cooking marathon!! day two.

well, day two didn't go as well as i hoped as i was knocked out by a migraine. however, i did get a good bit done. what never ceases to amaze me is how much i can cook in so little time with about the same amount of effort as making dinner! so per becky's request, here is a breakdown of what i did with details added. :)

1. Cooked my chicken. I took four packages of chicken breasts and put them in a big pot of boiling water with some celery and onions for about 25 minutes.

2. While the chicken was cooking, I put my cooked beans in the crockpot with all the other ingredients to make refried beans.

3. Then, I assembled my big bowl of veggies (one bag frozen peas, two cans of corn, one bag of frozen green beans and some chopped carrots) and got out four gallon sized bags which I labeled (8x8 chicken pot pie 10/2009).

4. By this time, the chicken was done. I pulled out my food processor and chopped up the chicken the same way that you would slice a cucumber with the food processor. I LOVE this method of "shredding/chopping" chicken as it is fast!

5. Assembly of the pot pie filling was next. I mixed the broth, cream of chicken and chicken. Then I used my measuring 2 cup and put in the veggies and chicken into each bag. I actually mixed them together in the bag with it sealed. I let all the air out and stack them flat. When they sit in my freezer, I will actually store them upright like files (once they are frozen) so that I can easily flip through and see what I have.

6. I assembled the poppyseed chicken casseroles next in pretty much the same manor as the pot pies.

So at this point, I had 8 square casseroles made and frozen and two bags of 2 cups shredded chicken plus a bag of celery that I had flash frozen and bagged for later. Not to shabby for a little less than two hours of work.

Insert nap.

My beans were done cooking, out came the food processor from the dishwasher (man, got to love that invention!) and within minutes, I had 16 cups of refried beans (see earlier post about my underestimation of how much beans you can make with six lbs of beans!)

Last but not least, I assembled the super delicious brown bag burritos. The only thing I change in this recipe is that I use about 1/3 cup of the mixture per burrito instead of her recommended 1/4 cup. We love these burritos!

Thus ended the second day of cooking. I just found out that my Bible Study for tomorrow morning has been canceled. So, I just might get the rest of my list finished tomorrow! I'll let you know if I do. Plus, major thanks to my Jon who helped occupy the girls for the second half of my cooking day and who washed more than one pot for me in the last few days. Thanks babe!

cooking marathon!! day one. beans.

okay, i'm in the midst of a cooking marathon! with our schedule getting fuller, i need some food that i can pull out of the freezer and just pop in the oven. last friday night, i made 3 meatloafs and 2 lbs of meatballs in just a little over an hour which inspired me to take on a bigger chunk of time to make more.

yesterday and today i have a long list of what i want to accomplish:

cut and freeze celery (from the produce co-op)

broccoli-some for now and some to freeze

cook beans-some to freeze for winter soups, some for refried beans

chicken pot pie

poppyseed chicken

brown-bag burritoes

chopped chicken

blueberry muffins (?)

lettuce prepped for week ahead

well, yesterday, i started on the beans. i have never made dry beans before. i was inspired by moneysavingmom who bought 6lbs of dried beans for a mere $6 at sam's. she showed that she had 5, 2 cup containers of beans. i was thinking that for all those beans, she sure didn't have alot. but i started working.

first, i soaked my beans. they kept expanding. i kept having to add more water and pull out more pots to put the beans in that were overflowing. by the time they were done soaking, i had 2 crockpots, 1 stock pot and my two largest cooking pots FULL of beans. i have not 10 cups of beans...oh no. i have 60 cups of beans. yes, 6. 0. sixty. good grief!! pretty hilarious. so, now i know about how to make beans. :) and now, i'm going to learn how to make refried beans. anybody need some beans??

(this is less than half of the beans that are cooked!)

today has already gotten off to a better start. i'll let you know how it all winds up.

thrifty thursday is BACK!

okay, i've got a great one for you!!! ted's montana grill is giving away certificates for free lunches. really, it's super easy. and you can get EIGHT! you take their little quiz (there is a new clue each tuesday and friday-and remember google is your friend!) and then they will e-mail you a certificate for a free $8 lunch off of their new lunch menu. i got my first certificate this week and it doesn't expire until 11/29. not too shabby. just look for the link to discover ted's 8 wonders and win.

anyone want to go to lunch?

for my aunt gene

when we went to prattville this summer, my aunt gene taught my girls this song...

julia first.

notice the intensity of concentration as abby sings and wants to get the motions just right.

and our MANY attempts of both of them together always resulted in madness. like this.

flooding in lilburn

it's been a very surreal day. if you aren't in atlanta, i'm sure you're hearing about all the flooding. and wow. it's flooding. like real genuine flooding....in my sweet little lilburn. surreal.

after being awake from 2:30-4am because of very intense thunder which of course woke up the girls, i finally caught a few hours of sleep only to wake up to jon telling me that my parents had an oak tree fall on their garage.

their cars were completely trapped under the tree and their was another tree blocking the end of their driveway. so off we went to help out where we could. we had to take the circuitous route to avoid flooded rivers (when do you get to every use "circuitous" in a sentence??). on the way home, more flooding. houses with three feet of standing water outside of them. longer route. and we arrived home to find out that our dear next door neighbors basement office flooded and they lost everything. heart breaking.

but i've just been reminded today that it is stuff. it is hassle. it is heart wrenching. and yet there are glimpses of glory. my sweet abby wanted to give her money to her nonnie and papa to help pay for their repairs. it was the first thing out of her mouth. amazing. i see people serving each other selflessly. my husband laboring in the pouring rain to put a tarp on his in-laws roof because he loves them. kindness.

makes me thankful for the things i so often take for granted. things that so many in this world don't have. a warm bed. a dry house. a house stocked full of food. and sweet friends and family to help in the hard seasons.

don't know where to start...

so, i've decided that i want to start blogging again, but it is hard to know where to start. facebook has become such an easy way for me to share my random thoughts lately that i had abandoned this old blog. but some things take more than a status update. like this--we've decided to move forward with adopting a child.

most of you already know this, but in case you don't, let me fill you in. jon and i have always had a heart for adoption. always knew it would be in our future, but assumed that it would just be somewhere out there--in the future. well, on the 4th of july, in the midst of some prayer time, i really sensed the Lord leading me that the time was now. i was rather blown away...i wasn't even talking or thinking about adoption. but there it was, and it was unavoidable. well, after praying and pondering, i went to jon. i fully expected him to say, NOT NOW!! instead, his response stunned me. he said, "that's interesting because the last few days, i feel like the Lord has been leading me in the exact same direction." now those kind of conversations might be the norm in your household, but they are not the norm in mine. when we talked, it became apparent that our hearts were both set on adopting from asia. and so we began to investigate agencies.

fast forward to now. after a few months of gathering info, we have moved forward with one agency only to realize they weren't the one for us (it would take them on average 2 weeks to respond to our basic questions!) so, now we are moving forward with a new agency out of matthews, north carolina. interesting that the agency we found just happens to be where 4 of my dear friends live. hmmm. coincidence, i think not. we should get the paperwork this week and begin the application process.

now let me just tell you, this is a HUGE faith journey for us. in so many ways. one of the biggest is the financial realm. so, i want to just share this journey with you--so that when we get to the end of it, we can all stand in absolute awe of the God who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ever think or imagine. i continually, daily remind myself that if he has called me to it, he will provide for it.

so there ya have it. how's that for diving back into blogging!?!

to blog or not to blog

so, is there anyone still out there that wants to know what's going on in our lives? i keep debating whether or not to start blogging again. it takes time (which is a precious commodity these days), but i like the scrapbook essence of it all. so, who is still out there?