My Friend, the Grill

    Last week spring showed up for a couple days and it was sunny and semi-warm, so in a flurry of excitement I bought every grillable vegetable I could find and busted out my summer companion. Unfortunately I was only being teased with feeling of spring and it quickly turned cold and rainy. However, my trusty ol' grill agreed to continue helping me cook up the vegetables I had hastily purchased.
 

I chopped up some strawberries and pineapple and tossed t
hem in with some blackberries as a nice refreshing side to our  grilled goodies.

And for the pain course we had grilled corn covered in olive oil, garlic salt and paprika.
Next we had some grilled asparagus, covered in olive oil  and garlic salt.
Finally we had some brown rice which we cooked several different ways throughout the week:
1) I mixed it with chickpeas, garlic salt, and nutritional yeast
2) Just plain old rice
3) Fried rice with onion, olive oil, sesame oil, and soy sauce

Dear Spring,

 you better come before summer takes your chance away.

                                              Sincerely,

                                                          An Admirer 

Outside of Time

    Four about a month now, I have been pouring over the book Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis. There are so many ideas outside the "normal Christianity" box, that are really challenging and cause me to think long and hard about what I have believed, what I am beginning to believe, and what I see myself believing in the future.
    I hesitate to bring up ideas like this because so many people do not like their boxes to be torn apart, and I'll admit that most of the time, I am that person. If I've been taught something, whether I have done my research or not, I will hold it to be true because that is what I have always known. This is a seriously flawed way to approach a system of belief, but it is comfortable, and that is what we like.
    The idea most fresh to my mind is the that of God's place in time, or rather out of time. Being of a human mindset with an inability to fathom the idea of eternity stretching in both directions, I have always assumed that God travels through time as we do. Though I could never understand the concept of God existing forever before I got here, I nevertheless established in my mind that that fact was true and moved on to the notion that when God decided to create the world that we became a point on God's timeline that would continue with him through the rest of eternity.
    This idea causes a lot more confusion when we think about God being able to listen to every single prayer being prayed to him at the same time, and that he is able to concentrate on any single being. While God is above anything we could ever imagine and we cannot begin to understand him, which means that this idea could very well be true, I find it a lot easier to believe that God is outside of time.
    The idea of God being outside of time is another mind blower, but in my head I see it like this: many many TV screens stacked one on top of the other. God sees them and has access to them all. While on one He sees me sitting here typing this post, but on another screen he sees Steven sitting at his computer. To us, our lives our continuing in time, but to God who is outside of time it is not. He could hit the pause button on any of our screens and come back to us later while he goes to check out a starving child in Africa. Does that make sense? I hope so, because I'm about to add more.
    Now imagine, because God is outside of time, that he not only sees me typing this post right now, but he also sees me making lunch in an hour, giving birth to my first child, and my death. So it isn't that God is traveling along our timeline and can see into the past and the future, but God is currently IN the past, present and future. CRAZY!
    This also helps me to understand the idea of free will. A lot people say well if God knows what is going to happen in the future why doesn't he just stop it? Well, because it isn't in the future to Him. He is already in the future watching us make our choices. God has given us free will and at the moment he created us and gave us that ability to choose, our entire lives were already being lived out before God's eyes.
    To me, this idea adds a whole other dimension to prayer. When I pray something like "God, please keep me safe this week as I got to work," I can immediately praise Him and thank Him for doing so, because He has already done it. My prayers are immediately answered, but because I am in time, I don't get to see the answer until my week is over.
    This is only a short glimpse of one of the ideas I have been thinking about, but even just this small portion is a lot to chew on. I share this in large part for myself so that my thoughts are written and I am able to come back to read it later, but also because I hope in some way it is encouraging to you and helps you to step outside your box.. As a fellow box lover, I encourage you to step outside!
 

Easter Again?!

    Incredible. Easter 2013 is over already! I'm pretty sure I was ringing in the new year just yesterday, anyone else feel the same? Anyway, my spring break last week was wonderful, our Easter celebration was wonderful, and today it was back to the old grind-stone.
    A quick review of my spring break looks something like this:

The pile is twice this size now...

I did a lot of packing because Steven's parents are coming up this weekend to take away as much of our stuff as they can. This process is making me super antsy to go! You have been fun Chicago, but I'm ready to run into the warm bosom of Pennsylvania!

    Friday was when I finally began to have some fun. My family and Steven and I got together via Skype to decorate Easter eggs (thank you technology).

Steven's eggs

The spread

My eggs

    Easter Sunday we got up early and went to the gym for our morning workout, then we returned home for a yummy Easter breakfast consisting of braided Easter bread (which tasted like an Auntie Ann's pretzel so the of course I must share the recipe) hard boiled eggs, and tempeh bacon.

Braided Easter Bread

Vegan Braided Easter Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cup dark rye flour

2 tbs vital wheat gluten

1/4 cup raw sugar

1 tsp salt

1 package dry yeast

2/3 cup almond milk

2 tbs coconut oil (melted)

2 tbs ground flax mixed with 12 tbs water to make "eggs"

5 decorated eggs

Directions:

1) mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl 2) add all the wet ingredients. 3) knead the dough really well until it is elastic.4) Let the dough rise till it doubles in size. 5) Braid the dough into the shape you want on top of a cookie sheet. 6) Insert the eggs. 7) Let the dough continue to rise till double in size (I let mine rise overnight) 8) Bake at 350 for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

    After breakfast we hid Easter eggs for each other. Steven's contained the peanut butter cups I made for him, and mine contained seeds, nuts and little notes. What a sweetie. Before heading off to church we snapped a few pics:

    We ended our Easter celebration with a nice little vegan dinner of mushroom tarts, grilled and seasoned potatoes, grilled asparagus, and finally a peanut butter chocolate tofu pie (I don't have a picture =( ).

Peanut Butter Tofu Pie

Ingredients:

1 cup dates

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 package of tofu

2 1/2 tbs honey

5 tbs coconut oil

5 tbs carob powder

water as needed

Directions: 

1) Melt coconut oil and mix in carob powder and 1 tbs honey. 2) pour the mixture into a pie pan and put in the freezer. 3) In a blender combine dates, peanut butter, tofu, and 1 tbs honey and a little bit of water if needed. 4) When everything is smooth and blended together, pour into the pie pan on top of the carob mixture. 5) Drizzle with remaining honey. 6) Put back into freezer until ready to eat.

    I really must end this post now before I begin salivating at the memory of such yummy food....