These are so much better than the original spring rolls I made a few weeks ago.  Peanut butter and tomato might sound like a weird combo, but it's so creamy and yummy!

You can find the rice wraps on the oriental/international food isle at the grocery store.  

Ingredients:

1/2 package of extra firm tofu (or more if you want to make more)

Lettuce

1 can of diced tomatoes

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/8 cup chopped green onions

Fresh grated ginger

Spring roll wraps

Chop up the green onion and let it cook in the skillet on medium heat until fragrant.  Place the tofu on a clean hand towel and press the excess moisture out of it.  Cut the tofu into cubes and put it in the skillet.  Let it cook for abut 5 min or so until it is brown. Flip tofu and cook until the other side is nice and brown too.  Add a tablespoon or so of fresh, grated ginger. (more if you REALLY like ginger, I do!) Puree the canned tomatoes and and them plus the peanut butter to the mixture.  Cook until it is all a nice, creamy blend.

Soak one rice wrap at a time in a bowl of warm water and then spread it on a plate.  Tear up some lettuce and put it on the wrap first, then add the tofu mixture.  Fold up and eat or store it in the fridge for later ... but why would you want to do that?? 

This recipe makes 3-4 wraps if you only use half a package of tofu.  You could always add more tomato and peanut butter to make it go further.  I bet peanuts would be good mixed in with it too!  

I really treasure and desire comfort. I know that maxing out on my back squat really has no eternal significance, but I get a lot of comfort in working out.  I like it.  Actually, I love it.  Actually, I really love myself a LOT and heaven forbid that you get in the way of my crossfit WODs ... besides, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit right? Just throwing that in there for good measure.  

I also get comfort in having ALL the ingredients I need to make food for us to eat and treasure success in cooking good food.  The world is not coming to an end if on Sunday, we don't make a run to Sam's in Pearl City for a 3-pack of almond milk. But I wanted to make pancakes! ... um, for you of course.

We've been going through an amazing series in Sunday school called "What did you Expect?" by Paul David Tripp. This blog post is exactly what he talks about, and is basically compiling the last five sessions we've done.  I recommend this series to any married couple. It digs deep.

Here is a link to the DVDs: http://paultripp.com/products/wdye-dvd

Marriage is war.  I wouldn't recommend putting that on the card to go with your best friend's wedding present, it's not a very happy and encouraging thought, but marriage is a very real war.  It is a war on a spiritual level.  It is a war between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God. What I want, and what God wants.  These desires are things that we treasure.  Comfort, time, success are just several examples and they can manifest themselves in different ways. Your treasures do not have to be possessions.  The things we treasure will be what we worship (or what rule in our heart) and that filters our response to those around us.  In James 4:1 it says,

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you?" - James 4:1

Because of our sinful, fallen nature, things of even the least importance rise to a level of crisis in our relationship and cause conflicts.  We are selfish, self-centered beings by nature, but that conflict on a horizontal level between one another cannot be resolved until it is taken care of vertically down in the heart.  Jeremiah 17:9 says,

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" - Jeremiah 17:9

"Sin causes us to shrink our lives to the size of our lives." Sin causes us to turn the people we love into objects to get what we want. When have you ever marched into the living room, angry at your spouse, thinking ... and I mean REALLY thinking, "THIS is ABOUT the kingdom of God! I must SPEAK to them!" Ha ha! Good one. Are you kidding? I know I don't.  How often are you angry because they are going against what God commands? It's usually, "I was hurt ... you did this ... I want to ... you didn't do" etc. Me, me, me, me, me.  Instead of our lives being upward (towards God) and outward (towards others), our life gets very small and turned in on us.

 Luke 12:13-21 is "The Parable of the Rich Fool",

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

 God says, "You fool!" What if you decided to live for the treasures that God desires, instead of "self-ascribed treasures and anxiety-bound needs?" What if you desired God's kingdom purposes instead of your own purposes? "You will never know the peace of the King if you are trying to be the king; peace will begin by admitting you have a problem with wanting your own kingdom more than God's." - Paul Tripp

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness...."Matthew 6:33

I love green bean teepees.  We had one in the backyard when I was younger and it was really fun.  These are super easy to make, great for kids and plus they're a creative and adorable way to grow yummy legumes.

What you will need:

• 5-6 bamboo polls or garden rods
• garden twine
• soil
• pots (if not putting polls into the ground)
• seeds

You'll want to start by arranging your polls and tying the twine around the top to secure them.  They will slide a little, but that won't matter once you have them in the ground.  Pick a place in the yard that gets plenty of sunlight and arrange your polls to the width you want the teepee.

Using the garden twine, start from the top and wrap the twine around the teepee.  This will give the beans something to grow and spread out on other than just the polls.  Pull it tight as your go around the teepee.  The string might loosen a little bit, but you can always tighten it with tape.  Leave one section open for a little door!

Weed the circle around the teepee.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but you don't want the beans and peas battling with the unwanted weeds!  After weeding, you can push the polls down into the ground.  If you want to plant in pots, buy a pot for each poll, and just plant the beans in the pots.  No weeding necessary for that method!

 Lay your soil down and plant the beans!  I planted peas and green beans.  You could also plant some flowers around it too, if you wanted!  After about 7-10 days, you should see some results!  I'll be laying some mulch down soon to help keep that grass under control.

We have a really small back yard, but wanted to grow our own produce.  Square foot gardening is just the thing if you don't have much space ... or even if you a a ton of space!  It's really easy to start one. Here in Hawaii, growing season is year round but you'll just need to plant accordingly with your climate and season.

What you'll need:

• Two 1x6x8 or 2x6x8 pieces of wood, cut in half.  You can have them cut at the store for no charge.
• Good, quality soil.  It's recommended that you mix 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite.  
• Garden twine
• Wire trellises if you're planning on growing any vine variety plants
• Deck screws or nails
• ... and of course, seeds!

Be sure to pick a spot in your yard that gets 6-8 hours of sunlight. Also, if you're planning on having more than one square foot garden, leave room for aisles between each box.

After you put the box together, place it in the yard and start weeding that area.

Fill it in with your soil, or soil mixture

You want to divide the 4x4 garden into 16 squares.  A different veggie/herb can go in each square, or you can have multiple square of the same plant.  Each square is 1ftx1ft, so you should have 3 nails or screws on each side of the garden.  You can check out the Square Foot Garden Website to look at plant spacing.

It should look like this:

Tie off your garden twine to finish the grid. Place your wire trellises if you're using them.  Make sure to situate them so that they won't block sunlight for the other plants!

You can make labels too.  I'm sure there are tons of different ways to do this.  I also wanted mine water-proofed.  I tore strips of notebook paper and labeled them.  Then, making sure the strips of packing tape were twice as long as the paper, I place the label side down on the sticky side of the tape.  I folded the tape over the twine and then trimmed the edges.  

Signs of life!!

This is one way to make sure you're out of bed on time!  I love waking up to simmering, cinnamon and apple oatmeal, even in the summertime.  "Bob's Red Mill" is the brand of steel cut oats that I normally use.

Steel cut oats are much chewier and hearty than the quick cooking rolled oats.  The rolled oats are more processed.  They have been steamed, rolled out, steamed for a second time and then finished off by toasting.  Steel cut oats are simply, coarsely chopped.  Steel cut oats also have a lower glycemic index, which means the sugar absorption into your bloodstream is lower.  Your blood sugar will not spike as much after eating these.  Mix in your favorite nut butter and you have a complete protein breakfast!

This recipe is taken from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook:

1 Cup of steel cut oats (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1/2 Cup of raisans, dried cherries, dried blue berries, sweetened dried cranberries or other favorite dried fruit.  (I chop up a red and a green apple)
1 tsp of apple pie spice or cinnamon mixed with ground cloves, nutmeg or allspice
4 cups of water
2 tbsp of maple syrup ( I use agave nectar, and only a tsp) or sugar

Mix all the ingredients and cook on LOW for 7-9 hours! Yummy!

The Haliewa Farmer's Market is every Thursday from 3PM-7PM.  If you're into buying organic produce, it's a pretty good stop.  I find it a little expensive, but it's still fun to go and look around!

Just to give you a price range of the farmer's market compared to the commissary non-organic prices:

                                           Kale                     Mango             Apple Bananas

Farmer's Market           $2-$3/bunch          $4 each             $2/bunch or $1.30/lb

Commissary                   $1.44/bunch         $2.43 each          $2.50/lb

I don't have an extensive list, but you just need to know your prices before you go.  Some items are a better deal at the farmer's market!  

Last weekend we visited the Dole Plantation with some friends and had an awesome time.  We didn't do everything you could do there, but the "Pineapple Maze" finished off by some delicious "Dole Whip" was more than enough for a fun Saturday morning!

If you're planning on going to the Dole Plantation this time of year, get there by 9:30 AM before it opens.  Since it's tourist season, this spot will be crowded very quickly.

The maze is fun, but make sure you wear sunscreen or you will be nice and crispy by the time you finally get out!

How it works:

We had a contest to see which team could make it out of the maze first, girls vs. guys.  There are eight secret stations that you have to visit.  Each station has a stencil that you have to put on your card, this way you know which stations you've been to (or missed in my case) and everyone else will know you didn't skip any!

This is a big maze.  Apparently it was in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2008 as the World's Largest Maze, pretty cool.

The red dots scattered throughout the maze are the stations.  Since Justin and Des had been through it before, they weren't allowed to say anything.  We ended up beating the guys by 15 minutes! I think that's because Pete decided to not follow the map.  I tried to follow the map and we still had to backtrack for one of the stations at the top of the maze!

photographing this awesome moment in history, the husbands walked out of the maze 15 min after we did

After our victory, of course they had to buy us some Dole Whip.  Dole Whip is pineapple flavored icecream! Sound weird? Trust me, it's good.  If you ever have the chance to try it, don't pass it up.