Back From Vacation!

Well, it's been a long time! So sorry it's been so long, but a lot has been going on since my last post. For instance, I turned 30! Not as big of a deal as I was fearing, however, it happened and now it's over! Because of this momentous birthday, my wonderful husband took me on a little vacation to Sedona, Arizona. It's this trip that I wanted to write about today!

First of all, I want to give you a little background. Growing up, my family and I traveled quite a bit. However, most of our trips were either to the same places, or a least the same general areas. I have seen a decent chunk of Europe and have also visited our Southern neighbors in Mexico a few times. That being said, I have made it my goal to see all 50 states before I die. Now, I don't want to just drive through a state and count that as my "visit." I really want to experience a little bit of each of our states. Therefore, my first trip to Arizona was very impressive and I believe that I "experienced" quite a bit.

I'm not sure what you all know about Sedona, Arizona, but it's a small town about 2 hours north of Phoenix. It's kind of in a valley surrounded by the most beautiful red mountains you've ever seen. Since being married, my vacationing has changed a lot. Growing up, when on vacation, we made it our goal to see how little we could do over the course of our trip (with the exception of those oh so wonderful educational trips!). This usually meant sitting on a beach, reading, and eating. However, because my husband is a bit hyperactive, this doesn't fly for him. We have to be doing something at almost all times. While it's not quite as relaxing, it really does show you a lot more of where you are. So, needless to say, we spent most of the trip exploring all the amazing red rock formations, both on foot and on horseback. It was amazing. How anyone can look at a place like this and not believe in God is just amazing to me. It was truly one of the most spiritual places I've been. While I've seen the mountains in both Colorado and Utah, this seemed so different. I think it must have been the mixture of mountains and desert along with the distinctive red color of the earth. It was extremely healing.

While on our trip, I coerced my husband into taking a horseback tour through some of the country. It was fabulous. However, I enjoyed meeting the owner of this ranch almost as much as the actual ride itself. He was in his late 70s and owned the full working ranch where we rode. He has owned and lived on this ranch for 40 years, and grew up and lived on his Grandfather's ranch right next to it before that. As we were driving to the horses, he calmly pointed out where he had taken his first steps as a baby and commented that his last steps would probably only be a few hundred yards from that. His ranch is run by himself, some of his children, grandchildren and a couple of great-grandchildren also run around the property. While I found this to be so amazing, he really stopped me in my tracks when he started talking about his family being completely sustainable. I'm not sure why this took me aback. I guess when I think about the "green" movement and about people moving toward sustainability for their families, I think about young adults. After talking to Richard, though, it made me realize how wrong that thought process was. He told us about how he has taught each of his children, grandchildren, and soon the great-grandchildren how to grow all their own food, how to ride a horse, and even how to make their own diesel fuel from the corn they grow. Also, he made a point of saying that he taught each of them how to shoot a gun to kill their food, not to harm. They kill and butcher their own cows for food. He said that he wanted each of his offspring to know what it felt like to kill and to understand the permanence of such an action. While I was astounded by this, he simply stated that this is what they've always done on the ranch (with the exception of the fuel which is pretty new). It made me realize that this goal I have for my family is exactly what families have been doing for centuries. I must say that it was very refreshing to have that perspective thrown at me again! Once again, if I listen, God chooses all sorts of ways to talk to me!

When God Speaks Through Your Children!

First of all, I just want to thank everyone who sent me ideas for daily devotionals. I will use all of your ideas and suggestions. Thank you! Second, I just wanted to share a quick story about my daughter that really reminded me how God speaks to us through so many avenues.

Our family typically prays before dinner each night and when doing so we all hold hands, while my husband says grace. While we are very diligent about saying our thanks before dinner, that is really the only meal we pray before. Today at lunch, the kids and I took our seats around the table to eat a quick bite. I had gotten both children settled, blown on their grilled cheeses, filled cups, etc. I was just taking my first bite of my leftover Chicken and Rice from the night before (see recipe below), when my daughter looks at me accusingly and says, "Mommy, don't eat yet, we haven't thanked God." As I sit there staring at her with my mouth FULL of chicken I'm taken aback. Since it took me a bit to respond, she dutifully stuck out her fat little hand for me to grasp so that we could pray. Needless to say, after swallowing my bite, I grabbed both of their soft little hands and we blessed our meal. It shames me that it took my 3 year-old child to remember to thank God for all of our meals, not just dinner. It is times like this that remind me that God is speaking to me all the time, and that I just really need to be quite and listen. When he has to use my very loud 3 year-old to bring me to attention, I know that I haven't been as quiet and reflective as I need to be. Once again, thank you Lord for 3 year-old children!

On another note, I fixed a super easy recipe last night for our family. This is very popular in our house because I double it and my husband takes leftovers to work the next day for lunch (it reheats marvelously). It's definitely a family favorite. Enjoy!

Chicken and Rice (this serves just 4, but I always double it!)

4 Chicken Thighs (bone in and skin on!)
1 Can Cream of Chicken
2/3 C. Instant Brown Rice
1/2 envelope of Onion Soup Mix

Preheat the oven to 325. Combine the cream of chicken and the rice. Pour the mixture into a casserole dish (when I double it, I use a 9X13 pan). Lay your thighs on top of the rice mixture. Sprinkle the Onion Soup mix on top of the thighs. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Edible Memories

This weekend I made the trip back to my home town for the birthday party of a dear friend. While there, I stopped by my Grandmother's house to visit for a bit. My Grandmother has a recipe for the most delicious chocolate cake you are ever tasted (it has won a first place ribbon at the Missouri State Fair, no less!) and I had been meaning to get it for quite some time. So while I was visiting, I decided that there was no better time than the present.

As I was digging through her very large stack of recipe cards, I got to thinking that maybe I would take a few more recipes as well. After all, you can never have too many recipes (especially really goods ones that you grew up on!). As I made my way slowly through the stack I came across MANY recipes from my childhood and I began to notice that a few memories would pop into my head as I read over the ingredients for each dish. Who knew that memories of meals would bring so much emotion. In addition to remembering each of these tasty repasts, it also struck me how old many of these recipes were. They were all written in my Grandmother's nearly ineligible handwriting, and quite a few had already started to fade with age. There were even a few in there from her own mother. It got me thinking how precious these 3X5 cards really were. Needless to say, I walked out of there with a substantial stack of recipes that I am to copy (I think I'm going to scan them all so I can have them all in her handwriting) and bring them back this coming weekend. While my Grandmother is in great health for all of her 88 years, it brings me great comfort to have these memories in my possession. I, of course, fully intend on making each and everyone of them in the hopes that my own children will one day have fond memories of the same recipes that I loved as a child.

My challenge to each of you is to make sure to collect what you can about your family history, whether it be through stories, or as in my case, recipes. I had no idea how much these would mean to me until I started flipping through them, but it has inspired me to not only get more recipes from my mother, but to also hound my other Grandma for some of her memorable recipes (especially that fried chicken recipe!). There is truly no better gift to your families than to give them the gift of health in wonderful meals that were created in love.

And the flu came and went . . .

Hello all! Well, the stomach flu officially ripped through our household last week. Unfortunately, I was unable to eat any of the wonderful Chicken Noodle Soup I had made. According to my family, however, it was quite wonderful, so try the recipe!

Since starting this blog, I have had a few questions regarding CSA farms, what that means, and what that entales. I thought I would take this time to discuss the wonderfulness (is that a word?) of CSA farms. My family and I recently joined one in our area and will start receiving produce from it in mid-May. I can't wait! Basically, a CSA farm is a farm that has decided to take on "investors." You pay for your produce up front (at the beginning of the season) and thus take on the same risks as the farmers. If there is a drought or some sort of disease that harms a certain crop, then you won't get as much. However, if there is a bumper crop, you get more! By paying at the beginning of the year we have purchased a "share" of produce that their farm will generate during the growing season. In addition, our farm asks that you volunteer your time to help with the harvest and to help distribute the produce among all the families involved. That is where I hope to learn some more about gardening! It's a great alternative to going to the farmer's market each week. It's a little cheaper to do it this way and you get to help support your local economy while getting great, healthy fruits and veggies in return. If you are interested in doing something like this, you can find participating farms in your area by visiting this national website: www.localharvest.org/csa

I also wanted to draw everyone's attention to a very thought provoking documentary called Food, Inc. If you have or haven't heard of this documentary, I strongly suggest you put this into your Netflix list. It is a great movie. It takes a look at our country's food industry and really delves into the corruption of both the industry itself and the FDA - the association that supposed to be protecting us! Watching it really added some steam to this journey I've decided to take! I've many people tell me that it was life changing for them.

On a final note, I wanted to ask all of you if you had any suggestions on some good devotional books, or bible studies. I have been working really hard at becoming healthier in many areas of my life, but feel like my spiritual life still needs a lot of work. While my family and I attend church each week and are diligent Christians, I still feel like we have a lot of growing to do. I, in particular, need to work on my private time with God and my daily devtionals. So, if any of you have any suggestions I would REALLY appreciate it.

I hope you are all doing well and stay healthy. That stomach flu is ruthless!!!

Chicken Soup Really Does Heal, Right?

Good Wednesday morning! I hope everyone had a great night last night and is feeling fine this morning. Here in our household, I am nursing back to health 3-year olds with the stomach flu. Not a whole lot of fun, but a necessary motherly duty. It is also at times like these that I recall a conversation that I had with my mother only about a week ago in a dressing room with my sister. She was commenting that before I got pregnant she just wasn't sure how I would do with kids. "You were just never the maternal type like your sister," she shrugs as she zips my sister into another dress. "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask as I begin to get a bit defensive. "I'm not saying you're a bad mom, I just wasn't sure what you would be like when they got here. You never liked kids when you were a teenager." At this point I'm beginning to wonder exactaly where this conversation is going, but once again, with my mom it's always best to not read to much into a comment as it's often hard to tell the difference between a criticism and a stray thought. "Ok," I reply a bit baffled at the turn of conversation since just a few minutes before we were discussing how fast time has gone by and pretty soon my babies will be 4. She offered no further comment after that, which only leaves me to wonder what exactaly my mother pictured when my husband and I announced we were having twins. Not that it should matter, but as it is with most daughters, maternal approval is often sought after. Please don't misconstrue this as anything other than the playful banter that my family and I often engage in. While she has no problem offering "tough love," I couldn't ask for a more loving and wonderful Mother, or a more perfect Mimi for my kids. Love you mom! However, I still feel the need to prove her orginal thoughts about me wrong!

I digress. My real reason for my post this morning was to prove what a rock star Mom I actually am. Ok, I really just need to pump myself up with false confidence every now and then; especially when I've been up all night cleaning vomit off of a very tired and cranky child and doing, yet another, load of laundry. Anyway - here was my solution to healing my small brood - Chicken Noodle Soup. Now in the past I wouldn't have hesitated to grab the nearest can of Cambell's Soup, pair it with some Saltines and call it a day, but this the new me! I decided to try and make my own soup - from scratch! Sound scary? Not really. I found a very simple recipe (albiet time consuming) that I started yesterday and that we will feast on tonight. This is great if you are a stay-at-home mom or if you work from home as the chicken has to simmer for 4 hours as you make your chicken stock. I got this recipe mainly from my "Simply Organic" cookbook by Jesse Ziff Cool (a great cookbook and I highly recommend purchasing it!). I made a few modifications and added my own noodle recipe to finish it off. Here is what I came up with:

Chicken Soup
1 whole 3-4 pound Chicken
2 large onions
3 large carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
5 peppercorns
2 large sprigs of fresh dill
3 large sprigs of Italian Parsley
1 parsnip, chopped (you knew I'd get that one in there!)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
noodles (see following recipe)

All you do is dump the whole chicken into a large stock pot and throw in 1 onion (I just quartered mine), 1 carrot, 1 celery rib, and the peppercorns, dill and parsley. Cover the chicken with cold water and add about another 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer, covered, for around 4 hours.
*This makes your house smell like you're mother of the year. It is the best!
After simmering, pull your chicken out of the pot and set aside. It will be so tender that it will literally start falling off the bones. Just make a little pile of all the meat, bones and skin on a plate and let it cool a couple of minutes. Place a strainer over a bowl and pour the rest of the contents into it. Discard the remaining soilds, cover the stock and stick into the fridge overnight. After doing this, go through your chicken pile and seperate the meat from the skin and bones. I kind of shredded/seperated the meat as I went to make it bite-sized. Throw away the skin, fat and bones and stick the meat into a ziploc baggie and into the fridge.
The next morning, uncover your stock and scoop up the layer of fat that has formed on the top and discard. It will all be a little jelly like at this point, but no worries, it's reliquify when we heat it up later!
It's at this point that we make the noodles!

Noodles *Make about 2 1/2 hours before you want to serve the soup!
2 egg yolks
pinch of baking powder
flour to make a stiff batter
1/2 C. half-n-half
Salt to taste

Combine it all into a bowl and keep adding flour until the batter is no longer sticky. You really get to get your hands dirty on this one! Seperate the dough into two balls and roll them out seperately. Cover your countertop with flour before starting this and also make sure your rolling pin is covered. You really can't use too much flour in this recipe. Just keep adding the flour as you roll them out so they don't get sticky. After you have rolled out both balls of dough rather thinly (they do plump up quite a bit when they are cooked), let them sit for about 2 hours to dry. After drying, roll them up (like you would a newspaper) and then start to slice them into thin strips with a sharp knife (like you would cut cookies off a roll of cookie dough). At this point you can either drop them into the hot broth, or stick them in a ziploc and freeze for a little later. It's up to you!

Final step!
Chop the remaining onion, 2 carrots and celery rib. In a large stock pot add these veggies to the stock, the parsnip, salt and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for about an hour covered. About 15 minutes before you want to serve your soup, throw the noodles into the broth so they can cook along with the soup. Test a noodle before you take it off the stove to make sure they are cooked through. Otherwise you'll have chewy noodles! Enjoy!

I tell you, I am not a good cook, but I'm trying. I was a little intimidated by this recipe, but turns out it's really easy, just a lot of steps. Try it out if you're curing ills in your household, or if you just really like chicken and noodle soup! It tastes devine and it proves what a real supermom I am - right? Kiss kiss to my wonderful mother!

Parsnips

Parsnips. Up until a week ago, I had never eaten a parsnip. They are strange, white roots that resemble an albino carrot. However, due to my new initiative to make my family healthier, I decided to take the leap and try all sorts of vegetables that I had always been a little weary of eating. Thus, the parsnip. A week ago, I was going through beef stew recipes trying to find "the one." In this search, I came across a recipe that used the blanc veggie. Putting on a brave face, I quickly peeled and chopped the alien root and popped it into my stew. While this recipe didn't top my stew list, I was so proud of "trying" parsnips that I bragged to my father about it. "What did it taste like," he asked a bit bewildered. I had no idea. Like most veggies in a stew, once they've been stewed it's pretty difficult to determine the individual tastes. Rats. I would have to try again.

Two nights ago I was making one of my favorite recipes of my mother's which is a sausage and tortellini soup. It calls for 2 carrots. I did not, however, have 2 good looking carrots. While I was mulling over this dilemma in front of my fridge, I happened to look down and spot the remaining parsnips from the stew recipe. They looked like a carrot, but how would they taste? Should I be brave and substitute one of my carrots for it's paler cousin? This could possibly ruin a soup that I had been craving all day. Squaring my shoulders, I pulled it out of the fridge and began chopping. About this time, one of my three year olds wanders in and wants to see what I'm doing. "What's that white thing?" my daughter asks. "It's a parsnip," I reply. "Is is good?" she questions. Well, since I have been taking a stand for healthier food, I have really been striving to set a good example for my kids. I could also, not in good conscience, lie to her. "Let's try it together," I reply to that sweet, curious face. The gauntlet had been thrown. I set aside my knife and bravely picked up two of the smallest chopped pieces. I handed one to her and popped the other in my mouth. After a couple of seconds she looks at my and says, "It tastes just like a carrot," hops off her chair and resumes playing. While I didn't think it tasted quite like a carrot (a little more tangy), I was very pleasantly surprised. I had actually stumbled upon another vegetable that I actually liked! It looked like this adventure into trying new things wouldn't be so horrible after all. Leave it to a 3 year old to, yet again, show you the way. Thank you lord for my precious babies and the lessons they teach me each day!

It's been a while!

Looking at my first entry, I see it's been well over a week since I have last blogged and figured it was time for another update. A few things have happened since the beginning of January. First, I have decided to rent a booth this fall during our town's local fall festival and sell some of my homemade goods. I believe I have talked my sister into going into "business" with me for that venture. I have spent quite a bit of time creating a list of inventory that I will need to get busy making! September will be here before I know it, I'm sure.

The second item of notice is that after being on a waiting list with a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, my name is finally up and I have been offered the opportunity to purchase a plot for the upcoming growing season. This will allow me a portion of the farm's produce over the growing season (24 weeks), in addition to requiring me to work at the farm for a couple of "shifts." I thought this would be a great way to get fresh and locally grown fruits and veggies, as well as a great way to learn the ropes about growing my own vegetation at some point in the future. We'll see how it goes. I have much to learn!

Finally, in my quest for a healthier life, I am in the process of creating a website to showcase and sell my homemade creations. The name of my new company is X2Creations and I hope to have at least a cover page up in another week. I'll keep you posted on the domain name! It's very exciting and will give me a chance to beef up my family financially, as well as create some teaching moments for my kids. After all, if they see Mommy working toward a goal and either achieving it, or handling setbacks, valuable lessons should be learned. We'll see how that goes!

Thanks again for reading and I'll keep everyone updated with the upcoming website!