From the Kitchen

I saw this recipe on the foodnetwork website for the show Ten Dollar Dinners and I had to try it. It is sauteed bananas. I only used one banana, 1 tsp of orange juice, 1 tsp of butter, and 1 tsp (or so) or sugar all sauteed together in a pan until they got a nice golden crust. I ate my bananas on a piece of crunchy toast with strawberries. It was so good. It would be excellent in my opinion with a nice scoop of ice cream and caramel sauce. Maybe I will try that next time!

Craft Update

So a few weeks ago I bought some items at a few local thrift stores with the intention of giving them a "facelift". So far I have been pretty lazy this summer so I am moving a little slowly with accomplishing these projects. I have however, finished my shadow boxes. In this post I included the items I purchased. Here are my shadow boxes today hanging proudly near my dining room table!



I bought these flowers at hobby lobby and hot glued them into the shadow boxes. I repainted the front as well.

I love seeing the finsihed product.

Add finally, here is my cute little doggie who keeps me company all summer long :)

Marriage

The sermon on Sunday at our church, Southeast Christian was about marriage. It was the beginning of a sermon series titled, "The Story of Us". I just thought this sermon had such a great message for anyone, married or not.

To view the sermon I attached the link:

http://mediasuite.multicastmedia.com/player.php?v=te9a68j8

From the Kitchen

So I absolutely love J. Gumbo's. Derek and I eat there all the time. One of my favorite things is the bumble bee stew. I decided to try to make it at home and I was so pleased with how it turned out. I love cooking and I love trying to make new dishes. When I am cooking Im usually not so great with measuring. My mom and grandmother said that my great-grandmother (who was a fabulous cook) never measured anything really. She always had just the right touch and knew what her recipes needed. I had a good attempt today with that and would like to hope I could be at least half the cook she was. So here is my attempt to explain what my recipe for today's dish included.

Ingredients:

1 can of black beans

1 can of corn

1 can of diced tomatoes

1/2 of a small onion sliced into thin pieces

1/2 stick of butter (used at different times)

About 4-5 teaspoons of sugar (The sauce is supposed to be kind of sweet and I just kept adding sugar to taste)

Salt and peper to taste

10-12 drops of tabasco sauce (or to taste it you like it really spicy)

1/2 cup of milk

2 Tablespoons of flower

dash of paprika

First I sauteed the onions in a little butter and salt to soften them up in a skillet. Then I added the can of tomatoes, corn, and beans (drained and rinsed) to my skillet and let them cook.

In a seperate pan I made a butter sauce. I used about 2 tablespoons of butter melted and added 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix those together and let the flour cook a bit. Then I wisked in about 1/2 of milk slowly. I wanted a the sauce to be slightly thickened. Then I added the salt, pepper, paprika, hot sauce, and sugar to this sauce.

Once finished I added the sauce to the vegetable mixture and let it continue to simmer. Taste to see if you need more sugar, salt, hot sauce to your liking.

Prepare white/brown rice. Serve stew over the rice and enjoy!

When I think of Summer...

I think of the beach! So while I am trying to figure out how to spend my everyday, I am patiently awaiting our trip to Charleston South Carolina in July. Neither of us have ever been there before. There is just something about the ocean that makes me feel complete. Until then I have been reminicising about vacations past at other wonderful beaches :)

Beautiful scenery- sweet serenity

Toes in the sand

Crashing waves

Walks on the pier

Palm trees- my favorite

Sunsets

Usually accompanied with a fun city to explore....who doesn't love the beach?? (my husband, but thankfully he humors me). So until then I will be researching great sites and food in Charleston.