Fresh Apple Nut Cake with Citrus Butter Glaze

(Becky, the Mama. )

If you have not figured it out by now,  I have ADD.  More specifically, I have what my friend and pioneer brain doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen, diagnosed as the Inattentive Type of ADD.  (Press the Pause Button here for a minute: Thank you to the wonderful, brilliant, kind Dr. Amen for his review of our newest book, Nourished. His fabulous blurb adorns the cover!)

The Inattentive Type of ADD is less likely to be hyperactive.  Which is certainly true for me.   Put me in a hammock and tell me it’s time for a nap, and I am at my happiest.

Our types tend to be under-focused on things like to-do lists or anything smacking of organization; and over-focused on things we find interesting, absorbing, fun or creative.   I can get so lost in a new idea for a book, blog topics, photography, recipes, decorating projects, researching the history of a vintage find, or helping a friend — that hours pass like minutes.   I once got out of the bathtub one morning, wrapped in a towel with my hair dripping wet, sat down at the computer with an idea for a book chapter, then got totally lost in the flow. When I looked up, to my absolute shock —  my kids were home from school, and I had not moved, dressed, or eaten for 7 hours.

We also tend to lose and forget things with incredible regularity.  As my husband says, “It is a full-time job just being a Becky.”

One other quirk I have is thinking I am out of a particular grocery item, and then buying it repeatedly, ad nauseum.  Until I suddenly realize I have 13 jars of mustard, 6 bottles of sesame oil and 5 heads of cauliflower. This week I discovered that I had unwittingly socked away FOUR  big bags of apples.  The benefit of these surprising surpluses is that it kicks in with my creative juices as I come up with a dozen creative ways to use up the overstocked item.

Today’s recipe comes courtesy of my apple surplus and daydreaming of a fresh apple cake made from an old church cookbook.  I’d lost the cookbook somehow, but my former mother-in-law Beverly was kind enough to send it to me this week so I could recreate this moist and mouth-watering dessert.  It calls for 4 cups of fresh apples, rough chopped in fairly large pieces,  plus a cup of pecans.  These goodies are bound together with a sweet and cinnamony cake batter.   I made a few small tweaks to the original recipe, which I think enhances the flavor.  You can use a bundt cake pan, as I did in the pictures shown, but  you have to grease and flour it really well, and even so there is a good chance the top of the cake will stick here and there to the pan and you’ll have to patch it a bit.  (As I did here:)  It pops out much easier if you bake it in 2 bread pans, plus you can give one away to a friend or freeze it for later.

Besides being perfect for an afternoon snack, we also love this cake that is chocked full of apples and nuts for breakfast, with a couple of slices of turkey bacon and a cold glass of milk or hot coffee.

FRESH APPLE CAKE

4 cups 4 1/2 cups  apples, peeled and coarsely chopped (leave some the size of a teaspoon)
1 3/4 cups sugar (I prefer raw sugar)
2 eggs, separated
3/4 cup canola or coconut oil or other healthy oil of your choice
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon  baking soda

2 t. baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon cinnamon
l cup pecans or walnuts, broken into fairly big pieces

Directions

Mix chopped apples with sugar and let stand in a bowl.
Beat egg whites till stiff, add yolks and beat, add oil and mix well.
Combine sugared apples and oil-egg mixture.  Mix well by hand.
Stir dry ingredients together.
Add dry ingredients and nuts to apple mixture.
Pour into  VERY well-greased and floured Bundt pan or tube pan, or 2 bread pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour,15 minutes. (Just one hour if you bake it in bread pans).

While cake is still warm to the touch, but cooled some, loosen the edges with a sharp knife.  Turn over onto a plate and drizzle with the following glaze:

3 T. melted butter

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Juice of 2 clementines, or 1 orange, or 1 lemon

Mix well in a small bowl with whisk or fork.

Vitamin Roulette: Confessions of an Almost Lethal Messy

(Becky, the Mama)

Least you think that because I’ve co-authored a book on the subject of self-care that I somehow “have it all together” — let me hasten to assure you (before others start volunteering to do so on my behalf) that this is SO not the case.  First, a visual: a couple of snapshots my daughter (and co-author Rachel) put together of my actual dishwasher after I loaded it (“drunk monkey style”) and one of Rachel’s dishwasher, the way she loads it (like “a lab scientist”).

These are actual pictures of how we each load our dishwashers. I can say this, at least: I am a FAST loader.

Next, here is a little excerpt from Nourished, where I share a couple of my other potentially lethal flaws.

I’ve always found a measure of comfort in having lots of stuff around me, even when I sleep, like a pack rat’s nest.

I could list dozens of areas where I fight the tide of disorganization, but few have been as daunting as keeping pills, vitamins, and supplements in their bottles, something that unnerves both Rachel and Greg. We have several spots in the house where miscellaneous pills and supplements have spilled then mingled together, like jelly bean assortments. I always plan on sorting them out, one day, looking up the embedded numbers on the internet to figure out if a mystery pill is an Aspirin or Gingko or rogue cyanide. The other night Greg asked if I had a Tylenol in my bedside table. I opened the drawer and took a dubious look at the pharmaceutical collage rolling about and asked, “Are you feelin’ lucky?”

“Never mind,” he said. “I’m not brave enough for Vitamin Roulette tonight.”

He always double checks even when I give him a pill from a bottle, since the night I accidentally gave him a No Dose instead of a sleep aid—a night he recalls every moment of in vivid detail. My purse is another interesting place where pills and vitamins like to gather and do odd things. Rachel and Jackson were recently here visiting, and the adjustment to the altitude gave her a nasty migraine. “Do you have an Excedrin, Mom?” she asked as she rubbed her head.

“Just a minute,” I said, digging in my purse. “Ah ha! I do! Here you go.”

She took the pill, and a puzzled look crossed her face. “Mom, that’s a red M&M.”

“No, honey. See the E on the front? It’s ‘Excedrin.’”

“Mom, put on your reading glasses. See, you’ve got ‘the pill’ rotated the wrong way. Give it a quarter turn. See? It’s an M, and there’s a little chocolate showing where the red candy has melted in your purse, and is now melting in my hands.”

“My goodness, I’ve kept those three M&Ms in the zipper pocket of my purse for two months, sure they were pain killers. Whaddaya know?”

Besides learning that an “M” looks like an “E” when laid on its side, I have also discovered that if you put a few Tylenol PMs into a Ziploc bag and then the bag falls into a hotel sink , and then you accidentally turn on the faucet in the dark of night (and do not close said bag very well), in the morning you will have a blue Play-Doh-like substance that can also put you to sleep and cure a headache.

You might also ask me how I know that a fish oil capsule, warmed in the sun in the lining of a purse will leave it smelling like three day old tuna for weeks.

All this preamble to say, though I am much improved from my days as a teen and young mom—I still struggle. Organization is as sticky a subject as the console of my car.

If you are curious as to whether or not I ever found my Inner Organizer,  you might enjoy grabbing a copy of Nourished and read “the rest of the story.” 

“In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find – and I hear from other people that they agree – that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness.“ Gretchen Rubin

He Calls Me Darlin’ — Hearing God’s Voice of Love for YOU, Personally

In the last chapter of our book, Nourished,  we talk about the foundation of a nourishing relationship with God, the way we view Him, and closer to the heart of the topic: how we believe God sees and feels about us. 

(from “He Calls Me Darlin'” , an excerpt from Nourished)

(Becky, the Mama)

I recently came to realize, with some measure of gladness and satisfaction, that each of my grown children had assumed that they were my “favorite child”—which is exactly as it should be. It let me know that I had done at least a few things right as a mother. And they are absolutely correct: each and every one of them is my favorite child.

In the book The Shack, the God “figure” is played by an African American woman and she has an endearing way of talking about each of her “children” and adding, “I’m especially fond of that one.” The main character, Mack, begins to notice this trend, and asks her at one point, “Are there any you are not especially fond of?’

She answers, “Nope, I haven’t been able to find any. Guess that’s jes’ the way I is.”

Could it be that God is “especially fond” of each of us and that we are, every one individually, his most favorite child?

I find it interesting that the apostle John referred to himself, over five times, as “the disciple Jesus loved” or “the beloved disciple.” His identity, his name, after so many years with Christ, was simply, “The one Jesus loves.” I cannot help but wonder if the other disciples might each have believed they were Christ’s favorite, too, that he was “especially fond” of them as well. Or perhaps John was so focused on the great love of God, he wanted to make a point by replacing his own name with a description of his belongingness. When you abide, which means to “settle down to make yourself at home” in God’s love, your whole identity changes. Your central role in life is no longer Becky, or Rachel, or “mom,” or “wife,” or “writer,” but the older you get and more you allow God’s love to seep in to your very pores, the more your identity becomes, “The beloved daughter of God.”

Try tacking on this “beloved” identity to your own name, just for fun. Here, I’ll go first. “Hello, I am Becky, The Woman Jesus Loves. But for short, some people just called me Becky the Beloved.” Now you try it, with your name.  Let it soak in.  And just for today, simply let God love you. Nothing more.

 

Your Inner Elephant: How to Make Changes that STICK

(“Dumbo and Me” — an excerpt from our newly released book, Nourished: A Search for Health, Happiness and a Full NIght’s Sleep)

Lasting change requires two things: a plan and the motivation to tackle it. In the fascinating book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath refer to these two parts of our decision-making brain as The Rider and The Elephant. The Rider is the planner, the logical part of us that researches, makes lists, and follows steps into change. The Elephant is that big, emotive part of ourselves that has to be reached and motivated in order to make a change, even a small one. An Elephant without a Rider is all feeling and impulse, lumbering and stampeding with heartfelt, unbridled, and directionless emotion. Still, The Elephant has its own kind of intuitive wisdom, and needs to be heard and acknowledged.

The Rider without The Elephant, on the other hand, is like a woman standing on a path in the jungle, a well-thumbed guidebook in hand―but without the gumption needed to move off center and actually go anywhere. How many of us have embarked on a new diet or exercise plan, or determined to “get this house organized”―only to find our Inner Dumbo has decided to sit down and roll over our best intentions? Perhaps dousing us with a spray of pond water for good measure? What happened? In short, we did not take the time needed to hear, get to know, and motivate our Inner Elephant.

Think back to a time in your life when you made a real change that lasted. You’ll recognize that your inner Elephant and your Rider were in sync, working together to get you down a new path that took your life’s happiness quota up a few notches. Though I am naturally a messy person, I fell deeply in love with a good man who needs at least a modicum of order to feel balanced and happy. Motivated by love for my husband and desire to see him functioning at his best (engaging The Elephant of feeling and motivation), I made a plan and put into action the steps of cleaning up the kitchen and living room every evening (The Rider) until they became natural habits. Our lives are happier for this relatively minor adjustment that eventually turned into a habit that I’ve kept up for almost a decade now.

One of the simple reasons that Rachel’s extreme schedule makeover didn’t work out (besides factors like illness and drop-in-crazy people) was that, frankly, she didn’t give her Inner Elephant that much-desired cup of coffee. And that Elephant wasn’t going to budge without caffeine, no matter how much her logical Inner Rider argued against it.

If you want to follow a lasting and nourishing way to change, you’ve got to make friends with your inner Rider AND  Elephant.

(To read more about ways to make lasting, positive changes that stick & stay, order or download a copy of Nourished today! )

Here’s what Dr. Daniel Amen, brain research pioneer, had to say about Nourished:

“Those familiar with our work at the Amen Clinic  know we believe that when you nourish your brain, you nourish your life.  The converse is also true: when you nourish your life with one healthy change after another, you also nourish your brain.  Becky and Rachel are, at turns, funny and informative, light-hearted and deeply inspiring.  I found their book,  Nourished, to be delightful, practical brain tonic for women dealing with every day stresses. “

Dr. Daniel Amen, MD,  New York Times bestselling author ( Change Your Brain, Change Your Life; Unleash the Power of the Female Brain;  Use Your Brain to Change Your Age) and co-author of the #1 NYT bestseller, The Daniel Plan (along with Rick Warren and Dr. Mark Hymen).  He is also producer and host of 9 public television specials and founder and director of The Amen Clinics.