Something warm for when it's cold.

The water is frozen.  Considering the high temperature forecasted for the day is 13, it's probably at least -10 out there.  And everything is frozen.  Living in a home with small kids and no water is challenging, even when you see it coming.  New years we woke up to the same issue, when we had the same forecasted temperatures.  At least I fared better than my hubby.  He had his shower cut short when the pressure tank and hot water heater became empty.  Had it been me, I'd have had a head full of shampoo.  But still, I'm sitting in a warm house, with food in my cupboards and my hubby is at work.  How blessed are we?

And how blessed am I to have a husband who actually doesn't mind the occasional culinary experiment?  I've decided to try incorporating some different meals from various other cultures, as well as vegetarian dishes, at least once a week.  So once a week, we'll have something seemingly random and 'new'.  Last night we went vegetarian.  To my delight, both boys loved it, and my husband willingly took leftovers for lunch.  He may have told me that it was lacking 'steak', but he ate it and more.

So, form my kitchen to yours, experience Shepards' Pie.  The recipe was passed to my by a lovely friend who is vegan, and she got it from a cookbook, I believe, called How It All Vegan.  (If I'm wrong, she'll correct me.)

As I'm not vegan, and have a love of cheese, I did alter it, as you likely will in your kitchen as well!

Shepards' Pie

Filling:

1 medium onion, diced

3 small carrots, chopped

1/2 cup spinach, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 zucchini, sliced

1 large tomato, diced

2 tbs olive oil

1/2 cup smashed lentils (or beans)

1/2 tsp dried basil

3 cloves garlic, obliterated

1tbs soy sauce

salt, to taste

Topping:

Smashed potatoes, I used 3 massive baking potatoes

Shredded  cheese

In a medium saucepan, sauté the onions, carrots, spinach, celery, zucchini, garlic, and tomatoes in the oil.  Once the carrots are tender, add the mashed lentils, basil, salt, and soy sauce.  Stir and simmer without a lid until the liquid cooks off.  Yes, you will feel like you're sautéing a salad.  You are.  :)

Once your veggies are ready, spread them in the bottom of a 9" pie plate.  Yes, all of this will fit.  Top with your potatoes, then cheese.

Bake at 350 while you make gravy....  mmmm..... gravy.

Mighty Miso Gravy

6-10 mushrooms, sliced (I use the egg slicer!!!)

1 medium onion, diced

1 tbs olive oil

2 tbs soy sauce

basil, cayenne pepper, dill, pepper, to taste  (I omitted cayenne, because I didn't have any.  Do NOT omit the dill.)

1/3 cup flour

about 2 cups veggie stock

1tsp miso (I used barley miso-  you can buy it at health food stores)

Sauté the mushrooms and onion in the oil until the onion is translucent and the 'shrooms are tender.  Add your seasonings.  Remove from heat, and stir in your flour.  You want everything to be pasty and dry.  Return to heat, and slowly stir in your veggie stock, making sure to get rid of lumps.  Once your gravy thickens, add the miso.  Stir well, then remove from heat.

Sadly, if there is a way to plate this and make it look pretty, I don't know what it is.  This is one of those yummy dishes that looks better in the oven or on the counter than it does on your plate.  (Or at least in my kitchen it does!)  So I've got a shot of the finished pie, but you don't get to see what my plate looked like! 

This did take considerably longer to make than I had anticipated.  I'm sure doing it a second time, it'd be faster, but be prepared to spend about an hour and a half putting this together.

Happy Veggie Comfort Food!  :)

~While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 8:22 ~ 

On days with no sleep....

Blow out your candle, Mr. Man!

Sometimes we need to be reminded of wherein our sufficiency lies.  Is it my husband?  Is it my to-do list?  Is it me?  It's amazing how God can hit our personal re-set button when we think we have life under control.  Last night, well, this morning.... er...  it all blends together.  We were up yesterday at 10 to 6 to get ready for church, and I still haven't really been to sleep.  My littlest, who turned one over the weekend, was up all night, quite vocally unhappy with a fever.  Am I up?  Yes.  Is he still up?  You'd better believe it.  Do I feel like I'm making a dent in my to-do list?  Absolutely not.  Am I taking care of what God wants to be my priority?  Yes, and if I don't, he cries at me some more.  That being said, grocery shopping is being put off yet another day, and I'm watching my oldest love on my youngest.  Taking him ice water, reading him books, and just asking, "Mom, can we just let him be up to play since he's not sleeping.  I know he's tired, but isn't tired and happy better than tired and sad?"  Gotta love it!

That in mind, I thought I'd share about his cake.  Nothing too homemade or fancy about it, but instead a dressed up cake mix, and dressed up frosting.   Yes, I bought frosting, too.  (You can punish me for it later.)  I had (and have) been fairly sick, and therefore accordingly slothful.  Sometimes mom just has to get a little help.  This time, it was from Betty Crocker!

M's Tall Ship Carrot Cake

2 boxes carrot cake mix

1/2 cup applesauce

1 6oz plain Greek yoghurt

eggs (as called for on mix)

about 1 1/2 cup craisins

about 1 cup fresh grated carrot

2 tbs olive oil  (I don't even buy the hydrogenated oils anymore!)

Makes some for party, some for later!

Put your cake mix in a large bowl, and add the amount of water called for per box.  In lieu of all the oil, add 2tbs olive oil, applesauce, yoghurt and eggs.  Once all mixed and incorporated, add the carrot and craisins.

Grease or spray your cale pan (pans) and pour in your mix.  Bake according to mix directions.

For your frosting....

2 tubs cream cheese frosting (not whipped)

1 block cream cheese

Colors!!

Here, I put my mixer to work again.  Once the cream cheese was about room temperature, I put it and the two tubs of frosting into the bowl and just beat the tar out of it.  Once it was mixed completely, I seperated it and colored it as needed.  There will be frosting left over.  I promise.  (Maybe you should make cinnamon rolls, too!)

I will warn you, however.  This frosting is really hard to work with in this capacity.  You have to keep it almost frozen (which is hard on your muscles) and you have to keep the room temperature on the really cool side, or it will melt, like this one tried to before I got it in the fridge.

~ Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 1John 4:11~

Sunshine and suprising citrus

George, J.'s cat

It's beautiful outside.  Not just pretty, but beautiful.  The sun is pouring out of the sky and reflecting back up off all the snow still hanging on the acres of field in my yard.  George is loitering around the patio and  I'm staring out the window putting together my garden for spring, still uncertian if we'll get plowed, or if I'll be in tiny garden boxes again.  The plot I'm peicing together is about 1/2 acre (by square footage).  I'm hoping to preserve all I can this summer and fall to take a bite out of our food budget.  We have a lot of changes coming in this season of our lives, and I want to make them as easy as possible.

How do I predict change??  I don't.  I invite it.  This week we start our process of becoming a licensed foster family.  I anticipate seasons.  Seasons of every possible emotional state for us and for the children that God places within our home.  But I am welcoming it.  I've been praying for years for God to keep his hands upon the children that we will some day come to know.  ♥

I have also been blessed to reconnect with a family member that I haven't seen in close to 20 years.  While I had been praying that God would lay upon his heart to have relationships with my brother and I, I was pleasantly surprised when it happened.  God is good GREAT!

So I sit here, while M. (the birthday boy) is asleep and J. is outside with his dad, reflecting as the sun does, back to where it shines from.  :)

Sunshine always makes me think citrus, so here's a springy, suprisingly citrus recipe. 

Garlic Roasted Cauliflower
We REEEEEAAAAALLLLLY like this.  For the four of us (2 adults, 2 kids 5 & under, we usually eat 1 1/2 - 2 cauliflowers for this dish

1 head of garlic (per cauliflower)
1 cauliflower (or more)
1/2 lemon (per cauliflower)
salt and pepper to taste

palm ful of fresh parsley, chopped

olive oil

Peel and slice your garlic legnthwise.  Cut or break your cauliflower into bite sized pieces.  Place garlic, cauliflower, salt, pepper and olive oil in a large bowl or bag.  Toss.  Spread your cauliflower and other stuffs out on a cookie sheet.  Make sure that no pieces overlap, and turn the stems down.

Roast in the oven at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the cauliflower starts to brown.

Once your cauliflower has browned adequately, remove it from the oven, and place everything on your cookie sheet into a large bowl.  Squeeze 1/2 lemon over cauliflower, and add parsley, stir.  Typically, I add a little more salt at this point for balance.  Don't go overboard!!

Presto!! Pesto is the Best-o!!

I tried to post this last night, and for some reason was only able to view or publish the following paragraph:

It's finally quiet, though temporarily in my house.  Everyone is napping but me, and I have wonderful scents of cheese and garlic wafting thru my kitchen.  Bliss.  Today has been one of those days where everyone is loud, rowdy, and in the right place but at the wrong time.  Days like this require pesto.  (Then again, what day doesn't?!)

So what does that tell me?  Hmmm...  perhaps something about a lesson in patience.  Which I suppose is only appropriate with the type of day that yesterday was.  Nothing was where it should have been, no one (under the age of 6) was willing to do what they were supposed to do, and me??  I was suprised I woke up with hair on my head this morning!


But I did.  And I woke up to the beautiful sun shining thru my window, reflecting little fractals in the 8 to 10 or so inches of snow still laying on the fields of my property and that of the wonderful neighbors across the way.  And quiet.  I woke up to quiet.  *insert amazing sound effects here*  How good is God!?!

So here is what I was planning on sharing last night.  A wonderful pesto chicken salad, that my 5-year old is absolutely in love with!

Pesto Chicken Salad Sammiches
Yes, sammiches!



Served with fresh baked fries!!  Yum-o!



»2 large chicken breasts, marinated in your favorite Italian style dressing

»Your favorite pesto

»Walnuts, chopped
»Mozzerella or Provolone cheese, shredded
»Alfalfa sprouts
»Tomato (it you'd like...  I didn't have any.)
»That amazing Italian Herb and Cheese Bread you made a couple of weeks ago (did I mention it freezes well??)
»Just a little butter

Grill or sauté your chicken.  While it's cooking, slice your bread for sandwiches.  When your chicken is done, cube it inot pieces about 3/4" and stir together with your chopped nuts and most of your pesto.  Spread a very light layer of butter on your bread, then spread pesto.  You just want enough butter that the bread doesn't soak up all the pesto.  Pile your chicken salad on one side, then cover both with cheese.  Place open faced in the oven until the cheese melts. 

When you remove it from the oven, place sprouts on, then close, and slice.  YUM!!


~Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  John 6:35~

Spring cleaning, spring salad, spring-ey

As I fold oh-so much laundry and start thinking about plotting my garden and airing this house for spring, it has come to my attention that organization may well be a Biblical principle.  While we are no where told, 'Be ye organizedith," I see over and over again how God has organized everything, and how every little detail of life is so....  intentional.  It makes me wonder how I'm doing.  Am I intentional in my day to day tasks?  With he words I use when teaching (or disciplining) my children?  With the encouragement I give my friends?  With how I treat my husband?  It gives me a lot to think about.  Does this mean that I have to always have my refrigerator cleaned out and my cabinets arranged alphanumerically by size?  Probably not; but it sure sounds amazing!!! 

*big ominous silence*

Well then.  Back to the task at hand.  I'm pondering over lunch, since neither of the kiddos have yelped down exclamations of hunger, and still thinking about the amazing salad from the other night.  What?  You like amazing salads, too??? 

I thought you might!

Stelle's Spring Salad

         (yes, I know that it's winter.)

Probably the easiest salad I make, you need spring greens, glazed walnuts, fresh strawberries, feta cheese, and your favorite red wine or balsamic vinaigrette.

It's as easy as putting your 'toppings' on the greens, and serving with dressing.  Voila!

(And before you tell me that your kids won't eat it...  let me promise you that my five year old tells me that it's favorite salad, and that he loves feta cheese.  I think it may be the sweet berries and the glazed nuts that do him in.  :))

It makes a wonderful contrasting side to many a pasta dish or with grilled steak or roast.

Since it's soooo pretty, here's an up close and personal shot.



Ohhhh....  the freshness of it!



~Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.  And in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.  Psalm 139:16~