Steak (leftover), Corn Pudding, & Swiss Cake Roll

It had been too long since I'd eaten corn pudding! Aka corn casserole. Thanks to Christopher's cousin Jessica for sharing this recipe. It tasted great! But I must have done something wrong  since it didn't exactly set like it was supposed to. ;)

https://unsophisticook.com/creamed-corn-casserole/?pp=1&fbclid=IwAR11W_Yz84KqdNRaF0XxwGzqpBtVPMTE-nSQMjk-ogijoGZfi9Hrmbkoymo

Then Little Bit wanted to make cake, so we made a Swiss cake roll together. It was a weird day in the kitchen for me, though - cause our Swiss cake roll didn't really resemble traditional cake texture, but was more like a Little Debbie cake, lol.

https://dinnerthendessert.com/chocolate-cake-roll-swiss-roll/?fbclid=IwAR3C0sT8hmOf8jCVRHKx0438NiVV9wijnLq9s1dhzckP3bF-mcvqP9OrZcw

 

Leftover Steak from our Family Cookout

Corn Pudding

Little Bit spreading leftover coffee-flavored icing on the "Little Debbie" Swiss cake roll

Steak Night

Here’s the recipe Christopher uses to make his delicious steaks! Psst, it includes COFFEE. 😋 

 

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grilled-new-york-strip-steaks-5232389

Prepped and ready to go!

My man at work 💕

While Levi and I watch 👀

Family photo time!

Steak

Garlic bread (made from everything-flavored hot dog buns)

Grilled Eggplant

Switzerland! Chicken Casserole, “Coffee” Cake, & BircherMuesli

All my life, I dreamed of studying a country a week with my someday family. And wouldn’t you know it, God saw fit that our home would come with a huge world map on one of its walls!

So far we’ve studied Peru (Christopher’s 2018 mission trip), Burundi (my 2012 mission trip), and Papua New Guinea (trying out recipes for a friend who was preparing to host natives). Now it’s Switzerland week!😊 Switzerland is very special to Christopher & I because it was one of our honeymoon destinations - after our wedding in April 2019, we flew to Paris for a few days & then rode a train to the Swiss Alps. 

And since we had some leftover chicken in the fridge along with a few mushrooms & a few sweet pepper slices & a few slices of Swiss cheese, I fixed a small batch of this cheesy chicken casserole for dinner the other night. 

https://ourtableforseven.com/2014/12/swiss-cheese-chicken-casserole.html

Little Bit loved helping with the French vanilla cake we made to use up a little of the huge bowl of coffee-flavored icing that was produced when I tried to make coffee whipped cream using only instant coffee instead of the necessary instant coffee crystals. Lol

https://www.misshomemade.com/frenchvanillacakerecipe.html

https://youtu.be/DOCl57TQTeQ coffee whipped cream

And last but far, far, far from least - this Swiss Power Muesli was our favorite breakfast food served every day at our hotel near the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. Except, it wasn’t exactly this - but this is the closest we’ve come so far in our attempts to mimic that delightful dish! When I emailed the hotel staff to request the recipe, they were very sweet & generous with a list of the ingredients, lol. 

Oat flakes, milk, sugar, yogurt natural (kefir?), apricot jam, grated apples, grated pears, pressed orange, pressed lemon, orange estates (bio - ie, orange peel), and lemon estates (bio - is, lemon peel).

Like, okay great! What do I do with that?

Then I found some kind of actual recipe (https://www.facebook.com/toscareno/videos/148703419867151/), but the resulting concoction was just incorrect when we first tried it yesterday morning - it was too thick as well as hardly sweet enough or fruity enough. But when Christopher added a little grape jelly and a little honey this morning, that made it much closer. 

I’ll keep working on it! Maybe next time we can get even closer by combining the two “recipes.” 😉

Because This Should Really Be a Cooking Blog

Right?!

We can talk about the pregnancy journey with Levi being the size of different fruits and vegetables.

I can share all the new recipes I find and cook as brand-new dishes or else use to refurbish leftovers.

We could explore the international food journey my family is taking now, in studying a new country every week.

And perhaps best of all? You know how annoying it is when you find a recipe online and have to scroll through the  cook’s entire kitchen history before finally locating the actual recipe at the bottom of the super-long article? Well, I’m not gonna do that. When I post a recipe, I’ll post the recipe. And then if I want to say something else, I can say that afterwards. But I know that when you’re looking for a recipe, you want to see the RECIPE, lol. 🤣

Well, so there’s my introduction for this new endeavor. And now it’s off to dinner with my family!

P. S. If you have any recipes you’d like to share, or any that you’d like me to try out for you, please let me know at naomilyn_h@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Hope After TBI

Are you struggling to find hope after your own heavy trials or those of a loved one? At first, my TBI was emotionally hard for my family but not for me; because I was asleep. 😉 However, things like these were some of their clues that I was still there, inside the vegetable that some said I would always be:

1. When a former boss (Pat Callahan of Laurel Lake Baptist Camp) visited me early on and said he needed me in the kitchen, I stirred and apparently tried to get up so I could go help in the kitchen, lol.
2. One time my brother Caleb was getting clothes ready for me to go take a shower, and he asked me what I wanted to wear. I told him I wanted to wear a skirt, of which I actually had none at the hospital - which was really weird, cause I had decided to always wear skirts when I was five years old....
3. When I became able to eat a little food with my mouth, the hospital put me on a puréed diet. But after someone gave me a letter-board with which to communicate, I spelled out “cinnamon toast crunch” (my favorite cereal since Bible college 6 years previous).
4. When they brought a cake into my hospital room for my brother Caleb’s birthday, I immediately started singing him the birthday song.

My TBI was the result of a major car wreck on October 31, 2012; and I did not fully wake up until March 8, 2013. At first, it was very hard for me emotionally.

1. It was the wrong season. I had gone to sleep in the fall and then woke up the next morning in the early spring, with snow on the ground.
2. My brothers’ and my bedrooms had been switched.
3. My voice sounded funny.
4. My legs didn’t work right, and I spent all day in bed.
5. My mom regularly changed my diapers, which were often dirty even though I never felt like I’d gone to the bathroom and never smelled anything either.
6. I always wore glasses instead of contacts, and my hair looked super-weird (long on one side and only an inch on the other).
7. I feel like I had eaten 27 meals in one day without ever sleeping at all (because of the medicine amantadine).
8. I had tons of homework to do, & work to do at Chick-fil-A; but for some reason I never did anything besides laying in bed. 
9. My parents claimed I had been in a car accident, but I didn’t remember any such thing - so obviously they were just telling me a story to keep me content in whatever horrible nightmare I was living out.

Until they showed me a picture of my car, and of course pictures can’t be argued.

So that was depressing. Turns out the nightmare was real! But it was only depressing for about an hour. Cause who wants to be sad forever? God helped me to see that all the problems were only temporary; whereas Heaven is eternal, and would include full restoration even if I never got any better on earth. So I kinda shook myself, and determined to get back as much  as I could by working really hard in therapy. God alone got me through those early days, because otherwise I’m sure I would’ve been depressed like all the non-Christians who were in therapy with us hopeful Christian “patients.”

And He has given me back so much! Not everything of course, and honestly it’s still depressing at times. I do really wish I could still drive and run and swim and jump and help more with physical chores and play piano well and do other things that require coordinated hand-movements. I wish I had more control of my stress & emotions, and I wish I could be more of the hands-on wife & mom that I always wanted to be. There are lots of things like that, but there are also lots of blessings that have come out of my accident. 

1. I have free time to help with foster care and elder care (more hands-on “social work” than I probably would’ve been able to do otherwise).
2. I have new compassion and understanding for people with special needs.
3. I saw far less legitimate marriage potential in real-life, which made me keep resorting to online dating so that my wonderful Christopher eventually looked at my profile, eventually sending the first message that was the start of our fairytale relationship.
4. Oh, and everybody said I wouldn’t be able to have kids, but our first baby is coming in about 5 weeks!

Yes, TBI’s are hard. And yes, there’s hope after TBI. Hope exists because Jesus exists! “And lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).

Conflict Styles in the Movie Frozen (2013)

Elsa’s conflict style was one of withdrawal, while Anna’s conflict style involved engaging.
And which way worked? Well, neither way worked at first (either personally or relationally), since both lived pretty miserably and both disliked the separation.

But then for a little while, Elsa’s way of withdrawal seemed more promising since she could be “happy” in her cold-hearted isolation; while Anna in her engaging felt the full force of the estrangement for which she never asked and never even received an explanation.

In the end, though - Elsa’s way very nearly killed both of them. And if it were not for Anna’s sacrificial, warm-hearted engagement with the conflict around her, all would have been lost. But happily for both of them, Anna never gave up on her sister - never stopped pursuing a relationship with Elsa, even at the cost of her own comfort, even at the cost of her own LIFE!

The Elsa’s in the world do not often appreciate those of us who keep engaging with them like annoying little Anna’s.... But don’t feel bad, my fellow Anna. Our way might hurt us more than their way hurts them, but in the end it’s our way that works. That’s all. 😉

Key song lyric: “Beware the frozen heart!”
Elsa’s key admission: “I don’t know how to unfreeze!”
Elsa’s key lesson: “Love can thaw!”

1st Thanksgiving as Mr. & Mrs. Austin!!

I’m so excited to share my childhood-favorite holiday with my all-time-favorite man! ❤️
Here’s tomorrow’s menu; will post pics & recipes later....

For breakfast:

• French toast muffins with candied bacon,
• Sausage & apple stuffing, 
• Coffee - but I’m afraid I don’t have enough pumpkin purée to make both pumpkin pie AND pumpkin spice lattes, so we’ll have to try that out next year 😉

For lunch:

• Turkey, 
• Cranberry sauce, 
• Creamed corn,
• Mashed potatoes & gravy, 
• Homemade croissants,
• Sweet potato pie with spiced walnut streusel

For supper:

• Dinner at Cracker Barrel with my mom, Little Bit, and her bio-mom & bio-grandma 

For Saturday’s family get-together:

• Pumpkin spice latte pie, from the pumpkin that Little Bit helped carve & purée yesterday