Robin and I cooked lunch for our church congregation yesterday. The soup we made turned out pretty well, so I thought I’d share the recipe with you, given it’s the time of the year for pumpkins. It’s adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks, The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Molly Katzen.

This recipe is easiest with canned pumpkin, but you could also cook and prepare it yourself. It makes 4-6 servings.

• 3 cups of cooked and pureed pumpkin, or 2 15 oz. cans
  (sweet potatoes or another winter squash would also work)
• 2-3 cups of water (depending upon how thick you like your soup)
• a splash of olive oil
• 2 cups of red onion, minced (other kinds are okay too)
• 1-2 large bell peppers, minced
• 2-4 large cloves of garlic, minced
• salt to taste
• 1-2 Tbs. of chile powder
• 2-3 Tbs. of fresh lime juice
• black pepper to taste

1. Add the pumpkin/squash and water to a soup pot, stir until the the consistency is uniform, and put on med/low heat. Continue to stir often as this heats up.

2. Warm up a skillet on medium heat, add oil, onions, and peppers. Saute until just tender (~5 min.), then add the garlic, salt, and chile powder. Continue cooking until the vegetables are soft and well done (~10 min).

3.  Add the vegetables and lime juice to the pumpkin. Stir well, and simmer for at least 10 more minutes. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. It’s best to let the soup simmer, covered, for up to a couple hours to mingle the flavors, but you can also eat it right away. You may need to add a little bit more water if you let it simmer.

4. Yummy!

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Grant :: Oct.29.2007 :: church, life update, recipes :: No Comments »

I’ve been continuing to work through the images I took this summer. Here are more from Desolation Wilderness. These are the first in a series of about 10 pictures of grass using a reversed 50mm lens for macro focusing. Click on the pictures to view larger versions.

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Grant :: Oct.12.2007 :: photographs :: No Comments »

As Robin alluded to on her blog, I’m doing a full-time year-long Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) residency this year. It’s a rather intense way to fulfill my field education requirement for seminary, but it’s also makes room for deep learning about my personal pastoral ministry and presence.

CPE is a nationally accredited program. Each unit lasts about 3 months, so I’ll be doing 4 units over the course of a whole year. It’s both scary and a wonderful growing opportunity because a lot of the curriculum involves giving and receiving direct and honest feedback about my personal presence and interpersonal relating. In other words, my fellow residents and the supervisor(s) are up front with what they think about me and the work I’m doing, and I’m expected to do the same for them. Ever wanted to know deep down what other people really think of you and notice about you? This is the place to learn.

If the advantage of being a resident is the learning opportunity, the disadvantage is they work you to near death for a pretty meager stipend. I’m really just happy to be getting paid, but at the end of 60-80 hour week (plus commuting back and forth to SF every day), I’m just plain tired. It’s a quick way to learn how to prioritize what renews and energizes me.

The hospital I’m working at is St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. It’s interesting for a couple of reasons. First, although it’s part of Catholic Healthcare West, it’s historically a community hospital that was later adopted into the Catholic healthcare system, so it has a mixed history. Second, it’s smack in between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich in San Francisco (the Tenderloin and Knob Hill). Chinatown is right next door too. The hospital’s patient population approximately reflects these populations pretty evenly. For doing chaplaincy work, I don’t think there could be a more dynamic place.

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Grant :: Oct.08.2007 :: CPE, life update :: 3 Comments »