DNA and Dessert: Church Two Ways

Today was the third day of me weekend and I officially had zero homework left. That of course didn’t stop me from being productive though!

Breakfast consisted of a big bowl of three cereals: wheat puffs (get them at Kroger because they are a fraction of the price!!), Fiber One Honey Squares, and Peanut Butter & Chocolate Puffins. I added some almond milk and went to town.

I normally don’t eat bowls of cereal alone for breakfast because they don’t keep me full. Well, today was a good reminder of that… After my bowl was finished I got dressed up and walked the 0.7 miles to church.

I attended the 10 o’clock service and made note of some things I was excited for in the church bulletin. Needed to add them to my schedule.

Post-service, I attended a meeting to talk about getting parish breakfast up and running. It seems like the perfect ministry for me. I love to cook, breakfast especially, and it is a great way to get to know some of the people in the church family. Basically, every Sunday between services the following are served: scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal, yogurt, fruit, and a “special” recipe (anything from biscuits and gravy to baked French toast) changed each breakfast. At the moment I have committed to at least one Sunday a month but we’ll see if I have the opportunity to do more. Should be a fun endeavor.

When I arrived back home I remembered a menu I had seen a while ago. It’s for a place called Yolk in Chicago. Just take a look at one of their sections:

Talk about decadence! The Chocolate Heaven caught my eye and I realized that I had pieces of last night’s cake left over. So you can guess what I did!

Chocolate cake French toast layered with peanut butter and chia seeds. Oh wow. Yum. This is definitely a once-in-a-while type of breakfast but it was the perfect one for this lazy Sunday.

For the rest of the afternoon I got my productivity on! I took all of the syllabi and schedules we had accumulated over this first week of classes and input all the important dates into our first year shared Google calendar. It is so nice to see everything all laid out and in one place. I hope this will help keep me organized past this first week of school. *cross your fingers*

At about 3:30 I snacked on some crackers and hummus.

With my hunger satisfied I walked to church again to attend the Evensong service. Basically, this is an event where the choirs go to town and pull out all the stops. I will say that we are blessed with a beyond beautiful set of voices at the Cathedral. I thought it was a fantastic concert. However, I forgot how much of the service is spent standing. At least 80% of the time we were on our feet. I suppose, in some ways, that was a good thing because I started to doze a bit. Darn sleepies!

The homily was a good one. Short and sweet, something that doesn’t normally happen. The reverend talked about how this Evensong service (which was a surprise one because before Hurricane Irene happened the choirs were supposed to be performing in the National Cathedral in DC), while unplanned and semi-last minute, was exactly what God determined to be needed. Essentially, this service was precisely where we were all supposed to be. We were doing what we should have been doing. I liked the idea that just because something is unplanned or unintended on your part, doesn’t mean it’s any less important. In fact, it could be EXACTLY what you need.

I came back from the Evensong and watched some TLC then got started on dinner. I had picked up Old Bay Seasoning a while back when mom was here and was dying to try it so I grabbed a few red potatoes, diced them, tossed them in the spice mix, and threw them in a skillet with a 1/2 tsp of oil. They cooked covered for 10 minutes and then uncovered for another 10. The result was a perfectly soft potato that wasn’t mushy and oh man, FLAVORFUL!

I made a salad of romaine lettuce, mushrooms, carrots, green pepper, diced tomatoes, and cannellini beans. I threw the potatoes on top right off the skillet and added some fat free ranch dressing (only ever get Hidden Valley’s kind, the rest are not worth your time).

It looked so pretty that I shook it up and devoured it so quick. It’s kind of sad how unappetizing salads look when they are all jumbled up but they don’t taste any less awesome, let me tell you.

The potatoes were easily the best part hands down. Those are definitely getting made again soon. Maybe tomorrow night??

I spent the majority of the evening cleaning up and reorganizing all of my iTunes music that I freshly imported onto my new computer. My dad wirelessly accessed my computer and helped me jump start the process and left me with a very cute note at the end.

While the music stuff went well, I can’t seem to access my iTunes account now. Blah. We’ll see how that works out.

When I came to a lull in my reorganization efforts, I went to make dessert. I must be on a CCK kick because I decided to try out her single lady muffin recipe with a few alterations. Here’s how it went:

3 T (30g) flour –> I made a 15g/15g split of chocolate protein powder/whole wheat flour
1/4 t baking powder
heaping 1/16th t salt
1-2 T blueberries –> I used 1 t chocolate chips and 1 t shredded coconut
1/2 t vanilla extract –> Completely forgot (see, not on my card) and it never mattered
1 T unrefined coconut oil –> I split this up as 1/2 T coconut oil + 1/2 T applesauce
1 T plus 1 t nondairy milk –> I chose almond milk and needed a splash of water too
1 T sugar –> Stevia instead worked well

I used the microwave method and it worked like a charm. When I pulled it out of the ramekin, it looked scrumptious. And it was!!!!