Sweet Potato vs. Pumpkin Challenge

A few weeks ago, I told Nathan that I might make a sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving this year. He refused to believe that someone would "make a pie out of a vegetable." I told him I didn't think he could tell the difference between pumpkin pie (one of his favorites) and sweet potatoe pie. He bet me $10 that he could! Well, money's been a little short lately, so I decided to accept the challenge.

Nathan started to get nervous. He reduced his bet. He reduced it again. Last Sunday I baked some pies. I used the same recipe except for the pumpkin and sweet potato. All my boys took a blind taste test. Only Noah could consistently tell the difference. I won a whole dollar from Nathan!!!

But what really made me a winner is that all the boys agreed that sweet potatoes make a good pie. A can of pumpkin costs $1.50. An equivalent amount of sweet potato (if you're willing to peel it, cook it and mash it), costs about 30 cents. So we'll be having sweet potato pie this year. The money we save will be used to help subsidize the apple pie for Rebecca and the pecan pie that we just had to have to round out our meal.

Here are my two pies. I will give my $1 to the first person who can correctly guess which one is pumpkin. Sorry I can't let you taste it. Both of the pies were gone in about 24 hours. Since sweet potatoes are a vegetable, the boys could justify eating some at every meal.

True Colors

Recently, we did a little project involving tree identification that involved taking lots of photos of leaves, trees, and bark (this was supposed to be one of the educational projects that I was going to do as part of my work with Panasonic).

I think it's interesting that the green in leaves is just chlorophyll - the true colors of the leaf are what we see when the green is gone.

That's a great metaphor for life. For us, the "green" is gone - quite literally since we have had no income for a 10 months now. I feel like we are being given a chance to show our true colors! It is a comfort to me to know that God knows me - He knows my true color, and He can identify me without a field guide of any kind.

May our true colors bring glory to the Lord!