Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce

Picking up vegetables this week was fun!  Not only did I get a little more organized for our pick up, but we also got some beautiful food. This orange beauty is called Cheddar Cauliflower. Now I was the silly one that actually asked, "Does it have a cheese flavor?" FYI...It doesn't :-) 

I was very excited to get this piece of our CSA home to cook.

#1 Because it's beautiful

#2 Because I found a recipe a couple of months ago that uses cooked cauliflower and turns it into Alfredo sauce.

Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce 

Ingredients

• 1 cauliflower head
• 1/2 cup hot cooking water
• 1/2 chicken broth
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• salt and pepper, to taste
• garlic salt (optional)

Instructions

1. Clean the cauliflower head from green leaves, and chop it into reasonably large but manageable pieces. Place it in the big sauce pan with water, bring to boil and boil for 30-40 minutes until cauliflower is really soft. Remove from heat and drain cauliflower from water. You should have about 3 and 1/2 cups of cooked and sliced cauliflower pieces. Do reserve some cooking water.
2. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking water.
3. In a food processor or blender, combine drained cooked cauliflower and 1/2 cup of chicken broth.  Pour cooking water into blender until it is the thickness you like. Add 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and process really well, until a very creamy sauce forms:
4. Transfer sauce into a large sauce pan and keep it warm on the stove top. I add chicken or broccoli at this point. Season with salt and pepper, and garlic salt (optional), to taste.
5. Pour over noodles.

Happy Healthy Eating

Lindsay

Kids Can Cook

This week's "farm goodies" from our local CSA were a little different than last weeks.  I think that is one of my favorite things about doing a CSA is how the foods change from week to week.  I won't lie... some weeks really stretch me with my menu and my tastes.  It is easy when we get lettuce, carrots, berries, peppers, etc. But Bok Choy and Swiss Chard were not something that I grew up eating.  

By the time I got home I was short 2 tomatoes and a pint of strawberries.  My kids love fruit and vegetables!!! They had dug into my bag and started snacking.  I am glad my drive is only 15 mintues, or I might get home with nothing.  When we arrived home my 11 year old daughter was helping me get stuff out of the car and she asked if she could cook dinner. " WHAT?!?!" I thought.  "I don't even know what to do with Bok Choy and Swiss Chard, much less teach you how to do something with it!"  But I took a breath and suggested she hop on Pinterest and see what she could come up with.  After all, that is what I was about to do.  So after about 30 minutes this is what she came up with....

Bok Choy and Swiss Chard stir-fry

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 ½ tablespoons sesame seeds
14 to 16 ounces extra firm tofu, drained and cut into ½ inch cubes and fried in sesame oil (If desired, chicken can be substituted; or use neither tofu, nor chicken.)
1 bunch Swiss chard, stems sliced into ½ inch pieces – leaves removed
1 bunch bok choy, stems sliced into ½ inch pieces – leaves removed
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Leaves of Swiss chard and bok choy – cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups chopped red peppers
3 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 leek, thinly sliced and browned (optional)
½ shallot, thinly sliced and browned (optional)
Brown rice  (optional)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (optional

Directions:

Brown the leek and shallot slices in 1 tablespoon of oil. Put the cooked rice or wheat berries in the skillet to heat – stir periodically.

Prepare all the vegetables. Cut the bok choy and Swiss chard leaves off the stems. Cut the wide end of the bok choy stems in half; slice all the stems in ½ inch slices.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a large wok, with ginger and sesame seeds – sauté 30 seconds to infuse flavor. Add tofu and sauté for 2 - 3 minutes. Add the Swiss chard and bok choy stems, onion, mushrooms and garlic. Sauté until the stems are soft. Add the leaves and red peppers, sauté for 2 or 3 minutes; add the soy sauce. Serve over, or with, brown rice.

_________________

The really cool thing about this recipe that she found was that we had all of the ingredients!  She cooked it all by herself and served it proudly.  

My lesson in this was #1 Don't be afraid of foods that you've never cooked before.

#2 Don't be afraid to let kids help. Most of the time they can do far more than we give them credit for.  

We watch these crazy cooking shows as a family and I am always amazed at what they can do and I can't.  I clearly see my limitations.  Be it skill, ingredient availability, tools, etc.  But kids don't see things like that. In fact it is up to us to teach those limitations. Not by saying "no" all the time, but by saying "yes".  

I am not always a "yes" mom.  In fact I say "no" many times, simply because I don't want to clean up the "yes" all over the floor. My 11 year old daughter proved me wrong this week.  She showed my that she was far more capable than I thought, if only I'd just get out of the way.  

Happy, Healthy, Eating

Lindsay

Farm Foods

I think this must be one of my favorite days of the year...

The first day of CSA!

What is CSA you ask?  It is Community Supported Agriculture.  Basically we support a local farm and they bring us yummy foods.

So many yummies!!

I get the cool opportunity to write blogs for the farm that we support.  I love it because it gives me an outlet for all of my excitement over what it going on in our kitchen.  Last year we bagan making drastic changes in how we were eating.  I went totally grain free and sugar free and the house follows that loosely. 

It has made an incredible difference in my health.  I have lost a few pounds, but more than anything, I feel great.  All of my ache and pains that come occasionally with my Crohn's disease have almost totally vanished.  

The CSA has given us a great way to persue this healthy lifestyle!  So my blog will lean that direction now.  I figured if I was blogging for them then I might as well do it for my own blog.

How 'bout a Salad?

Gone are the days of iceburg lettuce and ranch dressing.  Try something new!  We received some beautiful Kale and spinach today and together they would make a great salad. 

Top those leafy greens with some strawberries, almonds, blackberries,  and a protein like chicken or fish.  

You salad can really go south if you aren't careful with your dressing. So why not make your own...

In a small bowl, whisk together apple cider vinegar, mustard, honey, salt and pepper until combined. Slowly stream in olive oil while whisking until emulsified. Easy!!

*To slice kale, first fold each leaf in half, then cut away and toss the stems. You can slice the stems into slivers and use them, too. Next, working in batches of several leaves, roll up the leaves like a cigar to consolidate them for easy chopping. 

Did you Know....

A grilled market salad at Chick-Fil-A without dressing has only 200 calories. But when you add the Avocado-lime-ranch dressing it adds 310 calories. That's 510 calories.  A chicken sandwich has 410 calories. 

A Chili's Quasadilla Explosion Salad has 850 calories withOUT dressing and 1439 calories with. 

Happy Healthy Eating

Lindsay

Pray about Giving

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you may know Peyton and I have the opportunity to travel to Mexico this summer for a mission trip..  She and I will serve on a team of eleven people.  This trip is unique because it is specifically designed with families in mind. We will serve in a women’s shelter, 2 different orphanages and hand out food.  Most of the places we will serve is based out of a one area of focus “The Dump”  now affectionately referred to as La Colonia. This site used to serve the area as a city dump. Though it is now closed many people have made la Colonia their home.  Much of the mission trip will be spent serving the people of this area. 

It is a huge honor to be able to travel with our youngest daughter Peyton.  As a parent one of our greatest prayers is to not just hear our children profess to be Christians but to see them live it out.  Last summer Steven, Baily, and Shelby all set out on mission trips of their own.  While Peyton, Barron, and I sat at home a prayed from a distance.  It is so amazing to watch God use these events to begin cultivating desires in our youngest two. 

So yes you guess it…. this is a support letter. We pray that as you receive this letter that you will begin to pray about what God would have you to do. Peyton and I have to raise $1000 together.  This will cover travel, meals, accommodations, and any leftover goes to support any projects that we will do while we are in Mexico.  We pray that you will be faithful in your prayers for us and you will be obedient to His ask. We trust that God will call out the right people for prayer and financial support.  It is our heart that through your prayers and financial gifts; that you to will be blessed.  We know that God doesn’t ask us to all do and give the same and that is why we are so incredibly thankful for the wide spectrum of people that He has placed in our lives. 

There are 3 ways to give.

~A check to Fellowship Church (Lindsay and Peyton Latham in the Memo)

This check will be tax deductible.

~A check to Lindsay Latham

(This will go towards the cost of the trip but any overage will go for specific travel needs of Peyton and me.  Like Passport, travel food, etc. This one is not tax deductible)

~ Through a site called Go Fund me (You can pay by credit card on the site. But it is not tax deductible)

    http://www.gofundme.com/i4sqt8

All Checks are mailed to me and I turn them in.

Our address is:

3812 Boyd Walters Lane

Knoxville, Tn 37931

                                                                                                                     In His Grace,

                                                                                                                    Lindsay Latham

Hi, this is Peyton and I am going to Mexico and this is the map of where we’re going.

 

The 2 places that we will be going to are Tijuana and the other is Rosarito. I am really excited because this is my first mission trip. I feel like God is pulling me closer and closer to Him to be able to spread the Gospel.

Knock, Knock.

Who’s there?

Needle.

Needle who?

Needle little money for Mexico!!!

                                                                                                Love You All,

Peyton

Puzzle pieces

I am always amazed at how God is always shifting puzzle pieces. How he takes one person from one thing and shifts them to another, then moves someone else to just the perfect place. Or how you meet someone and they mention a book that is exactly what you needed at that moment, in that season.

 I don't believe in coincidences. AT ALL. I believe that the One True God is very personal and cares for each stitch of our lives.

Over the past 10 months I have been reading through the bible.  Basically taking it in one month segments using the Bible app and the "Let's read through the Bible" reading plan (There are 12).

As I began this reading plan I found that it paralleled 2 books of the bible. Normally one in the Old Testament and one in the New. Right off the bat I realized how much I did NOT know my bible.  I became sad at my ignorance. 

I was naive enough to think that all of those years in Sunday Scool, vacation bible school, and flannel graphs had taught me THE WHOLE BIBLE.  🙀

I realized in my first months of reading that I new Genesis and Matthew and then a little Acts and James thrown in for good measure.  But the over all picture that the Bible paints I really didn't have.
Now one might question..."If you had started this reading plan or someone had taught you 10 years ago, would you have gotten it then?"  And I would say "Probably not". What I think is that God has brought me to a time where my eyes and heart see Him differently and receive Him differently.

All of that being said....it has been a cool year (almost year) of God lining up things for me to see Him. 

As I have read the Old Testament one thing has really stood out to me.

GOD KILLED A TON OF PEOPLE!!!!!

My first "AH HA" about this was with Job.  He went through so much. And there is so much to learn from his suffering and faithfulness.  BUT...what about his family???  

Ain't nobody talking about them.  

They just got swept up and wiped out.  Poor Jobs family.   God allowed them to be part of Job's test just like the boils he got. 

But then we go on to read about countless lands and kingdoms that are taken down by the Israelites.  Men, women, children, goats, cats, goldfish...everything destroyed.

So here I sit in my comfy chair, snuggled in my electric throw, soft music playing, warm coffee in hand to learn about a loving God who gave His only son to save humanity from itself.  And I get     💀DEATH💀 and lots of it.

I am a fixer, problem solver.  So as I began to have these question about my John 3:16 God, I began to get anxious.  I needed to reconcile it. I needed to fix the picture that was being painted in my head. 

No! The God who rescued me from my sin and Hell...the God who took on human form because of his great love for us.....the God I pray to everyday for peace and wisdom... Could not be the same God that allowed and ordered annihilation of people and entire lands.  

I found that I didn't really even want to talk about my questions to anyone. This one was mine...between me and my Creator. Because I desperately needed a simple answer that would reconcile the Old Testament God that I couldn't comprehend to the New Testament God that I thought I new.

So I sat quietly...reeling.  

I remembered that I had heard someone say once, "I am struggling through________ right now with God.  I trust that He will reveal the answer to my question in His time."  

So I decided that I would do the same.

Before I decided to "do the same" and wait, I had to remember some truths.

⭐️There is only one true God.
⭐️He allowed His son to die in my place, for my sins.
⭐️He has done the same for each of us if we will just Follow Him.

And... (A couple of years ago I began to implement this truth into my questions for God)
⭐️It is ALL for HIS glory. ALL of it.  So when I don't understand why something happened or why it is the way it is....I trust that "it is all for His Glory".

But my question about the Old Testament God and the New Testament God ...the "it's all for His Glory" truth just didn't seem to satisfy my searching heart.

So I began to actively wait.  

I kept reading my bible plan through the Old Testament and New Testament switchbacks.  All the while God revealed amazing things throughout. 

While I read Leviticus and Galations... Wow "The Law"....and then the Savior who "did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it". This was life altering for me. The freedom that Christ came to give. 

Then...

We went through Christmas and did a Jesse Tree. That's all about the Old Testament point to a coming Saviour.    Amazing stuff as you see God intentionally place the "perfectly wrong" people in places to make a way for His "perfectly right" son to come.

In all of these things I can clearly see how God shifted puzzle pieces to line up events and happenings in my heart and home to begin to answer this question of mine,about Himself.

I kept reading and while I hardly even noticed, that lingering question was softly being answered.

This past week we started learning about Saudi Arabia in our home schooling.  I will admit that I was a little nervous about this one.  Germany- Nazis, Canada- Maple syrup, Kenya-David Livingstone, I got those. But Saudi Arabia and Islam made me nervous.   Nervous mainly because I desperately want my children to be knowledgable about Islam so that they can love Muslim people safely and full of truth.

So we before we began our conversations about Islam-Allah I wanted to find something that simply compared what we believe as Christians worshiping the One true God and what the Muslim people believe.

So naturally I turned to G👀gle. 

And let me first say "There is ALOT of CRAP out there".
So if you are going to read up on things like this make sure you know your sources.

One that I love is Watchman.org they have a ton of resources for research.  But what I came up with as a searched the internet was John Piper talking about Allah. (6 minutes worth your time).  And what Piper said in those 6 minutes completely did me in.  

Through trying to understand what the Muslim people believe, and about a country that I am a little scared of,God revealed more of Himself to me than I could have ever hoped.

One of my daughters recently told me taught me this saying, "Don't hate the process, because it will turn out in the end."  She was talking about art and painting, but I think that applies here too. 

The process of sitting back and waiting with our Perfect God for His perfect timing is a journey.  One that may or may not lead you in the direction that you started. But as He shifts the puzzle of revealing His glory through our lives and those lives that will come after one thing is for sure .... He's got us and He is willing to walk with us if we will allow it. 

 My sitting back and being patient with God has turned out to teach me more than I could have ever questioned in the first place. He has shown me that He will answer when I asked. 

So the next time you don't understand or want to scream at the way God is doing something, don't be afraid of asking Him to show you. And don't be afraid to sit quietly and wait. Or to scream loudly. The process may be long and we may not get our answers until Heaven but the journey he will take you on, as He walks beside you will reveal more of Him than you ever thought or desired. 

~LL