Early Christmas!

This weekend we traveled to Florida to have early Christmas with Chad's dad and step-mom and his brother and sister. We had a great time! One of our gifts to the kids was a gingerbread house with all the bells and whistles. Faith and David did a fabulous job with decorations; It looked great until it fell down 30 minutes after completion! I was going to try to do some repairs, but the kids weren't upset at all with the unfortunate demise of the house, so we just stacked it up for consumtion. Eating the candy seemed to make them happier than building the house!

Before! After!

Matthew 7:24-27
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Russian Recipe No. 2

"Moldavian White Bean Soup" a.k.a. Supa de Fasole

O.K. so I was kinda in a hurry last night, so I am going to give you my variation on this yummy recipe. I took a few shortcuts, but even with the hasty variations- this was super yummy!

2 cans of Great Northern Bean (the recipe calls for fresh beans, soaked overnight. Totally didn't think about that until last night, so 2 can o' beans it is!)

3 cups chicken stock and 4 cups of water (The recipe calls for 7 cups of water but I thought this would be better)

1 meaty ham bone (I didn't have a meaty ham bone, so I just got some nice chopped ham)

Bouquet Garni (4 sprigs thyme, 4 sprigs dill, 4 bay leaves, 8 black peppercorns, tied in a cheesecloth bag) Ok- I confess: I used dried!

1 rib celery and 1 carrot (the recipe calls for use to these whole and fish them out, but I chopped mine and didn't fish them out, it seemed wasteful to toss a nice carrot and celery stock!)

2 medium boiling potatoes, peeled in cut into 3/4 inch pieces (The first step I actually followed!)

2 Tbsp. butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 leek (white part only, chopped)

1 pinch dried thyme

Salt and Pepper

1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Sweet Hungarian Paprika (dashed on top for presentation) I don't know if my paprika was sweet or Hungarian, but it worked just fine!

______________________________________

O.k. now this part is a total deviation from the recipe. It was very labor intensive and I looked like Rachel Ray on crack trying to get this dish made before my 6:30 hair appointment, cookie making for Deetzsie's Treatsies, laundry, packing for our early Christmas (more on that later) wrapping gifts, and searching to find Chad a white dress shirt.



Step One: Drain the beans and rinse them off

Step Two: Dump the beans, stock, ham cubes, celery, carrot, herbs, and potatoes into a stock pot. Boil the heck out of it. (Say 20 minutes.) Take your potato masher thingy and smash up some of the beans. Mix a little cornstarch and broth and add to the soup if you want to make it thicker. (I'm sure if you do all this the right way that won't be a necessary step ;0)

Step Three: Saute onions, leaks, and garlic (the recipe didn't call for that, but a meal isn't a meal without garlic in my house!) Add to pot. Add salt, pepper, and thyme.

Step Four: Go put the laundry in the dryer and start a new load in the washer. Oh wait, wrong task.

Step Four 4 real: Add vinegar and let stand for 5 minutes. Add more to taste. (Since we weren't sure what this actually tastes like we just went for the 1 tbsp. and Chad added some more to his.

Step Five: Sprinkle with a dash of paprika, take a picture for the blog!

Hopefully, Amy (Reining cookoff champion) will post the actual recipe on her blog. I'm sure it was much better than mine since it was done correctly! http://cupcakeandthecaseys.blogspot.com/



But this dish was really tasty~ Very easy (made the Druggie Rachel Ray way) and very hardy and filling, perfect for the cold, wet weather we've been having.

Thursday is the last day!

You can buy this

But not this.

If you would like to order Pampered Chef for our fundraiser, Thursday is your last day to shop. I'll turn in all orders to Meagan Thursday night.

The link to shop in on the left hand column......

Please remember if you are local, just e-mail me your order because we'll lump all orders together to save on shipping! Happy cooking and shopping!

Thanksgiving in photos.....

It's already beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our household, but wanted to bring you our Thanksgiving in pictures.... We have so much to be Thankful for! My parents were here all week, Brittany made pink eggs (thanks for the recipe Amy- they were pretty good!) caught a nice nap, watched National Lampoons Christmas (of course!) had game night with our friends, and then woke up bright and early on Friday for some black Friday shopping. Family, friends, eating, and shopping- what could be better?

All set for the big day!

Turkey brined.....check! Cranberry sauce congealing in the fridge......check! Pecans toasted......check! Lovely flower arrangment given by Rick and Donna displayed on the table....check! Newest outdoor Christmas decoration examined by the poochies....check!!!
Bring on the big feast!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for...... I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving full of the 5 F's.
1- Faith
2- Family
3- Friends
4- Fun
5- Food
Tomorrow I will be off work....and the day after that.... and the day after that! 5 days off? What will I do with myself? Plenty I'm sure. I always look forward to the Macy's parade, cooking good food, EATING good food, and spending time with my family and friends. It's really the perfect holiday. I was watching back to back episodes of the Food Network (as I do every Thanksgiving, I mean how many ways can you really make stuffing?) and Paula Deen said it best "I like Thankgiving because it's just like Christmas without the pressure of having to buy gifts" Amen Paula.

I am a believer. It only took 4 years.

I contacted our financial guru today- our agency family builder fund has grown significantly since our last inquiry. At this point, any funds that come in as a donation to our adoption will help to offset our travel expenses and out of pocket expenses (flights, train tickets, hotels/host family payments, food, tips, orphanage relief $, visas, in country medical exams, etc.) Isn't that wonderful news?!!?! But it's not to late if you want to help with that. (Remember it's a tax write off! And the $ still goes directly into our account, but now it is issued directly to us at the time of travel instead of to Russia or CWA) Here is the link. Now I think of every dollar as "one night in the hotel in Moscow" or "One Borscht stew coming right up" Isn't that exciting?!?!?! https://www.cwa.org/DonationForm.aspx

I remember when Chad came home from a Steven Curtis Chapman concert about 4 years ago. He said that the proceeds that night benefited Shoshana's Hope (Now Show Hope, check them out at http://www.showhope.org/) SCC's adoption foundation. He told me about the amazing video clips shown throughout the concert and he asked me "what do you think about adoption?" I'm sure we talked about it and decided that we would love adopt "someday" but the financial aspect of it seemed beyond our capability. It's still sad to me that adoption costs so much.....I'm sure a lot of potentially great parents think this way too. I was definately NOT a believer four years ago.

Then the summer we met our dear friend's son, William, adopted from Ethiopia God nudged us again. Matt told us that if they could do it, we could do it. "Don't worry about the money" he said, "God will put the right people at the right time in your life and God will blow the doors off of your expectations." I still wasn't a believer.

Then we took the leap of faith and finally decided that this was the right thing for our family. We were absolutely overwhelemed and really had no idea how all the pieces were going to fall into place. In the back of our mind I thought, well, we might take the longest in history of adoption to come up with the funds, but we'll get their eventually. We had no idea if anyone would give at all (this is the WORST time in our country's recent history) but it was worth a try. We sent a letter. We linked up the donation site on our blog, we announced to our church that we were adopting. I only talk about money once in a blue moon (I know you don't like reading about this stuff that much, but it is a major issue surrounding our adoption and others too, so pardon the "shop talk" but maybe some "non-believer" just like me will read this and God will nudge their heart too- You CAN do it! I know you don't believe it, but just try it out, take Him up on his promises....)

Anyway- What a wonderful early Christmas gift. God is sufficient to meet all of our needs and gives abundantly beyond our expectations. He is so good and we are so grateful. I am a believer.