The real meaning of Christmas...

As our first Christmas as a married couple grew closer and closer, we weren't entirely sure how we wanted to celebrate. We knew we were going to do a few things differently once we had kids (for example, Santa is going to look completely different in our house. A good response about why, and how we believe about this issue is found here). But there is so much more to Christmas than celebrating with or without Santa! We want to celebrate and remember Jesus' coming.

With fewer and fewer days to really dive in and think about these things, we decided to go away for Christmas. It would be a great break and time of refreshment in our own lives, but it would also give us a chance to think about how the years to come might look at Christmas time in our home. There were a lot of things we talked about, so this might become several posts.

We try to make a habit of family worship time every day, and want to do the same for Christmas, with a little more tradition and intention.
Our church (which for those curious is a member of the PCA) likes to celebrate the liturgical calendar seasons, and so we've become interested in knowing those as well. It turns out that the color to mark the season of Advent (Christmas) is actually purple. Christmas day is white/gold (go jackets :) - just kidding!). Anyways we talked about incorporating some of these colors (not that color is everything) to remind us to be worshiping corporately as the body of Christ as well as individually and as a family.

My husband also created a worship service incorporating the advent candles. Which again aren't a necessary thing to do, but can be really fun, and worshipful. The candles consists of 5 candles (4 candles placed around 1 center candle). One of the 4 is to be lit for each Sunday in Advent, and then the one in the center on Christmas Day. (We did them all on Christmas day this first year). The first one loosely stands for Hope, second for Love, third for Joy, fourth for Peace, and the 5th stands for Christ. Each Sunday we'll talk about one of these topics, and how it relates to Christ's birth into the world, and His second coming. There are scripture readings and hymns to sing along with it. Maybe next year around Christmas time I'll post more details about this family worship service. But it was a wonderful time of talking together, reading God's word, being humbled through the remembrance of His initial birth into the world, and looking forward to celebrating His second coming! We sung wonderful, and well-related hymns through-out (like Come Thou long expected Jesus, Joy to the World, etc.) but my wonderfully creative husband ended the worship time with a song that shows a little bit of our own family's flair! Check it out! :)

We also remembered to bring our camera this time!! WOO!! Sorry some are side-ways. I will try to fix later.

Here are some pictures of the scenery, God gave us great weather all weekend!

One thing we KNOW we will be doing for Christmas, is CELEBRATING!! What better way to celebrate than with GREAT food and drinks! We ate like kings and queens this weekend!! And here is the wonderful food, I'll give recipes later:

Homemade Chocolate-mint chip cookies, and doulbe chocolate cookies, with our favorite celebration drink, Rosa Regale:

Philly Cheese Steaks & Sweet potato fries:

Some home-made cheese-its and local sodas for snacking:

Christmas Eve Shrimp & Gruyere Grits...INCREDIBLE:

Christmas Day Beef Wellington!! My favorite!! (Was supposed to also have some tasty veggies with it, but I felt a little under the weather this day, and so without me in the kitchen, my husband cooked the meat, and it was plenty!!)

We also watched Charlie Brown's Christmas movie!

Merry Christmas!

Wanna Enchilada?

One of my all-time favorite mexican dishes...enchiladas! Ever since my middle school basketball team celebrate the end of a not-so-winning season at the La Parilla, I've been hooked! This food is the warm, cheesy, carby goodness I've craved my whole life!

This time, since I am learning about cooking, I decided to make my own tortillas for homemade Enchiladas! 

The tortilla recipe is a basic flour tortilla from Joy.

2 Cups Bread Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/4 cup Butter

3/4 cup hot water (115*F to 130*F)

Mix by hand or on low speed until dough comes together.

Knead by hand or with a dough hook on low until the dough becomes smooth, about 4-6 minutes.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll them into balls:

Cover and let sit for 20 minutes.

Roll out each ball of dough into a 6-8 inch round (about 1/8" thick). If one is resistant, set it aside and try the next one. 

Heat a large cast iron (or non-stick) skillet over medium heat. Slide the tortillas into the skillet one by one, cook until brown spots appear (about 30 seconds on the first side, and 15 on the other side).

Now it's time to get creative!!

For the filling I used 1 lb. ground chicken, but you could use shredded chicken, ground turkey or beef, pulled pork, etc. 

I also used:

 1 can of cooked Black beans

 1/2 can of tomato sauce

 Ginger, Red Pepper and Cinnamon to taste

 1 can chopped green chiles

 1/2 can of cooked corn.

Combine all ingredients in a deep skillet, over medium heat.

Once the mixture is heated throughout, (and the meat is cooked) spoon into the middle of each tortilla. Add about a Tbsp. of grated cheese mixture (I used asiago and fontina). Roll up like a burrito, and place with the folded side down in a 9 X 13 glass pan. Pour 1 1/2 cans of tomato sauce into the left over meat filling in the pan. Let simmer for about a minute. Then pour this over the pan of enchiladas. Top with about 2 cups of the same cheese mixture.

Bake at 350*F for about 20 min, or until the cheese is all bubbly!

Serve and enjoy!

(Best news, each enchilada is only about 300 calories, and one will definitely fill you up!)

Ginger Lasses

I am a cookie fiend. I love most and any cookies. I am also determined to make the perfect cookie texture. I have learned a few tricks lately, like combining all the dry ingredients first if you want a softer cookie. But I'm still on the hunt for the perfect cookie.

These are my all time favorite cookie for the winter! They are not ginger snaps, they are similar to other crinkle cookies in texture. One of my good friends (and college room-mate)'s mom makes them. They are amazing!!

About 3 of these cookies, and a nice dirty chai...mmm... nothing better on a cold night! (It's also WONDERFUL cookie dough)

And here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup molasses

2 cup sugar

2 eggs

4 cup flour

4 tsp soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

sugar

Add molasses, sugar and eggs to melted butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat

well. Sift together and add to this mixture flour, soda, and spices. Refrigerate

covered dough for several hours or overnight. Make into small balls (the size of

walnuts). Roll in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, until firm.

Alright, so soon I'm going to start a 30 day Fashion Remix. I'll document the outfits on the blog, though it probably won't be EVERY day (but I'll try).

Basically all it is, is you pick 30 items of clothing, and only 30, and make 30 different outfits. It should be fun, and help me realize that with a little creativity, I can have all the new outfits I want (without spending the dough)!

Well, that's all for now. I have to go pick which 30 items I'm going to use!! Wondering if this "30" includes shoes, scarves, and jewelery though... this could be difficult.

Cooking Ourselves Thin

New cookbook for Lifetime! Cook Yourself Thin

We're excited because the mentality behind the book is eat what you want- just make clever substitutions to reduce or emlinate the fat and calories!

We made Shrimp Tacos the other night!




Recipe can be found here.

Although, I didn't make the mango salsa, and used a rum/bourbon combo instead of tequila. (It was just as good- the rum was for flavor and the bourbon was to get a stronger "flambe"). My daring husband dealt with the fire & alcohol portion of this recipe. :)

I also sort of had to wing it on the black beans. If you don't have all the ingredients for this one, just wing it! Mexican spices you can go wrong with: red pepper, cumin, and cinnamon (maybe a dash of nutmeg too). Add these to just about anything (taste as you go so you don't add too much) and it'll probably taste like Mexican food.

**Warning: Be careful when adding lime juice!! I hear it increases the heat of peppers!! :) **

Intentionality

So the hubby and I are trying to do a lot of things these days. Trying to get back on track with eating healthy after the holidays (and before the next holiday). We've also started keeping prayer cards to help us be more intentional about praying for our friends and family.

The other thing we're going to try to do, is exercise regularly... dun dun dun.

Exercise is not something that comes naturally for me. Running is especially hard for me when there is no goal in mind. We went for a run last night and discovered that my husband is like a diesel engine. Apparently after a slow start up, he can run at a consistent speed indefinitely. I, however, am much more like a wind-up toy car. I have to have an end goal in mind in order to enjoy running. If I have a reason to get to the next light post as soon as possible, I'll run my little heart out. But if I have no idea where we are going to end our run, I pay too much attention to the cramps in my side, or the cold sting in my lungs, and have trouble enjoying the run.

I played volleyball for about 6 years, which isn't a sport that is heavy on the running. You run to stay in shape, just so you have the energy to spring off the gym floor 20,000 times an hour. No long distances involved. Basically you need to be a ball of potential energy on your toes at all times. You don't realize you're working out because you're distracted by the things that need to be done. That is the kind of exercise my body was made for.

Anyways, running has gotten better since we've added goals. We'll sometimes run 2 miles to get coffee, or froyo, and then walk back. Maybe you're thinking the goals defeat the means in this case, but getting out and being active is a good start for us. Sometimes the only goal I need to set is "get to the next mailbox" and then when I get there I'll set another one, and so on.

We're also going to incorporate some yoga. We did a little bit last night to see if it's something we'd like to do more of, and I'm so excited that we like it! At first, I wasn't sure if my other half would enjoy it, but he thinks it's really relaxing (when you're done) and could help with regaining some of his flexibility. He used to do a lot of martial arts, so we're thinking the flexibility would help us add some martial arts to the workout too.

I got a yoga book from the library. Speaking of which, everyone should go to their local library! It's awesome! I'll write a post later for that one.

I've also started making all our bread for sandwiches and such!
And I'm almost done with the scarves I'm making for Christmas Presents! Woo!!