Meatless Meal: Twice-Baked Tex-Mex Potato

I’ve heard some people recommend that the best way to lower your grocery bill is to eat at least one meatless meal a week. This is a great recipe from Whole Foods that I tried last night – it is healthy, frugal, and tasty!

{Photo from Whole Foods}

Advent: Coming Back Around to What Is True

Many Christian traditions celebrate Advent and Easter, yet they have abandoned the rest of the church calendar. I am learning how Advent and Easter fit into a bigger picture. Beginning with Advent, the liturgical calendar traces the events of Christ’s life and conforms our lives to his. In the rhythm of the church year, our lives become hid with Christ. We find our life in his life. His story becomes our story. Why participate in this ordering rhythm throughout the year? Here is Thomas Howard's explanation in The Liturgy Explained:

“The idea in all of this is the same as in all human celebrations and anniversaries: it is a good thing for us mortal creatures to be vividly reminded at regular intervals of something that is always true anyway (a marriage, a birth). It helps us. It freshens our imagination. Perhaps angels experience an eternal, perfectly clear, sameness of awareness. We cannot. We have to keep coming back around to what is true.”

As we approach Advent and come back around to the truth of Christ’s birth, we are called to prepare our hearts for the coming of God to us – not only in his Nativity, but also in his Second Coming.

[Quote from Howard, Thomas and Betsy Corwin. The Liturgy Explained. Wilton, Conn: Morehouse-Barlow, 1981 (37).]

Handmade Gifts

I hope to give more handmade gifts for Christmas this year. They are often more economical and more personal. This blog contains several great craft tutorials. My mom’s birthday is coming up, and last week I made two felted pomanders for her. Instead of using felted wool, I just used regular felt sold at craft stores. They turned out beautifully! The pearl pins transform the felt into something elegant.

[Picture form Belz White’s blog]

Cheddar Corn Chowder

If you are looking for a good fall recipe, you must try Barefoot Contessa’s Cheddar Corn Chowder. It is so delicious! My mom often made this soup for my family growing up, and now my husband and I frequently enjoy it. I was surprised to find the recipe available online. The recipe makes an enormous amount of soup, so unless you have a big stock-pot, you might want to cut it in half. The soup can be frozen and saved for last-minute occasions. More on that idea here.

Planning a Party: Fall Brunch

I enjoy brainstorming about planning a tea party or a ladies luncheon, imagining how the food, décor, and ambiance would help create a lovely occasion. I understand that sometimes finances and schedules don’t permit parties like these very often, but they are still fun to imagine! “Planning a Party” is a new feature that will explore these ideas. Today we will imagine hosting a fall brunch.

For this fall brunch, I imagine a festive, warm, and inviting atmosphere. The décor utilizes colors commonly associated with fall, with an added punch of pink. The table is covered with vintage fabric found on Etsy, and it’s set with Mikasa Italian Countryside dishes. The centerpieces would be glittered pumpkins. The napkins are from Ikea. Martha’s paper lanterns are strung over the table. Norah Jones is playing softly in the background. There is lots of tasty food, but the guests say that their favorites are the mini ham and egg casseroles (because they are darling!) and the glazed orange scones (because they are delicious!).

Cooking a Chicken in the Crock-Pot

After reading this post, a reader asked me to describe how I cook a whole chicken in my crock-pot. Here is my recipe:

Crock-Pot Whole Chicken
Ingredients
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp onion powder

Additional Items
½ cup water
Tinfoil (optional)

1. Sprinkle the spices on the chicken. [I am quite liberal with them, and I probably use more of each ingredient than this recipe officially calls for. I peel back some of the skin so that the spices get underneath it, then I fold the skin back into place.]
2. Pour ½ cup water into the bottom of the crock-pot.
3. Place the chicken in the crock-pot, making sure it is slightly elevated. [The chicken needs to be elevated on something inside the crock-pot, or else it becomes too greasy. I have a small, metal cooking rack that fits inside my crock-pot. So I place the rack on the bottom of the crock-pot and place the chicken on top of it. An alternate option is to create three balls (2-3 inches in diameter) from tinfoil. You can put these balls on the bottom of the crock-pot and place the chicken upon them.]
4. Cook the chicken on low for 8-9 hours, depending on the size of the chicken.
5. Serve the chicken as is, or make a gravy from the juices in the crock-pot.

A Tasty Recipe

These glazed orange scones are delicious! I found the recipe here.

[Photo from http://theblackapple.typepad.com]

From Outdated to Updated

I love the “before and after” pictures of this bathroom. They almost make me wish we had an outdated, pink bathroom just so I could make similar updates!

[Pictures from Real Simple]

Hospitality at Its Best

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:12-14).

I'm challenged Miroslav Volf's explanation of Luke 14 from his book Practicing Theology: “From this we may conclude that hospitality at its best should not be part of the economy of exchange among equals or with superiors, but instead be part of an economy of donation to the destitute and weak. So to evaluate whether we were good hosts, we might ask ourselves whether we expected to get as much (or more) out of the invitation as we put in. If we did, we have missed the mark.”

So the best form of hospitality is when we welcome someone into our home who cannot return the favor.

[Quote from Miroslav Volf, “Theology for a Way of Life,” Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 251.]

[Photo from Martha]

Making the Most of Leftovers

After being thoroughly inspired by this post at Modobject at Home, I decided to try cooking a whole chicken last week. It must have been providential, because whole chickens were on sale for $.79 a pound that weekend! I cooked my chicken in a crock-pot, and it worked wonderfully. We had delicious, tender chicken that night for dinner, and we had plenty of pulled leftover meat for a big batch of white chili soup.

Now I am keeping my eyes open for recipes that can utilize pulled leftover chicken. Casseroles are so unhealthy, so I want some less fattening options. I was excited when the July issue of Real Simple arrived. It contained a delicious looking recipe for chicken enchiladas, and it called for rotisserie chicken. Instead of purchasing a rotisserie chicken, what could be more frugal than using my chicken leftovers? I tweaked the recipe a bit, so here is my variation of it. We enjoyed these enchiladas for dinner last night, and they were really tasty!

Healthy Chicken Enchiladas with Cilantro Flavored Dip
(Adapted from “Chicken Enchiladas” in Real Simple, July 2008)

Ingredients
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 small zucchini, diced
1 small onion, chopped
¾ cup frozen corn
1 ½ cups shredded chicken from a whole or rotisserie chicken
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 ½ cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
10-12 tortillas
¾ cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 small tomato
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp lemon juice
½ cup low-fat sour cream

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
   
2. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the zucchini and onion, stirring until the onion begins to soften, about 4-5 minutes. Add the chicken, corn, and ¼ cup of cilantro leaves. Cook for 2 more minutes. Add salt and pepper. Turn off heat.
   
3. Divide the chicken mixture among the tortillas, sprinkle some cheese inside the tortillas, roll them up, and place them seam-side down on a greased baking sheet. Bake until heated through, about 6-8 minutes.
   
4. In a food processor, pulse the remaining ½ cup cilantro with tomato, lime juice, and lemon juice until finely chopped. Add this mixture to the sour cream and mix thoroughly. Serve this dip cold with the enchiladas.