apartment kitchen scrap garden! by Shelley Hopkins

This is a quick post to describe my newest project, my garden in the apartment.  A week ago I cut off the ends of three romaine lettuce hearts and placed them in water.  The water I change every couple of days, and the plants are sitting on my window sill.  Amazingly lettuce leaves are growing.  I had read a blog about regrowing plants from your kitchen scraps, and even though I doubted I decided to try it.
The hardest time to live in an apartment is during spring gardening season, but in the apartment I have a pineapple top planted, two tomato plants and the lettuce.  We should be in our house soon and I think all my plants are itching for the porch or yard home too.  Here is a picture of the kitchen scrap lettuce, more will follow as the plants grow.  Happy gardening!

learning and growing in the kitchen by Shelley Hopkins

The other day I was in the kitchen, cooking parts of 3 meals at once.  Everything was humming perfectly, the pie shells were in the oven, the salad veggies were waiting on the cutting board, a sauce was bubbling on the stove, and I was feeling like master of the kitchen.  I pulled a green pepper from the refrigerator, placed it on the cutting board and grabbed a knife.  As I cut the top from the pepper, sliced the middle section out and washed out the seeds I remembered something a friend told me years ago while our small children were playing together.  It is a memory that is triggered by green peppers, of all things.  This lady and I had known each other before marriage, and now we were raising our children in the same town.  Our young daughters were friends, and we had many play dates at the local park.  Years ago, when I was attending college and living in another state, her parents used to invite the college students over for Sunday lunches after church in her home. We would help in the kitchen, participate in cheerful conversation and enjoy home cooked meals.  At the park, my friend mentioned that she had been talking with her mother about me, that we now lived in the same town and our girls were friends, and then she mentioned that I was homeschooling my children.  Her mother said, “I can’t imagine her as a mother, at my house she didn’t even know how to cut a pepper and now she is homeschooling her kids.”  I was always nervous in anyone’s home, and I remember helping uncomfortably in the kitchen.  In my house my mom did all the kitchen work.  I could plant and grow peppers, and any other vegetable, I could weed the garden and mow the lawn, but I had rarely helped in the kitchen, so those skills were not as developed. I am sure the transition from an extremely shy college student without homemaking skills to a stay at home mother teaching her own children would seem like a huge change to her.  She might have meant it as a compliment, that I had grown and learned.  I chose to take it that way.

            I thought about that comment many times over the years.  Every time I grabbed a pepper from the fridge I would remember it.  When I first lived on my own I hardly knew how to do anything in the kitchen, I had to use a cookbook to boil eggs, grill hamburgers, and cook nearly any supper.  I remember slicing two hot dogs down the middle, laying a sliver of cheese in the slices and broiling the hot dogs in my toaster, and being so proud of my culinary skills.  Luckily we can grow and learn.  I refused to take home economics in high school because I didn’t want to be forced into traditional female roles.  I rarely babysat, I preferred to mow yards or work in the garden if I had to, and so when I found myself a stay at home mother I had a lot to learn.  The first little baby I had ever held was my own son, at the hospital after my 4 hours of labor.  When the nurse handed me the clean baby, I was terrified.  He was so warm, so heavy for such a tiny bundle, and so very dependent on my husband and me.  Now I have three children, I cook most of our meals at home, and nearly all of them from scratch.  I had never wanted to be a housewife, but when children came along I wanted to create a home like my mother had done.  I was not following traditional roles for the sake of the role; I wanted to do what was best for the family.

            I finished chopping the vegetables, and turned to the sauce I was cooking for my supper.  I had made meatballs, and was heating a sweet and sour sauce to go over them, while preparing a salad and a pie for the next day.  The directions for the sauce called for cornstarch to be added to the boiling juice.  I checked on the pie, it wasn’t ready, and then I measured out the starch, still thinking about how much I had learned and improved in the kitchen since my college days.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought about the fact that cornstarch should be dissolved into a cold liquid, but the directions didn’t say this and I was moving fast.  Even as I pulled the tablespoon away I saw the lumps forming in the liquid, never to dissolve.  I whisked furiously, but finally I had to take a slotted spoon and fish out all the floating cornstarch balls.

            On one hand there is always hope for inexperienced and new cooks.  One doesn’t have to be good at something to become good at it; all we need is the desire to learn.  I went from someone that wasn’t sure how to open a green pepper, to making bread, soups, and meals daily for my family.  At the same time, I should never get too confident; any skill learned is also a skill easily messed up.  As we go through life we are always learning, we never arrive, because there is always more to learn.  For that I am glad, if I had ever arrived and knew it all, life would loose interest.  Also, the sweet and sour meatballs still tasted good, the sauce thickened even without the cornstarch balls floating in the sauce, and the salad and pie were pretty good the next day. 

            Anyone can learn to cook in the kitchen; I say it takes the talented ones to learn how to create meals after the mistakes are made.  To be a problem solver in the kitchen is the real talent.  My daughter made cupcakes recently for a friend.  She cooked a recipe from scratch, and frosted the tops to look like ocean waves.  She cooked sugar cookies and cut them out to look like sharks fins.  She spent some time mixing her frosting to achieve shark grey, frosted the cookies and stuck them in the cupcakes.  Now she had 24 ocean blue topped cupcakes with shark fins sticking out of the top.  Just before we left the house to deliver the cupcakes she looked them over, and realized two of the cupcakes had no shark fins.  She had no fin shaped cookies left.  She had no colored icing left.  It was almost time to leave.  I had baked the rest of the dough in circles, just to have cookies to snack on.  She took a sharp knife, and cut out shark fins from the already cooked round cookies.  It took several tries to get that right.  In a bowl she mixed a small amount of sugar and water, making icing.  She began adding coloring, and quickly arrived at a steel grey, not exactly the same but close enough to fit in.  In just a few minutes she had solved her problem, and all 24 cakes had been infested with sharks.  The little boys and girls in the preschool class were happy with the shark cupcakes, and all was good, after a little panic and quick thinking.  My daughter could look at this experience one of two ways, either she messed up and wasn’t that good in the kitchen, or she was a quick thinker and problem solver.  There is no cook that never has problems in the kitchen; that is just the way it is.  Good cooks look at the problems, and resolve them.

            We are not defined by the green peppers we can’t open, but by our ability to learn.

            

Book review by Shelley Hopkins

I just have to share about the book I am reading, it is so great! Radical by David Platt. I have turned down so many corners, this book is inspiring. Here is a quote:

" Discipling or disinficting? Disinfecting Christians from the world involves isolating followers of Christ in a spiritual safe-deposit box called the church building and teaching them to be good.....being good is defined by what we don't participate in (and at this point we may be the only organization in the world defining success by what we don't do)

Discipling is much different......discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others. Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success....on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our buildings to take on the world with the disciples they are making. "

Makes me want to do more. How about you? 

here is another quote: 

"Disciple making is not a class for others to come to us to hear the gospel but a command for us to go to others to share the gospel.  A command for us to be gospel-living, gospel-speaking people at every moment and in every corner where we find ourselves." 

Do we have to be fantastic, great at what we do, full of knowledge and trained specially for this work?  Another quote if you don't mind

"...There were added.  It begs the question "Who added them"  Go down to verse 47(Acts 2:47)  in the same chapter, and Luke makes sure we get the right answer.  There he writes. "The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.  The trend continues.  Acts 5:14 says, "More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number." ......This is the design of God among his people.   He is giving unlikely people his power so it is clear who deserves the glory for the success that takes place."   

The writer continues to say that we in America focus on what we can do with our abilities, how great we can be and how useful, but maybe we should focus on what God can do with us, for us, using us.  Last quote from the book:

"A scene where the church radically trusts in God's great power to provide unlikely people with unlimited, unforeseen uninhibited resources to make His name known as great. "  

I love the inspiration this book gives me, and with facebook I can share this enthusiasm with anyone willing to read this.  Used to be that when a book inspired me I could only force my kids to listen to my feelings, now I can share with the whole world.  Sorry about that, he he. 

Forgiveness by Shelley Hopkins

In the book of Ezekiel, God sends the all familiar message to his people; change, turn from your sins or you will be punished. It’s not that God wants to punish his people; he simply wants them to live up to his expectations. Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” Declares the Lord God.” Rather than that he should turn from his ways and live.” 
God created His people, saved them from slavery, rescued them in wars, guided them in peace, and they repaid Him by their turning to other gods. Ezekiel 20:32 “And what comes into your mind will not come about when you say: “We will be like the other nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.” The Old Testament is full of stories of God rescuing his people, and their thankfulness, followed by their turning away to idols. God continued and continues to care for his people with long patience. But what about us? Can we show that patience in our lives? Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” 
Jesus spoke often on our need to forgive each other and on our need to love one another. Who are we to love? God gives us a family; parents, brothers and sisters. In this small group of people we learn how to get along with others. Our family members may be difficult, moody, stubborn, or delightful. All of them are a part of us. If we marry we have to learn to love our spouse and his family. Now we have more people in our circle to accept, with all their flaws and imperfections. Our church family is an even larger circle and within this group there are many personality types. Some personalities are easier to get along with than others. We are attracted to certain people, and they may become our closest friends. There are others that we may instantly dislike, or that have a rough and difficult personality. Perhaps we have a history of problems with a brother and that carries over into our church relationships. Perhaps we were mistreated by another, and now he is a part of our church family. For people that have grown up in the same town, and are part of a church family full of relatives and old school mates, it’s very likely that the presence of a previous bully or unfriendly person could trigger hurt feelings and bad memories. We have to let those go. I have heard one Christian say about another, “That person is not welcome in my house.” How sad. “Love covers a multitude of sins,” 1 Peter 8. 
John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” How do we love someone, especially someone that can be difficult? One way is to think more of him than of ourselves. If I want what is good for other people, how can I hate them? If I pray for another person, how can I dislike them anymore? I believe God gave us the people in our lives to train us, to help us grow and to stretch our abilities to love and forgive. God was patient with Israel; can we not be patient with each other? We all have flaws, none of us is perfect, but we are all walking in the same direction, and we all need each other. If we can show love to all people, then also we are showing the world that we are Jesus’ disciples. When we loose patience with weaker brothers, we need to remember Gods patience with us. How sad it is to see a Christian fall, but it is even sadder to see his brothers turn away from him when he does. 1Cor. 12:26, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” 

butternut squash ideas by Shelley Hopkins

Butternut squash adventures

Butternut squash is very healthy, full of beta-carotenes that convert into Vitamin A, and are good protection against many diseases such as breast cancer.  Carotenoids protect against heart disease, and a one-cup serving of butternut squash contains nearly half the recommended dose of Vitamin C.  It is easy to prepare but takes a little time.  Cut the top end off, near the stem, slice in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp.  Oil the skin with butter or oil and then place the two sides skin side up in a casserole dish or roasting pan with water and roast for 45 minutes at 400.  When done and tender scoop out the meat and use however you wish. Also with a potato peeler you can skin the squash, cut it into chunks and boil it.  Another option is to slice the two sections into ½ inch slices, layer in the dish and pour over the slices maple syrup and butter.  Cook for about 30 minutes and serve with the skin on.  I chose not to eat the skin but some of my family liked to eat the skin too. 

One of the first things I did with this squash was to roast the two slices skin down, with butter and seasonings on the flesh side.  I think I seasoned it with garlic salt and Italian seasoning.  Another tasty option is to season it with cinnamon, orange juice, and syrup.   If you cut the squash into only two slices and scoop out the seeds and membranes, you now have a well to fill with flavoring.  I read today the idea of filling that well with spinach and feta cheese, wrapping the whole thing in foil and grilling it.  

I take a cooking magazine, Cooking Light, and the March issue had a Thai Butternut Soup recipe.  My family loved it, including my soup hating daughter.  This recipe will be fixed again.

Here is the recipe I fixed.  I never have all the ingredients, and almost always I change recipes as I go along.  Search the March 2013 issue of Cooking Light for the full Thai version.

Thai Butternut Soup

1 tsp canola oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 ½ t minced fresh garlic

1 t minced fresh ginger

1 cup chicken broth

2 t brown sugar

pureed meat of 1 butternut squash

1 can light coconut milk

¼ t salt

½ cup chopped unsalted dry roasted peanuts

1 lime, cut into wedges

Before starting, roast the butternut squash in oven at 400 for 45 minutes.  Scrape out the cooked meat and puree for the recipe below.  I did all this on the same day, but you can plan ahead and prepare the squash the day before. 

Heat oil over medium high heat in a saucepan.  Add onions and cook 3 minutes, then add garlic and ginger for 45 seconds, stirring constantly.  This smells so good!

Add broth and next 4 ingredients.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes, stirring often.  Carefully blend the soup in parts, covering the blender with a towel.  The soup is very hot and can burn if it splatters out.   Once all the soup is blended, serve in bowls topped with the peanuts and cilantro.  Serve with lime wedges. 

The original recipe calls for fish sauce, which I never have, but I am sure that the addition of this sauce would make the soup have a more authentic Thai flavor.  When I fixed this I had no peanuts, so I substituted almond slivers. 

If you have other recipes you have tried, feel free to share them.

Enjoy!

Nature and worship by Shelley Hopkins

As any reader of this blog or any person that knows me well can attest, I love nature.  I love being out in the natural world, enjoying the trees, the breezes, the birds, and all types of weather.  Nothing clears my spirit better than a walk under the wide and deep sky.  If I have been stuck indoors for several days even a short walk outside can lift my spirits and improve my mood.  Houses make me feel covered and protected, but over a little time they make me feel smothered and held down.  When I am outside the sky reaches up, the blue or the clouds make me feel free, open and ready for life.  Sitting under a tree, looking at sunlight through the green leaves gives me the benefit of home and sky, I feel covered and protected but within the freedom of the outdoors.  If I could just live in a tree house, my life would be perfect.

            I am also a Christian, and my life and my very self belong to God.  I am not a perfect follower of Jesus, but since He wants me in His family I am blessed and happy to be there. .  Many nature lovers are not believers in God, and it seems like many Christians are not those that deeply enjoy nature.  I don’t understand that.  If nature is powerful, beautiful and awe inspiring, how much more powerful, beautiful and awe-inspiring is the God that created it.   I try to spend every Sunday worshipping God, singing praises to His name, enjoying the fellowship and encouragement of fellow believers, and learning more about His word.  I don’t go to church to please others, or to fulfill a checklist of duty, but because I desire to give thanks to the one that created me, who created my family, and that beautiful nature I enjoy.

            A day spent in the mountains hiking, drinking from the springs and breathing the high alpine air is a perfect day for feeling at peace, for aligning my spirit with the world, and for calming my soul so that I can face the rest of life.  A day singing praises to my creator and worshipping with likeminded souls, people that feel the same and live their lives full of love and with a desire to do good, this also fulfills the same needs, peace and calming my soul.  Church worship and Bible study do more though, because through the study of the word of God I can grow to be closer to God, more pleasing, and to become a little better of a person.  Worship and Bible study don’t always bring peace and calmness, sometimes the word of God can prick my conscience and force me to see myself more clearly, and to see where I need to change.  Nature isn’t always an easy teacher either.  Sometimes I see hard things, sometimes I discover that I am not strong enough to finish a hike or as I endure a longer walk than I was prepared for I have to dig into reserves and challenge myself to push on.  Both church and nature challenge me and force me to grow.

            So, what is the difference?  Am I able to worship God by hiking in the woods, and enjoying His creation?  I think I am, in a way.  There are lessons to be learned in the woods, and the Bible itself teaches this fact.  In the book of Psalms the writers created many Psalms about the beauty of nature and how nature reflects the one that created it.  For example Psalms 148 speaks of the sun and moon praising the Lord.  Have you ever sat outside at night, on a truly dark night without the light pollution of the cities, and marveled at the stars.  There are so many tiny lights, they cover the sky and seem to reach to the end of the universe.  Of course our eyes are not that good, but if we just try to imagine the distance and size of each star, then see the multitude of stars and imagine the size and distance that each point of light represents, it is mind boggling.  I cannot bring my mind to understand the vastness of the universe, but when I am on my parents’ porch in Montana late at night staring at the Milky Way as it stretches across the sky, I am always deeply awed.    Psalms 19 says that “The heavens declare the glory of God: And the firmament show His handiwork.”

            When I am in nature I am able to worship God, and praise Him, but I have to be careful to not get confused.  I need to remember that I am not to worship the creation instead of the creator.  The Bible speaks about something close to this when Paul, in writing the Book of Romans, talks about those that fashion objects to worship such as birds and other creatures.  He tells them they “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever Amen” Romans 1:25. When I try to substitute my love for nature for my love of God, I am making that error.  To me, nature is just an aspect of the beauty of God, a reflection of God.  The greatness of the outside world is only a tiny fragment of the thought of God. 

            When we read a great poem or novel we want to know more about the writer.  Such deep and wonderful thoughts have to come from a person that is equally deep and profound.  When an artist paints inspiring scenes, we imagine that the mind of the artist must be equally inspiring.  With people this isn’t always true, but when we think of the first creator, the creator of creativity, and we look at His creation, we can know that however deep and profound is the beauty of the mountains, plains and seas, so much more is the creator of such wonder.  I go outside and enjoy the beauty that came from the mind of God, but I go to church to worship that creator.

The milky way galaxy, blackberries, and the tree house photos were copied from Google Images.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush is afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pick blackberries”   Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Moving and lessons learned by Shelley Hopkins

My blogging has come to a stop while we have been closing up our house in one state and preparing to buy a house in another state.  I had forgotten how much work moving can be.  There is nothing like packing up all of our belongings to discover how much junk we have.  I am a fairly simple person, I feel like I am the kind of person that doesn't hang on to things, and yet I find stashes of paper left over from one craft, bags of ribbons left over from another craft, magazines that I can't bring myself to throw away,  books and toys from when my children were young, books that I may want to read again, and so on.
I am not a shopper, so where do all these things come from?  How do they get into my house?  One answer is disorganization.  I began boxing my cleaning supplies only to find that I was storing different cleansers in various parts of the house.  Once I had assembled the cleansers in one room I discovered 3 bottles of bleach.  I rarely use bleach.  I guess that I use it so rarely that whenever I needed it I assumed I had none and bought more.  If I can remember what I have, I may never have to buy bleach again.

We are buying our 4th house, and another lesson I learn, every time, is that you should fix up the house the way you want when you buy the house, and don't wait to only fix it up for the new owners.  Many times we put off projects, only to find that we are moving and the project needs to be done to make the house easier to sell.  If we had done those projects earlier we would be enjoying the upgrade, and we would be ready to sell.

Leave yourself enough time.  That can't be stated enough.  We always seem to be short on time and it always causes problems.  With our first house we had to turn the keys over by a certain day.  We planned our move, our friends showed up and on the hottest day of the year, July in Georgia, and in one very long tiring day everything we owned was moved from one place to another.  The next day was cleaning day, and with my 3 young kids we began working on the house.  We started at the top and worked down, finding lots of trash, and forgotten items that needed to be carried to the new house. We made several trips back and forth, then with the day nearly over we began cleaning.  The kids were tired and grumpy, and the youngest at 4 was confused about the move, causing her to be more emotional than expected.  Finally, exhausted, I decided the house was clean enough, turned in the keys and took everyone home.  We were also dehydrated from the heat and hard work, but that was no excuse, the new owners found the house messier than expected and were very upset.  I had cleared out the garage, but not swept the floor.  I had carried away all the yard items, but missed two heat tiles we used to grill on.  I had cleaned and vacuumed, swept and wiped out the fridge, but left the bathrooms less than perfect.  Even the fridge wasn't as clean as it should have been.  I was so embarrassed when the new homeowners complained, and we had to pay for cleaners.  To this day I double check my cleaning, leaving an extra day to return to the house and walk through as if I were the new owner.

For this move we contracted movers, and they were to come on a certain day.  We were prepared, boxed and ready.  My husband took off of work and we drove the 9 hours to finish boxing and wait for the movers.  They never showed.  We had to hire a new company, my husband had to return to work, and I was left in our old town to supervise.  After they left with all our things in the truck, I was stuck in my old town for an extra week until a ride could return me to my family.  Luckily my son lives in this town, so I have a place to stay.  Needless to say, plans never seem to work out exactly as expected. Leave time for the what if's.

My last lesson learned is that it takes time to make a house a home.  The building we buy to live in only becomes a home as we build memories within the house.  When we invite people over for a meal or game night, when we celebrate holidays and participate in our traditions in the house, it becomes a home.  When we nurse sick kids, have fights and make up, burn the dinner and rent movies, these things make the house a home.  When we dance to music, laugh at jokes, and work on our crafts together at the kitchen table, we are building memories and a home.  I am ready to head back home, finish the house buying process and start working on my new home.

What makes a house a home for you?