Love it

A gift from Eric a few months ago for my birthday. I just love it.

From here.

Good Stuff Maynard

Recently added four new wonderful albums to my playlist entitled "Good Stuff Maynard" on my Spotify account.

Mason Jennings- The Flood

Mason Jennings-Minnesota

Avett Brothers- The Carpenter

Mumford and Sons- Babel

Not sure when I decided it was a good idea to start incorporating my mom's favorite phrases like "good stuff maynard!" into my own repertoire. The other day, I was entertaining Eric by bringing out some of her most often used including "Home James! And don't spare the horses!" said to my dad just about every time we got in the car after church. Also, any time I would moan about my need to go shopping due to having nothing to wear, she would say " Well, just put a raisin in your belly button and go as a cookie!" Really mom?? And whenever my 15 year old self would let her know how unfunny that was, she would say "now don't go getting your britches in a twist".. and most recently she was telling me about something to do with useless anatomy on a tom cat. 
Pretty special lady. 

My Most Favorite Dorks

Sweet Potato Sausage Soup

It's been starting to get a bit chilly around here and since I'm still hanging on with tightly clenched fists to my shorts and bare feet, I figured I needed something to warm me from the inside out. Go figure, the day I made it, it got up to 70 F and I should have been outside grilling. Regardless, this hit the spot. Perfect for Fall. 

Sweet Potato Sausage Soup

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

When I first started to add all the ingredients to this soup, Eric and I both agreed that it seemed much too healthy. BUT we both ended up loving it, the added cheese didn't hurt. Also, every bit of spinach was worth it, adding the perfect texture. 

Makes enough for a dutch ovenfull.

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
15 ounces of chorizo sausage broken into chunks
2 medium onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup of garlic chili sauce

2 tablespoons of Sriracha sauce

1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes
2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams; about 2 large), peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1 pound white-skinned potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
6 cups low-salt chicken broth

1 1/2 cups of parmesan cheese, divided
1 9-ounce bag fresh spinach

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add sausage; cook until brown, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towels to drain. Pour about half of the oil from the sausage out. (I know, gross, but it adds alot of flavor.) Add onions and garlic to pot and cook until translucent, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Add all potatoes, garlic chili sauce, sriracha sauce, red pepper flakes, and cook until beginning to soften, stirring often, about 12 minutes. Add broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Using potato masher, mash some of potatoes in pot. Add browned sausage and 1 cup of parmesan cheese to soup. Stir in spinach and simmer just until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with parmesan cheese on the side and top as you see fit. Don't forget some good crusty bread straight out of the oven. 

Oh you were hoping to see a picture of that little guy I like to hang out with??

Apparently, he has been sneaking dutch ovenfull's of soup. By the looks of it, he isn't too pleased with me broadcasting this. Already has an attitude..kids these days.

Thankful

If somehow you happen to be the only person that is not my mom reading this blog, and you haven't heard the news, I have an announcement:

 And

It says “Easy Bake” on the front..

Can you connect the dots?

Yep. After a lot of waiting and praying and learning about Him, we have been overwhelmed by His undeserved blessing.

And now, being only 7 weeks away from my due date, I can sit back and see how perfect His timing is.

So often, while I was waiting I was reminded of this:

“Child of weakness watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.”

I feel that the Lord was so tender with me through it all, not dealing with me harshly in my discontent, but gently. Reminding me time and again how blessed I already was, how blessed I was with a wonderful husband, family, friends, and all the comforts life can offer, how could I think I needed more?

And now, I am so thankful for that waiting period, for the tears, because I feel that I caught a closer glimpse of who the Lord is and His deep love for me, for Eric and I.

This all can sound very trite as I think of so many friends and loved ones who still are waiting, but either way, I am reminded that the Lord is good, and sometimes we can only fully understand that in hard times.

“It would have been enough, but You blessed us more.”

Shark

A family was on holiday in Australia for a week and a half when husband, wife and their 15 year old son decided to go scuba diving. The husband is in the navy and has had some scuba experience.  His son wanted a picture of his mom and dad in all their gear so he got the under water camera ready to go. When it came to taking the picture the dad realized that the son looked like he was panicking as he took it and gave the ‘OK’ hand sign to see if he was all right.
The son took the picture and swam to the surface and back to the boat as quick as he could so the mom and dad followed to see if he was OK.  When they got back to him he was scrambling onto the boat and absolutely panicking. When the parents asked why, he said ‘there was a shark behind you.’ The dad thought he was joking but the skipper of the boat said it was true but they wouldn’t believe him.

As soon as they got back to the hotel they loaded the picture onto there laptop and that was what they saw.

(via yanilavigne)

P.S.I saw this on another blog and couldn't resist reposting. I'm not quite sure if this is ethical to post to my blog, even though I did credit it on the bottom.  Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Peaches and Cream

 

One of my new favorite recipes of the summer, and oh so simple.

credit: http://weheartit.com/entry/12046329

Peaches and Cream

3-4 peaches (very ripe)

1 cup cream cheese

2-3 TB honey

1-2 tsp vanilla

1-2 TB brown sugar

dash of cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

1/2 cup of white sugar

1.5 cups of walnuts

Soften the cream cheese in the microwave and then mix in the brown sugar, vanilla, and spices.

Next, saute the walnuts with white sugar and butter

Pit the peaches, and place face down on the grill for about 10 minutes or until they have nice grill marks on them. Next turn the peaches over and put a large dollop of the cream cheese mixture in each pit opening and leave on the grill until the cream cheese is warmed. After the peaches are done, drizzle each liberally with honey, and then sprinkle plenty of the sautéed walnuts on top.

Recipes

 

Last weekend when we were visiting Baudette for Darby and Deanna's wedding, I was going through my Grandma's recipe box. I was pulling out ones that I wanted to copy down and Eric had the bright idea to take pictures of the recipes I wanted instead.

If you look in the top right hand of the recipe card you can see written "Roxy Wedding Punch". I thought that was pretty fun to find.

I like all the notes she wrote about who the recipes were from, how good they were, and the fact that it is "OK" if the dough is stiff and dry.

My Grandma said this is the best muffin recipe she has ever made.

She was ahead of her time with this recipe. My Mom said that  Grandma would always have missionary ladies over when they came to visit the chapel and have them teach her new recipes, so they grew up eating all sorts of ethnic foods before it was a popular thing to do.

I remember having this dish every once in a while when we were kids and just not being able to get enough of it. Then I found me my own Indian, he doesn't appreciate it when I tell him I married him for the food...

Growin' My Grub

 

 

This year I decided to take the plunge and grow a garden.

Some baby cukes, to try my hand at pickle-making again, since my last batch was so wildly successful.

The only draw back? WEEDS!

I make myself go out at least once a week and fill up a full bucket with weeds and ooh boy does that bucket look big when I first start out.. I have been known to toss in clods of dirt and small dogs on occasion to get the job over with...

Some yellow pear tomatoes.

I'm like a kid in a very healthy candy shop, I have to check every thing three times a day to see if anything more is popping up!

 

I have yellow zucchini squash coming out of my ears already, which I am thrilled about.. Eric?? Not so much.

Red peppers.

Banana peppers.

And waay more. I have a little tiny garden patch with A LOT of vegetables.. especially zuchinni!

Eric is such a lucky guy...

The Royal Throne Room

I painted my bathroom in the basement last year.. or rather I started to and then my darling mother finished it before I woke up the next morning.. those Block women!

It turned out to be this very strange yellowish color which Eric described as a typical Indian bathroom in America.. he told me I just needed fake flowers and some carefully placed carved elephants to finish it off.

Soo.. I did the only reasonable thing and bought some sparkly metallic glaze to see if I could tweak it a little.

I was attempting to give it a textured look and started to develop a minor brain aneurysm trying to make it look just right until my in-house interior decorators came to the rescue.

Yep,this is them folks, a couple of winners, taking new customers in need of any type of advice daily!

Anyways, my in-house decorators came to the rescue and assured me that they approved of the look and then proceeded to give me a few little pearls.

Eric: "Uuuhh... Steph? Are you aware what people are going to DO in this fancy golden room??"

David: "Oooh, I am soo excited to spend some time on my fancy throne in my fancy new golden bathroom!!"

And then "Oohh great! Now you're going to blog about this aren't you!!"

I've said this before, but life is so good at the Varghese house!

2 Years Ago Today..

So I'll try not to get all sappy.. but, I'm a big fan of this guy.

Right now he is out buying chicken wire to build a fence around my garden.

Does it get any better than this?

Maybe life seems so good because I had to spend my previous years with these two goons on either side of Eric and I.

Oh wait, I still have one of those goons living in my basement..

Who knows, but here are a few of the things I have loved about the last two years:

Sitting on our lawn drinking coffee while Eric reads his bible and I... watch birds with the binoculars he gave me for our last anniversary.

Eric rating my cooking on a scale of "eeww" "eehh" or "WOW, this is AMAZING"

This.

Watching Eric figure out how to fix or do anything via Youtube including, how to paint a wall.

Forcing Eric to take walks with Scoot and I so we can "bond".

Finding Eric every evening by 8 p.m. fast asleep, littered with dog toys that Scoot left in an attempt to coax Eric to play with him.

And the little tid bits of wisdom from Eric including:

"Steph, things from the thrift store cost money too."

"You know, when you cook, you can put things away as you go, then there is a smaller mess to clean up in the end!"

and

"Yea, those guys in black, they are called umpires..."

Yep. Life is good at the Varghese's.

I never knew life could be this good.

Spring

 

"Thy mercies are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:23

California and the Triestmans

 

Eric and I flew out to California to visit Dan and Priscilla and company. We had such a nice time. One of the best vacations I have ever taken. At the time they were in Riverside, California, which was soo beautiful with flowers everywhere and 85 degrees the whole weekend.

There was also a two hour time change which made waking up awesome. The first morning we were there.. we took the kids and walked down to the donut shop and two equally awesome things happened;

First the lady behind the donut counter was just as bad at counting as I am and accidentally gave us 14 donuts instead of 12... why we were getting 12 donuts for 4 adults and 3 itty bitty children in the first place??

Second, as I was eyeing up the donuts, suddenly I heard Bobby behind me sneeze and then start crying hysterically, I turned around and he was standing there looking as devastated as 3 year old can muster, covered in snot, and for some odd reason his pants were no longer buttoned and threatening to fall down. Apparently it was an epic sneeze.

What an awesome kid.

Later we went to a beautiful beach where I decided to go boogie boarding with Dan. The waves were big and crazy and I amazingly managed to collect around 20 lbs of sand in a swimsuit that is much smaller than anything my mother would approve of while the waves kicked my butt every time I made any attempt to do any boogie boarding. Some cool surfer dude walked up to me and was like "first time?" and I was like "Nah.. I'm pretty used to kickin' it on Cedar Island Lake..."

The kids had a great time tiptoeing towards the water and then as soon as the waves got within 10 feet, they would run away with bloodcurdling screams and collapse safely on the sand by their Uncle Eric.. I guess they're more used to kickin' it on Cedar Island too..

 

Starfish as big as my head.

D and P.... feel free to bring this kid back to me anytime!

Teamwork.

My beautiful big sister.

Later we went out for fish tacos.. and then grabbed some gelato.. can a day get any better?

 

Too tired after a long day at the beach to walk.

We went to an citrus national park the next day.

My favorite little orange thief.. eating the fruit was strictly prohibited, Hadassah had a new half-way peeled orange every time I turned around. I may or may not have eaten 25 to 30 kumquats, heaven in a fruit.

 

We went to the famous Casey's Cupcakes and met the Easter bunny..

  and ate the best cupcakes ever.

 

We visited Southern California wine country the next day, and spent some time playing in a park.

Apparently this is what the cool kids were doing....

And just to make his Auntie's day Rocky took his first steps walking from me to Priscilla! What a sweetie!

Pretty proud after his first steps!!

And our last view as we left...

When I was hugging Hadassah good bye before we left and tears were streaming down my face Hadassah said " Don't cry Stephie! Sometimes I miss Grandma and then I cry too!!"

Anyone have an extra pair of tickets to California lying around???