tasty thursday

Baked Turkey and Spinach Meatball Subs 

Ingredients for Meatballs

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional - adjust to your preference)
• 16 oz frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, drained, and squeezed to remove excess water)
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/3 cup chicken broth
• 2 1/2 lbs lean ground turkey
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 2 large eggs

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a large baking sheet by spraying with cooking spray. I actually line my baking sheet with foil and then spray with cooking spray.
2. In a frying pan on medium heat, heat olive oil until hot. Then add onion, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Sauté until onion is tender (about 5-6 minutes total time).
3. Add spinach to pan and combine with onion mixture. Add Worcestershire sauce and chicken broth and mix well to combine. Cook until most of the liquid has cooked out (evaporated). I don't have much liquid in my pan after I combine all these, but it will depend on how well you drained your spinach. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
4. In a large bowl, combine the turkey, bread crumbs, and egg. Add cooled onion/spinach mixture to the meat. I do all of this step with my hands, but you can use a spoon if you prefer.
5. 5. With your hands, create meatballs that are about 1 - 1 1/2 inches in diameter and place them on the baking sheet. Leave a little bit of space between each meatball. When you are done shaping your meatballs, you will probably have about 40-42 meatballs from this recipe. Don't need that many? Freeze them after baking or cut this recipe in half (but I say freeze them and then you've done the work only once and have a future meal).
6. Bake until your meatballs are cooked through with an internal temperature of 160 degrees F - which was about 20 minutes for my oven. Remove from oven and serve as desired.

Your meatballs are finished! Now, just put them in a pot over the stove and pour enough spaghetti sauce over it to cover the meatballs and let sit for 5-10 minutes.  Spoon 3-4 meatballs in each hoagie/sub roll and top with leftover sauce from pot.  Top with mozzarella cheese.  Stick in oven (350) until cheese is melted and bubbly.  (10 minutes or so) - I broil mine to give it that melted cheese look.  

Divine! Enjoy.

Thanks for walking with us,

JL

take it from noe's perspective.

Hi.

Itz Noe here.  My mommy is bizee at work rite now and left her compyouter on at home so I decided I wood rite a blog entry.

You c, my mommy went to work the other day and didn't realize that my daddy left the door to the pantree cracked.  She says he forgot to shut the door.  When I heard her leave, I ran up stairs to c what I cud get into.  A lot of timez, I like to pick up mommys candlez she has around the house and just carry them around.  THey smell sooo good so I just like to carry them around while I smell them.  I like to just leave them in different spotz of the house for my mommy to find when she gets home from werk.  She doesn't think it'z funny though.

Other timez, I like to take all the toys out of my toy buhcket and carry them all over the house.  It makes me feel like I have friendz in every room.

My meen mommy and daddy close the door to all the bedrooms now when they leave for werk because they got mad that I would jump up on every bed and ruffle up the covers.  I was just having a littl fun.  THey are so boaring and meen sometimez.

Back to the pantree the other day.  So my daddy left it cracked and I started sniffin around in thare.  You c, i knew i wasn't supposed to do it but i was so excited that I found some colored  paints.  Actually, my mommy said it was blue food dye and I seen her bake treets with it before.  So I decided I wanted to be like mommy and bake some treets.  I knew they would be so proud of me when they got home for baking like a big gurl.

SO, I got the dye out of the pantree and took it to mommy's favorite piece of furntiure in the whole house- the gold antique couch that was her grandmother's.   I mean, if I'm going to bake my mommy a treet, then I should have it ready on her favorite couch right? So, I started choowing the bottle of blue dye so i could get the cap off but no matter how hard i choowed, the cap would not twist off.  I just kept biting teeth marks in to the bottle instead.  I was so excited when I started to see the dye come out, in one BIG SPOT on my mommy's special gold couch.  In fact, blue looks ever so bootiful on a gold couch.  It was so perfect.  I didnt end up baking a cake but I made my mommy's favorite couch so pretty.  I even had blue all over my arm and mouth in the case that she didn't believe it was me who did such a prettie job painting for her.

Oh...and why you ask does my mommy not just put me in my crayte? Oh. Becuz she bought me this reallie nice wooden one and even put house address sticker numberz on the front (so I would have a real home) and I chewed my way out of it.  I chewed all the wooden rungs and scratched the inside of the wood door so much that finally i broke free one day.  My mommy was really mad about that one; but it werked I guess! Because now i just get to rome around the house all day long by myself.  I always win.  Mommy calls me a sour patch puppy because I'm super sweet and super sour too.

Only....when my mommy came home from work to let me out to go potty, she wasn't very excited to see me.  I ran downstayers to greet her as I always do, and as soon as she saw my blue arm and face, her whole demeener changed.  She was not happy to c me anymore and i won't even tell you all the church words she said to me once she got upstayers to the gold couch.

I just don't get it? I make her a special treat and she just throws me in a plastic cat crayte for the rest of the day.

Okay. that's all. gudbye.

noe peters

tasty thursday

Cashew Chicken (Crockpot Style)

2 lbs Boneless, Skinless Chicken breasts

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp canola oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 garlic cloves, minced 

1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1/3 tsp red pepper flakes 

3/4 cup cashews

Combine flour and pepper in large ziploc bag and then add the chicken.  Shake to coat with flour mixture.  Heat oil in skillet and brown chicken about 2 minutes on each side.  Place chicken in crockpot.  Combine soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, sugar, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl; pour over chicken in the crockpot.  Cook on LOW for 3-4 hours.  Add cashews and stir.  Serve over rice (I chose to make fried rice and serve it over that!)  

**I LIKE TO DOUBLE the SAUCE ingredients to have extra sauce to pour over the chicken and rice.

This is delicious and very easy to make!  Enjoy!

Thanks for walking with us,

JL

building up our husbands

I decided to write a blog post that sort of builds off of my last post.  If you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to read it prior to this one.

Proverbs 27:15 says, "A continual dripping on a very rainy day; And a contentious woman are alike."

This week has been a very hectic week with John's company.  The weather up in Maryland went from 45 degree days, to 85 degree days within a matter of 1 week.  Needless to say, the quick and intense (for April) heat means an HVAC company is up to their heads with calls.

As I ate dinner alone, yet again, last night.  I decided to change my perspective even more.  [well, I can't take full credit for this realization; I must give a shout out to my mom for talking to me and encouraging me to do the following things.]  Not only do I need to be okay with my husband working late (because truly, what could be better than having a man that works super hard for us - for our family?), but I need to build him up and support him more than ever during these times.

{just a quick shout out to my father-in-love who started this HVAC business on his own, running every call, all hours of the day and night by himself - AND my mother-in-love who supported him through it all with 4 YOUNG kids, all 2 years apart...how you did it? I don't know!} It's no wonder where John gets his strong work ethic, dedication, drive, passion, and motivation from.

When I get a call saying "it's going to be another late night", I need to empathize with him and throw my disappointments and sadness behind.  Support and encourage him 100%.

I read this on another blog and loved each of these points; for they are so true (and easy to forget).

Six ways we can build up our husbands:

1. Listen to what he has to say so that you will recognize what's on his heart.
   
2. Make an effort to be as cheerful as you were when you were engaged to be married.
   
3. Ignore his faults and focus on his strong points by taking note of them.
   
4. Compliment him for the way that he looks and the good things that he does like working hard for the family.
   
5. See him for who he is, not who you want him to be.
   
6. Be slow to anger. Relay your frustration with love, respect, and a cool head.

Now, during the late hours and early mornings, I need to focus on these points more than ever.  I want him to feel my 100% support and love - always.  During the easier and harder times - for that's what a marriage should look like (though - far easier said than done, right?!)

So, last night before going to bed, I left John a note at the coffee pot for him to find in the morning saying, "thanks so much for working so hard for us - i love you."  

And you know what?  I got a note back when I got up this morning saying, "thanks for all your love and support.  i love you."

You get what you give; but give no matter WHAT you get.  

Selflessness, baby.  It's what it's all about.

Thanks for walking with us,

JL

perspective.

It is 7:41pm as I sit down to start this.  I so count down the hours and minutes until my husband and I are both home from work and get to spend the evening together.  All day, I look forward to hearing the door open and hear "hi baby" come up stairs from the front door.  It's one of my favorite parts of each day.  We get to sit down and eat dinner together, catch up on our days, watch a little tv/or a movie together, and just relax - being together.  Before getting married, John and I were long-distance dating from the day we met; thus, when we were together for a few days at a time, we wanted to pack everything in (not leaving much "kick back" time).  It is so nice to have that time, almost every night now.

Except on days like today.

Which happen far more frequently than I like them to.

You see, my husband's job is 100% the opposite of me.  It's not consistent. It's constantly and always in the state of emergencies (he does HVAC so is always fixing some type of crisis).  You sort of never know until the hour of, when he'll be home, and he might just have to go back out and run a call.  It's hard for my super-planner (what time should I have dinner on the table - personality) to let go of this and step back taking it literally hour by hour.  It's not rare that I get a text at 6:20pm saying "heading home" and then a call 5-10 minutes later saying "i've just gotten a call down in yadda yadda town, 40 minutes away that I have to take care of".  Yeah - that type of thing.

And as I sit here (at now 7:47 pm - dang I'm cranking this thing out?!), I start to feel sad for myself that I'm home alone, missing my husband and the fact that he's still in DC -leaving no time soon - which means he won't be home before bed kind-of-thing.  I had dinner prepped to go that'll have to wait for tomorrow, a nightly walk in mind, and the list of things could go on...But then, I stop myself.

My sweet, hard-working husband, is out busting his tail for me. For our little family, our future.  He is the one going on a 15 hour work day (and trust me, his work is NOT sitting at a cubicle).  He is the one physically and emotionally exhausted and drained.  He's the one getting home past bedtime tonight and will be back up at 5:45 am for another work day (that could look like a 7am-6:30pm day, or one like today - he won't know until the day brings its course).

How selfish of me to even think to take pity on myself.  To feel sorry for myself sitting at home alone.  It's all about perspective, you see.  What a huge blessing it is that my husband has a job, and works passionately for it.

So tonight, as I sit here with my laptop, dog, and a candle burning, I'm going to choose to be happy that my husband is working right now.  He is a fiercely devoted husband, a man that follows the Lord, and uses all his work to glorify his Creator. To Him be the glory!

Thanks for walking with us,
JL

raising a wimpy society

Before you read another word (or 10) please read the following article (trust me).

 Click here to read the article

People wonder why our society (and children these days) are becoming more and more wimpy.  More winey. Less confident. Weaker (emotionally). Less competitive. And the list goes on.  Well....it should be super clear why this is happening after reading this article.

I should start by apologizing to my husband for not believing him when he told me EACH of these "laws" that are in the process of being implemented/or have already been implemented.  You were right, John.  Over the past month or two, John will frequently come home and say "You'll never believe what I heard on the radio today..... ____________ {fill in the blank with some absurd new law}.  Truly; half of the stuff he says sounds SO bizarre and ridiculous that WHO WOULD believe him?  Then again, it's that "off the wall" kind of stuff that you can't just "make up."

New Hampshire banning dodgeball?  Give me a break! Like the author of this article states; bullying is one thing (real bullying) and definitely needs to be dealt with. Agreed. But banning it so that children aren't ever a "target" of this game that could potentially cause hurt feelings? Wah wah wah. Cry my a river.  I'm sorry; but every individual in this life is going to be a target of something at some point (or a hundred).  It's about pulling yourself up by the boot straps and learning how to deal with situations (NOT run from them!) A good parent and teacher teaches their child/student how to react and take action during situations in this life.  Not hide in a corner so he or she can avoid conflict his or her entire life.  Sorry, but life doesn't work that way!

Schools in the UK banning best friends?  Okay. Seriously. My husband came home with THIS one about 2 weeks ago and I laughed in his face.  Really? THIS IS REAL? {Sorry again, baby. I do believe you ;) }  Heaven forbid we get close to a friend or two and really bond.  Because having a good companion and true friend to confide in and build social and emotional relationships with is just a sin.  But, you know, we want to make sure (again) that "no ones feelings get hurt".  Again, let's look realistically....Can someone really prevent 2 children from being pulled to each other and bonding a friendship?  I mean, seriously, the "playing in large groups only" can only last for so long.

Middle school in Massachusetts banning Award Ceremonies?  Why of course. Makes total sense.  Because we definitely want to teach our children and students in school NOT to work hard and EARN what they've worked for.  Because, you know, that might just hurt other's feelings who may not have worked as hard.  We want to be sure that all kids are treated fairly regardless of their work ethic or outcomes. Wow.

The real world is going to be a rude rude awakening for kids that grow up with this mindset and lifestyle.  (And we are doing nothing but making it harder and harder for them).  What happened to learning coping skills for when we are defeated, let down, tired, disappointed, and losers?  Because - this is life! You won't always be a winner, the smartest, or the best one out there.  In fact; it's rare that you will be!  Thus; it's important to grow up learning that "failing" is okay.  It's a good thing, actually! For it builds our character and teaches us how to grow and learn.

I can't even finish this post without just bitterness.  I know it's not my place to get fired up about this but it is so frustrating to hear this things (almost DAILY) now and see the kind of society and generation we are raising.  Wimpier and wimpier.  I can't even fathom how hard it's going to be to raise a child in today's societies with ridiculous things like this being implemented.  It's definitely still possible but getting harder and harder to do.

Thanks for walking with us;
JL

tasty thursday

Well....2 "tasty thursday" blog posts in a row means I've been a slacker and haven't written in a week.  Sorry about that.  Anywho, it is Thursday which means it's almost the weekend AND it's a good day for a recipe.

This is an amazing recipe that actually is for breakfast; super ideal for a busy lifestyle (whether its work, kids, school, etc).  Once you do the hard work (which is actually easy) you're set for one weeks worth of breakfast!  This is what it looks like (in prep and the final product).  Once you've made them; store in ziploc bags or wrap tightly in wax paper if you want them to look more legit { and pop them in the freezer ! }

BREAKFAST SANDWICHES {to go}: 

1 Red Bell Pepper

Turkey Bacon

Whole-Wheat English Muffins

Cheese Slices

Eggs (6) 

Preheat Oven to 350.

Scramble 5 egg whites + 1 whole egg together. 

Add diced bell pepper to egg mixture. 

Pour into 6 muffin tins (greased beforehand).

Set aside.

Line Bacon on a baking sheet - and bake for 6 minutes.

Stick the egg muffin tin in and bake both together for additional 9-11 minutes.

Remove eggs from pan after cooling. 

Pat any excess grease off bacon. 

Slice English Muffins in half.

Top one side with cheese and turkey bacon.

Top other side with egg. 

Put sandwich together and place back in oven until muffins are golden brown.

{^ Just a few minutes (5-6); keep your eye on them)

VOILA! 

You now have BREAKFAST for 6 days (or only 1 day if you have 6 people in your family).

If that's the case; bless your heart (and just go back to cereal).

Take that McDonalds!

Thanks for walking with us,

JL