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| Wednesday - Family NightIt's 10.44 pm...
Today was a hectic hectic (yup, twice as hectic as usual) Wednesday! Work has been insane because I'm preparing for my 10 day vacation with Vince and his side of the family (we're leaving for Florida on Friday, going on a Caribbean cruise for 7 days and then staying in Orlando on a Timeshare deal for the other two days). Then, for some reason, everything seem to happen all at once this week! People getting engaged (won't say who...), 4th of July parties, neighbors getting together, my crown falling out on me (at a work meeting someone brought taffy candy and I bit... I will never bite those again!  ), packing, cleaning, laundry, and yup, cooking!
I volunteered to cook for church again today because I need to free up the guy who's supposed to do it because a) it's his birthday, and b) he wants to get engaged today. So, two days before we leave.... I am cooking for 30 people! It's fun, I have to say, but still tiring! Except... for some reason on the days that I cook, I get this burst of energy - Super CHI! I seriously think it's God's grace and His hand on me giving me strength to cook for 3 hours after a full day at work. And, today, I was there all by myself! Everyone's busy helping the guy get engaged hahahahaha.(I for one, am very honored to get to take his place to free him up, and yup, we got to see the happy couple after dinner so it's all good).
Today's menu was Shepherd's Pie (lots of veggies in the beef mix) with garlic mashed potato topping, grilled zucchini and carrots with garlic and herb marinade with some cheese, and last but not least, really yummy lemon bars!!! I got the lemon bar recipe from Allrecipes.com, it is indeed the best lemon bars ever.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to take pictures of the food (boooooooooo.... I even had my camera) but a couple of people said they really liked the food! Yaaaaay! I was getting worried because I forgot my trusty Worcestershire at home (how can you make Shepherd's Pie without it?? It's like... blasphemy!)  But, all ended pretty well I must say.
So... I will be gone a while but I will come back and hopefully I won't be lazy about putting pictures up anymore.
Have a good week everyone! 
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| New Breakfast RegimenIt's 9.14 pm...
I've been reading this blog for a while now and I've noticed that Kevin has Japanese miso (fermented soy bean) soup every morning. Now, I've known that Japanese people often have miso soup with rice for breakfast, among other things. But, I never knew that it would really fill up a guy between breakfast and dinner...
Since I'm a miso lover, I decided to try it out! A little tub of miso is $2.98 (what a blessing, it was on sale right when I went to grab some, down from $4.00!), a bag of dried Japanese seaweed (wakame) with some dried veggies is about $2.00 and firm tofu was again on sale for $0.78, I got three containers! So I started two days ago and Vince wanted some too... I figure, for about $10-$15 a month (probably need more tofu and wakame), we can have this breakfast everyday. Vince likes it and it's healthy!
For tomorrow, I defrosted leftover egg whites and made egg white omelet to put in the miso. The thing is, miso soup is so versatile, you can add almost all kinds of vegetables, a variety of protein (tofu or egg or beans) and whole grains (barley or maybe even quinoa, if you have some). I chop one container of tofu and a stalk of green onions, cover with saran wrap and store in fridge. The tofu will last about 1 week for the two of us (this is the big container ones, 4 tofu cakes per container). The night before, I soak the wakame in two big mugs (they expand a lot so a small pinch will do - unless you like a lot of wakame) and in the morning, nuke the mugs for 2.5 minutes.
After heating the mugs, I take them out and then add the miso paste. Stir until dissolved. A variety of sites repeatedly say to never boil miso because boiling miso destroys the healthy enzymes (I couldn't find anything that tells me what the healthy enzymes do...).
Here are some supposed benefits to miso:
- Reduces cancer risk
- Protect from radiation
- Prevents aging (high in antioxidants)
- Provides: Vitamin B12, B2, E (good for skin), K, and dietary fiber
- Preserves healthy, youthful skin (linoleic acid is a fatty acid in miso that helps skin stay soft)
- It's vegetarian!
If you'd like to try miso, you can find them at Asian markets. I got mine at 99 Ranch and I got the shiro miso kind (yellow color). There are various types of miso so you can try to find the one you like but I find that shiro miso seems to be the ones served at Japanese restaurant. Miso paste has a lot of sodium so if you start having miso for breakfast, make sure you cut back on sodium for the rest of the day (or just use less miso!) 
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| Rising prices, higher goals and even more opportunity to serve....It's 10.57pm...
After a very good year (yes, despite the rising price in gasoline and produce, it is still a very good year so far), I've decided to increase our monthly savings. Perhaps it's not the best time to do so, but for me it's like a way to challenge myself to do even more during "hard" times. I'm not a masochist, I promise!!! Just... someone who wants to do the best she can to better serve the family
Another opportunity popped up at church last week. Recently, the church started to make Wednesday night a family night. We have so many classes going on: Greek and Psalms, a class for the widdle ones and a class for the teens. So, to top it all off, the church decided that dinner will be served to make it easier for families to come and fellowship with one another in the middle of the week. The dinners have been well-received and the other day I thought about how I missed cooking for big groups of people... Way back when, I used to cook for a big group of kids once a week and it was soo much fun! I look forward to Thursday and Friday because those are the days I would "prep." Actually, the dishes need to be done by Friday because on Saturday my roomies and I go to Long Beach to volunteer and the food is for lunch. Cooking for a big group just brings back great memories for me.
Anyhow, today the pastor who was supposed to make the dinner for tonight, had food poisoning. After a last minute email and phone call, I decided that I can do it tonight. So, a good friend and our pastor Yurie, Vince and I, all rolled our sleeves and chopped onions (poor Yurie, he cried), zucchini, and tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. It took almost 2 hours and 3 people but that's because I didn't have any time to prep at all! Hopefully in future weeks, I would have maybe part of the weekend to chop onions or other veggies and do the majority of the "prep" at home. This way, I can assemble either Tuesday night (provided there's enough room in our fridge) or just precook and assemble at church on Wednesday.
It'll be interesting to see what I can come up with in terms of dishes and what to put in them. The response to the spaghetti sauce was good today especially because the ladies had wanted more veggies in the Wednesday night dinners (and since the cooks have been primarily men, the dishes have been meat-heavy). And since I'm diabetic, and somewhat more health conscious, I added more veggies to the sauce than I normally would have. All in all, I'm glad people told me what they liked and what they didn't like today. Now I have a better sense of what people's dietary needs are and what people like. Hopefully things will go well with the Wednesday night dinners and I'm looking forward to cooking more! (Maybe you'll get to see pictures whenever I'm not lazy to bring my camera, and whenever I have time to download those pics!)
G'nite everyone! | | |
| New Opportunity and the WeekendIt's 10.01 pm...
I had quite a surprise today when my Father-in-Law sent me an email regarding the cookies I dropped off at the house. I baked biscotti (my in-laws' favorite) and traditional cheese cookies. We won't be in town for Father's Day so we left the cookies and a card, thinking he would know it's for Father's Day. Well, in the email he sent, he mentioned that he shared the cookies with his co-workers at work (it was supposed to be for you!!! ) which is hillarious... He loves to share, I guess? But that's not the surprise... the surprise was when he mentioned that his co-workers wanted to order the cookies! Order the cookies?!? *I must have read it wrong* - *reading it again* and *again* and *again.* You see, my FIL also said "next time we have visitors or parties, we might order from you as a treat, so in a couple of weeks when I get back from my trip, we'll talk and you can make some samples for me."  Woaaaaaah...
Not only that... about a month ago, my MIL mentioned that she would love to bring samples of my biscotti to her church and now, apparently she's having a Bible study/sharing time thing at their house and she had given me the date so I can bake cookies for that day.
Please pray about this opportunity. I am crazy busy at work but I love my job and I'm excited to see if there's anything else I can do at home. At least, this is something I know I'm pretty good at  And with Vince promising to help me clean up, I don't mind it so much anymore! I promise I will post pictures of the "samples" and pictures of the cookies in "sale" mode.
As for the "project" that I've been intending to start, it's another opportunity to be a creative entrepreneur... However, I'm not very good at it (yet) so that might not go through as well as I thought it would. But, it's ok, I will go ahead and apply for a business license (free) and will finish up the supplies I purchased so at least I can break even? I don't know. If it takes off, that'll be good too I will not launch the "project" until after our summer family trip to Florida (it's not good to start something and say, "I'll be gone for a while" I think it will lose too much momentum...) so hopefully when it's ready to go, I can make my announcement.
Also... this weekend is the 2008 Resolved conference. We will be in Palm Springs at an awesome Christian conference, with some of the most famous (and yet humble) Christian speakers of today: John MacArthur, John Piper, CJ Mahaney, Steve Lawson, Randy Alcorn and Rick Holland. The great thing though, is that we get to spend the entire weekend (Friday to Tuesday) with our college/career group (something that most of us college grads don't get to do much anymore), spending time reconnecting with friends, re-evaluating our lives and our relationship with God. Conferences are awesome in the sense that it's something different and refreshing but I will never forget when CJ Mahaney reminded us to express our appreciation to our Pastors back home, the people who deal with the day-to-day teaching at the local church. I will not be able to post for a while but I promise pictures when we get back.
Have a great weekend and a great Father's Day everyone!
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| CouponsIt's 2.51 pm...
My mother in law just came back from New Orleans and she got me a canister of Cafe du Monde (Cafe du Monde!!!!! The ultimate beignet experience, at least from what I've heard) chicory coffee Yummmmm... I can't wait to try it!!!! I still have to finish my current Peet's ground coffee bag so it won't be for a while but I can't believe she got me Cafe du Monde coffee.... I've always wanted to go there but never got the chance, but I guess I can have somewhat of a taste now!
Not only did she get me Cafe du Monde coffee, Vince got a Cajun seasoning jar and Cajun sauce. They're spicy but he can't wait to try the Cajun seasoning on popcorn. He's the popcorn master of the house, and to save money we pop raw corn kernels in a microwave popper (yay to Orvile Reddenbacher popcorn popper). It's healthier too because we don't put much oil in it (or at least, I don't... Vince tends to put butter and lots of yummy stuff on his!).
Then, in the same bag, my MIL put this weekend's Sunday coupons!!!!! She gave me a whole new set of coupons!!! So, as you can imagine, I spent more time clipping today but I can just imagine how much I'll be saving when it's time to use them! The other week, I saved about $70 and spent about $20... Not bad not bad... Also, in the month of May we shaved off $50 in our grocery bill, making the total expense for the month to come to $180! The savings made me one happy woman (woooooooooooot!) Overall, however, I'm not sure if it's going to save us much simply because gas prices are going up a lot faster than food prices. Even though I fill up only once every 2 weeks or so, the cost is going to get close to $80 for me to fill up my tank. Our car budget (including maintenance and necessary fix ups) is only $250... We'll see how far that would go.
Another benefit to coupons is when I saved about 3 months worth of restaurant coupons (the particular restaurant coupons didn't have expiration date on them) and the career group at church decided to go to that restaurant. I was passing out coupons like crazy today and probably saved about $1-$3 per person. The guys didn't mind either because some of them got a ribeye plate for $6! This is with all the extras too, fried zucchini, fried onion rings, fries and a side of salad. Definitely not a healthy lunch but definitely cheap
So... after about 3 months (I started in March), the couponing experience (or experiment) is starting to pay off. At the beginning, I was saving but my grocery bill stayed at the budget level and my goal was to bring it way down than our budget. Slowly however, as I stock up the freezer and the pantry, the expenses are starting to come down. I don't run out of things I need anymore and I don't need to rush to the store to pay full price. It's also really great for me because I was able to be generous with the coupons and pass on the savings. If I can give others something they will use (ie. coupons) and is cheap (all it takes it time to clip), I feel like I've contributed to them saving money and I myself don't need to spend money to do something nice. (Hmm... somehow that sentence sounds awkward... run-ons maybe? Ah well...  )
Have a great week everyone!
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