Thursday, June 25, 2009

Food

Mom recently appealed to the frugal conservationalist in me by suggesting that we work on eating what food is already in our posession before purchasing more. Our fruit supply has dwindled (blueberries, 4-6 raspberries and some apples that taste like celery...[shared crisper space]) so I immediately started thinking... inside the box.
The buckwheat pancake box, that is. To the pantry I went, only to find that the mix was expired. Normally I wouldn't mind this sort of thing but a long time ago an email was going around advising against using expired mix, as it was making people very sick... so I disposed of it and moved on. That's when I found the Malt-O-Meal. High in calcium, folic acid and most importantly, IRON!, this intriguingly bizarre boxed concoction has stuck around the pantry for those days when we're feeling especially vitamin-and-mineral-ly deficient. Today I noticed the recipe on its side -- "Magic Malt-O-Meal Muffins."
Add a few of the previously mentioned berries and there was some decent breakfast potential.


Magic Malt-O-Meal Muffin Monster





They turned out great, surprisingly! I like muffins to have a bit of a harder exterior, rather than be soft and fluffy-limp, and these certainly did. Also, the Malt-O-Meal added a nice texture.

So nice in fact that I have already eaten four! Goodness knows that I don't need that many, and perhaps I can redeem the quantity by considering the muffins a two meal brunch rather than just breakfast. But in the future when I bake I should probably be more intentional about taking only what I need and making a point to retain a certain amount to share with others.

This all brings me to a few realizations

...

In life we do well to make the best use of everything we have been given. Instead of spending ourselves and our energies on searching for something more, perhaps the better thing to do is to really invest our efforts toward looking into and around ourselves and identifying what we have to work with... and savoring it!... especially before it goes bad.
Once we do realize what we have, we should enjoy it, but not all by ourselves. We should also share it with others, to bless and encourage them!

Praise God for life and simple things... and the good lessons He can make of them.

Muffins, anyone?

1 comment:

Christine said...

hey thanks for the comments, Ashley! Love the Malt-O-Meal idea; those sound tasty! I also liked what you said about using what we have (something I need to remember when I go shopping tomorrow :-D). Seriously, though, it's so easy to focus on gaining more instead of working w/ what we have spiritually too. I was reading Psalm 119 recently, and your post reminded me of vs 7: "I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws." Worship doesn't start w/ maturity--we can praise Him with our lives as we learn. Good thought too about what we have going bad--that's something I haven't thought about much, but I guess I should be making sure I don't falter in what I already have, even as I pursue more.

sorry this was long...that was an inspiring post. :)
--Christine