Oh How I Love Pumpkins

Yes, Halloween and Thanksgiving are over, but the pumpkin is still here!  As I eye the sweet little row of sugar pumpkins on the windowsill in the kitchen, I rejoice!  3-4 months of amazing pumpkin treats are still in our future.

I'm turning 29 next month, and winter squash are brand new to me this year!  I had no idea they're so versatile and so goooood.  Clay and I originally stocked up on sugar pumpkins, acorn squash and delicata (peanut) squash before our CSA at Garden Treasures ended.  Our hope was that by stockpiling squash, we'd reduce the amount of imported vegetables we'd consume this winter...and we'd get to enjoy fresh veggies in the winter months!  (Because winter squash keep for several months as long as they're kept cool, dry, and intact.)  We were foraying into uncharted territory, having never really eaten a winter squash before, apart from a few spaghetti squash here and there and one attempt at butternut squash soup last year.  We have been amazingly surprised by how much we love squash, no matter which way we prepare it or which variety we try.

Yesterday morning was my first attempt at bringing squash to the breakfast table.  I was in the mood for pancakes, and our abundance of squash led me to mmm...pumpkin pancakes.  So I worked up this little recipe, using 3/4 c. steamed pumpkin with the water squeezed out.  Served it with maple syrup, cinnamon whipped cream, and enjoyed the last few days of fall!  (Note: when making this recipe again, I'll ditch the chocolate...really good, but overpowers the pumpkin.)

Also, if you're in the mood for a challenge this Christmas, find yourself a sugar (pie) pumpkin, and whip up a pumpkin pie from scratch.  Here's the recipe I used to make this beauty for Thanksgiving.

Inviting more winter squash into my life has been a great addition to the fall menu...a cheap and easy way to keep fresh veggies on the table when it's cold outside, and a fun challenge for nightly creativity.  Fear not!  You are not doomed to months of canned tomatoes and green beans: put some squash on the table tonight.

Happy December!

Daily Bread

As it turns out, I'm becoming passionate about food.

Sometimes I forget.

I forget mostly when there's no time to plan meals or cook. When we're running weekend after weekend and there is no available time in which to contemplate soaking beans overnight or throwing some ingredients in the bread maker.

Thanksgiving has reminded me that I have a passion I have forgotten about during a hectic last few months. In preparation for Thursday, when I will make some cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie, I have been scouring my archives and the internet in search of recipes that embody the things that I value: natural ingredients, whole foods, locally grown ingredients. So my pumpkin pie will use an actual pumpkin that was grown a mile from my house. The flour to bake the bread to make the stuffing was ground just 45 miles away in Bellingham. There will be no sign of Crisco or canned, pre-packaged anything in the ingredients for these dishes.

It's not ever an easy choice to buy natural and buy local when there's a sea of cheaper, artificial foods from all over the globe staring at us in the grocery aisles. It's not easier to bake a pumpkin pie from scratch or bake the bread that will later be transformed into stuffing. There's nothing easy or quick about it. It's slow food. And now, two hours after returning home from our Thanksgiving shopping trip, I sit at the computer exhausted, but satisfied, that creations have been made in my kitchen tonight. I meditate on how Jesus asks us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," as tomorrow's bread bakes in the oven. I know I am reliant on the Lord for the flour, water, yeast and oil he provided to make my daily bread.

My creation continually connects me to my Creator. I think that's part of why I'm so passionate about whole foods. You can't look at a pumpkin without knowing it came from the ground, and without further thinking, as you wipe away the dirt, that a divine creator must have gifted you this very pumpkin. He must have set the circumstances in place for it to grow. He must have specially designed the taste to be appealing to us, and furthermore, he must have designed this appealing-tasting food to be nourishing to us. And then I think, "Man, our Creator must really love us to create fuel for us that's incredible to taste. Our Creator must really love us if he wants us to experience pleasure when we're refueling."

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for something very simple...something that God was probably thanked for at the very first Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for the gift of food. I'm thankful that God loves us so much that our food isn't brown and bland...it's orange and round with a little bow on top...it's small and red and bounces when you drop it on the counter. Sometimes we forget that the very food we eat is an amazing, incredible gift.

Reflections from a newly birthed locavore.

For the first time in many months, I was actually inspired to write a blog.  It's unfortunate that I just now seized the opportunity, because I've missed an entire summer that I could have shared with you the amazing benefits of belonging to a CSA and the joys of discovering mashed kohlrabi, stuffed zucchini, baked oatmeal, and plenty of other good things you can create if you have Simply in Season and read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The journey of food this summer has been a return to something more ethereal than I'd really experienced since I spent 12-15 hours a week practicing ballet.  It connected me to the Creator, and it allowed me to experience how connected we are to the earth.  Every Thursday, as I'd rinse the fresh soil off our zucchini, or carefully pluck the basil leaves from the stems, I reflected on how the Creator loves us so much he wanted us to enjoy the very things we put in our bodies to give us nutrients.  I reflected on how much easier it is to be separated from the Creator when we're so far removed from the food he gave to us...when we subsist on frozen pizza, Doritos and cola, we think that capitalism and retail are the providers rather than the Provider. 

My husband has been an eager partner on this journey, delighting in his discovery of the doughnut peaches (which cannot be consumed without a gutteral moan escaping one's chest from the sheer pleasure of eating such a succulent piece of fruit).  This evening, much to my surprise, he even jumped at the chance to make ceviche from scratch, so while I picked up a few pounds of fresh red snapper on sale, he picked up 1/4 lb. of fresh shrimp meat.  When we arrived home, making due with what we had on hand,  he added the shrimp to some salsa (which he strained and rinsed because I wanted to save this week's amazing heirloom tomato for some caprese salad or ratatouille later in the week), added lime juice, salt, and his favorite: a tiny zucchini and fresh organic chili peppers from this week's CSA share.  As he inhaled the ceviche, along with our red snapper tacos (accented by a zucchini/scallion slaw he made as well as shredded radishes), he said, "Wife, I'm so glad we got this veggie and fruit share.  Thanks."  I said, "You're welcome.  I feel like we love food more than we did before."  

Right now, in our tiny apartment, we think about what we could grow in a garden of our own, and we speculate about how we would keep our neighborly raccoons and feral cats away.  (Clay's solution to this problem is singular: air-soft gun.  I always squeal in horror and say, "No...animal control.")  But for now we're too lazy to kill the coons and/or call animal control, which is fine, because September isn't the best month for launching a vegetable garden anyways.  

But as a I look with dread to Thanksgiving, in which we celebrate the harvest but say goodbye to our CSA for 6 months, I pine for a cupboard full of jars of my own tomatoes, a freezer full of zucchini, and an arbor of braided garlic adorning the entrance to the kitchen.  I fortunately have a few jars of peaches and apricots, along with some jams and chutneys, all of which I canned myself.  I also have a few bags of beans in the freezer, as well as the blueberries that made me fall in love with fruit and blackberries we picked in our backyard.  I will mostly likely ration and savor each serving over a long winter and spring as a reminder of the summer when food stopped tasting as it always had and began tasting like something much better.

Sometimes I reflect on how we've been eating and look around to my friends and worry we're a part of some Gen-Y, Seattle liberal, neo-hippie fad.  Other times I see the cover story on last week's Time and think we're on the verge of an urban-to-rural migration, back to the farm, back to the garden, where people in mass reject 2 generations of processed food that was marketed to our parents and grandparents by the food companies who'd refitted their factories for WWII and needed to find a way to market it to a post-war America.  (I heard this great interview with this historian talking about this, and now I can't find it, so I promise to cite it as soon as I can.)

Regardless of the neo-hippieness of our personal agrarian journey, I'm loving life more as a result of being introduced to the world of farm-fresh fruits and veggies.  If you find yourself loving food and willing to experiment, I promise a wonderful world awaits...and yes, it's a world full of dinners that can be ready in 30 minutes or less.  Bon appetit.

Take that, Betty Crocker!

Last night Clay and I had some friends over to celebrate friend Jessica's birthday. Woohoo! But by nature of the guest list, the menu faced some unique challenges. With only 4 guests, plus Clay and I, the meal needed to be dairy-free, meat-free, and gluten-free. Um...what does that leave?? Not a whole lot.

But--I love a good challenge in the kitchen and easily settled on my favorite curry dish, including garlic, onion, shallots, peanut butter, coconut milk, ginger, and cilantro. (Thanks JP!) And--in place of chicken, a gluten-free tofu. The meal also required one substitution: for soy sauce, a wheat-free tamari.

Heidi provided a vegan asian salad (complete with vegan mayonnaise...ooh la la!)

For dessert, we enjoyed an almost-vegan, 100% gluten-free Cashew Creme Pear Tart. (I used butter instead of margarine...as Sarah reminded us, margarine is not that far-removed from plastic...only one molecule separates them...and I could not bring myself to make something from margarine.)

So...while it may not seem like a vegan gluten-free dinner is the easiest of all possible challenges, we all emerged victorious! Kudos to us! And kudos to Jessica for giving us a reason to get together and celebrate!

Meals I Have Loved, Episode #1

You may not know this: I love to cook! Woohoo! I love experimenting with new recipes. I love spending an hour or two every few weeks to create a meal plan for the next few weeks and go grocery shopping for new and interesting ingredients. I love altering recipes to be more healthy. And I love trying new cheesecakes.

So. On backroads-midwest-coast, I want to attempt to share new and interesting cooking ideas from time to time, or at least, share the photographs of beautiful meals I have loved. Here are a few.


This is Clay and I's Easter meal from last April: A pork tenderloin with sauerkraut and apples, roasted asparagus (in balsamic vinegar and oil), light au gratin potatoes (no heavy whipping cream!) and a ginger pear cheesecake. Woo-wee! And--the common book of prayer for an Easter devotional. Since it's been 6 months, I have no recollection of the source for any of these recipes, other than, you should know that skinny au gratin potatoes are good! So, no need to bend to heavy whipping cream! Also, I learned that it's good to share holiday meals with other people you love because it's way too much effort to go to for two people!


Since meeting my husband, he too has begun some experimentation in the kitchen. This is mostly because I've asked him to help out from time to time in order to give me a night off. He's been willing to learn because he loves me. He started out modestly, steaming broccoli or heating up prepared soups. Eventually he stretched out into soup recipes. I've sought to help him see that good cooking is not beyond reach--it just takes some creativity and the ability to follow instructions--so lately, I've pulled out a few recipes I thought he could do well with. A few nights ago, I was working hard at my studies and we were limited on groceries. He decided to make some ravioli, and I found a spinach and pepper ravioli recipe that would work. Since we were out of bell pepper, we substituted roasted red pepper. He browned some butter and tossed it with a mushroom asiago ravioli, frozen spinach, and chopped roasted red pepper. The results were amazing! I said, "This is the best thing you've ever made me!" His response was, "This is the best thing I've ever made!"

So to all you out there who are wary of the kitchen, gourmet meals are not beyond your grasp! It just takes a bit of planning in your purchases and a willingness to experiment! If that sounds too overwhelming, maybe, just read my blog and I'll try to pass along some helpful suggestions from time to time.

Reentry & Reflections on Creativity

I may be ready to reenter the blogosphere. There were some obvious things that distracted me from blogging in 2008 (most notably, planning a wedding). And lots of dynamics and things that go on throughout planning a wedding aren't really things I felt motivated to share with the world...it's an incredibly emotional time!

Most notably, wedding planning absorbed every spare ounce of creative energy I had, which was good in the sense that the wedding was beautiful, and bad in the sense that I had no creative energy left for anything else (including blogging).

Since arriving home from our Honeymoon, I've noticed the feeling returning to my creative fingers and toes--and there's energy to try new recipes, to plan weekend excursions, and to write. Clay and I had already noticed how crippling it can be for us to not have an outlet for our creative energies, and I've now noticed how crippling it can be to have some huge thing running your life so that you're prevented from day-to-day creativity.

No more! Tonight, we will enjoy spicy thai green beans and tofu, a vegan meal in honor of Heidi! And today, I'm writing a blog! This afternoon I may even write my ministry newsletter and start planning for the next issue of our ministry-wide newsletter, Reflections.

So, hello, you. I'm excited to be back.

Always Look On the Bright Side

So I've definitely been a little down lately.

One reason? This the first summer since I've lived in Washington that I haven't done extensive whitewater rafting. Specifically, I have done any extended trips... These trips have been one of my favorite things about being in Washington, and I haven't really done any this season. (Read about the Owyhee here: 2004, 2005, 2006. Read about the Deschutes here: 2006.)

I guess these trips have always taken up a good amount of space in my summer, but in having my roommate and Clay out-of-touch so often the last month, the space has become very noticeable.

Renee challenged me the other day to soak up summer. Without the river trips, I'm confused as to how to go about really soaking up the summer.

So...here's some attempts I'm making:

1. A one-day conference at Regent College in Vancouver, BC: The Truth of Beauty & The Beauty of Truth, featuring Luci Shaw.
   
   
2. Finishing my application to Gonzaga University's Masters of Communications and Leadership Studies.
   
   
3. Checking off creation of the 50 Best Cheesecakes in the World.
   
   
4. Giving a plug to Blood:Water Mission.
   
   
5. Creating a countdown clock to estimate the number of days left until Clay lives in Washington:
   
   
6. Planning a self-driving trip to Ireland for Summer 2008.
   

Existential Week!

It's existential week here in hmb-land. This morning I woke up in bed, panicked because I'm subsisting on the American status quo. I have a down comforter, a nice house to live in, an array of strip malls within driving distance, a fossil fuel-mobile, and 50-60 more years of life to figure out how to fill.

Life is this really unique blend of good and stressful right now. Clay is moving to Washington in about 61 days (he'll arrive approximately September 8th, job and residence are pending). I'm applying to an online graduate program. I'm editing an essay I wrote for an anthology about girls growing up in the church. I made a cheesecake.

But as Clay and I look at our lives together in Washington over the next few years, I'm tormented with complete Wanderlust...wanting to get out and go and have excitement and adventure. It's odd when the place of adventure (Washington) becomes the normal...and for this moment, at 12:17pm on Monday morning, I just want to get out and be on a beach in Fiji or snorkeling in Australia or on a peak in the Himalayas...and I want to know more about what I'm passionate about. I want to know how to fill my weekends in a way that doesn't involve hitting play on the DVD player so much.

This weekend I made a cheesecake...and some seafood linguine...and a chicken dijon panini...maybe I'll explore my love for cooking this week--create some dishes that would appeal to the well-traveled...and maybe my existential crisis will subsist for the time being.