My 1st Thanksgiving

I have decided if I can get a post a week, I am doing good.  Life is busy with a 4 month old!  Who would have thought!  By the way...look at how cute baby a is at 4 months...

I know..She is super cute! :)

So...Wednesday night I will be hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner.  I am not going to lie I am excited, terrified and have no idea what I am doing.  Not only do I not know what I am doing, this was sprung on me at the last minute (last night).  So I will update this weekend on how it all goes.  I decided I would do everything different than everyone is use to...that way no one can compare me to how everyone else does it! This could be a complete disaster or I could be winning! :) Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy all you have to be thankful for!  I know we are blessed beyond words!

Maybe I love soup?

Okay, so maybe I have found a new love...soup? I have another soup recipe. White Chicken Chili. I first had this at Ruby Tuesday like 4 years ago. I really liked it but didn't think much more about it until about a month ago. I decided to try my hand at it so I scrounged the internet trying to find the perfect recipe. I found many recipes that I liked and combined them together. One I liked called for can beans and one called for "real" beans. I decided I liked the idea of "real" beans. The night I went to cook the soup I had remembered it said it took 30-45 minutes to cook. If you know anything about "real" beans, you know they take a lot longer than 30-45 minutes to cook. After a panic call to my mom and 2-3 hours later, we had our white chicken chili and it was great! The recipe below will be the "canned" version. I made this version this week and it is just as good! (and so much quicker!) Also, this makes a large pot. Great for leftovers. Did I just say that?

Creamy White Chicken Chili

Adapted from many yummy recipes

• 3 large chicken breast, butterflied and then cubed
• 1 medium to large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed
• 32 ounces chicken broth/stock
• 2 cans (7 oz) green chilies
• 3 jalapeno peppers, seeded, cleaned and diced
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

In a large saucepan or dutch oven, saute the chicken, onion, jalapeno and garlic in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add the beans, broth, chilies and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. (maybe a little longer. test the beans.)

Remove from the heat; stir in sour cream and heavy cream.

enjoy! :)

This is great with mexican cornbread! Also, I promise to start thinking about taking pictures of all these great recipes!

The Best Soup Ever...Seriously

I am not a huge soup fan. I mean, I like it, but a lot of times, I don't love it. And as we have previously established, I do not like leftovers. So leftover soup to me is...well...ick. Until I came across this recipe. This soup has changed my view on soup forever. I made this on Wednesday and we were having it for leftovers on Thursday as well. Wednesday night I went to bed excited that we would have the leftover soup the next day. Thursday morning I woke up thinking about the soup. All day I could not wait for Mr J to get home so we could have the soup. So I thought I needed to share this recipe

Italian Sausage Soup with Tortellini

(adapted from Allrecipes.com)

• 1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (we love to keep the vampires away!)
• 6 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup red wine...must use this! Do not substitute!
• 1 Jar canned tomates (These were from my mother-in-law, but you could totally use chopped or diced canned tomatoes. I would use the larger size can. Also you could use real tomatoes. That is what the orginal recipe called for, but you were to peel, seed and chop. That was too much work! :) )
• 1/2 bag of "match stick" carrots. (You could chop your own, but that is more work!)
• A large dose of Italian Seasoning. (I probably used one to two tablespoons. I didn't measure. Just eye-balled)
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 2 decent size zucchini, sliced
• 1 bag frozen tortellini pasta
• 
  

1. In a 5 quart Dutch oven, brown sausage. Remove sausage and drain, reserving 2 tablespoon of the drippings. (I just reserved all in the pan...oops)
2. Saute onions and garlic in drippings (Seriously, if you do not have the pampered chef garlic press, hit me up and we will get you one ordered. It will forever change your views on fresh garlic!).
3. Stir in beef broth, water, wine, tomatoes, italian seasoning, tomato sauce, and sausage. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.
4. Skim fat from the soup. This is kind of difficult, but you need to do it. Stir in zucchini and carrots. Simmer covered for 30 minutes to an hour. Add tortellini during the last 10 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese on top of each serving.

Enjoy!

Let me know if you thought this was as good as we did! This will be around all winter in this house!

Cash Budgeting...Why it works for us

Budget...this word alone makes me cringe.

Mr J and I have recently started a cash budget. I dreaded every moment of it, but actually I have come to love it! We have saved so much money in the last month just by using cash! I thought this would be hard for us as we NEVER had cash on us before. But instead for me it has became a game and I do not impulse buy near as much anymore! (Don't get me wrong, I still buy a few impulse items every now and then) We have a set amount that we can spend on groceries, gas, clothes, entertainment, eating out, etc each week. I came home from grocery shopping today wondering why in the world we spent so much on groceries before. I believe it has to do with impulse buying. Take today for example. This week for my lunch I bought bologna (not because it is cheap...which it isn't anymore, almost $4, but I wanted bologna). I had bologna and bread on my list but did not have chips. But I really wanted chips. So, I add the prices of my groceries up as I go along and I told myself if we were well under budget I could get my chips. And we were, so I did. Before I would have just bought the chips and probably 30 other things that "looked" good but were not on my planned out list. This sounds like you are being deprived, but I promise you will not be. (I also got brownies and a magazine, that were not on my list, but we were so under budget so I could! And still came in under budget!!) Grocery shopping on a cash budget is more work, but it has become such a game and I love it. Not to add that we are saving major money to put towards a bigger house! I invite you to join us in using a cash budget and see the money build up faster in your savings!

In a funk and lessons learned from a 28 day baby

I am seriously the worst blogger in blogging history! The last month I have been in a "funk". I have had a lot on my mind and a very heavy heart. We have been blessed to get to experience a journey with some precious people and see God work in truly amazing ways over the past month. A sweet sweet girl that I know from childhood, Sara, and her husband Troy have been through the most emotional month. Their sweet baby boy, Justice, was born on September 30th with a heart defect. Little Justice lived for only 28 days before God healed him and called him home, but little Justice did more in those 28 days than I have done in almost 26 years for God. This has really shaken me. It has shown me that my walk has been lacking here lately. I would like to blame it on many things, but really, there are no excuses. God should always be top priority but many times we push him to the back burner.

Any free moment during the day I was checking up on little Justice. Every time there was a new post from Troy or Sara I would be completely amazed by their strength and encouragement for others. They were facing the possibility of losing their child and they were busy spreading God's love and word! Would I be this strong in my faith in their situation? Little Justice fought hard for God. He spent his 28 days on earth poked and prodded on but he also spent those 28 days bringing together over 3300 people to fall on their face and to speak to the creator of the universe. I know that every minute of the day I was thinking about the Perry family and praying that God would miraculously heal little Justice. I spent more time in the word in the last 28 days than I have in the last couple of months. God truly used this little guy to do great things and bring glory and honor to His name. My constant prayer in the last month has been based off of Romans 14:8. Whether I live or die, may it be for the Lord. Also, how comforting to know no matter what, we are His!

"For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's." Romans 14:7-8

Thank you Perry Family and Little Justice for allowing us to be along with you on this journey!