It's A Keeper!

I found this recipe on Pinterest. It came from some woman's blog; she stated it looked like dog food, but tasted delicious...LOL! I'm not so sure it looks like dog food, but I will say it was very tasty. I'll definitely be making this again. And you can easily get away with just making a salad with it. The meat, potatoes and vegetable are all in the casserole :)

'Cowboy Casserole'

1.5 lbs ground beef (I used 2 lbs)

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped (I used the stuff in the jar)

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup milk

4 tablespoons sour cream

1- 30 oz bag frozen tater tots (I used Ore-Ida Crispy Crowns)

In large skillet, cook the onion until tender and translucent.  Add the chopped garlic and cook for 1 minute more.  Add the beef and cook over medium heat until no longer pink.  Drain the mixture and place into a large bowl and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the soup, milk and sour cream.  Whisk until smooth.  Add to the hamburger mixture and stir to combine.  Add corn and 1 cup cheddar cheese.  Gently mix to combine.

Grease a 9x13 baking dish.  Layer half of the crispy crowns on the bottom, pour the hamburger mixture over the top and then layer with the other half of the crispy crowns.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake uncovered at 350 for 25-30 minutes., or until golden brown and crunchy.

Delish :)

Easter 2013

I think they always say better late than never!  Here's some pics from Easter!

 Adam brought his buddy Nate home for the weekend.  Adam and Nate'll be rooming together next year ;-)

 Some Josh Early non-pareils for Katrina from the Geigers:

I had several requests for the Pineapple Stuffing recipe.  This particular one happens to be my sister-in-law, 'Martha's', recipe, but I actually have a couple of recipes for it and they are basically all the same.

.

Pineapple Stuffing

7 slices bread, cubed (6 cups)

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar

4 eggs

1  20 ounce can crushed pineapple, undrained

Cream butter, sugar, add eggs, pineapple and bread.  Bake at 350 degrees in greased 2 quart casserole dish for 50 minutes.

**The above picture is in a 9x13 pan and the recipe is doubled.  (And was baked a bit too long and the bottom is a very dark brown!  It still tasted fine, but didn't look so pretty.....)

Woo Hoo!!

Emmanuel's is celebrating their 290th anniversary this year.  In a previous post I told you how Alyssa and Sam's 7th & 8th grade Sunday School class was collecting empty water bottles to distribute to the congregation.  They asked members to fill the water bottles during the month of March with coins or cash and then return them by the end of March or beginning of April.

As March ended and April began, we just watched these bottles being returned...some of them stuffed full with coins, others 1/3-1/2 full with coins.  Some bottles had a single check in them....others had a $10 or $20 bill in them.  I myself kept my bottle in my car; I stop every morning on my way to work and get myself an iced tea at a drive through.  All my loose change from the drive through's went in my bottle.

They collected 107 water bottles and all the money collected will be given to the Easton Children's Home.  Won't they be surprised!?!?

Yesterday, Alyssa and I took the change (and believe me, there was a TON of it...or at least it FELT like there was a ton of it...LOL!!) to her bank.  There were:
12,643 pennies
2,593 nickels
3,675 dimes
2,945 quarters
12 fifty cent pieces
4 dollar pieces

1 silver dollar

several checks

many $1's, 5's, 10's and 20's!

about 30 foreign coins ;-)

 The start of the change going in:

 And more:

Wow!  And that's just all the loose change.  (I was curious how much $$ I had collected in my water bottle, thus we did mine separately.  I was pretty surprised to see that my water bottle, which was only 2/3 full, had $28.33 in it!!):

 These are all the foreign coins that the machine spit back out at us:

And this was this morning, when Sam and Alyssa brought the kids over to reveal the total amount collected.  Can you tell that one of the teachers is a Penn State graduate?  She copied Thon's manner of revealing their totals ;-)

(The 5th & 6th grade classes are currently in charge of the month of April and have decided to collect a minimum of 290 minutes to put towards calling cards for our men and women serving overseas.  As of this morning, even though we are only 1/2 way into the month of April, they had already reached their goal!!)

Spring Break!

I've been remiss in posting recently. I finally decided to borrow  some pics from Katrina's facebook (it's OK, she told me I'm allowed to do that!).  There's no particular order to these.

The group from DiscipleMakers spent a week at Windy Gap Camp in North Carolina where they did odd jobs over the course of their Spring Break.

Got Bread?

Don't ask. 

I have no clue.

Dorito Chicken Casserole

I found this recipe on Pinterest this past week.  It was YUMMY!!!  I have leftovers, we'll be having them tomorrow night.  I'm not sure how they'll turn out....I'm nervous about the Dorito chips and that they'll be really soggy by now....but we'll see!  As you can see, I served it with rice and a nice tossed salad.

2 cups cooked chicken (I bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and just cleaned the chicken off the bones)
1 cup shredded sharp or Mexican cheese (or more, if you really like cheese)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes (canned tomatoes with mild green jalapenos)
1/2 packet taco seasoning (or more, to taste)
1 bag of Doritos

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl, except for Doritos.

In a greased 11x7 baking dish, put a layer of crushed Doritos (about 2 cups), followed by a layer of the chicken mixture.  Repeat once more (using another 2 cups of Doritos), ending with a layer of the chicken mixture.

Top with shredded cheese, cover and bake for 40-45 minutes til bubbly hot.  I took the foil off the last 10-15 minutes to brown the top of the casserole.

**I couldn't find the Ro-Tel tomatoes with jalapenos, they only had mild green chilies; my experience with them is that they generally aren't spicy, so I added about 1-2 Tbsp of Frank's Red Hot to the recipe.  It made it a bit spicier than Alyssa and Kurt liked; in the future, I'll either use less or none at all.  Maybe the combination of the tomatoes, the Doritos and the taco seasoning spices it up enough that I wouldn't even need to add the hot sauce at all.


This recipe was taken from this blog :)

Happy Birthday Kurt & Chris!!

We celebrated Kurt's 39th birthday today (Woohoo! That makes me 36!!  I like it!).  Well, we sort of celebrated it all weekend :)  Last night, he got to choose where we went for his birthday dinner.  He picked Buca di Beppo Italian restaurant, which was a new one for us.  We had never been there.  For those of you who've never been there before, it's family style.  We chose two different pasta dishes, plus a salad.  It was a fun experience!  The worst part of the night was when Kurt decided we should get wine.  Originally he ordered a carafe of White Zinfandel.  The waitress came back soon after ordering to tell us they didn't have Zinfandel in a carafe, that they only had a 1.5 liter bottle.  We said, 'No problem, that's fine!'  Next they show up with one of those big bottles of wine, a brand that I'm sure we've had in the past from the liquor store that probably didn't cost us more than $10.  Well, weren't we a bit shocked when the bill came and that bottle of wine was $45!!!!  I'm surprised Kurt didn't have a heart attack right then and there...LOL!!

Can you guess what's in this measuring bowl and what is was for???

If you guessed red beets, you were spot on :)  I have this delicious chocolate cake recipe from a friend from work and the recipe has pureed red beets in it!  Alyssa made cupcakes instead, with peanut butter icing (recipe also from my friend Jenn at work).

*Note Alyssa's new cupcake holder!  She's kind of obsessed with making cupcakes these days and was getting tired of having to use two of my Rubbermaid containers to put all 24 cupcakes in.  We went to Bed Bath and Beyond yesterday and found this nifty holder. (You can kinda see the lid in the background, it's actually collapsible, so if you only have one layer of cupcakes or a round cake that's not so high you can collapse the lid and it's not as big and bulky.)

She wrote out Happy Birthday Kurt & Chris on the cupcakes and we headed down to Fogelsville this afternoon to celebrate with Kurt's brother, Chris and family.  Tomorrow's Chris' birthday....lemme see....if Kurt's 39, that'll make Chris 36 tomorrow :)

Kieran and Alyssa hung out with the younger kids, while Chris, Fiona, Kurt and I went to Outback for a lovely dinner.  It was so much fun spending some time together with them.  I told Kieran we'll be back next Sunday to go out again.  Alyssa said, 'Nope, next time Kieran and I get to go out....and you guys have to stay home...LOL!!'

We came back to their house to sing Happy Birthday and enjoy cupcakes and ice cream.

I'm sure you can't see it in this picture, but I got candles that had flames the colors of the candles.  I was skeptical, but they actually were green, yellow, blue, purple and red!!

They were instructed that they had to only blow out their own candles!

Do they look 36 & 39?!?!?!?

Koins for Kids

Our church is celebrating its 290th anniversary this year.  Each month one of the Sunday School classes is doing something different in honor of the anniversary and will somehow tie 290 into it.  Alyssa and Sam's 7th & 8th grade class decided to collect 290 water bottles.  They've labeled the bottles and cut small coin slots in the top of each one.  They will distribute the water bottles to each member of the congregation at the beginning of this month so the members can save coins in them all month.  All the money that is collected during the month of March will be donated to the Easton Children's Home.  Great idea, huh!?!?

(This was our bottle washing session last weekend....and there were only 59 bottles here!)

Chicken & Broccoli Casserole

This is one of our favorite casseroles. I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe before!

2 bags frozen petite broccoli florets
2 cups (or more) shredded chicken (or just boil chicken on stove)
2 cans cream chicken soup
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1-2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Microwave broccoli, drain.  Arrange broccoli in greased 9x13 pan.  Layer chicken on top.

Combine soup, mayo, lemon juice and curry powder.  Mix well.  Pour over chicken.

Sprinkle top with cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil.

Bake 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a mug.  Add 1/2 cup bread crumbs and mix well.

About 15 minutes before done, remove foil.  Add bread crumb mixture on top and bake  for remaining time.

Delicious!!

**I often use extra chicken, and make a 1.5 batch of the sauce.  I then use a bigger dish.

And...It's Another Baby Cross Stitch!

Here's the latest cross stitch I did. It's actually the same as the one I did for my friend Rachel, who I used to work with. I changed up all the colors, though, for this one. I think it turned out pretty cool!!

Ethiopian!

Had the totally unexpected pleasure of having dinner last evening with Chris, Fiona and kids at a new Ethiopian restaurant in downtown Allentown.  We had planned on visiting Kurt's mom last evening, but at the last minute she didn't feel up to the company, so Fiona asked us if we'd like to join them for dinner instead.  None of us had ever had Ethiopian food, so it was a totally new experience for us.  

Their son, Mike, is from Ethiopia and misses his native food; they actually found an Ethiopian restaurant in Lancaster that they trek to every so often.  That may all change now :-)  Fiona thought that the food at this new restaurant was a bit more authentic than the one in Lancaster.  I think it'll be much easier/closer in the future for Mike to get his Ethiopian meals!

Most of the meals are served on a flat, spongy piece of bread known as Injera.  This was the chicken combo that Alyssa got.  It seems like many of the main dishes are similar to a stew.  She really enjoyed it and said she'd definitely like to return some time.  

This was the combo that I got; unfortunately I can't remember what it was called (nor do I remember what all those things were on that piece of bread...LOL!!).  Basically you pull off a piece of the injera (bread) and use it to pick up some of the food on top.  Fiona said that at the restaurant in Lancaster they don't even put utensils on the table.  Most of what I tasted was a bit spicy, but not unbearably so (which was fine by us, we like spicy).  My main complaint was that the injera seemed like it came right out of the refrigerator....and I like my food HOT :)  Picking up hot food with a cold piece of bread kinda ruined it for me. I enjoyed my meal, maybe not as much as Alyssa did, but certainly wouldn't mind going again some time.

Exciting Year at Emmanuel's!

This has been about 15 years in the making! We are a few months away from officially breaking ground on our addition to the Fellowship Hall at church. Hopefully by next year this time, we'll be worshiping in our new addition (contemporary worship)....or having a fellowship event that we're not squished together!

A portion of our Building Committee, the Pastors and the Bishop of the NEPA Synod:

Our ceremonial ground-breaking:

The kids each had a little shovel and took part in the 'ground breaking':