Great to remember when daily battles seem to overwhelm us!
Category: Uncategorized
White Bean With Italian Sausage Soup
Found this in an old Southern Living Magazine. Will be perfect for sitting outside on the porch (oops, excuse me, I forget out here they are called Arizona Rooms), watching the sun go down and having a bowl of soup with garlic french bread. The recipe originally called for Chorizo, but I don’t like it so I used Mild Italian Sausage
1 lb mild Italian Sausage (our preference, but they make it in hot if you like that option better, feel free to use (after all, the Sausage Police won’t come get you if you do), casing removed
2 tables olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 medium carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
1/2 lb small red potatoes, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teas paprika
1 teas kosher salt
1 tables tomato paste
2 (15 oz) cans great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 container (32 oz) chicken broth
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves, chopped
Cook sausage in a Dutch oven over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until browned and crumbled, about 8 minutes.
Drain all on paper towels. Wipe Dutch oven out with paper towel, to remove grease.
Heat the oil in the Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add onions and next 5 ingredients and sauce until tender. About 5 minutes.
Stir in tomato paste and cook 1 minute, stirring.
Add beans, chicken broth and sausage; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes. Stir in parsley, and serve!
Fresh Blackberry Pie
We came home from a new adventure the other day of going to a produce market! The produce and the prices were amazing! We came home with a crate of blackberries which were $3.50 and 3 pints of blueberries which cost us a whopping $1. So since I had never made a homemade blackberry pie I just had to make one! So here is the beginning and ending! Can’t wait for it to cook just a bit to try it! All I did was add some sugar, lemon juice and a bit of flour, stirred into the rinsed berries and poured them into a homemade buttery pie crust! Was going to take it to our monthly pot luck tonight but peter Pumpkin said “oh no your not, I’m not sharing that with anyone”. He is just the sweetest thing! So have a buttermilk pie in the oven to take, since that is not one of his favorites! (Although it is my fav, but that’s just the kind of person Penelope Pumpkin is, kind and sharing) ok ok, I admit I made two one for sharing and one to sit and eat all by myself! If you live within or around Mesa, this place is worth your time or trouble to get to! Superstition Ranch Produce Market on Main and 48th!
Labor Day in Big Bear
Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: Labor Day in Big Bear
Parmesan Chicken Casserole (Southern Supper)
I know, “suppers” is really not used too much anymore, but doesn’t it sound like it makes the meal in the evening much more informal. You can just imagine, friends and family gathered around the table, passing plates of rolls, bowls of mashed potatoes and platters of fried chicken or roast. Supper is a Southern term which interpreted should just mean, “comfort food being enjoyed by folks which enjoy being together”. After finally getting moved into our new “digs” (there, I used a term which sounds a little more current and hip) my cooking magazines have started to arrive. Because we were traveling for a couple of months after moving from Texas, I let my subscriptions expire until I had a permanent address. Just yesterday we are the proud owners of our new Arizona license plates which adorn our new car. We feel much more Arizonian now. Am still dreading going to get our DL, which means that we will have to take a eye test and just don’t know if I’m quite ready for that yet. Am eating lots of carrots before that time, hoping that I do, in fact, past the eye test. OK, back to the supper that I want to post this afternoon. When I saw this recipe, I printed it up so we could buy the ingredients and make it this week.
Parmesan Chicken Casserole
6 boneless chicken breasts, diced
1 cup may or plain Greek yogurt
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 teas Lawrys seasoned salt
1/2 teas ground black pepper
1 teas garlic powder
Instructions
Placee diced chicken into a greased 9×13″ baking dish
In a small bowl, combine the mayo/yogurt, 3/4 cup parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Spread evenly over chicken
Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup parmesan cheese on top of may mixture.
Place dish in preheated 375 oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and serve chicken over pasta!
Fall Orange Cake
If you are wondering how Fall Orange cake is different from Spring Orange cake…it is really very simple, it is made in the Fall instead of the Spring. Why do I get hankerings (where did that word come from, I’ve never used that before?) for cakes which I have not ever made before or necessarily even wanted to make? I don’t have an answer for that except to say that maybe as we “mature” (don’t like to say, “get older”) our tastes change and our bodies crave different flavors for what we need? I don’t know, maybe if I ever win the lotto, I will use $100 to do a study on that. But in the meantime, I will just keep baking what sounds good at the time. Today, for some reason, orange sounded good. Maybe because I have looked at an orange staring back at me from the fruit basket on the counter since last Saturday. So today, I could not go another minute without making a fresh orange cake. Randy is eating the piece that I cut for his mid morning snack, even though it is past mid morning. But he is always so eager to show his support for me baking and willing to sample whatever. He IS a jewel! Seriously, this cake is so moist and the homemade orange buttercream frosting just took it to a new level. If you add a little orange food coloring, wouldn’t it be pretty to have on your Thanksgiving dessert table next to the pumpkin pies? Do not pay attention to the blue tray it is sitting on, that is my “go to” tray when I am taking food someplace where I might not get the tray back, so I use it for times like that.
Ingredients
1 box Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake Mix
1 small box of vanilla instant pudding
4 large eggs, room temp
1 cup fresh orange juice (we had the orange juice with heavy pulp)
1/3 cup veggie oil
2 tables orange zest
About 1-2 tables orange juice (to brush over cake layers after they bake)
Frosting
1 stick softened butter (not margarine, yuck)
3 1/2 cups (or a 1 lb box) of powdered sugar
1/2 teas orange extract
1 tables orange zest
Enough fresh orange juice to get it of spreading consistency. (I added about 1/3 cup of orange juice.
Add cake mix, pudding mix, 1 cup orange juice, eggs, oil and zest to mixing bowl. Beat for 2 minutes and well combined. Pour into desired baking pans and bake according to back of cake mix box for whatever size of pans you used. When cake tests done, remove from oven and allow to cool. Using a pastry brush, brush some of the orange juice over the top of the cake layer (s). Allow to cool completely and frost.
Frosting
Combine the softened butter, powdered sugar, extract zest and add enough orange juice to mix until spreading consistency. Frost cakes when completely cooled.
Pumpkin Dump Cake
Upon seeing this today on Facebook, I immediately went to the store and bought a spice cake mix and after practicing making more cake balls today then rewarding myself with another piece of Key Lime Pie which I made yesterday for company, THEN I am going to make this cake. One can never have too many desserts in the house. After all, I think I lost a pound this weekend when we skipped breakfast on Saturday. That calls for a celebration of the best kind, celebrating with cake! Thank you Country Cook for sharing this wonderful comforting recipe which will bring in the Fall Season (even when the temps are still above 100.
Ingredients
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed)
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teas ground cinnamon
1 box of Spice Cake Mix
1 cup butter, melted
Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9×13 baking dish.
In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin puree, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar and cinnamon. Mix well, it will look pretty thin, but that is correct.
Pour this mixture into the baking dish. Then sprinkle the dry cake mix on top of the pumpkin mixture. Drizzle all of the melted butter on top of the cake mix.
Bake for about 55-60 minutes. It might still be just a bit jiggly in the middle when done. It will continue to set up as it cools. Let it cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Great with a spoonful of ice cream or whipped cream.
Perfect for those wonderful Pot Luck dinners and so easy to whip up when you have company and put it in the oven while playing Hand & Foot or Dominoes. Will be ready when you take your first break.
Fall Fettish
I have a problem. Hello, my name is Trudy and I’m a pumpkinholic! Randy is getting a little worried now. It seems that I simply cannot pass up a pumpkin, real or not. When we went again (yes, yesterday was our second trip to storage to find the missing box of more Fall decor, which I knew had my pumpkin that said, “Happy Fall Ya’ll” in it) to storage to find some missing pieces which I knew we had just overlooked last Saturday on our first trip to load boxes of Fall stuff. Sorry, but we are way beyond calling it Fall Decor and am now to the point that it has become “stuff”. It all started out being called my “Seasonal Treasure Boxes, now it’s called, “just more stuff”, as per Peter Pumpkin. I reminded him that since we no longer have a house phone to change our voice mail message to Peter and Penelope Pumpkin, he could at least be a little more sensitive to my need to fill our home with pumpkins, spices and everything nice, which in my thinking is more pumpkins.
So, realizing that we don’t have what we need to make my Fall Glass block with lights, we are off to Hobby Lobby this morning to find lights and another tree for the perfect Fall Tree to adorn our Arizona Room. After rummaging through the 40 or so boxes yesterday in storage, we found only half of the tree. Randy agreed that since it was over 10 years old, he would break down and buy me another tree. After all, who doesn’t need 3 Fall trees in their house? I told him that Peter Pumpkin needed a attitude adjustment. Besides, we don’t have room now for 3, only 2, so he could quit with the sarcasm.
Assuring him that I would call the help line as soon as I finished decorating, he began to help me put up the Fall wreath, put the lights on the Fall tree we already have and even helped wash our Fall Pumpkin plates, and then handed me the phone.
Boy, will he be surprised when our T-shirts arrive with our names, Peter & Penelope printed around a pumpkin on the front. Hope it gets here in time to wear to my support group.
Travel Mercies
How many times have we told friends or family that we would be praying “traveling mercies” over them as they headed out for vacation, business travel or even just a day trip down the road. Randy and I just feel more secure when we begin any trip asking God’s protection over us and have made it a habit before pulling out of the driveway to just pray for God’s traveling mercies to be upon us, whether flying, or driving.
A few days ago, a friend posted an article she wrote about God’s protection. Lisa Clark, thank you for writing this and reminding us that sometimes God protects us in ways which we might not recognize at first, but nonetheless, we always need to trust His Heart, when we don’t see His Hand….Thanks Lisa for sharing this with us, and for letting me share it on the blog.
“A few weeks ago in our bible fellowship class, I heard the story of Jonah in a new, fresh way. You know the story. Jonah’s disobedience causes him to be thrown overboard into the sea. I’m sure, in his wildest dreams, he didn’t think God would protect and save him, especially not in the belly of a fish.
God’s protection doesn’t always look like we think it should, does it? I’ve thought about this a lot in the past week or so. I think I know what’s best for my life, my kid’s life, my husband’s life, but God…
As we enter a new year, a new season, we must remember that God’s ways are higher, better, and for our good and His Glory. (Romans 8:28)
Did your child not get in a class with his friends, or the teacher he/you wanted? Could this be God’s protection?
Did your husband not get the promotion or job? God’s protection…
Sale of your house fall through?
Engagement off?
No homecoming date?
Did your daughter not get invited to the party? Could this be God’s protection over your daughter?
Just as Jonah didn’t expect to live in the belly of a fish for 3 days and 3 nights, this was God’s plan of protection for his life.
Thank you God for your protection, even when it doesn’t look like protection at all.”
After seeing the news of the earthquake in Italy this morning, both Randy and I felt so grateful for our trip to Italy being cancelled, as we would have been there at this time, had Randy not fallen and broken his shoulder. At the time he fell, did we feel God’s Hand in it? Did we stop to consider that his accident was actually better than what would possibly had happened to us, if we had gone on the trip that we had planned for months? Since last January we have prayed asking the Lord to guide us and allow us this very special time for us to celebrate our 20th in Italy. But we also prayed that if it were not His will, then to please close the door of us going. And close it He did!
We have had family and friends call, text and email us today, telling us that they were so grateful that we were not able to go. This is a great reminder to both of us that when our plans fall through and bends in the road disappoint our best laid plans, we need to give praise and thanks instead of grumbling and complaining. It might just be God placing us in our own “belly of a fish”!
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
Lord, thank you for your Hand of protection being upon us and help me to trust You for your perfect path which you lay out before me. Help me to be obedient to your will instead of mine and help me to always trust your heart, even when I can’t see your Hand. Thank you for always being our source of hope and peace. Amen
Pecan Pie Cheesecake
I have deleted this recipe from the blog. Made if for company, following the instructions to a “T” and the pecan pie filling part was so hard that it was hard to cut or to eat. In the future, I feel it would work better if you made the cheesecake without the pecan pie part, (as not to bake the pecan pie filling) and after the cheesecake comes out of the oven, pour the pecan filling over the top of the baked cheesecake.
Chocolate Castles 