I always feel guilty asking for prayer, but I could use some right now. I wont bore you with all the details, but if you could pray for me today I’d appreciate it! Tuesdays are hard, busy days for us, and I’m feeling a little ill-prepared for the challenge at the moment.
Comfort, peace, strength…thats pretty much what I am lacking at the moment. I know God will give it to me though!
It’s Monday night, and we’re already runnin’ low on this week’s “rations”. I refuse to cave and buy more food unless I absolutely HAVE to, so I took to my practice of preparing prayer meals.
God quickly showed me what to make with what I had. I thawed a small tube of ground beef I found in the freezer, cooked it down, added a small can of hot enchilada sauce I found in the pantry, warmed the last 7 flour tortillas I had, and made cheese, and meat quesadillas. I grilled them nice and crispy, and sliced them in half. Served them with fideo, (I always have fideo noodles, sopa de tomate and oil!), and made a cilantro/jalapeno sour cream to dip the quesadillas in. The hubs’ best friend was here for dinner and said it was so good that he felt like he was eating something from applebees or something. (Lucky for me, he likes Applebees…I cant stand anything I’ve ever eaten there!) ha!
I split the last diet sierra mist between the two of them (the citrus complimented the dish nicely) and discretely fixed myself a bowl of malt-o-meal so that our guest could have his fill. 
Recipes:
Sopa de fideo:
1 package fideo noodles (chopped vermicelli)
1 cube “sopa de tomate”
about 1-2 TBSP oil
brown noodles in heated oil, add about 2 cups of water and bullion cube. Stir until dissolved, add garlic powder and salt to taste.
Easy peasy!! And sooo good with a pot of beans and corn tortillas.
Cilantro and jalapeno sour cream:
8 oz. sour cream
1/2 bunch cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper (you can seed it if you want but I dont!)
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt to taste
blend it all in the blender, salt it according to your tastes. This is reaaaallly good with an avocado thrown in too but I didn’t have one. SUPER good w/avocado, poured over steak tacos. omgosh, yum.
Yay for prayer meals!
Technically, I made these last night, but their intended purpose was breakfast today.
Cream Cheese Muffins:
3 C Flour
3/4 C Sugar
4 tsp. Baking Powder
1 8oz. package cream cheese, room temperature
2 eggs
1 c milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract (I prefer imitation!)
1/2 c butter, melted, then cooled.
Extra sugar for sprinkling
Mix cream cheese and eggs until smooth. Add milk, vanilla, and the cooled melted butter. Continue to work batter until completely mixed. Sift together the dry ingredients, and gradually add to wet ingredients. Mix until it is completely combined. Batter will be really thick. Almost like bread dough. Scoop into greased muffin cups.
(Tip: Use an ice cream scoop with a release button thing to scoop perfectly uniform muffins!) Fill muffin cups to the top, sprinkle a bit of sugar on top (for sparkle!) and bake for 25-30 minutes at 400 degrees.
Serve warm. For an added yum factor, serve with honey butter:
2 sticks butter, softened (NOT melted!)
1/8 c honey (Spray the measuring cup with cooking spray first, and the honey will slide right out!)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla
Beat butter, add honey, then cinnamon and vanilla. Beat until combined and creamy. Store in fridge or butter crock.
These muffins with the honey butter are amazing. Enjoy!
Had a lovely day at home yesterday. Didn’t go anywhere (except the grocery store early in the morning), dh didnt have to work, and the kids are all finally well. It was so nice to just *be home*. I woke up after sleeping in until 9:30am, and as I turned to dh to say “bacon and eggs for breakfast?” he speaks before I can and says “Hey do we have any bacon?” Ha!
The hubs cooked the (turkey) bacon while I rolled out some biscuit dough and beat some farm fresh eggs. (A big thank you to my “girls” that I miss so terribly!) I put on a pot of coffee, and voila! A delicious Sunday breakfast.
P.S….Turkey bacon really isnt so bad. We’ve been eating it for a couple of years now, and I highly recommend it. Every once in a while, the hubs will request “the real thing” but I never miss it! I love that you actually have meat left after cooking it, and it doesnt have that nasty fat all over it. It’s also cheaper, and lasts longer in the fridge as its pre-cooked.
When Art and I walked into our local grocery store the other day, he looked at the gorgeous display of flowers for sale, looked at me, and said:
“Hey honey? Do you think we need some flowers as a centerpiece in the dining room?”
I think I’m rubbing off on him. 
I chose the red roses that were so dark, they almost looked purple on the ends…
Thank you honey!
(nevermind the drinks on the table..it was lunch time.
when it’s hard to find something positive to say.
I woke up feeling crummy, (I’ll leave it at that, and no I’m not pregnant.), My Piper girl woke up burning hot with hives, body aches, chills, and a stomach ache, I remembered that I have to give Trinity some test that the charter requires of us, and she is having a HISSY FIT over it. I’m tired, I’ve only managed to do a load of laundry and the dishes today, and I have heard quite a bit of really sad, heartbreaking news today to boot. Puts my “troubles” in perspective, and leaves me feeling like a jerk for being upset about temporary frustrations.
So on days like today, especially days that provide perspective, I focus on whats great.
The hubs brought me lunch, complete with a dr. pepper, which is perhaps the best thing in the world right now.
My older two have done a GREAT job helping me out around here and adhering to their responsibilities without *too much* prodding. They are doing what they can to help me care for Piper, and are being really sweet and tender with eachother as well.
My wonderful husband is NOT working overtime tonight, and I cannot WAIT to spend some family time with him tonight. The kids miss him so much and we’re counting the minutes down until he gets home.
It’s raining. My kinda weather.
I put dinner in the crockpot last night on a whim, which worked out great considering the day I was presented with when I woke up this morning.
My hair is *just* long enough now to pull back partially. I pulled it “half up” today and tied a lace ribbon in it today that matches the shirt I’m wearing. I’m not sure why this makes me so happy, but it does.
As you can see, the good in my day outweighs the bad.
I guess the point is that there isnt a perfect day. There isnt a perfect home, family, life, or person. The objective is to wade through the crud and enjoy the treasures. It is hard for me to ignore things on the floor, laundry in a pile, dust on the furniture…but I’m certain Piper wont remember what the house looked like on days she was sick..she’ll only remember the love and attention I gave her as I nursed her back to health.
Better go re-fill her tea cup…
Or at least those of us that are not afraid of www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com
My essay about Art has been published as of tonight. I’m so happy. His birthday gift is perfect now.
It’s on the main page, third (or so) article down, titled, “Mr. Art Garza: Man of Virtue”
Quick question, hoping for feedback…
anyone know anything about “The Advanced Training Institute”? They have some amazing stuff that I have seen about building the character qualities of Christ in your children…they tie in so many ways to expand the lesson to various subjects, so in a sense its like a unit study. I really dont know what else to call it. Its’ pretty spendy for a year, but it would cover both of the older two. Anyone have experience or input? (Good or bad!)
For the last few days, I havent been able to log into my blog. I was so confused, and couldnt figure out how on earth my password was wrong. Today I tried again, and low and behold, it worked. Same password I’ve used for days. Maybe God wanted me to focus on other things.
Thought I’d drop a book review quickly though…
I just read the Duggar’s new book “20 and counting”, and I must say, its a great book. I read it in less than 2 days, probably a total of 3 hours of reading. I highly recommend the book. Their lives are fascinating to me.
Art has worked five consecutive double shifts, and tonight he will be home with us. We are all so excited (including him) so we decided to kick up our Friday Family Night a notch, and have a full on party.
For dinner tonight, we’ll have two kinds of homemade pizza, salad, snack-y movie foods, and I’m going to bless my family with cupcakes too.
I have a great recipe for pizza crust and sauce that I got a long time ago from (yet again) lainesletters.com.
Here is her recipe, posted in its entirety here(with her full entry)
Restaurant Pizza Crust
2 c. warm water
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. yeast
Whisk together and let proof. (Get bubbly, about ten minutes time.)
2 T. olive oil
1 1/2 t. salt
5 c. bread flour
Add the rest in order and mix together well. Then knead 5 minutes or so. Cover and let rise. Roll out two large crusts from this dough and baken in 500 degree oven, about 8-12 minutes to have a nice crispy pizza.
Pizza Sauce
1 small can tomato sauce
1 t. olive oil
1 t. oregano
1 t. basil
1 t. salt
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
1/2 t. garlic powder
Open the can and add all the ingredients! Let sit while the dough rises.
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I’ll be making buffalo chicken pizza tonight (franks red hot mixed with 1/3 cup butter to make buffalo sauce, shredded chicken, cheese) and one for the kids w/turkey pepperoni,cheese, and “regular” sauce. I haven’t used my pizza stone in a long time, and I’m looking forward to that. I even pulled out the cornmeal to make it nice and crunchy on the bottom. That buffalo pizza is going to be soooo yummy dipped in ranch dressing w/a crisp salad..mmm…
The chicken is boiling, and is whole breasts on the bone, so later on, I’ll boil the bones down w/some celery, onion, garlic, and carrots and make stock to freeze. I’d can it, but I really want to enjoy my family tonight instead of working.
anyone else got a recipe to share from tonights dinner?
