Cooking Day and what a great summer sky!

I had an absolutely terrific time at church yesterday, and then it was one of the every-other-Sundays for small group at one of the leaders' houses where I also had a terrific time.

The sky on the drive between church and small group was amazing! Lots of dramatic clouds against slate grey skies or pure azure skies, and sometimes both. Take a look-

It's so wonderful how the Word refreshes. I always feel so good on Monday. We are going through the Book of John and yesterday we happened to be at John 3:16-21. Our elder Scott did a fantastic job preaching it. It was thrilling to hear the old, old story again. The music was piercing in a good way, bringing many to tears ("Amazing Grace" will do that) and the Confessional time our other Elder Allen taught was also a time of refreshing, too.

Then after talking a while in the aisles when the service was done we departed for small groups at various homes. Despite being on the threshold of the holiday vacation week a good many people came for hot dogs and hamburgers. We spoke of His glorious and shared insights from the sermon, eventually departing in the summer gloaming with His love and these precious truths buried in our hearts and minds.

Today I've scheduled a cooking day. When you choose not to eat any processed food, and are a vegetarian, and are trying different foods to reduce gut inflammation, it takes work and effort to ensure there is actually food in the fridge to eat. You can't just open the cupboard or the fridge and yank out something, it has to be made by me first.

A friend with a large garden gave me some eggplants (yay friend! Thank you!) I will cut those into rounds, dredge them in some gluten-free flour and milk, and bake. I'll also bake/roast chick peas. I need to boil up some red lentils. Red lentils cook quickly so that's good. Also will put some potatoes in the crock pot and cut up some radishes and carrots and celery for snack.

I'd bought one ready made food on Friday: roasted crunchy green peas. I gobbled them, they were so good! I roast everything, including chick peas, so I don't know why I hadn't thought of peas. The Kroger label showed only a few ingredients; peas, palm oil, salt and unfortunately, food coloring. I enjoyed them very much. My weakness is salty-crunchy foods. Nuts are very expensive, potato chips and other processed snacks don't agree with me, so I try other things like chick peas and now green peas.

Speaking of chick peas, I found them dry in a 1-pound bag. I'm going to cook them in the crock pot after the potatoes are done. This is the first time I'll have done that. Then I'll roast them. I had been buying them in the can, which is convenient. All you have to do is rinse them and pat them dry, then scatter on a cookie sheet and roast. Occasionally shake the pan to ensure even roasting. Add spices and salt near the end. (Adding spices at the beginning only ensures that it will burn onto the chick pea.)

However, I am not a fan of canned food with all the salt and preservatives. Rinsing them well does take care of all that, but still. It's more expensive to buy cans also. I'm going to try the dry and see how it works.

I'd made a red lentil/quinoa salad last week that was terrific, so I will definitely repeat that. It sure is a challenge when you can't have bread and all you want in the summer is a sandwich. It's fast, filling, and easy to make a sandwich and there are so many healthy sandwiches to make. But no more. I've been eating green salads at lunch filled with lots of goodies instead, so that is OK.

There was some silken tofu for sale which I scooped up. I am going to try a silken tofu and chia seed 'pudding,' but all the recipes I've seen so far call for cocoa powder. I don't want a chocolate based dessert. I'll try it without cocoa powder. Or I might try a smoothie with the tofu and chia seeds, milk, and strawberries.

I've got a packed day planned, and I'm not even leaving the house, lol. Cooking, listening to music, reading, need to vacuum :(, writing a difficult essay for the other blog on hypocrisy (these kind of essays are sad and tearful), working with yesterday's photos and more!

I'm still reading Moby Dick. I savor it. It is also challenging, hence the slow going. But the language! I love it. Like this:

Like some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.

It's so beautiful! I love language like Melville writes. Now you can see why I like to savor it.

Time to get dressed and going. I hope you all have a marvelous day.