When Life Gives You Lemons….I Forget the Rest

Behold the mostly raw, completely vegan Meyer Lemon Coconut Bar.  Chances are you probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry, right now. Now I’ve posted a few recipes on the blog and if you can’t tell I’m a lazy cook.  Can I help it that I want what I want when I want it?  The great thing about raw vegan foods is that they often take less prep time Perfect for a college student…oh shoot, I can’t use that excuse anymore

So I had this bag of Meyer lemons laying in my fridge from when I made another dish a while back and I thought to myself, “I need to do something with this $4 bag of expensive lemons before they go bad.”  Flipping through the recipe book for the Radiant Goddess course, I saw recipes that used coconut and lemon, but the recipe is completely my own.

Here are the ingredients I used and the steps I took to make these delicious things.  It’s pretty hard to mess this recipe up and if you don’t have something I use, then feel free to substitute in!

Vegan Meyer Lemon Coconut Bars

For the crust:

• Vegan sugar cookies or vanilla cookies processed in a food processor (or coffee grinder like I did because I don’t have a FP)
• Almonds (same procedure as above)
• Instant oats (same as above)
• Almond Milk
• Roughly 1 tbsp Raw Agave Nectar (regular Agave is fine, honey would work too, or maple syrup)

Mix these all together in a bowl adding almond milk until you get a dough/crust like consistency and press it into your pan.  I probably ended up with about 1 1/2 cups or 1 2/3 cup of the crust mixture.  I kept having to make more to fit the pan I was using.  Put this in the freezer so it will be ready for the coconut layer to be poured on top.

For the coconut layer:

• Raw coconut butter
• Coconut Milk
• Raw Agave Nectar
• Shredded Coconut

I put everything in a saucepan to let it melt and blend together (I don’t know if I went over 118 degrees, so it’s not officially “raw”).   Take the crust out of the freezer and pour on the coconut “batter”.  Put it back in the freezer.

Meyer Lemon Gel:

• The juice of 4 to 5 lemons (regular would be fine, you just might want to add more agave to make it sweeter)
• Ground flaxseed (to help it gel up)
• Chia seeds (for a little crunch and to help it gel up)
• Raw Agave Nectar

You can let this sit around for a while or you can warm it slightly to speed up the process.  Usually a flax egg is 1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp warm water.  I just kind of dumped flax in there so if you want to try and measure it, that’s cool, if you don’t it won’t hurt you Take the bar crust and coconut layer pan out of the freezer and pour on the delicious gel.  Put it in the freezer (or fridge) to set overnight or a few hours.  Slice and serve immediately

I was waiting all day to enjoy these babies and they are so refreshing when served cold! Perfect for a muggy day like today.

I was actually thinking about writing something very different for this post (and not using a recipe) but as I sat down to type I remembered these bars and thought they’d go along perfectly with the title.  I took a nice long, evening nap because I’ve had a tough last 24 hours emotionally.  I know it probably seems like I say that all the time but this was actually a pretty big deal and some really hurtful words were said to me yesterday by a close family member so I’m trying to deal with that.  It was also a big day for me yesterday and this individual was really kind of putting down my accomplishments.

One of the not-s0-great thing about people knowing that you have BPD (I’m talking mostly about my experience with my family), is that it is very easy to point to the Borderline and say something like, “Hey, you’re the one who is crazy.  NOT me.” I want to be clear about two things.  The first is that I realize that this may not resonate with everyone who has BPD or loves someone with BPD.  I only speak about my experience on this blog unless otherwise stated and I also realize that there are two sides to every story, so NO ONE, someone with a disorder or otherwise can be completely non-biased.  The second is that I am not saying that I am always in the clear because I have a disorder, or that it is an excuse for my behavior (when it’s unfavorable), HOWEVER, I also do not believe it is fair to use a diagnosis against someone and shame them for it.

Can it be difficult to deal with someone who has BPD? Yes.  

Is it ok to tell them they are a bad person or does it mean they are a “bad” person? NO. 

Who is the one who needs to get help in this type of relationship? BOTH PARTIES. 

One of the things that is very difficult (and this is talked about a lot in eating disorder treatment centers), is that when someone goes off to get help for a problem and they come back to a situation that hasn’t changed, a couple of things happen.  The person who got help hopefully learned some effective coping strategies that they can use to manage their emotions and not use self-destructive behavior, but this takes LOTS OF PRACTICE and SUPPORT. When loved ones do not deal with their own emotions and baggage (and everyone has baggage!! You may not have a diagnosable disorder, but you are human so stuff bothers you too) they really cannot support the individual who needs the most support.  I know that this scenario has played out many times in my own life and relapses, with various people, and I also know that many others have the same issue.  Like I said, there are groups in treatment centers devoted specifically to this type of situation and how to cope.  Thankfully, I have learned how to cope and I practice those skills like nobody’s business.

Ultimately, it’s my job to create my recovery and life and sustain them.  Sometimes other people won’t change when you do or you’ll realize that someone just can’t give you what you want from them.  They may have other really great things to offer and that’s good, but I know that part of my job as a woman in recovery is to take charge of my own life and to surround myself with healthy, loving, supportive people who make me feel good more often than not.

With that being said, I am VERY excited because I have a really wonderful project planned for myself that I will be able to share with you all in the next month or so.  It was divinely inspired (not in an “I’m-a-prophet-so-listen-to-me” way) but I just had this lightbulb moment last night and it was exactly what I needed to get my career going Stay tuned

Tagged as: borderline personality disorder, coconut, facing obstacles, meyer lemons, raw vegan, recovery