Sunday SELF - C. 🥦 A. 🦌 R. 🦸‍♀️ E. 🎁

November Recap 💌

Author

Jaclyn Kirby
December 01, 2024

SELF - C. 🥦 A. 🦌 R. 🦸‍♀️ E. 🎁

Cooking: Broccoli Cheddar Potato Soup 🥦🧀🥔🥓

This soup was such a hit when I had family over for dinner! Then I craved it for days after so I made it again for myself when I had a rainy night at home alone 💆‍♀️🌧️🍲

The best comfort meal for a cozy night alone or a winter dinner party!

Broccoli Cheddar Potato Soup 🥦🧀🥔🥓

Ingredients:

- Optional: 2-4 strips of bacon (When I made this for a dinner party, I found bacon from a trusted regenerative farm and added a couple of strips which definitely gave it an extra kick of flavor! Since bacon isn’t something I usually buy, when I made this soup just for myself, I left the bacon out and it was still a gorgeous meal. If you’re a bacon lover, find a good source and add as much as your heart desires!)

- ½ cup of wine (a dry white would probably be best. I have no white wine in the house this time of year so I used a light grenache and it worked well!)

- ½ a white onion

- ½ a bunch of celery

- 4-5 large carrots

- 5 garlic cloves

- ¼ cup of flour

- 1 large head of broccoli or 10 oz bag frozen

- 5 medium-sized golden potatoes

- 24 oz bone broth (chicken or beef, I’ve used both)

- 2 cups filtered water

- ¾ a block of raw cheddar 

- Season with S + P, thyme, paprika, oregano, fennel, and parsley

Directions:

1. Chop bacon into bits and cook in a large pot (If not using bacon, skip to step 2).

2. Chop onion, carrots, and celery.

3. Remove cooked bacon and deglaze the pan by pouring in your wine.

4. Add chopped onion, celery, and carrots and cook in with the wine.

5. Crack and chop garlic cloves. Add to the pot.

6. Stir for a few minutes, then sprinkle in flour and seasonings. 

7. Chop 3 of your potatoes into cubes. Leave the other 2 whole. Add both chopped potatoes and whole potatoes to the pot.

8. Add bone broth and water. Then cook to a boil. Cover the pot and cook on medium-low heat until whole potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork.

9. While that cooks, shred your cheese.

10. Take out whole potatoes and add to a blender with ½ cup of the soup broth. Blend into a creamy mash. Add the mash to the soup to give the soup a creamy texture.

11. Add shredded cheese to the pot and stir in. 

12. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Then let simmer for about 20 minutes to allow thickening and flavor integration.

13. Serve and enjoy!

Art: Getting lost in nature (literally) 🌳🦌🏔️

When life gets busy the first thing that goes out the window, usually, is our connection with nature. 

This time of year means that for many, it’s dark when you wake up and start your workday, and dark once you finish your workday… Depressing, I know.

I really feel it in my body when I spend too much time inside. The stress of unnatural environments, stuffy air, and less movement are breeding grounds for illness. 

Knowing this, I’ve tried to continue to do more outside during the free time I do have. Whether that’s eating dinner out on the porch (even if it’s freezing!) or bundling up to go hiking on the weekend.

This month, I searched for a new hiking trail on the map and saw one just a few miles from our house that looked perfect. 

To me, it’s not really hiking unless you get all the beauty of nature — rushing water, rock climbing, trekking through snow, hopping over fallen trees, and eventually being rewarded with a stunning lake or view at the top of the trail.

This hike had it ALL and I LOVED it. Except it was so immersed in nature, that we fully got lost on the way up so we ended up in the middle of the forest, off trail. 

When we cut through the trees and eventually found the lake at the top, I threw off my shoes and socks and soaked my bare feet in the freezing lake water. It felt so invigorating, so clean, as if all my cells instantly renewed and I was a newer, healthier version of me.

This inspired me to do a little impromptu yoga on the rocks. This hike was such a hidden gem, and we went early enough that we had the entire lake to ourselves which made it the most peaceful place to be.

THEN on the way back, since we started back on the trail, we thought for sure it’d be a smooth hike down… But we got lost again. There were just rocks to climb over, no clear path, so we ended up back in the forest, pushing through tall grass and sliding down fallen trees only to end up… on someone’s private property while they were out there chopping wood.

As wild as it was, it did give me that feeling of adventure and aliveness which is what our free time should be dedicated to.

Even as the weather gets cold, I encourage you to open your windows in the morning before you kick on your heater (or at least step outside for a few deep breaths while you brew your morning drink), go on daily walks — snow, sleet, or shine! — and spend your free time moving your body in nature.

I promise, any winter rut you may be feeling will melt away, at least for a few moments, if you do.

We’re all familiar with the story of the hero’s journey. It’s prevalent in every movie, book, and show that we love. 

Our society is obsessed with the hero’s journey, why?

Because it’s exactly what we’re all living out in our own lives. We are all on our own journey, as the hero of our individual story.

Learning concepts like this and diving into human archetypes has helped me live more intentionally and deepen my compassion for others, no matter how much I may disagree with them.

Because whether you believe in this stuff or not, we are all living through a limited lens, acting out our belief systems. Many people are doing this unconsciously, which creates a great deal of suffering. I know this, because I did this for 20+ years. 

Becoming aware of the greater human story and all the nuance within it, has helped me choose the exact experiences I want to live out, rather than reacting to what seemingly is done to me.

Before I ever cracked this book open, I became familiar with the 12 archetypes from listening to podcasts and reading short descriptions. Whatever archetype is dominant for you during a certain season of your life, shapes your personality. 

Learning about this helps you get to know yourself more deeply and expand your compassion for those who are different from you.

The book is a full deep dive that I have only just started. After reading about 250 of the 700+ pages, here are the quotes that have resonated with me:

“Psychologists in the leveling modern world have a name for the rare case of someone with “delusions of grandeur,” but do not even have a category for the most pervasive sickness, the delusion that we do not matter. While it is true that no one of us is more important than anyone else, we each have an important gift to give — a gift we are incapable of giving if we fail to take our journeys. Taking your journey requires you to leave behind the illusions of your insignificance.”

Carol S. Pearson

“There is a profound disrespect for human beings in modern life. Business encourages us to think of ourselves as human capital. Advertising appeals to our fears and insecurities to try to get us to buy products we do not need. Too many religious institutions teach people to be good but do not help them know who they are. Too many psychologists see their job as helping people accommodate to what is, not to take their journeys and find out what could be. Too many educational institutions train people to be cogs in the economic machine, rather than educating them about how to be fully human. 

Basically, we are viewed as products or commodities, to be either sold to the highest bidder or improved so that eventually we will be more valuable. Neither view respects the human soul or the human mind except as used as an acquisitive tool. As a consequence, people increasingly are disrespectful to themselves. Too many of us seek to fill our emptiness with food, drink, or drugs, or obsessive and frantic activity. The much-lamented pace of modern life is not inevitable — it is a cover for its emptiness. If we keep in motion, we create the illusion of meaning.”

Carol S. Pearson

If you want to learn more about this before reading the book, I recommend this podcast episode! It goes into each of the 12 archetypes and how they relate within society.

Enthusiasm: Year’s Best 🎁

Now that it’s gift-giving season and the last month of the year, I was talking with my family about how we can do something fun together, while not spending too much money or effort buying gifts for everyone…

My mom and I came up with the idea to do a Year’s Best gift basket, from one household to another.

Inside we can share all our favorites from the year:

  • Recipes you perfected

  • Products that changed your life

  • Or, souvenirs from a trip you took or new hobby you started

This felt like the best way for me to share — and get my loved ones hooked on — the best non-toxic products and ancestral cooking rituals.

It’s a beautiful way to share what’s most important to you and get to know the people closest to you on a deeper level.

Here’s what I’m including in my Year’s Best gift basket this year & why (Feel free to steal these for the people on your list!) :

  • Primally Pure deodorant — b/c it’s THE BEST! I’ve never genuinely felt cleaner, like I crave the feeling and smell of wiping this on my underarms. AND I stay smelling amazing even on the hottest, sweatiest days and even chemical deodorant doesn’t work that well.

  • Revitin toothpaste — b/c again, it’s the best. There’s no reason to microdose poison every single day when natural toothpaste works and feels this good.

  • Local honey — b/c honey has kind of been my thing this year and this one is from bees just 30 minutes from my home. I’ve also been on a huge chai latte kick, so this flavor is to die for! I might also attach a handmade tag with the chai tea recipe I’ve been loving.

  • Hot Sauce from a local farm — b/c this is the year where I stopped relying on grocery stores and I found my local farms. Everything feels a million times better, while shopping and eating when you know your food was grown right there, by the nice people you chat with while you pick out your ingredients. This hot sauce is made from the produce that the farm grew, and produced and bottled on site.

  • Sourdough crackers w/ recipe tag — b/c I started sourdough exactly one year ago and now it’s a staple in my home! I thought that packaging up some of my homemade crackers and attaching a spring of rosemary and a handwritten recipe tag w/ my hummus and cucumber dip recipes would be a cute way to share my favorite snacks this year.

  • Natural wine — b/c my husband made wine this year at home, using grapes from a trusted local vineyard (I also helped, going shoulder-deep into the wine barrel to press the skins down 3 times a day for weeks). Finding natural wine that doesn’t wreck your body has been a huge passion in my home, so now being able to share something that we had our hands on the entire process is so fun. If you didn’t make wine, you could include a bottle from your favorite winery you visited this year, or order anything from Kermit Lynch to gift a bottle that you know will taste and FEEL incredible, both during and the morning after.

Everything in this basket are things both my husband and I loved this year, so it’s the perfect gift to the couples in our lives that we want to see healthier than ever.

At a time when store-bought junk food, synthetic chemical scents, and unhealthy habits are welcomed all in the name of nostalgia… I think it’s important to share the things that you know have made a difference for you, in hopes that it can bring the same joy and vitality to those you love.

If you make a Year’s Best gift, please reply and share it with me! I’d love to see what’s been most present in bringing you joy this year!

Sending you joy this December 🎄❄️🍵

🤍 Jaclyn