Last night D and I took our 3 girls (as well as 7 others….friends and family) to a Natalie Grant concert that was happening in our area.   Well, the very cool thing about this concert is that the group that opened for them was a local group, and the promoter arranged for a community children’s choir to sing with this local band  for a few songs.   So, for the past 4 weeks, every Sunday evening, I have been taking H and r to the rehearsals, and they have learned the lyrics (well, they already knew the songs) and choreography to sing 3 songs to open for Natalie Grant at this concert.   They have had so much fun, and they did such an awesome job!  But they also got to attend their very first concert!   AND it was with one of their favorite singers!!!!!   These kids did such an amazing job, it was hard to believe that they have only rehearsed this for a total of 5 hours!!!!   And I was so excited for such an amazing opportunity…..I only wish they had allowed older kids/teens to be involved so that R could have done it as well.   BUT she got to go to the concert, and that was important to her.

If you have never seen Natalie Grant in person (in concert) I would HIGHLY recommend finding a way to make it to one of her concerts!  She is not only an amazing artist (I love her CDs but I think she is SOOOOO much better in person!), but she has a heart for people…..last night, she followed the Spirit’s leading and asked for those people that were hurting and in a rough place in their lives to stand, and she prayed over them……it was such a neat thing, and she did say that she rarely does that (I have seen her live two previous times, and she didn’t do that either time before), but was following the Holy Spirit’s leading!

I wish the girls had been able to meet Natalie in person, but they weren’t able to arrange that.  But they all had a great time at the concert.  And r even went up front and stood /sat in front of the stage on the floor with some of the other kids from the kids’ choir…..she did it without her sister (H was sitting with R and some of R’s friends)….I was so proud of her

(If you are wondering about M, he didn’t want to go to a Natalie Grant concert, so he stayed at some of our friends’ house with their son (who also didn’t want to go to the concert) and played video games and watched a movie–I think )

Here’s my produce basket this week……I had plenty of veggies in the fridge leftover from last week (last week I was using up the veggies leftover from the week before…..I seemed to have had a backlog in the fridge) so I ordered a “fruit only” basket for this week.

So this week I got:

• cantaloupe
• pluots
• peaches
• nectarines
• grapes

I LOVE summer fruit!

Wooooh! What crazy weekend we had! And what a HUGE blessing my crockpot was to me this weekend…..as well as leftovers from a couple of meals that we cooked at the church for our Summer Suppers on the Lawn, and for the High School group yesterday. I didn’t panic when it was time to think about dinner…..I knew that by preparing ahead of time, I had everything to put into the crockpot for dinner, OR we had leftovers that we could use for our dinner.

Here’s this week’s menu (and because I did do a couple of leftover meals, and forgot about some meals at church, etc I do have a couple of things that I’m carrying over from last week).

Monday, 7/28/08

• crockpot enchiladas (I need to use up leftover taco meat from yesterday’s lunch)

• mexican salad (from Menus 4 Moms)

• crockpot peach crisp (I have to adapt a recipe that my friend Serina found….she LOVED it, but it had some problems, so I will work on adapting it today)

• MAYBE some leftover refried beans

And here are the rest of the meals that I’m making this week…..I (again) will leave it to whim on when I make each item…..but I do know that the lasagna will be on Thursday…..I’m taking dinner to another family, and I can do 2 crockpots full, one for our family, one for their family.

• Crockpot lasagna

• Crockpot chicken tacos

• Slow Cooker Chipotle Lime Chicken Thighs with Jamaican Rice and Peas

• Slow Cooker Red Curry Chicken with Bok Choy and Sweet Coconut Rice

• Crockpot Gyro sandwiches

• Crockpot bbq pork sandwiches

To share your menu plan or just to get some great dinner ideas please click on the Menu Plan Monday banner above.

As you all have already read, I was REALLY struggling yesterday….all night last night, and was doing better this morning.   Well yesterday the anger I was feeling really troubled me….I kept talking to God about it all day, and kept asking Him to remove it from me, to fill me with love….HIS love…..for the situation and towards “the enemy” of that particular situation.   Well, the more I talked to Him I was getting frustrated because the anger wasn’t going away…..see normally when I pray about something and talk to my Father in Heaven about it, the emotions (human flesh) will go away and the Holy Spirit will fill in those fleshly places.   Well, yesterday I wasn’t feeling anything but the extreme anger, which upset me and increased my frustration about the situation.   This morning when I was praying, I asked God why He didn’t help me through the anger yesterday,  “why didn’t I hear Your voice in my heart?”  “Where were you Father?”…… I really felt as though He was telling me that He wasn’t saying anything, just holding me.  Just hugging me and snuggling me, as I would my own children when they were so incredibly angry or incredibly sad about a situation……   THANK YOU LORD!!!!   You truly are my Abba!!!!!

I wanted to say thank you to my faithful readers for praying for me yesterday…..by the time I went to bed last night I was fine.   I was emotionally exhausted, but I was fine :)   Slept really well, and while things haven’t improved for my friend, I am feeling stronger and better able to support her.

This morning a friend called and shared something with me that made me absolutely furious!!!!   This is this kind of mad/anger that would drive someone to do bodily harm to another person.   I have very rarely in my life experienced this type of anger, but it always about situations that are complete and total injustices to another person……I can’t get involved, so what do I do with my anger?    I did call my hubby and told him what was going on, and he talked me down and got me “sane” again, mostly by telling me that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.  But the anger still lingers.   I’ve been praying all morning, but when I think of the situation the anger comes back.    What do you do when you are feeling that way?

This situation indirectly affects our family, but that’s not what I’m angry about.  I’m angry about the total and complete and absolute corruption of the justice system in our community that is allowing this all to happen.   (I apologize for being vague, but I have to)……I can’t imagine a court system to allow the things that have happened to happen!   I am very disappointed in our judicial system that has always seemed fairly “just” to me….I’m not so naive to not know that there are judges and lawyers that can be bought, but I really did think that that was very far and few between situations……until now.

I grew up with my mom making HUGE pots of WONDERFUL meaty, delicious spaghetti sauce on a regular basis. She’d freeze the leftovers in dinner sized portions so that we would have her wonderful homemade sauce whenever we wanted it. I have now been married for over 18 years (closer to 19, actually), and have been a mommy for 15 1/2 years and still have not perfected my sauce recipe. I make a GOOD sauce, but not a GREAT sauce……well, not until yesterday anyhow. Yesterday I made a GREAT sauce, and it really was so simple! It didn’t have any meat, because I personally like to make a meatless sauce for freezing and then add meat to individual batches if I’m wanting a meat sauce.  This sauce will work for my vegetarian pasta dishes, for spaghetti and meatballs, and would even be a good base for a minestrone soup (I sometimes start with leftover pasta sauce, adding the broth, veggies, meat and beans to it, but using the pasta sauce as the base flavor).     Anyhow, here’s my recipe…..it did take about 30 minutes to prep, but cooking time was in the crockpot which = walking away and leaving it alone!

Super Duper Spaghetti Sauce

Crockpot recipe (suggested crockpot size– 6 to 7 quart crockpot)

from Lori4squaremom

4 (14.5-16 oz) cans diced tomatoes (or italian style stewed tomatoes)

4 (16 oz) cans tomato sauce

8 (6 oz) cans tomato paste

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 onion

2 carrots

2 zucchini squash (green, yellow, or both)

4 oz. mushrooms

1 Tbsp. dried sweet basil

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In food processor, FINELY chop onion, carrot, zucchini and mushrooms.  (If you don’t have a food processor or food chopper, you can grate your veggies and FINELY chop your onions and mushrooms with a good sharp knife).   Once veggies are finely chopped, place in medium hot well seasoned cast iron skillet (my preference) or a large nonstick skillet (not my preferred method), increase heat to almost high heat.  Saute all of the veggies (if you would like, you can use a tablespoon or two of a good olive oil, but I like to do mine without the added fat) until they are taking on a nice brown color….browning them is the key!  You want them nice and browned to add flavor to your overall sauce……this will take you about 15-20 minutes.  While the veggies are browning, I started opening all of those cans…..

Add all of tomato products and basil and red pepper flakes to your crockpot (I used a 7 quart pot, and it was 3/4 full, so you could use a 6 quart crockpot).  When veggies are browned, add garlic and salt and pepper, stir to mix well, then add all of the vegetables to your crockpot.   Stir into the tomato products.   Cook on HIGH for 4-6 hours or on Low for 8-10 hours.  Adjust seasoning as necessary.  Enjoy!   The leftovers of this will freeze well, or you can do what I’m doing and use them to make a lasagna later in the week.

Oh!  This is a great way to sneak veggies into your non-veggie loving family without them knowing at all!   I asked my family if they new that there were veggies in it after they were all done eating, and none of them could tell at all!    They were chopped finely enough that they didn’t see them (grating would also allow for them being well hidden and not visible).  Everyone loved this sauce, it was nice and thick and hearty, without the meat!   And it had great flavor!

Ok, tonight my beautiful and darling 15 year old daughter, R wanted to make dinner.  As I mentioned in a previous post, she and D picked out the recipes that she wanted to use on Saturday, and I made sure I had all of the ingredients on hand (which I did, the only thing I was missing was eggs, which I got today in my basket), and tonight right around 5 pm she set to start cooking.   She PERFECTLY cooked the pork chops, and perfectly cooked the veggies for the veggie salad, AND created a dessert all on her own!   Here’s what she made……

Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops

Anytime Vegetable Salad

and for dessert she carmelized fresh pineapple slices in brown sugar and butter….YUMMMMMMOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I have to say, this is probably one of the best dinners I’ve had in a while!   My daughter (who’s cooking experience is relatively limited, I must say) did an INCREDIBLE job with this meal!   It was delicious, and ALL of us want to know when she will make it for us again!     The only thing that I would say about this meal is that the pork was slightly salty, because of the amount of parmesan cheese.   But other than that, it was WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!    I would HIGHLY recommend this meal….oh!  one more thing, she did cut back on the amount of oil that she used in both the salad and the pork, but I don’t know by how much.   Anyhow, I would HIGHLY recommend this meal, and I would say that even a beginning cook could pull this one off and WOW his/her friends and family!

Here’s today’s basket.   Included are my eggs….my “egg lady” friend didn’t have her eggs at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, so she put them in my basket today for me.

Today I got:

• my eggs
• carrots
• corn on the cob
• melons
• okra
• cherry tomatoes
• garlic
• squash
• nectarines
• beefsteak tomatoes
• grapes
• lettuce

Ok, the crockpot loaf of bread took 2 hours to bake…..BUT without the heat of the oven!     This won’t work for baking multiple loaves of bread at once, but it definitely would work for someone that only bakes one loaf at a time.

Here are the photos….the crockpot loaf is the one on the right.    It didn’t rise as high, but it was slightly smaller to start with (3 oz smaller), and it didn’t really brown too much either, but neither did the two oven baked loaves.   It is too hot to cut, so I can’t tell you what the texture differences are (if there are any), but I will definitely report back with those results!