Valentines Day is almost here, and so is spring in Salt Lake City. Or at least I'm telling myself that. When it's feeling warm enough to start thinking of sunbathing, I say spring. The night I made these quick and yummy little cookies was just the start of winter though, and our first snow storm of the winter. I took a couple quick shots outside our house and loved the glitter of the snowflakes in my camera. We brought these cookies over to Julia's house that night and when her 2 year old wanted another heart shaped cookie, she would ask for "love". I REALLY loved that.
These cookies are a lovely cross between cookie and cracker and are just barely, yet perfectly sweet. They would also be great smeared with apple butter or drizzled with a little honey. You can find the recipe here at www.yumuniverse.com . I made mine with spelt flour since I was on the nightshade free diet at the time, but the original recipe is both gluten and wheat-free.
I've been absent from my little blog for a few weeks now, as we've had lots of good friends visiting, and still many more to come. A couple weeks ago I went with my blog designer friend Lisa, of My Little Buffalo, to a party at the beautiful Grand America Hotel in SLC for the Alt conference. We got the guys to join a little in the crazy fun.
I have a love for singing that runs pretty deep. Growing up I would have chosen to be a singer over anything. I mostly made choices back then from my logical brain, which didn't think my voice would make the cut. Not that I feel any differently about my voice now, but there's so many more sides to being a good singer than just the sound of your voice. One of my favorite sounds in this world is a large group of people singing together acapella. Individually they may be lacking, but together something magical happens and the result is melodic beauty.
So here's a little video my friend Nick captured...I don't participate in karaoke often, but we were on a cruise ship, it was our friends' wedding, and I love the guys I'm with (who are GREAT rappers). Good family fun (actually you might want to preview before you watch with your kids!).
6 1/2 Cups Soaked and Chopped Walnut/Pecan Mixture
1 1/2 Cups Turbinado Sugar
2 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Melted Vegan Butter
1/2 Cup Melted Coconut Oil
3 Cups Honey
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
Finely chop nuts and soak overnight. Drain water, then mix soaked nuts in a bowl with cinnamon, sugar, and salt. Set aside.
Grease 13x9 inch pan. Melt butter and coconut oil on low heat in a pan.
Cut phyllo dough sheets in half (approximately 13x9 inches) and cover with plastic while using. They will dry out quickly if not used right away. The sheets must also be defrosted according to instructions on box or they will stick together.
Place first phyllo sheet in the greased pan and brush melted oil mixture over it with a pastry brush. Repeat 9 more times with phyllo dough and oil layers. Sprinkle ~2 cups of the nut mixture over these layers. Repeat 2 more times with oil and phyllo layers and nut mixture.
For the very top, place as many phyllo sheets as you have remaining, brushing the oil between each layer. Using a sharp knife, score/cut the baklava into whatever shape you like in the pan.
Bake 2 1/2 to 3 hours at 300 degrees until lightly browned. Before the baklava is done, combine the honey and lemon juice in a pan over low heat until runny. Remove the baklava from the oven and pour the honey and lemon juice combined completely over it. Let the baklava cool and then cover and let sit for a few more hours before you enjoy!
One Christmas Eve, eleven years ago, at the Snug Harbor apartments in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Costellos and the Sandovals started a yearly tradition. I remember the first night had lots of mexican food, family and close friends, and the gift of an electric back massager from Matt and Nick to me, so that I wouldn't have to ask for massages from them anymore. The tradition has continued every year since, moving from Las Vegas to Portland to Salt Lake City. This year we were missing the Sandovals for the first time ever, but got to spend New Years Eve with them instead. And we added some new dear friends to the list, including Becky and Josh, who sweetly said they want to be a part of this tradition with us for the long term. Really nice to have new close friends who want and plan to share life with you like that.
The tradition is Kyle makes chicken and vegan enchiladas and I make sangria and baklava. The Sandovals normally make homemade tortillas and vegan taco meat. This year Becky added homemade churros to the tradition's list. We had about 28 people over, after an awesome worship service with Missio Dei, and the fiesta lasted late into the night. Because I am eating nightshade-free this year, I couldn't have the usual enchiladas. So I decided to try my first attempt at a Mexican nightshade-free dish. I came up with a delicious dip that turned out great, as did the whole night. Very thankful to celebrate our Lord's birth together.
Fiesta Dip the layers (bottom up): Shredded Cabbage Pinto Beans Salt/Pepper/Cumin Corn Shredded Rice cheese Chopped green onion Avocado Mashed with Lime Juice, Garlic, Onion, and Salt (2 avocado: 1 lime: 4 cloves: 1/4 onion ratio) Chopped Cilantro Serve with corn tortilla chips
Not long before we moved to Portland, Kyle told me he was feeling his heart shaped to being part of a church plant. It was a slightly surprising thought to me, mainly because I didn’t feel like we had enough experience. But it also made sense that this was something God would call us to do somewhere in the future, so I allowed myself to remain open minded about the timing. We really only knew how to do church one way and a large part of coming to Portland was our desire to live out the Gospel differently. Part of that difference was the desire to enter into an intentional community where those same values were being lived out. We had all these ideas, pretty radical ideas - ideas we felt were Gospel inspired and that God had been placing in us and shaping us with over the previous few years. So we followed God and moved, anticipating what He would show us. And as God does, He answered our prayers beyond what could have ever been expected with a new church family at Imago Dei Community. From the start we were given humble and hardworking volunteer groups to serve with, loving pastors and staff to meet with, tightly knit home communities to visit and participate in, strong leaders and teachings that challenged us, vision and mission and core values that genuinely guided and artfully were woven into every ministry that was birthed out of the church.
And the people! All of the people and friends and best friends and community who’s love and total dependence on Christ their Savior was so raw and beautiful, that it poured out and into our lives in a way that only God could provide - all of these are just a glimpse of the what and who God gave us in Portland. In the midst of two of the roughest years of our lives surrounding the loss of my dad and dog, these were two of the most wonderfully filling ones I can imagine.
So when Kyle told me that one of our best friends from Vegas had felt led by God to tell Kyle about an upcoming meeting in Salt Lake City to discuss future church plants, my feelings were a little rocked. Because of his background, Kyle told me he was only going to give perspective on the area and just be open to what God might, in the smallest chance be calling us to, and I agreed he should go. So starting that night, I told him I needed to get out all the reasons why I didn’t want to leave Portland, just in case. I wasn’t verbal with my fears, anxiety, and confusion when we moved to Portland, so I wanted to do it differently this time. I have learned that the more honest I can be outside of my head with everything going on inside of my head, the more healing and forward progress seems to occur. God seems to bless my honesty, transparency, and vulnerability with his Truth. Not just knowledge of his Truth, but the actual feeling, believing, and indwelling of his Truth. So Kyle went to the meeting and after the fact it didn’t seem like anything was happening. We prayed through it, but felt uncomfortable and no leading to move forward.
So on an afternoon walk in Lents park by our house, Kyle and I discussed all of this for a final time and felt the great sense of relief believing we were going to stay in Portland. But it was far from final time, as later that day Kyle got a call from Paul. He had met Paul at the SLC meeting a couple month before and had told me when he got home how he had resonated with Paul's philosophy and personality. Paul happened to be the president of the Orchard Group, a church planting organization from the New York. He told Kyle he’d really like us to consider partnering with them and leading a plant in Salt Lake City, or wherever we felt God was leading us to go. So just hours after what we thought was the decision to stay, we both decided we needed to start praying about going.
So we prayed and that led to us feeling like we needed to bring our church leaders into the praying with us. We had shared it from the start with a couple close friends in our community and the coming response from our church leaders was nothing short of God’s work. They had been building up Kyle from the start to plant a church, and although we all thought that would be in Portland, it made no difference to their support that it would be in SLC.
It wasn’t surprising to me that they would respond in this way given the way they had lived their faith out to us in the previous year, but it was still amazing and did not go unnoticed. Our church has been closer than family to us, and so the love, protection, and guidance they gave us, was exactly what we desired.
We believe that Jesus is the Light of the world, and He commissioned the church to also be that Light, and so practically to have them journey along with us in the searching and seeking of God’s will was a picture of this Light lived out. And so we journeyed. We prayed and we read and we talked and we continued to feel like God was leading us more and more to SLC. The Orchard Group came out to meet with our Elders and it went better than well. There were so many places this all seemed to have the potential for stopping, like in this meeting, but instead it just launched us forward.
We continued to pray as we enjoyed one of the best summers of my life in Portland, and amongst the summer concerts, beach and mountain hikes, and the PSU farmers markets, it became crystal clear and undeniable that God was indeed calling us to Salt Lake City. I continued to mourn the loss of this city, and felt the need to tell everyone just how much I loved it here. I’m an intensely loyal person, and when a city has felt more like home to me in 2 short years, compared to the city I lived in for 29 years, it’s got my heartstrings attached. Portland is my people. But so far more than that is my desire to follow God. I came to terms with that fact that staying in Portland would only be to gratify myself, and moving to Salt Lake City to plant this church is what God was asking. And if He was calling us elsewhere, than He would provide all that He was asking for and would bless me so much more than what I could get ever from Portland alone.
In September we prepared and went to a church planting assessment center in Baltimore, MD. It was grueling to prepare and we had only 2 weeks to do it. Preparation encompassed two 175 question psychological tests, a personality test, a spiritual gifts assessment, a behavioral test, and 15 pages of long essay type questions (that’s 15 pages of questions before the answers) that got to the core of your beliefs, your issues, and all the stuff in between. And meanwhile I had the stress of putting my two weeks notice in at work because they wouldn't give me the time off. But somehow we completed all of it and I felt confident God would provide for us despite the loss of my job. When we got there, our first meeting was with a psychologist and the following days were completely packed from about 8am to midnight+ with group activities where we where we had assessors watching our every move. My personality lends itself to always being up for a challenge; so grueling as it was, I loved it. And the affirmation we received from people who didn't know us and didn't owe us anything - assessors and others being assessed with us - was incredible.
I never expected to be given so much encouragement, support, and confirmation through these folks. Along side this, I was also surprised by a shift in my own heart. Earlier in the summer, Kyle had read me an article about Tim Keller, pastor in NYC, who's wife professed she had no love for that city when they felt God calling them to plant a church there. But they followed God and soon after the move, God changed her heart to love it and now they couldn't imagine loving a place more. I resonated with that feeling and was cool moving to Salt Lake City without loving it. I know I can't manufacture feelings, especially the kind of love God wants me to have/give, so I was content in the prayer for it, knowing he would change me when it was time. But a few weeks before assessment, I started getting excited. Really excited. I didn't feel like I had to defend my love for Portland anymore. I was being poured into by a God who faithfully answers prayers, prayers for joy, and I thought it was hilarious when I would find myself smiling while I was alone - literally grinning ear to ear - while doing the dishes or some random chore. I began to feel an awesome anticipation of what God was doing in SLC - what he had allowed us, chosen us, and designed us to do for Him. I started tasting God's heart for the people in SLC. The last few months have literally been a whirlwind here in Portland. I remember the last day in September that it was warm enough for me to be sunbathing outside, and thinking that Christmas was almost here. We've visited SLC (me for the first time since we decided to move), found a home (crazy story), got a job (working at Imago) and have been flown to churches in Texas and Arizona, who's people and leaders have committed to partnering with us. We have watched as God has called our friends - 30 adults and children - from our church body to join us by moving to SLC and being part of the core team. We have been humbled and awestruck so many times, it seems slightly unreal to express the full picture of what we have witnessed God doing and calling His people to. And He has continued to use all these things to shape us and those around us more into His likeness, and all for His Glory, as we continue to move forward. So that's the story for now...much much more to come. Thanks be to God.
It's been a tradition of ours for many years now to cut down our Christmas tree the morning after Thanksgiving. Once home, the Christmas music turns on, the decorations come out, and the tree goes up. We always have Elf and Christmas Vacation playing on the screen, as we decorate and eat yummy leftovers from Thanksgiving.
This year we found a Christmas tree farm called North Pole Pines in Farr West, Utah. Friday morning we woke up early, stopped by a new downtown coffee and tea shop called The Rose Establishment, and then headed north to Farr West. The air was crisp and the sun was shining as we found the perfect Balsam Fir amidst the backdrop of dramatic mountains to the east. It was quite stunning.
One of our newest holiday favorites is a recipe for Shoofly Pie Cookies. We had the pie version for the first time last year from Sweetpea Baking Co. in Portland, so this year I decided to try it out at home. It's a fluffy molasses type dessert from the early 1920's and was a tradition among early American settlers called the Pennsylvania Dutch who migrated from Germany. It's also quite popular among the Amish people today. The meaning behind the name may originate from the pie's sticky sweetness which would attract flies and leave bakers with the job of constantly shooing them away. Or it may also have come from a popular molasses in the 18th century called Shoofly Molasses. I love the uniqueness, history, and lovely taste of this long time American tradition.
Shoofly Pie Cookies
Shoofly Pie Cookies (modified from a recipe at Vegan Thyme)
Pie Crust:
1 cup coconut butter or oil
1 tsp. salt
3 cups spelt flour
1/2 cup boiling water
Mash the coconut butter and then add salt and mash again. Boil water and pour it over the coconut and salt. Mix well and allow to come to room temperature, about 10 minutes. Add the flour and form the mixture into a ball. Oil a 9x13 inch baking dish and press out crust onto the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
The Filling:
1/4 plus 1/8 cup molasses
1/8 cup agave
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
Crumb Top:
3/4 cup coconut butter or oil
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all the ingredients in the crumb mixture in a food processor. In a separate bowl, mix all the filling ingredients. Pour 1/2 cup of the filling onto the pie crust, then sprinkle about 1/3 of the crumb mixture on top. Repeat this two more times. Place in oven and bake for approx. 35 minutes. The top will be a bit golden when it is ready. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, then cover and chill cookies in fridge before serving.
