Tasty Scraps

I am going away early next week and therefore haven't stocked up on groceries. AND I am home this morning with no desire to go out to buy anything. AND I wanted to eat something healthier than street food around here. So! I had a scavenger hunt to see what I could find and whipped up something surprisingly good. 


The Ingredients

Six simple ingredients were the fruits of my hunt!


- natural diced tomatoes
- carrots
- tuna in sunflower oil
- garlic cloves
- sea salt
- rosemary














The Start

I started by slicing up the carrot, and lightly frying in some of the tomato juice and sunflower oil taken from the two tins.
I added in the garlic, some salt and rosemary.
































Looking Good!

Tomatoes and tuna added! Mmm... smells so good!




































Mission Accomplished!

Better than I expected! Delicious!

In The Kitchen

Last night, Joel and I spent some time in kitchen testing cake recipes for our wedding cake. This is the first time we BAKED together, although we have shared a kitchen cooking meals many times before. I was amused by a few observations I made of us.


Joel is a very methodical baker. He follows the recipe EXACTLY and religiously. Down to the last little drop. And this tends to reflect how he is in his faith. Whilst not being religious, he is quite traditional, which comes, I think, from his upbringing and the fact that he has been in 2 churches his entire life.


I am incredibly experimental and liberal in the kitchen. I seem to live by the philosophy of 'that's close enough'. I definitely go by 'feel'. I judge if a cake batter is going to work based on taste and texture. And this, generally speaking, reflects my faith too. I am very liberal about God and church. I do love him deeply and have a very genuine relationship with God, but I am allergic to religion in a traditional sense. Having said that, somehow I love Christmas Mass. So there are times where tradition is appropriate and beautiful and reflects part of who God is.


Now here comes the funny thing... Joel and my personalities are OPPOSITE to the above! He is very easy-going, spontaneous and carefree. He rarely plans, leaves everything to the last minute and lets things go easily. For me, I am the consumate planner. I have a 10 year plan. With details. I tend to get stressed more easily too. Having said that, I do have a spontaneous side, probably inherited from the 'she'll be right, mate' Australian culture.


Somehow I found this amusing to see...

Mercy Found

Recently I found myself face-to-face with an area of sin in my life. It’s the same one that I always come back to, over and over again. The story of my life, in some ways.

How sick of it I am! I can shout out in unison with Paul in Romans 7:19, ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.’ Of course, I have been set free to some degree through the years of dialogue with God and prayer and simply my own will. But there is always this propensity to return to the same area of weakness. It sickens me.

I spent a week in utter condemnation after once again succumbing to the same old, same old. I spent hours in prayer, begging God for forgiveness, figuratively beating myself over the head, and trying to make deals with God to withhold the judgement on me for my sins. I had no joy and no peace, whatsoever. 

And my desire to spend time with God completely disappeared. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to be near him. But at the same time I was desperate for his presence. My spirit was starving.

And finally, I came to the bottom of myself. And in that place, I was at last able to stop talking and start listening to God.

During worship one morning in staff retreat last week, I had a vision.

In my vision, I met with God (the Father). I walked up to him. I was feeling desperate and struggled to maintain eye contact. I put my nails into my chest and ripped it open, exposing my heart. I screamed at God, ‘take it out! Take this out of me! I cannot stand it inside me any longer!’ But there was silence. And he didn’t move. So I said, ‘If you won’t take it out, then I must. I cannot leave this inside me any longer.’ I started to pull as hard as I could on the ‘sin’ inside me, which looked like a root entangled around and into my heart. I struggled until I gave up, exhausted. And the Father God stepped forward and said to me, ‘you cannot (you will never be able to) save yourself.’ And that was the end.

I realized in that tiny moment, how much I am still trying to earn my way into God’s heart. My value to him, in my own eyes, is so caught up in what I do. 

And God simply wants me to know his love and acceptance, regardless of my actions. 

Not that he condones bad behaviour. His desire is that I am shaped to be more and more like Jesus. But in the meantime, I am desperately loved, right now, as I am.

I still cannot grasp it...

But I have a new understanding of God’s mercy. And of the effect of sin, which is not something to flirt with or to take lightly. 

I thank God for his mercy on me, that while I am yet a sinner, he loves me and gave his Son for me and brought me into a place of relationship that I can never earn or deserve.

Romans 5:6 - 11

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Honey Thyme Chicken

I am a highly experimental chef. The only times I usually use a recipe is when baking cakes etc, and even then I often deviate from the instructions.
Generally speaking, I love that I am creative in the kitchen, but it does have its downside. It's really hard for me to recreate something once I have made it. Two occasions come to mind as I type this. 
The first, I was in my late teens and made an Italian inspired soup that was a bit of heaven in a bowl. Ah... *drools* Okay, back to the story. For the life of me, I could NOT remember everything that I put in it and I tried many times to concoct the same magic and it just wasn't to be.
The second instance, I'd already moved out of home and was living in Sydney. I held a dinner party for my family who were visiting and I made about 8 different dishes. One in particular was a pumpkin mash which again, was divine and which again, I could NOT remember exactly what was inside or recreate again. Terribly sad.
So tonight, as soon as I started this dish, I knew it was going to be worth remembering. It looks pretty basic in the above photo, but my word, it is DELICIOUS. In advance, sorry, I don't use measuring spoons or cups. Also, I made this for three meals so that I don't have to cook tomorrow :)


Ingredients:
- honey
- chicken
- course black pepper
- garlic
- dried thyme
- broad beans
- broccoli
- yellow capsicum
- olive oil


I served this on a bed of rice. If you want to do the same, start cooking the rice before you cook the dish.


Method:
1. In a fry pan, pour a dash of olive oil and slightly heat the pan. Add diced raw chicken, thyme, pepper (salt would be nice to add here but I didn't have any with me) and about 2 generous tablespoons of honey. Stir fry these until the chicken is lovely and brown
2. Add in the broccoli which is cut fairly small. I used almost a whole head. Stir fry until broccoli begins to soften. I added an extra little dash of olive oil too.
3. Add broad beans, capsicum and minced garlic. I used a whole capsicum, 3 large-ish cloves of garlic and maybe 20 broad beans cut in half. Stir fry all together. I added another spoon of honey here.
4. When all is cooked well, serve on rice! Delicious!