Spur of the Moment Vegetable Soup

With cooler days upon us, and the business of football season, soups that I can throw together and leave in the crock-pot are my go to for our evening meals. 

 This soup is my absolute favorite vegetable soup in the world! 

 My dear mother-in-law used to make this quite often, and a simmering pot of this vegetable soup brings back many wonderful memories of her!  

She was an amazing cook!  Her family owned a restaurant, so she was princess of tasty home cooking (her mom was queen)!  Their diner was called "The Nifty" and was quite a hit in their small home town.  I cannot recall ever tasting anything she prepared that was not scrumptious!  I am so blessed to have learned many cooking tips from her!  This soup is the last meal she ever cooked.  My hubster and boys were blessed to enjoy the savory, satisfying lunch with her and my father-in-law. 

 I hope you enjoy this recipe and it becomes a go to for your family!

Sorry for the picture quality. Maybe you get the  gist of what it looks like.  We always eat  this soup with peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread.  Very yummy!!!

Spur of the Moment Vegetable Soup

1 c diced carrots
3 stalks diced celery (use the leaves for an awesome flavor addition)
1 lg onion diced
3 potatoes- cubed
1 can peas with juice
1 can green beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 c (+ or -) bacon grease
2 c beef broth
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring beef broth to a boil.  Add the carrots, celery, and onion.  Boil until tender.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer.  The longer you simmer, the tastier this soup becomes.
For the crock-pot, add all ingredients together.  Turn on low and simmer 4-6 hours.  You may have to add more beef broth, especially if you like more broth in your soup.

You can add alphabet pasta to this soup to add more texture and substance.  I also add corn if I have it on hand.  The sky is the limit!  This is a quick, healthy meal that is truly satisfying!

Enjoy!

Deliciousness

Do you love Pinterest?  I absolutely could waste hours exploring that site! 

Anyway, this week I found a picture of these delicious looking breakfast goodies.  I didn't bother to look at the recipe posted because really, how difficult can an omelet wrapped in bacon be?  

We tried these out, creating a recipe as we went.  They turned out wonderful!

Step 1: Wrap a slice of bacon in a muffin pan.  I used a stone (it is clean, just "seasoned") so there was no need to grease it.  If I were using a regular muffin pan, I would definitely grease it first.

Step two: Beat 8 eggs and 1/4 cup of milk in a bowl.  Add salt, pepper,  your choice of shredded cheese, minced onion, and anything else you enjoy in a normal omelet.

Step four:  Pour beaten eggs into bacon wrapped muffin pan.  Fill 2/3 full .  

Step 5: Bake at 400* for 20 minutes.  If using a regular muffin tin, decrease baking time by approximately 5 minutes.  Stones take a bit longer to bake. :)

Step 6: Remove from muffin tin immediately and serve.  This made one dozen  and only two of my boys  got to try them.  They had them eaten by the end of the day!  By the way, they re-warmed very well!

Happy cooking!  

Laundry Woes...sssssss

Ok, so I am trying to be thankful in everything, but I am having a bit of trouble with this one.

After a weekend away, hubster and I came home to find the timer on the washing machine had broken. Ok, no biggie, a bit inconvenient, but fixable. Hubster has spent the week looking for the best prices for a timer and last night hooked the broken timer back up so we can do a bit of laundry. We just set a timer to remind ourselves to go manually move the broken washer timer.

Today, after 2 days of doing no laundry, the boys and I get the laundry dumped and sorted and a load started. As I am waiting to turn the knob on the washer, I begin straightening the area around the washer and dryer. ( My "laundry room" is in our unfinished basement. )

As I was straightening the dryer, emptying the lint trap, etc. something above caught my eye. I like to call this a prompting from the Holy Spirit.

Look closely between the dryer vent and the cabinet.

And again extending over the top of the cabinet between the dryer vent and cabinet.

Yes, you are seeing correctly....it is a ginormous snake skin!!!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am out of here! No more laundry for me and I am very close to sticking a for sale sign in my front yard! Snakes terrify me. I don't have just a small fear of snakes, I am deathly afraid of them, so it is surprising I am even able to post this blog!

My day was all planned to catch up the laundry, and straighten the basement in the process. Well, not so much now!

Hubster and Ashton will be snake hunting tonight. Hopefully they find the monster that is evilly lurking in the dark recesses of my basement, or possibly curled up in all the dirty laundry.

Anyone have a great home remedy for catching snakes? Or want to volunteer their time to come on the Great Snake Hunt of 2012?

Pray we find the snake quickly and are able to extinguish the evil that is lurking in the house!

Today I am choosing to be thankful that I don't have to do any laundry! :) God must have a greater assignment for me.

Abundant August

August in our home is exhausting, but full of an abundance of blessings! 

 We have three birthdays, yes three!!! 

 The hubster's is first, 

followed by Chance who turned 17 this year... 

  

tucked in the middle of the birthdays, is our anniversary

                            

followed by Bryce who turned 15 (today)!

Football practice has started which keeps the boys busy four nights a week!

I coach the cheer leaders which is a huge blessing to me!
They are an absolute joy to work with!
We are busy working our routine for pep rally!
May I just say this is a wonderful group of ladies!  Their parents have done an amazing job raising them to be respectful, polite, hard working young gals!  I love each one of them!

Choir has started back and I am preparing for school to begin after Labor Day.
And all of this in the midst of life as usual...you know, the normal cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.
So between birthday pancakes and celebratory dinners, anniversary get a-ways, football and cheer practice, menus that utilize the crock pots, and every day living, August is abundantly exhausting: in a good way!

Life is good!  I am one blessed Momma! 

Gratefulness

Gratefulness-

adjective

1. Warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful.

2. expressing or actuated by gratitude

3. pleasing to the mind or senses; agreeable or welcome; refreshing

Gratefulness is expressing sincere appreciation to God and to others for the ways they have benefited my life. 

Today I am feeling that gratefulness needs to be my motto.  I awakened in the night with thoughts of gratefulness for different people and things in my life.  For me, it is very easy to see the many things to complain about, especially with an insanely busy week ahead.  Yet, I have a peace because of the many blessings in my life!

So....I am grateful today for

 being allowed a weekend away with my husband;

healthy, happy, children;

sunshine and cool breezes;

fresh fruit;

friends who are "God with skin on" to me-you know who you are :);

the ability to stay at home with my children while my hubby slaves away;

my garden;

books;

not having to mow the yard (due to the drought which I am not thankful for but there is still a blessing in it);

friends, friends, friends;

music;

ice water;

Ok, this list could go on and on.  I know a lot of the things I listed seem trivial, yet I feel these are the things often taken for granted.  

"In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1 Thes 5:18

This is a verse that God is continually teaching and working out in me.  It is very easy to give thanks when life is looking rosy, but not so much when you are on the down side of the mountaintop.  In everything...  This is my goal and a continual work in progress.  

Today....I choose gratefulness.

Being Intentional and tomato tip

Through the course of the first part of this year, God reminded me of how important it is to be intentional in our lives.  Today, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, The Vanilla Tulip, and Ashley was talking about how God had reminded her to be intentional in friendships. (If you've never read her blog, you are missing out on a blessing! www.thevanillatulip.com ) This is so very true!  Without my dear, sweet, "God with skin on" friends,  life would be a tragedy!  I am so thankful every day for these sweet gals who pour so much into my life and allow me to share in their joys and triumphs as well as their trials and sorrows.

Other areas I am striving to be intentional in are marriage, parenting, household management, exercise, and school with my kids.  Each one of these can so easily slip between the cracks of everyday life happening and before we know it, we have taken one step forward and two steps back.

In the household management category, the main thing I am being intentional about is making a menu and shopping accordingly.  As fall hits, this is going to be super important.  With school starting back, football and cheer beginning, practices until dark, a menu is imperative to avoid fast food, or sandwiches every night. I want my family to be well fed, therefore planning on my part is crucial!  Plus it saves me a lot of money!  I will share some ways to save money through menu planning sometime soon.

I want to share a lovely tip a dear friend shared with me.  Tomato season is upon us and the bugs and my dogs (yes, my dogs) like my tomatoes as much as I do.  My friend told me to pick them when they are just beginning to blush and bring them inside.  Wash them well.  Place a towel on the counter and lay them stem down on the towel.  Then cover with another towel.  This will encourage ripening.  What a super idea!!!  Now I get the tomatoes and not the dogs or the bugs!

Enjoy your day!

Kimber

Welcome!  I'm so excited you dropped by to spend a bit of time with me!  One of my goals for 2012 was to start a blog to chronicle events of our lives.  However, 2012 has been a year of many changes, some good, some requiring a new normal.  Mostly, through all the changes, God is teaching me to be intentional in many areas and to live life an inch at a time. Here I am, over half way through the year, and finally feeling like I can tackle a blog.  This has came after a lot of prayer and thought.  I wanted it to be done "just right" which I am learning that life does not come with a formula for "just right".  So....here goes!  

I have lots of ideas to share, but mostly my blog is for me.  I love, love, love to cook!  Mostly, I like to create and tweak recipes.  I cook from scratch and love to find ways to save money on my grocery bill.  Teenage boys eat a whole lot of food! :)   At first I wanted my blog to be about food and recipes, mostly so all my recipes would be in one spot and easy to find.  However, there are a plethora of recipe only blogs out there, so what would make mine worth reading?

  My goal has changed in content.  As I was spending my time with the Lord this morning and writing in my journal, I came across this quote from Oswald Chambers. (If you have never read Oswald Chamber's works, you are missing out!)  

"We are not meant to be seen as God's perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary lives exhibiting the miracle of His grace."

Oswald Chambers

That was it!  I had been agonizing over a name for my blog for several days, tossing around ideas with my hubby and boys and nothing had "clicked", that is until I read this quote.  I am the everyday essence of ordinary and most definitely a testimony of the miracle of His grace!  If you don't know about this grace I am referring to, I would be glad to explain it to you!  Just leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

So stop by often (or follow me) to find out the happenings in the everyday essence of ordinary around my home.  Oh, and I will be sharing recipes and ideas for saving money!  :)

May your day be blessed abundantly!

Kimber