Obedience Is...

The very best way to show that you belieeeeeeeve!

Okay so maybe you never sang that song in Sunday School but I did. Obedience is also the very best way to allow God to bless your life.
REWIND
March 2012 - I was going through my closet and came across, once again, my wedding dress from my JOP wedding in HI (as opposed to the ceremony we'd planned all along that had taken place at home). My gorgeous wedding dress that has sat in a closet in a bag for 4 years and isn't even THE dress, it was just the last minute dress for the last minute wedding. No, I wasn't pregnant, I had gotten orders to PCS. Our wedding would have been our last time together for our first year (or more) of marriage. But I'm a sentimental sap so even though it wasn't THE dress, it was still my JOP wedding dress so I still had it. God laid it on my heart to give it to someone who needed it. I felt so, so strongly that I needed to bless someone with that dress. It was prom season so I assumed it would be easy. It wasn't. And I figured it better to hold on to it than to donate it to one of the local "charitable" events since too many of these women are later found to be selling their free dress. I wanted someone to use it to feel beautiful on a special day because, well I might be biased but... the dress is beautiful. Satin sheath with crystal details. Beautiful and flattering.
FAST FORWARDDDDD.... errrrrrrrr.... STOP!
July 2012 - I bought plane tickets to take my baby home for the first time. I toyed with the idea of having a trash-the-dress shoot with my JOP wedding dress but I never packed the dress to go home with me. Oops.
FAST FORWARD... eeerrrrr... STOP!
September 2012 - My kid hasn't gained weight in months. She's even started to lose weight. This is pertinent to the story, just follow me here. Round One of blood work happens after vacation. 
FAST FORWARD... eeerrrrrrr... STOP!
Two days ago - A local fiancee put out the request for a pretty white dress to wear on her own JOP wedding day (today). They were putting together a last minute ceremony for whatever reason necessary. *PING! PING! PING!* went my heart strings but I ignored them for a few hours. Finally around 8 pm, I responded to her, after so many other women, and offered my wedding dress. I emailed her a picture since she already had so many to choose from. None of those were wedding dresses, though. She loved mine but assumed I wanted cash for it and decided she couldn't afford it. Silly girl, it was free. So she asked if she could try it on so before I could change my mind, I forced L to head to her house and drop of the dress. Drop of MY dress with a perfectly good STRANGER. I bawled my eyes out but still felt at peace with it. I did the right thing. I mean, that's not even THE dress that's super special to me anyway, I'm just a sentimental sap. I still have my first A+ test from kindergarten. Yep, packrat.
FAST FORWARD... errr... STOP!
Yesterday - I get a nerve-inducing phone call from the doctor... on her off day. The news isn't bad yet, and it probably won't be, but K had to go for blood work Round Two ASAP. Levels were off and more testing was necessary.
FAST FORWARD (last time) STOP!
Today - God knew in May that I would need a pick me up today. On Tuesday, God perfectly timed the pick-me-up, as long as I obeyed. The blood work was awful. Better than Round One in the sense that we saw a pediatric nurse and the pediatric nurse absolutely refused to stick K until she was sure she'd get the vein. Better in the sense that the nurse didn't bruise my baby. Worse in the sense that it took almost 2 hours to get the vein to pop up above the nerves and tendons in K's arm that it was hiding under. Worse in the sense that when the nurse stuck K the first two times, K flexed and used her muscles to push the needle right back out of her arm (what can I say? My kid is tough! I can't lie, I'm just a teensy bit proud of her for that). Worse that no amount of singing her favorite song could calm her enough to let her face turn back to a normal color. Worse because I was actually in the room this time and my baby kept looking at me asking with her eyes why I was letting those people do that to her. Worse because she kept reaching for me and I kept holding her hand and letting it happen. Okay... enough of that. I'm far more traumatized than she was.
This afternoon - We came home from errands. I'd completely forgotten that today was the "big day" for my perfect-stranger-turned-friend. I got a message from her with a picture of her in my dress standing next to her new husband, beaming and absolutely gorgeous. I got a huge thank you and she had gotten tons of compliments. I listened to God and was able to help make her big day special and memorable. I was able to help her feel beautiful. I was able to be blessed on a day that God knew I would need it.
Because I listened to God.
And I don't feel like crying over my "missing" dress any more.

Yummies in my Tummy

I had a craving for comfort this week. I've got a trip home in a few weeks, taking K for the first time to my parents' home and watching my closest friend try on wedding dresses. The thought of everything I've missed and everything K will miss because of where we live had me homesick like you wouldn't believe. Homesickness does silly things to grocery shopping. I found myself wanting Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (double yuck) and English Muffin pizzas. I opted for the English Muffin pizzas. Done right, one English Muffin hits around 200-225 calories in pizza form. One muffin, a few grape tomatoes - sliced, 1/2 of mozzarella cheese stick - sliced, 2 TBS tomato sauce with onion powder, garlic powder, thyme and oregano. I tore a few basil pieces off my my basil plant to top it off. I'm a basil addict.

Aren't they cute?!?! English Muffin pizza, adult-style

Later this week, I realized I had one lonely avocado leftover from the guacamole I made. One avocado doesn't get us very far with guacamole in this house. We're a 3-4 avocado couple. Lucky for me, I also had one lonely red bell pepper leftover from an antipasto platter, a few ears of corn, tomatoes (a summer staple), a shallot and some limes, too. And don't forget the rest of the tortilla chips. 

Avocado Salsa

1 avocado, cut into tiny cubes

2 ears of corn

1 shallot, minced

1/2 red bell pepper, minced

1 tomato, finely diced

Juice of 1 lime

1 TBS olive oil

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt and pepper

Boil your corn and then cut corn from the cob. Carefully mix together avocado, corn, shallot, bell pepper and tomato. In a separate bowl, whisk together lime juice, olive oil, garlic and onion powders, salt and pepper. Slowly pour over avocado salsa while gently mixing. Serve with tortilla chips.

I am a HUGE fan of Daily Chef brand multi-grain tortilla chips from Sam's Club.

As long as I have Sam's, I will never buy another brand again

Just for show-off purposes, antipasto

Marinated mushrooms, parmesan, sopressata, ham, roasted red bells, mozzarella, herbed olives

Olive recipe to come, link to the marinated mushroom recipe:

http://natashaskitchen.com/2012/01/18/marinated-mushrooms-recipe/

Cupcakes and Kiddos

I've been promising a friend's kids that they could come over and decorate cupcakes with me so I finally decided today was the day. One wanted pink and the other wanted purple. I supposed I could have made this easy and bought a box, dying one half of the batter pink and one half purple but since when do I ever make baking that easy (or cheat like that)? So, instead, I decided to make an attempt at Koolaid cupcakes with regular purple buttercream frosting. I figured if you can add those silly flavor packets to your cupcake frosting that Duncan Hines sells, then you can totally use Koolaid packets to flavor your cupcakes. I was so right! I'm not sharing this recipe. My husband is always getting on me about giving away my recipe originals when I know I want to write a cookbook or open a bakery one day. I will say, though, that you can add Koolaid to your regular cupcake batter and end up with a yummy cupcake.

Adding the Koolaid resulted in a brightly colored, light and airy batter.

Yep, totally making these for K's first birthday

Aren't they pretty?!?! Perfect purple buttercream came from
39 drops of blue and 70 drops of red good ole fashioned
McCormick brand food coloring.

I'm in love with these cupcakes. There is a (very) slightly tart [strawberry] bite from the Koolaid but it cuts the overly sweet buttercream perfectly. I couldn't be happier with the cupcakes and won't be altering the recipe at all. The only problem I see is that the cupcakes are so, so light that it will be far too easy to eat too many.

Tolerance

In America, we have a very skewed idea of what tolerance is. Let me start off by saying what it is not. Tolerance is not the expectation that those with differing opinions, practices or beliefs must change their opinions, practices or beliefs to match the social norm. Tolerance also is not forcing those with differing opinions, practices or beliefs to "keep quiet and deal" with the social norm, pretending to agree though they do not. Tolerance is peacefully accepting that there will always be differing opinions, practices or beliefs. You do not have to agree in order to peacefully accept that fact. You can debate and still peacefully accept that fact. I do not have a problem with those people who are choosing to no longer support Chik-Fil-A. I do not have a problem with those people who have chosen to verbalize their disagreement. I do have a problem with those people who have resorted to name calling. If a Christian verbalizes personal beliefs that marriage should be reserved for a man and woman, (s)he is a bigot. If anyone verbalizes personal beliefs that marriage should be open to homosexuals and heterosexuals, alike, (s)he is brave and applauded for, in my opinion, doing no more than repeating what is socially expected and tolerated. How is calling anyone names any form of tolerance? Saying someone is a sinner isn't calling names from a Christian standpoint, it's sheer fact. It's not feeling superior, either. Christians do not feel they are above sinning or above sinners, Christians believe they are forgiven and loved despite sinning and despite being a sinner. Christians believe anyone can be forgiven and everyone is loved, despite sinning. Christians believe no-one is exempt from sin except God, Himself (and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, as they are one). There is no tolerance in name calling. There is no tolerance in calling someone ignorant. It saddens me to see how many people prefer to have the right to free speech taken than to truly tolerate the different beliefs, practices and opinions. All I ask is for tolerance, true tolerance. If you disagree with Mr. Cathy, show it with your wallet and/or your tolerant words, not with name calling. If you agree with Mr. Cathy, show it with your wallet and/or your tolerant words, not with name calling. After all, you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Busy, Busy

Oh my goodness, today felt like go, go, go all day. By choice, of course. K is just getting over her cold. We had her in the Nap Nanny so she could breathe while she slept. Last night, we attempted to take the Nap Nanny away, assuming it would go just fine. We've done this before when she had allergies. She hated the Nap Nanny so she slept much better after we took it away. Not so much this time. Maybe she's still getting congested at night and we don't realize it? Either way, she was up from midnight until 3 screaming bloody murder. I'm honestly not sure if she slept after midnight at all. I know she didn't sleep a wink until 3 and then, after, any time I woke up, I could hear her babbling through the monitor. Needless to say, she is back in the Nap Nanny tonight. I woke up so exhausted, I was in physical pain and nauseous. I've got the best husband, though, and he took K so I could sleep a few more hours.

After waking for the day, we took a little drive to Babies R Us. I've really wanted to start making all of K's food myself. There's something extremely rewarding about knowing I took the time to cook and mash her food instead of popping open a jar. Not to mention the fact that it costs half as much to make her food as it does to buy the jar in most cases. Anyway, I'm on a rabbit trail. Our trip to Babies R Us was to buy some kind of food storage for freezing baby food in 2 ounce servings. Walmart had the Baby Bullet storage system for $19.99 but it only came with 6 containers. I had researched Babies R Us and found a 12 container system for $13.99 online and planned to buy that one after finding nothing at Walmart that would work (aside from the Baby Bullet). Once we got to Babies R Us, I found the store brand set that had 16 containers for $10.99. I bought two of those with a bunch of labeling stickers, came home and got straight to work. Today, I made 12 (2 oz) servings of carrots and apples, 6 (2 oz) servings of pears and 10 (2 oz) servings of sweet potatoes. Tomorrow I'll make some peaches.

Once I finished with the baby food, I started my freezer meals. I'm starting with just two of them to see how much I like it. It sounds amazing. Assemble ingredients in 1 gallon sized bags, freeze, dump in the crockpot in the AM and eat it in the PM. The great part about it, so far, is that I spent the same amount of money at the grocery store this week as I usually do but the two freezer meals I chose actually make 4 dinners so I'll have two dinners for a future week (or two). This week, I made Teriyaki Chicken and Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn. I found these recipes here:
http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cooking.html
and here:
http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/04/more-freezer-cooking-meals-part-3.html
The Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn actually calls for cilantro but I can't stand the stuff so I left it out. Hopefully, removing it doesn't ruin the meal!

I finally organized the pantry and cleaned out the fridge. It really needed to be done. Remember in grade school when you wanted to organize your bedroom so you dug through the recycling, found cardboard (pasta, cereal, etc) boxes, cut them and glued paper on to them? No? Oh, maybe I was the only freak that wanted separate containers on my dresser for all of my things. Rabbit trail again... I had a point which was that is basically what I did. With the potential of the hubs separating when his enlistment is over in a year, I'm on a mad budgeting and squirreling spree. I wasn't about to run to HomeGoods or Ikea or even the Dollar Store to buy containers when I had a huge pad of colored paper, some good old Elmer's and lots of recyclables waiting to disappear. It might not be the prettiest of pantries but it works and it works darn well. I can actually see everything in there right now! I have things that I can use in the future for dinner that I never would have thought to use since it required digging to find them!

And, finally, dinner. After getting in one last nap, of course. Pork chops. We planned for steak but the choices at the store were less than awesome while the pork chops looked amazing. It doesn't hurt that pork chops are cheaper than steak, either. I browsed Pinterest and found this:
http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2008/05/grilled-pork-chops-recipe-with-soy.html
Which sounds amazing, right? Only, I have this issue with following recipes and I didn't have 4 hours to marinade the chops so I tweaked. My version was delicious, though!

Salt and Spicy Grilled Pork Chops
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
Juice of 2 (juicy) limes
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp cayenne powder
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 boneless, thick cut pork chops
Place all ingredients, except pork chops, in a gallon sized ziplock bag and swish it up. Using a fork, poke holes all over both sides of the chops. Place chops in the bag, lay them on their side in a container and squeeze the air from the bag before zipping it shut. Marinade for 2 hours in the refrigerator before grilling to desired doneness.
If you're not a fan of spicy, you may want to just use a sprinkle of cayenne or nix it altogether. The 1/8 of a tsp, leaves a nice heat.

So Crispy

After the last few days, I've decided I'm a bit more "crunchy" than I would have believed I'd be before K was born. Not only do I cloth diaper, I had a conversation about "stripping" cloth diapers. I made food for K for the first time today and, no, I don't mean boob-juice. I cooked up the sweet potatoes, pureed them and fed them to her for dinner (she was not a fan). I wore her around the house for no reason other than to comfort her. She has a bad cold and is a little more sensitive than usual. The hubs was vacuuming and it scared her so I took off her dress, put on my Moby Wrap, pulled up my shirt to expose my jiggly belly and tucked her in to the wrap (skin on skin contact for additional comfort. It still calms her better than anything else). Then we followed Daddy around while he vacuumed so we could comfortably calm her fears of that noisy contraption. By the end, she was even touching the vacuum while it was turned on! The last, those who have heard me talk about this thing will know what a big deal this is, really grosses me out to think about. I NoseFrida'd her face. I used the snot sucker. It was a moment of complete desperation. She couldn't eat without pausing to gasp for air every few seconds and those little bulb aspirators were not doing the trick so I had Luke bust out the NoseFrida. In retrospect, I'm so glad no one else was able to take it. As long as I close my eyes and make Luke do everything but the sucking, we're okay. I almost lost my breakfast all over K's face this morning when he didn't take it away fast enough and I saw the glob of snot sitting in the sucker. It was reassuring to know the snot doesn't go anywhere near the filter but not reassuring enough to keep my gag reflex from kicking into high gear. It really does work better than any other aspirator but it takes a lot to get passed the fact that I'm literally sucking snot from her nose. We've used it a few times today. It got out the mucous that the bulb aspirator left behind. That was the snot that was keeping her from breathing while eating. I'll still be discussing this creepy contraption with her doctor tomorrow, though. Paranoia needs me to check to be sure the stronger vacuum of my sucking won't hurt her in anyway. She'll need to be seen anyway since the snot is very not clear. This cold is proof that it does not matter how often you wash your hands or how often you use sanitizer or how often you bathe your child or whether or not you let random people touch her. As long as other moms will send a child to your house/playdate without first informing you that the child has been sick, is sick or is coming down with some illness, your child is pretty likely to get sick. Unless, of course, you hermit your child away from other children which isn't a really fun life to live. Moms - common courtesy, if you're child is sick, keep him/her home.

Anyway, I supposed I filled my quota of recipes but I'm having fun with this so I shall share a recipe review regardless.

I made this today for dessert:
http://elizabethsedibleexperience.blogspot.com/2009/03/cake-cravings.html
Amazing doesn't begin to describe this pound cake. It's phenomenal. Fantastic. Scrumptious. Divine. Go make it. Now.
Okay, so maybe you're looking for a better description. I thought I died and went to heaven when I licked the batter off my fingers between filling the cake pan (I used a smaller pan) and filling some muffin tins. I could have eaten the entire bowl before baking it. I'm so, so glad temptation didn't get the better of me. I expected something extremely dense but, despite the richness, it wasn't. And the outside... Oh my gosh, what can I say about those crispy edges of baked sugary goodness? Only that you need to try it yourself. I froze all but one of the cupcakes already so I wouldn't eat them all in one day. I figure that's okay since I have the whole cake left.

Topped, of course, with some strawberries and

homemade whipped cream. 

(No, I did not milk the cow. Not THAT

homemade).

This leads me into another fun experience today. I will never, ever again eat strawberries without cutting them up first. As I was cutting the yummy fellows for my dessert, I came across a worm inside a berry. It wiggled at me. I almost dumped the entire carton. Oh but the cake! I'm so glad I didn't dump those strawberries. The cake could easily stand alone as dessert but with the strawberries and whipped cream... Like I said, you need to try it yourself.

Oh!Em!Gee!

Today's recipe is brought to you by Hershey and the makers of my imagination. Which wasn't really running rampant tonight, just chasing after a craving. Because this recipe is so awesome it deserves it's own blog post devoted just and only to the recipe, I shall cut right to the chase.

Campfire Brownie Pie
1/2 cup stick butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 Hershey's cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup marshmallow fluff
2 graham crackers, crushed
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla together. Beat in eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Slowly stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Pour into a greased 9 inch pie pan. Drop marshmallow fluff onto the brownie batter by spoonfuls. Swirl the marshmallow fluff through the brownie batter. Top with crushed graham crackers. Bake for 35 minutes. Be a fat kid and enjoy!
*Ingredients and steps in italics are not my own. I used the recipe for Hershey's Best Brownies*
You can find that recipe here: http://www.hersheys.com/pure-recipes/details.aspx?id=5008&name=Best+Brownies#share_modal

The marshmallow fluff doesn't bake up all puffy and get int the way of the brownie. Not that I'd mind if it did but it just added extra oooomf! to the brownies. I could still see and taste the fluff that baked on top, just under the graham cracker crumbs, but anything that baked below the surface of the brownies turned the brownies into ooooey gooooooey chocolately decadence. I'm repeating my mantra for the night as I type, "All things in moderation. All things in moderation. All things in moderation." My will power is about to screw moderation and eat another piece or two... Or seven.

What's a brownie without a little ice cream?

Or whipped cream?

Or second helpings?