Getting clear can help us navigate a situation where we are uninspired or faced with options that leave us feeling stuck. In this Feed Your Fire podcast episode, we discuss the difference between finding clarity and getting motivated with three simple steps to help you find your path. We’ll do this while making a matcha ice cream recipe infused with nutrients to bring you joy as you set the stage for change.
Listen to the Feed Your Fire podcast episode on YouTube, Apple and Spotify.
Episode Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Feed Your Fire. I'm Kim Baker, founder of Kim Baker Foods, and today's episode is going to be focused on getting clear when we feel stuck. You know that feeling when you just can't get inspired, or you feel like things aren't quite working the way you like them to go. We're going to talk about how to invigorate ourselves and create that sense of clarity while we enjoy a nutrient infused sweet treat,
The feeling of being stuck is really when we don't know how to create a bridge between where we are and what we need to do to move forward. I have heard Esther Perel talk about how the state of being stuck is really a state of rigidity where we're not embracing change. Another element though, of that stuckness is when we're simply not clear, and that creates kind of a misalignment between how we're behaving and what we ultimately want to achieve or reach.
Often, I think that sensation where we're not clear is mistaken for lack of motivation or even procrastination, but those are really entirely different concepts, though they look similar on the surface. Getting motivated is often solved by an energy infusion. It's why we listen to music when we work out. But getting clear requires attunement. It requires an understanding of what's holding us back.
How many times have you stood in a place where you knew what you, “should do”, but you didn't want to do it? Is that a lack of motivation, or is it a misalignment in the goal and your body's way of communicating that gap? When we get clear, when we understand what exactly is holding us back, what we're feeling, what we're avoiding,—that is tremendously empowering. And empowerment is motivating.
So how then do we get clear? How do we stand in a situation that's a little muddy, a little sticky, and create transparency, a way for us to see for ourselves what's right for us?
Kind of ironically, clarity comes from creating stillness so that whatever is stirring can settle and we can see more visibly what's ahead or what's in our heart. So if we're trying to solve lack of clarity, and we mistake it for lack of motivation, those two ideas are in direct opposition. What we don't want to create clarity is an infusion of energy and motion, and once we've created stillness, we need to open ourselves to curiosity, asking ourselves, why? Why do I feel this way? What do I feel? What is it that I need? This exercise is like an excavation. You have to keep digging a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper, and ultimately, you'll figure out what your body was telling you all along.
Getting clear also requires putting ourselves in a place of receptivity, and that means putting ourselves in a place of joy. So with that in mind, we've created a recipe for today's episode that could make just about anyone happy. We are making ice cream, but we're doing it in a healthy-ish way by using honey instead of a refined sugar and infusing it with matcha.
So the first thing we're going to do to make this ice cream is measure some milk and cream out and put it in a saucepan. I'm using about two cups of cream and one cup of milk. Then I'm going to heat that up in a saucepan with just over a tablespoon of matcha powder, about a half a cup of honey, and I'm going to throw in a cinnamon stick, whisk that up till all the matcha powder is dissolved into the milk. Let that cook until the milk is scalded. What you want to avoid is the milk boiling, and be careful, because you'll turn your head for one minute and suddenly the milk will be like splashing everywhere. So just heat it gently and allow it to come up to just under a boiling point. Then take it off the heat and let it cool slightly in a separate bowl.
I'm going to crack some eggs, separating out the yolks, pop the egg whites into the refrigerator and save them for another time. And then we're going to temper the egg yolks. So if you're unfamiliar with that, essentially, we're going to bring the temperature of the egg yolks up by putting some of the milk mixture in a little bit at a time. I like to use a ladle and just put a ladle full of the milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisk it up and then repeat that couple times, then put everything back into the saucepan and just let it combine.
The last thing I'm going to do is add in about two teaspoons of vanilla and then put everything into a bowl so that I can cool it down completely. You can do this in an ice bath. I'm actually just going to pop the mixture into the refrigerator and let it sit. In the spirit of curiosity, a little twist you can do to this recipe is add some fresh pepper to the milk mixture while it's cooking, and that will kind of infuse a little bit of a spice taste that's really quite interesting.
Now, I probably should have told you before, but you need to think ahead when you're making ice cream, and most likely, depending on your machine, freeze the canister, so when you go to churn it, it's ready. So once that milk mixture is cooled down, take out the cinnamon stick and then just put it in your machine and hit go. My ice cream maker is literally a decade old, and so I'm sure the technology is a little bit more advanced now, but mine works just fine. It has to churn for about 15 plus minutes, and you see that it will increase in volume tremendously. It kind of almost doubles, and it becomes really creamy, and that's when you know that the ice cream is complete.
Watching the ice cream churn is like when you cook microwave popcorn and you're waiting for the sound of the kernels to sort of slow down and become less frequent. It just has this sense of anticipation that's very satisfying. And I love the ice cream straight out of the ice cream maker where it's a soft serve, it's just so luscious and fresh.
I've got these containers that I've bought on the internet that I’m going to use. You could use just any pint or quart container and transfer it to their freezer for another day.
One of my first jobs was at a frozen yogurt store, and so I have a real affinity for frozen desserts, especially soft serve. Back in the 90s, there was no matcha flavored anything. This is leveled up for sure since that experience, but it's a bit nostalgic whenever I make ice cream. Now, there may be some of you listening that are like, oh man, I shouldn't eat ice cream. I should eat something healthier. But today, we are working against our shoulds, and we're trying to tap in our coulds and our woulds, because should comes from a place of obligation. It often breeds resentment. It tends to be short lived, and it's not a way of creating sustainable pathways forward.
What we're looking for is to tap into our inner direction, to create that alignment and clarity, where we have gusto, where we don't feel stuck, and that's because it's so authentic and it's grounded in things like joy.
So if you're feeling stuck and looking for clarity, I want you to take these three steps, give them a try. Put yourself in a place of stillness, open yourself to curiosity, and put yourself in a place where you could be receptive to the ideas and the feelings that flow through. If that happens to be with a bowl of ice cream, we won't judge. Until our next episode. I say, so long.
Feed your fire, where food nourishes growth.