Wednesday, October 26, 2011

from my kitchen to yours.

Latin Chicken
This is one of my favorite dishes to make in my crockpot. Well, if I’m being honest, it’s one of the only things I use my crockpot for. I’ll get better at using this slow cooker one day, but for now I thought I’d share some delicious love.  This recipe makes enough for 6 people, so feel free to adjust it to meet your liking. Personally, I make about as much, just with less chicken, and munch on it for a few days. You can always freeze some and break it out later.

What you’ll need:
A crockpot – preferably one that’s at least 6 quarts.
3 pounds of bone-in skinless chicken thighs (Dark meat will enrich the flavor and the meat will end up more tender if you use a thigh cut. Personally, I use 2 -3 large chicken breasts).
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
1 teaspoon mild curry (my own addition – it adds some spice)
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (my own addition)
1 cup chicken broth
1 can Rotel (I grabbed the Mexican type with peppers, lime and cilantro. Rotel is great because you can make it as spicy as you’d like)
3 cloves garlic, crushed (Let’s be real – can you have too much garlic? Add to your taste)
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drain (I make my own beans – it’s cheaper and healthier)
2 pounds sweet potatoes peeled and chunked (Generally, two large potatoes are plenty)
1 jarred roasted red pepper, cut into strips (about 1 cup)
1 lime
1/3 c loosely packed cilantro leaves, chopped (I just toss in some dry cilantro and it works great, too).

What you’ll do:

Combine ½ teaspoon of ground cumin, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of pepper, ½ teaspoon curry and ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper.  Sprinkle the chicken with the spice mix, rub, and then brown in a non-stick skillet until well browned on both sides. It takes about 10 minutes – don’t overdo it though – because then the chicken will be tough! Browning the outside of the chicken seals in some moisture and keeps the meat tender in the slow cooker.
Remove the skillet from heat. In a small saucepan, or the same skillet you used for the chicken, combine the rest of the spices, the chicken broth, garlic and Rotel tomatoes.
In your crockpot, throw in the beans and the sweet potatoes. Place the chicken on top and pour the broth mixture over the chicken. Top with roasted red pepper. You can even squeeze ½-1 lime over the mixture to add in a citrus kick. Cover with the lid and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 8 hours.
Top with cilantro and serve.

This dish is full of protein, beta carotene, and fiber. It’s super flavorful, and after 15 minutes of prep work you can have your dinner cook while you go about your day. It’s great to serve with some tortilla chips and homemade guac, too! You could even skip the chicken and go vegetarian by adding some garbanzo beans and more tomatoes/peppers.

Happy Wednesday.
<3 a

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

a homeless man and his dog: a lesson of expectation

When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. 4 But Peter,
 along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, “Look at us!” 5 And he began to give them his
 attention, expecting to receive something from them.
                                                                                           -Acts 3:3-5

 Obviously, I’m going to start off by encouraging you to read the entire text of Acts 3 – and the story continues in chapter 4 as well. But I want to pause on these three verses for a moment, because a few things struck me this morning as I was reading about the early church.

This man clearly asked to receive alms from Peter and John – in fact, he was carried to a certain gate each morning for the sole purpose of begging for alms from those passing by to pray. It makes sense then, that when Peter and John give him attention, he would expect to receive something from them.

So a few quick things that popped up with this passage for me today:
1.        The man asked. We are called to do the same. In fact, Jesus says, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” –Matthew 7:7

2.        He didn’t just ask for alms – he asked to receive alms. I love that. I know there are different translations of Scripture, but I love that NASB includes that infinitive “to receive.” The majority of the time, I don’t need something new, I just need help to receive that which has already been given to me.

3.        He expected to receive something from Peter and John. He asked “to receive alms” and “expected to receive something.” How often do I ask with expectation? Even further, when I ask and Jesus responds to me, how often do I give him my attention, expecting to receive something from him?

There are quite a few homeless folks here in this city. They stand on street corners and sell papers for a dollar. They typically occupy the same corner, so you get to see familiar faces on certain streets as you drive through Nashville. One of my favorite parts of my morning is when I get off the interstate on exit 1 to West End Ave. There’s a man there with a full salt and pepper beard, leathery skin, and light eyes. Standing nearby him is a stray dog – and to this day, I’m not sure who adopted whom in their couplet, but I love them together. The man holds up the paper and waves to each car, saying things like, “Good Morning!” I’ll never forget, the first time I saw someone give him a dollar was on a sunny morning, and he turned to his dog and started jumping with joy – holding up the crinkled bill above his head – with the pup barking and leaping with him. From that day, I started trying to carry dollar bills with me more often. I’ve never read the paper, but I love it when he runs out of them – then he hands out cool pamphlets – like one day, he had love letters from the Civil War.

The notion of begging for something and yet not expecting to receive it seems incredibly foolish to me. Yet, on some level, I do it all the time with the Lord. When I’m not careful, I forget that Jesus will never harm me. I can ask – whether it be for something, or just for help receiving what He’s already given – with full expectation to receive something from Him that’s best.  I wonder if my excitement when Jesus responds to me comes from a root of worship or surprise/shock. I’m almost always more surprised by his grace and faithfulness than I am thankful for it. My surprise almost always comes from a place sprinkled with a little bit of unbelief – I am more surprised by his goodness because part of me was in a “waiting for the other shoe to drop” mind set. To be honest, I don’t think that’s asking with expectation, nor is it trusting in God’s character and His heart toward me.

He says clearly, “Ask and it will be given to you.” So friends, the challenge is to trust that He will keep His word. May we ask with the expectation to receive something from Him – something for our good – and may our response be one of thankfulness rather than faithlessness.

Much love from this eclectic city, 
<3  a

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

breaking down and building up

There are a few people in my life who know how to relax. My brother, Patton, is one of them. I’ve always envied his ability to kick back and take it easy – I wondered if he ever got stressed about anything at all, and then one day I saw him start to sweat over something. It took me back a bit. He quickly returned to his rather laid back self. Patton and I have a lot of things in common, but the ability to relax and rest is not one of those things. In fact, in the area of stress and I am completely uptight and he’s never been wound up at all.
I had today off, and I’d been contemplating a rather big change with my hairstyle, so I went to my first ever hair appointment (in my memory anyways). My mother has always cut and styled my hair, and she’s ridiculously good at making it look good. I asked a local coworker where she got her hair done, and she pointed me in the direction of a really great salon. I walked in and it smelled anything like my kitchen. I sat in a twirling chair and my stylist, Carly, showed me a few bottles of oil that they use in their complimentary head/shoulder massage. I chose the first one, and she went to work on the knots of stored tension in my muscles. I couldn’t even relax during that because I couldn’t get over how embarrassingly tight I was! Then she washed my hair – the combination of the shampoo and oil created this tingling sensation all over my head and neck – I was in heaven.

My preceptor told me this week, “Alex, if you start stressed – you’ll end stressed.” Anita is wise beyond her 29 spunky years, and she was right. I gave whoever holds the most frustrating employee award a run for his money that shift, letting my pride and feistiness rebel against that quiet voice calling me to trust Him. For the fourth time over these past seven days, I left work with a very heavy realization of the depth of my arrogance in the light of God’s grace and faithfulness.

My sister Lexi posted a very true, but weighty saying on her Facebook profile recently. Essentially, it said this – “You exist right now because God wills that you exist.” That hit me with an impact that knocked the breath out of my lungs. I was spiritually winded. Because the truth is, I exist right now – with air in my lungs, blood coursing through my veins, fingers typing at this computer sitting on a little blue desk in Nashville on this fall day in October – solely because the Living God wants me here. I drove home sobbing Sunday night, because I had a hopeless woman weep before me in incredible brokenness and confess that she believed God hated her. Maybe no one else knows the extent of my junk – the ugliness of my heart and the impurity of my thoughts – but I do. I wept for her, I wept because I wanted so badly for her to be prayed over by someone, anyone who had it more together than I did. I wept because she was stuck with me – not out of self-pity but over my hypocrisy – and I wept because God, in His extensive grace, used me to comfort her and pray over her in spite of my mess.

The truth is, my inability to relax physically at a hair salon is rooted in my inability to throw my entire weight into the arms of the Living God. Worry is me trying to figure out what to do to save myself, rather than trusting Jesus for my deliverance – a nugget of wisdom that I can’t take credit for, but for which I can thank Joyce Meyer. I feel like I’m sitting in an uncomfortable wooden, straight back chair before God, rather than jumping into a bean bag… the chair being a self-righteous, performance driven mentality while the bean bag a comfortable envelope of grace and mercy.

You know you’re in a war when you don’t want to spend time in the Word – not because you don’t want to spend time with God, but because you know that what He’s leading you to read is completely convicting in your current attitude and circumstance. Every morning I’ve wanted to turn back to a “light and fluffy” Psalm instead of to Romans – but there’s a pull like the ocean tide drawing me into Paul’s letter – into the truth of the Gospel. You also know your perspective is skewed when you find the Psalms “light and fluffy.” J

I hope that you leave this post encouraged (if you made it this far).  I hope that this is an honest picture of where I’m at right now, without being overly negative or hypocritical. I hope you see the fibers of God’s grace running through this as the foundation for the tapestry He’s weaving in me. It has been an incredibly painful, but much sweeter, few months of transition for me. I fear only giving you the heavy parts and forsaking the lighter – as though my life sucks and God isn’t showing up at all – or giving you nothing but daisies and roses as though I have life all figured out with no struggles whatsoever. On the contrary, I hope you see that God is replacing and rebuilding the parts of me that He’s been breaking down with pieces of Himself. Grace and humility are the mortar to these bricks of truth – and it’s not an overnight project.

Much love,

<3 a

PS: pictures of new hair to come…