Fermented Friday: Summer Ale Couscous Salad

Fermented Friday: recipes featuring yeast, wine, beer or some form of fermentation

I'm not really sure how I came up with this one.  Sometimes even I can't follow my own train of thought.  It could be the result of 9+ hours of driving time this week to think.  Yay for summer road trips! Or it might have more to do with the fact that I haven't been home as much and needed to make something quick, take a few pictures and leave enough time to try something different in case this was a total flop.  Or maybe my brain is just going crazy in all this heat.  But hey, I had a lot of other weirder ideas that I held back on, well for now.   Let's just stop trying to figure it out and get to the food.

Thursday's Thoughts: Summer Fun

Less thinking and more doing again.  I took a quick trip to visit some friends while they were in the area.  In short, we had a great time.  Lunch out, making french silk pie, a brief hike to a waterfall, out for pizza, in for a movie, eating our pie (which was delicious) and lots of talk time.  I got more sleep than I expected and woke up to fresh coffee and more time with two great sisters. Thanks you two!  Here's a few pictures of the waterfall and another river we came across:

Food for Thought: "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out." -Proverbs 20:5

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Balsamic Honey Granola with TVP

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Yeah, I know, I've been putting balsamic vinegar in a lot of stuff lately. And by stuff I mean food.  Fruit, vegetables, ketchup, salad, grilled carrots and sweet potatoes, pizza, and now granola.  But it's Weird Recipe Wednesday, so it's okay. Right?

Granola with balsamic vinegar isn't quite weird enough for me so I added some TVP, Textured Vegetable Protein.  Let me explain. My friend Emma just finished an internship with The Soyfoods Council.  Her job was to develop creative recipes featuring TVP.  I had heard of TVP, but never actually used it.  After seeing all the great recipes Emma developed I was inspired to try it out for myself.  TVP is made from defatted soy flour; making it low-fat and high in protein.  It is typically re-hydrated and used as a meat substitute.

Tuesday's Twist: Grilled Romaine Salad

Tuesday's Twist:  A basic recipe with a fun twist.  In other words, just another excuse for me to play around with weird recipes I've been dying to try.

It's summer. Time in the kitchen and baking in a hot oven have been replaced with time outside enjoying the sunshine (though sometimes I feel like I'm being baked myself).  Longer days mean even more time to be outside and less time for sitting behind a computer.  I'm sure you know the feeling, so let's just keep this short and simple and get back outside, okay? Okay.

Summer means grilling. Summer is also the perfect excuse to eat more salad.  Since we want to be outside let's just grill our salad while were at it.

This salad has that smokey, charred, grilled flavor that screams summer. It's slightly warm but still crisp and crunchy.  Better yet, it take only a few minutes and requires practically zero effort.  Throw it on when whatever else you're grilling up has just a few minutes left.

I thought of drizzling this with a balsamic reduction or topping it with blue cheese, but didn't want to mess with pictures on such a beautiful day. Well, that and the fact that recipes later this week may also use balsamic vinegar and/or blue cheese.  While I'm a fan of both, I realize others may be a little less approving.  Feel free to top with your favorite salad dressing, whether it's bottled or homemade.  Or just eat it as is and enjoy all that grilled flavor.

Grilled Romaine Salad

Ingredients:

1 romaine heart

1/2 tsp olive oil

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

salt, optional

Instructions:

* Preheat outdoor grill to medium-high heat

* Slice romaine heart in half lengthwise, leaving stem attached. Brush cut-side of each half with olive oil. Season to taste with pepper and salt, if using.

*  Place cut-side-down on grill and grill 1-3 minutes or until slightly charred.  Flip and grill 1 minute more.  Do not over-grill or salad will be limp. 

I have no idea why this is appearing in white, and can't seem to fix it. That happens if you copy and paste from a word document, but I wrote this straight from my head to the post not in word.  Any ideas? 

Food for Thought: "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint." Proverbs 23:4

Mindful Monday: Long Story Short

Mindful Monday: On Monday's I'm going to share what's been on my mind. I by no means have any of this figured out, I'm just thinking out loud here.


1. I've realized it's easier for me to pray for things I view as completely out of my control  If it's out of my control then I give it to God and trust Him for the answer.  But if it seems like something I can handle on my own then I don't necessarily ask for his help.  In reality I can do nothing by my own strength and need to give him control of all areas.

2. The more you step out of your comfort zone the easier it becomes.  I've been avoiding joining a small group for lots of lame reasons.  I finally went to a new one last week and found none of those reasons to be true.  Sometimes I get stuck in old patterns of thinking and forget how much easier it is for me to be assertive and speak up than it used to be.

3. I feel like I complain a lot about not having a job and not knowing what to do with my life.  But at the same time, I know this phase of life has a purpose.  Without a busy schedule I have time to slow down and think. I'm taking a look at a lot of things that would otherwise be pushed to the side or set on the back burner.  Some are things I've been avoiding while others are new discoveries.  Either way I'm learning I have a lot left to learn. A lot.

4. Since this was a short post, I'll end with a long quote.  (And because it's so long I'm not going to type it in bold like usual.)

Food for Thought: "Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being 'in love' which any of us can convince ourselves we are.  Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.  Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." -Louis de Bernieres