Planning

“I’m an open book to You [God]; even from a distance, You know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back. I’m never out of Your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and You’re there, then up ahead and You’re there, too. . .” Psalm 139:1-5 (The Message)

Over the past year I have become increasingly aware of a deep longing in my soul to know (and be known by) God. God has already done his part; He knows all about me. But for me to know God requires time - time studying His Word, time praising and worshiping Him, time praying, and time simply being still before God and listening.

The Women’s Bible Study group I have been attending is studying the book “He Speaks to Me” by Priscilla Shirer. In today’s discussion, these questions spoke to me:

1. Think through you week; what do you plan ahead of time?
2. What do your plans reveal about the level of significance you place on things?

I tend to be a woman who wants a plan and I make lists. But when I looked at my list, I realized that planning (scheduling) personal time with God was not there. It is something that I “work into my day”. What an eye opener that was for me. What we value, we schedule - and I left the most important thing off my list!

God considers study, praising, worshiping, prayer, and listening important. He doesn’t give us a specific plan for what the process looks like, but we need to plan for the opportunity to do those things. I think I am going to re-evaluate my priorities on my new daily list.

“When we want God to show up and reveal Himself to us we have to plan and prepare to place priority on the things that are important to Him.” Priscilla Shirer

Recipe #2

Today was new recipe day!!! I love to make soup and have never cooked with tortellini, so this looked interesting. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com.

TORTELLINI SOUP

The Ingredients:
7-8 cups chicken broth
1 can (14.5 oz) stewed tomatoes (I used diced tomatoes with onion and garlic)
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ tsp. salt; ¼ tsp. pepper (does anybody really measure salt and pepper?)
1 pkg (9 oz) refrigerated cheese tortellini
2 ½ cups cubed cooked chicken (I used a pre-cooked 6 oz. pkg)

The Directions:
In dutch oven or soup kettle combine broth, tomatoes, spinach, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

I did this and mixed it all together with a whisk. Having never cooked spinach before, I did not realize that this is what would happen:

What a mess -it took forever to clean all that spinach off the whisk! Is it any wonder that this is the expression I frequently wear when I cook:

Anyway, moving on. After getting out a big spoon for stirring from this point forward, simmer for 10 minutes to blend flavors; add tortellini and chicken. Cook for 5 minutes or until tortellini is heated through. (If using frozen, follow pkg. instructions for cooking the tortellini.)

The Result:

I was a little nervous about this one with the cooked spinach. I've never been a big fan of the looks or texture of the stuff, but decided to go ahead and use it. The soup was excellent. We both liked it a lot, which is a good thing because we have a lot of leftovers. However, when I make this the next time, I think I will choose a different green vegetable!

The Resolution

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the LORD . . ." Colossians 3:23

Here it is mid-February, and I have finally decided that I need to have a resolution. Maybe since I'm not declaring it at the "normal" time we generally think of resolutions (and I've stated it in writing) I will actually carry it out this year!

I've decided we are in a rut as far as what we eat. Anyone who knows me well is aware that I'm not known for my cooking. Lucky for me, Mark's mom did not like to cook either so he ate a lot of TV dinners growing up. As a result he isn't very picky about what I feed him and he thinks any home cooked meal is fantastic. But the downside of that is he tends not to be very helpful when I ask for dinner ideas. He usually will say something like, "Anything you make is great." So I have fallen into the routine of making the same stuff over and over, or we eat out, or we just pour a bowl of Cheerios!

The fact is that cooking is not my favorite activity. I would rather vacuum than cook and I usually only vacuum if I can't sweet-talk Mark into doing it for me! But anyway, back to the resolution. I have decided that I am going to make a minimum of 2 new recipes a month for the rest of this year - that's 22 new recipes! I'm not crazy, like the "Julie & Julia" thing; I just want something new for dinner once in awhile.

Criteria for the recipe:

· I have to be able to pronounce it (and the ingredients).
· The ingredients need to be items that real people might actually find in their pantry.
· If the ingredient list includes items such as “2 sticks butter” or "1 cup heavy cream” (except possibly for baked goods that won’t be staying in our house) it’s not going to happen.
· If the instructions start out with “8-10 hours prior to serving . . .” and it’s not going in a crock pot – forget it!
· The less dicing, slicing, and chopping called for, the better.


So . . . . . here we go - Recipe #1:
SWEET & SOUR CHICKEN

The Ingredients:
2 cup instant white rice, uncooked
1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks
2 Tbsps. EVOO
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 medium onion, cut into chunks
½ cup mushrooms, sliced (I used canned)
1 can sliced water chestnuts
Chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces (I used a 6 oz. pre-cooked pkg.)
1 cup sweet & sour sauce
2 Tbsps. less sodium soy sauce

(Don’t forget to recycle the cans!)

The Directions:
Prepare rice according to package directions.
Drain pineapple; reserve 2Tbsps. juice.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion until golden, add peppers and mushrooms. Cook until tender crisp. Add chicken, sweet & sour sauce, soy sauce, pineapple chunks and reserved juice. Heat through and let simmer approx 5 minutes to blend flavors. Serve over cooked rice.

The Results:
This was really good and I would definitely make this again. Including chopping veggies, it took only about 20 minutes to prepare – my kind of recipe!!!