Too Much Food Network

Our girls love cooking, and Food Network. They have learned a great deal about the science behind cooking from Alton Brown, how to cook quick simple meals from Rachel Ray, how to make great comfort food from Paula Deen, and what real Italian food is from Mario Batali, Giada De Laurentiis, and Michael Chiarello. It is not uncommon to hear "Alton said,...." or "That's not the way Paula does it." With many girls, I think it's great that they are learning from great chefs & cooks how prepare great food. I tell you all of this as a preface to a conversation I overheard last night.

Caroline to Hannah: "Have you ever had brie before?"

Hannah: "No."

Caroline: "I had a sample at Kroger one day. I liked it but, not the rind. Right after that I ate a sample of watermelon to get the taste out of my mouth."

Hannah: "Oh, you used it as a palate cleanser."

I didn't hear the rest of the conversation, because I went to tell Gene what I had just heard. A couple of thoughts hit me. First, how many 10 year olds even know what brie is...I know I didn't. Second, how many girls their age know what a palate cleanser is enough to discuss it. This is just a sample of the types of food conversations they have around our home.

Winter Ramblings

Today it is quite chilly here in Katy, TX. At nearly 11am, the temperature has only reached 35!! For South Texas...that's pretty cold. I do have to get out today, for just a few minutes, and I can promise, it will be quick!

Our cat, that we adopted on Halloween, is pregnant...and crazy. We are all praying that the kittens come quickly, and maybe this insanity will end!! She has taken to just wandering the house and yowling with an unearthly yowl. She sleeps in Lindsay's room, and Lindsay hasn't been getting much sleep because of the crazy cat. She takes to leaping onto the bed and yowling at Lindsay, then jumping back on the hope chest to look out the window again. She also loves a lot of rubbing & scratching right now. This is quite funny, and is providing us with a great deal of entertainment! She has a spot on her back near her tail and if you scratch her there, she does this funny crouch and then begins this odd growl...yes growl. If you stop, you may just get a good swat! I may make a movie of it to post, because it really is too funny.

Harmony with a crown...maybe this was a sign of things to come!?!



As you can see, dear sweet Lindsay has created a new layout for my blog. Right now she is working on several big programming projects, one of them being our family website. We hope to have that up and running in very short order. I will post the link for it, when it's completed.

The girls and I have designed and are creating some Christmas crafts. One of them being our tree topper, and the others include a centerpiece, a wreath, and some ornaments. Many of these will incorporate the pinecones the girls collected last month. We will take many pictures so that we can post them with instructions. I hope they will turn out as well in reality as they do in my mind.

We are going to be making some Christmas goodies over the next week; I'll post recipes and pictures as we make them. I also plan on making the Gingersnap Sweet Potatoes. I will measure my ingredients and write them down as I go...I may even take pictures.

This weekend will be a busy one for us, with lots of projects in the works and a couple of extra activities.

I hope and pray that things are going well in your home as you prepare for the holidays!

Ginger Snap Sweet Potatoes

Let me begin this by re-stating that I do not cook in a normal way. I hardly ever use recipes. I think one of my New Year's resolutions should be to write everything down when I create a recipe(which I do quite a lot). I usually cook by smell & taste. I made my sweet potatoes with canned potatoes that I mashed, but you could use fresh and just bake or boil them first.

To the mashed sweet potatoes I added, cinnamon, ginger, & cloves. The ratio is about two to one, for instance if you add a teaspoon of cinnamon, add 1/2 a tsp each of ginger & cloves. To the potatoes and spices I added melted butter, about 1/2 a stick. Though you may need more if they are fresh. I then got a whole bunch(don't ya love the exact measurement) of ginger snaps and put them in the food processor until finely ground. I put about half of the sweet potato mixture in the casserole dish with 1/2 the ginger snaps sprinkled on top. After that put in the rest of the sweet potatoes. Melt a stick of butter and mix it with the remaining ginger snaps. Put this on top of the sweet potatoes and bake uncovered at 350 until the top becomes crunchy.

The next time I make these, I will write down what I do. Sorry I can't give you more exact details than this.

Editor's note: I forgot to add that when I am mixing in the spices, I add about 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

Thanksgiving

It's been a week since Thanksgiving, and I'm finally getting a chance to update. We typically have pretty simple holidays, with just our family celebrating here at home. This year we did so some things that we haven't in the past, such as making a flower arrangement for the table, and the girls also made place mats. We spent the day baking and preparing for our evening meal. During the afternoon Gene took the girls to the park for driving lessons, which they all loved. When they returned we continued in our preparations for our evening, candlelit meal.

Gene was sick that whole week, so our plans for the weekend were canceled. Though we weren't able to do all that we wanted, we still had a good time spending the weekend together.

Our Thanksgiving Menu

Cajun Injected Turkey
Ginger Snap Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli, Cauliflower & Cheese
Dressing
Shells & Cheese
Rolls
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce

I hope you like the slide shows that I made of our Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Crafts

Autumn Has Come To The Deep South!

Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. I guess part of it comes from living in the Deep South all of my life. Up north, spring is greatly anticipated as a relief from the long hard winter. Down in the South we look forward to autumn to bring us relief from the harsh, hot days. When these first cool snaps come through it makes me downright giddy! Yesterday the wind was blowing something fierce! It sounded as if it would just roll the sides of my house away as if opening a sardine can. The wind brought a cool front and it has been wonderfully pleasant today. I think the high is about 60, which feels great.

The girls and I went on a walk today, walking about a mile and a half taking the above pictures while we were out. While on our walk, the girls collected acorns, some Wandering Jew from an empty lot, and many pinecones. The pinecones are from different types of pine trees, and we are going to attempt to identify them. Then we will use them for decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I hope you are enjoying a brisk fall day, wherever you may be!

Cranberry Chicken Salad

Last night I had this idea, put it all together and I loved it. Let me know what you think. It's super easy. Sorry there are no measurements, I just eyeballed it

Cranberry Chicken Salad

Roasted leftover chicken, diced
Whole berry cranberry sauce, chopped a little to seperate
Mayonaise
Bread, or crackers.

I combined the chicken cranberry sauce and mayo in a bowl and then put it on bread. It was really good. You could make it better by adding the things you like, I bet some nuts would be good. I got the idea from watching Food Network. They showed a sandwich made with dressing, turkey and cranberry sauce. I thought it needed a little gravy, but it looked really good. It was the inspiration for this. Post and let me know what you do with your Thanksgiving leftovers.

Catching Up

It has been nearly 3 weeks since my last post, and things have been quite busy around here during that time. When I last posted, we were all preparing for Gene's first one day evangelism training class. It took lots of preparation, printing out 75 books for the participants, and we ran into many obstacles. All of our planning and preparation benefited us greatly, as the class went off without a hitch. We had 48 people attend, which we found out is quite a big group. They were all very attentive and interested in all that Gene taught. Many of the participants have been putting into practice what they learned by hitting the streets with Gene on Friday nights. Nov. 3rd we had 7 new people to go out with our team, and Nov. 10th we had 8 new people. If you'd like to see what our team is up to, you can read our newsletter online, or if you'd like to sign up to receive it via e-mail, there is a place to do that on our ministry homepage.

We have also had a couple of bugs run through our house in the last week or so. It all began with me waking up with a stomach bug on the 11th (YUCK!). Another bug, stuffy head, chest congestion, low grade fever & malaise, proceeded to go through all of the girls, except Sarah. The bug that hit the girls has hit a lot of families here in the Houston area. We're all on the mend now, and hoping our allergies will abate soon, as the ragweed (devil weed) dies out.

On Halloween we acquired, were adopted by is probably a more accurate term, a sweet juvenile, female cat. She was quite underfed and cut up and scratched and the other cats around here were attacking her when we found her. The girls had been wanting a cat, so we let them keep her. We were really pleased as we watched her eating so well and beginning to fill out. Only now we're not so sure it's only the food causing her to fill out. Lindsay says she has felt what she believes are kittens, moving in her belly; or it could be her internal organs doing gymnastics. I'm really happy for the girls if she is pregnant. Rachel came to me today and asked me to find some pictures of newborn kittens online, as she had never seen one (that she remembers). I really believe that is an experience every child should have, watching a kitten or puppy grow from a newborn. It is an amazing thing to watch God's creation develop right before your eyes.

Back in August I wrote about a pigeon that we took in because one of the neighborhood cats had attacked it. All of its tail feathers had been pulled out, and it also suffered from many cuts. Just recently we noticed that its tail feathers were beginning to grow back in, much to our delight. Saturday we took the bird out to the prairie to let it go. I was concerned that we would get out there and the bird wouldn't fly well, but that we also wouldn't be able to catch it again...leading to many tears shed by the girls. We got to our spot and Gene took the bird. All of the girls told it "Bye" and Gene threw it up into the air. It flew up and to a tree about 50 yards away. I don't know if I have the words to describe how it felt to see it fly off as if it had never been injured. It was such a valuable lesson for the girls to learn to care for the bird, and to put away their desire to keep it as a pet. When they saw it fly away, there was no doubt that it was where it belonged. It was a great opportunity to talk to the girls about how God cares for the birds, and how much more He cares about us.