I'm going to assume if you have pinto beans in the fridge, they are already seasoned to perfection. That's just how people with pinto beans already in the fridge roll. If you are opening a can, drain and then bring up to temp on medium to medium low. add a pinch of chili powder or a half teaspoon of adobo from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, then salt and pepper. When they lightly bubble, reduce to low/keep warm.

Move the potatoes and onions around and turn over until the potatoes start to brown. at that point, add the cumin and chili powder. add the water, soy sauce and sesame oil. Lid and cook until the sweet potatoes are soft and buttery.

If you can heat a third pan, preferably a cast iron pan, do so and toast the corn tortillas on each side then add some cheese, reduce to low and let melt. remove at that point, no one likes overly chewy tortillas.

Un-lid the potatoes and add a squirt of sriracha and the BBQ sauce. Stir to incorporate. Top with scallions and set aside.

Cook egg or eggs as you see fit.

top the tortillas with beans, a splash of taco sauce, an egg or half-egg each.

Spoon some potatoes on top and/or have on the side.

Enjoy your sweet, smoky, spicy, buttery, savory creation.

Getting your gut right: Miso soup

Years ago, I took a continuing education course in massage therapy. The instructor had some metaphysical things to say that I didn't really pay much attention to. But I do remember one thing. He said that all energy flows from the heart, and in order for your massage to benefit more than muscles, your massage work should radiate out from the heart. What I'm suggesting to you this new year is build your foundation from the center in a similar manner, because it affects every other aspect of your health. I'm talking about the gut, and it is at the center of your well-being.

In your gut, as most people have heard by now, are millions of bacteria. Studies have shown that the makeup of that population customizes itself according to an individual's habits. According to The Impact of Diet and Lifestyle on Gut Microbiota and Human Health, a NIH study, an imbalanced diet such as the Standard American Diet can significantly hinder the gut flora's ability to derive full nutrition from ingested food. So if you eat a bad diet, you starve your good bacteria, and as a result you starve yourself of nutrients. What is needed is a regular infusion of good bacteria derived from fermentation to supplement and help resuscitate weakened gut populations. 

But in order to effect change, it needs to become a habit, Traditional miso soup is tasty, but it's not what I want on the menu every day. What was needed was more like the bullet coffee version of miso soup- a shot of good stuff you can glug down first thing in the morning like the lemon water that seems to be in vogue nowadays. So I made a relatively plain brothy soup, chock of good things like seaweed for pituitary-balancing  and blood-enriching minerals. shiitakes and cloud ears for the linoleic acid and B and D vitamins, and ginger and capsicum for anti-inflammatory properties.

Ingredients:

1 - 1 1/2tbl red miso

1- 1 1/2 tbl white miso

1 tsp soy sauce

1/4 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce or coconut aminos

1/2 tsp sugar

4 cups water

two pieces of kombu

four slices of dried shiitake mushrooms

1-2 cloud ear mushrooms

1" chunk of ginger, sliced in thick pieces

optional: chili flakes, chili sauce, or sriracha

Method:

1. Put the water in a pan over high heat. add the kombu, mushrooms and ginger.
2. Bring water to a boil, lower to medium and let it boil gently for ten minutes.
3. Take off heat, let cool two minutes, then strain. return liquid to pan, discard solids.
4. Mix the sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and worcestershire/coconut aminos together in a small bowl. 
5. Mix the miso together and, with a small amounf of water, make into a smooth paste.
6. Mix the miso into the broth. Right before serving, add the soy sauce mixture and spicy stuff, if desired.

Drink a small cup of this every day to help restore your gut flora to fighting condition.

Just one more thing

Abbey said I looked like a Wookiee.

"What do you mean?" I asked, knowing fully well what she meant. I must have looked a little hurt, too, judging from her facial expression.

"Your hair," she replied. I know you like your hair long. What you don't realize is you look better when it's short. When it's long," she sighed, almost imperceptibly, as if her internal dialogue leaked for a moment, "you look like a chubby Shaggy."

Ouch. That hurt, even though I knew it. I had said it to myself, though couched in more gentle, rationalizing tones. I have reached uncomfortable conclusions. My hairline is apparently losing a war with my forehead, because it is in serious retreat. I play down the extent in order to protect my fragile sense of self. More and more I find myself Googling things like "fashion tips men receding hairline" and "awesome look large male forehead."

Acquiescing this fight to shorter hair styles was more about self-preservation than just a haircut. My ego has been tied to my hair since my twenties. My hair has always been straight and thin- so, in decades past when it was not as laughable for men to do so than it is now, I got perms. I colored to add fake highlights. I used Aqua Net. Whatever it took to give it a bit more lift.

As fads came and went and I was determined to rock a natural look, I would try simply not washing it. I had friends with dark, black hair for whom this look would melt the underwear off of people, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It looked so damn good on them. On me, I just looked unwashed. So I embraced mousse, wax, spit, sand, anything that added some depth but in a way that looked completely nonchanlant and devil-may-care. usually my devil-may-care look deflated around 3:30 in the afternoon.

Then, the dreaded widow's temple; and after, the ever-so-slight balding patch in the back. Crap. I was really hoping to avoid male pattern baldness.

So I fought back in the only way I knew how: pretend it wasn't happening. But my wife has finally drawn the line in the sand. Ignoring is no longer the cool posture it once was. Now it makes me look unkempt and, I suspect, somewhat creepy.

Funny the myriad ways we reject change, from small daily rebellions in the bathroom to not-so-smart sweeping decisions like sticking with careers we not only hate, but which clearly hate us back.

Take, for instance, what I like to call the "just one more thing" phenomenon. The one last unchecked thing on your list that stops you from making important changes in your life. I do some work (ok, let's call it "career development") from home on my laptop most mornings- I am a big-time early riser. When it's time to confront my new plan- spending some of that early morning time in a gym a couple of days a week- the last thing on my mental list always becomes very, very important. "But I need to get this graphic cropped just right!" I'll be thinking to myself. "One more revision, and I'll reach a great stopping point!"

The stopping point gets reached- the gym doesn't. And now that I see the pattern, I realize all my life the conscious plan of reaching my full (or at least fuller) potential has been undermined by this one tiny little snag, the nagging thing at the end of that ever-present mental list of rationalizations.

It's interesting how I discovered the presence of this bug in my programming. I had two objectives to accomplish during today's lunch break: get a haircut, and grab my favorite cup of coffee, sold at a place that happens to be right down the block from this new salon I'm checking out.  I get the haircut, no problem. Then I leave and realize I "have" to do this one last thing, get a cup of delicious coffee, before heading back to the office.

It was inexplicably difficult to walk that two extra blocks to go get one of my favorite treats ever.
Once the cup was secured, suddenly the trip back seemed like a complete delight. My step was easy, the office approached with startling quickness. Why was this suddenly so easy?

I think because I have had this mental block for a long, long time, and I just discovered it totally by accident. It was a weird realization, a kind of "Manchurian Candidate" moment. Here was incontrovertible evidence that the beasties that control me- opioid receptors, bacteria, whatever- were large and completely in charge.

I encourage you to root out your own mental lists of excuses and procrastination routines, tear them up and throw them away! Some of us need to learn what it means, for the first time, to be completely in charge of your lives. It's not an easy path, but getting started is half the battle.