Coming backAs I sit here at my laptop, I think ... "How am I going to do this?" Where do I start? What am I going to talk about? HOW am I going to even begin writing about the journey that I have been on?
Countless times have I started typing and set aside a few words, a paragraph or two, or even a whole page. Though, I never did post. I didn't think I was ready. Thoughts, feelings, insights, etc... entries in my email or journal, in personal texts, on scraps of paper, or swimming in my mind. And I am finally deciding to bring it all together. To share my burdens, my joys, my strengths and weaknesses, my insights, ... my life; this blog is no longer just about food. And if there's an ear out there, I am blessed. And perhaps I can bring truth to your world, as God has brought it to mine. Truth. About our purpose here. Truth. About my struggles. Truth. About my joys. Truth. About health. Truth. About our world. There are so many lies we were born or taught into believing and their manifestations are far beyond UgLy. But when we learn the Truth, we can make the changes we need to be better for our Lord and Savior. The changes that perfect us and make us new. I am becoming new. It is no easy journey and I am certainly not through, but I will no longer let the waiting period dictate the postponement of sharing my story. And so let it begin. This is my story... |
"Food is an infinitely rich subject, and there's always something about it to understand better, something new to discover, a fresh source of interest, ideas, and delight." |
For those of you who follow me only through my blog, yes, I am still alive and no, I have not given up on my blog. The past year has been very busy and many things have required much of my time and effort, thus preventing me from getting posts up. Though (and I hate to admit it) it's mostly been a health issue and resulting lack of inspiration and drive. Not too long ago Travis and I had friends over for dinner and I decided to go Hawaiian style on them, and it all stemmed from having ground turkey in the refrigerator. I initially wanted to make a tapas-style dinner, with several sharing plates, but then landed on this idea instead. Here was the spread: turkey meatballs in a sweet, Hawaiian sauce, pineapple coconut rice atop a bed of spinach, garnished with toasted coconut, cilantro & chives mix, and fresh squeezed lime juice, and homemade Hawaiian rolls. Our friends were clued in on the theme for dinner and enhanced the experience by bringing Hawaiian dessert: vanilla ice-cream, pineapple, banana, macadamia nuts, toasted coconut, (we added caramel too!), whipped cream, and a cute toothpick umbrella!! The meal was super fun and super delicious! We had leftovers so I ended up making... Hawaiian pancakes for breakfast! It was your typical pancake batter recipe with a very ripe banana mashed into it and coconut oil added. This really helped infuse the pancake with some good, natural flavors. Kind of like salting your pasta while boiling so it absorbs some of that salt and tastes better than just garnishing salt on top of it.... I decorated the pancakes with toasted coconut and macadamia nuts and encircled the pancake with sliced pineapple. Also very delicious and fun!
The rice dish was prepared by boiling wild rice and brown rice (separately because of different cooking times) in pineapple juice, coconut milk, and water. Toward the end of the cooking time, I added powdered garlic, onion, and ginger, crushed pineapple, and salt and pepper. Serving this dish with cilantro, chives, fresh lime juice, and toasted coconut added great flavor to the dish. The meatballs were made with garlic powder, onion powder, breadcrumbs, milk, and salt and were then baked until thoroughly cooked. The sauce was made with pineapple juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and water. The recipe was found on pinterest, but the website has a bug in it, so I am not going to offer that to you. Apologies!! The Hawaiian rolls were super yummy to eat. They turned out looking like normal rolls, but tasted ohhhh sooo much better. This recipe was also from Pinterest and is called Aloha Bread. The recipe can be found atlovefoodies.com/aloha-bread.html. The dough was made first by activating yeast and adding eggs, pineapple juice, white sugar, vanilla extract, butter, flour, and salt. The vanilla and pineapple juice (in addition to the sugar, of course) made the bread stand out from any other breads I've ever eaten. Super soft and moist and freshly hot out from the oven. Even chilled and almost a week later these rolls were still very delicious. I highly recommend you to try this recipe!! I will admit during the process of making this I had a bit of trial and error as well as some testing. For instance, since I very seldom use yeast, I measured out enough yeast for the recipe twice and added each to their own individual bowl. I then added warm water to both, stirred one, and left the other 'stirred' by the water I had added. You want to stir the yeast delicately, but enough so that it does not have huge clumps, inside of which the water is not reaching; this is what my 'stirred by water' bowl looked like = garbage. My other bowl of lightly stirred yeast was blooming with activated yeast! So, naturally, I used this bowl. So that was my trial and error/success. My one-chance-better-work experiment was adding some wheat and white flour rather than just white flour, because I of my health nuttiness. I think this is what made them a bit more dense and just a tad bit crumbly. My mishap, on the other hand, had to do with the pineapple juice. I had one can of crushed pineapple (for the rice) and a can of pineapple in juice. I used up all of the juice in my rice dish and meatball recipe, but completely forgot to save some for the aloha bread! *DOY* I had no intentions of running out to the store and so improvised (in a sense)! I grabbed the pineapple that was leftover from the can, blitzed it, and strained it to try to extract a half cup of pineapple juice. Fortunately, there was enough run off of pineapple juice, that I was still able to make the bread! If you are ever hosting a dinner (or even if you're not!), place a theme on the meal and go have fun with it! If ingredients are expensive, look for a local international store where their items are cheaper than the typical grocery store. I've done that before and have made out pretty well. Go! Have an adventure :).
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February 2017
"Food is an infinitely rich subject, and there's always something about it to understand better, something new to discover, a fresh source of interest, ideas, and delight."
From Pennsylvania to France to Washington DC to Florida, I've had myself many an adventure. Now it's time to indulge in the life of a Floridian. With great food, great friends, and great experiences, I offer you stories and pictures to take you away, into my world at Disney. Categories |