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Food & Drink, Lifestyle Articles

10 Delish Comfort Foods When You’re Hungry AF

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When someone mentions “comfort foods” I’m sure many people think of similar things; perhaps ramen, chicken noodle soup, brownies or pasta come to mind. These are all indeed some amazing comfort foods. I’m sure the list of comfort foods could go on forever depending on the person, but this short list provides some common and some unique comfort foods that are both healthy and fulfilling. A double whammy, killing two birds with one stone, or whatever else you want to call it! If that’s what you’re looking for then you’ve come to the right place (or perhaps got lucky and somehow stumbled upon this article). Here are 10 comfort foods that you’ll be drooling over when that “Hungry AF” feeling kicks in!

1. Mac n’ Cheese

Okay, I know what you’re thinking- “Umm that’s too easy. I have boxed Mac n’ Cheese that’s been sitting in my pantry for a while now and it doesn’t really sound that appetizing.” Yes, dear reader many could definitely agree with you. Here’s the thing, if you’re running low on time, those boxed mac n’ cheeses will be your lifesavers. Not many people know this, but most boxed macaroni and cheese packets are filled with many micronutrients like protein, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, iron, and calcium. If that sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, the more important thing to know is that those micronutrients contribute towards just a bit more energy and boost the immune system. Who knew something so bland could be so nutritious?! However, for those that simply dread the thought of boxed mac n’ cheese, macaroni is a versatile food and there are definitely ways to make it more appetizing. For a more unique recipe, you can simply try changing the pasta type, the cheese type, and even add some cut up hotdogs or other meat of your choosing. Whether you’re making boxed mac n’ cheese or your own type, both of these are great simple comfort foods.

2. Spaghetti

In a similar category as Mac’n Cheese, Spaghetti is another great option. Many might think that it is only usually eaten for special occasions, but really it can be eaten whenever you’re hungry or simply craving spaghetti. That’s basically the function of comfort foods. It’s a pretty simple food because it’s made from flour and water, which come together to form carbs. This gives a boost to your metabolism. Other kinds of micronutrients include fiber, minerals, and vitamins. Not only does it have basic nutrition for day-to-day life, but spaghetti also gives that “Wow I’m so full I could explode” feeling when we need it! Not to mention, if you also add meatballs, it makes it oh so good! This classic recipe will for sure fill you up!

3. Spinach Dip

If you’ve never been to Applebee’s or aren’t familiar with dips, you might have no idea what spinach dip is. Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s delish AF and will fill you up when you’re hungry AF! Some might put this into the category of appetizers rather than comfort foods, but it really depends on the person. Spinach dip can be eaten as an appetizer with chips before a meal, or it can be eaten with slices of bread, salads, pasta, or meat. Unless you’re super hungry, you most likely won’t eat it by itself, but just thinking about eating spinach dip with chips or bread can make your mouth water. This appetizing dip is a must-try!

4. Cheeseburger Quesadillas

When hearing the term “quesadilla,” the Mexican cuisine might come to mind, which has a plethora of comfort foods that I suggest looking up in your free time. Cheeseburger quesadillas are quite possibly one of the best comfort foods out there that not everyone is familiar with. Whether bought at a fast-food chain or made at home, they are quick to make, simple, and deliciously appetizing. This recipe is one of the simplest and a classic!

5. Croissant Sandwich

I’m sure you’ve heard of this one, or at least someone annoyingly mispronouncing the french-deriving word “croissant.” Croissant sandwiches are actually not only tasty but also very nutrient-dense. Comfort foods are often thought to be bland, but croissant sandwiches are filled with yummy condiments and fillings like turkey, ham, cheese, tomatoes, and other fresh produce. There are also different kinds; breakfast, BLT, dessert, etc. This recipe, in particular, has a good chunk of fillings that will make you drool just looking at it, crave more after the first bite and feel satisfied after eating one (or two if you’re THAT hungry). It’s also a free country so feel free to substitute or add whatever you want, like bacon or your favorite sauce. Yum!

6. Pierogies (Dumplings)

Popular in the Slavic cuisine, pierogies may seem alien to those familiar with common comfort foods. This dish is versatile, in that it may be savory or sweet. It is made of unleavened dough that is typically wrapped around homemade cheese, potatoes, fruit, or basically whatever else you can think of that fits in that little pocket! That being said, the health benefits vary with what is in them, but they are definitely a nice addition to your meal. With their typical exuberance of protein and carbs, you could possibly feel full just after eating a few. They are typically eaten with sour cream for a better taste. There are a plethora of different recipes, but this one is one of the more fulfilling types. If you don’t feel like making these or buying them at a local Russian or ethnic store, hopefully one of your Russian friends will invite you over the next time they eat them. Pierogies are a must-try comfort food!

7. Zesty Avacado Pasta

Doesn’t that name just make you wanna have this dish right in front of you right now?! I guess it depends on what your tastes and preferences are, but this recipe is one of many flavorful pasta combinations that will have your stomach asking for more. Pasta is probably one of the more common types of comfort foods, but it is also very versatile. There are many things you can add to pasta to make it “your own,” even the pasta shape, so that is totally up to you. This recipe in particular though is a pasta dish that is so delicious you’ll be asking for seconds. With its fillings of zucchini, avocado, and other healthy addons, you’ll not only feel full but also have a nutritious boost. Who doesn’t love food that makes them feel good?!

8. Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You could think of this as the American version of cheeseburger quesadillas, but this one definitely has to go in the category of comfort foods. The texture of warm toast and melted cheese combined with the fulfilling meat of your choice will leave both your stomach and taste buds feeling satisfied. A grilled cheese sandwich is such a simple comfort food that is often forgotten. Once again, another versatile food that can be changed based on your preference for bread, meat, cheese, etc. Here is a tasty tuna grilled cheese sandwich recipe in case your imagination is running low today. A grilled cheese sandwich will never disappoint!

9. Biscuits And Gravy

This is a must-have when looking for comfort foods. When someone mentions “biscuits and gravy,” you might imagine eating this on a Saturday morning when spending the weekend at your grandparents’ house. That’s why this kind of meal fits perfectly in comfort foods-it truly gives you that homey family feeling (ya know, that same feeling you get at Thanksgiving and Christmas time). Just thinking about those buttery flaky biscuits with savory gravy and sausage can make your mouth water. The name speaks for itself so usually, recipes are not necessary. If this is your first time making homemade biscuits however, here is a simple delicious recipe you could try. Of all comfort foods in this list, this one will probably make you want to unwind and take a blissful nap after, or perhaps take a break from life and watch a few episodes of your favorite show!

10. Borscht

Last but definitely not least on our list of comfort foods is Borscht. You might be wondering what the heck this is. Borscht is a popular Ukrainian dish with a beet soup base. This dish is more intermediate or advanced in terms of difficulty but it is oh so worth it! This beet soup contains hearty flavors of potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beef, and other flavorful add-ons. If you have an inner-cook with a burning desire to try something new, this is an impressive and delicious dish to try out or make for the family. Here is a classic borscht recipe if you’re up for it. Though it might not be common, Borscht is without a doubt one of the best comfort foods!

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Lifestyle Articles, Spiritual Edification

Surrendering to Vocation

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I truly related this blog post,because it stated the obvious—sometimes our careers are not our vocations, they are just a necessary obligation to uphold finances in our life. Here are a few quotes from the blog that relate to what I’m trying to say, because sometimes other people are able to say things in a more coherent, clear and elegant way.

On careers–

“This is part of life and while it’s not much fun, if you want to eat and provide for your family, it can be necessary. But with vocation, you don’t have to do all the hard work. With vocation, God is involved in the search and there are so many needs out there, doors will start to open that give you clues about where to go and what to be.”

Although, if you’re lucky enough, your vocation and your career CAN match up! (sadly, they often don’t for everybody)

On finding your vocation–

“Give yourself a lot of exposure to works like the legend of St. George and the Dragon, or the Chronicles of Narnia, or the Lord of the Rings … stories and myths that became epics by inspiring courage to try great things that are way over your heads. That’s when you see the greatness of God and the greatness he’s put in you that you might never have suspected was there. These stories show us something about taking the way that is not always comfortable and enduring hardship for the sake of something greater than our own pleasure. They tell us that the battle-scars of love and sacrifice are not a burden, they are an adventure. And the really great tales aren’t just about the biggest, toughest conquerors. They are about children and hobbits and anti-heroes who are scared spitless but do what they have to do for a greater good. These stories also include the importance of selflessly doing the hard things that are boring and frustrating and tiring to get to whatever prize God has in mind.”

More than anyone else in the world, you’ve been able to watch the supernatural love and courage of your mom. If you want to become like anyone in this world, become like her. You didn’t get to see what an Amazon she was pushing each of you 11-pound guys into the world through sweat, blood, agony and shrieking …But you have seen how hard it was for her to suck it up, work hard and take on leading . I know you appreciate it and you love her, but also, remember that you carry her physical and spiritual DNA … there is something of her in each of you. Don’t squander that great and precious gift on what the world tells you that you need to do or be. Give that gift back to God.

I think this idea applies to many people’s lives. On the one hand, you might truly enjoy learning new things and new perspectives. However on the other hand, maybe you don’t have a specific career path. However one’s career path can help them with their vocational path in many ways.  That can be the magic in it sometimes—a career may not necessarily get you to the top or guarantee you amazing wages, yet if it can help a person discover their vocation, that might be what is truly more important. I’m telling you, it’s all about the journey.

At the end of the day, vocation will boil down to surrendering to what God (the Universe) has for you, because it’s far better than anything we’ll dream up for ourselves.

Lifestyle Articles

A Refresher on The Effects of Technology

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What a wonderfully thought-provoking article, although I wish the title was more transparent because technology definitely affects more than just Christians in good and bad ways. It definitely enhanced my knowledge about how technology affects us. Technology can dramatically affect one’s faith or mental wellness—both positively and negatively. On the one hand, a few negative points the article stated that seemed noteworthy were that technology:

  • Changes how we think
  • Can become an idol in our lives
  • Can enable other idols, i.e. pride
  • Can be a distraction

I agree with all of these and I think all of them affect one’s faith. First, with the shows we watch on television or on Netflix, they can very easily manipulate our thought processes into a secular perspective so that everything seems okay (when it’s not ok, at least for the believer). Next, technology has definitely become the shiny idol of our generation—whether it’s being attached to our cellphone, which I am a victim to, or relying on a program on our computer to give us happiness—whether its Pinterest or winning a video game. This is also a slippery slope to enabling pride because of how technology, computers, phones, etc. have the ability to help people express their identity through social media platforms. Though these aren’t necessarily bad, they can be detrimental to our mental health and self esteem if overly used. Furthermore, this also leads to technology being a distraction. I think some of the main distractions for the 21st century dweller would most likely be their phone, tablet, computer, or television. However, on the other hand, is how helpful technology can be—from nifty bible apps, productivity apps, the convenience of texting, etc.

I think everyone knows the struggle of trying to resist the temptation to watch another episode of one’s favorite show or resisting to text back a best friend or a new love interest. Sometimes these distractions get out of hand and it seems like people cant resist because they rely on them to bring them happiness. We can avoid all the negative aspects of technology by simply taking a step back and asking ourselves if this technology or distraction is going to better ourselves or someone else and how so. Furthermore, I loved one of the questions in the article, which stated to ask the technology we are using, “What are you doing to my heart?”

Here, you can find my notes from the article because it is pretty lengthy. So feel free to either read it verbatim or just glance over some of the main points/ notes I got from it here:

  • Technology” is basically anything that is created by human beings to help us reach beyond what we would be able to do without it – whether that’s just doing an old thing more efficiently, or whether it’s doing something that was entirely impossible before. Technology is all around us, and it’s so deeply woven into the very fabric of our lives that we barely even notice it’s there. That’s precisely why it’s so important that we do take time out to consider it from a Christian perspective – because the technology we use always changes us.
  • The creation order is turned upside down, the things we created to help us master the creation now try to master us.
  • technology by itself is what we might call “amoral” – that is, it is neither overwhelmingly good nor inherently evil. Like lots of things in this world it’s something with great power for good but which is also deeply affected by the fall. What’s important is how we use that technology – what we use it to do, and what we allow it to do to us.
  • Technology is neither overwhelmingly good nor inherently evil – it’s how we USE it that counts.
  • technology can also very easily become an idol in our lives.
  • It can be that the technology is an idol in itself (the latest iDols from Apple, perhaps?) or they can enable other idols, such as my pride, as I project an image of living the most remarkable life imaginable on Facebook, or lust, in the form of Internet pornography and so on.
  • My goal here is to encourage us all just to be a little more thinking in our attitude to technology – not to reject it outright, nor to embrace it unquestioningly. Instead, to try to see beyond the superficial and to think a bit more about how it affects us, and why we feel about it the way we do.

Technology changes how we think

  • Because of the television, we’ve become a very visual culture
  • It’s really important to recognize that our technology has the power to radically alter how we perceive and think about the world around us.

Technology means we’ve redefined truth

Obviously there’s loads more we could say on that topic – plenty of further examples of ways in which our technology changes how we think. But in summary: be on your guard! Don’t engage with technology unthinkingly and expect to come away unchanged.

  • distraction. Our technology these days increasingly leads to distraction. If we allow it to, our technology can really begin to own us, with all of the beeps and buzzes and notifications that constantly vie for our attention and drag us away from the real interactions with the people right in front of us.
  • As a result of all this distraction, we’re less and less able to concentrate for long periods of time, we find ourselves less and less able to do something simple like just sitting and reading a book. It can even get to the point where we find ourselves feeling quite anxious and fidgety if we have to sit with our own thoughts and nothing to distract us. It can draw us away from the people we’re face-to-face with, and be a disaster for our working productivity.
  • I think if we’re going to be serious about putting God first in our lives, we have to be pretty radical with our technology.
  • It says a lot about my own priorities if I’m more excited to know if anybody around the world has sent me a nugget of novelty in my inbox, than I am to hear from the Creator of the Universe who has some eternal truth to share with me
Spiritual Edification

Freewill – A Rich Byway That You Create

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It’s a new year, whoo! With the new year, I started to think, I wonder what the year has in store for me. And then I thought harder about that phrase and realized how that phrase almost implicitly is stating that the year is predetermined… but it’s totally not! So it honestly got me thinking about like philosophical ideas that I remembered from my philosophy class I took at university last year. I can admit it was one of my favorite classes. I’ve always been one of those people who thought our lives were predetermined, yet throughout college I’ve come to realize that we all indeed do have freewill. To an extent that is. Diving a little bit into the topic of philosophy, you might be asking, To what extent do humans possess free will?  This question has been one of the most debated topics of all time. According to Kane, an American Philosopher, there are traditional views that tell us Freewill is the idea that people have the ability to make decisions that they are morally responsible for. His Freewill argument emphasizes that it is up to us to make decisions and people have an open future with forking paths.

I totally agree with him that all humans possess free will. I’d like to make clear that the only free will I am discussing is the active free will that actually affects the future, rather than the passive compatibilism that does not. Kane states “most physicists and philosophers think that the world in not deterministic” (Kane 3). After looking towards the experts in this subject, we can see how science shows that free will is in fact compatible with physics.  Freedom of choice is essential to creating and shaping the experience of life. Free will can be seen on the human scale, but it can also be seen on an atomic scale. Both atoms and humans began in chaos and remain chaotic and random. This supports the basic idea of quantum mechanics, which states that “reality is not linear in its behaviour but discontinuous” (Silva).

Furthermore, not only is freewill important, but the belief that free will exists might even be equally important. In fact, studies have been conducted that conclude a lack of belief in freewill could end up breaking up societies. For example, if every crime in society was predetermined to happen like a natural disaster or a plague, than why should that person be held in jail for something they did not consciously control, but rather the mental disorder caused them to do it? “In survey research, we found that the more people doubt free will, the less they favor ‘retributive’ punishment” (Shariff and Kathleen). From this I inferred that not only do humans possess free will, but humans also need the belief that free will exists, in order to have a functioning society.

Since the beginning of time, freewill has been an essential part of not only history, natural sciences and human sciences, but also within religious knowledge systems. Ever since christianity became the one of world’s largest religion, the study of theology has grown and become a cornerstone to christian belief. Sometimes people wonder however, is it possible to posses both a scientific and religious outlook on the world? I think the idea of free will is one of the few forms that create a bridge between science and religion.

There were many people throughout history

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who either believed in compatibilism or determinism alone. One of the most famous philosophers, Einstein, said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe” (Silva). First, I’d like to start with the fact that this famous saying of his is often misunderstood. Nonetheless, I think having free will is essential to being a Christian. Michael Murray, a professor who studies the compatibility of science and faith, argues that “a good God would choose to make His existence and character less than certain for human beings, for the sake of their freedom. (He will do so, the argument goes on, at least for a period of tim

e in which human beings participate in their own character formation)” (Murray). It’s interesting that we can look at theology at many different angles. It’s also refreshing to stray away from common religious belief and the idea that God has already predetermined every man’s action. Free will is not just some crazy idea humans came up with, but it can be seen as evidence in how God reveals his love—by allowing his creation to have freedom. As Kane put it similarly, “I think the key to understanding the role of chance in free will is not to think of chance as a causal factor by itself, but rather to think of chance as an interfering ingredient in larger goal-oriented p

rocesses (Kane 41).

Because our planet’s societies depend upon the diversity that free will brings, we should appreciate the essence of having it. Freewill can be seen to exist from the beginning of time, throughout history, and within scientific and religious knowledge systems. It was and is required

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within our world because freedom of choice creates originality, creates moral responsibility in society and supports theology by reflecting God’s love. Not only do I argue this from my point of view, but I also support Robert Kane and several other experts who have studied freewill and other difficult topics like this one for many years. In summary, there may be several approaches to how this world is run. However, I find that a Free-will approach to life is inconsistent with deterministic ideas, therefore they cannot be compatible. In the end, free-will not only makes sense in the greater scheme of things, but it clearly exists and appears to be coherent throughout several areas of knowledge.

Spiritual Edification

Words that Inspire

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I was doing a devotional for an English class and we had to read a short Essay from some boring person in history (jk, I’m sure they were actually really important and contributed something) Anywayys, I really liked a portion of it. It really inspired me to be more open about struggles we go through. Because ultimately, I’ve learned that if you don’t talk about things, then they just eat you up inside and that darkness spreads and affects you in so many ways that others can’t see.

Here’s the exerpt; enjoy!

“When you feel that your heart is sinking under trouble, be simple and frank in saying so. Do not be ashamed to let your weakness be seen, or to ask help in your urgent need. By doing this you will advance in simplicity, in humility, and in trustfulness. You will go far to root out self-love, which keeps up a perpetual disguise in order to seem cheerful when it is really in despair.

If you nurse your troubles in silence they will grow stronger and finally overpower you, and the unreal courage that self-love creates will cause you a world of harm. The poison that goes into the system is deadly. The poison that comes out does no great injury. You must not be ashamed of seeing a free discharge from the sore in your heart.

I would give no consideration whatever to certain expressions that escape you, and that are merely the utterances of suffering in spite of your real self. It is enough if such expressions teach you that you are weak, and if you learn not to hide and cherish your weakness, but bring it to the light so that it may be cured.”