Flipping Good Carrots

Merry Christmas Eve!

I’ve been wanting to share this recipe for a few days now, but haven’t gotten around to it, due to other inconveniences. Primarily—I didn’t want to.

Honestly, I just haven’t been in the writing mood lately. Call it writer’s block, or whatever you want, but I just haven’t been feeling it. I don’t even know what it is. Inspiration? Motivation? Maybe I’m just procrastinating. Anyway, I’m here now. I even wrote two other blog posts today, talk about motivation!

Anyway, mom and I checked-out a cookbook from the library recently. The cookbook, America’s Test Kitchen Live!, is a collection of recipes that have been pre-tested and altered to perfection by several professional chefs, along with reviews on various food brands and kitchen tools. Before each recipe, a few paragraphs explain what the chefs were trying to achieve with each recipe, and the alterations they made to reach the desired results. The variations of each dish are tested thoroughly, so that the authors can be sure that each recipe is solid. Mom and I plan on cooking our way through the book this holiday season, testing out recipes like stuffed pork chops (yum!), chicken, broccoli and pasta (double-yum!), and a French pizza-like dish called pissaladiere (which looks like a total winner).

And now I’m going to share a recipe I found for carrots. Yep. Cooked carrots. Like, from the can?, you ask. Um. No. Like sweet, glazed cooked carrots. As in these-are-the-best-carrots-I’ve-ever-eaten carrots. As in, I’m-going-to-make-these-for-Christmas-dinner carrots. Delicious!

*Note: I adapted the recipe to fit what I had in my kitchen at the time. I used vegetable broth instead of chicken (who doesn’t keep chicken broth in their pantry!?!?) and brown sugar instead of white (we ran out of white sugar--it was weird). The authors noted that they tried brown sugar and it left the carrots with a bit of a ‘muddled’ flavor, but I thought they still tasted fine! I’m looking forward to making them with white sugar tomorrow. We’ll see if I can actually taste the difference!

**Note: I also want to mention that the black pepper actually does make a difference! It seems like such a silly little element, but it really enhances the flavor! Don’t forget!

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Glazed Carrots

Serves 4

1 lb carrots (about 6 medium), peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick on the bias

½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

½ cup low-sodium chicken broth

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon

Ground black pepper

1.      Bring the carrots, salt, 1 tablespoon for the sugar, and the chicken brother to a boil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet, covered, over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are almost tender when poked with the tip of a paring knife, about 5 minutes. Uncover, increase the heat to high, and simmer rapidly, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, 1 to 2 minutes.

2.      Add the butter and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar to the skillet. Toss the carrots to coat and cook, stirring frequently, until the carrots are completely tender and the glaze is light gold, about 3 minutes. Off the heat, add the lemon juice and toss to coat. Transfer the carrots to a serving dish, scraping the glaze from the pan into the dish. Season to taste with pepper and serve immediately.

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I hope you enjoy the recipe as I did! Happy Holidays!

Response: Sincerely, One of Many Girls Who Care--Comments

A ton of people replied to this article (see my original post here), and I guess it’s left for some pretty controversial conversations. A few of them grabbed my intention. So I will write the comment below, then my responses to them.

1. (Leo, December 20, 2014, 10:17 AM) Wow dude. She wasn’t proclaiming that Christians are better than everyone else. She is writing to Christian men, so her argument is going to be based within the construct of God. In case you missed it, she doesn’t ever put other faiths down. If she had been writing something encouraging to cancer survivors, would you have come on here and been like, “CANCER SURVIVORS AREN’T BETTER THAN HEART ATTACK SURVIVORS HOW DARE YOU!!!”? Also, if you can’t stand it when people can’t separate themselves from their religion that’s on you because many people try and live their lvies so that they are inseperable from their religion. If God is the most important thing in your life, then God is what you’re going to talk about all the time. I find it interesting that people don’t care if other people go on and on about sports teams or celebrities or whatever but when someone talks about God often the response is “KEEP YOUR RELIGION TO YOURSELF DAMMIT I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT WHY ARE YOU FORCING THIS ON ME!” I understand that this comes from too many people often trying to force religion down others’ throats, but it’s unfair to assume that every religious person out there is doing that. Also, a man who “rapes, debases, and just ruins women” is clearly NOT striving for purity, in the same way that someone who watches eight hours of TV a day and eats cheeseburgers three meals a day is not striving for fitness. She is applauding the guys who keep their hands and eyes off of women and make a conscious effort to do so.

 For the most part, Leo, I think you’ve got things pretty much under control. I just want to highlight a few points in your comment that really stuck out to me. First, your comment about cancer was a great example that I really appreciated. I had never heard of it phrased like that, but I like it. You aren’t putting down cancer survivors or heart attack survivors, but you are just focusing on one for the moment. Then, your sports team analogy really stuck, too. Although, to be honest, when people just go on and on about sports or their significant others or specific celebrities, I get bored of talking with them. I hope my relationship with Christ shines through the way I speak and act even if I’m not shoving the gospel down someone’s throat. Lastly, your fitness reference was just plain brilliant. I thought about that while reading that comment, too, but didn’t think of any clever explanation like you did. Good work, sir.

2.  (LL, December 20, 2014, 5:23 PM) Well, it’s true that there will still be scantily clad women everywhere, but at least Anna is giving empathy and support to those guys who are actually try[ing] to think of women’s hearts and minds instead [of] only their bodies. She’s trying to do what she can to help.

    Nice. Thanks for pointing this out. But does scantily clad mean that their hearts aren’t in the right place, though? Take a woman for example, who was a prostitute. She just came to Christ earlier that week, and decided to try out church for the first time. Ever. She’s nervous, and she knows she should try to dress nicely for the occasion, but she doesn’t really know what nice is, and so she dons a short, tight, revealing dress, and wears “a little too much” makeup. She feels like she is dressing up. The rest of the church snubs her for dressing inappropriately. Whose heart is really in the right place here? I think it’s the woman’s.

3. (Ethan Dever, December 19, 2014, 6:13 PM) Thank you. I think I can speak for every young man who is striving to keep himself pure when I say that this article is a HUGE blessing and encouragement. Just to know that there are girls out there that really care is a major blessing. Keep up the good work, and I know the Lord will bless you.

Yep. I get it. Thanks for your encouragement. Why don’t you know that there are girls out there who really care? BTW. The point of the article is not to coddle you. Do not be confused. You still need to work to be a godly man, just as Christian women should improve themselves daily. Don’t forget that.

4. (Bobbie Jo Winebrenner, December 19, 2014, 2:39 PM) I just wanted to encourage you today about your post. While it is true that women need to learn to look the other way from the way society/media portrays men and the male body, I love that you were writing this as a female, to not only show men that it’s ok to turn away, but that it’s commanded that they do so. We live in a society that condemns the moral and commends the obscene and to take against that is brave and right. And it doesn’t shock me that you were automatically attacked after your article…people don’t want to be told what to do. However, if you live the way God commands, you’ll never go wrong…so stay strong and God bless you.

  Thanks for reminding us of this commandment. That’s actually a really good point! Why do we do anything? Because we want to? Because society says we should? Because it feels good? No. We do good things because God is the ultimate creator of good, and he expects us to behave accordingly. Of course, he doesn’t expect perfection from us. That’s what his Son died for. But he expects us to try. Lastly, thank you for your last sentence. “May God bless you” is such a better phrase than “do good and God will bless you,” don’t you think? God doesn’t bless us because we work for our blessings, as I said earlier in the original post. He blesses us because he wants to. Because he loves us. We don’t deserve them, otherwise they would be called compensation or dues. We don’t do anything to earn his blessings, and yet he lavishes them upon his children. And thank God for that!

Anyway. Those are the responses that I’ve had to the conversation. And I’d love to hear yours! Let me know what you think. What’s your response? It certainly provoked some strong thoughts and feelings from me, but I want to know what it spurred in you!

Response: Sincerely, One of the Many Girls Who Care

It’s late. I know I should be headed to bed, but something very interesting happened tonight, and so I thought I’d share.

I just finished my last episode of House for the night (it’s my current Netflix-binge), and was going to check Facebook on my phone one last time before heading to bed, when I came across an article that one of my friends had posted. Intrigued, I opened the link and read the article. And let me tell you…it got me to thinking.

I’m going to share my response to not only the article, but also several of the comments to the article, but first here is the link, so you can go read it yourself before you read on here. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Did you take a look?

Great.

Moving on…

Let’s take this play by play. My thoughts are in italics, the article text is in bold. These are incredibly detailed thoughts, just FYI. This is literally a play-by-play. Have fun:

First, her apologies. Man, this is kind of a catchy introduction for a blog article. Gosh. This is something only and English Major would notice. I like how she enters a bunch between sentences, too. Catchy. I should try that with my blog.

“…it honestly breaks my heart that they’re surrounded with so much temptation.” Yeah, this is probably something that should break your heart. If we’re living in a world that’s broken, shouldn’t the brokenness break our hearts? Did it break God’s heart? When His Son was taking all of our sin onto himself, wasn’t God’s heart broken by the brokenness He saw on Jesus?

“…in my youth group…” oh, she must be young. Like, in high school young. Does that make her less of an authority figure when she writes? Well, I don’t think so. Since I’m probably older than her, I probably have just as much authority when I write, right? Hmmm…

“But most of all, I think about the man I’m going to marry.” Huh. I wonder where this is going. I’m not really sure how to feel at this point. Yes, I feel bad that there is temptation out there. But that doesn’t give men any excuse to lust after women, promoting rape culture. Also, what about the temptations that women face? Shouldn’t we have a balanced perspective here!? Feminists will have a real hay-day with this article.

“…she’s not striving after God nearly the way she’s striving after you.” This is real stuff. There are so many nice girls out there who do the right thing, And yet, when it comes down to it, the bible calls for us to be “equally yoked,” meaning spiritually we should be on the same basis as our partners. I want to be one of those girls that is actively seeking God (insert self-analyzing here).

“And I haven’t even tapped into pornography.” Oh great…here we go.

“…which is more than the top technology companies combined…” ummm…I’m not sure if that’s true. It doesn’t sound true, but if it is, it’s a startling fact. I wonder if she’s put her resources at the bottom of the article. Maybe I should research it? It doesn’t matter, even if the fact is false—which it probably is—her heart is still in the right place, right?

“But enough with the pity party I’ve managed to throw for you” Whoop! There it is! This is gonna get cray!

ENOUGH section. Wait, this isn’t going the direction I thought it would. I thought she would be saying how men shouldn’t be using easy access to lustful objects as an excuse to participate. I feel almost like she’s putting down women in support of men. Shouldn’t both genders be praised equally? That’s what true equality is, right?

Verses. Yep. I like them. Nice Christian evidence. Way to go.

“Leave a life of lust behind and start today if you haven’t. You are going to be blessed beyond words…” UH-OH. Big red flag waving right over here. What did she say? That our works lead to our blessings? That our blessings come because we did something to deserve them!? Well, I don’t think that is biblically sound. I can’t think of any verse off the top of my head, but I don’t think that’s right. God blesses us because he wants to, because he loves us and because we are his children. He blesses us as He sees fit, not as we deserve through our works!

“It is men like you who make us want to be better women in God.” And another red flag. I don’t want to be a better woman because of the men in this world. I will never live up to man’s (men’s or humanity’s) standards of what I should or shouldn’t be. I try to do the best that I can, based on the gifts God has given me. But it’s not for anyone else. It’s for God first, me second, and from that it outflows into everyone else. Maybe my family and those close to me are tied for second, but that’s only because I want to make sure to love them in the best way possible. Either way, randomly selected “Christian men” don’t make me want to be a ‘better’ Christian.

“Sincerely, one of the many girls who really do care.” Yeah, I agree. I do think she cares. I think she is probably just saying what she believes, and doing her best to encourage the people in her life. That is a virtuous trait of this young woman. Even if what she says isn’t crystal clear. Even if something she says happens to be a bit misguided. She seems to be doing the best she can, and I commend that. Thanks, random chick. Nice work.

Overall, you get a gold star, chick. But wait. There’s more...this is such a long article, that I’ve split it into two posts. For the response to the comments, click here.

A Letter to All Women

Forewarning: This is a long post. If you make it to the end, five points for you!

For the last several weeks, I think that God has been speaking to me about women. Feminism. It’s a scary word in our world today. It either ignites a frenzy of bra-burning, men-hating women across the globe or it sets off women who call themselves anti-feminists that argue that women should be ladies and stay at home so men can display their inner chivalry.

Either way it’s a word with loaded, negative connotation, but through prayer I’m coming to see true, bible-defined feminism as a beautiful, Godly thing. If you had asked me two or three years ago what my views on feminism were, I would have defined them as eerily similar to the conservative women above and fled from the more liberal-minded opinions. In time however, I have come to see the pros and cons of both sides and find myself {I believe} somewhere in the middle of the two.

Anyway, while I might go more in depth into my specific opinions some other day, today I want to share with you a prayer I wrote down the other day. Like I said, God has been speaking to me about women lately, and whether it’s because he’s just helping me grow or he has some greater purpose I don’t know right now. But I was doing a devotion and journaling in my notebook, and I decided that it’s about time I write this prayer that’s been stuck in my head for weeks. It’s a letter to women everywhere and I have typed it up so that you can read it, too. This letter just begins to tap into my opinions on true feminism and my heart for the women in this world, but it’s a start. I hope this letter brings you peace and joy, and a little bit of happiness today!

Without further ado:

Lovely Lady,

                You don’t know me and you probably never will but as I have been praying lately and living daily YOU have been on my mind. Coming from another woman who has most likely experienced many of the same insecurities you have faced, felt the expectations of an ever-growing feminist (but still ruled by men world) and lived through my share of feelings of heartache and doubt and guilt, I merely want to say one thing: You are worthwhile.

                You are worth so much! Your kindness, generosity, caring-heart, beauty and all-around loveliness shines through you every day. You were destined to live a full life of meaning and purpose and I hope you find it here on Earth!

                Throughout your life you will be bombarded with lies that degrade you by telling you that you are not strong enough, smart enough, quick enough, pretty enough, wise enough. Fill in the blank, but the message remains: you are not satisfactory. But I don’t buy what this society is trying to tell us and I pray that you don’t either!

                You are a gift and a blessing. You deserve respect, kind words and a bright future. You are strong. You are smart. You are independent. Every day you are bombarded with images that make you feel inadequate. Your feelings are real. There is no question in that, but please, please remember that your “inadequacies” are undeniably false! You are so worth time and effort and beauty.

                To all the ladies who are climbing the social ladder. Oftentimes you will be told you can never make it to the top because women are weak, are feminine, are sensitive. You are told a woman can’t do a man’s job. But this is absolutely false. Being feminine is a beautiful thing. Some womena re born more sensitive than their male counterparts. Some women aren’t. You do not need to be defined by an incorrect social stereotype.

                To my married ladies. Always remember that while your man may be a hugely influential part of your life {and a wonderful aspect at that}, he can never define you. Submission, although a very Godly way to live, does not, under any circumstances equal weakness. You are strong and independent and if you choose to have a man in your life, I pray you are blessed in his company and he in yours and that through that relationship you both grow.

                To my single ladies waiting for someday. You are more beautiful than you could ever know, but I hope you can get a little glimpse in your lifetime. You are worth respect and honor. Never forget that. You have the ability to work hard with your strength and strong mind. You have a kind heart. Be generous with your love and praise and always radiate the joy of a God who absolutely adores you.

                To all of the above and everyone else. Always remember that your life is worth the price of the God of the Universe. Always remember that because of the love that he has shown you, you have the responsibility to make a difference is this dying world. Reveal a soft, loving heart that discerns, and tough, undeniable strength built and displayed with love. Always remember that your strength comes from Christ in you, not from those around you and so there is never any excuse to cut someone down, man or woman. The person next to you was created in His image also.

With all the love and prosperity a prayer can muster,

Kalynn

My Lifestyle Blog

This isn’t my first blog.

This isn’t even my second blog.

This is my third blog.

My. Third. Blog.

Unfortunately for anyone interested, my poorly written high school attempts at a cooking blog, and another blog about exercising failed (and were consequently forever removed from the internet). I wonder why? Perhaps it was because I completely forgot about them, posting on each twice before giving up and running off to some other activity.

But this blog is different.

Trust me. This one is killer. Get this, it’s going to be…a lifestyle blog! Crazy idea, right? I mean, people can come to this site and read about the mad ramblings that have occurred in my mind or the awkward situations I find myself in throughout the day! Sounds great, right? We’ll see…

So if you happen to like to cook, or read, or study, or if you happen to be a freshman in college pursuing your degree in English Education, or if you just find yourself in so many awkward situations throughout the day that you don’t know what to do, chances are we have a thing or two in common. Come on over, read a little bit about what’s going on in my mind today. You might get a kick out of it.

What’s your story?

When people ask me to give my testimony, I inevitably start the same first sentence every time: So I accepted Christ into my heart when I was eleven. One night I was reading my bible when I found a prayer written into the beginning of the book that utterly confused me. So I pitter-pattered upstairs in my pajamas and demanded my parents explain to me what on earth a “prayer of acceptance” was.

Then I accepted Christ and everything was smooth sailing from there.

Wait. What?

Sorry, I think let my sarcasm escape!

If anything, I think life has been even more of a daily struggle since I’ve become a Christian. You know those lessons that God teaches us? Those daily revelations? Sometimes I find those absolutely irritating! Ugh. Growing as a person is so annoying. But at some point, you just have to accept it, live through it, and hopefully you will eventually find the beauty in it, the mercy in it, the meaning of it. Hopefully. But even if you can’t, I’ve found that you can rely and trust the sovereign God of the Universe who never fails.

People ask why I am a Christian and that’s one of my answers. Because even through those sucky, mind-bending, heart-breaking challenges I know I can depend on a God who always has my back!

So What’s Your Plan?

My plan with this blog is to watch where it goes and follow along. I don’t want to limit myself to one subject or strictly Christian-themed posts because 1) it’s boring and 2) I have so much more to say and learn and question than that. Don’t hold me back! I live under an umbrella of freedom!

Sometimes I cook and have really good recipes I feel compelled to share. Sometimes God has given me a revelation that I feel compelled to share. Sometimes I have comments on articles I have read that I feel compelled to share. Lately, one of my passions has been balancing womanly feminism in a crazy world. But that is bound to change with the next whim that happens to blow through my dorm-room door.

I love to learn, and so when I learn new things, I’d love to share them with you, too! We are given this beautiful life, and some people waste it away within their comfort zone because they are afraid of exploration and questioning. I pray that I am unafraid to learn and grow and question and find truth! I hope that when you read my blogs you feel intrigued or challenged or at the very least are left pondering new ideas! And I fervently pray that you never grow tired of questioning!

With love,

Kalynn