Doing and Eating Well

We're still here, I promise. I've been posting on my other blog. The topics were just a little more adult than I wanted to post here. On a side note, I really like the looks on people's faces when they find out I have a blog. I really like it when they find out I have two blogs. And I Facebook. I'm cool like that. Anyway...

Hubby and the big girl went to a youth leadership conference this past weekend. They both said it was amazing. It was put together rather quickly by the Florida Conference. We did several quick fund raisers at church and were able to pay for motel rooms for everyone. There were five of our youth that went. The workshops were all done by youth from various churches. Hubby said it was quite good for as little time as they had to put it together. The band was rocking apparently. I really don't like missing a rocking band. I love live music. The band was part of a youth group from one of the churches. It inspired our kids to want to put together a praise band. We have several very talented musicians in our group, just no outlet. We would also need someone with musical ability to lead them, but that's another story for another time. The kids, and the adult chaperones, learned alot about listening to others. They will each present at least one thing they learned at all three of our services next Sunday. We are trying to show a bigger youth presence at church so the congregation knows they are there. It should be interesting.

There has been very good food rolling through this joint lately. I feel like I am finally out of my food rut that I had been in for most of the summer and part of the fall. It helps that I got a crock pot. I love my crock pot. I used to not like the food that was cooked in one, but either the recipes have gotten better, the pots have gotten better, or both. It helps to have tasty recipes. There are so many good sites out there for those.

I made an Italian Wedding Soup Sunday. I didn't make it in the crock pot, but here's the recipe. And as always, I tweaked it. I just cannot leave well enough alone. I got both recipes from Recipezaar. com. Once again, don't be intimidated by the amount of ingredients, you add a bunch at one time. The prep is what takes the most time anyway. The italics are the ingredients from the swcond recipe. Everything else was pretty much the same. Here we go:

Italian Wedding Soup

4 oz Italian sausage, casings removed or bulk
8 cups chicken stock
1 or 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 or 2 cups chopped escarole
1/4 cup diced onion
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
1 minced garlic clove
2 Tbls chopped red bell pepper
1 cup Italian pastina or orzo pasta
2 eggs, lighlty beaten
salt and pepper

In a large stock pot, brown the sausage, add garlic and onions when almost done. Add chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Add chicken and simmer for 15 or 20 minutes over low heat. Add escarole, bell pepper, salt, and pepper. Add orzo or pastina and cook until tender. In a small bowl, beat eggs lightly. Add slowly to soup until fine threads form. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand 20-30 minutes. Pour into bowls, and garnish with parmesan cheese. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

I didn't have escarole, but I did have Swiss chard. It was fantastic. You may have to add a little water or even more stock when cooking the pasta. It will soak up quite a bit. If you like yours a little soupier, you may want to add more stock or water anyway. It was quite thick. The chicken will cook qite well, but don't worry about one inch cubes. Mine was still partially frozen, so I just sliced it into chunks. I also used half a red bell pepper. I wasn't about to measure tablespoons of it. We ate it for 2 days until it was gone, gone, gone. It was so good on cold, chilly days.

The boy, the baby, and I sat around most of Saturday in our pajamas. We played the Wii until I thought our eyeballs would fall out. I popped some corn and we all decided that we wanted to watch Tinker Bell. I had never seen the very beginning. I didn't realize it until we watched it. We finally got out of the house about 4 o'clock, but only to go to the grocery store. We did get showers and brushed our teeth before we went.

Sunday was busy as usual. What happened to day of rest? Oh, yeah, that was Saturday. Hubby and the big girl got home, unpacked, ate lunch, and rested for about an hour or so. Then we went to a party for our friend, A. It was exactly one year since she had come home. She was adopted from Ethiopia and it was time to celebrate changes and home comings. She is such a beautiful girl, inside and out. Love her, love her, love her. Then we went to get hair cuts. Yeah, we walked out. They didn't even acknowledge that we had come in the door, so we left. Then off to youth. Hubby was so tired by the time we got home. I think his second and third wind were long gone by that time. We ate dinner, then I sent everyone off to bed. I spent a little quiet time and off to bed for me, too.

See, we're still here. And we're still boring. I need to get school started. I've run over my alotted time by 15 minutes. Now, I have to find somewhere to make that up.

Have a great day!