a servant's heart

guess who made steak at 9:30pm just because i wanted it?

i don't know if it's the humidity, the heat, or what but nobody was hungry for dinner last night. not hungry until dinner time was well past and it was entering into the unhealthy hour. that's right! 9:30 and my body said "ding! feed me!" so my man graciously made a steak that we shared over a glass of red bordeaux.

isn't he the greatest?!

a turn on

DISCLAIMER: the following is not suitable for youngsters.

some guys might give flowers, light some candles, do a little sweet talkin' to get you in the mood...
but others might like a little serenade...

what's for dinner

i asked my man - what would you like for dinner? salmon or steak. he wrote back wanting salmon... but i secretly wanted steak. so now the question is - do i make salmon or both???

i know he wouldn't mind if i just made the steak, but then again, what's the point of asking him if i'm just going to do whatever i want? don't you think that's kind of well, i don't know... disrespectful? so... salmon it is.

now i'm on for a hunt for a good recipe - or i might just revert to my same ol' salt/ pepper/ and EVOO - which is always good too :)

as a follow up to the above,
i decided to make this our feature of the meal:



so in honor of our guest, i'm making:

grilled gingered salmon (minus the grilled and the cedar plank).
curtesy of allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grilled-Gingered-Salmon/Detail.aspx

* 1 cup soy sauce
* 1 cup muscovado (dark brown) sugar
* 1 (5 inch) piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and minced
* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic, smashed
* 1 (3 pound) whole salmon fillet with skin
* 1 untreated cedar plank

Directions

1. Whisk together the soy sauce, muscovado sugar, minced ginger, olive oil, and garlic in a bowl, and pour into a resealable plastic zipper bag. Add the salmon fillet, coat with the marinade, squeeze out excess air, and seal the bag. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight or up to 2 days.
2. About 1/2 hour before grilling, soak cedar plank in water.
3. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium heat, and lightly oil the grate.
4. Remove the salmon from the marinade, and shake off excess. Discard the remaining marinade. Place the salmon, skin side down, onto the cedar plank.
5. Grill with the grill cover closed until the salmon is opaque but still juicy, about 20 minutes. Carefully remove the salmon from the plank in one piece, leaving the skin on the plank.

* i also added some trader joe's orange muscat champagne vinegar into the marinade.

i think this was pair really well w/ the salad.

for the dressing, i made a citrus vinaigrette:

1/4C TJ's orange muscat champagne vinegar
1/2C OVEE
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp ginger minced (i just used a micro grater)

yummers. i'm hungry!

in fact, it was quite tasty and flavorful. i wish i had some orange wedges to pop into my salad, but it was still good. turns out my man had steak for lunch, so it's a good thing i didn't end up making both.

now can you guess what's for dinner tomorrow night?

making vietnamese eggrolls w/ kids

our jewel was really into helping me make these eggrolls the other day. i prepped it (putting together the filling), and then she did the rolled the eggrolls for me. it went faster because i cooked them while she rolled them.

first we put a spring roll wrapper on a flat surface, in the shape of a diamond so that one end is pointed towards you:



then, we put a spoonful of the filling on the bottom 1/2 of the wrapper:



then we roll from the bottom to the middle. when you get to the middle, then fold over the two sides. continue rolling until you are left w/ a small triangle at the top. use your finger to put on a little water on the top to make it sticky and then finish rolling.





and then fry up. i usually deep fry, but this time i did it in a skillet and honestly, i think it soaked up a lot more oil this time. i think next time, i'll stick w/ deep frying.



i had a few wrappers left over, so i sliced up some bananas, sprinkled on some cinnamon and sugar for the filling.

here's the recipe for the filling:
1 pkg of ground beef
roughly 1 C of shredded carrots
roughtly 1/2 onion diced
salt
pepper to taste
cellophane rice noodles that have been soaking in hot water for 3 minutes
some people had fish sauce. i've tried it, but i prefer it without.

oh and also, with the meat filling eggrolls, the vietnamese way to eat it is wrapped in lettuce and shredded carrots and then dipped in sweet chili sauce. i really liked it better this way.

something different

i decided to take a break from our structured homeschooling schedule to do a unit study. i asked our jewel what she would like to study and she said she wanted to do cats and dogs. so i'm in the process of doing research. i was thinking that we would start this week but it's already thursday and we've been playing too hard to have time for much else. here's one site that my research brought up that seems pretty cool - free unit studies

too busy playing

the last three days we've been busy going from one event to another.

on monday, we spent the day at a sprayground w/ some friends. it was great because it was cloudy so it wasn't too crowded. it's a great place for kids with various ages to play together and i was thinking that this will have to go on our "to do" list w/ my nephew.



yesterday, we went to sesame place. i realized that i am OLD. i was so tired and nauseous after a roller coaster ride. our jewel on the other hand was so excited and LOVED the rides. i thought that she wasn't going to be into the rides for the bigger kids, but man! she really surprised me! the scarier the better. so glad that she had a friend to go w/ for all those rides!











today we went hiking at a local mountain. she really got into it and hiked almost 2 miles. not bad for the first time.

i'm still recovering from yesterday and while it's only 3 in the afternoon, i can't wait for after dinner so i can go to bed!!

what's your favorite thing about a race?

i LOVE the food! there's a 10K that i only did once but wish i did more and i loved the race because outback catered it and afterwards you got steak. oh golly mic molly!!!!

i also loved the ultra because i got to eat so much DURING the race - potato chips, m&ms, pb&j, chix soup. i mean, can you think of anything better to eat and burn off at the same time??

this past race i walked away with a hot-off-the-oven pretzel, bagel, and banana.

if i do a race and the food stinks, then chances are, i probably won't do the race again.

there was a race i did where afterwards, it was just chewy granola bars and red delicious apples..... nahhhhh, i'll pass. it wasn't worth the 25K in 80 plus heat for that.

oh yeah, there was also a race that served beer 4 miles before the finish line. my advice - wait til the end.

so if you're thinking of organizing a race, please please please think about the food.

loaded question

i've been discussing and pondering this for several days now. and while i am not about to start a war on words, i'd like to know - is it necessary to ascribe to reformed doctrine to be saved?

Here are the definitions I am going by:
Christian: one who has the mark of Christ on them. they have professed their own depravity before God, are trusting God for their salvation, and are heaven bound by the grace of God.

Reformed: is based on these 5 traits:
Sola Scriptura: The Scripture Alone is the Standard
Soli Deo Gloria! For the Glory of God Alone
Solo Christo! By Christ's Work Alone are We Saved
Sola Gratia: Salvation by Grace Alone
Sola Fide: Justification by Faith Alone

( i didn't read the rest of the site and just grabbed the 5 solas so if you have issue with something on that site... well, i didn't read it, is all).

so, the answer isn't so much as important to me as the support behind your answer. it's raised some interesting dialogue around our table these days.

as a post script - my man clarified that calvinism is a large part of the reformed theology and that many people who hear reformed equate it w/ calvinism. i do not. while i think that calvinism is a part of reformed theology, i think the 5 solas above is really the basis of the reformation and that's what martin luther was really driving after.

ever get a song stuck in your head?

i've got two lines that i keep singing over and over again. Chris Tomlin's Our God is greater.

it's been helping me to keep perspective as i go about my day and yet i need to learn the rest of the song because i think my man is tired of hearing those same things come out of my mouth :)

Glad God doesn't mind repeition :)

i'm monica

do you remember the friends episode where monica is sad that she's not the hostess w/ the mostest anymore so she cleans the apartment and makes it nice and pretty so that everyone will want to hang out at her apartment again? that's me, sort of...

see, we're new to this area and new to our church. i want people to like my food. i've always wanted people to like my food. if you like me, you'll eat my cooking. if you don't eat my cooking, i'll be sad and wonder what was wrong with what i made. i'm the one that will tell you you've eaten nothing even though you just had 2 platefuls.

we have small group 2x a month and a church wide fellowship lunch once a month. i've noticed that sometimes my food doesn't get eaten. usually it's when i've brought something "sort of" healthy. by sort of, i mean, by the traditional cultural standards (not weston price standards). for example, i've made chocolate chip cookies but i substituted some wheat instead of using all white flour. i thought it tasted like a regular "not healthy" cookie, but apparently they saw through the disguise. so i've compromised my principles again and now i find myself making stuff from boxes - cakes, brownies, rice crispy treats, etc... blah! apparently i can't stand by my principles when food and pleasing people are concerned!

home depot is cool!

while i was at the race this morning, my man spent the morning bonding with our jewel over hammers and nails.
they went to home depot (which does a cool project the first saturday of each month) and made a foosball.

she even got a cute little home depot apron which will come in handy for our craft projects.

i did the unthinkable

SHHHHH! don't tell my friend, but i just threw away about 50 lbs of compost. i know! i'm horrible! but it was just sitting there on our balcony, collecting flies, it was smelly and the flies were coming in our place. we're in tight quarters so there was no place for the smell to go except into our apartment. i never got around to getting the supplies for it and i didn't see myself doing it anytime soon since i don't like to go out of my way to shop for ANYTHING unless i really need to. so all to say, i'm sorry but the compost is gone. when we're in a place with some yard, i think i'll revisit it. or when the weather cools down again and that i can safely store it on our balcony, then i'll take it down to my friends' compost :)

korean bbq

whenever we make this at home, i tend to shy away from it and let my sister or mom make it. i'm not sure why but my marinade never seems to turn out right... something is just slightly off. since there's no recipe (korean food is just a little of this, a little of that type of cooking), you can't just look it up in the cookbook. well, i guess you can if you're not-korean, but koreans don't cook like that. (and beside, i've tried those recipes and it's not right).

anyways, yesterday i made the BEST bulgogi EVER! it was really yum. i wouldn't say it's the best i've ever had, but it was the best i've ever made so for me it was an accomplishment. i put in a secret ingredient that i'm willing to share w/ you so i guess it's not a secret anymore...

so here's the koreanized version (no accurate measurements) of the recipe:

1 pkg thinly sliced beef (get from korean market that says bulgogi meat)
roughly 1 1/2 turns around the bowl of soy sauce
some water (maybe couple of TBL?)
sesame oil, about a tsp and a half? (it'll make a round sesame oil circle of about 2 inches in diameter)
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 handful of green onions
and my secret ingredients: 3/4 kiwi (used to tenderize) and a TBL or two of thai's sweet chili sauce
afterwards, taste the marinade to make sure it's right - it should have a good balance between sweet and savory. not too much of either.

let sit the marinade sit in the meat for a couple of hours (not too long or it'll over tenderize). and then cook up.
i'm off to have the leftovers from last night!

back into racing

i did my first one in a while - probably about 1 1/2 years since my last real race (i did a few in there that i didn't really race but ran w/ others)
anyhoo - it was hot, muggy, and i kept looking at the sky because it looked like it was going to thunderstorm. but the rain held off. i ended up with just over 25 minutes - probably 25:10 ish will be the final time. it's about what i expected. i was hoping for 24. it's only a minute and yet it's not easy taking a minute off your time when it's such a short race (5K). w/ shorter distances like this, you have less room to acclimate and you're using your fast twitch muscles, rather than your slow twitch (endurance) muscles. in case you're curious fast twitch muscles are the muscles that you use when you're doing quick but short distances - football, basketball, these all use fast twitch muscles. i haven't really been working on these (since i haven't been training) so after the first mile, i could tell that i was slowing down and didn't have the stamina to keep up my pace. another sign that i didn't adequately prepare for the race. having said that, it was a good race for me after being out of it for so long. it gave me an idea of what i needed to work on and since 5K's really aren't my thing but rather longer distances, i didn't put a whole lot of stock into it.

basically, i got what i put into it - which is life.