Soup and bread to share

I signed up last fall for my church's meal providers list. This means that I'm kind of on-call to prepare and deliver a meal to families in need in my area. I didn't have any meal requests at all until last month. But since then, I've been busy preparing meals.

The latest request was for a family with a newborn, and I tried out a couple of new recipes. That might sound a little risky since I was preparing food for people that I just met for the first time when I delivered the meal on Saturday evening. But I guess I could be considered adventurous in the kitchen, and I'm thankful to the Lord that the recipes turned out well.

I made Vegetable Beef Soup with Barley and Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread. Both are low in fat and high in fiber, and really tasty, if I do say so myself. The soup was adapted from a recipe on the side of a box of Quaker Barley, and the bread was adapted from the Quaker Oats Favorite Recipe Collection book.

Vegetable Beef Soup with Barley
1 lb. lean ground beef
2 cups chopped onion
8 tsp. minced garlic
14 cups water
28 oz. diced tomatoes
1 cup medium barley, uncooked
2 cups sliced celery
2 cups sliced carrots
2 Tbsp. dried beef base
2 tsp. dried basil
3 bay leaves
16-oz. frozen green beans

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef; add and saute onions, and then garlic. Add remaining ingredients except frozen green beans. Cover; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Add frozen vegetables and cook about 10 minutes until tender. Add more water if the soup is too thick at this point. (Makes 6 quarts.)

Oatmeal Carrot Cake Bread
2 cups oatmeal (quick or old-fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup skim milk
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup shredded coconut
20-oz. can crushed pineapple (minus 1/2 cup of the juice)
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla

In a medium bowl, combine the oats and milk; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine other dry ingredients; mix well. Stir in carrots and coconut.

Add pineapple and juice (minus the 1/2 cup), eggs, oil, and vanilla to oat mixture; mix well. Add to dry ingredients all at once and stir just until moistened.

Pour into two greased 9x5-inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan, and then remove to cool on wire rack.

Appropriate Scripture for Today's Post

I just updated the Fighter Verse (Scripture memory) portion of my site with the current memory portion that I'm doing with my church, and I just realized how appropriate it is to what I just wrote today about my fears and my shame, and the Lord's deliverance and promise to make our faces radiant when we look to Him.

Psalm 34:4-5
I sought the LORD, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.

Thank you, Lord!

Spring Cleaning

I think I've had a case of spring fever over the past couple of weeks. Thankfully, the weather last weekend and this week has made it possible (finally) to enjoy walking outside again with our dog. It feels so good to breathe the fresh air and be able to enjoy each other's companionship during exercise again, after months and months of working out on the treadmill and in front of the TV screen with exercise videos.

I've also been reaping the benefits of spring fever's close cousin, the cleaning bug. I don't really like to clean. I know some who actually do like to clean, but not me. For me, it's a necessity, rather than a source of enjoyment, but the effects of it are satisfying, especially when they can be combined with the joy of giving to those with less than we have.

The pile of clothes in the photo with this post is one of the piles of clothing that we've given away in recent weeks. I thank the Lord that I finally had the emotional stamina to give away some of my old clothes that had been crowding my closet and the craft closet for years. I told my husband that they represent both dreams and nightmare--dreams of being small enough to wear the smaller clothes, and nightmares that I would ever be large enough to wear the bigger ones.

You see, I used to be morbidly obese. I was never bed-ridden, thank the Lord, and I was always able to be mobile, though anything more than a quarter mile would, back then, give me pains in my legs (shin splints). But back in 1997, something clicked in my mind (the work of the Lord), and I cried out to Him for help. He responded by giving me the drive to both start a regular walking program, and to also dramatically change my diet.

Almost overnight, I went from hiding food from my family (I was living with my parents back then) to sneaking food back to the kitchen that I didn't want to eat. I remember that first Christmas so well. My mother would generously give me a plate of her wonderful cookies and candies and a glass of eggnog to drink, and as soon as I was sure that she wouldn't see what I was doing, I would sneak back to the kitchen to carefully pour my eggnog back into the pitcher (it was homemade eggnog) and put my cookies back into the containers in which they had been stored...I didn't want to hurt her feelings, and I also didn't want to admit to anyone at that time that I was intent on losing weight. To let others know that I had been trying, but had failed, would have been too embarrassing to me at that time.

Anyway, that's part of my story. And that explains why I had been holding on to all of those clothes that don't fit. These days, I'm neither the heaviest nor the lightest I've been, but I am continuing to fight this battle against my flesh. And I would love to fit into those small clothes again, but my sweet husband (who has always told me that I'm beautiful as I am) has encouraged me to let go of clothes that don't fit right now. We can go to the thrift stores to buy "new" things when I need them. In the meantime, I pray that they will be a blessing to someone who wears that size right now.

Another Tennesee Orange Cake!

Well, the Tennessee Orange Cake has definitely become a popular recipe for me. My husband had to bring treats to a leaders meeting for his church, and when I asked what I should make for him to bring, this recipe came up again.

I do like trying new recipes, but it's hard to say no when someone wants something you've made in the past. Needless to say, he didn't come home with any leftovers, so I'm thankful that I didn't send the whole pan, but instead chose to set aside four pieces for us to enjoy afterward. (I cut the cake and sent a generous, large plateful to the meeting.) We're going to have the last two pieces tonight...Mmmmm. :-)

I have time to sew today!

Because we're a two-church family (we attend both together, and we each belong and serve in one of the two churches), it's a rare weekend when I have a Saturday morning to enjoy being home. But this is such a weekend, and I'm going to head up the sewing room soon.

Actually, it's not just a sewing room. It's also our guest room, my exercise room, and the home of my husband's closet (he graciously agreed to let me have the big double closet in our bedroom). But it's my sewing room this morning, and I'm anxious to get back there again.

First, I need to do some mending. There are pants to shorten, a pajama top to mend, a sweater hole to take care of, and then I think I'm free to do something creative again. I'll probably cut a backing for a tablerunner that I started just after New Year's this year. My sweet and thoughtful sister shared a pattern for what is called a "Scrappy Do Tablerunner." It's basically just squares of fabric scraps, but it was a really simple pattern to follow. I used pretty spring-like colors, primarily shades of pinks and roses, blues and greens, with the thought that this could either be a wedding gift or a decoration for a tea party table...I've always wanted to host a lady's tea at our house.

In any case, that's my plan this morning, but I thought I'd also use this post to share a sewing project that I made for a Christmas gift last year. It's a pieced and quilted lingerie bag, not the kind that you wash your delicates in, but the kind that you could use in a suitcase or a dresser drawer to keep silky or lacy things from becoming snagged. I made two of them, as I often do, thinking that I might need the other for another gift sometime, or I might just keep it for myself. If I do give it away, I think I'll need to make a couple more, so that I can keep one in the end.

Whatever you're doing today, I hope that you have a chance to do something that feels like play to you. For me, crafts and sewing feel like play...Thank you, Lord, for a quiet home Saturday morning!

Homemade Applesauce...the Easy Way

Another project this winter has been using apples from my father's apple tree. They were very small, so I didn't really want to take the time to peel and core each apple to make anything from them. But then I read that you could just wash and quarter them, and then use a food mill to separate out the peels and seed and stems, etc.

It worked really well! And I loved the way that the pretty red peels colored my applesauce. Now, when I look at the pale applesauce in the grocery store, it doesn't look nearly as appetizing to me as my homemade applesauce. does. I froze most if it in pint-sized freezer containers so that I can pull out a small container whenever I want some applesauce for baking or just to flavor nonfat plain yogurt for a treat at lunch. (Hint: This really tastes great with a sprinkle of granola on top!)

More from the Artisan bread book

I'm still having a lot of fun baking bread from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I made challah again earlier this month when we had friends join us after church on Saturday. I know that the bread was a success, because it disappeared really fast! I also made chicken soup, and one of our guests brought apple crisp for dessert. It was a really fun day, and one that we definitely want to do again soon!

Back again!...Sorry for the long silence.

Well, I can't believe that it's been so long since my last post on this blog. I'm almost tempted to start a different one, but I guess this is what I started, so I'm going to keep going here.

Long story short, I was busy with Christmas (lots of homemade gifts and extra cooking and baking), and I also have been busy off and on with a little extra work beyond my day job.

My husband's work has been slow since the economy has slowed down, and though he has more piano students now than ever before, the handyman work he's doing this week is the first he's had since last October. So when I was offered a free-lance editing job helping with a pastor's doctoral dissertation, I jumped at the opportunity to help a bit more with our family's income.

Originally, I had turned it down, in favor of suggesting another person we know who had been laid off and whose wife was expecting another baby. But that other person turned it down, for some reason, and the offer came back to me. And I've really been enjoying the project, especially since it can be confined to weekends, when I don't have such long days working and commuting to the city.

We ended up being paid most of what I'll earn for this free-lance job as a lump sum just before the end of the year, and since we've been managing on my ministry income and my husband's income from teaching piano, we set aside the lump sum in a new savings account just to use for auto repair and eventual replacement...God is so faithful to provide for all of our needs. We've been wanting to start an emergency auto account for quite some time now, but we didn't enough the money to do it until now. So, while we're both praying and asking the Lord to help our cars keep running as long as possible, we're thankful that He has given us some money now to cover some of the expense of repair or buying a new vehicle when that need is here.

In the meantime, I made many of our Christmas gifts, and I made more than a dozen Valentine cards recently to share with family and friends. And then, just this weekend I made some things for a friend who has a birthday this month. I need to put some of my photos on here, but right now I thought that I should just get off the block and write a new post for this poor little neglected blog before another day passes.

I'm sorry to my friends who checked here over the past few months and wondered what had happened to me. I'm especially sorry for my blogging friend Leslie who posted a comment on this blog back in November giving me the URL of her new blog. I really feel bad about not looking here and seeing that comment. But I'm so thankful that she's blogging again, and that I can read and catch up on her life again. I had missed reading your posts, Shorty. Thanks for sending me your URL.

Until next time...Lord willing, within the next week when I hope to write again.