Opportunity Cost

In economics class in college we learned about a term that economist use when studying how people make decisions. This term is opportunity cost, which is defined as "the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative forgone (that is not chosen)." You could say that it's what you have to give up in order to get or do something else.

Twice a week, a group of men at our church, Hocutt Baptist in Clayton, NC get together for prayer, encouragement and accountability. Every Wednesday at 6am and Saturdays at 7:30am men gather in community to share prayer requests: hardships at work, struggles at home, loved ones with illnesses or people that we have bumped into throughout the week that are in need of the Gospel. Also shared are encouraging stories where we have seen the Lord work in our lives, answered prayers or revealed himself to us through His word that week or through a situation. These are times of great encouragement for me. 

 I am usually the youngest one there, with the least experience in marriage, no experience with children of my own and only a little experience in the working world. This was rarely the case growing up, where most of the time in my peer group I was usually the one who (at least appeared to) have it all together and was always ready to counsel others, but never needed help. But I have been learning over the past few years how broken I am and the more I open up about needing a) the Gospel and b) a community of believers (especially other men) around me to build me up and encourage me there is freedom in vulnerability. These men at the meetings who are elders, deacons grandfathers or new dads are willing to be honest about things that are hard in their lives and how they need advice, prayer and encouragement.

This has been a blessing for me to experience this community and the willingness of these men to share and let others into their lives. I have been reading a book by Crawford Loritts called Leadership as an Identity and the first section of the book is labeled "Brokenness" and he defines it as "a conscious, core awareness that you need God in all things" and he spends a third of the book on this subject. Randy Alcorn, another writer says that brokenness is "more than just periodic times of intense emotional experience, it's an ongoing sense of inadequacy." The more time I spend around these men at church in these prayer groups, the more I see brokenness in their lives and in my own, yet where that brokenness abounds, healing and salvation through the Gospel abounds all the more.

So for the men in these groups, on these Wednesday and Saturday mornings, they could probably choose to get an extra hour of sleep, an extra hour of SportsCenter or maybe knock out some some yard work around the house, but they choose to spend it communion with the Lord and other men and experience the Gospel in community. They have counted the costs and to them it is worth what they have to give up. And I am grateful to be a part of it.

  

Micah, my MVP!

Last night Lauren and I got to attend a basketball game between the Grizzlies and the Celtics. These weren't the two NBA teams but in the local Clayton rec league, they're just as serious. On Sunday, the ring bearer in our wedding's father told me about Micah's basketball game on Tuesday night. The were one of  four teams left and we wouldn't miss it! So we made arrangements to surprise him and attend the game. 

 When we showed up at the gym toting a bright green poster saying "Go Micah!" and sat down on the front row, Micah looked over and saw us and smiled and said "really?" We were excited about getting to watch him play.

 This was a win-or-go-home game so the stakes were as high as our nerves as we cheered on every made basket or blocked shot. The opposing team (the Celtics) shot a lot. They made a good deal of shots early and took the lead and held it basically the whole time, even at one point up double-digits.

 However, the Grizzlies came back and made it a nail-biter and pulled it to within one-point. They got a rebound off of the front end of a one-and-one and the coach called a timeout...with 1 second left. They in-bounded the ball with a heave to half court and the time expired by the time they got full control.

I was proud of Micah and enjoyed getting to watch him play!

SNOW!!!

Yesterday I had to leave early in the morning for a meeting in Morrisville and on the way it began raining.  I heard that there was a chance for snow in the forecast but I heard it wouldn't arrive until the afternoon, if we received any. However, as I continued to drive, the rain got heavier. Soon I realized the rain had turned into snow. I took some pictures then when I got to the Bible study I was attending, I sent them to Lauren who was back home in Clayton where it had not yet begun to snow.

Finally, by the time I got back home 2 hours later, the ground was covered in a light dusting of white powder  and the flakes were humongous. It was continuing to come down and we were loving it. After we ate lunch, Lauren went to the movies with some girls from church so I stayed home and made snowballs to welcome them back with when they got home. I nailed them all!

After everyone found a rain jacket, we went outside to build a snowman. The snow was perfect for snowballs and snowmen. In no time we had enough for two, three-ball snowmen. The girls with us wanted to make a Harrison & Lauren snowman and woman so we did that. We found some limbs from trees for arms and carrots for noses. Lauren found some buttons for the eyes and twizzlers for mouths.

We then accessorized the snow-people with some fashionable clothes. Lauren's replica had a scarf and a hat and mine had a hat from Lauren's grandpa's closet and a necktie.

We had a great time and were glad to get to have a snow day with each other and our friends that were with us.

We even awoke this morning to more snow! More fun to be had in our yard!

Our East Asian Valentine

       We had such an incredible time celebrating our first Valentine's Day together. This was our 3rd since the beginning of dating each other and yet the first to ever spend together! And in celebration of our longing to be back where we call home in East Asia, we celebrated East Asian style!

     We began our Valentine's with lunch with Harrison's mom and grandma at Taco Bell (yeah I know not very Asian) but it was still a great highlight of our day seeing them and getting to hang out since we just got back into town.

    After lunch we drove to the Asian market that is about 15 minutes from our house and man did it feel like we were stepping back into a supermarket back home. The smells of fish and spices and such just brought me back to our East Asian home and I didn't want to leave it. Everything was just like our supermarkets back home except you didn't have to weigh each individual produce before going to the cash register and the frozen foods section was much larger.

They even had the apples wrapped up!!!!

     So we bought our seasonings, jiaozi (dumplings), spring rolls and produce and headed home for our first cooking adventure with making some of our favorite dishes.

     The last week I was in East Asia I went to my favorite restaurant and got to go back in the kitchen and learn how to cook my two favorite dishes, disanqian (which is potatoes, eggplant and peppers cooked together) and fried jiaozi! We had planned to try cooking it several times throughout the past 6 months but never did so today was the day. I loaded up my videos of the chef cooking and got to cooking! (I will give recipes at the end for those of you who want to try it yourselves) Now, Harrison loved gongbaojiding aka kung pao chicken and yet neither of us had ever cooked it so we looked online and found one that we thought looked good on allrecipes.com and then we did a little doctoring to it due to not having some of the ingredients and wanted to use some spices that I brought back from East Asia. We also then looked up a recipe for fried rice and made it to go with our food and cooked some frozen spring rolls. 

     We sat down to eat, not knowing how everything would taste and were highly satisfied with our cooking! I doubted that the kung-pao chicken would be good and yet it was incredible!!! 

Enjoying our meal with our couples chopsticks that were a wedding gift from a friend!

Now to sharing my recipes!!!!

DiSanQian

For this you will need:

1 large green bell pepper cut into bite size pieces (throw out the seeds)

1 red bell pepper  cut about 1/3 of the pepper into bite size pieces (throw out seeds)

2 normal size eggplants (about a foot long and 2-3 inches in diameter)

2 potatoes

3-4 cloves of garlic chopped or pressed

flour

oil

sugar

soy sauce

vinegar

salt

chicken bouillon powder

1. wash and dice potatoes into bite size chunks

2. cook the potatoes (I roasted them on a cookie sheet with some oil in the oven)

3. In East Asia, they sit the potatoes out to in a way harden, I didn't and my potatoes became mush so not sure if I should have cooked them longer, fried them or what.

4. Put oil in a frying pot and let it heat up while prepping the eggplant

5. Peal the eggplant and slice it up into bite size cubes

6. put the eggplant in a bowl and wet it a little with water in your hands

7. add flour to the bowl with the eggplant and toss it with your hand until all the eggplant is lightly covered in flour

8. Once oil is at the correct frying temp fry the eggplant until lightly brown

9. take the hot oil off the eye and spoon out eggplant onto a strainer to let cool and grease to drain off. Keep the oil to use some while cooking all other foods

10. In a wok or large skillet or pot next put about 2 ladles of oil, mine was a small ladle so about 1/2 cup of oil I would think in the wok. Next dump your garlic in and let cook for about a minute stirring before adding your peppers

11. after the peppers and garlic have cooked for about 2 minutes add your cooked potatoes and eggplant stir it all together

12. Add about a Tablespoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of vinegar, and 2 Tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of salt and stir stir

13. Add a 1/4 teaspoon of the chicken bouillon powder if you have it or I just tossed a bouillon cube around for a little while and then took it out of the pan.

14. I added what is called hua jiao to it and have no idea what an american name for it is except that it flavors the food well but if you eat the seed itself it tastes like lemon pledge and numbs your mouth. I have a large bag of it and am willing to share if any of you would like some!

15. Enjoy!

Gong bao ji ding (Kung Pao Chicken)

Like I said I used the allrecipes recipe but changed some of it due to not having some ingredients and wanting to add others. So here is what I did.

What you will need:

1 lb of skinless chicken breasts cut into small chunks

2 1/2 Tablespoons of soy sauce

2 Tablespoons sesame oil

2 Tablespoons of cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tablespoons of water

1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

2 teaspoons brown sugar

4 green onions chopped

1 Tablespoon garlic chopped

4 oz of peanuts (unsalted) mine I bought at the Asian market so they were just like ones in East Asia

1 ounce hot chili paste (I used red dried peppers from East Asia instead and chopped them up) I have more to share if you want some

1/2 teaspoon of hua jiao which I can give you if you want

1. To Make Marinade: Combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon cornstarch/water mixture and mix together. Place chicken pieces in a glass dish or bowl and add marinade. Toss to coat. Cover dish and place in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
2. To Make Sauce: In a small bowl combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon cornstarch/water mixture, chili paste (or red peppers like I used), vinegar and sugar. Mix together and add green onion, garlic, hua jiao, and peanuts.
3. Meanwhile, remove chicken from marinade and saute in a large skillet until meat is white and juices run clear.  Then once started cooking, in another pan start to heat the sauce. When sauce is aromatic, add sauteed chicken to it and let simmer together until sauce thickens. It will become like a sticky looking thick sauce on the chicken. Be sure your chicken is almost cooked before starting to heat the sauce to add.
4. Enjoy!

Here is an up close picture of the hua jiao (greenish black seed) and the cut up red pepper

Now as for the jiaozi recipe, I just bought the frozen jiaozi at the Asian market, I recommend the pork and cabbage or pork and vegetables ones. I boiled them in water and you can eat them like that or as you may have seen in my picture I did attempt to fry some like my favorite restaurant does but I burnt them a little. For frying all you do is mix some oil in flour in your skillet and place the already boiled jiaozi on it and let it cook until the flour becomes a hardened crunchy top then take out and enjoy!

The fried rice recipe we got online but are in search for a better one. I'll let you know if I do find one. It's hard to find a bag of just frozen peas and carrots in America and the mixed veggies were just a little much.