In the land of Kush...

This is perhaps the most amazing book I have read in quite some time...maybe ever, save the Bible. Not since Anderson Cooper's memoir did I read a book like this from cover to cover in two days, while managing to go to work, pay bills, and attend appointments.

It is the story of the Lost Boys of the Sudan, and one would think from it's title that it's author would indeed believe that God grew tired of them, and for a little bit in his darkest days the thought did cross his mind. But instead of repeated despair as I read this, I was struck again and again by the joy and grace of God, written into page after page of this memoir.

Oh, it is haunting. The story of this peoples' survival is heart-wrenching and painful...the story of rebuilding that has only nearly begun. My prayer map marker is moving to Sudan this week, as I can feel my heartbeat moving and breathing with this people group as I pray for our world.

Again and again I was humbled by the words of truth in this book as I read, by the courage of survival, and the will to live and love. I think the last half of the book struck me on a new level, as education began to arrive in the refugee camps, and these children, who had not had a childhood, began to learn. Their hunger and thirst for knowledge overpowered my senses, and filled my own heart with understanding like none other.This learning caused John Bul Dau to create a foundation to bring a clinic to his home village and write his story to teach us all. I have been given gifts by that same God to educate His children.

To the God who carried these children through horror, to the God who promised to bring new life to Kush (current day Sudan) in the Bible so long ago, to the God who causes one man to write at the end of his memoir of heart-breaking sorrow and survival : God who has blessed me so many times, has outdone Himself....to that God--my life is yours. Send me where you will.

New Updates: Southern Sudan has voted to secede from Northern Sudan. http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/01/sudan-tale-two-countries In light of all these peoples have endured, please be praying for this to come to pass and for safety in the transition.

Prime Time for an update

So, I've gotten some queries about my lack of blogging as of late. Some difficult personal stuff followed by a 6 day long silent migrainey dizziness will do that to a girl. Then, when I finally sit down to it, I can't decide which thing I want to blog about. So, as a result, I will try and make this a culmination of all the things that I've been meaning to write down and haven't quite gotten to yet...

In the last 11 days I have:

1. Gone snowshoeing for the first time! ( I wish I had brought my camera as my Mom and I trudged through the snow to the crystal clear beautiful Swift River at Quabbin last Saturday) Snowshoeing is hard! But SO much fun. I hope to go again very soon.

Imagine a 2 and  3 candles right at the end of the red dots

2. Made a cake for my friend Sarah's 23rd birthday. She is a bit of a math geek (math teacher!) and loves her some prime numbers. This birthday was her golden birthday 1/23/2011 all of which happen to be prime...as a result, she wanted a prime number cake-- what you won't see int he picture is the 23 made with number candles at the end of the red dots. I forgot to take a picture with the numbers on :) 

3. Hosted a dinner for some oldie but goodie friends. I've missed them a lot and it was nice to catch up. We tried taking a nice picture of our time together and Steve didn't want to have his eyes closed...so as a result, you have this:

For dinner, I made some chili in the good old crock pot, and while I've made chili before, I need to confess that I really don't like chili all that much. However, I do like this chili! It's really easy: one can of black beans, and one kidney bean can, a diced up sweet potato, onion, garlic, and chicken spinach sausage cooked up with casings removed. The spices were cinnamon, cocoa powder, cumin and chili powder. I pretty much followed this recipe, with a few changes: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/slow-cooker-vegetarian-chili-with-sweet-potatoes-00000000049528/index.html. I also made it earlier this week except that I didn't have a can on tomatoes on hand, so instead I used a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, a tad bit of red sauce, and water and decided that measuring out ingredients was over-rated :).

With it, I made some cornbread. This Gluten-Free Cornbread is super easy (even if it did have a bit of sugar): 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup brown rice flour, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/8 tsp. xanthum gum, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 beaten egg, 1/4 cup canola oil, and 1 cup almond milk.    Spray the muffin tins with oil and bake at 400 degrees for 17 minutes. Delicious! Crispy on the edges and soft in the middle.

For dessert, I was still rocking the avocado black bean brownies, this time with some FrozenTangy vanilla frozen yogurt, and Stonewall Kitchen's Raspberry Balsamic jam drizzled on top.

My $2.50 steal of flowers to cheer me up in the difficult days!

4. Was truly blessed by the grace of God, and the love of my friends.

Flowers from Jenny to cheer me up in the dizziness :)

                             * Loved * Beloved * Encouraged * Hopeful * Strengthened *

Sweet baby boys

They're here!!! My brother's twins were born on Friday, and they couldn't be more sweet. My sister-in-law and brother were so amazing to watch--they are going to be the kind of parents that love their children with abandon. My sister-in-law taught me all about the 5 S's...shooshing, swaddling, suckling, shaking, and soothing...and then pointed out with love shining in her eyes how my brother was already an amazing Dad. I couldn't agree more.


A friend reminded me last night that we (humans) are the only immortal beings that keep on being born. The angels are all created, God has existed always, and our souls keep on being created. Amazing...

Patrick Anthony



Timothy Raymond



Milling Around



The Book Mill, Montague, MA



I love Saturday adventures! Yesterday I finally was able to spend some time with my friend Sarah who I have been missing a great deal and we headed off to find some "books you don't need in a place you can't find". Actually, the place was easy to find since we've both been there before and you pretty much follow Rt 47 straight there, but...details. The Book Mill in Montague is always a fun place to spend some nice time breathing in the smell of books. The Mill has winding and twisting stairs, hidden chairs all around in it's little rooms, basically a reader's heaven. Even the bathroom is fascinating as it's walls are covered in old posters, postcards, and letters...it's a wonder anyone ever goes in there quickly! If you are teachers like Sarah and I, the children's section holds a special joy. Here are some new treasures for my classroom...

The Mill also has a cafe attached to it called the Lady Killigrew. I was excited to spend some time in it since the views from the cafe overlook the river and we just had some freshly fallen snow. However, there wasn't a seat in the place to be found that wasn't occupied, so we stepped outside to admire the view and headed in the car to find a different off-the-beaten path cafe.



Sarah, outside the very busy Lady Killigrew



We followed Rt 63 into Amherst and stopped at Cushman's Market and Cafe. They have a wonderful little store full of trinkets and fun specialty foods and in the back is a beautifully painted and fun cafe. And....they had gluten-free, vegan chocolate raspberry cupcakes. I mean...good friends, books, gf vegan cupcakes...could a girl ask for more? Sarah was excited too as she found they were still serving pumpkin lattes, her all time favorite. All in all, it was a beautful snowy Saturday, filled with happy thoughts and happy times.



GF Vegan Chocolate Raspberry Cupcake

Sarah's Pumpkin Latte and Yummy Nut Bar

When life gives you bricks...

...make stuffing?

 Last weekend, I tried out my first recipe from Flying Apron's Gluten Free & Vegan Baking Book. I attempted to make Sweet Potato Rosemary Bread. Oh, how domestic I felt as I had the bread baking in the oven and I went about my business cleaning the house. All I needed was the apron...

When it came out, it looked like this:


Sweet Potato Rosemary Brick

When I tried to cut it open, it crumbled into pieces and was pretty dense. But I wasn't going to let those ingredients go to waste. I knew that my cousin Bryana and her Tony were coming later in the week to talk to my friend Kurt about law school. I decided to make my Thursday meal include stuffing and some meat in a crock-pot (since I knew I wouldn't have time to really cook and prepare when I got home from work). Late Wednesday night rolled around and I was so tired as I called my Mom and asked her for the fourth time, "Now, how exactly do I make stuffing again?" What I did was cook up some reconstituted dried shiitake mushrooms, grated carrot, onion, and minced garlic in olive oil. When it was browned, I added some chicken stock on top of it to make it a liquid. That got poured over the broken up 'bread' pieces, and I mixed it good with my clean hands to make sure it all got in there. I added the rest of the box of chicken stock and continued breaking up and mixing. When it was all moist and spongy I put it in the fridge and took it out to bake for an hour on Thursday when I came home.

Around 6:00, I took a look at the stuffing, stuck my fork in and took a little taste. I was horrified. Apparently, very dry bread makes very dry stuffing. But, I took a half cup of water and poured it over the top of the stuffing, hoping it would sink into it like a sponge. It did!! (happy little jig)

I completely forgot to take a picture of the rest of the dinner I had made, but it was apple & barbecue spare-ribs in my new timed crock-pot, with french cut green beans with some grated almonds & garlic. In spite of the bread brick, I was still feeling domestic, so below is a picture of my set table waiting for it's guests.


Sweet Potato Rosemary Stuffing!



Wednesday Whip-Ups



Cambria, showing off her food dish



Wednesday, I got the sweetest visit from one of my best college friends and her little girl. They came over right as I was getting out of work, and I knew that having Cambria in the car as she headed back to Boston wasn't going to mean the best dinner for Becca. So, I wanted to feed her and I in the process. The funny part is, I stuck this chicken in the pan with some honey mustard marinade and some capers and let it cook. I was too preoccupied with friends and adorable babies! The veggies are TJ's grilled eggplant and zucchinni that usually I heat in the pan to siphon the oil off, but this time I just popped into the microwave. After all, sometimes the quality of visits with friends is ever so much more important than gourmet meals.







HM Chicken & Capers w/ "Grilled" Veggies



Beautiful Becca





Monday Night Mayhem

I've been pretty tired this week, but I have also made a lot of things. Monday night was my first adventure in gluten free and sugar free baking. The result was edible--more savory than sweet as desserts go, but what a process!

The first step to making these was to put  coconut oil and unsalted butter into a dish and pop it in the microwave to melt altogether. That part was easy. It was even easy to add the 4 oz of unsweetened baker's chocolate and melt that into it one little piece at a time until it came out smooth.

I knew we were going to have trouble when the food processor was added as a tool. My food processor was a Christmas gift about 3 years ago. To this day, I have never gotten it to work properly. Monday was no exception. I had all of the ingredients into the processor with the blending blade ready to puree some almonds, avocados, black beans, agave nectar, and eggs together, pressed the button and...nothing. Not one sputter, cough, or moan. Just. Nothing.

So I quickly poured half of the ingredients into my blender. Thankfully, I have a nice blender (thanks Gram!) and it is pretty strong. But it sounded sick as it tried to chop up all those almonds to make into a paste. I got it done eventually, but it required adding just a bit at a time, emptying it, clearing out around the blade, toleration of the slight burning machine smell in the air, a few cuss words, apologies to Jesus, a few more cuss words, repeat cycle. God bless my Mom who called in the middle of all this mayhem and was sweet enough to help me through the process!

In the end, the brownies came out very dense and moist. They fill you up fast due to all the proteins I think, but I gave them to my guests on Thursday and no one complained. So either everyone is really polite, or they are actually pretty good. = )

Back to School

Yesterday I went back to school. I am blessed in my job, love teaching a group of children who love to learn and who are so excited about it. I especially enjoy when the lessons that I carefully plan, and make special trips to the library for are well received. It's a gratifying time as an educator. My co-teacher went on maternity leave though, and I miss her terribly, and while her long-term sub ( as in, until this school year ends) is very sweet and kind, adjusting to a new routine that isn't quite as easy and laid back as it used to be is certainly challenging. Also with back to school comes the hunger that comes when work is done. Therefore, I wanted quick and easy, with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. What you see here is a sweet potato, black bean and spinach quesadilla.

I adapted the recipe a bit from this site: http://gluten-dairy-sugarfree.com/?p=1606

Instead of shredding up the sweet potatoes in a food processor (don't even get me started on the those), I peeled a sweet potato, sliced it thin, and put it in a bowl with a little water and popped it in the microwave for 3 minutes. In the meantime, I cooked up some onion and garlic in olive oil, added the sweet potatoes (minus the water) and added the oregano, cumin, chili powder, and salt. I added in the spinach with a bit more olive oil and the warmed beans and cooked them up all together. I used some Food for Life brand brown rice tortillas and warmed the tortilla and spread the mixture on the other side of the tortilla. The result= dinner in less than 20 minutes, a full belly, and lunch for tomorrow!

Bring it On

So, one of the things I know about myself is that I love cheese...I mean actually Love It. As a little girl, my Meme would bring out the fromage and talk on in French about how much of a souris I was. Unfortunately, it's also the food I crave when I am frustrated, happy, sad, overwhelmed, tired, excited...you get the point. So, my challenge to myself for January is to keep away from dairy...in particular, cheese. I am hoping that the break from my comfort food will remind me that comfort is supposed to be found elsewhere. I also want to try and use natural sweet alternatives in place of sugar as I cook and bake because I just really feel like that is a wise health-conscious choice. I hate the cliche that it is January and resolutiony and whatever, but in my defense, I often tend to have good reflective times on school vacations and this one happens to come first!

Tonight's meal: Thai Noodles w/Peanut Sauce & Spinach

It's not the lowest calorie meal what with the rice noodles and the peanut butter (around 450 cal) but it does leave you full and happy.
P.S. I have LOTS left over so if you want to pop over for some tomorrow night, give me a call!

The sauce is a mixture of: 1/3 cup Organic Chunky PB, 1/4 Cup Water, 1 T Rice Vinegar, 1 T Paprika, 1 T Minced Garlic, 1 T Agave Nectar, Sprinkle of Cumin

The Sauce was tossed into the cooked noodles with a chicken breast, fresh spinach, and green onion.

I think if I were going to make it again, I would try to find the flat rice noodles as I prefer them, but these were a $1.25 and I really couldn't argue with that.

Attn: Jesus Girls

I just bought this book ....yes,yes,  I understand the irony of it on my blog that is often about food. But part of starting this blog was so that food would be a tool not something that tooled me...Anyway, I spent the morning in the first few chapters. It's full of truth....and I am begging Jesus that it is life-changing truth. I wanted to share the free online Bible Study discussed here: http://lysaterkeurst.com/category/made-to-crave/ . It starts Monday, January 10th from 8pm-8:45 EST and runs for 6 weeks. I must admit I am nervous to put this here and still be the fat girl at the end of 2011 but then I am thinking back to that post yesterday about trusting Jesus and convicted by myself. So, this is me, throwing it out there...

Happy New Year!

Abbie