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life{in}grace

live with more presence, passion, & purpose

Edie Wadsworth

February Meal Plan

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februarymealplan

Every month, I spend some time curating meals that are seasonal and delicious.  Variety is my middle name!  (Find October, November, December, and January!)

I hope it helps you in your quest to feed the troops!   I don’t always cook them all and almost NEVER in this exact order, but it gives me a place to start.  Cooking for your family is one of the loving things you can do for them.  Some seasons are harder than others, so don’t beat yourself up.  Make one more homemade meal than you did last month.  Try to enjoy the process.  Wear a cute apron, drink a glass a wine, turn on some good music.  Cooking tasty food is such a great way to love your neighbor!

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 4

If you’re new around here?  Thank you for visiting my blog!  I’m honored you’re here and I hope you’ll find some encouragement (and some laughter!) for your days.  Visit my about page, which highlights some of my popular posts or will at least show you a peak into my crazy people.  You can subscribe to this blog by email here.  I am currently addicted to Pinterest, so follow at your own risk I also post updates to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

 

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

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This Greek Lemon Chicken Soup via lifeingrace

The snow storm of 2014 that consisted of 2 inches of snow and chilled us Southerners to the bone has turned into sunshine and 50 degrees and distant memories of perfect snow days.  I love January to pieces and snow days that slide right up to a hint of Spring make me love my Southern homeland even more.  As soon as the thaw began, I started craving lemon and hunting my flip flops.

Then, I remembered how much I love this recipe.   Let me just say that this soup tastes like late winter meets early spring more than anything else I know. It’s like winter meets spring and takes her to a square dance with daisies in her hair. Or something just as precious.  Put it on your weekend menu!   You won’t be sorry.

Instead of using cream as a thickening agent, this one uses egg yolks.  Don’t let that scare you.  It’s easy to do and has the best silky texture ever!! The girls LOVE it almost as much as we do!  Stevie likes this soup almost as much as he likes beef stew.  Okay, maybe the lemon has gone to my head, but he thinks it’s pretty dandy.

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What you’ll need:

  • 2 T butter & 3 T olive oil
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 2-3 stalks of celery, diced
  • 10 baby carrots, diced
  • 2 T butter
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 cup jasmine rice
  • 2-3  cups cooked chicken (I usually use one rotisserie chicken and cut the white meat into bite sized chunks)
  • 2 boxes chicken stock  (32 oz per box, may also need to add a 1/2 to a cup of water, if it gets too thick at the end)
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice, fresh squeezed (2-3 lemons, depending on the size and juiciness!)
  • 2 T. honey
  • 1/2 white pepper
  • 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 6 egg yolks, beaten to a light yellow color

 What you’ll do:

  • Saute the chopped onion, celery and carrots in the butter and oil, until the onions are translucent.
  • Add the flour, with salt and pepper and cook the flour for about a minute.
  • Add the chicken stock and fresh lemon juice and stir to loosen the flour and all the bits of caramelized onion from the bottom.
  • Add rice, bring to boil, stirring frequent enough to keep the rice from sticking,  and then turn the heat down to low.
  • Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender.
  • Add the chicken, spinach, honey, salt, and pepper
  • Beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through.
  • DO NOT boil the soup once you add the egg yolks.

This Greek Lemon Chicken Soup via lifeingrace

 ENJOY!!! This is your Feb 1st recipe for the new menu plan! See you on Monday for the full February Meal Plan.  I’ll be sharing our Super Bowl food on Facebook soon, but you might consider making some homemade brownies or my favorite crowd pleaser chocolate chip cookie recipe.  What are your Super Bowl Food plans?!  I’m linking with Ruth’s Thrifty Thursday, so check out all the other recipes/projects/etc!

 

P.S.  I’m listening to all your wonderful suggestions and trying to implement as many as possible.  Here’s your easy-to-print recipe!

Lemon smooches,

edie

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 2 T butter & 3 T olive oil
  • 1 large onion diced
  • 2-3 stalks of celery diced
  • 10 baby carrots diced
  • 2 T butter
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 cup jasmine rice
  • 2-3 cups cooked chicken I usually use one rotisserie chicken and cut the white meat into bite sized chunks
  • 2 boxes chicken stock 32 oz per box, may also need to add a 1/2 to a cup of water, if it gets too thick at the end
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice fresh squeezed
  • 2 T. honey
  • 1/2 white pepper
  • 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 6 egg yolks beaten to a light yellow color

Instructions
 

  • Saute the chopped onion, celery and carrots in the butter and oil, until the onions are translucent.
  • Add the flour, with salt and pepper and cook the flour for about a minute.
  • Add the chicken stock and fresh lemon juice and stir to loosen the flour and all the bits of caramelized onion from the bottom.
  • Add rice, bring to boil, stirring frequent enough to keep the rice from sticking, and then turn the heat down to low.
  • Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender.
  • Add the chicken, spinach, honey, salt, and pepper.
  • Beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.
  • Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through.
  • DO NOT boil the soup once you add the egg yolks.

The Anatomy of a Snow Day in the South

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Yesterday morning I woke up to this.  Did I just wake up in Ireland or some such?

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Everywhere I looked yesterday morning was a sight for sore eyes.

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Have we been whisked away to Narnia?  Are we in heaven?  Is C.S. Lewis here somewhere smoking a pipe?

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It’s the only day of the year that there’s a chance for the bed to go unmade.  I let it go like this for a few hours and then finally made it up around noon.  I have a bed making sickness.  I feel strangely exposed if my bed isn’t made—as in—I didn’t even want to show you this picture.  But, then it looks so relaxed,  like a snow day should!  So there’s your only ever glimpse of my bed unmade.

snowday
We might not be that experienced in snow, but we’re pros at snow days.  This ain’t our first rodeo, good people.

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We know that this winter wonderland is liable to be gone in an hour.

So, we put on our snow boots.

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We piece together enough clothing to stay cold and wet warm.

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And then we head out with our high tech sleds Coors Light boxes for some winter fun. And we hurry, because the sun is out and Narnia is in jeopardy of turning to Spring.

We come back in and start the obligatory breakfast of biscuits and gravy. This is a snow day in the South, remember?

snowday9

I’ve even converted the midwesterners that live here.  Biscuits and gravy in the right hands is manna from heaven.  I should post a tutorial.  You can’t overwork the dough and you gotta leave them pretty thick.

snowday10

Also, you must start the gravy with bacon fat and my secret ingredients are a little nutmeg and a little sugar and evaporated milk.  All that and a good iron skillet.

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I’ve always used shortening in my biscuits but I’ve discovered that butter works better for me.  These came out tall and flaky and DEElicious.

snowday12

By late morning,  our Narnia dreams were melting to the ground.

snowday13

But I won’t let a good snow day go to waste, so we plan an elaborate dinner of Indian food (Nick is a pro at Indian food!) and Stevie and I brave the roads and the elements for a run to the store.  We bought ginger root, garlic, jasmine rice, and a plethora of simple carbs.  Because SNOW DAY.

Nick cooked and I was his sous chef.  We made dahl, naan, and samosas and it was all kinds of wonderful.  To eat Indian food in Bean Station on a random week night is pretty special.

Let me summarize our snow day in one word for you:  CARBS.

Amen.  And amen.

snowday14

There’s a famous saying around here that if you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour or two and it’ll change.

So true.  By the weekend, it’s supposed to be 60 and sunny.  Gotta love the South.

Tell me all about your snow days and the carbs that go with them!

(Also, if you haven’t filled out the blog survey, there’s still time.  I’ve been so blessed and motivated by all your comments and suggestions!)

Ode to January!

YOUR TURN!

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january

There’s snow on the ground here this morning, but it probably won’t last the day.  The kids are home from school due to the “wintry mix” and we’re packing up all your goodies from the Instagram sale.  I’ve also  been planning and scheming behind the scenes on future content for the blog, so I’m hoping you’ll help me out by filling out this short, less than five minute survey.  You can also leave comments on this post, if that’s easier.  Thank you so much for your help.  I really listen when you speak, so I’m anxious to hear your feedback—especially those of you who don’t normally comment.

The form is anonymous, but if you’d like to leave your email at the end, you will be entered into a giveaway for a $50  Amazon gift card.  I’ve read some of the responses already (I posted it to Facebook, too) and I’ve already gotten some good ideas for future posts.  Y’all are smart, that’s all I can say.

Also, I’m working on the January newsletter, to be released tonight or tomorrow, so if you’re not signed up for it, do so today!  Follow this link!

A Hard Road

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Compassion Bloggers Nicaragua 2013 - Project 155 - Day 1

Those who have suffered great pain of injury or loss are joined to one another with bonds of a special authority.  The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief.  The deepest community one of sorrow.  ~Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

What we often want for ourselves and for our children is ease.  I stood with my feet firmly planted on a dusty road in Nicaragua wishing for all the world that this foreign landscape wouldn’t root itself into tangles in my heart.  A place as wild as the injustice that lives there.  But the soul can never un-see what the eye has staked there so unwittingly.  Truth is not easily undone.  I spent the first twenty years of my life wishing for a better past and the next twenty righting every conceived wrong.  Now I know that making something straight doesn’t always make it true.  I cannot whitewash this life and I finally see that the colors there, dyed through by heartache, are deep and garnet stained.  Maybe redemption always comes by blood.  (rephrased McCarthy or maybe just rephrased Jesus)

So, if we can never undo this grief, then what is to become of us and what is to become of our brother?

We can only stand side by side, bearing one another’s burdens in joy, and seeing in him and in ourselves, a beauty that only this affliction can forge.

And then we remember that we are people who were always walking to a Cross, sometimes carrying our brother, and sometimes being carried by him.  Both of us ushered along by ten thousand angels.  One thing is certain.  This was never supposed to be easy.  Love never is.

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I can hardly think of anything else this week.  I hope you’ll follow along as the Compassion bloggers share the stories of the people of Uganda.

Let’s bring some kids home.

Weekend Grace

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THANK YOU so much for making our Instagram sale a success.  Taylor raised over $1000 for his medical mission trip to Haiti.  We’ll be busy tomorrow packing up all the goodies and shipping them out!  Love and smooches and many thanks!!

Earlier this week, a few friends and I  hosted an {UN} word party and I loved reading through the posts.   A few highlights…….

Marie always delights with her insight and writing (and gardening inspiration)

She’s ditching fear.

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I met Sarah at Allume this  year and she is such a doll! She’s a physician turned homeschooling mom, so we are kindred spirits.   You’ll enjoy her blog Little Progress Notes and her thoughts on the new year!

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I love Anne Marie.  Her life, her mothering, her work.  You’ll thank me for introducing you!  She’s giving up on doubt!

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Judith at Tids and Bits vows to be {UN}hurried.  A to the men!

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And last but not least, my pastor is always hitting them out of the park with his sermons.

Here’s a list of his sermon audio files.  I highly recommend them all, but the Power of Baptism is such a perfect epiphany sermon.