I'm thankful for...

My terrific husband and our happy marriage

Yummy and plentiful food, wonderful family and great friends (especially the ones who wear their daughter's headdress to the table)...

Precious little Elliot, on his first Thanksgiving

And our two wild Indians, who keep us busy, happy and oh-so-tired

I'm also thankful for old friends...there's nothing quite like 'em! So far this month, we've gotten to see Rachel Gross (find her on Facebook if you know her!), Melissa and Chris Dyches and last night, Matt and Katherine!! We had a reunion of our old Savannah crew at our house last night. Too bad we didn't take any pictures...oh well! But we did have White Chili and everyone wanted the recipe; here you go!

White Chili

Season two large chicken breasts and boil them—reserve the chicken stock (season the water with bullion, olive oil, seasoning salt, whatever you think will taste good).
Take 5 cans of navy beans and drain some of the liquid off (keep some of it b/c it thickens up the chili)

In a pan, warm some olive oil and add the following:
1 tsp cumin (use more/less to taste--usually just keep seasoning til it tastes good)
1 small onion chopped
1 small can green chili’s drained
1 small bunch of fresh cilantro chopped up (use more or less to taste
Simmer this for a while.

After chicken is cooked, cut into small pieces (reserve broth)
Put the seasoning above in a pot with the chopped chicken, beans.
Add a little chicken stock to the pot (keep the rest for something else – yummy!).
Simmer on low for an hour and eat (or cook in a crock pot like I did)

It's been awhile. A long while. Sad for you. Just kidding.

I have not been posting lately because I have been so. dang. tired. Elliot has been doing very random things in the night, like waking up in the middle of the night screaming to eat (only happened twice) but almost every other night for the past 2 weeks he's woken up at some point and just "talked" in his bed for over an hour. And since we have to use a monitor now, I can hear all that. I've tried turning it down so low that I only hear screaming and that does work. But once I'm awake, I can't go back to sleep. So I'm pretty much awake for a couple of hours every night. And even if he doesn't wake up, I do. Because I'm in a habit of waking up now. I'm considering some sleeping medicine. I should not be this tired. I don't even have a newborn. *sigh*

And being so tired means I'm not getting up as early, which means I'm starting the day behind and not getting a jump start on my day like I normally do. *sigh* I think I'm just going to get up earlier anyway and just deal with the sleepiness.

Anyway, we've been enjoying this nice chilly weather and warming up by the fire for the past few nights. Thank goodness for fireplace screens, is all I have to say!

And I picked up my second box from the farm yesterday and am trying to figure out what to do with kale, cauliflower and persimmons (any suggestions?). I didn't do much menu planning this week, because we have lots of things on-hand already, but I did make Moroccan Lentil Soup last night and it was yummy. Tonight we are having Mexican because Ryan is on call all week-end and we normally like to do something fun before he works a week-end.

I'm making Brown-Sugar Pecan Coffee Cake for a ladies church social on Saturday . And probably a friend's Chicken Chili recipe for dinner.

And this week-end is Christmas Made in the South, which I attend with my mom, sisters, aunts and cousins every year. Yipee!

And better late than never: the requested Slow-Cooker Black Beans recipe.

I really like to make babyfood. I think the commercial jars are quite the rip-off and ever since reading Super Baby Food when Charlie was a baby, I've been taken with the idea of making it myself. So I decided to dig into the fresh fruits and veggies that came in my box from the farm. I found a great website on making homemade baby food that recommends pumpkin, among other things. So I baked that pie pumpkin I got in my box, scooped out the flesh, pureed it with water and a little cinnamon and boy-oh-boy, it was a HIT with Elliot. He gobbled it up like he hadn't eaten in years. And now when he eagerly takes his first bite of dinner, he's visibly disappointed when he finds out its peas and carrots mixed in with his YoBaby instead of pumpkin.


Homemade, all-natural, organic, cheap: what's not to love about pumpkin baby food made right at home?! Here's the proof.





Menu Planning Tuesdays? I'm way too tired. Just got back from a quick trip to Augusta to meet a friend's new baby and got ZERO sleep last night. Had to sleep in a bed with Charlie, in the same room with Elliot. Charlie has never slept in a big-boy bed before and has never slept with me. Recipe for disaster. We were up from 1:30am-4:30am (no exaggeration): "Hi Mommy" / "Pet my head Mommy" / "I love you Mommy" / "I go downstairs Mommy." Cute, but not at 4am.

PS - We are not fans of eggplant...

Menu planning Tuesdays

Awhile back, I was feeling very overwhelmed and decided to take a step back from menus, cooking and other things. So I've spent the past few weeks thinking and planning, working on our daily schedules and routines and ironing out a new household maintenance schedule (more on that later). I think I'm finally climbing out of the "I'm-so-overwhelmed-hole" and am ready to jump back into cooking (not to mention the fact that Sarah gave me and a few of my recipes a shout-out on her blog).

Another big factor in my decision to get back into the kitchen is that we signed up for an every-other-week delivery of fresh fruits and veggies from Heritage Organic Farm. Today I picked up my first box (pictured above) of fresh, organic produce and couldn't wait to look through it and work on our menu for the week. A real pie pumpkin, apples, grapefruit, pears, a whole pineapple, an avocado, carrots, onions and eggplant were included in this week's box.

But my new schedule doesn't have me menu planning on Mondays anymore - it's now a Tuesday task. So: enter Menu-Planning Tuesdays!

So here is what we are going to be eating for dinner this next week:
Cheese Tortellini in lite broth with Parmesan Crisps (Thanks Sarah!)

Eggplant Parmesan, garlic bread -- something I've been wanting to try for awhile since I'm almost a vegetarian but was never inspired enough to actually buy an eggplant!

Black bean soup, cornbread

Cranberry Chicken (recipe similar to this one, but no french dressing), rice, okra & tomatoes

Lentil Soup, pita chips

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