Thankful for Small Blessings

Okay, this is going to be a strange little post about something that happened to me last week. I was going to post it last Friday since it is somewhat food related, but I was traveling and just didn’t have time.

On Wednesday of last week I left work early to go home and change so I could get to Shepherd’s Door in time for my church’s service project there. We were going to be making my Texas Skillet Dinner for 40 women and children, and I was in charge of bringing the avocados and the spices. My list of things to do before I hit the road for Shepherd’s Door was pretty short: change clothes, mix spices in a zip lock bag, and stop at Safeway for a latte and avocados.

Somehow, in spite of the brevity of my to-do list, I managed to forget the spices. I realized it about halfway to the shelter. It was too late to turn back to home and still be on time, but you really can’t make Texas Skillet without the southwest spices.

I decided to stop somewhere on N.E. Halsey Street, towards the end of my trip, to pick up the essentials, even though I had no idea what stores I would pass. I found a Fred Meyer, parked my car, and went in. I headed straight to the spice aisle. There I found the chili powder, marjoram, and oregano that I needed, but no chipotle pepper.

Then, to my delight, I spied a spice I love and have been unable to find at any of the stores near me in months: Spice Islands Rosemary Garlic that comes in a grinder bottle. I love this spice mix on so many things, especially chicken on the Traeger. I had tried just putting rosemary in an empty grinder bottle but it wasn’t the same. I was so excited I bought three bottles right then and there.

So you might be asking: “What is the point of this story? What lesson did I learn?” Well, here is what I took away from this experience.

Sometimes, when we take the time to care about others, such as by wanting them to have the right spices in the dinner we are making them, God chooses to bless us in ways we never thought of.

When I realized that I had forgotten the spices, I could have simply decided to use whatever they had available for spices at Shepherd’s Door, which may not have included chili powder (the most essential spice for this dish). Instead, I went out of my way in an unfamiliar neighborhood to get the right spices. It never occurred to me that I might find this other spice that I’ve been searching for these past 6 months. But God chose to bless me by bringing me right to it.

I suppose I could just attribute this to coincidence, and many people do attribute such blessings to coincidence. I choose to thank God for this small but wonderful blessing.

Overcoming Gluttony

I wrote last week about a book my sister-in-law Pam gave me called Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC by Frederick Buechner. It’s a little dictionary of sorts in which Buechner looks at various words from a Christian perspective. As I’ve been reading through I’ve noted some of the definitions that interested me or made me think with an eye towards eventually writing a blog post on one or more of them.

Buechner defines Gluttony as follows: “A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.” Wishful Thinking, pg. 35.

I think this is a very apt definition. I know that for years I have eaten, especially unhealthy foods like chips and candy, when I am bored, stressed, or angry. In each of these instances, I had a spiritual problem that I was trying to fix with food. Or I was just trying to ignore the spiritual problem and hoped that eating would make me feel better. It seldom did.

Even though I was often aware of what I was doing, my efforts to stop this behavior were generally unsuccessful. I knew that what I really needed to do when boredom, stress, or anger plagued me was to stop and talk to God about it, and to seek His help for my spiritual struggle.

But I think eating unhealthy food often can cloud one’s judgment, leading to more of the same.

But recently I discovered, thanks to my doctor, that I am allergic to dairy and quite sensitive to wheat products. I have had to give up both and the positive effects on my physical health have been awesome. Now that I feel better in general, it is easier to think more clearly when boredom or stress elicit a desire to eat junk food when I am not hungry. It has changed my outlook on food in general. My mind is clearer and it is easier to remember where the source of my strength to overcome boredom and stress lies, and that is with my Savior.

Just today I had placed in front of me a number of sweet treats that in the past I would have eaten out of boredom and habit. But I was able to resist them all, thanks to the self-control of the Holy Spirit.

I confess that when I am upset or angry I can still be found eating right out of a family sized bag of potato chips, but I have at least dealt with the boredom and stress issue. I am, after all, still a work in process and I am “confident of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 (NIV).

Jorge’s Party Salsa for Recipe Friday

Last weekend we were camping with a bunch of family, some of whom just came out for the day and others who stayed the night at the campground.

On Saturday night I was on for making my Texas Skillet Dinner for everyone and we bought enough ingredients for a triple batch. That’s a lot of skillet dinner!

So when Jorge and Carrie showed up with a huge bowl of salsa in the early afternoon I was worried no one would be hungry for dinner. I was reminded by my sister-in-law that they weren’t eating because they were hungry but because there was food. She was right. Even though all the salsa was eaten, my triple batch of skillet dinner was also pretty much gone by the end of dinner.

The best part is that I got the salsa recipe from Jorge along with his permission to post it here for you all. This was some of the most delicious chunky salsa I’ve ever eaten. So here it is (with the name I came up with).

Jorge’s Party Salsa

Ingredients:

8 large avocados
10 medium tomatoes
1 red onion
1 sweet pepper (optional)
1 bunch of fresh cilantro
5 jalapeño peppers, seeded
4 limes
Salt and cumin to taste

Directions:

Finely chop onion, sweet pepper, cilantro, and jalapeño peppers. Place in a 6 quart bowl. Squeeze juice from limes into the bowl. Chop tomatoes. Add chopped tomatoes without all the juice to the other ingredients. Chop avocados and add to other ingredients. Sprinkle salt and cumin to taste. Stir all ingredients lightly to combine. Serve with corn chips.

Tip for avocados: To cut avocados into chunks, slice all the way around to divide avocado in half and pull apart. Insert the tip of the knife in the center of the pit and pull it out. Score each avocado half down to the skin in both directions, then run knife between the edge of the skin and the flesh to remove the chunks. By cutting them this way you avoid getting avocado mush all over the cutting board.

Pondering Charity

A couple of weeks ago I received this quote in my daily Quotemeal email from Heartlight.org:

If our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our charitable expenditure excludes them. — C. S. Lewis

This quote has been in the back of my mind ever since as I’ve pondered my own level of charitable giving. There are things I would like to have – such as a nicer car – but do not have in part because of my charitable expenditures. And yet I know that I still live much more comfortably than a large percentage of the population of this world. I know people who live on a much tighter budget than I do, and I wonder sometimes if I’m doing enough for the kingdom of God.

In a couple of weeks I will be part of a group of volunteers from my church to go to a local women’s shelter called Shepherd’s Door to cook and serve dinner for the 40 women and children who live there. If it were not for Shepherd’s Door, these women and their kids would be living on the streets with next to nothing. Many have left abusive relationships and have little hope. I am excited about the opportunity to be a blessing to these women, and still the time and money I will expend on their behalf scarcely seems enough.

C.S. Lewis says our charitable giving should “pinch or hamper us.” It is easy to give out of our excess, but a much harder thing to give up the things we’ve come to believe we need.

There is a bright line between what we want and what we need, but we tend to allow that line to be blurred in our own minds. We cling to what we want as if it were a need, forgetting others who truly do lack what they need simply to survive.

The list of needs is short: food, water, clothing, shelter, and God.

We do not need rib eye steaks, bottled and vitamin-enhanced sparkling water, designer clothes and jewelry, a 3,000 square foot homes, and big fancy churches to attend. Those things all fall in the “want” category.

We categorize so many things as needs, such as cell phones (preferably an iPhone or other Smartphone), new cars, cable television, air conditioning in our homes, a built-in dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, and a home computer or laptop (like the one I’m typing this on). None of these are truly necessities; they are luxuries that much of the world population – even in the U.S. – does not enjoy.

Perhaps Lewis is exactly right – our charitable expenditures ought to pinch and hamper us just a bit more than they do.

Three Beans Baked for Recipe Friday

Last Sunday we had an awesome picnic at church, which was coupled with an opportunity to sign up for a group service project at one of our local homeless and food shelters. Since it’s a Lutheran church it was, of course, a potluck picnic. I know when going to a potluck that I should plan on being able to try a bunch of different things brought by everyone else, but I’m not very good at that kind of surprise. I like to bring something to a potluck that I know will be sufficient for my dinner even if I don’t find anything else there that I like. (That never really happens, mind you, but I’m always afraid it will.)

For this particular potluck I decided to bring baked beans, but I didn’t want them to be just ordinary baked beans. This is the recipe I came up with, and based on how quickly they disappeared they were a definite hit and I’ll be making them again.

Three Beans Baked

Ingredients:

1 28 oz can Bush’s Honey Baked Beans
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can pinto beans
3 slices pre-cooked bacon
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup ketchup
1-2 tsps Aardvark Habanero hot sauce

Directions:

Pour Bush’s baked beans into a 9 inch square baking dish. Rinse black beans and pinto beans, and add to baked beans, stirring to combine. Cut bacon into small pieces and add to beans. Add brown sugar, ketchup, and hot sauce. Stir to combine.

Bake uncovered for 40 minutes at 350° oven. Serve hot.

To transport to a picnic, cover with aluminum foil (heavy-duty or double thickness). Wrap in a dish towel and place in a cloth carrying bag.

Note about bacon: We buy Hormel pre-cooked bacon from Costco, the kind you can microwave. This is what I used and it works better than uncooked bacon because you don’t have to worry about it being done enough in the beans. You could also pre-cook regular bacon yourself.

Note about hot sauce: Aardvark is a local Portland company, but the link above will take you to a web site where you can buy it online. We actually just got a bottle of this hot sauce given to us by the grocery clerk at our local Whole Foods as a sample. I suppose any Habanero or other hot sauce would work just as well (but don’t tell the Aardvark I said that).

Grilled Corn on the Cob for Recipe Friday

It’s finally corn on the cob season. It’s early in the season, but there is corn on the cob available nonetheless. I bought some at the vegetable stand that I pass on the way home from church.

For several years I’ve talked about grilling corn on the cob on my Traeger, but we have always ended up deciding just to boil it instead. “We know it’s good boiled,” we’d always say. But this week I decided it was time to finally try grilling it. It turned out pretty good, and I bet it will be even better later in the year when the corn is sweeter.

I forgot to take pictures, but wanted to share the recipe anyway.

Grilled Corn on the Cob

Ingredients:

Corn on the cob
Olive oil or melted butter
Salt

Directions:

Peel husks of the corn down, leaving it attached at the bottom of the cob. Remove all the corn silk and rinse the ears. Rub each ear of corn with olive oil or melted butter, and sprinkle with salt. Pull the husks back up over the corn cobs. Wrap the cobs in heavy aluminum foil, adding ¼ to ½ cup of water to the packet. Place packet on the Traeger (or other grill) at 350° and cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from grill, open packet, and carefully remove husks from hot corn cobs. I actually used kitchen scissors to cut the husks away.

Serve with additional butter, if desired. Enjoy with your other favorite grilled items.

Taco Burgers for Recipe Friday

The other night I was planning to make tacos for dinner, but it was such a beautiful night and was hot in the kitchen so I didn’t want to cook in the kitchen. Yet I had a hankering for tacos. On my way driving home I had this idea for Taco Burgers. This recipe allowed me to use up the hamburger buns I already had and also satisfy my taco craving. So I stopped at the store for an avocado, cheese, and some fresh hamburger (because you can’t make hamburger patties with previously frozen burger – they will fall apart).

Of course, now I still have the taco shells that I bought over the weekend in the cupboard so we’ll have to have tacos soon, but these Taco Burgers were so good we will definitely be having them again.

We made these on the Traeger, but you could make them on any barbecue grill. Each of us assembled our burgers a bit differently, so I’ve included several pictures below. Not one of us complained – because these were delicious!

Taco Burgers
Ingredients:

1 ½ lbs ground beef
1 pouch Frontera Skillet Sauce
2 large sweet peppers
1 medium sweet onion
chipotle pepper seasoning
olive oil
1 avocado
Pace Picante salsa
cheese slices (pepper jack or provolone)
hamburger buns

Directions:

Pre-heat Traeger (or other grill) to 350°. Slice sweet peppers into thin strips. Slice onion into thin strips. Spray a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum with non-stick spray. Place pepper and onion slices in the middle of the aluminum, sprinkle with chipotle pepper seasoning, and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil. Close up aluminum packet and place on the grill.

Mix together ground beef and Frontera Taco Skillet Sauce. Divide meat into desired number of patties (I made 5) and press into hamburger shape.

Place on the grill and cook for 10 minutes. Flip burgers and cook for 10 minutes more or until desired doneness.

Slice avocado. Assemble burgers as either closed sandwiches or open-faced.

My son doesn’t like peppers, onions, and avocados, so he assembled his as closed sandwiches (yes, he had 2) with the burger, pepper jack cheese on one and provolone on the other, Miracle Whip, ketchup, and barbecue sauce.

My husband assembled one closed sandwich and one open-faced with the burger, pepper jack cheese on one and provolone on the other, Miracle Whip, avocado slices, cooked peppers and onions, and salsa.

I assembled mine open-faced with the burger, avocado, cooked peppers and onions, and salsa — no cheese, of course, but it didn’t need it.

Red Beans and Rice for Recipe Friday

Driving home from work the other night I was thinking about what I was going to make it to dinner. I knew we were going to have leftover chicken drumsticks and pork chops that we’d made on the Traeger earlier in the week. But what to have with it?

Then an idea came to me: red beans and rice. I know you can buy rice mixes for red beans and rice, but I have discovered that rice mixes tend to have milk in them and the red beans tend to be dried and not very many of them.

So this is the recipe I came up with when I got home. It turned out pretty good and was a nice complement to the leftovers.

Red Beans and Rice

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups long grain white rice
1 tsp olive oil
2 ½ cups water
¼ cup chopped onion
1 can kidney beans
1 tsp dried chipotle pepper
1 tsp chili powder
¼ tsp garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Rinse and drain beans. Put all ingredients in a 2 quart saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring once or twice. Taste test to see if it needs more salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Cedar Plank Fish for Recipe Friday

For several years I’ve wanted to make fish on my Traeger, but my first attempt to cook the fish in aluminum foil like I do vegetables didn’t work out very well. It turned out mushy and the flavor was not that great.

But a couple of weeks ago we found a new product at Costco – cedar planks for grilling. They are about $1 per plank with 6 in a pack. Each plank is a single use item, but for the price they seem worth it.

The weekend before last when I went grocery shopping the fish counter looked really good and fresh, so I decided to try out the cedar planks. As first I was just going to get some cod, but then I noticed that some of the shellfish was buy-one-get-one so I got some shrimp and scallops, too.

It all turned out so delicious that I thought I would share.

Cedar Plank Fish
Ingredients:
1 – 1 ½ lbs cod filets
¼ lb peeled, deveined shrimp
¼ lb scallops
2 strips bacon
Olive oil
Lemon herb seasoning
Salt

  

Directions:
Brush cod filets with olive oil and sprinkle with lemon herb seasoning and salt. Place on cedar plank. Skewer shrimp, 5 – 6 per skewer. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with lemon herb seasoning and salt. Place on cedar plank with cod. For the scallops, place scallops in the center of a piece of aluminum foil. Cut bacon into small pieces and add to foil. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with lemon herb seasoning and salt. Close up foil packet, leaving a small vent in the top.

Preheat Traeger to 350°. Place cedar planks on grill and cook for 15 – 20 minutes. Add scallop packet to the grill after the first 5 – 10 minutes depending on the size of the scallops. (The ones I got were very small, and only needed less than 10 minutes of cooking time).

Remove planks and aluminum packet from the Traeger. Be careful not to let the juice to run off plank. Serve with lemon and tartar sauce.

We also had Grilled Asparagus with this. It was so yummy!

Black Bean Soup for Recipe Friday

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to try something new, and looking at what I had on hand I came up with this recipe. I decided to use black beans because they are my son’s favorite type of beans. My husband said he thought this soup might be better than chili, and my son said he liked it better than “the other bean soup,” by which he meant white bean soup with ham. I have to agree that it did turn out pretty good for a recipe I made up as I went along.

What really made the consistency of this soup turn out how I wanted it to was that I used my new Pampered Chef food chopper. It was also what allowed me to use some dried peppers I’ve had in the fridge for a while and didn’t know how to chop.

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1 ½ lbs beef stew meat
1 sweet onion
½ oz dried Pasilla chili pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp beef bouillon or 1 can beef broth
1 sweet red pepper
2 small carrots
1 can diced tomatoes
3 cans black beans
1 can corn
1 tsp Spice Island’s chipotle pepper seasoning
½ tsp cumin
6-7 drops Tabasco sauce
2-3 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut beef stew meat into very small pieces (¼ inch size). Dice onion and Pasilla pepper into very small pieces using food chopper. Heat olive oil in a 4 quart pot. Add beef, onion, and pepper, and sauté until beef is browned. Add beef bouillon and 1 cup water, or beef broth, and let meat simmer on medium heat. Dice red pepper and two peeled carrots. Add to pan. Add one can diced tomatoes. Add chipotle pepper, cumin, and salt and pepper. Cover and simmer on low heat for 20 to 25 minutes.

Rinse black beans and add to the pot. Add corn and enough water to reach desired consistency. Add Tabasco sauce. Cover and simmer for another 15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. You can also add a bit more chipotle pepper at this point if you want spicier soup. Serve with corn chips, Fritos, or crackers.