Cool Couscous Salad

I made this today for me and some of my housemates. They all loved it. My favorite part is the dressing. Grab a lemon and squeeze!
Recipe courtesy Sandra Lee of Food Network



Prep Time:30 min
Cook Time:10 min
Serves:
4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
1 (10-ounce) box instant couscous
6 ounces marinated artichoke heart quarters - drain and reserve liquid
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
3 scallions, thinly sliced on a diagonal
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into large dice
1/2 cup loosely packed mint leaves, roughly torn
1 store bought roast chicken
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper

Directions
Make the couscous according to the directions. Uncover and fluff with a fork. Transfer the couscous to a large bowl and let cool.

To the couscous, add the artichoke quarters, cherry tomatoes, scallion, chickpeas, cucumber and mint.

Remove the breasts from the roast chicken - reserve the rest of the chicken for another use. Remove skin and cut the breasts into small pieces. Add the chicken to the couscous.

In a small bowl, whisk together the reserved lemon juice, olive oil and the reserved artichoke liquid. Season with salt, pepper, and a little cayenne pepper, to taste. Pour this dressing over the couscous mixture and toss lightly to combine.

Coconut Mango Chicken with Black Beans

I clipped out this recipe from Rachel Ray's summer 2008 magazine. Have not made it yet but it sounds amazing!

Serves: 4 Prep: 15 min Cook: 15 min

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound boneless chicken breast, cut into strips
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup coconut milk
1 mango, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
Salt and pepper
two 15 ounce cans black beans, rinsed
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/4 cup chopped mint

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large skillet, heat oil over high heat. Add chicken and cook, turing once, until browned, about 3 minutes. Add coriander and stir for about 30 seconds. Add chicken broth, lower heat and simmer for 3 minutes, scraping up any browned bits; transfer to plate. Add coconut milk to skillet, increase heat and boil to reduce by half about 4 minutes. Stir in mango and cook until warmed through. Return chicken to the skillet, toss and remove from heat; season with salt and pepper.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, simmer black beans over low heat. Stir in lime juice and 3 tablespoons mint.
3. Divide beans among 4 plates. Top with the chicken and remaining mint.

Oatmeal Chocolate Coconut Chewy Cookies

Here is a wonderful cookie recipe that I have made for many parties and received great reviews. The recipe will yield more than 30 servings if you make the rounds small. I found this recipe at http://allrecipes.com/.

HAPPY BAKING!

INGREDIENTS: Yields: 30 servings
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 cup shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the milk and vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture until well blended.
Stir in the oats, chocolate chips. walnuts and coconut until evenly distributed.
Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Medium to small rounds are perfect.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven for a chewy cookie or 14 minutes for a firmer cookie.
4. Cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheet and then remove to wire rack. Cool completely and then store in sealed container.

Red Line Runway Show

Biola circa 1908
In Los Angeles, circa Hope and 6th street
The founders they decided “a school we must found,
And maybe in a hundred years they’ll still be around”
We are.

So we had Lyman Stewart, and RA Torrey you know
And TC Horton, he was great but his wife ran the show
And things they were growing, as God was on their side
But if you were a guy with long hair they wouldn’t let you apply
The decades they went passing one by one by one
The school was getting bigger so they turned to Sam Sutherland
He said “Now we’ve found a few acres, in the fields of La Mirada,
It’s a big open place to expand our school and complaints, well I’ve got nada”
Nothing.

It’s here we met Bob and Betty, and Ron Hafer, what a pal
And the giant Jesus mural, well, he watches over the café
Things are better than ever, due to Dr. Cooks awesome reign,
But now my friends, it’s time to board the Dr. Corey Train.
Tickets please.

So happy year one hundred dear school that we love
We like your new ID cards and the renovated SUB
And welcome to the redline, and the end of my song
So Biola here’s to another hundred strong.
Good years.

Written by Josh, the run way show emcee

limón y sal

Tengo que confesar que a veces
no me gusta tu forma de ser
luego te me desapareces y no entiendo muy bien por qué
no dices nada romántico cuando llega el atardecer te pones de un humor extraño con cada luna llena al mes.

Pero a a todo lo demás le gana lo bueno que me das sólo tenerte cerca siento que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO:
Yo te quiero con limón y sal, yo te quiero tal y como estás,
no hace falta cambiarte nada,
yo te quiero si vienes o si vas,
si subes y bajas y
no estás seguro de lo que sientes.

Tengo que confesarte ahora
nunca creí en la felicidad
a veces algo se le parece, pero
es pura casualidad.

Luego me vengo a encontrar con tus ojos y me dan algo más
solo tenerte cerca siento
que vuelvo a empezar.

CORO

Solo tenerte cerca
siento que vuelvo a empezar....

processing the spring semester...

The first advertisement I remember reading about the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) began as follows, “Your showers will be cold and your clothes hot and sweaty…” You would think that this would be a real turn off to signing up but instead it challenged me to leave my comfort zone and go where I felt God was calling me to serve and study. Choosing to participate in LASP is more than just an opportunity to study abroad, it is immersing yourself into cultures so diverse from your own and learning that outside of your comfort zone there is a world of discomfort that you can make a positive impact on. I signed up and began an adventure that was to be more than just completing my Spanish minor; it was a life enhancing experience that will be forever in my heart, mind and soul.
Unlike most other study abroad programs we lived with host families in every country we visited. During the semester we stayed with our primary host family in Costa Rica but made side trips to Nicaragua, Panama and Guatemala where each one of us was housed with a local family. Each host family shared themselves openly with me giving me a perspective on their lives and culture that few people get to experience. Part of the immersion experience is to participate fully with your host family as if you were truly a member of their family. Significant to this immersion is of course speaking only in Spanish! The host families are instructed not to use English but to encourage their host son or daughter to think, speak and live in Spanish. As you can imagine this at times was more than a brain could take, but in no time I found my Spanish going to a whole new level and communication with my host families got easier and more natural. Not only could I maintain a level of conversation to accomplish tasks but now I could fully participate in dialogues where ideas, hopes and dreams were shared. Much to my surprise my Costa Rican host family could understand and speak English very well but they admonished me to speak only Spanish and kept me focused on improving my language skills everyday by pretending they didn’t know what I was saying if I slipped into English.
Each one of my host families contributed immensely to improving my Spanish along with helping me to understand their cultures and the critical issues they face daily. Several of the families I lived with were challenged economically and each day was met with faith that God would provide for their needs. These families welcomed me into their homes and they did not hesitate to share the little that they had with me. Their faith and hospitality was sometimes so overwhelming that it made my heart rejoice and ache at the same time.
The education gained from this type of study abroad program is immeasurable, not just from the academic stand point but from the interpersonal relationships that are forged by staying with families and living their daily lives with them, seeing the world through their eyes, ears and stomachs and wondering how I can make a difference. How can a North American Christian journalist like myself take what I have lived and seen in Latin America and make a difference not only in my world but in the lives of those in Latin America? I am much more empathetic now; my comfort zone has been stretched, pulled and broadened. I have a deeper understanding for the problems that Latin America faces and for how I will respond as a citizen of the Kingdom and of the world. I am open to God’s leading as I continue my journalism studies and excited to see how he will use this study abroad experience to further his kingdom.

Claire Scholl
EagleVision News Team-- Latin American Correspondent
www.biola.edu/eaglevision

freedom

I am getting so tired of just lying in bed all day! Kelly Charest decorated my cast with tons of plumerias, a sunset and island and a shooting star! So my cast is beautiful thanks to her! Yesterday I drove in my car for the first time since I have been back, it felt wonderful! I even have a handicap placard to hang in my rearview mirror. People stared at me when I pulled into the handicapped parking spots, but then they saw me get out and hopefully stopped judging me.

This weekend is going to be very busy. Aana is graduating from Westmont and then she is having a party. I am excited to see some old friends at this party. Sunday I am having my party, just kinda like a welcome back home thing. Not to big but it will be fun to kinda have a first bbq of the summer!

I miss all my friends from LASP so much. We have talked about a reunion but I want it to actually happen. Like really where could we all meet?

I might have a job working for a friend from church, please pray for me that this goes through!

Love you all!

Clara

back in the USA...

Greetings everyone from the comfort of my own bed! I am back in North America 6 days earlier than expected. While on my service project in Guatemala, I fell off the monkey bars (yes you read it correctly, the monkey bars) and rolled my ankle really bad. My ankle swelled up so fast it looked like I had an apple attached to it. In one of the pictures you can see my ankle. I went to a hospital in Guatemala City to get x-rays, they said I needed surgery but I would not be able to leave the hospital for a few days after and our program is heading to Miami today, so I would have missed that. I did this on Saturday and flew home on Sunday.

Needless to say, I am feeling a mixture of emotions as I am back home. I am so sad to have left my friends at LASP so early, I am in pain because of my ankle, I miss Latin America a lot but yet I am very happy to be living in North America where the air is so much fresher and life is a bit safer. So I am going through this time processing what I have learned and how to function with a casted leg.

I have never had a cast or crutches in my life so I am kinda wabbley and need help doing everything.

But before all this happened I had a wonderful time in Guatemala. It was hard leaving my family in Costa Rica, but I have emails and home addresses to write all of them. When we arrived in Guatemala we stayed at a Christian Theological seminary. We had charlas (seminars) with the party leader for Rigoberta Menchu's party. She is currently in third place for president of Guatemala. She is indigenous and 85% of the country is like her, but during my service project I talked to many non-indigenous and they said they would not vote for her because she does not represent the whole country.

My service project was at a NGO called Patronato Pro Nutricional Infantil. They weigh and measure kids under 6 years old, monitoring their growth and weight. They also provide lessons to mothers about nutrition and health. During our time there we made galletas (cookies) that are vitamin and fat packed. They actually taste pretty good and we made over a thousand of these galletas. In one of the photos you can see me pounding out the rounds.

These past four months have been truly amazing and I will always think of it as my best semester. I encourage everyone to study abroad if you still have time to do it. I enjoyed being in Latin America and not being labeled a tourist. I felt that being a student in someone else's country humbled me because I was there to understand and learn what realities Latin American's are faced with.

One of the other pictures is of me and my sisters in Costa Rica on my last night at the house. I love those girls so much.

This will be my last letter to you all. Thanks for reading and sending notes back to me. Feel free to ask me questions about what I experienced. I have over 600 photos and I would love to show all of them to you. Thanks again for allowing me to share these four months with you! Have a great week!!!

--- Clara