Midnight Snacks

Beauty in Our Days. 

Elisa and Jamie are practicing their culinary skills.

Poached Chicken with Cream Supreme Sauce,

on the side, Risotto and Brussels Sprouts in Pecan Butter. 

We all are the lucky recipients of their efforts. 

A lovely time was had by all. 

oh and...

oh and by the way... feel free to change how this looks. I just used the first thing I found that I liked. In fact, please do. I was part of a book club where we were all authors and everyone changed up the blog randomly, kinda fun.

Turkey Soup

With the nutritional value high and the cost low, why am I not taking better advantage of beef or chicken stock?

Sally Fallon writes .. 

Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

I used our Thanksgiving turkey for broth this weekend. I just put the whole thing in the pan, covered it with water and simmered it for a lot of hours. The flavor is amazing. I think it's particularly good because the turkey had been seasoned for baking.

After the cooking, I separated the stock from the bones, put the stock in the fridge. In the fridge the fat rose to the top. I skimmed off the fat. Lastly, I poured the stock onto the pot of vegetables and some of the turkey meat and now I am cooking it on low.

 I got a lot of meat from the bones (time consuming, not sure about nutrition/time spent ratio)
I have meat for enchiladas and turkey salad for sandwiches.

Tomorrow is soup Sunday and we are having folks over. This soup, that will feed many folks, basically cost me 10 carrots, 1 onion, 2 celery stalks with leaves and tomorrow I will put in frozen corn.

Not bad for a throw away turkey.

For additional information here is a website .. http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/broth-is-beautiful

Beauty in our days

Lifegiving: what are some things I can do to bring life to my family?

Beautiful words - The most important thing is words. Proverbs 18:21- Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Only kind words should come out of my mouth. Skip the words spoken in anger, skip words that belittle or pick. I should be encouraging and uplifting to Ben and the kids.

Beauty into our minds - books and movies, stories, art... I think these are the things our minds dwell on and daydream about. Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (In Hebrew the word translated heart stands for inner man or mind) - I also want my kids to notice and appreciate the beauty and creativity of God in people's creations.

Beautiful memories - It is important to mark the time passing. I like to recognize the passing seasons.  I think traditions ground you, give you a place for your mind to land, helps memories to stick. I want to make special days special, something out of the ordinary.

Beautiful order - Orderliness is beautiful. Our minds can rest when we are in order. Ordered belongings, ordered schedule/routine, ordered surroundings.

Lifegiver

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I spend my time. Why exactly do some people seem to be able to do so much and I am not doing anything the way I want to. (Now before you start making excuses for me, the reality is that I really don't get anywhere near my ideals.) I have been analyzing myself because I want to find the root cause of it. We are very complex and I'm sure I'll never even scratch the surface of understanding myself but I think one factor is that I don't really feel like I can find the balance between necessity and excessiveness. For instance, I rightly concern myself with what is taking up the space in my mind so if find myself obsessing about house decorating, I turn it off, but then I have little motivation for beauty in my home (ie. messy bathroom because even when it's clean it's ugly).  Or maybe take whole food; I obsess about healthy foods, going to several different stores in a week, pouring over recipes or books but then I realize that this is taking FAR too much of my time and mind space that I kind of give-up and feed my children cereal for breakfast and hot dogs for dinner (oh the horrors!!).

So then I ask, what should I be thinking about and spending my time doing? Very good question, and one that I God hasn't entirely answered for me, but this I do know: I have a specific and important role to fill.

I have been reading an ebook, 31 Days to Clean (http://31daystoclean.com/), which isn't really about cleaning but about the Mary/Martha thing. She talks about how women are lifegivers -"raising life above the level of mere existence".  God calls us as women to be life givers; to bring beauty to our families. Maybe when I focus on that goal rather than any single aspect my role will become more clear. Instead of waiting to see what my next obsession is I should go toward that.