He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
–Isaiah 53:3–5
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Whole Enchilada
Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. –Walt Kelly
Mexican food is one of my favorites, so I thought I'd share a couple of our favorite chicken enchilada recipes. The first one is my favorite and the second one is Mr. Bug's.
Chicken Enchiladas
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 {15 oz.} can Mexican stewed tomatoes
8 tortillas
1 {11 oz.} can enchilada sauce
1 {11 oz.} can cream of chicken soup
½ c. Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• Heat oven to 350˚. Place chicken in a baking dish, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cover and bake for 35 minutes. When chicken has finished baking, wrap in foil and refrigerate until completely cooled.
• Shred the chicken. Put the tomatoes in the blender or food processor and chop until the consistency of salsa. Mix chicken with tomatoes.
• Place the chicken mixture onto the tortillas; microwave each tortilla for 15-20 seconds and then roll the enchiladas and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
• Mix enchilada sauce and soup together; pour over the enchiladas in the baking dish; top with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for 30 minutes.
• Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans.
Serves 6 to 8
Notes:
• If you bake the chicken too long {i.e. long enough for all the juices to evaporate} the chicken will be dry. Bake it just until chicken is no longer pink in the middle. Allow it to cool completely {in the fridge} before cutting to allow for more flavorful, juicy chicken.
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup hot water
1 chicken flavored bouillon cube
1 {4 oz.} can chopped green chiles
8 tortillas
1 {8 oz.} container plain yogurt
1 {11 oz.} can cream of chicken soup
1 c. Mozzarella cheese, grated
• Heat oven to 350˚. Place chicken in a baking dish, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cover and bake for 35 minutes. When chicken has finished baking, wrap in foil and refrigerate until completely cooled.
• Shred the chicken. Dissolve the bouillon cube in the hot water. Place the chopped onions and ¾ cup of the chicken broth in a small skillet and sauté until the onions are clear and no liquid remains.
• Combine the chicken, onion and green chiles. Reserve half of the cheese. Place a little bit of cheese onto the tortillas. Place the chicken mixture on top of the cheese; microwave each tortilla for 15-20 seconds and then roll the enchilada and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
• Mix the yogurt and soup together; pour over the enchiladas in the baking dish; top with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for 30 minutes.
• Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans.
Serves 6-8
Notes:
• You may substitute 8 oz. sour cream for the yogurt.
Mexican food is one of my favorites, so I thought I'd share a couple of our favorite chicken enchilada recipes. The first one is my favorite and the second one is Mr. Bug's.
Chicken Enchiladas
1 {15 oz.} can Mexican stewed tomatoes
8 tortillas
1 {11 oz.} can enchilada sauce
1 {11 oz.} can cream of chicken soup
½ c. Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• Heat oven to 350˚. Place chicken in a baking dish, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cover and bake for 35 minutes. When chicken has finished baking, wrap in foil and refrigerate until completely cooled.
• Shred the chicken. Put the tomatoes in the blender or food processor and chop until the consistency of salsa. Mix chicken with tomatoes.
• Place the chicken mixture onto the tortillas; microwave each tortilla for 15-20 seconds and then roll the enchiladas and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
• Mix enchilada sauce and soup together; pour over the enchiladas in the baking dish; top with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for 30 minutes.
• Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans.
Serves 6 to 8
Notes:
• If you bake the chicken too long {i.e. long enough for all the juices to evaporate} the chicken will be dry. Bake it just until chicken is no longer pink in the middle. Allow it to cool completely {in the fridge} before cutting to allow for more flavorful, juicy chicken.
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup hot water
1 chicken flavored bouillon cube
1 {4 oz.} can chopped green chiles
8 tortillas
1 {8 oz.} container plain yogurt
1 {11 oz.} can cream of chicken soup
1 c. Mozzarella cheese, grated
• Heat oven to 350˚. Place chicken in a baking dish, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cover and bake for 35 minutes. When chicken has finished baking, wrap in foil and refrigerate until completely cooled.
• Shred the chicken. Dissolve the bouillon cube in the hot water. Place the chopped onions and ¾ cup of the chicken broth in a small skillet and sauté until the onions are clear and no liquid remains.
• Combine the chicken, onion and green chiles. Reserve half of the cheese. Place a little bit of cheese onto the tortillas. Place the chicken mixture on top of the cheese; microwave each tortilla for 15-20 seconds and then roll the enchilada and place in a 9x13 baking dish.
• Mix the yogurt and soup together; pour over the enchiladas in the baking dish; top with cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350˚ for 30 minutes.
• Serve with Spanish rice and refried beans.
Serves 6-8
Notes:
• You may substitute 8 oz. sour cream for the yogurt.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Favourite Things Friday: Needlework
She watched and taught the girls that sang at their embroidery frames while the great silk flowers grew from their needles. –Louise Jordan Miln, The Feast of Lanterns
There is something about taking a needle and thread to fabric that I love. Hand-stitching a binding? You bet! It is one of my favorite parts of the quilting process. Appliqué? Yes, please. Needle-turn or raw-edge; either one will do. Embroidery? I've got an awesome collection of embroidery floss at the ready. Although hand work takes longer than sewing by machine, there is a calming rhythm to it and a huge amount of satisfaction in completing a piece where it was just you and the raw materials.
We all know that I am the queen of works-in-progress. My list of projects started is HUGE! Sew, naturally I have more than one hand project in the works at the moment. I keep each project in a ziplock bag with floss or thread, a needle, and instructions {where applicable}. When I'm in the mood to do a little stitching, I already have something at the ready. I especially love that if I'm going somewhere where I know there will be a bit of sitting and waiting, I can grab a project and a pair of small scissors and have something to keep me occupied.
This is what I'm working on right now; the label for the back of my Snowball Quilt. Somewhere along the way, I decided that embroidered tags were the way to go, even though they are pretty time consuming. I use a word processing program with cute fonts to design the labels. After I have the sizing and fonts and layout just right, I print the 'pattern' out on paper and use a light box to trace it onto my fabric in pencil.
Most of my spare hand stitching time has been taken up with quilt labels, lately. I traced this block out for my Woman's Work quilt in December. The quilt is comprised of needle-turn appliqué and embroidered blocks and I have loved working on it. I had to put it on hold in December for Christmas projects and since then I have only managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of time on it. Still, I'm that much farther ahead when I get back to it {which will be right after I finish my Ph.D. Challenge quilts}.
High on my list of 'what to work on next' is my Boo to You appliqué quilt. This cute little witch is currently in production. I hope to finish the quilt and Zelda's Fancy Hat in time to display for Halloween this year.
This is a previously undisclosed Ph.D. I'm making an Escaping Bug Jar quilt with my mom. Our jar pieces are cut and ready to go and we've nearly finished all the paper piecing blocks. This spider needs his legs satin-stitched on. I added a bit of blending filament to the floss to give it a little shimmer
This panel of trees for my Twilight Quilt is a project long in the making. I started this two years ago. There are actually four panels and each panel has 13 trees. I wanted to secure the trees down with more than just Heat 'n Bond, but I also wanted it to be subtle, so I'm doing a whip-stitch along the raw edges. Each tree takes between 45 minutes and an hour. I'm about a third of the way done with the this little project.
Sew much hand work. Sew little time. I think I'm going to spend my summer doing lots and lots of appliqué and embroidery!
Today's post brought to you by:
There is something about taking a needle and thread to fabric that I love. Hand-stitching a binding? You bet! It is one of my favorite parts of the quilting process. Appliqué? Yes, please. Needle-turn or raw-edge; either one will do. Embroidery? I've got an awesome collection of embroidery floss at the ready. Although hand work takes longer than sewing by machine, there is a calming rhythm to it and a huge amount of satisfaction in completing a piece where it was just you and the raw materials.
We all know that I am the queen of works-in-progress. My list of projects started is HUGE! Sew, naturally I have more than one hand project in the works at the moment. I keep each project in a ziplock bag with floss or thread, a needle, and instructions {where applicable}. When I'm in the mood to do a little stitching, I already have something at the ready. I especially love that if I'm going somewhere where I know there will be a bit of sitting and waiting, I can grab a project and a pair of small scissors and have something to keep me occupied.
This is what I'm working on right now; the label for the back of my Snowball Quilt. Somewhere along the way, I decided that embroidered tags were the way to go, even though they are pretty time consuming. I use a word processing program with cute fonts to design the labels. After I have the sizing and fonts and layout just right, I print the 'pattern' out on paper and use a light box to trace it onto my fabric in pencil.
Most of my spare hand stitching time has been taken up with quilt labels, lately. I traced this block out for my Woman's Work quilt in December. The quilt is comprised of needle-turn appliqué and embroidered blocks and I have loved working on it. I had to put it on hold in December for Christmas projects and since then I have only managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of time on it. Still, I'm that much farther ahead when I get back to it {which will be right after I finish my Ph.D. Challenge quilts}.
High on my list of 'what to work on next' is my Boo to You appliqué quilt. This cute little witch is currently in production. I hope to finish the quilt and Zelda's Fancy Hat in time to display for Halloween this year.
This is a previously undisclosed Ph.D. I'm making an Escaping Bug Jar quilt with my mom. Our jar pieces are cut and ready to go and we've nearly finished all the paper piecing blocks. This spider needs his legs satin-stitched on. I added a bit of blending filament to the floss to give it a little shimmer
This panel of trees for my Twilight Quilt is a project long in the making. I started this two years ago. There are actually four panels and each panel has 13 trees. I wanted to secure the trees down with more than just Heat 'n Bond, but I also wanted it to be subtle, so I'm doing a whip-stitch along the raw edges. Each tree takes between 45 minutes and an hour. I'm about a third of the way done with the this little project.
Sew much hand work. Sew little time. I think I'm going to spend my summer doing lots and lots of appliqué and embroidery!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
I Must Ask . . . What Color Are Your Eyes?
Heredity: transmission of the physical and psychical qualities of parents to their offspring; the biological law by which living beings tend to repeat their characteristics in their descendants.
My eyes are blue. Mr. Bug's eyes are brown {he says hazel, but they are brown}. Both of the Little Bugs have brown eyes. Why is that so? I went to the source of all knowledge {the internet} and according to the latest research {and it must be true because it is on the internet} there are three genes which affect eye color: one that controls blue & brown, one that controls hazel & green and a third that modifies the other two.
This article summed it up nicely:
Children can have completely different eye colors than either of their parents. But if both parents have brown eyes, it's most likely that their children also will have brown eyes.
The darker colors tend to dominate, so brown tends to win out over green, and green tends to win out over blue.
However, a brown/blue parent mix doesn't automatically produce a brown-eyed child.
In my nuclear family, we're split right down the middle as far as eye color goes. My dad, one brother, one sister and I all have blue eyes. My mom, the other brother and the other two sisters have brown eyes. Mr. Bug's parents both have brown eyes and I think that only two or three of his seven siblings have blue and the rest tend towards hazel and brown. And the most interesting study in eye color in families I have encountered is my blue-eyed neighbor. She has a blue-eyed husband and they have 10 {yes, really, ten} blue-eyed children.
It seems that chance and randomness tend to win out over any calculable detection method where eye color is concerned. I thought this probability predictor of your children's eye color was really a lot of fun. I already know what color my kids' eyes are and assumed that if we had any more kids, they'd all have brown eyes too. Brown is the most likely color {72.7%} but there is a slim chance for either blue {13.6%} or green {also 13.6%}.
And so today, I must ask: what color are your eyes?
I also wanted to send out a huge thank-you to everyone who voted last week when I wanted to know your shoe size. Now I know who I can borrow shoes from
.
My eyes are blue. Mr. Bug's eyes are brown {he says hazel, but they are brown}. Both of the Little Bugs have brown eyes. Why is that so? I went to the source of all knowledge {the internet} and according to the latest research {and it must be true because it is on the internet} there are three genes which affect eye color: one that controls blue & brown, one that controls hazel & green and a third that modifies the other two.
This article summed it up nicely:
Children can have completely different eye colors than either of their parents. But if both parents have brown eyes, it's most likely that their children also will have brown eyes.
The darker colors tend to dominate, so brown tends to win out over green, and green tends to win out over blue.
However, a brown/blue parent mix doesn't automatically produce a brown-eyed child.
In my nuclear family, we're split right down the middle as far as eye color goes. My dad, one brother, one sister and I all have blue eyes. My mom, the other brother and the other two sisters have brown eyes. Mr. Bug's parents both have brown eyes and I think that only two or three of his seven siblings have blue and the rest tend towards hazel and brown. And the most interesting study in eye color in families I have encountered is my blue-eyed neighbor. She has a blue-eyed husband and they have 10 {yes, really, ten} blue-eyed children.
It seems that chance and randomness tend to win out over any calculable detection method where eye color is concerned. I thought this probability predictor of your children's eye color was really a lot of fun. I already know what color my kids' eyes are and assumed that if we had any more kids, they'd all have brown eyes too. Brown is the most likely color {72.7%} but there is a slim chance for either blue {13.6%} or green {also 13.6%}.
And so today, I must ask: what color are your eyes?
I also wanted to send out a huge thank-you to everyone who voted last week when I wanted to know your shoe size. Now I know who I can borrow shoes from
.Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Snowball Night: Week 53
A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all. –Rita Mae Brown
My sister-in-law once called me a 'sleeper.' We were playing a game {SingStar or something} and she noted how I always seem to come out of no where and make a big finish. I think 'sleeper' is an apt description of me. When I go bowling, I usually don't get warmed up until the end of the first game. I move slowly in the morning and evenings are my best time of day. I get more done at the end of a week than I do at the beginning. Now, I'm hoping to get more Ph.D quilts done in the last month of the challenge than I did in the first five.
Yesterday, I pulled out my snowball quilt. I decided to join the quilt-along one year ago. Two weeks later, I had decided to make two snowball quilts. I finished the first quilt by late July and gave it to my sister as a wedding gift. I worked on the second quilt, the one for me, sporadically through the summer and by mid-September it had been archived. When I was thinking of which quilts I'd like to finish for the challenge, this was the first one that popped into my head. And I'm just getting back to it.
I got my tag ready to embroider:
And I pieced the snowballs into rows.
I'm off to see if I can get the top put together. I've got a secondary motivation to get this quilt finished. It is quilt show season and I want to enter this quilt.
My sister-in-law once called me a 'sleeper.' We were playing a game {SingStar or something} and she noted how I always seem to come out of no where and make a big finish. I think 'sleeper' is an apt description of me. When I go bowling, I usually don't get warmed up until the end of the first game. I move slowly in the morning and evenings are my best time of day. I get more done at the end of a week than I do at the beginning. Now, I'm hoping to get more Ph.D quilts done in the last month of the challenge than I did in the first five.
Yesterday, I pulled out my snowball quilt. I decided to join the quilt-along one year ago. Two weeks later, I had decided to make two snowball quilts. I finished the first quilt by late July and gave it to my sister as a wedding gift. I worked on the second quilt, the one for me, sporadically through the summer and by mid-September it had been archived. When I was thinking of which quilts I'd like to finish for the challenge, this was the first one that popped into my head. And I'm just getting back to it.
I got my tag ready to embroider:
And I pieced the snowballs into rows.
I'm off to see if I can get the top put together. I've got a secondary motivation to get this quilt finished. It is quilt show season and I want to enter this quilt.
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