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- Thanksgiving Leftovers and Personal liberation -
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Monday, December 08, 2008
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I do not post very often because I try very hard to sound smart and its kind of tiring. In fact, i have already re-written that sentence 4 times. But I have decided that I am going to stick to reading great writers (and great bloggers) without feeling any pressure to be as eloquent.
In honor of the permission I have granted myself to blog without trying to sound like the love child of Flannery O'Conner and Donald MIller, I am posting some recipes. We had a lot of leftover turkey this year after Thanksgiving. Our small group hosted a meal and had a whole turkey left over. AN ENTIRE TURKEY. So Steven Eisenberg carved that sucker up, divided it 6 ways and we were eating turkey for a week. The Cross house sticks to a fairly tight budget, or at least we attempt to, so I wasn't going to spend money on groceries when our fridge was already full. Below are three recipes that produced some yummy meals and didn't make us feel we were eating the same thing every night. I suggest saving them on your computer since we all know you wont be making a turkey again until next Thanksgiving.
Recipe #1
Leftover Turkey Croquettes
1 clove garlic, cracked from skin
1/2 small onion
1 c cooked chopped turkey meat (white and dark)
1 c leftover mashed potatoes
1 egg
S+P
2 t poultry seasoning (I didn't have this so i used marjoram, sage and thyme)
parsley
1 C Italian breadcrumbs (again, I opened the can and only had 1/4c so I ended up crushing up some crackers and some of those fried onions i used to make green bean casserole)
1/2 Romano grated cheese (I used grated parmesan from the fridge)
3 T EVOO
Put garlic and onion in food processor to chop. Add turkey, potatoes, egg, S+P, seasoning and parsley. Pulse to combine. Remove and combine with 3/4 c bread crumbs and cheese.
Heat EVOO over med heat. Shape turkey mix in 8 balls (I made a few extra small ones to trick hazel into thinking they were chicken nuggets. worked like a charm.), coat in bread crumbs. Fry 5-6 min in oil until golden and crispy in middle.
Recipe #2
Leftover Stir Fry
2 T Veg oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t hot red pepper flakes (opt.) or 1 T sesame seeds
1/2 t fresh ginger, minced ( I just used some ground ginger)
1-2 c finely chopped cooked meat (obviously I used turkey here, but you can use beef, pork, chicken, ham- whatever)
4-6 c mixed raw vegetables, finely chopped, grated, julienne, or shredded
1/2 c sliced onions (i only had red- it was fine)
2 c cooked rice (brown rice here for us)
1/4- 1/2 soy sauce ( I suggest lower sodium)
2 T cooking sherry (opt- I left it out)
1 t sugar
Combine soy sauce, sherry and sugar. Set aside. Heat 2 T oil in wok or large frying pan at 375. Add pepper flakes or sesame seeds, still until darkened. Add meat, stir 1 min; add garlic, ginger, onion; stir fry 1 min. Add vegetables, stir fry 3 min. Add rice and stir until well combined. Add sauce. Stir until heated through. Measurements are all approximates, so taylor to your own taste
Recipe #3
Turkey Quesadillas - an adaptation from Crescent Chicken Squares- which Shaun calls my Kick Butt Chicken Hot Pockets
3 oz softened cream cheese
2 T melted butter
2 C cooked shredded turkey (which is usually cubed cooked chicken)
1/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
2 T milk, 1 T chopped onion or chives
1 T chopped pimento (opt.)
flour tortillas (or can of crescent dinner rolls and some breadcrumbs for sprinking)
Combine cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add remaining ingredients except tortillas (obviously). I then heated the mixture up in the microwave for a minute because I wasn't sure it would get warm when the tortillas cooked) spread mixture out over a tortilla, fold in half. Heat a pan and some cooking spray and cook until crispy.
If you wanted to make the original recipe: Preheat oven to 350. After combining everything, you lay out the crescent rolls, separate rolls into 4 rectangles, and seal the perforations. Spoon 1/2 c of chicken mixture on center of each rectangle, Pull 4 corners into center of mix. Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with crumb. Bake on ugreased sheet 20-25 min.
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- Happy Thanksgiving! -
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Thursday, November 27, 2008
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Asking a bunch of three year olds what they are thankful for gets some interesting responses: Ice Cream, My Sponge Bob birthday cake, being the line leader. Of course they all include their mommies and daddies.
I realized that when asked, I have stopped including 'mommy and daddy' in my answer. I wonder when that happened.
I think about the orphans in India and Haiti. How do they respond? Certainly not the way my young students do. I am thankful for those orphans who God has used this year to re focus my spiritual journey.
This thanksgiving I am thankful for the economic crisis. I am thankful that more people are taking pause before they spend their money on stuff they do not really need. I am thankful that I am taking pause before i spend my money on stuff I do not really need.
Here is a transcript from something I heard on NPR the other day that I loved:
With Sharper Image's Demise, A Way Of Life Gone
by Peter Sagal
All Things Considered, November 25, 2008 ยท Everybody thinks that if the Big Three (or the Big Two And A Half) American car companies go under, it'll mean the end of the American way of life. But it's too late. The American way of life is already dead and gone, singing in the choir celestial. It died last February, when The Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy. They said they would keep stores open, but they're all gone, and their Web site is nothing but an empty promise of a quote: "Something big coming."
I mean, if GM and Chrysler vanish, we'll still have cars from Asia and Europe. But since The Sharper Image went under, we've been completely without a reliable supplier of expensive computerized massage chairs and laser-tag games for grown-ups and combination CD/MP3 player/blood-pressure monitor/shaving mirrors. I'm not even going to get into the suits of armor and the ray guns, because then I'll start weeping again.
When I was a kid, I would go hunting for my dad's Sharper Image catalog the way other kids would look for their fathers' Playboys, and that's not just because my father didn't have any Playboys.
To me, The Sharper Image was mailed from a mall located someplace in the future, where everything was glossy and smooth and battery-powered, and the photographs were airbrushed and softly lit. And the people from the future who used these remarkable instruments, these digital watches with eight buttons and foot massagers and abdominal exercisers, were tall and sleek and slender and so clearly happy to be living in the future, where your watch could also tell you the temperature and deionize the air. Someday, I said to myself, I will live in that future.
Well, now I do, and it is a sad place. I am not airbrushed, and I am not tall and slender, and not only are there no professional grown-up laser-tag leagues, there is no Sharper Image.
I am told by the business press that the company couldn't survive the general retail downturn. As times got tougher, people began to ask themselves whether they really needed a musical instrument you play by waving your hands through laser beams. Like Tinkerbell, doubt was fatal to The Sharper Image.
But with that company went something more than a tenant for the retail space next to the Lane Bryant down the mall. With it went a certain, purely American idea: That no matter what happened, we'd always have enough extra money to spend on useless nonsense, as long as it had an LCD display. I don't know what my kids will look at to inspire their dreams of being a future consumer. Does Wal-Mart have a catalog?
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Monday, October 13, 2008
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There were a few places i never wanted to go. One of which was India. Many of my friends from college had gone to India, loved India, couldn't wait to go back to India. It actually kind of annoyed me. To me, India was the trendy mission trip destination for Campbell students. I decided India was not the place for me.
July 1-16th of this year changed me forever. Those two weeks in India turned me into a person that loves India and longs to return.
Another place on my 'never gonna go there' list was Haiti. I had spent 2 weeks in Bosnia when I was 18 with a girl that had taken multiple trips to Haiti. She loved the country, but told me all the scary details of sleeping in tents with spiders crawling across her face. I told myself I would NEVER go somewhere like that.
November 8-11 Shaun and I are going to Haiti. Like in India, we will spending time with orphans and helping at the orphanage. I can't wait.
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- The latest and greatest -
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Monday, June 30, 2008
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Okay its been awhile. I make no excuses.
Hazel is 16 months old- she walks, she talks (kinda), she disobeys, she eats with a fork, she likes to wear her cute shoes and stare at her feet, when i take them off for her nap she clutches them in her sleep. She is no longer a baby. When did this happen?
Tomorrow we (Shaun and I) leave for India. I'm pretty sure the only people that would read this already know. Hazel is staying with Dave and Sarah Calvert for the first week and with Scott and Hazel Shamblee the second week. Moses is with Danny and Cindy Rodgers. Check out http://indiajuly2008.missionblogger.com/ to keep up with us while we are there!
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- My Husband's Blog.. -
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Thursday, April 03, 2008
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Is up and running. New platform. New topics. Same old Shaun. Check it out!
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- Lift High the Crazy -
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
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Some of you may remember me talking about the 199 ft cross that First Baptist Church of Central Florida decided to build on their campus. Now, I taught at Central Florida Christian Academy- a ministry of this church. In my time there, the church voted on and approved this venture. I wasn't too surprised. It took all I had not to shout in the hallways when Orange county lifted their normal "no taller than 50 ft. for a free standing structure" regulation. But I was technically employed by these people and could not publicly speak out against it. Well i don't work for them anymore- so please, i beg you, click on the link- explore the website. Our personal favorites are the letter from the pastor and the video. and when you check out the finances- your stomach will probably turn.
i CANNOT believe that these people ACTUALLY think that this is how God's message of love will be shared with central Florida. These people are delusional. If we had not moved this summer, I am 199% sure I would have quit in the middle of the school year.
Lift High the Cross? Lift High the CRAZY!
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