Stuffed acorn squash

I have a huge weakness for winter squash. Even though it is not winter time and squash prices are jacked up, I will often have a moment where I get to the check-out lane, and somehow a squash has magically appeared in my cart. Butternut, acorn, spaghetti... you name it. Winter squash is such a comfort food.

Sundays are the day I often do a lot of cooking. It's the day I make bread. It's the day I always have stir-fry for dinner. It's the day I've made pasta from scratch. For a while when I was student teaching, it was the day I'd make my lunches for the week.

Today, I decided to use an acorn squash I recently purchased and make some sort of stuffed squash recipe. I've made similar ones before, but this one came entirely out of my own mind. It's very easily modifiable for your own taste preferences.


Here's what you'll need:

Tools:

• Paring knife
• Metal spoon
• Small casserole dish
• Stove pot with lid
• Small bowl for holding squash guts (I used a measuring cup here. There is no reason it needs to be a measuring cup)
• Small container for marinating tofu (I started taking pictures after I started marinating the tofu. Oops)
• Frying pan (not pictured)

Ingredients:

• Acorn squash
• Rice (I used white simply because that's what I had. Wild rice for this recipe would be PERFECT)
• Frozen block of firm tofu
• Pineapple chunks
• Craisins (can use raisins or another small tart fruit)
• Soy sauce
• Lemon juice
• Agave (honey works fine too, but agave makes this a fully vegan recipe :D)
• Ginger (fresh or ground, but with fresh, make sure you sautee it first)
• Sesame seeds

Most of these ingredients I have in my cupboards at all times.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

If you've never worked with tofu before, it's not too hard to use. After you open it, you can refrigerate it for a few days if you submerge it in water (and change the water daily). You can also freeze it. Frozen tofu turns yellow, and this is okay. Defrost it, and it will have the consistency of a sponge. Remove as much of the water as you can by gently squeezing it. 

Make your marinade. I used equal parts soy sauce, agave, and lemon juice, combined with sesame seeds and ginger. This is similar to the sauce used on sesame chicken. Place the thawed tofu in the marinade, turn it over so all sides are coated, and place in the refrigerator.

 Slice the acorn squash vertically in half. It should look like the picture (though hopefully a bit yellower than the crappy lighting in the picture shows!).

With your spoon, scrape out the guts and seeds. Place them in the bowl you grabbed for them, since the seeds can be roasted and enjoyed :) (Alas, a recipe for another day. Find a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds and use these)

I like to make monster noises as I scrape out the insides.

Place the squash cut-side up in your casserole pan. I only did half the squash today, but you can do both halves (may need to add 10 minutes or so to the cooking time then). Add about half an inch of warm water to the bottom of the pan to allow for more even cooking of the squash. Place it in the oven and take note of the time. It will take about 40 minutes. It's ready to come out when it's fork-tender.

Meanwhile, make rice. A few tips here: use half as much rice as liquid. Pictured is half a cup of rice, and that was more than enough for me. Bring the water to a boil, add the rice, cut the heat to a simmer, and place the lid on top. DO NOT OPEN THE LID AS THE RICE COOKS. It can take anywhere from 16-20 minutes, and you know it's done when it looks like the picture: no water, only drastically-grown rice.

As the rice is cooking, take your tofu out of the refrigerator. Turn again to coat, and dice. Add this (and remaining marinade) to a frying pan. Also throw in the pineapple chunks with their juice. I used about 1/4 of the large can I had. Fry for about 4 minutes.

When the pineapple starts to look a little browned, add the cranberries and fry for a couple more minutes so all is heated through. Feel free to sample throughout :)

Stir the fried mixture in with the rice. Because my timing was slightly off with my squash, I kept the lid on this pan and let it sit for about 10 minutes until my squash finished.

Carefully remove the squash from the oven after 40 minutes (or so). Dry the bottom of the squash and put on a plate. Using your spoon, fill the squash with as much of the rice mixture as you'd like! Mine was overflowing :)





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I received word this morning that a friend of mine (a die-hard sweet potato hater) tried my recipe and LOVED it. Comment on the posts if you end up trying my recipes and how they turned out for you!

-QV

An experiment

Today, I'm double-posting ("GASP!!"). I don't want to have two recipes in a row, but what I'm making for lunch is too delicious not to post!

Before that, though, I would like to make public my summer experiment: I am not going to buy any food-items from chain supermarkets this summer.

... What??

It all started when I became vegetarian. Being vegetarian to me doesn't simply mean "I won't eat meat." I'm not inherently opposed to eating animals. It's the way we treat them in the U.S. It's how we jack them full of hormones to grow to three times their normal size. It's when we force them to keep eating and eating and eating and butcher them years before they have had a good life. It's the way we force them into close quarters, thinking of them as a product rather than a being.

I know some sustainable farmers in the area that treat their animals right. If they sat me down for a hamburger meal, I'd eat it without a second thought.

Our meat industry also damages the environment, but more on that later...


Chain supermarkets do a great job providing any kind of food at any time of year. But, that doesn't come without a cost. I've already explain what happens with meat, but this also happens with produce. It's not logically possible to have fresh strawberries in December, so we import them from other places. The carbon dioxide we release into the environment with the transportation harms the environment, and at what cost? So we can have strawberries for $4 a box in December? Additionally, when we import from other countries (not all, mind you), we often turn a blind eye to unfair wages and treatment of works. That's not worth it to me.

(Side-note: some chains watch this better than others. Meijer does do a good job of using some local foods--Michigan apples and blueberries, for instance.)

I also do not like how chain stores choke out the local stores. I'd much rather give my business to someone in the area rather than a corporation controlling everything.


So what are the terms I have? I will not buy food-items from chain supermarkets this summer. I also maybe eliminated buying other items from them--I'm trying to work out exact details. In addition, as much as possible, I want to buy local.

I already purchase most of my food fresh, rather than processed. I'd rather make something from scratch than use a mix. I'll have to eat a bit more seasonally as I buy from the farmer's market, but that's a small price to pay. It's how people did it for thousands of years. I'll shop at local stores: I know a good health foods store in the area (where I get all my spices) and Horrocks (local store) has just about everything I could possibly need. I can get my flour from a mill out in Holland when I visit a few friends out there.

As a society, we are so reliant on supermarkets to be there for our every need. This summer, I hope to show that it's possible to live without them. I also hope to show myself what conscious living can do. Yes, it is more time-consuming, but this is time I wish to spend in a wholesome way. It also takes less and less time each day.

-QV

Sweet potato fries

One of the recipes I most often get requests for is my sweet potato fries. Now, you have to understand one thing first--these are not actually fries. They are simply roasted sweet potatoes in the shape of fries. If you're expecting something with the texture of a fry, this is not where you want to look. Mine melt in your mouth, make you want more, and are generally healthy.

My apologies in advance for the crappy cell phone pictures.

Here's what you'll need:

Tools:

• Paring knife
• Cutting board
• Large bowl
• Oven pan

Ingredients:

• 1 sweet potato (pictured is a large one. That's because my dad bought it. Normally, I use smaller ones. I find them easier to work with and generally a bit softer. It should be bright orange as you cut into it)
• Olive oil
• Spices. Note: this can go several ways, and feel free to make up your own!
• QV's traditional (pictured): parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, salt
• Autumn: brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg
• Zesty: paprika, pinch of cayenne, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper

Preheat oven to 450.

Cut the gross spots off the exterior of the sweet potato, but leave most of the skin on.

Cut the sweet potato into fry shapes, about half an inch thick all the way around. Length does not matter (seen on right).

Place sweet potatoes in a bowl, add a bit of oil (don't go too crazy! No need to add too much extra fat), and add spices (I tend to go crazy with them).

♪ Shake, shake. Shake, shake-a shake it! ♫

Then, place the fries in your pan and stick them in the oven.

After 12 minutes, take the fries out and turn them. They should be notably dimmer, and some of the bottoms will have brown spots on them. Put them back in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Take them out. They should be no longer shimmering, and there should be brown spots on all fries. This was pretty hard to photograph with a cell phone...

I paired this with asparagus and zucchini, pan-fried in sesame oil and tossed with sesame seeds. I also ate for about 12 people because I was starving after having a very small lunch. I have no shame whatsoever :)

Religion part 2

Admittedly, this post is a lot tougher to write than the one yesterday. It's hard enough to talk to individual friends and family members about some of these thoughts I've been having, but to fully make them public is a much different feeling. It's almost like a second coming-out. I feel like I've just found the last Double Jeopardy on the board and risked it all.

If you're still reading, it's probably because you're really wondering about how my previous post continues. You're trying to figure out how I moved from being a Christian on my own terms to this mysterious land of agnosticism. You may be simply wondering what I mean by agnosticism. Please take note that it means for me is likely very different than for another person.

Let's start with the questions I was facing. I apologize for the harshness of some of them; I don't apologize for not holding back what I'm thinking. This is QV laid out on a slab, body cut open, heart exposed for all to see. Without further ado... the questions:

How can a God who is inherently good allow evil to exist? I always hated this question in class and it was always seen as a cop-out answer against God when I considered myself a Christian, but now it seems so relevant. The Christian answer seems to be that God didn't create evil, that evil is the absence of good, and that the even greater good accomplished by eventually triumphing over evil is far better than any small good we can see now. Also, Satan is the one that causes evil to happen, not God.

...If Satan is capable of turning good to evil, doesn't that make him more powerful than God?

How can a good God show favoritism? "Oh, I'm just gonna create a world and inhabit it with people. But, I'm gonna let many of them suffer, and I'll pick my favorites (the ones who worship me) to come live with me forever. The others? Naw. They can rot in hell/cease to exist [depending on your definition of hell]. I say I love them, but really, I only care about the ones I love."

...But seriously...

"Oh, and the ones I save? You can spend the rest of eternity praising me because I AM AWESOME AND NOT NARCISSISTIC AT ALL!!!"

Also, what kind of God allows his people to grossly misinterpret His Word over and over again and use it as a weapon against others? For forever, religion has been used to discriminate against various groups of people (and no, this is not exclusive to Christianity). Women are subjected to abuse and are seen as less than men, slavery was condoned and even justified, and queer people are constantly discriminated all in the name of God. I personally believe God, if He exists, is not okay with any of this, so why does he allow people to continue thinking in such a manner?

I then started questioning the nature of Christianity itself: 

How do we know that Christianity is the one true religion? Why would God really seemingly only care about Western culture and reveal himself there? Like, seriously: what kind of God over all people decides to reveal himself in only one small pocket of the world and then expect to be known everywhere?

Is religion simply a man-made product? Do men (and yes, I really do generally mean men) create religions of their own purposes and agendas in order to convince others their way of life is the best way to do things? If we look throughout history, we're able to find examples of this, as well as examples of men twisting already-formed religions for their own agendas. Who's to say Christianity didn't arise out of all of this? Sure, there are real historical accounts of Israel's and Judah's kings, but that doesn't prove Christianity's legitimacy.

"That's why you gotta have faith."

^ Another cop-out. What this is essentially saying to me is that I need to trust something I'm not sure of with my whole being and center my whole life around it. It's saying I'm a bad person for not being able to do such a "simple" [illogical] thing. That, if only my faith were stronger, I could believe. Uhhh...

I know people from various faith backgrounds. Why is Christianity the one true religion? Why is the God of Christianity the God of the universe? I realized more and more that being raised Christian, of course I was going to believe that. Yet, had I been raised Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, I'd have believed that to be the true religion. I have a problem with the idea that our VERY white idea of God is so obviously the God of the universe.

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I didn't have tons of time to really reflect on these questions until the past year. I did a good job of pushing them to the back of my mind, ignoring them. Then, Easter Sunday this year came. I had agreed to play piano at a church desperately in need of a fill-in accompanist. Honestly, I needed the money, so I agreed.

My dear mother came along to the service. She was dying to hear me play again and was just as uncomfortable as I was in my old church (for different reasons). The people were generally kind here, and I had a decent time. I had one of the best breakfasts there in my life. When it came time for the sermon, I listened intently. It hit me that every word he said about Jesus, God, and the like, I didn't actually believe in my heart. Perhaps the most freeing part of this was knowing I was perfectly okay with this.

Maybe the God of Christianity is the God of the universe. Maybe it's the Hindu God. Maybe it's the flying spaghetti monster. Or, maybe we're all wrong, and God is nothing like any of us imagine. Maybe He doesn't exist at all.

I feel okay not knowing for sure. Maybe I'll be in this suspended belief my entire life, and I feel wonderful about that. If nothing else, it allows for much better dialogue with others about their beliefs without posing judgments on them.

I've also felt a much greater freedom in how I can go out and accomplish good in the world. This will maybe be hard for many of you to understand, but for me, experiencing freedom from the ties of dogma has been an incredible feeling. I will definitely explain this idea further in another post...but not for a bit. We've had enough heavy posts in a row :)

Expect my world-famous sweet potato fries recipe in my next post!

-QV

Religion part one

I'm admittedly surprised not a lot of people have commented on my short note about religion from my post last night. That could be partially due to it being up for a whole 16 hours and people simply not reading it ("Augh, ANOTHER person thinks he should start a blog? Yeah, right!"). I will say it was up for a grand total of two minutes before I heard my roommate from across the room go, "Um. You're agnostic?"

...By the way, this roomie who I love dearly I'm sure will come up in stories later. I'll need to check with her if I ever want to post stories about her, as some of you know her. For the sake of this blog, we'll call her RC.

Side-note: RC is not just a random choice of letters. RC stands for Rainbow Connection. A long time ago, we talked about how she knows all sorts of gay men and she really should start pairing them up. We even decided that if all else fails in career goals, together we'd start a gay dating service called, naturally, The Rainbow Connection.

Side-side note: I sang "Rainbow Connection" a la Kermit the Frog for her birthday. She cried.

...Anyways...

If I'm being totally honest with myself, some of my questions about faith started permeating my mind back in high school, but I chose to not acknowledge them for fear of being seen as a "bad" Christian. Most of these questions, after all, could be met with the answer of, "Only God knows." 

Let it be known that for anyone outside the faith, that seems like such a cop-out answer, and even in the faith, it was hard for me to accept this.

I didn't dwell too much on the questioning I had in high school much, but college came along, and I faced a whole new set of challenges. Through my first couple years, I finally started to inch (okay, fine. POUR) out of the closet, and attending a Christian college didn't help me here. I'm not saying that I had this awful existence in college. I had (have) tons of friends who are incredibly supportive of me and my life, and I've even met many profs who are fully on board. What I mean here is that because I was both queer and Christian, suddenly I was that face to my friends. I was that mysterious queer person they never knew they knew. I was expected to know everything about every queer person everywhere, especially every queer Christian. Though I liked the spotlight, it became more and more overwhelming. I was only one person; I couldn't be the spokesperson for gay people everywhere.

I did meet some backlash too. I had friends who didn't want to associate much with me anymore. I had friends who simply couldn't deal with it. I had many teary arguments. None of these really happened so much the first year I came out, but since then, it's been a rougher journey. 

Prior to coming out, I spend a lot of time examining scripture, reading verses, studying historical situations, reading essays on both sides of the issue, watching movies, having endless conversations...and came to the conclusion it's okay to be both gay and Christian. It's much harder to convince others of this though. And frankly, some people simply do not want to have their worldviews challenged for fear of being wrong, so they cling on dearly to what they hold to be true and refuse to view anything else.

This never made a lot of sense to me. Doesn't God call Christians to love others and not judge--that it's up to Him to judge? This, along with other inconsistencies in the church ("Let's go change the world...by being comfortable in our own pews with our own people and never actually make any change!") led me to stop attending churches. Each time I was forced to attend was more comfortable than the last. It's hard to sit in a pew and smile when you know if the church really knew all about you, they'd judge you. They'd not be able to deal with you. That, if you weren't single, you couldn't bring your boyfriend/husband/lover to church. Of course there would be those who wouldn't care. I know conservative Christians who support marriage equality AND believe God ordains it. However, the majority of the members of any given church I was in would have hated me. This is hard to digest. After agreeing to play piano for the choir portion of a service at a friend's church, I literally stopped on the way home to buy a cigarillo and then smoke it to calm down. This is coming from someone who detests smoking.

Of course, not everyone reaches the same level of discomfort I did from churches. I readily admit I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I am much more easily affected by small matters than most people. Still. You try going to a place where your very existence is despised and judged and tell me you loved your time there.

So, though I was not attending church, I still considered myself a Christian. I could accomplish good in the world on my own, and I didn't need a church holding me back from that. I also could not have to worry about having alternative views like God loving the gays while receiving backlash. I could just be me.

But, soon, much of that changed. 

Sorry for the length of this post. While typing, I realized how much I really had to say. Plan on a part two tomorrow in which I actually go into my move from Christian to Agnostic.

-QV

Who is QV? What is this blog?

I have a theory: basically everyone currently under the age of 25 or so will probably attempt to start a blog sometime in his or her life. It may be through a class requirement, inspiration by something going on in your mind, or simply wanting to let your friends know what's going on in your life. I even have a friend who uses a personal blog as a public diary of sorts.

I don't expect many (if any) people to read this that aren't a relative or friend of mine. However, in the crazy off-chance someone does, I'll open with a bit about myself.

If I had to describe myself with labels, I'd probably call myself a flaming liberal nonviolent queer agnostic vegetarian. If you know me really well, you may be surprised about A. some of these labels and B. that I used so many, as I tend to try to live my life outside labels. Unfortunately, our society demands them, so I can't escape fully. I don't wish to say that labels are always a bad thing, but by viewing a person simply by the labels we impose upon him or her, we fail to see them as a complete person.


...Let's break those labels down a bit further:

Flaming liberal: I'm a would-be hippy. In a nutshell, I believe all people deserved to be loved and respected,  I want to do what I can to save the environment,and I believe personal choice is a form of freedom. I wish to be the change I see in the world, though sometimes I fail at doing so.

Nonviolent: I never think violence is the answer. I am very anti-war (sorry to my army friends or those who have family-members who have served), and I believe the United States often rushes too quick into a violent solution over things that are simply not their business. I also prefer to use words over fists, and if more people took on an attitude like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the world would be a much happier (and safer!) place. I also do not like guns (and yes, I know you can throw whatever statistic at me that says countries with more guns leads to fewer deaths, but I can throw other statistics at you about how compared to other first world countries, we're doing pretty shitty here).

Queer: Many of you may wonder about the word-choice here. Queer is historically a derogatory term towards (generally) homosexual men, and so why would I possibly use it to describe myself? Is it really any better than using "faggot" these days? Queer is becoming more and more acceptable throughout society. With gaining momentum, you're starting to hear more frequently about "queer politics" rather than "gay politics," "queer news" rather than "LGBT news." It is turning around and instead of being the derogatory term it traditionally was, it is becoming a positive, affirmative term. I like it because it tends to be more general than other sexuality terms. I'd define queer as simply "not straight." I have a lot of different attractions to a lot of different types of people, and though I ultimately most-likely see myself married to a man, I don't want to completely rule out other possibilities. It also leaves room for my attraction to those that don't fit the gender binary (i.e. people that identify as neither male nor female. Androgyny is HOT).

Agnostic: I debated whether or not to put this one up here as I'm sure it will come back to bite me. I was raised Christian, went to Christian schools my entire life, and am even graduating from a Christian college in just a few short months (yay, summer classes!). Yet, somewhere along my college journey, I realized I was not really sure of anything. I'm sure there will be a blog post about these thoughts in much more detail later, but for now I'll simply say that I am okay with the idea that maybe I was not created by a master deity. At the same time, maybe I was, but I'm not convinced this god is the God of Christianity.

Vegetarian: I love food, and I always have. Back in my Freshman year of college, I took a philosophy course that really opened my eyes on the state of the meat industry in the United States. I also took a biology course that showed me the state of the food industry in general (our reliance and addiction to corn in its many forms, for example). I kept all these feelings inside for a while, but about a couple months ago, I was kicked in the gut when talking to a biologist friend of mine. She was being her usual passionate-self about the environment and food, and I was heartily agreeing with her. She quipped back, "You don't actually care about the environment." The perception that I didn't care wasn't too far from how I was behaving at the time, so I've really started to kick it into gear. Vegetarianism was the natural first step for me. I've been eating that way for 37 days to date. Again, there will be a longer post on this decision (and subsequent decisions) later.

...Oh, and I'm also a music teacher.


So, that's me in a nutshell. In this blog I hope to write about issues that are important to me. They may be ramblings about what it's like to be queer in contemporary society and the politics surround it, or maybe they'll be about my challenges and successes as a vegetarian. I'll probably write about the environment at some point, healthy eating, religion, morality... you name it. Interspersed throughout all of this, I hope to write up some of my recipes. I'm an avid cook, and I love teaching people how to make things. I come up with mostly my own recipes, though typically these are based on other recipes with my own modifications. I'll explain this process as I upload them.

-QV