Meatball and Orzo Soup

October 6, 2008 at 6:34 (From the Kitchen)

This soup is delicious! I love meatballs and pasta, this is a great way to have both and it not feel too heavy in your  stomach! Light, simple, and tasty! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
  • 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 carrot, grated or finely chopped
  • 1 quart chicken broth
  • 1/2 pound ground chicken or turkey breast
  • 3 tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
  • 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
  • 1 egg
  • 1 clove garlic, grated
  • 2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, chopped
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup orzo pasta
Preparation

Heat the EVOO over medium heat in a medium pot. Sauté the onion and carrot for five minutes, then add the broth and bring up to a boil.

Mix the meat with cheese, breadcrumbs, egg, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix, and if the mixture is too moist, add a few more breadcrumbs.

When the soup comes to a boil, roll and drop 1-inch meatballs into the broth. Stir in the orzo and cook for five minutes. The pasta will not be done but it will continue to cook. Ladle into thermoses.

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Swiffer Refills

October 6, 2008 at 6:34 (From the Kitchen, Frugal Frenzy, Natural Household Cleaners, Simple Living)

Do you have a cleaning product that you just absolutely love? Mine is the swiffer line. They are so so easy to use and work great. After a meal or just in the middle of the day, I can pull it out and start cleaning my floors. They look like I got on my hands and knees and had been srubbing for days. Well maybe not, but they do look good. The down side of using the Swiffer and the Swiffer Wet Jet is that you have to buy refills, which I don’t like so much. A box of refills can cost as much as $8.00 some times more. That is only for the dry ones, then you have to pay for the Wet Jet refills.  Not only are they expensive but they are wasteful, just like paper towels.

 

The solution?…

 

You got it! A plain white t-shirt. (or any color!) How does it work? Well, it is simple. Just take some old t-shirts and cut them the same size as a swiffer refill cloth. Keep them in a drawer or a container in the laundry room or wherever, and when you need to clean up your floors quickly, just pull out a t shirt rag, insert it onto the pole thingy and swiffer away! You can use this method for both the wet and dry swiffer. I also made up a cleaning solution so that I don’t have to buy the refill cleaner for the wet jet. When I am done with the rag I place it in an empty yogurt container with the lid snapped on until laundry day. I hope this works for you! Happy Cleaning! :)

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Tea Time!

September 30, 2008 at 6:34 (Gratituesday)

 

My mom’s friend, Miss Jill, came down to visit this past weekend from Ohio. We have known Miss Jill forever. Her youngest daughter and I grew up together and her older daughters were friends with my sisters. We had plans to spend Saturday morning and afternoon down in Atlanta, running around, having lunch, and sight seeing. Because of Hurricane Ike, we have NO gas! Therefore, all of our plans had to be rearranged and we had to find something to do closer to home.

 

There is a quaint tea room in Historic Acworth which isn’t too far from where I live. They have cute little shops and places to eat. We decided we would meet up at the Tea Cup Cottage right there on Main Street, then we would go to the shops. What a lovely afternoon we had. We could have been mad and pouted about not being able to do what we wanted, but we were able to really enjoy each other’s company and have a wonderful time.

 

For dinner my mom, sister, niece, and Miss Jill were all coming over for dinner at my house. It was so much fun just to have a girls night. No husbands, no sons, no nephews, just us girls! I made a white chicken chili and man was it tasty!! We had homemade rolls and salad to go along with the chili. For dessert we had a pumpkin angel food cake! Heaven! I made an awesome hazelnut whipped cream to go on top. Delish!! :) My sister had to leave around 8:00 to take her daughter home for bed, but mom and Miss Jill stayed for a while longer. I loved having them in my home, serving them coffee, sitting at my dining table just chatting about old memories and current events in each others lives. What a great way to spend a saturday evening. Now where was my husbnad when all this was going on? Well…

 

My husband LOVES college football. His favorite team is University of Tennessee and has been since he was a little boy. The last game he went to was probably 10 years ago or so. A guy at our church is a HUGE Auburn fan and he has season tickets to their games. Well, his wife was sick and didn’t feel like going to the game on saturday so she decided to stay home. It just so happened that Auburn was playing Tennessee and they had an extra ticket. Lara told Bill, Why don’t you call Brantley and see if he would like to go to the game with you? Of course Brantley would love to go the game!  So he and Bill drove down to Alabama to watch the game on saturday afternoon. I was so happy for him, that he was able to take a break from school, and church, and everything else, and just go to a football game and hang out with the  guys! God is so great!

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…is what’s for dinner

September 30, 2008 at 6:34 (Menu Planning)

                                                  

 

This week is a little hodge podge for us but this is what we are having

 

Monday:

(Staff Meeting for Church) Kraut Burgers and Veggie Sticks

Tuesday:

Oatmeal Pancakes and Apple Slices

Wednesday:

Chicken Tacos and Spanish Rice Stuffed Peppers

Thursday:

Whole Wheat Pasta and Salad

Friday:

Whatever is left in the fridge!!

 

That is whats for dinner this week.

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Allowing God to do His thing

September 27, 2008 at 6:34 (His Voice)

 

 

God has been speaking so clearly into my life the last 2 weeks, it has been amazing. I have always been the type of person that never really knew if God was talking to me, or if it was just me, talking inside my head! (I tend to do that often!:)) I wrote in an earlier post about my worship experience last sunday morning and hearing God over the loud rockin’ music! I won’t go into full detail about what I wrote but here is a recap. We sang this song titled God of This City, sung by Chris Tomlin. Beautiful song with a powerful message.

The chorus:

Greater things have yet to come

Greater things are still to come

Greater things are still to be done

 

God was saying to me, “Don’t be discouraged because I have greater things for you. I have greater things planned for you, its coming, be patient!” Wow! I thought. I knew that was God speaking into my life. I wept as we sang the song and know I sing it all the time reminding myself that “Greater things have yet to come!”

 

Now that I know and believe this in my heart, that God has this thing coming, I have to trust Him. What a hard thing to do. As I was praying this week about what it is that I desire, God spoke softly saying, “I have this, if you say you trust Me, and that I am in control, then let Me be in control! If you say you trust Me, then you have stop trying to take matters into your own hands, and let Me do My thing. I have it all planned out for when it is going to happen. Trust me Hannah. There are times that I need you to be My hands, but this one  thing, I’ve got it. You don’t have to worry about it. Let your “hands” rest.

 

What a challenge this has been for me over the past week. I have been so tempted to go to my calendar and count the days. But I have been able to stay strong and be obedient to what God has asked of me. I know I will be “rewarded” in the end.

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Saving my Savings

September 27, 2008 at 6:34 (Frugal Frenzy, Simple Living)

Christmas Presents by eurokeith.

I have been trying very hard to reduce our grocery bill over the past few weeks. I have done a great job so far. Planning our meals and using what we have on hand I have saved an average of $15.00 a week on food!

Every year come Chirstmas time, we are panicing over money and how we will afford to buy presents for everyone, buying food for dinners, baking cookies because I want to :) , and getting some new ornaments to decorate our tree. Now some people will think they have a great solution to this problem, which would be to buy gifts earlier and not all at one time. That is a great idea and one that we love, however we don’t ever have the extra money to do that. This year we decided that we would really make an effort to spread out our gift purchases over 3 months as opposed to the 3 weeks before Chirstmas.

I looked at my calender and counted the weeks till Chirstmas. We have about 13 weeks until the big day, which is going to come up quicker than I think. I want Chirstmas to be a time of celebration, joy, and happiness, not a time of stressing over money! I think people get so caught up in how much money they have to spend at Chirstmas. I feel alot of times people don’t give gifts anymore out of love, but out of obligation. I don’t want to feel that way this year. Every gift that we purchase this year, I want to be out of love. I don’t want us to be stressing over money, but buying each gift with a joyful and happy heart. I am not saying we don’t have to budget out money and be careful about how much money we spend, but I do want us to enjoy every penny we spend.

So, how does this tie into me buying groceries and saving money? Well that’s just it, I am saving money in one area of our budget that can be used somewhere else, like Christmas! From now until Chrsitmas, I will go grocery shopping 13 times. That gives me the opportunity to save an average of $15.00 13 times!! Which means I could potentially save $195.00. We can take that money I saved on groceries and put in towards Christmas allowing us to enjoy buying our gifts even more!

We aren’t getting any extra money for Christmas we are just being wise about how we spend the money God has already given us. Take a look at your family’s budget and see where you can save a little here and little there. You never know, you might be able to save $195.00 too! :) Happy Christmas shopping to you all!

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Grilled Veggie Pouch

September 22, 2008 at 6:34 (From the Kitchen)

You will need:

Any combo of veggies you have. I like to use, broccoli, cauliflower, and red potatoes.

salt and pepper

onion

garlic

Olive oil

shredded cheese

aluminum foil

 

Cut up at your veggies to similar size for even cooking. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt, pepper, and garlic, toss to coat. put the veggies in the middle of a large piece of aluminum foil and fold up the sides to create a “pouch” Grill your veggies until fork tender. Carefully open the pouch and sprinkle with the cheese, close it back up and heat until cheese has melted. Enjoy!

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…is whats for dinner

September 22, 2008 at 6:34 (Menu Planning)

I just got back from the grocery store and I only spent… Drum roll please…. $32.64!!! I still have one more thing to purchase for about $4.50, so that will take it to around $37.00. That is still the least amount of money i have EVER spent on groceries! Hooray for me. So, what did I spend my $32.64 on? Check it out:

 

Monday:
Buffalo Chicken, Veggie Sticks
Cook extra chicken for wed, cut all veggies for the week

Tuesday:
Cheeseburgers, Grilled Veggie Pouch

Wednesday:
Chicken Stirfry with Noodles

Thursday:
Turkey Chili, Veggie Sticks

Friday:
Turkey Hot Dogs with leftover Chili,

 

And that is whats for dinner this week!

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Glorious One!

September 21, 2008 at 6:34 (His Voice, Simple Living)

I was touched this morning at church in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. The Holy Spirit just took hold of me and wrapped me in His arms. His presence this morning was so sweet and calming to me. I was encouraged today as we sang during worship. I lifted my voice up to Him and opened my arms to let Him in, saying, ”God, I give it all to you!”

 

We sang an awesome song called Glorious One, by Steve Fee. The chorus says:

“Glorious One, Glorious One! Light of the world, You out shine the sun, King of all Kings, eternity sings. Glorious One!”

My heart was heavy this morning. I was sad. I felt alone. I thought, “Why God? Why not now? What are you waiting for because I am ready?”

The band was playing and Jared was singing the verses and when we got to the chorus I just cried out, “Glorious One, Glorious One…” the words barely came out of my mouth as the tears ran down my face. At that moment all the darkness, hurt, pain, and sadness, was lifted from me. Even in times of sadness, God is still my Light, and He out shines every bit of darkness I walk into. My God is greater than anything and everything I feel and think. He is the Glorious One! The song goes on the say,” There is no one more beautiful. There is no one more wonderful!” Isn’t that so true? When things aren’t going as we planned and life starts to get ugly, I look to my God and in the midst of the “ugliness” I can see Beauty.

 

We started a new series today titled God of this City, and our pastor’s message today was great, and I will talk more about that another time. There is a song with that same title by Chris Tomlin, which we also sang this morning. The tears just flowed as I continued to worship to this song. The words hit me in two ways, one was for the church and the other was for me personally. God is doing great things in our city, but greater things are coming!

Part of the Chorus:

“Greater things have yet to come, Greater things are still to be in this city”

One Verse:

You’re the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You’re the King above all Kings
You Are

You’re the strength in our weakness
You’re the love to the broken
You’re the joy in the sadness
You Are

For the church: It was so moving to be singing about our city and how God has all these great things planned

For me personnaly: I know he is the Lord of creation and will create ALL things. When I am weak, He is my strength. When I am broken, He is there to love. When I am sad, He is my joy. It is so easy for me to say something like, “Its all in God’s timing and His perfect plan for life.” But sometimes it is hard for me to really believe that in my heart. He has already “created” what I desire and long for and in this time of waiting when I sometimes feel, weak, broken, and sad, I can remember what I sang about today. God was telling me this morning, “Hannah, Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done.  Don’t be weak, for greater things have yet to come. Don’t be broken, for greater things are still to come. Don’t be sad, for greater things are still to be done in you!”

Thank you God for speaking this into my life and for encouraging me to look ahead at the greater things that  are coming. While I wait for You to deliver, be my strength, be my love, and be my joy. I praise You for being the Light that I need, You are the Glorious One, the Glrorious One!

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Loaded Skillet Potatoes

September 17, 2008 at 6:34 (From the Kitchen)

 

This is a very yummy dish that I came up with last night.

Start with:

Potatoes (any kind is fine, just use what you have on hand) Diced

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper

Onions – diced

Garlic – minced

Shredded Cheese (I used cheddar)

Turkey Bacon

Scallions ( For the top)

Sour Cream

Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil, when the oil is hot add your diced onions and cook  until softened add minced garlic. (Watch closely to avoid burning the garlic!)

Heat another skillet over medium to high heat and add the bacon, cook until crispy, drain on a paper towel and when it is cool enough to handle, break into small pieces.

Add the diced potatoes to onion gralic mixture and cook until fork tender. Salt and pepper the potatoes and add the bacon crumbles, combine. Make sure it is in an even layer in the skillet. Top with the shredded cheese and place under the broiler, until the cheese melts. Take out (Don’t forget to use a pot holder!) Dollop with sour cream and sprinkle with scallions!

This was so delicious and could be served along side a variety of dishes. Bon Appetite!

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