Sukhi Bhaji

This is a wonderful dish of potatoes from the country of India. A friend shared this recipe with me, and even included little containers of each spice. So sweet of her. A few years ago she served this dish to me, and just this week I served my first dish. It makes me hungry thinking about the potatoes. They have the perfect amount of sweet mixed in with spicy.

I have a confession to make. Foreign dishes intimidate me. I feel like I will fail just because it's not my own culture and I'm probably not going to perform to their standards. I had the spices in my cupboard for a year. They sat there tempting me. I ignored them out of fear. I thought it would be hard. I was so pleased to find out how wrong I was. These potatoes are delicious and they only take about 30-45 minutes to make. I love easy recipes!

Sukhi Bhaji
4 or 5 medium potatoes
5 tbs. oil
4oz. can green chilies
½ cup raw peanuts
half the juice of a lemon
1 tsp. cumin seed
2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. coriander powder
½ tsp. turmeric
½ tsp. garam masala
5 tsp. sugar
cilantro
salt

Cut your potatoes into cubes and boil them. While that's boiling crush peanuts and green chilies together in food processor. In a separate pan heat oil, put in cumin seed. Add peanuts and chilies to oil. Cook while stirring for 1-2 minutes. Add potatoes, spices, sugar and lemon juice. Use cilantro as a garnish.

It's that easy! If you like a little spice to your food, you will love these potatoes. They make the perfect side dish. All three of my children even gave high compliments.

God Speaks

For almost a year now my daughter and I have been having a Bible study every other Thursday. I felt she was slipping away from me and we needed this extra one on one time together. It's been amazing what God has done through this time we share. Our relationship with each other is stronger than ever and our relationship with God is growing too. It's a winning combination. I have been in awe of the things that God has done through my daughter because of our special time together.

One of the things we do at the start of our study is reflect on what God has been speaking to us about during the past week, or weeks depending on how long it takes us to meet again. (Titus and Gabriel meet on the opposite Thursday for their own Bible study.) Ariel and I both have notebooks that we write down daily in. At the end of the day, or typically the next morning we make a log of what God spoke to us about the previous day. It can be a word of encouragement, or a word of discipline. It could be about a song, a Bible verse, or a fun day spent with family. God speaks to each of us in many different ways so the ideas are endless on what to write about.

This has been very beneficial in my daughter's spiritual walk. I have seen her blossom since starting this discipline. It's really inspiring to get together and share for 20 minutes or so about what God has done the past weeks. Some days our things we share are very similar, as God speaks to us during our time together. I love when this happens. This past weekend God spoke to me and I felt it was worthy to share with you.

We had a backyard family camp out. The problem was we were using a tent we bought at a garage sale that came with no directions.

I wanted to put up the tent for my children so badly but I could not understand how it worked. I was SO frustrated!

I tried to find pictures on the internet of what it "might" look like and still I couldn't make it happen. I stopped working on it for a while. I was getting nowhere. I came inside and played a game with the kids. I felt refreshed and I decided to give it a try again. I was not about to give up. My kids were counting on me and this camp out. I had to at least be able to get the tent up off the ground enough for us to fit inside, right?

While I was praying, me and Ariel were able to get it up. It didn't look the greatest, but it was up. The tent sagged in a few places and we discovered it had a broken zipper and a missing loop for the pole to go through. I was discouraged. But hey, we got it up. The kids could run inside it. They really didn't care that it looked a little funny. I tried to be happy about it. I felt a little bit of pride at our accomplishment.

When I was looking at it through my camera lens I saw our mistake. The tall poles weren't reaching their potential. Why would they make a tent with extra-long poles if you couldn't extend them all the way? It finally clicked in my brain. They were in the wrong place!!

What a message!

We try and try to get our lives on the right track. We find pictures of what we want to look like and be. But it doesn't work out. We look messed up and misshapen trying to mimic other people.

God has an ultimate plan for our life, something He created us to do and be. He has this really "tall pole" that only fits in one place- His place for it. When we are there in His perfect plan we can finally reach our potential. The potential we were created for.