sangria

In light of the upcoming holidays, I thought I would share my favorite sangria recipe with you.   After all, you can never go wrong when you beverage looks as festive as it tastes!

White Sangria

1 bottle white wine
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup peach brandy (although I used peach schnapps because I'm more
likely to use that for other things)
1/2 can frozen lemonade concentrate
1/4 cup sugar
ginger ale
frozen peaches
green grapes
red grapes
lemon wedges
lime wedges

Mix wine, peach brandy/schnapps, lemonade and sugar until sugar dissolves.
Add orange juice
Add fruit
Add ginger ale (amount doesn't really matter - just fill to the top of
whatever type of pitcher you are using)

knitting

My first Christmas present of the season is complete!  Considering the fact that I usually start this process in July, I am b-e-h-i-n-d.   I have come to terms with the fact that life changes rapidly and there isn't always time for annual habits to carry over from year to year.  For as long as time allows, the knitting will continue! 

freezer cooking: chicken enchiladas

One of life's simplest pleasures is sharing a meal with a friend, wouldn't you agree?  There is something natural and inviting about feeding our bodies and our hearts simultaneously.   Freezer cooking has helped me share more meals with more people on days when I wouldn't normally have time to prepare food and invite a friend to join me at my table.  One such meal has made two separate appearances in my kitchen, both times with rave reviews.   Who knew that a late summer project would create a deliciously memorable gathering point in the midst of a busy fall? 
     

South of the Border Chicken Enchiladas:

4 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and cubed

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 16oz can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 8oz can tomato sauce

1 4oz can diced green chilies, drained

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

12 corn tortillas or 8 flour tortillas

1/2 cups sour cream

4 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese 

Cooking day:

Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then saute onion and garlic in butter until tender.  Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, green chilies, sugar, cumin salt, oregano and basil.  Simmer on stovetop about 20 minutes, until heated through and seasonings are well-blended. 

To assemble enchiladas, dip each side of the tortilla in the sauce.  Fill enchilada with 1/3 cup of chicken and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of cheese, then roll up and place seam side down on a 9x13 baking dish.  Blend sour cream into the remaining enchilada sauce.  Pour sauce over enchiladas and sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Cover and freeze.

Serving day: thaw completely. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, until sauce is bubbly and cheese is melted.   

intentional community

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the busyness of life, isn't it?  And yet, in all of that busyness, feelings of loneliness sneak in.  Then the question arises: how can I make time for relationships when I'm already maxed to the extreme?  This is an issue that I have been actively praying about for the past three years.   God's answer: there is a huge difference between making time for people and making time for relationship.   Most of us have no shortage of people in our lives and yet we feel lonely, isolated, unknown and uncared for.  What we're not doing is making time or creating space to be in relationship with those people.  Relationships take work, and in most cases, sustained relationships require intentionality.   So, despite being overwhelmed by the busyness of life, my friend Shannon and I took a step towards relationship by spending Saturday afternoon together.   It was incredible outside, so we got in the car and went exploring.

After stopping at sonic to get half-priced limeades, we drove to Hudson, Wisconsin and ended up being enticed by the colorful balloons along the road advertising this strangely named sale.  We discovered a garage full of hand-crafted art which was beautiful and bursting with creativity.   I bought a hat, which I'm pictured wearing below.  Perplexed at first, but victorious in the end.   What a fun discovery!

Later we were wandering around a no-name town in Wisconsin where everything closed at 3pm!  While walking around we found a trail that looked similar to the trail leading to the Minnehaha falls in Minneapolis.   We took the stairs, hiked through some incredible fall foliage and did indeed discover a waterfall! 

Cascade Falls!  You can't beat a fall hike AND the purchase of a new hat all in the same day.  So fun!

  

Pizza & a Movie

It's amazing how much our childhood can shape the things we truly love, isn't it?  Because my mom loves Anne of Green Gables, I also love Anne of Green Gables.  Because my dad loves the water, I also love the water.  Because my mom loves to thrift shop and garage sale, I also love to thrift shop and garage sale.   Because my dad loves stove top popcorn, I also love stove top popcorn.  I guess that's a huge reason why I can be incredibly thankful that I was brought up in a loving family!  

Another thing that I grew up with was homemade pizza.  Yes, this is delicious as it sounds!  My mom use to make pizza from scratch, including hand-crafting the dough. whipping together her own sauce as well as chopping all of the ingredients.  After a labor-intensive afternoon for her, my siblings and I were invited into the kitchen to pick what we wanted on our pizzas.   Once our pizzas were assembled and in the oven, we would usually gather in the living room for family movie night.  

When I started working last year I was bound and determined to take this family tradition and create a new version of it with my friends.  That idea quickly fell by the wayside when I faced the reality of how exhausted I was by the end of a work week.  While I don't anticipate being any less tired when I wrap up the school week this time around,  I do have a better game plan in place to keep pizza night more of a possibility then it was last year.  That's right, I have made my very own frozen pizzas!  I called up a friend, shared my idea with her and we spent a long afternoon kneading dough, mixing sauce, chopping ingredients and assembling our very own frozen pizzas.  It was fun and will hopefully encourage me to invite friends over for some Friday fun even when I'm tired.  Who says homemade pizza has to be fresh, anyway?!    

reuniting

There is something about summer that enables people to come out of hyphenation, clear their social calendars of unnecessary obligations and reconnect with their friends.  Reuniting with friends is a pretty fantastic way to enjoy a warm summer evening if I do say so myself.  The crew pictured above are the fantastic women that endured two years of grueling graduate school with me.   We sat through hours of class together, studied in each others company and ate a lot of snacks.   It was really special to coordinate a special night out simply for the purpose of enjoying each others company without highlighters and research articles in hand.   We were able to catch up on what everyone's been up to now that our paper-writing and lecture listening days are behind us.