Mom and Dad’s new house is across from some railroad tracks. I did a double take when I looked out the dining room window and saw their Adirondack chairs sitting across the street. While their new construction landscaping still consists of dirt, their chairs are happily planted on some grass with a budding tree promising to grant some shade in the near future. I can picture Dad sitting on his little piece of heaven and watching the world go by. Sunflower seeds will accompany him, of course.
I love you, Dad! I’d love to come join you there once the rain disappears.
You can bet that if we go to Mom and Dad’s house, there will be a bountiful supply of sunflower seeds on hand. Bailey was having a great time pulling them out of the bag and feeling them slip through her fingers. She hasn’t figured out how to crack them open, but sit around for any length of time and she may enlist your services to knack some zote for her. Don’t knock my spelling, Plautdietsch is a spoken language, so anytime I try to spell parts of it, it ends up looking like a jumbled phonetic mess.
Only within the last year have I started enjoying quiche. It just wasn’t really ever on my radar. Thanks, Jean, for pushing me in this direction!
Today I adapted a recipe from the Simply In Season Cookbook. You can pick it up at Ten Thousand Villages, and I highly recommend you do!
Spring Asparagus Quiche
9-inch pie crust
Roll out and gently press into pie or tart pan. Prick it profusely to avoid excess puffing. Don’t you like my recipe writing lingo? Put into a 375 degree oven to blind bake for about 15 minutes. Oh my, I am already speaking in vague Grandma cooking terms!
(Sometime I will share my favourite crust recipe, but use whatever you like. The filling is the star in a quiche, and even a lousy crust tastes good if the filling is good)
3 eggs
1 cup evaporated milk
(Instead I used a combination of whipping cream, half & half, milk, and water from steaming the asparagus: about 1/4 cup of each. This is less about being a culinary mastermind, and more about me wondering what in the world is evaporated milk anyway?)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Beat together and set aside.
1 1/2 cups asparagus, steamed and chopped
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup bacon, fried and crumbled
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
Mix together and combine with egg mixture.
Remove your crust from the oven, and turn your oven down to 350. Pour the filling into your partially baked crust. Be careful not to spill that precious filling all over the inside of your oven, and bake for another 30-35 minutes, or until it’s browned on top and the middle is set. If you have time to waste, let it sit for 15 minutes before you cut into it, otherwise just sit in and don’t berate yourself for pieces that aren’t perfectly smooth on the sides. It will still taste great.
Serve with a green salad. In our house the kids have the option of not eating salad because there’s green stuff in the quiche. Sneaky!
Pinterest. It’s amazing how one word can evoke such strong opinions in people. If you haven’t heard of it, Pinterest is essentially a virtual bulletin board. When you see something you like online, you “pin” its photo to one of your boards for easy reference.
When I first heard people buzzing about it online, it sounded like the most useless thing in the world. A few months later, when I was trying to find a recipe in my multitude of bookmarks, I started to think a photo pin-board might have some merit after all. I purposed to be very intentional about how I would organize my Pinterest boards, and determined my board topics before I even had an account. I try to not deviate from those topics, and only pin things I might actually do. This means I do not have a category for my dream 5000 square foot house with an ocean view. There is too much potential for this site to breed discontentment in my heart, and I am doing my best to use this site as a tool to help me, rather than allow it to make me unhappy with my reality. I have much to be thankful for and I won’t let all the pins of perfect homes, gourmet food, and toned rear-ends tell me that I am less-than.
With all that said, it’s a useless waste of time if all I do is browse Pinterest and pat myself on the back for feeling creative. So as a bit of an accountability thing, I’m going to occasionally post here with my take on a Pinterest project: aptly titled Pinterested. I know, I am so clever. Hopefully I’ll take on a few crafty projects in the future, but for today it’s all about food.
I love scones. I love dark chocolate. How can you go wrong with a Dark Chocolate Chunk Scone? These are so delicious! Use a good dark chocolate. That should go without saying, but I’m saying it. I used Camino 71% Bittersweet. Alright, enough preamble. Here’s the recipe. The original had a glaze, but I skipped that step. I was in no mood to wait around for them to cool so I could drizzle a glaze on. Just gimme the chocolate already!
Dark Chocolate Chunk Scones
Makes 16 small scones
(Adapted from Savory Sweet Life)
9 ounces (or approximately 2 cups) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small chunks
4 ounces dark chocolate, roughly chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the cold butter, and quickly rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers until the mixture resembles wet sand with a few small lumps of butter remaining. Add the chopped chocolate and toss to combine.
Meanwhile, whisk together the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract. Gradually add the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl, gently tossing with the flour and butter mixture. Add just enough of the wet ingredients to bring the dough together as you stir gently. You don’t want the dough to be too sticky.
Once the dough comes together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Shape the dough into a large disc, and cut the disc into four equal parts. Then, shape each quarter of the dough into a disc and cut it into four wedges. Place the wedges on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for about 15 minutes, until the tops of the scones are slightly golden. Transfer the scones to a wire rack to cool.
After a busy day of cleaning up the backyard, I had no plan for supper. Not to worry, it’s BBQ season! I asked Clay to pick up some hot dogs and buns, and we ate like the health conscious people you know us to be. After supper it was time for a little backyard fun with Daddy.
Wyatt was throwing the football here.
Bailey is waiting for the toss.
Deacon is hanging out on the deck with me, wishing he could get in on the action. After being sufficiently watered by the kids while he was hanging out on the lawn this afternoon, I figured it was time for him to stay clean and dry up on the deck.
Markus is busy trying to finish his supper so he can join in on the action.
Clay and Wyatt battle for the win!
I didn’t get any shots of Markus and Wyatt playing together. Between those two guys’ near collisions with every toss, and Bailey’s unsportsmanlike yelling, I was in stitches. These kids are hilarious! Life is good.
I considered myself to be a pretty good person. I worked hard, respected authority, went to church, didn’t sleep around, and didn’t get drunk. The worst of my teenage rebellion was seeing how fast I could drive my car. Or if you ask my mom, she might say the pinacle of my rebellion was the time she found me drinking a vodka cooler in my bedroom. No crazy partying involved, I was just curious what the fuss with alcohol was all about.
I was a good Christian girl who played by the rules. While my peers were busy partying and having sex, I looked at them with a healthy dose of righeous indignation and wondered why they were so immature. Didn’t they know they were on the road to destruction? I had answers. I was wise. I was on Jesus’ team. Of course I was. I was a good person. Why wouldn’t Jesus want me on his team? I was smart, that’s why I chose him.
Except that I didn’t choose him. He chose me.
I was dead in my sin.
Allow me to point out an obvious fact: Dead people don’t choose anything. They’re dead.
It takes the God of the universe – Jesus himself – to reach into death and bring us into life.
None of us deserve salvation. The prophet Isaiah tells us that our rightous acts are like a polluted garment. (Isaiah 64:6) The literal translation is actually menstrual rags. Gross? Yes, I’d say so. The good works I was priding myself on were seen by God as disgusting as a bloody tampon. The fact that I had lived my life devoted to Jesus was not a testimony of how smart I was, but a testimony of how faithful Jesus is. He protected me from my sinful nature. It wasn’t for my glory, but for his!
It was like a veil was lifted from my eyes. The truth of God’s grace, which I thought I had known since I was a child, shattered my world.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (Romans 3:10-11)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:1-5)
I knew these scriptures. I had memorized them as a child. But I did not understand them. I didn’t realize how offensive my sin was to God. I didn’t realize that my good works were a result of my own pride, a sin needing to be repented of like every sin.
It doesn’t matter if you play by the rules. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good person. There is one good person, and his name is Jesus. Through his mercy and grace he saves filthy sinners and transfers his perfect righteousness to our account. Our debt is paid in full by the blood of the spotless Lamb of God when he pulls us from death to life.
What a Saviour!
It’s here! My newest book that I don’t have time to read! A friend of ours was having a giveaway over on his blog, Bologna, I was the lucky winner. I am really looking forward to digging into this book, along with all the other books that I currently have cracked open, and all the others waiting in the queue.
I was never one to start books and leave them sitting while I picked up another. And another. Well, now I am one of those. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading lately.
Books I’ve actually finished:
Orange Jumpsuit: Letters to the God of Freedom by Tara Leigh Cobble, is a window into the life of a woman following God wherever he leads. It was riveting, and not at all predictable.
Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson, is a satirical look at the lives of North American Christians. He writes with cutting wit, and reading it is like watching a train wreck: it’s horrifying, but you can’t take your eyes off it.
Younger, Restlesser, Reformeder: A Good-Natured Roast by Ted Kluck and Zach Bartels, is another satire. What’s life if you can’t have a good laugh at your own expense? This was a much needed read for me. Life’s been hectic and this was a good bucket of cold water over my head to wake me up and help me to not take myself too seriously.
Open books:
Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian
Note To Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself by Joe Thorn
Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together by Mark & Grace Driscoll
The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick – And What We Can Do About It by Robyn O’Brien
Help for the Harried Homeschooler by Christine Field
In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences by Thomas Armstrong
Books waiting to be read:
Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler
Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity and the Things we Made Up by Francis Chan
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I’d say this should keep me busy for a good while.
Mom and Dad came to babysit this evening, which was met with uncontainable excitement from Markus, Wyatt, and Bailey. Deacon must have been excited too, since he was burning the midnight oil just so he could spend some extra time with them. He fussed and fussed with Grandma, so Grandpa took a turn and finally convinced him to sleep. He may have actually been wanting his Mama, but either way Grandpa got some good cuddle time in.
I keep hearing the idea of green smoothies buzzing around the internet. The idea being that you would blend green vegetables into a smoothie to make it more nutritious. I like the idea of boosting nutrition, but I’m not nuts about the idea of my fruity smoothie tasting like a salad.
This blog post from Passionate Homemaking popped up in my feed reader today, so I decided to finally give green smoothies a chance. My thrown together recipe included strawberries, Saskatoon berries, banana, grape juice, yogurt, honey, and field greens.
Wyatt loved it! The guy who typically turns his nose up at anything remotely leafy had three helpings!
I was not so convinced.
It really did have a bitter bite from the greens, but I suppose if the kids like it I will endure. They do the same for me, often. I’m thinking it would taste better as a popsicle in the summer, so I’ll throw that idea in my back pocket for later.
Do you make green smoothies? Any suggestions for a good recipe?
Your eyes speak more than words could say, even if you were able.
Big brothers and sister have all drifted off, and here you are, alone.
“Hold me,” you implore.
“Of course.” You know I’m willing.
So we sit. We rock. I hold you close, you lean in closer still.
Your heart to mine, our lives entwined, I’ll sear this memory deep within.
I love to hear you humming as you let the sleep come over you.
You finish with a simple, “Ma.”
Asleep. Precious baby, sleep.
The smell only a baby can bless the world with.
The sound of your breath. Rise and fall.
The softness of your velvet skin.
I’m taking it all in.
I’ll sear this memory deep within.
In this moment I understand.
Helpless, lonely, needing comfort,
That’s me. Helpless child.
And my heavenly father picks me up.
Holds me close.
And delights in the nearness of his child.
Lord, help me to remember my helplessness.
Sear this memory deep within.