Recipe for Homemade Tomato Soup

Even though the temps have been in the mid 60's to low 70's around here lately, it hasn't stopped me from imagining it's a cold winter day outside that demands a warm, tasty bowl of soup.  Today, I have a recipe for tomato soup to share with you.  I've tried out a few homemade tomato soup recipes and this one is by far the best so far!   Before I share the recipe, I do have to confess that I totally ripped off the Pioneer Woman's recipe for tomato soup, but made just enough adjustments and changes to make it my own.  ;-)  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3-4 tbsp butter
Two 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
One 46 oz can of tomato juice
3 tbsp of sugar
One 14 oz can of chicken broth
1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup chopped basil
1/4 cup parsley
1/2 tsp dried dillweed
Ground black pepper


Cooking Directions


1.  Melt butter in a large pot on the stove.


2.  Add the onion and garlic. Cook for a few minutes, until translucent.

3.  Stir in undrained diced tomatoes, tomato juice, chicken broth, and whipping cream.  Stir to combine. 

4.  Add sugar to balance out the acidity of the tomato juice.  (I find that 3 tbsp is enough, but you may want to add more according to your taste).  Stir to combine.

5.  Add in spices (basil, parsely, dillweed, and pepper).


6.  Bring soup to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.  Cool soup slightly.  


7. Use a handheld immersion blender to blend soup mixture until smooth.  (If you do not have an immersion blender you can let the soup cool, transfer some of the soup at a time to a blender, and cover and blend until smooth).  

Once soup is smooth, keep warm and serve it with a grilled cheese sandwich! Enjoy! :)

Transform Family Conference Recap

This past weekend we had the Transform Family Conference at our church.  It was an awesome few days of being encouraged and challenged in growing and strengthening godly relationships within the family.  We were privileged to have Mike and Judy Brisky from Gateway Church in Southlake, TX come and be with us throughout the weekend.  Mike is an associate pastor of marriage and family ministries at Gateway.  It was very beneficial to hear both him and his wife teach on family relationships from God's Word as well as share from their own experiences in marriage and parenting. 

"By wisdom a house is built,

and through understanding it is established;

through knowledge is rooms are filled

with rare and beautiful treasures."

Proverbs 24: 3-4  

I wasn't able to attend the main session the first night because I was helping to get refreshments prepared during that time, but I was able to attend the second night where the main topic was "The Transformational Family".  Mike and Judy spoke about some foundational principles that godly families are built on, such as character, vision, and relationship.  They shared that, the more we follow God's principles the more He releases His blessing on us.  I believe this and have seen evidence of it in my own life.  They focused on the relationship between husband and wife and how creating a respectful, loving, honorable environment between "mom and dad" will set the tone for our children.  They also gave us some practical ways parents can be building relationships with their children and encouraging them in their faith. 

Another session focused on how our words can transform relationships.  Proverbs 18:21 says, "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit".  The words we speak to others do have the power to bring life to someone, building them up, or to bring death, tearing them down.  How can we use our words to encourage the relationships in our life?  I was reminded to think about the way I use my words and how I want to be intentional to speak words of truth and edification into the life of my husband, future children, and others I'm around. 

Mike also talked about the importance of honor and what it looks like to honor yourself, to honor your spouse, and to honor others.  Most importantly, they encouraged us to be faithful in honoring God.  To honor him with our wealth, our words, our attitude, and our relationships. He stated, "When you honor God and others, God will honor you and so will others". 

So, after this weekend I am encouraged in my role as wife and soon to be mom.  I took away some valuable information and teaching to process. I must also add that as I was hearing these things I felt very thankful for my parents who exemplified and practiced all this in our home as I was growing up.  Thanks mom and dad! I learned it first from you! I love you!

I can't help feeling excited as Zach and I are just beginning our family and we have a "blank slate" to begin the journey of parenting our children in the Lord's ways!  What a joy it will be!

My Principles for Setting Goals for the New Year

I have made New Year’s resolutions in the past, but after many experiences of setting over-zealous and unfocused  resolutions, I have learned a few helpful guidelines for creating goals that will stick around past the end of January.   

1.      Pray over your goals.  When you sit down with your pen and paper to write out your goals, I would encourage you to pray over them.  Listen to hear and examine to see if the goals you want to focus on are in line with God’s will for you.  Our goals should make us more available to His presence and working in our lives. 

2.      Set realistic goals.  I remember one New Year setting a goal that I was going to exercise every day.  For some that might not sound so unrealistic, but keep in mind that at this point I was doing good if I got out and jogged once every two weeks.  Well, you can guess how long that lasted.  First off, the success of this goal was defined as “every day” when I didn’t even have the habit built up yet.  All I was doing was setting myself up for failure.  A more realistic goal would have been to exercise at least 3 times a week (and forgive myself if I only got 2 in, keeping at it). 

3.      Keep your goals simple (numerically).  I’m a simple girl at heart.  I don’t like a lot of clutter, I don’t like having too many songs on my iPod, and I don’t like juggling a lot of things on my plate at once.  I’ve found that I thrive when I have just a few things to focus on, including goals I want to work towards.  This is another helpful tidbit learned after several well-intentioned lists of 8-10 goals that only made me feel crazy and discouraged when I couldn’t master all of them at once.  Did I forget I was human? 

4.      Aim for grace-filled consistency, not perfection. Many times, the reason we end up failing at our goals is because we aim for the wrong target.  We aim for perfection, when what we ought to be aiming for is something I like to call grace-filled consistency.  Perfection says that we have to get it right every single time.  Hello! This is impossible and leads only to discouragement and eventually, giving up.  On the other hand, grace-filled consistency says to do your best and when you mess up (or eat that second or third donut you said you weren’t going to have), because you will, forgive yourself and keep going.  Covering our resolves in grace is what allows us to not give up and continue to steadily form consistent habit in our lives. I am all about grace these days.  By nature, I am prone to become discouraged, immobilized, or just give up when I don’t meet the expectations I have set in my mind for myself – often times, I confess, due to my own laziness or tendency to become distracted by less important things.  However, even in this, I have to accept God’s grace in my life, allowing it to wash over me, and continue to pursue my goals. The key is to aim towards developing a habit of consistency, not perfectionism.

With these principles in mind, here are my goals/resolutions that I have set for 2012.

Goals for 2012

• Be more active - Exercise at least 3 times a week and lose baby weight by summer time.
• Continue establishing and developing the habit of regular morning, evening, and weekly routines that I began last year in order to continue growing in personal discipline and maintaining a peaceful home. (I realize that I will have to restructure this some when the baby arrives).
• Finish reading the Bible all the way through. (I began last year and will finish it out this year).
• Memorize two Scripture verses a month.

I think these are simple and attainable, challenging me in new areas but also building on new habits that began last year as well.  I also plan on setting one goal or task a month that I want to complete.  My goal for January is to have the nursery set up and organized by the end of the month.

What about you? Have you made any resolutions for this upcoming year?

A Monthly Menu Plan for January

Photo courtesy of Real Simple

Typically, I have been planning out our meals for a week at a time, but this year I am going to try something new and create a basic two-week meal plan that I can repeat at least once.  This way I will have around a month of meals planned at a time, making it a lot simpler on me, and we'll only end up eating the same thing about twice a month.

My plan is is to sit down a few days before the end of each month and map out a different menu for the upcoming month.

For this month, I chose "comfort food" meals for winter that can easily be made into double batches and frozen for later.  Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of cooking I have to do later on in the month.

Our January Meal Plan

Week 1&3

Monday, January 2 - Chicken Tortilla Casserole with a vegetable and salad

• Make two batches and freeze the second for later in the month.
• Additional days: Monday, January 16, 30

Tuesday, January 3 - Shrimp and Black Bean Wraps
                                     with corn, chips and salsa

• Additional days: Tuesday, January 17, 31

Wednesday, January 4 - Leftovers

•  I work on Thursdays, so today is a good day to prepare Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew and refrigerate it for tomorrow.  That way when I get home from work, all I have to do is heat it up.  Make enough to freeze some for later as well.
• Additional days for leftovers: Wednesday, January 11, 18, & 25

Thursday, January 5 - Sweet Potato and Lentil Stew with corn muffins

• Additional days: Sunday, January 8

Friday, January 6 - Homemade Pizza and salad

• Double the dough batches and freeze the extra for later.
• Additional days: Friday, January 20

Saturday, January 7 - Leftovers or Eat Out

• Additional days: Saturday, January 14, 21, & 28

Week 2&4

Monday, January 9 - Spinach and Cheese Enchiladas with rice and beans (adapted from a Real Simple recipe)

• Make a second batch and freeze for later
• Additional days: Tuesday, January 24

 Tuesday, January 10 - Stir Fry

• Make White Chicken Chili on Wednesday, January 11 for the next day and refrigerate.  When I get home from work all I have to do is heat it up. Prepare enough to freeze some for later in the month.

  Thursday, January 12 - White Chicken Chili

• Additional days: Sunday, January 15 & Thursday, January 26

  Friday, January 13 - Apple Cider Chicken (Please try this! It is SO good!)

• Additional days: Friday, January 27

Thursday, January 19 - Homemade Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese (I have a really good recipe for tomato soup that I will be sharing this month.)

• Take extra pizza dough out of the fridge to thaw overnight.
• Additional days: Sunday, January 22

Monday, January 23 - Leftovers for Zach. I will be having dinner at a ladies church event.

• Take extra spinach and cheese enchiladas out of the freezer to thaw for tomorrow evening.

Sunday, January 29 - Something simple. Probably spaghetti or leftovers.

• Take extra chicken tortilla casserole out of the freezer to thaw for tomorrow evening.

Voila! A whole month worth of meals.  I think I'm going to like this system.  Planning out your meals a month at a time and figuring out what ingredients you will need to buy takes a little time to sit down and do, but once you have it done you don't have to think about what you're going to make for dinner for a whole month!  Another perk is you basically have your grocery list finished for the month as well!

I hope you find a recipe on here that you may want to try out yourself!

Happy Monday!

Reflections for 2011

Happy New Year!  Zach and I made it home this evening after being out of town a little over a week celebrating Christmas with family in North Carolina.  We had a great time but, I must say, after all the hours in the car I was glad to be back and to be able to spend a quiet, relaxing New Year's Eve in our own home.

I love the ending of an old year and the beginning of a new.  There is so much to look back on and a lot to look forward to. I spent some time today thinking back on 2011 and found these questions to be very helpful in inspiring some thoughtful reflections on the past year .  I wanted to share some of my answers with you here and hope that the questions may help you to intentionally think about this past year in your own life. 

1. What was the single best thing that happened this year?  There were many great things that happened this year, but I would have to say the absolute best happened around mid-June - we found out we were expecting a baby!

2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened?  I would say the process of searching for a new ministry position was pretty challenging.  We started off the year still in the mountains of NC where Zach was interning with a collegiate ministry, but this was only a temporary position and we knew we needed to find something more permanent by May.  The challenging part was the uncertainty of where we were going to go and if another job was going to open up by the time his internship ended.  Of course, the Lord had a plan the whole time and opened up a full-time position for Zach at just the right time.

3. What was an unexpected joy this past year?  The generosity of our new church family.  When we first arrived back in May they overwhelmed us with their hospitality by having our house clean and freshly painted, providing helping hands to unload and move our stuff in, and stocking our pantry with food that we are still using up!  Also, since we've found out we're pregnant, they have helped buy a few pieces of nursery furniture for us and are throwing a shower in a few weeks!  All this was definitely unexpected and they have been a joy in our lives.

4.  Pick three words to describe 2011.  Favored. Transitional. Surprising.

5. What were the best books you read this year?  Hmmm... honestly, 2011 wasn't a great year for reading.  I didn't end up reading as much as I would like to have.  I'm hoping to read more next year.  As far as what I was able to read I would say "Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe" by Mark Driscoll was the most enriching.

6. What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this year?  Pregnancy, in body and mind.  :)

7.  With whom were your most valuable relationships?  Most valuable relationship this year has been with my husband.  2011 was our first full year of marriage and it included a big move to a new state, several road trips, lots of great conversations, prayers about the present and future, harder times and light-hearted times, and so much more.  Experienced it all together! Other valuable relationships this year: my family - no matter how far away we live they are always going to be my favorite people. Also, a special lady who is a student at Western Carolina University who I had the privilege of befriending and having some great weekly conversations with over coffee.  She knows who she is!

8. What was the most enjoyable part of your work (both professionally and at home)?  Outside of the home, I really loved my tutoring job I had while in NC earlier this year.  I think my favorite part about that job was the awesome teachers I worked with.  I miss seeing them a couple times a week even now.  As far as my work inside of the home, I have truly enjoyed setting up and decorating our new home and getting more organized with keeping the house clean, meal planning, etc.  I think my favorite part is planning our meals weekly and trying out new recipes.

9. What was the most challenging part of your work (both professionally and at home)?  With my tutoring job, the most challenging part was disciplining and managing students who did not want to listen or work.  After an hour and a half with them, I was done and, some days, totally exhausted.  At home, the most challenging part for me was earlier this year when we lived in a small apartment in the basement of the collegiate ministry building on campus where Zach was interning.  The apartment itself wasn't bad but, since it was located IN the ministry building, I personally had a difficult time with being able to separate our home life from Zach's work life. 

10. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?  Facebook, of course. :-)  Or just spending too much unnecessary time on the computer in general.

11. What was the best way you used your time this past year? Spending quality time with people and investing in my marriage.

12. In what way(s) did you grow emotionally and spiritually? Entering into a marriage is one of the most useful tools God uses to refine your character.  Serving and loving someone else above yourself, desiring to pray for them more than you pray for yourself, and, as a wife, submitting to your husband are all fruit that I have seen Him grow in my own life through my first year of marriage.

13. In what way(s) have you grown physically?  I can honestly say the last half of this year was the first time I have been happy to be packing on the pounds. ;-)  Also, through my journey of learning to cook and prepare balanced meals this year I have learned  a lot more about healthier eating than I knew before.

A couple of my own questions that I added...

14. What skills did you gain or grow in this year?  Budgeting and money management.

15. What new places or sights did you visit or see this year?  Springhill, Louisiana! As well as a few other cities and towns in northwestern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Also, over Easter weekend I was able to visit Memphis, Tennessee for the first time since I was really young. 

Overall, 2011 was a great year filled with lots of change and blessings!  Now it's time to focus on a new year and what it will bring!

Some Randomness and a Weekly Meal Plan

A Few Things You Really Don't Need to Know 

1. I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season on Saturday and it was all I hoped and dreamed it would be.

2.  I have this unexplainable urge to watch Twilight:Eclipse today but can't seem to find it available to rent anywhere.

3.  I'm very excited about the deal I bought on Groupon today ($6 for $12 worth of food at a local Greek and Lebanese restaurant). 

4.  I think I might have felt the baby move the other night, but I'm really not sure. And I'm still confused about it.

It's going to be a short post today.  It's 3:30 p.m. as I write this and I must confess, I have had quite the lazy day today.  Let's see... I slept in until 10:00 am this morning, had McDonald's for breakfast, and have spent the majority of the early afternoon sitting on the couch reading just for fun.  And I don't feel the least bit guilty about any of it! 

We spent the first half of last week in Nashville for a conference (which I hope to write a post about soon) and the last several days have been filled with catching up on housework, attending church activities, and being out of the house for one reason or another.  So, sometimes you just need a day to do nothing but stay home and rest!

I am hoping to be a little productive this evening though.  :-)  I'm planning on doing a little laundry and picking up around the house.  I've also managed to get my week planned out, including our dinners. Before I go, I wanted to share a quick meal plan with you.  So, without further ado.....


What's Cookin' in the Kennedy Kitchen?...

Monday: Spaghetti w/Green Beans and Garlic Bread
Tuesday:  Hawaiian Chicken Stir-Fry
Wednesday: Leftovers. We have youth on Wednesday nights so leftovers is usually on the table.
Thursday: Shepherds Pie
Friday: Tortilla Pizzas (I have 4 more tortillas I need to use up.  Why do so many come in one bag??)
Saturday: Eating out! We're going to Buffalo Wild Wing to watch UFC.
Sunday: Leftovers or something easy.


Have a happy week!! :)

Meal Plan for the Weekend and Tip for Freezing Beans

I used to do a weekly post where I shared our meal plan for the week.  I haven't done one of those in a while and I always enjoy seeing other people's meal plans, so I thought I would pick back up with what's on the menu at our house for the rest of this week. 

Here's What's Cookin' in Our Kitchen:

Thursday: Baked Pecan Crusted Salmon w/grilled asparagus and garlic bread

Friday:  Homemade Pepperoni Pizza w/spinach salad  (Before when I've made this I've used The Frugal Girl's recipe for thin crust pizza which my sister showed me and I like a lot, but I think I might try The Pioneer Woman's pizza crust recipe this time).

Saturday: Not sure yet.  We're having our youth group over for games and ice cream tonight, so we'll probably do something simple like leftovers or grilled cheese and soup for dinner.

Sunday-Wednesday:  We're going to Nashville these days, so obviously we'll be eating out a lot!  My parents sent us a gift card to the Texas Roadhouse for our 1 year anniversary which I'm sure will be put to good use!  And I've been MAJORLY craving a chicken burrito bowl from Chipotle pretty much since we moved here.  Here's to getting my fix in Nashville! 


Tip For Freezing Beans

Most of the time instead of using canned beans I like to buy dried beans, cook a big pot of them and freeze them for a later time.  My problem was when I would put them in the freezer after cooking them they would always freeze into one big clump, making it difficult to get the portion I wanted out of the bag.  I recently discovered a little trick for helping the beans to freeze individually instead of in clumps.  You ready?  The trick is to freeze the beans on a cookie sheet first before separating them into smaller zip-lock bags.  This tip might not be new to a lot of you, but it was new to me!  I thought I'd share how to do it in case anyone else doesn't want a frozen clump of beans.  Here goes: 

Soak AND cook your beans, then drain them well.  Next you can:

• Spread them evenly on a flat cookie sheet (you can line the sheet with parchment paper to make bean removal easier)
• Freeze them 1 hour
• Take them out of the freezer, then put them in a Freezer Ziploc or individual Ziplocs (or a freezer safe container).
• Return the beans to the freezer.

Simple as that! A quick tip for you!  I love being able to have already cooked beans in the freezer that I can pull out and heat up real quick with a meal!