Thanksgiving Countdown: Day 24

Happy Thanksgiving!

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7 NIV

Thursday, November 24, 2011: Having all of my family together for Thanksgiving... and apple pie.

Grilled Goat Cheese, Caramelized Onion, Spinach, and Bell Pepper Sandwich

Yes, I have a goat cheese addiction

Recipe:

• Two slices of bread
• Crumbled goat cheese
• Purple Onion
• Red Bell Pepper
• Spinach
• Olive Oil
• Sugar
• Salt

Add olive oil, sugar, and salt (the secret ingredient to all things tasty) to a pan along with sliced purple onion.  Saute until soft.  Add red bell pepper and continue to saute until the onions are brownish, then add spinach.  When the spinach is wilted, pile veggies onto the bread and add goat cheese.  Add more olive oil to the pan (I burned mine because I forgot to do this) and cook until browned on both sides.  Enjoy!

Sunday Dinner

Sauce a la Kiki.  Check out her blog over at I Still Hate Pickles.  She has lots of amazing recipes and great insight into parenting, among other things!

A Post for My Vegetarian Pals

Looks kind of gross, but is delicious!

Sometimes, it's cheaper to be a vegetarian.  Occasionally, I will go meatless simply to save a few bucks and to give my colon a break and it's in these times that I get creative.  Last night I was trying to come up with a healthy dinner to eat that didn't require too many ingredients and involved black beans.  It was then that I came across black bean burgers.  I had to search for a simple recipe for a while but eventually stumbled across this one:


Ingredients:

• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 can black beans, well drained
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 slices bread, crumbled
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp seasoned salt
• salt and pepper to taste
• oil for frying

Preparation:

Sautee the onions till soft, about 3-5 minutes.  

In a large bowl, mash the beans until almost smooth.  Add sauteed onions and the rest of the ingredients, except the oil, adding the flour a few tablespoons at a time to combine well.  Form bean mixture into patties and fry patties in a small amount of oil until slightly firm.

Because I love guacamole, I topped it with that and made kale chips, which are so simple it's amazing.  

Kale chips:

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Salt!

Directions:

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (I skipped the parchment paper).
2. Pull off leaves from the thick stems in bite sized pieces and drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt.
3. Back until brown or about 10-15 minutes.  It only took mine about nine because I didn't use the whole head.

I thought they were going to be soggy at first but on my first bite I knew I was wrong.  Crunchy and light and delicious!  Certainly not the same as regular chips but still very good!

Red, White, and Blue! Reflection on Freedom

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Franklin

star spangled cupcake!  yum!

More importantly than a free nation, however, is a soul freed from the bondage of sin and given peace with its Creator.  The price was high; the wrath of God was poured out on His own Son as an atonement for our sin, so that we might be freed from sin and brought into a relationship with God.  Today, let's celebrate our freedom in Christ as well as a nation.  Take neither for granted.


"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."  Galatians 5:1

Pasta! More Reflections on Food.

Drying pasta

I love food.  And if you read my blog with any regularity you will know that this is quite the understatement.  I also love to cook and one of my all time favorite people to cook with is the great Kandy Steen.  When I was working at Christ EPC in Houston, the youth staff took a cooking class from her during the summer.  She is a cooking ninja.  We learned to make gourmet macaroni, spatzle, cheese cake, and pasta from scratch, just to name a few and every recipe I have tried on my own and shared with others has been a huge hit.  Today, I got to help her cook all of the meals for this week because she hurt her hand and to be quite honest, I made out like a bandit.  We cooked chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, a rotisserie chicken casserole with amazing white sauce, and home made pasta with Italian sausage ragou.  And of course she let me take some home.

As pasta is pretty much my favorite food to cook on my list of things to request for my birthday or Christmas:  a kitchen aide with a pasta attachment.  YUM!

Now tell me:  What's your favorite dish to cook?  

Food Art

I have never been very visually artistic myself, but I love art in all its forms. Today I went to one of my favorite sushi places and was presented with the coolest shashimi I've personally ever seen. Even the carrots are flowers! They also have the best ginger dressing I've ever tasted, it's even good on the sushi. Shameless plug: Sushi Hana is fabulous.

Mad Skill

Did I mention that my mom has mad skills? She made me a pretty apron for Christmas that sort of reminds me of I guess 1960's housewife. All I need are some pearls and a vacuum. Tonight I'm staying warm by making quiche lorraine and wearing my second favorite Christmas present (next to the scarf and bought me... oh and the camera my dad got me, which still needs a memory card). I need to learn how to sew the way she does, it's very impressive.

Pie in the Sky: Reflections on deliciousness

This morning I used my second crust for a Quiche Lorraine. It was fabulous and I've had to exercise an extreme amount of self-control not to eat the whole thing by myself. It's a fabulous recipe and as promised, here it is.

Ingredients:

Pastry for 9-inch pie

8 slices of bacon, chopped

4 green onions + spinach

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese,

divided

6 large eggs, beaten

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Dash of red pepper

Dash of ground white pepper

Ground nutmeg

Instructions:

• Fit piecrust into a 9-inch quiche dish; trim excess pastry around the edges. Prick bottom and sides of pie crust with a fork. Bake at 400 degrees for 3 minutes; remove from oven, and gently prick with a fork. Bake pie crust for 5 more minutes.
• Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until browned; add chopped green onions and spinach and cook one more minute. Drain well, and sprinkle evenly in pastry shell. Top with 1 cup cheese, set aside.
• Combine eggs, whipping cream, salt, nutmeg, red pepper, and white pepper. Pour mixture into prepared crust and top with remaining cup of cheese. Sprinkle quiche lightly with additional nutmeg.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until set. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Pie in the Sky: Reflections on the Power of Food

One of my favorite things to do in the world is cook. When I worked at a church in Houston, our staff took a cooking class with our very own local foodie and the bonding time was incredible. I have so many great recipes and stories from our time together... and maybe a few extra pounds. The point is, cooking brings people together. It's history, relationship, learning, making mistakes, and of course creativity and delicious food. Yesterday, having heard for a long time that a good family friend made the best pies ever, I went to learn her ways. And here are the results.

Working on her own apple pie after helping me with mine.

Cutting around the edge of the pan.

My left over dough that will be made (hopefully) into a quiche.

The finished product!

Mancora Pictures Part 1

Ok, so as most of you know, I lost the downloader thing for my camera last year and have therefore been stealing pictures from friends or my Dad off of facebook.  So, thanks to Patty and Gillian, here are pictures from our amazing vacation in Mancora.

Me, first day in Mancora.  Very tired and a little sunburnt.  We chilled out at a resort that we did not belong to, but never got kicked out.  It was kind of nice.  Later that evening, I would fall asleep on my blanket in the sand.  If only life could always be like that.  

Enjoying a drink called an "almond joy".  This was actually our last day, Sunday, and this was an amazing drink!  It had ice cream in it, how can you go wrong?

It definitely brings joy...

Julie about to try cocoanut juice... milk?  She did not enjoy it at all.

Coming in from the beach with Heather.  The water was a little cold, but much, much warmer than it is in Huanchaco!  

Sick Again

I'm starting to think that there is something wrong with me.  Last night I went to the beach with Gillian, Julie, and some other church friends.  I was hungry, so I went to get a pizza from the bar right on the beach.  As I was standing there, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to get a drink too.  I'm on vacation, right?  So I ordered a rum and coke to go with my very large Hawiana pizza.  It was fabulous.  But after a little while I started feeling bad, really bad.  I lay down by our campfire (after paying of course) and hoped I'd get better.  However, after a little while I decided that this wasn't going to happen.  The ride home was rough and I crashed the instant I was in my room.  Around 2 AM I woke up with the desperate need to go to the bathroom.  For the next few hours (about four or five) I was up on the hour and back to the bathroom.  I won't go into the details for those with weak constitutions but lets just say it was bad.  I also had a killer headache and the shakes and at one point we ran out of toilet paper.  Bodegas (little stores where you can buy different things, like toilet paper) are unfortunately not open at 5 AM.  Thankfully, around noon it was all over.  I made it to bible study and up to SALI so I could connect with the outside world.  

Considering the fact that this is the fourth time in the last four months that I've had stomach issues I think I'll be headed to the clinic in the near future.  It's always possible that I have a little critter roaming around in my intestines somewhere... ew.  Keep me in your prayers!

P.S.  One more prayer request:  I have a job interview on Sunday.  It's a phone interview and that makes me a little nervous, so for anyone reading this, pray that God will speak through me, that the Vonage phone will work fine, and that I will stay calm.  Thanks!

Parents, brothers, and Machu Picchu

My parents came to Trujillo last week.  We spent Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in 'The land of eternal spring' and then headed to Lima to meet my brother and fly on to Cusco.  It was an awesome week and, although it made me a bit more homesick than before, it was wonderful getting to hang out with them and show them where I've been living for the past nine or so months.  Here are some pics from our amazing week.

Dad and Me atop the Arevalo church.

Mom and Me atop Arevalo

Mom, Dad, and Me at Big Ben's in Huanchaco. (Correction, thanks to Janelle!)

Mom and me in Huanchaco... I can't remember the name of the boats behind us... ask my Dad if you know him =D

Thomas, a llama, and me in Machu Picchu.

More to come...

Girls Night!

Friday night I had the girls from my bible study come over and spend the night.  We made sushi and watched Hairspray.  This morning we made French toast again, as I had excellent success yesterday with my morning class.  Here are some pictures of the evening festivities... which are again blurry because I'm taking all pictures with my computer camera:

Making sushi with not very sticky sticky rice, salmon, cucumbers, avocado, and cream cheese.

Phoebe making a "sushi salad".  (Like I said, the sticky rice wasn't very sticky).

Mollie, Brueck, and Phoebe's arm.  Mollie had the best sushi of the night.  It actually looked like a sushi roll.

French Toast!

This morning I made french toast with Basic 6 class.  We had planned to make pancakes but after a disaster I had trying to make them last Tuesday I decided french toast instead.  Things went well and everyone loved them.  My students were a little camera shy.

Our table includes, French toast, bananas, and grapes.  No syrup, couldn't find any.

It took a lot of doing to get them together for a group picture.  Meita, the girl right beside me, was the only one who was willing to take any pictures.  She also did a really good job of helping with the French toast.

Brady and Pricilla decided to get in on the French toast action.  The cups they are holding contain the most amazing fresh squeezed orange juice you will every drink, and it only costs a sole.

The almost finished pile of French toast, held up by the beautiful Johanna who works at Starbucks.  Yes, Trujillo has a Starbucks.... Still not sure how I feel about that.

The girls.  Like I said, Meita was the only one who would voluntarily let me take a picture.

Ew

Warning:  For those of you with weak constitutions you may not want to read any further.  You have been warned.

What an exciting weekend.  The week of translating for the medical team ended for me with an excellent dinner at Chelsea's... the excellent dinner at Chelsea's ended with me barfing up that dinner.  What a waste of a good steak!  Anyway, that meant that Friday I couldn't translate for the team and I was bummed.  I tried to go but was then ordered to go home.  I figured that with a few hours of sleep, some soup, and a movie I would be good as new, and I did start to feel better on Saturday.  That's when I made a huge mistake.  

On our street there is a woman who makes papas rellenas (fried stuffed potatoes) and her own aji (the most amazing spice of all time).  I was craving one Saturday night and as I had only eaten soup and popcorn all day I decided that it was time for a papa, a coke, and some chocolate.  Sunday morning around 5 A.M. I woke up with a burning pain from my stomach to my throat.  It took me and hour or so to get back to sleep but even when I woke up a few hours later the burning hadn't gone away.  I missed church and missionary lunch and for a while thought I had a parasite (I'd heard so many complaints to that effect in the past week that I suppose I was just assuming the worst.)  However, Sunday night, one of our friends from church who is a doctor resident (resident doctor?  what do you call that?) started asking me about my symptoms.  After a few minutes he tells me that it's probably not a parasite but gastritis.  Frankly, I would prefer stomach acid shooting up my throat than worms in my intestins.  Ew.  

Just to be sure, I went to the clinic today and had the doctor check me out.  My friend was right.  Blech.  I can't eat anything good for five days, well, except chocolate.  I have to stay away from aji, cebiche, and anything that is even remotely spicy or rico, as the Peruvians would say.  "And no more happiness!  Away with you!"  I come by it honestly though, my dad's had the same problem.  Think it might have something to do with the fact that we both LOVE spicy foods?  Hmmm.  Hopefully, I'll be all better by the time they get here in March.

Peruvian Food Part 2

So I made the palta rellena on Friday, but forgot to take my computer home so I didn't get any pictures.  It was fabulous, though I forgot to cook the carrots and peas... ok, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure I needed to.  It ended up making way more than needed (three avocados makes a ton of food) so next time hopefully it will be better.  I will try and make it again so I can get pictures, but it wasn't very pretty =D

Peruvian Food Part 1

When I went home over break, my mother asked me to make some Peruvian food.  Unfortunately, I could not as I had never tried making any while I was here.  So my "New Years Resolution" (I don't really believe in those, they never work) is to start learning to make Peruvian food.  Now some of these will be difficult as in the state I don't think we have any aji (and amazing spice the Peruvians use for everything) but I will at least be able to make some version of it with the help of Noemi, Pastor Eduardo's wife and my Spanish teacher:

So tonight, I am attempting Palta Rellena (stuffed avocado).  It's the simplest recipe I could think of, which is good as I am starting on my own.  After my attempt I will show you pictures of my creation.

Ingredients:

- 1 papa (potato)

- zanahoria (carrot) 

-arvejas (green beans)

-mayonesa (mayo)

Instructions (pending, after I actually make it I'll let you know what worked)