Adventures in Eating--Linguine!

Eating around our house is always an adventure--especially when I am trying to tweek the way we normally eat something, and make it healthier! Today I had been reading about increasing fiber in pasta meals, so a little while before lunch I employed the "Stand and Stare" method of meal planning and thought "PASTA!". You know the method--I can't be the only one who uses it, because I actually read about this method of planning on another blog. So I "KNOW" I am not alone. There is at least one other like me "out there"! You stand in front of your cupboard and refridgerator and see what ingredients just seem to go together.

Today, I started with a 13 ounce box of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest whole wheat linguine. Got the water boiling on the stove and put it in to cook.

Meanwhile, I opened and rinsed two cans of Great Northern Beans, throwing them into a large bowl. Next came a can of black olives, which I decided to slice so they would be spread throughout the dish better. We have lots of fresh garden tomatoes currently, so around 10-12 romas were chopped and added in.

Last step was to make a pesto sauce using fresh basil from the garden. The only change I do in my pesto recipe is I only use 1 Tablespoon olive oil, instead of the 1/4 c. olive oil that the recipe originally called for. I know olive oil is a good type of fat, but it still adds quite a bit of fat to recipes and today I was trying to add in more fiber, not fat! I have found 1 Tablespoon seems to still be enough to spread around and keep my pasta from sticking in one clump--and the pesto still has some water, lemon juice, and walnuts blended up in it, so there is other moisture.

The food may look kind of funny if you are used to pasta with NOTHING mixed in, but honestly, the only word to describe this new dish is YUMMY! Both kids had numerous servings of it, and I think they would have finished it all off except I finally took the bowl off the table because I wanted some leftovers for tomorrow! There were only four of us eating it, and the bowl size is a huge one!

Needless to say, I will definately be making this recipe again! Which means I need to write it down in my cook book before I forget what I put in it! (But at least now I can always go back and look it up here!)

Pesto Sauce:
1/2 c. walnuts
1/4 c. olive oil (I use 1 T. and then fill the rest in with water)
1/3 c. water
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/2 c. fresh basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. salt

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups.

Vacation Bible School!

This past week our family was involved in helping run the Vacation Bible School at our church--hense the long silence on my blog site! Too busy doing other things! But now that it's over, I've been thinking about how everything worked together for this one important week. For a whole year in advance, planning was taking place. And during the actual program week itself, there were still people in the background that most kids never even knew were contributing to the smooth operation of VBS. This picture shows my son Austin and his friend Jonathan--helping out with running the sound booth.

Games were planned for each specific age group--thought was put into abilities and talents of each group. Here is Alison, a willing participant in the "Pass the Toilet Paper" game! It may LOOK simple, but you try and get a bunch of six year olds to stand still so the toilet paper doesn't break! If it broke, each line had to start it over again from the front.

Yummy snacks were provided each night. Popsickles are fun on a hot summer evening! Alison and her friend Joey were certainally enjoying theirs!

Mitch was in charge of the Science stop each evening. Wonderous formulas were demonstrated and even tried by the kids themselves.

And there are exciting things that happen with chemistry when we mix stuff together!

VBS is just so exciting, Alison doesn't look like she can even stand all the excitement!!!

There is another Vacation Bible School that is coming up soon. Great preparations have been taking place, years in advance, to make sure that everything is perfect.

"I'm going home to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, you can be sure that I'll come back to take you home with me, so you can be with me forever." John 14:2&3

The most delicious snacks will be served there--ones made especially for us!

"From the throne the water gently flowed through the city, and in the middle of the city stood the Tree of Life, spanning the river with half its trunk on either side. I was told that the tree bore twelve kinds of fruit a year, one new fruit every month, and that its fruit and leaves were for the nurture of God's people" Revelation 22:2

And the best thing is that this Vacation Bible School will not end after a week. We will live in that wonderous place forever--learning new things and constantly seeing more and more of God's love for us.

"They will see God and look into His face as little children look trustingly into the face of a loving father. They will have the Father's name to show that they are part of His family. There will be no night there, so they will not need light from a lamp or from the sun, for the Lord God will be the light of the city. And His people will rule the universe with Him throughout the ages of eternity." Revelation 22:4&5

There is no limit on the number of people who are invited. There is room for all who desire to attend.

"The Holy Spirit and the beautiful city are saying, "Come!" Whoever accepts the messages in this book, let him say, "Come!" Everyone who is thirsty may come and freely drink of the Water of Life." Revelation 22:17

It's just going to be so exciting--I can't wait!

Kids in the Kitchen Monday--Applesauce Cupcakes!

O.K., so Monday brings us to another "Kids in the Kitchen" day. Only this week, I was so busy with other things that it didn't happen until Tuesday! Big brother Austin is at camp this week, and Alison was VERY quick to ask if she could take over his Monday lunch meal. She is anxious to do more and more in the kitchen. Note the hair decorations on our lovely kitchen assistant. When she came out of the bathroom this morning, my husband took one look at her and asked me "Are you going to take her out in PUBLIC like that???!!!" To which I replied, "Why not?" I mean, if ONE butterfly barrette is good, isn't NINE butterfly barrettes that much better?

Photos show our kitchen assistant mixing up her soon-to-be-famous Applesauce Cupcakes. Original recipe came from a kid's cookbook her great aunt gave her, but let's just say it was changed a bit in the process. Alison started out reading the recipe out loud to me. "Eggs. Well, we don't use eggs. So we will just leave them out!" To which I promptly told her that if we left them out, we needed to substitute something in their place. I know eggs have some very good nutrition in them, but unfortunately I can't eat them due to cholesterol, so I will replace them with 1 Tablespoon of corn starch plus 1/4 cup of water. So those were replaced. White flour was replaced with whole wheat flour. When reading the recipe which said "1 cup sugar" I remarked that one cup of sugar was a lot--so Alison said "let's just put in 1/2 cup!" I figured, why not? So the recipe substitutions went on. One half cup of butter was replaced with 1/4 cup olive oil. I have absolutely no idea what the REAL recipe would taste like, probably not really like our finished product, but I have to say we all thought the cupcakes Alison made today were SCRUMPTIOUS! Of course, I did catch her just in time to prevent her from putting in 1/2 cup of baking soda--recipe read 1/2 tsp., and Alison caught the 1/2 part and thought she had the right measurement. I don't think we would have been able to eat them if she had put 1/2 cup of soda in!!!!

We choose to make them in the mini-muffin sized tins. They just seem more fun that way. Besides, you can eat more!

Taste testing is always the best part! Well, if they taste GOOD it's the best part, anyway!

Alison rounded out her meal with corn on the cob which she enthusastically shucked herself, as well as some vegeterian baked beans. We also had some fresh peaches from Georgia and cool whip on top. Yum! Can't wait for tomorrow's leftovers!

Alison's Applesauce Cupcakes

Blend together:

1/4 c. olive oil

1/2 c. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

1/2 c. water

In separate bowl stir together:

1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. coriander

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Add dry ingredients to wet, along with 1 c. applesauce, mixing well.

Bake in preheated oven at 3:50

Mini muffin tins took 25 minutes--full size tins would take a bit longer.

Enjoy!

New Creation

As often as possible, I love to raise butterflies as a homeschool project. O.K., so I really do it as a homeschool MOM project, as I love watching them at all stages in their development! The connections between them and our own spiritual life are so strong. Nature really will speak to us, if we will only listen. This photo shows two different chrysalis--one has hatched out and become a butterfly already, while the second is still developing. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the butterfly never comes out of the chrysalis stage. God offers to all of us the possibility of a new life--but we have to accept His offer. He won't force His gift on us. We must accept it, and only then will we be made new. Our old, ugly sinful life will be covered up wth Jesus' blood, and we will be given His righteousness instead.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!"

2 Corinthians 5:17

But even though we may have accepted God's gift, that does not mean that we are with no danger. Things of this world abound that will take our focus off of God and put it on ourselves. We make gods out of us--but we are powerless to save.

" Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8

"Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." 1 Peter 5:9

Praise God, we are not left without One who saves us!

(Just for the record, no, my cat Pumpkin is NOT allowed up on the table! But obviously, he does not obey the rules! Satan does not play by the rules either--he will try and get us when we are the most tired and discouraged.)

Jesus lowered Himself down to this sin-filled earth, leaving the glory of heaven, so that He might save each one of us. We do not deserve His gift--but He loved us so much that He came anyway, even though we have no merits of our own. Nothing that in any way makes us qualified or deserving of this gift.

My daughter Alison loves to release the butterflies to their new life.

To watch them take off to live the beautiful life they were designed to live. No longer crawling, now they can FLY!

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. " Romans 6:4