Lazy Woman's Chocolate Cake and the "Lazy" Way to Find Love

Apparently laziness makes the best cakes and the best love stories. This is the recipe that my brothers and my husband have most often asked me to make for their birthdays.

You don't really have to sift all the dry ingredients - you can literally just mix them in lazily and it'll still taste just as amazing!

And you don't really have to work hard to be "good enough" for the right man when God brings him around - you can literally just be yourself, and he'll love you just the way you are! Now, having him in your life will definitely change you for the better; but that's beside the point.

It's a lot like the Divine love story! We don't really have to work hard to be "good enough" for God to take us into His family - we can literally just ask Him in faith and trust that He'll do all the work for us. Again, having Him in our lives will definitely change us for the better; but that's beside the point.

Anyway, back to my love story....

Before I met my husband Christopher, all the guys who I liked or who liked me seemed to want/need me to change something.

One of the first guys I liked believed that short-sleeved shirts were sinful, so I wore only 3/4-length-or-longer sleeves for a while just to see if I could do it. 

Another guy who wanted to court me (we had two dates) wanted me to move to his home-state (where I knew no one), and we wouldn’t actually be going to church anywhere (just nursing home services). He also wanted to know which school subject I felt like I could teach the best in homeschooling his five children from a previous marriage.

Still another guy wanted help on his farm (again, in another state). He needed a place to stay, help writing his occasional sermons, and special water - he couldn't drink local water anywhere because it made him sick. 

One guy told me that although I could keep wearing skirts since that's my preference, he really preferred the blue-jeans look on women.

Another guy wanted me to agree the “food” at McDonald’s was too unhealthy to ever think of even touching.

And then there was the guy who kinda liked me (and I thought I loved him, but it was really just gratitude & friendship). He shared a lot of his fitness knowledge, which really helped in my recovery when I'd sort of hit a hump. We had some great talks, and we texted regularly for a while. But when it came down to it, I just wasn't recovering enough (or recovering fast enough) to be/become "good enough for him." And eventually he let me know that we needed to stop "talking."

That one was kinda hard for me to get over, so eventually I asked advice from one of the leaders at my summer internship with Joni & Friends Arizona. She gave me the excellent advice to "wait for someone who will love you as you are." 

So I took steps to let go of those wistful feelings for the guy who was "too good for me." 

And just a few months later,  my Knight in Shining Armor sent me a message on Christian Mingle that started the relationship that led to the marriage that has become a more wonderful love-relationship than I had ever dreamed possible!

So yeah....

I guess it's all about lazy loving & lazy baking! 💘

 

 

 

Creamed Beef?

Have you tried creamed beef before? 

I’ve never tried it, but when you need a quick and fancy meal idea for dinner with your husband....

I think I’ll give it a try tonight ❤️

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/trisha-yearwood/creamed-beef-recipe-2133405

A Hamburger-Helper AHA! Moment

On busy nights  . . .

Hamburger Helper is nice and easy to throw together. The recipe just requires beef, water, and milk - that is, if all you want is a pasta that tastes almost the same as any other flavor!

 

But have you ever paid much attention to the “Add Your Own Twist” section on the back of the box?? 

I never thought much about that section before, sometimes because we didn’t happen to have those ingredients and sometimes because I didn’t feel like the extra bother. But the other day, we DID have the  ingredients and I DID have the time. So I “added that twist” and then....

And the finished bowl of pasta tasted just like we were eating bacon cheeseburgers for dinner! Which got me to thinking ... what if those suggestions on the back are actually the way the pasta’s SUPPOSED to be made?!

Mexico! Lime Salmon, Tacos, & Churros

 

Mexican Salmon recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/38025/mexican-salmon/

On Monday night Christopher & I had lime salmon with mashed potatoes, Tuesday night was busy so we just had frozen pizza and kale-cranberry salad, Wednesday we did tacos with a pound of ground beef and a taco dinner kit from Walmart, and we’ll do churros sometime soon since we decided to watch Frozen 2 with Little Bit right after dinner yesterday. 😉 

Mexican flag for today's art project!

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.” 😉