I SHOULDN'T BE HERE

I hope the title didn't scare you. This is not a post about a near death experience; not even close. Nope, just wanted to tell you about my Wednesday. Each week, my church has prayer on Wednesday nights. We begin with a prayer lead by our pastor, then we have testimony, scripture reading, prayer requests, and finally a group prayer before we wrap up. I should be there now but instead I'm here, at home. One reason is because my car is not working and my husband had a service call to make tonight after work (he's an electrician). Another is that I'm not feeling well. I've had an annoying headache all day and more than usual, my nose has been running and my eyes watering. Although the weather has been pretty cold the last few weeks, I think I caught this bug last night but, more on that later.

In conjunction with Wednesday night prayer, we are also supposed to fast beginning at midnight. However, I'm not always obedient. Mainly because I have a hard time remembering what day it is since I'm not working anymore. So, I end up eating some crap I'm not supposed to before I realize it's Wednesday. Today I did go though. I remember today because this month we're doing a 21 day corporate "Daniel Fast" from the 11th to the 31st. During the fast, we don't eat meat, diary, or sugar and we pray every 3 hours. I'll have to do a separate post on this later so I can tell you about the first time I participated. 

Today, I really didn't have to remember it was Wednesday, I knew it was the 15th and that's all I needed to know. For breakfast, I had egg whites (is this diary?) with red bell peppers, red onions, and tomatoes added. I seasoned with the usual suspects- salt, pepper- but also added smoked paprika. It gave me life. It took the taste to a whole other level. I also had a vegan "chicken" patty from Bocca and carrot/orange juice from Bolthouse. The entire thing was delicious and very satisfying.

Lunch was good too. I made a salad of baby spinach, mandarin oranges, red onions, tomatoes, and red wine vinaigrette. It was both pretty and delicious. 

I also had hummus and tortilla chips (don't judge me) for a snack and another veggie "chicken" patty for dinner. The fact that I wasn't starving or craving junk all day was a sure sign that I must be sick. Fasting is usually a very hard thing for me to do without a million snacks to keep munching on between meals or without cheating by acting like I can't cook for my family without tasting the food to see what it "needs". But I had no desire to do that today even when the ingredients looked like this:

 

 

I made a combination of two recipes: this one from The Pioneer Woman and this one from BeautyFash. I initially planed on making the Pioneer Woman's recipe but I didn't have any whisky and I dropped my bottle of Worcestershire sauce last night trying to bring all my grocery bags in at once. This is how I believe I got sick. I ended up spending about 20 minutes or more outside in the cold sweeping up glass and washing the carport down with soap and water.

The combination of the two recipes was a hit. I know both recipes called for chicken but I didn't have any and the main thing was the sauce anyway. I think this sauce could be used on just about any meat. I made white rice and broccoli as sides and everyone loved it. I tasted the sauce before I poured it over the meat in the crock. Oh yeah, did I mention I let everything meld together in the crock for a few hours? Well I did. The result was fall-off-the-bone tender meat. Anyway, the sauce was savory, smoky, spicy, and sweet; always a great combination. The husbster loved it and even my picky eaters cleaned their plates. That was enough for me.

 

How was your Wednesday? What did you have for dinner?