Alfredo Pesto Pizza
Lump of pizza dough
Bacon
Shredded cheese
Pesto
Artichoke hearts
Mushrooms
Kale
Alfredo sauce
Sausage
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make Alfredo sauce and set aside. Spread out dough and bake for about 15 min. Then smother on Alfredo and pesto, and top with veggies, crumbled bacon and cheese. Bake until crust is golden-brown, about 15 min.
Alfredo Sauce: It Never Faileth
½ cup butter
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
In a large sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in cream and cook for 6 minutes, stirring constantly. Blend in parmesan, stirring until smooth.
Chicken Soup
Rotisserie chicken (from the deli)
Carrots, potatoes, celery… whatever you like in your soup
Chicken bouillon (I like either the paste kind, or the bouillon powder found in the Hispanic food isle.)
Fresh herbs- sage and rosemary are nice
After eating most of the chicken, put the carcass (for lack of a better word…) in a crock pot, pour in some water (2 cupsish), and cook on low for a good 5-6 hours. This will get all the nice juices out of the bones and marrow and such. When you’re satisfied, pour out the broth and pick all the meat you can find from the bones. Then put the meat back in the broth, and add your veggies. Start it boiling. Add more water and consequently some chicken bouillon to season it to taste. When the veggies are pretty tender, add herbs. Serve with an avocado and cheese (gouda’s my favorite) and hot bread.
Zuppa Tuscana
8 links sausage, sliced
2 potatoes, halved and sliced
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups sliced kale
1 1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbls chicken soup base
parmesan or asagio cheese
4 cups water
red pepper flakes (to taste)
Boil potatoes in water with chicken soup base and butter for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, saute sausage until golden brown. Add the sausage, kale, cream, garlic, and pepper flakes, and simmer on low till heated through. Sprinkle cheese on top and enjoy this delightful soup on a frosty afternoon, or whenever you feel like going to Olive Garden but can’t afford it. 🙂
Chicken or Pork Tortilla Soup
Leftover Sweet Pork
½ tsp olive oil
½ tsp minced garlic
¼ tsp cumin
2 cups chicken broth
½ tsp chili powder
1/2 cup salsa
1 lime, squeezed
Dress it up with tortilla chips, sour cream, avocados and cheese
Boil broth with meat, spices, salsa, and garlic. To serve: squeeze in some lime and toss in bowl. Add sour cream and cheese. Add slices of avocado and crunched-up chips.
French Onion Soup
¼ cup butter
½ cup cooking sherry
2 large onions, thinly sliced like onion rings
2 cans Swanson beef broth
1 loaf French bread
1 tsp sugar
Sliced swiss cheese
1 tbls flour
Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add the sugar (for caramelization) and onions and cook till golden-brown (about 20 min.). Toss in flour and stir. Add sherry and beef broth and bring to a boil. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Reduce heat of soup to low and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Ladle soup into oven-safe bowels, add toasted bread and cheese slices on top, and bake on a cookie sheet in oven for 10 minutes.
Cheesy Broccoli Soup
4 cups water
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cups chopped broccoli
½ cup butter
½ cup flour (mixed with water till smooth and runny)
8 oz. Velveeta cheese
Bring water and bouillon to a boil. Add broccoli till just tenderish, then add butter, cheese and flour mixture. Cook until everything is warmed and melted. Recipe can be doubled.
I may never be a stay-at-home mom, and I’m not even sad about it. There. I said it. If that fact disqualifies me to be a domestic goddess in your mind, then for goodness sake, look elsewhere for homemaking tips and tricks. If you’re not about to have a hernia over my rebelliousness, read on!! 🙂
A woman is the heart of her home. We’ve played at visualization before, so you’re familiar with my method of closing my eyes and “seeing” the woman I want to be. I’ve asked you to try it with me several times. Do you want to know what I “see”?
I see myself with medium-length hair, pulled softly somehow from my face. I see myself sitting on the clean, living room floor with a baby, playing in a spot of sunshine. Jason comes home, and I look up into his eyes. I’m happy. I’m calm. I’m complete.
There are parts of that picture that I’m not in control of bringing about right now, but the rest is all up to me. In short, my ideal life is very much within my power to obtain.
And so is yours. I would be willing to bet a lot that no matter how you visualized your ideal self in your ideal situation, you didn’t see yourself surrounded by filth and darkness. Nor is it likely you pictured yourself in a setting of fabulous wealth (unless that’s your driving goal for some reason). No, it’s far more probable that your image was akin to mine: you have a fresh, happy appearance and a clean, lovely home, bathed in sunshine (or the soft glow of a lamp, perhaps?), and you are basking in a spirit of peace and comfort. Can you make your ideal a reality? Of course you can. Will you?
If you really want to embrace your role as a homemaker, I believe a practical approach is best. There are some basic qualities of a domestic goddess that are essential: the ability to put a nutritious meal on the table, the ability to keep a home clean, organized, and clear of clutter, and the dedication to invite a spirit of peace and love into the home every day. I honestly believe that if you can achieve these three things, you are ENOUGH. Sure, you can take up baking, or labeling things in your cupboards, or dreamcatcher weaving if that’s your thing, and you’ll be a better person for it! But even without those extras, a safe, loving home IS enough.
Check out the “Domestic Goddess” sub-category under the “Feminine Ideal” menu link for homemaking tips and tricks. 🙂
“God wanted you to learn something from this experience, so He made you fail.”
“The Spirit told me to marry this man. I just wish I could stand him…”
“I know I’m in debt and financially floundering, but that job offer just didn’t feel right. I should reject it and wait for the right job to come along.”
What does it mean to have a worthy character?
When I think of someone having a worthy character, I think of a person who has the ability to be a good person in the real world. Sounds basic, right? I don’t believe it is. I hear statements like those above on a weekly basis, statements that essentially express this attitude: “God (my mom, my boss, luck, fate, etc.) controls my life, so I’m not really responsible for the outcome of my actions.” It’s an attitude that suggests that God is the one responsible for selecting our spouses, and wether or not we do well on that work presentation. If that were true, well, we’d all have a worthy character just by having a good attitude while enduring the life that God has laid out for us! We’d be like little marbles, rolling down an intricate track to a marked destination. That sounds so… easy.
But we don’t live in that convenient world. We live in a world where WE make choices and WE suffer the consequences. We live in a world where we do our very best sometimes to prepare for that work presentation, and then find that upon the moment of delivery, we still get nervous and choke. We live in a world where we sometimes regret the romantic choices we made a decade ago, and it has everything to do with it being OUR choice, and not to do with outside pressures or impressions. The question is, do we have the COURAGE to have a worthy character and live in the real world at the same time?
It requires so much. Being realistic and being worthy is such a difficult balance. It requires that we are truly humble, and able to admit to our own failings. We have to be able to confess to ourselves that our current circumstances are (almost) completely within our control, and if we don’t like them, it’s OUR problem to fix.
It’s so hard to maintain a strong, moral character in this world. It requires that we banish deception, and embrace truth. Self-reflection becomes very important. Action becomes essential. No longer can we imagine, “It’s ok that I never got an education or polished a skill. God has a different plan for me.” Having a strong character in the real world would require us to admit, “Looks like I fell short on that one. What can I do to make it right?”
People who have a strong moral fiber leave lasting impressions on the world. Even after they’re dead, their influence lives on. Consider the author of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” series, C.S. Lewis. He knew what he knew, and he really STOOD for something. Yet you get the sense, by reading his works, that he was a very worldly (in a good way) man. He had an appreciation for this earthly existence, yet he tempered that lust for life with a humble reverence for the spiritual sphere. They appear to have been united in his mind, and as a result, he’s still greatly admired for his character today.
Will I leave a lasting impression on the world? Or is the world leaving its impressions on me…?
I love the knowing smile on this woman’s face, because it expresses to me the deliberate intelligence that is the root of true happiness. Contentment is fleeting, ecstasy is notoriously hard to come by, but happiness, rich and steady, can be achieved and maintained through all of life’s ups and downs.
Deep, inner happiness is not an emotion. It’s a state of being. It is a place where the soul dwells in security, peace, and goodness. It allows for moments of joy and delight, and surprisingly allows for moments of true grief as well. A person who possesses lasting happiness will not reject brief periods of sorrow, because they know that without the bitter, we can never understand the sweet. In fact, in my experience, the happiest people are those who have heavily sampled the bitter, and through their experience, have grown to recognize the sweet where other’s might not.
What is required to be happy, even when struggling with life’s trials? Here are a few thoughts:
1- Happy people see the big picture. They have goals for themselves that reach beyond this life. They recognize a higher force than themselves, and are grateful for and humbly seek the influence of the forces of good that surround them. Maybe they seek good karma, or God, or enlightenment. In any case, they call out for goodness and direction wherever they can find it.
2- Happy people know how to deal with trials. I like to say this to myself in moments of despair: “Jess, your life is going to move forward wether you join it or not. You can give up, sit on your duff and watch it play out, or you can be the star of your own show. Which is it going to be?” I never regret getting back in the ring, even if the ring stings. Happy people give themselves permission to despair for a day, grieve for a week, and then work on recovery the rest of the time.
3- Happy people are at peace with themselves. Do you believe in the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance? I do. It means that when your actions don’t match your beliefs, your brain becomes uncomfortable. Actually, I think your spirit is what really suffers, but that’s a topic for another day. The point is, peace cannot exist in a person who is at odds with their own self. People who experience this discomfort will ease it by either changing their beliefs, changing their behavior, or justifying their behavior until they convince themselves that it’s actually within the bounds of what they believe. The happiest people are those who truly live what they truly believe, and reassess their beliefs as their experience and knowledge grows.
What do you think makes for deep, inner happiness?
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