Mourning in my Kitchen

Not long after receiving the call that my grandma was in the hospital, I found myself in the kitchen. An unfortunate by-product of having a family is feeding them. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Normally there is a fair amount of drudgery in the dinner experience for me; trying to cook amidst squeals and screams, force-feeding my small people, and then immediately cleaning up the inevitable messes. Not my favorite.

But something was different on that particular evening. 

It was almost an out-of-body experience, my senses both heightened and dulled by the news of potential loss. Peeling carrots, shredding cheese, whisking a roux - small moments of normalcy intoxicated with the immanent.

Since that call, I have found myself acutely aware that we live in the “now and not yet.” The kingdom of God was surely inaugurated in the first coming of Christ, but it has not yet found its fulfillment. Death has no ultimate power over those who know God, for we are promised resurrection bodies and eternity with Christ. But that happy truth is tethered to the inescapable presence of Death among us in this present age. 

To love someone on the brink of eternity is a strange and holy thing. It is a stark and obvious intersection of the temporal and eternal, which brings into focus all the other ways that heaven breaks into our everyday. It gives one fresh eyes to see the sacred in things that have become overly familiar. The last traces of baby smell that linger on Jericho’s skin, the perfect turn of Phoenix’s curls on a humid day, the crisp blue of Josh’s eyes … these things became miracles. 

I was in yoga class on a Monday when a YMCA employee came to tell me that Josh was in the lobby. As I quietly rolled my mat and slipped out of the room, I imagined all possible reasons for this interruption. Our minds are amazingly complex … I knew exactly what he’d come to tell me, but I deceived myself in entertaining other possibilities. 

After a lifetime of faithful service to Christ, my grandma took her last breaths that Sunday night, January 10th.

Mourning her loss means allowing Grief to be my ever-present passenger again for a season.  Having been introduced before, I thought I would know exactly how to navigate our relationship. But, as it turns out, grief is not that consistent. Mourning a particular person in a particular season brings a very particular pain. For me, this time, I started stuck in the mire of numbness and emotional volatility, which admittedly made me a miserable person to be around. 

And, for some reason, the loss seems to strike me afresh when I'm in my kitchen. Not every time I cook - only those times where I find a strange balance between focus and contemplation. Grating ginger, carefully avoiding my fingers while simultaneously basking in the sharp, herbal scent that my grandma loved so much. Watching swirls of sour cream slowly disappear as I mash potatoes, remembering all the Thanksgiving dinners where my grandma would stand at the stove whisking gravy. Sprinkling freshly cut tomatoes with herbs and garlic to roast for spaghetti, thinking about how she relished in beautiful produce (and anything else that grew from the Earth). 

The tediousness of cooking for my young family has been imbued with new meaning for me - largely because I know that my efforts in the kitchen would make my grandma so proud. The ways she loved were not grandiose or extravagant; she loved with meals, with presence, with a listening ear, with understanding, with greenery, with prayer. She wasn't changing the whole world, she just showed up every day to care well for her people. I'm learning the eternal significance of seemingly small acts of love, and Grief is a patient, long-suffering teacher. 

Still Deciding

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the future of my blogging endeavors. If I am going to do it, then I want to give it the time, effort, planning and vision that goes into any meaningful media. And I haven't quite nailed down whether it is worth it. Or if I even have anything unique to contribute to the blogging community. Hmm ... who knows.

BUT --
All of this reflection has made me think a lot about what blogs/blogging has meant to me, and I found myself surprisingly thankful. When it comes to forms of expression and media, I am admittedly biased towards books. God himself is on my side ... when he wanted to communicate truth to his people, we got a book (the Bible, in case anyone was confused). And I still love books ... ardently. But blogs have found a place in my life, and, interestingly, in my heart.

Here's why.
1. Because, when I found out that I was very unexpectedly pregnant, I hated the idea of becoming a mom. Obviously, this was something that I would have to get over. My mommyhood-hating remedy? Mom blogs. There was one particular blogger that made motherhood sound like the greatest adventure, and it gave me just an inkling of hope that my life wasn't ruined. And the more blogs I read, the more I believed that maybe being a mother could end up being one of the great joys of my life. And blogs continue to inspire my parenting, to imbue me with creativity and to encourage me in exhaustion. I often find myself thinking "you too?" while reading mommy blogs ... and that solidarity (even with people I've never met) has been indescribably life-giving.
2. Since our budget requires eating at home most nights, I have had to start cooking/meal planning. I don't know how anyone did this before the Internet, but blogs are the reason that we survive on home-cooked meals. When we first got married, Josh ate a lot of tacos and I ate a lot of frozen Trader Joe's entrees. Enter aforementioned baby (and all her expenses) ... now we eat so well at home! We eat a minimally-processed, mostly organic diet -- with A LOT of variety. If eating at home meant casseroles every night, we would've given up months ago. But blogs have given us so many wonderful meals! And I have found online cohorts for my baking addiction; though not good for the budget, baking is always so fun for me!
3. Because blogging about Phoenix's birth/NICU stay was not only informative for all the wonderful people who were praying for us, but it was hugely therapeutic for me. It gave me a recurring reason to sort through my experiences and feelings, and it gave me a taste of leading through personal hardship.
4. Because it is a fun window into other people's worlds! Granted, it is largely the good stuff -  in other words, fashion bloggers don't take pictures in their jammies. Even though it is edited, I love to see the creativity, self-expression, intentionality, devotion and love that exist in the lives of other people. Maybe that makes me a creeper ... or maybe just a people-appreciator.
5. Reading blogs inevitably leads me to wonderful little corners of the internet where I learn new things. I come out of such corners with a new favorite quote or artist, a new word or paradigm, a new craft or new style strategy (anyone else notice that the front-tuck is making a comeback?), a tattoo idea or verse to memorize. And the summation of those little thought-trinkets ends up being a meaningful contribution to my life.

So no matter what decision lies on the horizon for my personal blog, I will always be thankful for blogging!

This Week in Meals

We had a pretty successful week in meals here at the Cash household, with one fairly giant exception (don't worry, I will elaborate).

Here are the things that rocked:

• Roasted Salmon with Lentils -- This has been a favorite for a (relatively) long time at our house. This week was Phoenix's first time trying it, and she loved it! Sister ate her body weight in lentils. Easy, delicious meal with pantry staples? Yes please.
• Italian Breaded Pork Chops (and I can't remember what we ate with it) -- Again, super easy and really good. Josh championed this particular dinner effort, and it was great. I don't make pork a regular part of our rotation, but it is nice to mix it up every once and a while.
• Red Curry Chicken with Rice Salad -- The chicken was good, but the rice salad stole the show. Josh ate all the leftovers. At one point he said, "Is it ok if I eat the rest of the salad?" Who knew such a question would ever come from my husband's mouth. I used a little more serrano than the recipe called for, and it was the spicy factor that really won Josh.
• Carrot-Pistachio Pesto with Bulgar and Chickpeas -- Love this. Fresh, light, healthy ... savory with a touch of sweetness from the currants. So good. We also added some chunks of chicken sausage (from the Dekalb farmers market) to make it more Josh friendly.
• Homemade Pizza -- This is a pretty standard meal in our house. Josh is a pizza addict, and it is an easy way for me to use up whatever veggies we have sitting around. This week, I used olive oil and garlic instead of sauce, loads of spinach, mozarella, feta and lots of black pepper. It was glorious. We just make one big pizza and divide it between us, with Josh getting a substantially bigger half.
• Refried Beans and Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas -- I am kind of embarrassed to admit that I LOVE refried beans. I can't be the only one, though, since they are a standard side at Mexican restaurants. This version is so easy, and there is no nasty lard involved. Josh was not involved in this meal ... he ate his leftover pizza. But Phoenix and I ate the beans and the (delicious!) tortiallas with tomatoes and avacado.

The fail?
I made "Spinach, Ricotta and Parmesan Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce" from The Meat Free Monday Cookbook. I spent an inordinate amount of time making this, especially because I started by making the ricotta from scratch. When it was all said and done, the gnocchi fell apart, I was in tears and Josh and I got in a fight. We will never make this again. But the cookbook is really cool ... you should check it out.
Anyone had a successful go at making gnocchi?

Culinary Adventures

I have been meal planning for a while now ... really, ever since we got serious about our budget. The first several months of marriage, we ate out A LOT and purchased whatever we really wanted from the grocery budget. It is kind of embarrassing to admit that we were somehow spending around $450 a month on groceries while simultaneously eating out for quite a few meals each week.
Now, we are down to $300/month (not including formula ... thank goodness we are almost done with that!), and being intentional about our grocery list is the only thing that makes that happen for us. Especially because I have really started to prioritize organic produce and dairy, hormone-free meat and nothing overly processed. Having a baby and realizing that I will be the one to choose her food and form her eating habits has given me a whole new perspective on what we eat. Especially now that she can eat a lot of our "table" food, I have really overhauled a lot of what is in our pantry.
I finally finished this book at work last night:

There was a lot of interesting history about how Americans relate to and talk about food, and it served as a sort of expose of food science and its shortcomings. In the end, he advocates for "whole foods," providing a set of helpful tips for navigating the modern market. If you want to skip the history and get right to the practical advice, you could read this instead:

And you have to take it all with a grain of salt ... for example, he spends much of the book suggesting that speaking in terms of nutrients and not whole foods is a destructive, while simultaneously suggesting the importance of omega-3s over omega 6s. I know that we can't do everything he suggests -- we have a budget, I have a husband who hates vegetable and I don't have the time to track down food that is all local and organic. But it is definitely worth reading, if for no other reason that to help identify the ways that you have bought into an improper perspective on food.

Sorry for the long tangent.

Back to the meal plan ... I usually only meal plan 7-10 days at a time. The fact that I plan at all is a feat for me, so the ideal of having a monthly plan is overwhelming and stifling to me. I get recipes from cookbooks, magazines, blogs, random internet searches, and Pinterest. And Josh and I both have an aversion to leftovers, so I usually plan 6 meals/week (something usually comes up at least once a week that steals us away from dinner at home). We will either half the recipe, or I will eat the leftovers for lunch (takin' one for the team, people).

I always appreciate when other people share their recipes/strategies, so I figure I would try that as well!

This past week was an epic meal-planning fail in our house, because our blender died. Several of our recipes required its use, so we ate some weird/lame stuff as a result.
But we did have a few big wins:

• Asian Turkey Meatballs with Lime Dipping Sauce (click HERE for source/recipe) -- neither Josh or I are all that into meatballs, but these sounded good ... and they were! We served them over brown basmati rice, and had quite a few leftovers for lunch the next day.
• Avocado Basil Pasta (click HERE for source/recipe) -- I used some fresh, pretty red pasta from the farmers market and this was AWESOME. Josh told me his mind was blown ... in his words "This looks like something I wouldn't like, but it's actually pretty darn good." And, considering there is very little meat in this recipe, that is quite the compliment from my carnivore.  

• Jerk Chicken and Snow Pea Salad -- Josh loves Jerk, but usually uses a bottled sauce. This recipe came from the "Everyday Food" magazine, and was totally from scratch ... and ridiculously good. The snow pea salad (from the same magazine) is the only form of vegetables that has Josh coming back for seconds. It's just thinly sliced snow peas, Dijon mustard, vinegar, olive oil, and shallot. 

 Other cooking wins this week:

• Lemon cupcakes with blackberry frosting (just randomly searched recipes and didn't save them. Bummer, because they were very tasty)
• Homemade baked potato chips, from this book (which is my new favorite purchase ever):

•  Cinnamon ice cream, with the ice cream maker that my sweet husband got me for my "birthday" (recipe HERE) -- Really rich, and somehow warm (even though it's frozen).

 Hope you enjoy!

Baking Exploits

I have done my fair share of baking in the last few days, and felt compelled to share. Well, not the baked goods. I felt compelled to eat those. But I want to share the recipes!

First, I baked some strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.
Why, you may ask, did I bake these cupcakes? Because I saw this picture:

See? Now you want to bake cake too.
Oh, and I was also bored. Josh went to see the Eagles in concert, and I was homebound with the babe.
The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen ... click HERE to check it out.
I decided to go with individual cupcakes, so that I could bring treats for my small group girls on Thursday night. If you decide to do the same, really spread that batter out. I only made 12 cupcakes, and they overflowed a little ...

Not super pretty ... but they still tasted AMAZING!
And, in my opinion, everything is enhanced with a little buttercream frosting.

Ya, they got uglier. AND ... tastier! They got the seal of approval from my high school small group, so that was a win in my book.
THIS has become my go-to recipe for frosting, btw.

Next, I whipped up a batch of cookies for Josh's birthday (which is today! Happy Birthday, love!)
It was a cruel joke of God to make me a diabetic who loves to bake, that also has a husband who doesn't care for sweets. So whenever I bake, I have to make sure there is someone around to help me eat them ... with the exception of these cookies. Josh grew up eating them around Christmas, and they are his no-sweets exception.

Here is the recipe:

2 1/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 T. milk
Mix flour, salt and baking powder; set aside. Cream shortening and sugar together in a large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla. Last, mix dry ingredients with milk to creamed mixture. Roll dough out onto floured surface; cut out shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 8-12 minutes @ 375 degrees. 

After cookies are cooled, ice with a simple frosting of powdered sugar, water & food coloring. 

I hope that I didn't just reveal some treasured Cash family secret. If I did ... well shoot. Y'all are stuck with me.

I sent these cookies to work with Josh tonight, so that his people could partake (and so they would be far from the diabetic ... see the strategy?). But one of Josh's co-workers also has a birthday this weekend, so I made Jared his favorite cake too. A cheesecake. THIS was a little outside my comfort zone, but I decided to go for it. 

I didn't realize, however, that it would need to cool for SIX HOURS. I was leasurely eating my one-egg-and-bacon brunch this morning while reading the recipe, and then sprinted out the door for eggs (I had six in the house, but needed seven. Ugh.) 

Mine ended up looking fairly pretty (I forgot to get a picture before I ran out the door with it), but I have no idea how it tasted. It's a dangerous idea to make a new recipe and then send it out unsampled. But I live on the edge. 

Side note #1: Yes, I am indeed obsessed with Smitten Kitchen. Sue me.

Side note #2: Sorry my pictures are from Instagram. The iPad is usually just an arms reach away, and I can email pictures to my computer instead of having to wait to borrow Josh's.

Dinner Win

We made skirt steak with sweet potato wedges for dinner last night, and it was a hit! I am addicted to Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food" recipes, because they are simple, fresh and flavorful. You can view the recipe at http://www.marthastewart.com/317482/skirt-steak-with-sweet-potato-wedges-and We especially loved the parsley salad. Anything with mustard is a win in this home, and it really dressed up the meal!

Lunch Lady

I have really terrible eating habits when it comes to lunch ... if there aren't dinner leftovers, I usually just stare at our fridge hoping that someone will reach out and hand me a salad from Panera. But, since that has yet to happen, I usually end up eating something terrible like nachos. This had to change -- not only because I am a few pounds heavier than I would prefer, but more so because of the way that kind of food makes me feel. Trust me, I believe there is a time and place for nachos. But fatty, starchy foods just suck the life right out of me.
I have already solved this problem for breakfast -- I wasn't eating in the morning, mostly because I didn't know what to make. Now, almost every morning, I have been drinking a smoothie of: frozen bananas, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, spinach and milk. Lean, full of protein, and I get lots of good green spinach eaten before 9 AM. (Don't stress ... you don't taste the spinach. Click HERE for a link to a recipe).
I have learned the one trick to eating more healthy food: make sure there is plenty of it around. In tasty and convenient forms. I have been working really hard to create dinner menus that are tasty, semi-healthy, and Josh-approved. But I had not put any effort into taking care of myself when it comes to eating lunch.
So, when meal planning for this week, I added a lunch to the list. If I just make one or two things at the beginning of the week, I can eat on them for several days. The best part of this lunch food endeavor? I can indulge in all the flavors and foods that Josh won't eat. So I eat better tasting food, and it's better for me. Holla!

This week I decided to make:
1. Quinoa salad with curried cauliflower, pine nuts and raisins. O Lord, it is so freaking good. Here's a picture ... and click HERE for the recipe.

Not the prettiest looking food, but DELICIOUS. I didn't use any red quinoa (it's expensive), and I was short on raisins, since I had eaten most of them when my blood sugar was low. Next time, I would use less quinoa (for a higher goodies to quinoa ratio) and maybe a little more curry.
2. Lettuce wrap sandwiches. Saw it on Pinterest, and ended up at THIS website. Really, it's just sandwich stuff on lettuce instead of bread. This is PERFECT for me, because then I don't have to worry about giving myself insulin for carbs. I put turkey, avocado, tomato, cucumber and mushrooms on mine. No soggy bread from the tomatoes, and it tasted great!

After coming home from the farmer's market yesterday, I put away loads of fresh produce, herbs, cheese, meat and milk. Then I stopped and stared at my fridge, moved almost to tears. I am so thankful for all those good eats ... I try not to forget what a luxury it is! Thankful for the margin in our budget to eat healthy, great places to find organic food, and the internet to help me cook it all!