Hummus

Homemade hummus: We bought some dry beans from the farmers market so we started with the dry beans instead of the beans in the can. The process took a lot longer because we had to cook the beans first. But, we supported local agriculture and it was nice to see our little beans plump up. The onion and garlic we added were from the farm, but the oil and tahini we bought at the store. The first time we made hummus we split the beans and Jamie and I each made our own. Of course his was better.
Garbanzo beans are not one of our staple food items, but I want to try to incorporate it more in our diet.

Jamie and I took a huge salad to a get together of friends. And, we each had it for lunch over the next few days. All the veggies were from Harmony Ridge Farm where Jamie works. The dressing was store bought - but hey, we were close to being all local and organic.

Purple Breakfast Scramble

Jamie is the cook in our family. But he was gone for the week, so I was left to my own devices. I made an egg scramble with local eggs, and veggies from the farm where Jamie works - carrots, beets, and onions mixed in with the eggs over blue potatoes.
The meal was pretty monotone in color as the beets turned my scrambled eggs purpleish and I used blue potatoes. But,  It was yummy, if I do say so myself.

Taking a Break from the Car

Bike - check. Helmet - check. Bike Lock - check. Leg strength to push myself around on this thing - I'm getting there.

I've started riding my bike to work at the school. Today was day two and I felt a lot more confident than I did yesterday. I don't have the best bike in the world and I'm not the greatest biker (a man in his 60s went zooming past me on his bike today while I was huffing and puffing). But, it's better on the environment (and better on the bank account).
We really do live in a great location to forgo the car. We can walk (or bike now) to the library, the grocery store and the pet store. We've walked to these places a number of times, but many times we get in the car because it's easier and we're a bit lazy.

Now, I am trying to be more intentional about opting not to use the car. Every little bit helps, right :)

Chipotle - Yes Please

So, exams hit, and then we were adjusting to our summer schedule - blogging went on the back burner and I sort of forgot about it. We have pictures to post of meals we've eaten, but that will have to wait until later. This post is just to share a video that is GREAT! Watch it.

Update: Many people site Chipotle's refusal to join the Campaign for Fair Food as huge negative for the chain that boasts of their integrity.

Can we make? Yes we can! Almond Butter

We thought about starting a theme of posts called “Can we make it? Yes we can!” We’ll see how often we actually do this. But for starters, here’s Almond Butter!

Do you know how easy it is to make almond butter (and peanut butter, etc.)? Easy! You just grind the heck out of some almonds.

Do you know how time consuming it is? Very. We do not have a food processor so we used our immersion blender attachment. The thing is - that thing can get over heated, so we had to take frequent breaks. What should have taken about 30 minutes took us two hours. Oh well, we were happy about our creation:

(we only used a few of the almonds)

 And here is a picture of some of our homemade almond butter on our homemade bread:

Testing it out:

  

Will we do this again?  I would love to... once we get a better grinder contraption :)

For the time being, I’ll let someone else do the grinding and I'll buy it packaged, or I’ll go to Fresh Market and grind peanuts or almonds there.

Granola Gone Wrong

After watching King Corn, I want to try to cut down on our corn intake – especially high fructose corn syrup.* But, in protest to how much corn we mass-produce, I want to at least be aware of what corn is in, and possibly choose something corn-free to eat if possible. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think corn is evil. But, in our efforts to be able to mass-produce it, we have stripped the soil of nutrients, reduced the corn variety we use, and use massive amounts of land- which could be used to grow thousand of other yummy foods- for only one food type. Also, a lot of this corn goes in to the animals we eat, which is not that healthy for them and enables “cow factories” and such. Just watch the documentary...

Taking inventory of our kitchen I realized I eat corn in almost every cereal I eat for breakfast! While also taking inventory I noticed that we had ingredients on hand to make granola. So I looked up a few recipes and went to work on creating a new breakfast for us to eat in the morning.

Mistake 1: using steel cut oats instead of rolled oats (it’s what we had)

In my defense I did google and read about using steel cut oats instead of rolled oats for granola. I read that I was to expect the granola to be more like brittle that would take some breaking apart.

Mistake 2: leaving it in the oven too long.

I kept expecting the mixture to get hard – like brittle, but it stayed liquidy no matter how long I left it in the oven. Finally, when it starting smelling like it was getting too done (a.k.a. burnt), I took it out. That’s when it turned in to brittle and it took Jamie and two spatulas to get it out of the pan.

Mistake 3: too much brown sugar and honey.

I followed a recipe, but either the writer of the recipe I followed had a serious sweet tooth or the steel oats had something to do with it. We tried it in milk but it made the milk so sweet that I could not drink it– and that’s saying something because I love milk.

So what did we do? Jamie added the left over rice krispies we had and I went to the store and got some organic yogurt and cranberries. After that, it was edible, though Jamie always opted for something else for breakfast and I ate the granola over yogurt with cranberries myself :)

Here’s a picture of my salvaged breakfast:

The granola contains honey, brown sugar, and almonds.

Though this attempt did not turn out to well, I’m determined not to give up. We will not be having granola for breakfast any time soon because 1. I’m not sure Jamie is ready for that again, and 2. We bought tons of muffin mixes last week because Lowes Foods had them on sale :)

*here is a clip of how to make high fructose corn syrup –makes you think twice about the stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jisBG3egS8o

Eggcellent

So, Jamie has done it again - no surprise really. He made a fabulous meal, which we love so much we've had it twice in the past few days.

Vegetable scrambled eggs:

This is a picture of the first time we it - don't you love how he added the strawberry for decoration :)

 The next time I wanted to take more pictures of the different stages - those veggies look so good!

 Adding the eggs:

 Finished and ready to eat!

I did help this time – I made the salad :)

So, we have to send a thank you to Lowes Foods for overstocking on Free Range, No Hormones Added Eggs for Easter. Good eggs for half the price! All of our veggies for this meal are from the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market.

That’s all for this post – another successful attempt at eating good food!

Beef, it's what's for dinner

Jamie made some awesome hamburgers yesterday!

A few weeks ago we visited a biker church as part of our Food Faith and Spirituality class. This church is doing a lot with food to help their community - from having their own community garden, to helping teach others about gardening, to selling local grass-fed beef and using part of the proceeds to donate this good beef to local food pantries. Here is a website about their beef ministry. You can read a little about the benefits of "happy cows" as opposed factory cows in our last blog about milk.

We are trying to be more conscience about our meat consumption not only for our own health but because we do not believe that cow, chickens, etc. were created to be treated rottenly just because of our society's demand for more cheap meat. I have always had a hard time eating meat if I have to think about the fact that it came from an animal. But, knowing that the meat I eat has come from an animal that was treated well and given a good life, and, as I appreciate its sacrifice in order to give me food, I am truly thankful instead of being grossed out. (Thinking about sacrifice goes for plants as well, they too must die in order for us to eat.)

Anyway, below are pictures of this week's local and healthy meal. The burgers are made from the grass-fed beef we got from The Giving Table and the veggies we put on them are from the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market. SO YUMMY! Be jealous.

Got Milk?

Yesterday we went grocery shopping. Harris Teeter was having some pretty good buy 2 get 3 free sales. I love it when their sales match my coupons. It makes me so happy to save more than I spend at the grocery store. BUT, this is not the point of the blog post. We were going to buy milk while we were there, but our friend Skyler told us about some yummy and all natural milk he bought at a local market. So we headed to Reynolda Farm Market to check it out.

I have been aware of the "cow factories" where almost all of our meat cows come from, but I had (ignorantly) thought that our dairy cows escaped that same fate. As it turns out, most of our milk comes from cows that live in confinement, feed on grains, are injected with hormones, and milked three times a day - all so that they will produce more milk.

Consequences (besides not having a happy cow) for our milk?
*Lower amount of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) - a fat that might be one of the most potent cancer fighters.
*Distorted ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids - studies suggest that those who consume equal amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 have a lower risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and other disorders. The more grain and the less grass means the more omega-6 and less omega-3.
*Less vitamins - the more a cow is milked (2 times is the normal milking) the less vitamins per milking. Also, more vitamins are consumed (and passed to the milk) when the cow is pasture fed.
You can read more information here.

So here is our new milk:

This milk is from Homeland Creamery. And, it is made only an hour away from here. These cows are not 100% pasture fed, but they are not given any hormones, and are only milked twice a day. Check out the website - it looks like those cows are happy cows :)

Got Milk? Yes we do, and yummy good milk at that.

A Fresh Start

So again, the look of our blog changes, but this time, the theme of the blog changes too. It is no longer just about the "happenings" of Jamie and me, but about us trying to embrace an entirely different way of living. We believe God is calling us to change. The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it. We want to live in a manner that cares for and respects all of God’s creations.

Our goal for this blog is to share the ways we are changing the way we live, whether that is giving up something, adding something, adjusting something, or being more aware of something. Food is going to be a big part of the changes we make and our first life change is to move away from industrialized, processed foods. One consistent aspect of our blog will be us documenting at least one meal a week which we will make from local ingredients whose source we can trace, grown in organic soil and conditions, and that we may have even helped harvest.

Hopefully through this, we will not only change ourselves, but contribute to changing the world as well.

Responsibility

Last night was the third night we stayed up with Ellie, letting her out every couple of hours because of diarrhea. We also had a paper due yesterday that we waited until this week to start writing. Not good timing- talk about being tired.

This puppy relies on us for everything: food, play, discipline, care, and family bonding and love. She is solely our responsibility and that is a big task. Though at times she can try our patience, and will sometimes keep us up at night because she does not feel well, it’s worth it! We love her very much.

Sweet story: This morning a little before 7am, Ellie and I were coming back inside from her third potty time since 3am. When we got to the room (she sleeps in a crate in our room), she put her front paws up on the bed and whined a little. She looked so sweet, and I felt sorry for her after her long night, so I picked her up and put her on the bed. She curled up next to Jamie and went back to sleep- such a cutie!

Eat Pray Love

So, I'm watching Eat Pray Love for the second time this weekend (interrupted occasionally by puppy training and puppy potty breaks), and fantasizing about traveling. So many place I want to go and see!

While watching the movie, I decided to google cheep ways to travel the world. I found a few interesting websites. These sites are for people who are willing to work a bit while they travel. You can contact people who need a helping hand in the area you want to visit. They will house and feed you while you are there, and you work a few hours a day where they need you.

• One is about working on organic farms and learning about sustainability: www.wwoof.org
• One focuses on environmental and social volunteering: www.the7interchange.com
• One has all types of work opportunities: www.workaway.info

I haven't dug too much in to this, but I plan on it. I could be an interesting way to spend the summers while we are in school- travel, learning, and helping others- beautiful :)

Currently

I felt the need to redesign the blog- therefore, I felt the need to blog.

Currently:

*We are back in GA

*Jamie is serving. Ashley is babysitting

*Ashley is attempting to coupon as a hobby. If she can't make money from a hobby, she's going to try to save money from one.

*Biggest news (and life adjustment): a puppy! We adopted a border collie and named her Ellie. She is helping us stay active and get up earlier :) She is a GREAT puppy and I have a feeling future blogs will be about training her - what works, what doesn't, and other stories. We are training her with a clicker as well as treats (only positive reinforcement) and it seems to be working fairly. She does not respond when she is not paying attention to us yet. But, when she’s focused, she’ll sit, come, lay down, shake, and leave it. She’s learning quickly. Today's story: she took a pair of socks today and attempted to bury them in the back yard. If it weren’t for one sock peeking out of the ivy, that pair might have been lost forever J

November

Sometimes I do not understand why it’s so hard for me to blog. I’ve written down a few ideas to blog about, but after a few days I no longer care about the topic enough to share it online. So… a month passes with no posts. Mostly we have been going to school and working – nothing news worthy really. We have had some fun get-togethers at our apt complex: Halloween/Birthday Party and Thanksgiving meal. We are very thankful for our neighbors/friends.

I told some of you that we would post our Old Testament midterm for you to read. In my opinion, our essays are a good summary of what we learned and discussed the first half of the semester. I’m not going to post it online. I got nervous that something might be misconstrued, and once it’s online – it’s out there for the world to see forever. Having said that, if you are interested, send either of us an email and we’ll send it to you for your reading. We’d love to discuss you’re ideas after reading it as well.

Another thing we have done since our last post is take advantage of Bank of America’s free museum weekend in November (those with BoA should take advantage of these weekends). We decided to go to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The best thing I took away from that trip was this website: www.g-dcast.com

I have not watched all of them, but two of my favorites are Shemini and Vayetze.

Shemini – very catchy and the most entertained I’ve been with Leviticus

Vayetze – story of Rachel and Leah

Remember, these animations are not a word for word reading of the Old Testament but I think they give new life to these stories that I’m used to reading. Enjoy

Well, our Thanksgiving Break is coming to a end and we have two more weeks of classes – this includes finals. Wish us luck!

P.S. Jamie is now writing for another blog (Yes, I am a little hurt that OUR blog has yet to have a post from him in the course of its 6 month life, but he’s has already posted twice to the other one just this week! And, yes I am writing this to hopefully guilt him in to contributing here.) You can read his writings here.

Thank you Church for letting Galileo in to heaven

Seminary is a great experience!

Coming out here I did not know what to expect. But one thing I did not want was to be given “the answer book” for Christianity. My faith and theology has taken a few punches, and it has also been built up. Honestly there have been times when I’ve thought “Professor, just tell me what I am ‘supposed’ to believe because my brain is starting to hurt with this intake of information.” But I am so very glad I am being challenged and forced to reconcile thoughts and theories for myself.

We have been studying for our Old Testament midterm this past week and I wanted to share this nugget of information with all of our readers (though many of you might already know this).

Hear what our great Reformation leaders had to say about Copernicus because he believed the earth went around the sun instead of the sun going around the earth.

“People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon…. This fool wishes to reverse the entire scheme of astrology; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.” Martin Luther

“The world also is stabilized, that it cannot be moved” (citing Ps.93) “Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” John Calvin

Don’t get me wrong, I greatly appreciate these men for their contribution to the Christian faith!

It is just interesting to think about issues we call other people “fools” about today when they might just be right…

I am not thinking of anything in particular, just something to ponder.

(Sidenote: most people/scholars today who hold to the inerrancy of the Bible do include as a qualification that biblical writers used phenomenological language)

Title explanation: Galileo was excommunicated from the church because he also promoted the theory that the sun revolved around the earth… but then they let him back in during the 1990s J

P.S. More Old Testament stuff will be posted once we get our grades back from the essay portion of our tests.

School- 4; Sims- 0

Getting back in to the swing of school has proved to be difficult.

The first four weeks of school we went to every class having not completed all our homework readings.

We are going in to the fifth week and I feel better about it already. I think we are going to be able to get back on track.

We came out here to go to school, but sometimes it’s hard not to give priority to working since that is what supports us. At the same time, we want to enjoy our time in CA and experience as much as we can. But, where is the balance? That is still what we are figuring out. What is the balance for each of us personally and what is the balance for us as a couple.

We are in Monterey this weekend. Jamie has a disk golf tournament. I plan to get out and see Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row this afternoon… right after I read for Old Testament.

Catch up

Wow, I did not realize that we did not blog at all during August! I blame it on being on vacation then spending the rest of August trying to catch up with ourselves, get back in the swing of things, and get ready for school to start.

Now time to bring everyone up to speed. Last time we posted we were in Orlando getting ready to enjoy the last week of our vacation back home.

Here are some pictures of our fun time in Orlando with Emily, Kaitlin and Wallace.

The turtle they saved :)

Being goofy and making goofy faces.

We went to the beach one day and this was the sand sculpture the boys made - must they always be thinking about sports :)

We went to Dixie Crossroads for lunch and it was VERY YUMMY! (seafood)

Wednesday and Thursday we spent with Betsy and Orlando. We went to the Disney parks and also to look at some of the Disney resorts. The themes and decorations are excellent. Disney does it so well!

There were some other good pictures from our time in Orlando, but they are not on our camera...

Thursday we drove over to see PaJim and Mimi before heading back to Athens.

Then the weekend consisted of SETH'S WEDDING!

(the Hardman family)

Congrats you two!

Then we headed back to San Fran. It was a longer trip than we expected, but we made the best of it.

This is the ceiling in the Chicago airport when traveling from terminal B to C. We saw this light spectacular many many times.

This is how many flights we tried to get on from Chicago to the west coast and we did NOT get on any of these flights. After spending 24hrs in Chicago, we flew to Denver. From Denver we were able to get a flight to San Jose and took a train up to the San Francisco airport where our luggage was :) It was a mini adventure. On the bright side, if we had not been stuck in Chicago, we would not have seen...

Ice Cube (for those of you who don't know who he is - I didn't either. He's a rapper and has been in some movies.)

Fast forward to now. We just finished our second week of school. Our classes this semester are Intro to Old Testament, Hebrew, and Counseling. Gonna be fun!

On the east coast now. YAY!

We've been relaxing (lazy) since our summer class ended so there have been no blog posts for the past few weeks. Here is what we've been up to:

July 9th - Dress like a cow and get a free meal at Chick-fil-A. Since the closest Chick-fil-a is over an hour a way, we grabbed our neighbors, Jody and Emily, and made it an afternoon adventure.

July 16th - trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Full day of excitement!

July 17th - cookout at Muir Beach with the Martins and the Harpers.

July 20th - on a plane home.

We spent Tuesday through Saturday in Athens seeing Ashley's family and friends there. Saturday we met up with friends from GaTech for lunch and ultimate frisbee then had dinner with friends from Atlanta. After dinner we got to spend time time with Jamie's family at Mark's race.

Much thanks to Brian and Gaan for letting us stay at their place Sat. night! Sunday afternoon Jamie went to play disc golf with friends while Ashley went to stay with Uncle Keith and Aunt Colleen. Sorry we don't have more picures of this time.

On Monday we went through Roswell to see frineds ...

... then down to the GA State BCM to see April! Monday evening we were out in Douglasville having dinner and spending more time with Jamie's family. Tuesday through Friday morning were spent relaxing at Nana and Bigs house (Jamie's grandparents). Now we are in Orlando until Thursday. We will try to be better about taking pictures of our adventures this week!

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Tuesday was Jamie's birthday.

To celebrate, we went to Cheesecake Factory. Yum.

Below is a picture of his birthday present - shoes made for disc golf (by KEEN).

Yesterday we both had the day off of work. We ate BBQ for lunch and went to see the movie Knight and Day. This was the first time we have gone to see a move in the theater since we've moved! Great day!

We hope the fog isn't bad tomorrow so we can watch the fireworks in San Francisco from Chapel hill on campus.

Happy 4th of July everyone!