Spring!

In honor of the first day of Spring I thought it would be fun to eat some dirt! I had dinner with my friend Beth and her two sons on Friday night and I made dessert. The boys loved the worms 'crawling' through the dirt.

Prayer Request

If you are thinking about us, we would really appreciate your prayers this week. Jeff is leaving today for a missions trip to Philadelphia and will not return until next Saturday (21st). I still have 6 weeks to go, so all should be fine, just mainly my nerves need to be calmed. :-) If you could please pray for safety for the missions team and for the work that they are doing in the Philadelphia area. And for Beniah and me, that we stay healthy and well. Thank you!

If you would like to follow the team and their work this week you can go to their blog.

Here fishee, fishee...

Jeff and I probably eat fish for dinner maybe one night a week. For the past month, I've been using the frozen tilapia fillets at Aldi. Now, I've been known to really mess up fish so I try to make it a point to find an easy fish recipe that I know I will always have the ingredients for and that will taste great even if I lose track of the cooking time for a minute or two. (Note: the recipes that I am about to disclose are not miracles by any means. If you cook the fish way too long, there isn't much you can do to save the dish.)
Both recipes are very different from each other so it doesn't feel like you are being repetitive in your meals. We enjoy both of them and I've made them several times already. Let me know what you think if you try them or if you have a favorite and easy fish recipe.

Broiled Tilapia Parmesean (I love allrecipes.com because you can alter the number of servings which recalculates the amt of ingredients you will need.)

Herb Baked Tilapia (from the MomAdvice blog)

Birthday Bonanza!

So, between the two of us, Jeff and I have 9 or 10 family birthdays to cover this month. Well, when money is tight, you get the creative juices flowing. Thanks to my friend, Emily, the juices didn't have to flow too hard for one of the gift ideas. I spun off of her hair accessory holder and came up with this.

What do you do with a hideous (and kind of creepy painting of a girl)? Cover it up of course! :-)

I went to the thrift store in town yesterday and bought the only canvas painting that they had (slim pickings there yesterday). I then covered it in a layer of quilt batting and fabric cut to size, stapling on the backside of the canvas frame. Then I strung ribbon down the front and stapled the ends to the back. The frame already has a hanger on it but I think that I'm going to add a ribbon to use to hang from as well. Voila! A little girl's barrette holder.

Mmmmmmm....potatoes...

This past weekend, we had the best mashed potatoes that I've had in a long time. I have to admit that while I was intrigued by the name of the recipe, I was a little skeptical at what it was promising. But these were mighty tasty and I highly recommend trying them. I used red potatoes with the skins still on and whole green onions (sliced really thin). And either my crock pot is one fast cooker or I just sliced the potatoes thinner than the person who wrote the recipe because mine didn't take the entire 4 hours. It was maybe about 45 min - 1 hour quicker. You'll just have to monitor them, the first time.

CP Potatoes Euphoria

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
8 med. potatoes (2 lbs) scrubbed and sliced
8 oz. cream cheese (cut in 1 in. cubes)
4 scallions finely chopped

In one small bowl combine scallions and garlic. In another small bowl combine salt and pepper.
In greased crock, layer 1/4 potatoes.
Sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt and pepper and top with 1/3 cream cheese, then 1/3 scallion/garlic mix.
Make a second layer of 1/4 potatoes, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. salt and pepper. Top with 1/2 remaining cheese and scallion/garlic mix. Repeat with third layer of potatoes, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. salt and pepper, top with remaining cheese and scallion/garlic mix. Make final layer of potatoes and sprinkle with remaining salt and pepper.
Cover, cook on high for 3 hrs. Stir to distribute melted cheese, cover and cook for about an hour longer. Stir well to mash slightly and serve.