recipes for..food. fancy that. ORANGE food.

i am absolutely NOT planning to turn this into a food blog, but something that has been lighting up my life a LOT lately, as i am learning to do it with more and more ease and creativity, is cooking. so i just wanted to share a few of the lovely outcomes.

http://homemusings.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-ever-pumpkin-bread-no-eggs.html 

(i made this with no dairy, either, since i'm slightly lactose intolerant and don't buy cow-milk - so i used soymilk instead. oh, and i added a generous assortment of spices - extra cinnamon and nutmeg, plus some ginger and cloves. it was delicious! all two loaves of it! one with chocolate chips and one without.  soooo moist and perfect. :) watch out for the annoying music on the website though.)

 i finally cut open this turban squash that had been sitting in my windowsill ever since a fall apple orchard/pumpkin patch/bluegrass festival/farmer's market adventure with my roommate.

 and was so surprised by its delightful orange color!!!

 washing its seeds felt a bit holy, like helping them gently pop out of their orange wombs...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/caramelized-spicy-pumpkin-seeds/detail.aspx 

(sooooo addictive. use butter all the way. and garlic salt for the initial toasting. and brown sugar for caramelizing. and a pinch of nutmeg and cloves in the sugar mixture. YUM. perfect studying snack for the next week and a half!)

other uses for the squash...

http://yummyodds.blogspot.com/2011/02/spicy-sweet-potato-scrambled-egg.html?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=gadget&utm_campaign=bp_random 

(this recipe triggered a whole series of curry-fry experiments. i always start with onion, then add potato or sweet potato or squash, then other veggies - broccoli, snap peas, red peppers, kale, carrots, whatever. you can add tofu or tempeh, too. most often, i dump lots of curry powder, ginger, cumin, coriander, and turmeric for a spicy Indian comfort shawl of a meal. or, start with some soy sauce, vinegar, hot pepper, drizzle of honey, basil, plenty of salt and pepper and garlic and ginger for more of an east or southeast Asian vibe. sometimes i whisk a few eggs together, pour and scramble it all together. as long as i don't put too much (or too little) salt, it is always, always good. and it spices up my whole life! every time i leave and later step back into the apartment i can smell the heavenly deliciousness, which motivates me to make another curry fry!)

 and i still had more squash, so...

this. this. THIS. was a TOTAL improv, and totally turned into my favorite meal i've made in a long time. possibly including the curry fry experiments.  so, i had half an onion. and a red pepper. and a tomato. and a few garlic cloves, which i tossed into the pan whole once the above were chopped and caramelizing nicely in a bit of olive oil, with a few sprinkles of basil mixed in.  in the meantime, while that all simmered and soupified a bit, i grated some chunks of the squash.  then the pan mixture went into the blender to make a gorgeous orange sauce, and the squash went into the pan to saute/soften up a bit with some garlic salt.  i wanted to lick every surface that was touched by the sauce. oh, YES. yes. why would i ever buy pasta sauce again?

that's all.  <3

lenten.prayer.and.art.therapy.

Catch Me in My Scurrying

Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my feet to the fire of your grace
    and make me attentive to my mortality
        that I may begin to die now
            to those things that keep me
                from living with you
                    and with my neighbors on this earth;
            to grudges and indifference,
                to certainties that smother possibilities,
                    to my fascination with false securities,
                        to my addiction to sweatless dreams,
                            to my arrogant insistence on how it has to be;
            to my corrosive fear of dying someday
                which eats away the wonder of living this day,
                    and the adventure of losing my life
                        in order to find it in you.

Catch my in my aimless scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my heart to the beat of your grace
    and create in me a resting place,
        a kneeling place,
            a tip-toe place
where I can recover from the dis-ease of my grandiosities
    which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,
that I may become vulnerable enough
    to dare intimacy with the familiar,
        to listen cup-eared for your summons,
            and to watch squint-eyed for your crooked finger
                in the crying of a child,
                    in the hunger of the street people,
                        in the fear of the contagion of terrorism in all people,
                in the rage of those oppressed because of sex or race,
                    in the smoldering resentments of exploited third world nations,
                        in the sullen apathy of the poor and ghetto-strangled people,
                            in my lonely doubt and limping ambivalence;
and somehow,
    during this season of sacrifice,
        enable me to sacrifice time
            and possessions
                and securities,
to do something...
    something about what I see,
        something to turn the water of my words
            into the wine of will and risk,
                into the bread of blood and blisters,
                    into the blessedness of deed,
                        of a cross picked up,
                            a saviour followed.

Catch me in my mindless scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my spirit to the beacon of your grace
    and grant me light enough to walk boldly,
        to feel passionately,
            to love actively;
grant me peace enough to want more,
    to work for more
        and to submit to nothing less,
           and to fear only you...
               only you!
Bequeath me not becalmed seas,
    slack sails and premature benedictions,
        but breathe into me a torment,
            storm enough to make within myself
                and from myself,
                    something...
something new,
    something saving,
        something true,
a gladness of heart,
    a pitch for a song in the storm,
        a word of praise lived,
            a gratitude shared,
                a cross dared,
                    a joy received.

Poem-prayer by: Ted Loder, from the book Guerrillas of Grace

recipe for love

recipe for hope

hope almost died that day.

how terribly out of character for hope :( this depressed me for a few weeks, until i took a different bus route and saw...
this! this! this!
and later brought my beloved to see the news :)
and a few weeks later, found more evidence!
and shared the love again :)

hope the creeper.

yes, a good reminder that we all may sometimes feel hopeless overwriting our hope.
yet we keep running into reflections of hope. hope, not just a word, but a Person.
do you see hope when you look in the mirror?
hope, still thriving behind bars. hope, continually under construction.
hope is still creeping under the nose of the most rotten destruction and collective trauma as the bombing this city experienced and the massive violence this country and its neighbors inflicted on each other. hope, still waiting for us to wake up to the violence within each one of us. hope, still standing.

hope shows up and shit gets real.

hope i pobeda za egipatsku revoluciju, victory for the Egyptian revolution!
hope i solidarnost sa grčkim radnicima i narodom egipta, solidarity with the Greek laborers and the people of Egypt!
hope in money? oh dear God no... that'll send us all down the drainpipes real fast...
hope for Srbija... hope winning out over nationalism... hope living even in the consumer center of this capital city...