Prepping for the Week

I usually like to prepare some food for the week. It makes it so much easier to put a meal on the table.

spices_image
Don’t judge – I usually end up throwing out fresh herbs because I can’t use them all – these last so much longer!

I like to use grass fed beef and lamb for my burgers!

meat_image
Yummy
These babies will be smashed into patties.

And dinner for the week is ready!

These get put in the freezer. So easy and tasty.

I like to keep breakfast during the weekdays as simple as possible. So, occasionally I will create my “breakfast muffins”. They heat up so quick and easy and are really delicious.

I brown the pan sausage – I usually get mine from Wards.
I like to use cheddar – also acquired from Wards.
A dozen eggs along with the other ingredients will yield about 14 muffins.
The final muffins! These will go in the fridge and we’ll eat until gone.

So, folks, that’s how I try to keep it simple. Of course, this is just one week. We’ll eat other foods – pork belly, ribeye, etc. along with some veggies like spinach or broccoli. We’ll mix it up. There are lots of other foods – we just try to keep it low carb.

Thanks for viewing – see you next time!

Ciao.

 

White Evangelicals, This is Why People Are Through With You

From John Pavlovich:

“Dear White Evangelicals,

I need to tell you something: People have had it with you.

They’re done.

They want nothing to do with you any longer, and here’s why:

They see your hypocrisy, your inconsistency, your incredibly selective mercy, and your thinly veiled supremacy.

For eight years they watched you relentlessly demonize a black President; a man faithfully married for 26 years; a doting father and husband without a hint of moral scandal or the slightest whiff of infidelity.

They watched you deny his personal faith convictions, argue his birthplace, and assail his character—all without cause or evidence.

They saw you brandish Scriptures to malign him and use the laziest of racial stereotypes in criticizing him.

And through it all, Christians—you never once suggested that God placed him where he was,

you never publicly offered prayers for him and his family,

you never welcomed him to your Christian Universities,

you never gave him the benefit of the doubt in any instance,

you never spoke of offering him forgiveness or mercy,
your evangelists never publicly thanked God for his leadership,
your pastors never took to the pulpit to offer solidarity with him,

you never made any effort to affirm his humanity or show the love of Jesus to him in any quantifiable measure.

You violently opposed him at every single turn—without offering a single ounce of the grace you claim as the heart of your faith tradition. You jettisoned Jesus as you dispensed damnation on him.

And yet today, you openly give a “mulligan” to a white Republican man so riddled with depravity, so littered with extramarital affairs, so unapologetically vile, with such a vast resume of moral filth—that the mind boggles.

And the change in you is unmistakable. It has been an astonishing conversion to behold: a being born again.

With him, you suddenly find religion.

With him, you’re now willing to offer full absolution.

With him, all is forgiven without repentance or admission.

With him you’re suddenly able to see some invisible, deeply buried heart.

With him, sin has become unimportant, compassion no longer a requirement.
With him, you see only Providence.

And white Evangelicals, all those people who have had it with you—they see it all clearly.

They recognize the toxic source of your duality.

They see that pigmentation and party are your sole deities.

They see that you aren’t interested in perpetuating the love of God or emulating the heart of Jesus.

They see that you aren’t burdened to love the least, or to be agents of compassion, or to care for your Muslim, gay, African, female, or poor neighbors as yourself.

They see that all you’re really interested in doing, is making a God in your own ivory image and demanding that the world bow down to it.

They recognize this all about white, Republican Jesus—not dark-skinned Jesus of Nazareth.

And I know you don’t realize it, but you’re digging your own grave in these days; the grave of your very faith tradition.

Your willingness to align yourself with cruelty is a costly marriage. Yes, you’ve gained a Supreme Court seat, a few months with the Presidency as a mouthpiece, and the cheap high of temporary power—but you’ve lost a whole lot more.

You’ve lost an audience with millions of wise, decent, good-hearted, faithful people with eyes to see this ugliness.

You’ve lost any moral high ground or spiritual authority with a generation.

You’ve lost any semblance of Christlikeness.

You’ve lost the plot.

And most of all you’ve lost your soul.

I know it’s likely you’ll dismiss these words. The fact that you’ve even made your bed with such malevolence, shows how far gone you are and how insulated you are from the reality in front of you.

But I had to at least try to reach you. It’s what Jesus would do.

Maybe you need to read what he said again—if he still matters to you.”

Flu Vaccine

I was reading an opinion in the New York Times supporting the flu vaccine and providing reasons everyone should get one. The article did provide links to studies the author mentioned. I sometimes like to check out these sources before making judgments. Interestingly, I was reading the abstract from one of the studies, a Cochrane Review and came across this quote:

“This review includes trials funded by industry. An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry-funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favourable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in the light of this finding.”

This is significant. We see this with all kinds of drugs. Unfortunately, the writer of the article failed to mention this statement when urging you to get your flu vaccine.

Statin drugs, anyone? More tomfoolery from the drug companies. Sure would be nice if they would let us see their raw data…why hide it? Exactly.

Beware my friends.

Ciao.

Staying Warm

Those of you who are intelligent thoughtful beings know that a hallmark of the current climate change we are experiencing is extreme weather. Well, we’ve experienced that extreme this week.

Part of my cold weather gear is my Army issue scarf I received in January 1982. That’s right, folks. This scarf has been keeping me warm for 36 years. And there’s hardly a blemish on it.

You’re welcome.

Ciao.