Working!

I started working full-time a week from yesterday!! Yay! I am LOVING it. This job fits me perfectly. As a result of working, I have failed to update my blog in way too long. I am sorry (not that there are that many people out there that read this...still, I don't even like that it's been as long as it has). I am working on setting up/organizing/decorating my office so pictures will be coming soon of my office!

Last week, I was craving banana pudding so I made some :) Most recipes have vanilla pudding mix as an ingredient and vanilla pudding mix has milk in it. So, I used the recipe on the back of our Vanilla Wafer bag. The only dairy it called for was milk and I had some soy milk. My pudding was delicious! I cut the recipe in half to make 3-4 servings. I layered banana slices and vanilla wafers on the bottom of the dish and poured the pudding on top. I topped it off with cubes of banana and crushed vanilla wafers. It was so good!!

Last night for dinner I made a mini pizza. We had crusts at home so I made one for dinner last night and one for lunch today. I put tomato sauce, mozz cheese, pepperoni, jalapenos, and some cheddar cheese. I also sprinkled it with a little garlic powder to add some extra flavor. It turned out great! Now that I am working full time I can tell that it is going to be harder to cook when I get home...but I look forward to the challenge!

Thanksgiving is next week! I hope to help my grandmother cook Thanksgiving dinner so I'll probably have some good cooking stories after that. I know I am for sure making a Peanut Streusel Pie which I'm really excited about!! :) I'll share the recipe soon.

Soy Products

       I am trying very hard to stick to soy products to prevent the hives that come with dairy products. As I set out on my domestic journey, I am replacing any dairy product in a recipe with soy. Sometimes this is difficult to do and sometimes it is easy. Yesterday morning I made muffins for breakfast. I just used the mix that you add 1/2 cup milk too. So, I used soy milk. The muffins have a slightly different taste, but they are still good. I was satisfied. Last night, I made chicken enchiladas. I used soy sour cream and soy cheddar cheese in the recipe. I couldn't use cream of chicken soup to make the sour cream sauce so I had to improvise and make my own sauce with flour, chicken broth, chili powder, and cumin. It was okay for my first try. By itself, it had no flavor but with the chicken, onion, chiles, and salsa it was pretty great. Later last night I was craving a shake. I put my soy mint chocolate chip ice cream and some soy milk in a blender. It was good too!

        Tuesday night mom made Monte Cristo sandwiches. We alternate cooking sometimes. Tuesday I was out holding signs for my uncle's campaign, so mom cooked our sandwiches so it could be ready when I got home. She used soy milk in the egg/milk mixture for the bread and she used soy swiss cheese. There was NO taste difference in this dish. Chandler was even home with us and ate a sandwich. We didn't tell him until afterwards that we used soy products :) I know, that's probably kind of evil, but he wouldn't have eaten it if we told him before. He enjoyed the sandwich and only complained a little bit when we told him, not because it tasted weird, but just to complain! :)
      
        I've concluded that dairy products in any recipe (at least that I've tried so far) can be replaced with soy products. There might be a slight taste change or the cheese might not melt quite right, but for the most part, my life with soy is easy and enjoyable.

So Refreshing

       This weekend was wonderfully refreshing! I stayed in Conway Friday after staff meeting to have a sleepover with Allie!! Friday afternoon I just hung out at the Riners' while Allie had appointments with some students. That afternoon was very refreshing for me. I sat on the Riners' back porch which is one of my fave places ever. It's so peaceful and has a beautiful view. I spent time with God while being in the middle of His creation. It was glorious. I chose Search for Significance for my next book. The copy I have has a workbook in the back with some great thought-provoking questions for each chapter. Friday afternoon, I started this book and I think I'm really going to like it!
      Friday night, Allie and I went to MarketPlace with Kelsey :) love both of these girls! Dinner at MarketPlace was delish. After dinner we just laid around the house, watched TV, and Allie and I went to bed early so we could get lots of sleep. Saturday morning we went to breakfast together and then came back to the Riners'. We made some coffee and went to the back porch to spend some time with God. Another great period of time with God in His creation!! After that, we got ready and went tailgating at UCA Homecoming. After tailgating, watching the crowning, and hanging out, we went back to the Riners' to hang out and watch the rest of the game on TV. Saturday night, we went over to Adam and Merritt Hambrick's to play board games with a bunch of people. Let's just say I'm not that great at Battle of the Sexes or Trivial Pursuit but I definitely have fun with them! :)
      This weekend was one of the best I've had recently. I got to relax, hang out with some incredible people, be in a different place, and spend some wonderful time with my Maker. I love times like these. I hope that your weekend was also wonderful! If you don't go outside very often to spend time with God, I encourage you to try it. There is something about being in His creation while spending time with Him that makes that time extra sweet.

                                                Tailgating!

New Face

As you can tell, I have a new face to my blog!! This is much more me, from the print to the colors! I hope you like it, because I LOVE it :) Giraffe print is my favorite. Enjoy the new background and keep in touch.

The God You Can Know

I haven't had the chance to cook in a few days. Mom and I have been super busy lately. I've had quite a few night support appts and other plans so cooking has gone out the window. However, I wanted to update my blog so I'm going in a different direction today. I said in my "about me" section that I wanted to become more disciplined this year as well. So, I am going to be doing some blog posts about my attempt at discipline by including books I read for personal and spiritual development, exercises I try out (these will probably be few and far between but I'm trying!), and other steps I take towards discipline.

Yesterday, I finished the book The God You Can Know by Dan Dehaan. It was a great book! It's an easy read but it has some great points about God that I needed to read again. The last few chapters had incredible facts in them that hit me at the perfect time and were perfectly relatable to stuff going on in my life right now. One chapter talked a lot about God as our Father. For me, God as my Father has always been an attribute I cling to and I have truly always thought of Him as my Father. Reading that chapter again was just so great. The fact that God chose me to be His child and proclaim His name continues to blow me away. The author suggested reading John and noticing every time that Christ mentions God as Father. So, now I am reading John in my personal times with God and I am loving paying attention to that one word: Father. I still can't believe He chose me!

This week, I am starting Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes. I LOVE this book! I read it at Kaleo in 2009 but I am reading it again. One of my great friends, Alison Chapman, is living in India for a year and we are going to read this together and discuss it weekly on Skype. (sidenote-Skype is the best thing ever! It makes it easier for some of my best friends to live in India because I can still see their face when we talk!) I'm excited to read this book again at a different stage of life and learn new things from it.

I have quite a few other "to-reads" on my shelf. I haven't decided which one I am going to start next. The books in the debate are Discipline Yourself for Godliness by John Barnett (incredible man of God, writer, speaker, etc), Search for Significance by Robert McGee, and He Loves Me! by Wayne Jacobsen. If you have read any of these and would suggest it be the next book I read, let me know!

I'm excited to include this topic on my blog as well. I would love to hear back from you on areas you are disciplined in and how you became more disciplined. I truly am excited to grow this year in this area!

Cheesecake, Meatballs, and Pizza

My first 3 attempted food items have been a success!! This is so fun :) 

The Mocha Chocolate Cheesecake isn't the best cheesecake I've ever had, but it's good for my first one! The recipe is on www.allrecipes.com if you want to try it out. I made coffee and used it instead of the coffee liqueur that the recipe calls for. If you do this also, you will need to put in more coffee than it calls for or you won't be able to taste the coffee flavor. I also think I should have left it in the oven a little longer than an hour for it to settle a little more because it "fell" a lot when I let it cool. Overall, it looks pretty and it tastes pretty delicious :)

Dinner on Thursday was a dish I saw on FoodNetwork on the Rachael Ray show. It's Mozzarella Stuffed Sausage Balls, Tomato-Basil Sauce, Cacio e Pepe Potatoes and Roasted Broccolini. (www.foodnetwork.com for the recipe). This meal is so easy to cook! Rachael Ray did it on her 30 minute meals show but I was hesitant to think I could do it that quickly because I'm just not as good as her. Haha. However, I started cooking and had the meal on my plate in 35 minutes! And it looked just like hers did on the show! It tasted great too! Well, our ordinary Kroger didn't have broccolini so I just went with broccoli. It was still good! I like it baked much better than steamed. I substituted the bocconcini mozzarella for Mozzarella Veggie Slices. Because of my allergy to milk, I use as many soy products as possible. They taste just the same! I cut the recipe in half and still had plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day. This is a well-balanced meal and it's so easy to make!

Today while watching the Hogs game (we're doing so much better today!) my stomach was growling. I was going to go to the kitchen and just heat up leftovers. But, "football" food sounded so much better! I looked through my fridge and pantry to see what I could put together. I decided to make a Pesto Pizza! I had some pesto leftover from Thursday's dinner (it was in the tomato-basil sauce) so I spread that on a whole-grain tortilla. I spread a little bit of olive oil on top of that. Then I added some veggies I had in the fridge - mushrooms and bell peppers. I ran out of shredded Mozzarella so I just cut my veggie slices into slivers and laid those on top. I cooked it for about 9 minutes on 350* and it turned out so good! It was a healthy, delicious alternative to normally greasy pizza you order for football games. Loved it!

I am loving this creative new food venture I'm going on :) Tonight I'm cooking an Indian dish - Tandoori Chicken. I will let you know how that one turns out too. If you have any recipes you love, I'd love to hear about them and try them out! If you have any questions about these recipes, feel free to ask! 

Enjoy your Saturday! I'm going to watch the rest of the Hogs game! We better not blow it in the second half like we have ALL of our other games.

Idea behind this blog

I'm excited to start this blog! As I venture out into life in the real world (a real job, a budget, cooking, etc), I think it will be fun to record my journey. My goal during this year is to learn how to cook, become more disciplined, be hospitable, decorate my place, and learn how to live as an adult. In this blog I will probably post successes and failures of this process. I'll post recipes I tried, pictures of decorations and maybe meals that turned out pretty, and other events of life in the real world.

I actually just got home from the grocery store with items for this week's menu. Let me just say it took me way too long at the store. First of all, the new Kroger Marketplace is ridiculously huge. Secondly, I don't go to the store often so it took me a while to find some things. However, I am successfully home and excited about my meals this week! 

I'm heading to the kitchen to start my first recipe: Mocha Chocolate Cheesecake. Yum! I'll let you know how it turns out!