Overthinking Out Loud

This is another non-recipe recipe. Core and quarter 2 apples. Place in microwave-proof baking dish. Nuke on high for 3 minutes. Cool slightly.

This is really a non-recipe recipe. I took a bunch of vegetables, washed them really well, chopped them into 1-inch chunks and put them in a big bowl. Then I whisked 1/3 cup of olive oil with 1 teaspoon of salt and some ground pepper and tossed it in with the vegetables. I spread them out into 2 9x13 casserole dishes, covered them with foil, and baked at 400 F for 40-50 minutes. Then, I took off the foil and let them brown for 10 minutes. I turned out really yummy. I used: 1 large tomato (or 5 cherry tomatoes cut in half) 2 sweet potatoes 2 large white potatoes 3 carrots, peeled 2 large zucchini 2 portobello mushrooms 1 HUGE red bell pepper I think the only 2 items that were indispensable were the tomatoes and the red bell pepper. They really gave the other veggies a good flavor. This isn't as much work as it sounds, since you're not peeling (except for carrots) and the chunks are big. It's a quick put-together and one person can get 3-4 FULL meals from it if they aren'...

May 11 is a big day this year. If you're following what's going on in Lakeland , you know it's a big day. If you're a participant in a church that follows the liturgical church calendar, you know it's Pentecost Sunday . If you're a Mommy Blogger , then you already KNOW it's REALLY BIG . (PSST -- you, clueless Dad there: It's Mother's Day). It's also the single biggest day of the year for the US restaurant industry. It's also the Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization , with a special focus this year on South America. Since Mother's Day, restaurants, and fasting don't go so well together (if only they would just consult ME before they go planning these things!), I have decided to invite you all to join me in a week-long fast (type of your choosing) PRIOR to the Big Day. So, while you're praying for an outpouring of God's glory on our nation, or your moving, contempletive worship service, or your Mom, or My Mom (wh...

Somewhere along the way I lost my blog audience. Southern Baptists in the US who pray for missionaries and fellow missionaries around the world have gone elsewhere. In the meantime, my readership has tripled. Why? Because this Daniel fasting is hot stuff. People from all over the western hemisphere are starting their new year with a Daniel fast and need recipes now! Individuals, churches, TV preachers, everyone seems to be into fasting right now. This spiritual discipline that was lost for many years is now being found by the church today. Kool. I did have a few scattered thoughts from all I've heard and read and experienced lately. I heard a TV preacher yesterday give a very elegant (simple and usable) definition of the Daniel Fast: "No meat, No sweets, No grains." I liked it for it's ease of use. I heard of another public figure who fasts one day of each week, one week of each month, and one month of each year. Interesting, especially if you can look at it in a ...

Well, I'm into the last week of my " Daniel Diet ". Sunday, all bets are off. I already have the ingredients set to make that celebratory Chocolate Mousse. You're probably wondering how Thanksgiving went. I don't know exactly how to evaluate or explain, but I'll do my best. It was harder to do this while we were traveling than I thought. We drove about 9 hours to Florianopolis, an island city where all the IMB missionaries from the south of Brazil spend Thanksgiving weekend. Getting there was easy, we made one stop at a truckstop with a buffet with lots of veggies. The Thanksgiving meal was easy (I don't care for turkey and there was nothing chocolate, which helped tremendously). I tried doing what I had suggested doing in my original WWDE post, which is praying as I decide what to eat and not eat and choose accordingly. That worked AMAZINGLY well, as long as I did it. I did this for a couple of days. Then, I started to look for "patterns" and ma...

Or, When a "Foody" Fasts I've been on a fast lately. Jeff went to the states on November 2 for 2 weeks and I couldn't help noticing that that was exactly 40 days from when I leave for the states on December 12. Combine that with my recent interest in fasting and a great little book I read on the subject and I'm off on a 40-day adventure. Today was day 20. I actually started a few days before Jeff left. This was really good because I really needed the moral support those first few days. The plan was the following: 3 days water only. 2 days juice/water. 2 weeks of water, vegetables, whole rice, melba toast. Then I added tea, bread, and some oils (like in peanut butter). The water and veggies only deal is what some call a "Daniel fast," based on Daniel's fasts in the Biblical book of the same name. He and his friends, afraid of eating non-Kosher food in Babylon, restricted their diet to vegetables and water. Later in the book, he went on a three-week fa...