Hungry For Change

From now until midnight March 31st, the entirety of Hungry For Change, can be viewed on their website.  Please take time to watch this important film, and share it with your family and friends!  It is powerful and transformative. 

An evening of fellowship

 On Monday evening, we enjoyed a cookout with some dear friend's of ours, the owners of the Local Yocal, a locally grown foods shop in downtown.  They treated us to some grass-fed beef hamburgers, and sides, and homemade Cinnamon/Peach ice cream.  We had a lively discussion about compost, since Matt's background is Agriculture.... Yes, we engage in some strange convos. ;) 

Phoebe-dear watches the H.'s youngest son, Dean (pictured in the college above).  He'll be two pretty soon, and is an active little guy.  The H.'s also have two older children, Abby (10) and Austin (8) who enjoyed playing with Jaden.  They had a "warm welcome" planned for our family upon our arrival - confetti pops and poppers. 

If you live in or near McKinney, please stop in and support our friends' business.  They have some great products for sale, and the store is just a neat place to pop into from time to time. :) 

Thank you Matt, Heather and kiddos for a delightful evening of fellowship!  Y'all are such a blessing to our family. 

Stuffed Tomatoes, Ginger Nymphs = A Perfect Sunday Afternoon Meal

We had a wonderful noon meal today, enjoying scrumptious stuffed tomatoes, using a recipe that Mom & Dad used on their date get-away a few weeks ago.  Also on our menu was delicious (and now all together eaten) Ginger Nymphs (a.k.a., balls of goodness), the recipe for which we got from a good friend.  We decided to try both of these out again today for lunch...  Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed eating the items pictured in the photos! =) 

Yours truly (Phoebe) hollowing out the tomatoes

The leaning tower of tomatoes

Using a knife to carve out the insides of the tomatoes.

Combine all of the insides of the tomatoes in a bowl.

Finely chop parsley (or in this case, basil)

Add the Feta Cheese

Finely dice the onions

Add the olive oil

Finely chop (or crumble-ize, is that a word?!) toasted bread - our substitute for Kasha. 

There you go, crumble-ized bread... =)

Then mix it all up in a bowl...

...and stuff the tomatoes.

Ginger Nymphs all lined up neatly.  Sorry we didn't get any pictures of the process, but it's very easy to do, and doesn't take too long either! 

What's the best part, is that they taste SO GOOD!!

The table setting at our Sunday afternoon meal.

 

A good healthy meal, with a lot of fresh food.  Yum, yum!

Now, for the recipes:

Stuffed Tomatoes

- 4 Medium sized ripe tomatoes

- 2 T. finely chopped scallions (onions)

- 2 T. finely chopped fresh parsley

- 1/2 cup finely crumbled feta cheese

- 1/4 cup Kasha

- 3 T. olive oil

1. Top tomatoes, scoop out innards (save).

2. Coarsely chop tomato pulp

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit

4. Combine pulp, scallions, parsley, feta, Kasha & olive oil

5. Fill tomatoes with mixture.  Bake 15 minutes.

Prep time 35 minutes.

Ginger Nymphs

- 3/4 cups almonds

- 1/2 cup pitted dates

- 1/2 cup raisins

- 1 tsp. ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1 tsp finely chopped lemon peel

1. Combine all ingredients in food processor.

2. Blend until well chopped and can stick together when pressed into a ball.

3. Enjoy the little balls of goodness!

Pizza

Today Abby and I made pizza for lunch.  Pizza is such a fun meal to make and to eat! 

We put different toppings on, depending on what items we have.  Today we put meat, yellow & red bell peppers and cheese on it.  And, the crust today I think was a little too thick, so next time I need to make it a bit thinner.  But it was fun to make, and it tasted great!  Abby took a photo of the circular one we made on a pizza stone, but somehow it was deleted. :)

Fluffy Blueberry-Coconut Pancakes

Picture from Wikipedia.

Recently I created this recipe as I was making pancakes for breakfast. It was a delicious round of pancakes, even if I say so myself! :) Enjoy!

Fluffy Blue Berry & Coconut Pancake
Created by Phoebe Kautt

- 3 cups of Arrowhead Mills Organic Gluten Free Pancake & Baking Mix (quick & easy)
- 1/3 cup of sunflower or safflower oil
- ½ cup of shredded coconut (or to taste)
- ¾ cup of blue berries (fresh or frozen)
- 1 ½ cups of buttermilk

Instructions:
Fry pancakes on medium heat. Serve hot with homemade butter and Agave Nectar, and enjoy your yummy pancakes! :)

Daily Life~

Well, it has been a while since I have posted anything "personal" but I guess you probably know that I have my own blog which keeps me busy, besides micro-blogging at twitter as well. :) No excuse, I should let you all know what I've been up to lately.

Even though Mom is doing better each day she has still not resumed her full duties - actually, she mostly does not perform any tasks, which is fine. I still do the majority of the housework, cooking and cleaning, which I enjoy very much (especially the cooking). Entertaining guests has become something I enjoy as well, and I have had multiple opportunities here lately to try my hand at becoming a better hostess.

I continue (along with my fam) to do things on the political front, which is almost a full time job! :P Since we get school credit for each minute we spend doing activism, we try to take a few minutes each week to contact our leaders in D.C. to let them know our opinion on certain issues, pieces of legislation, concerns, etc. I was so nervous the first time I called my Representative, but that has worn off to some extent. :)

The last week and a few days we have been vastly enjoying the visit of my father's brother and his wife who serve as missionaries in Tuebingen, Germany. Since they live so very far away, and since it is very expensive to travel, we only get to see them about once a year. Those visits are treasured times for us all, and we look forward with bated breath to each sabbatical. They spent the night Sunday, and were with us until the early afternoon yesterday. Hopefully, we will get to see them at least a couple of times more before they leave for their homeland.

This weekend will find me in Tyler (East) Texas, Lord willing, helping my Aunt Jen celebrate her pregnancy. Her friend is throwing a baby-shower and us girls and Mom have been invited. I am looking forward to seeing family on my Mom's side, we don't see them very often and besides all that, its in the country. :)

I was reading a book the other day about this girl with cancer whose illness affected the rest of her family, causing stress, bitterness, grief and worry to weigh them down - and I was thinking how very similar the young lady's (who's perspective the book was written from) perception of her sister's sickness and my perception of my mother's sickness were. The story is very sad, and yet abounding with hope, because the family had The Hope - Jesus Christ to see them through the valley of the shadow of death as it were. Even when we cannot see the purpose of what we are experiencing at the moment, I was reminded that I should always trust in the sovereignty of God's plan, He always knows best! [the name of the book is: Dana's Valley by Janette Oke and Laurel Oke Logan]

On the first of this month, I read Psalm one and Proverbs one and it struck me how both of those passages speak about wisdom (and her worth) and folly (and its destruction) and I was comparing how many times both speak of wisdom and folly (or imply it at least) and I counted 8 munitioning's in Psalm 1 and in Proverbs almost every verse has something to say, in a comparative way about wisdom versus folly. Obviously, this is such an important concept and I realize that almost every day when my beloved littlest brother does something silly!

Well, lunch awaits so I must be off. God bless your week!

Cleaning

Today, all of we kids (except Joel) are down here in 'BIG D', helping Dad's parents clean and get ready for Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Naomi's arrival. Caleb and Phoebe grilled chicken for lunch.



Phoebe tries Abby's "new" sunglasses



Our dear Grandma with Abby's sunglasses on!!! She looks funny!



Abby--- doesn't she look like someone from the 70's?! ;)



Kitna, cousin Jason's kitten :)



Phoebe, grilling



A close-up of the fruit pie Grandma, Phoebe and I made. Mmm... looks yummy!



The chicken

German Cabbage Salad

If you would like the recipe, just leave us a comment! Believe me, it's one of the best fruit salads I've ever had! :)

Abby's Garden Omelette ~

The other morning Abby decided to make a unusual breakfast. We usually just have rice, molasses, bread and maybe a smoothie. But this time she decided to make a garden omelette.

The ingredients included:
- (organic) eggs
- onions
- tomatoes
- zucchini
- (fresh) parsley
- (fresh) cilantro
- hot sauce
- salsa (a little)
- spices

- and an 'Ezekiel 4:9 Tortilla' on the bottom

The ingredients before they're mixed


Free range, organic eggs

The ingredients with the spices

The ingredients all mixed up.

Abby, the head cook! [Believe me, she's a good cook!]

The finished [yummy] products! :)

Thanksgiving Pictures...finally

Note: these pictures are not in the correct order. If you read from the bottom up, then it will be in the correct order.

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving:


We enjoyed supper with our cousin Reece.


After more than 6 months, Jaden wasn't shy with Reece (Surprise!) :)


Visitin' with Reece

Thanksgiving meal: lunch. At lunch we did what we always do on Thanksgiving: give thanks to Almighty God for His many blessings! We go around the table, and everyone gives at least three things (usually more than that, though!) they're thankful for. I think it is a good tradition.

Yes... Joel does know how to cook (actually, he's pretty good!) :)

The table all nicely decorated (Thank you, Abby!)

Italian Vegetable Casserole

Preparing Italian Vegetable Casserole. Italian Vegetable Casserole is a super-duper dish! It's vegetarian & it is yummy! It is one of my favorite dishes! If you'd like the recipe, feel free to ask!

Working in the kitchen. Joel, Abby, Johanna & I were in the kitchen from 8:00am till 4:00pm. Sometimes I wonder: It takes hours & hours to prepare the food, then it gets gobbled up in 10 minutes! Is it worth it?! Anyway, I think it was worth it.

Hope all of you blog-readers had a great Thanksgiving!

~ Phoebe

Our "outdoor kitchen"

Abby (left) & I (right) cook breakfast outside on our new grill.

Pancakes, pancakes!

This morning Abby, & I (Abby mostly) made breakfast outside in our "outdoor kitchen", which is just really a gas grill given to us by our neighbor. Fried onions potatoes, & homemade pancakes! Very delicious! Johanna was the photographer.

~ Phoebe