Summer Food Challenge: Radishes

As a family we have challenged ourselves to try new fruits and vegetables. We’ve committed that every time we go to the fruit and vegetable market this summer, we will buy something we’ve never tried before and research recipes to try.

Our first challenge was radishes. We bought a large bunch of Michigan-grown radishes and brought them home. We ate them on salads and sandwiches, but they just weren’t getting eaten fast enough. Mom found this delicious recipe that will definitely be a keeper! It goes great with tortilla chips and has a nice bite.

Radish Dip

Photo Credit: Betsy.

4 cloves garlic, peeled (we used minced)

6 radishes, quartered

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

Place garlic in the container of a food processor, and pulse until finely minced. Add radishes, and mince. Add cream cheese, and mix until well blended. Transfer to a serving dish, and chill until serving. Serve with tortilla chips or crackers. Makes 6-8 servings.

Photo Credit: Betsy.

*What’s your favorite way to use radishes? We’d love to know!*

Dad's Birthday

Earlier this month we celebrated Daddy’s birthday!

Dad requested that we go to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Sorry for the blur on the side of this photo. The waiters at this restaurant are really fast! J

We all enjoyed a delicious meal and even brought some leftovers home.

Photo Credit: Roma.

When we came home, we had birthday cake. Daddy requested homemade Triple Chocolate Cake. I think it’s one of his favorites as it has made an appearance at several of his birthday celebrations!

We all sang to him before digging into the cake and ice cream.

We gave Daddy our gifts after that. We had a great time celebrating as a family and we’re so thankful for the many wonderful years we’ve had with Daddy. Here’s to many more!

East to West

“…as far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Psalms 103:12

 ~ posted by Betsy

Recipe--Rice and Beans

Being a large family, we are always looking for recipes that stretch the budget further and are tasty and filling. For some time now, one of our weekly meals has been rice and beans, a protein and fiber packed meal. This recipe gives the beans a subtle kick, and the celery and onions give a slight crunch. These beans satisfy our craving for Spanish cooking!

Rice and Beans

1 medium onion, chopped

1-2 stalks celery, sliced

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Generous spoonful of minced fresh garlic

32 oz. canned beans, or about 24 ounces cooked dried beans (the original recipe calls for 2 16-oz cans of drained and rinsed beans, but we like to use dried beans that we cook ourselves to save even more money. Use whatever combination of beans you want!

½ teaspoon salt

1 8-oz can tomato sauce

1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

½-1 cup water

6 to 8 servings of cooked rice

In a large skillet, cook onion, celery, and garlic in the oil until tender. Stir in beans, salt, tomato sauce, hot pepper sauce, and water. Heat thoroughly. Serve over rice. Makes 6-8 servings.

Pets: Strays

Over the years, our family has taken in many stray animals that arrived at our doors (some even stayed permanently as pets!) But many of them were given up to others as we could not afford to keep a half-a-dozen cats! J

The first stray I ever remember was Miss Kitty who made her home under our shed. I was only 7 or 8 years old at the time and thought it was so neat to have an outdoor kitty. Pretty soon, she brought four fluffy kittens up onto our porch to eat the food we had left out for her. I remember she had a black fluffy kitten that looked like a mini version of Panther. She had one short-haired Calico, and a long-haired Calico. She also had a black short-haired runt. I don’t remember if I had ever seen kittens that small before, and I was completely enthralled!

Once the kittens got older, we knew we had to do something with them as we couldn’t keep them any longer. We used a live trap to catch them and took them one-by-one to the local Animal control where they could be adopted.

We went many years after that without having a long-term stray living on our property. That is until we met “Lovey” . . .

Lovey was a very sweet Calico kitty that showed up in our yard two summers ago. She was very friendly and Roma and Rubia made sure she had LOTS of reasons to stay. J

Lovey lived very faithfully with our family for over a month. She ate her food on our deck and slept on our outdoor furniture. She was never farther than earshot and would come running when we called her name.

After awhile, we started to notice that she was getting quite fat and her nipples were distended. Our neighbor who is a vet technician confirmed that she was pregnant.

We took the best care of our very-pregnant Mama kitty as we knew how. We did start to get worried about her being outdoors with no real shelter. One night after dark I opened the door to the deck to say a quick good-night to her. Imagine my horror as I made eye contact with a big furry raccoon eating Lovey’s food just outside the door! I slammed the door shut and hyperventilated for a few moments. Thankfully Lovey was okay and never appeared to have any injuries from wild animals.

Many a quiet afternoon found Lovey sleeping on one of the tables or chairs out on our deck. We also fixed a cardboard box with some towels for her, in hopes that if she had her kittens any time soon she would have them there instead of out in the woods across our creek.

Another time I was scared for Lovey was during a tremendous thunderstorm we had. It was a terrible storm with lots of thunder and lightning. A lightning bolt hit the next street over and traveled underground, burning 3 trees from the inside out so that the tree and the roots literally popped out of the ground. A neighbor’s house was also struck by lightning and we lost power for several hours.

Lovey was nowhere to be seen after the storm. We called and called, but to no avail. I felt absolutely terrible. I felt that it was my fault that she was gone, since I had been the one at home during the storm. I kept thinking that I should have brought her into the basement, or the garage, or somewhere that she could have had shelter.

Well, at 11:00 that night Mom woke me up telling me that Lovey had come back! I had never been so relieved in all my life! J

After that storm—and the raccoon incident—we decided that Lovey needed someplace safe to have her kittens. Cold weather was coming, and Lovey grew bigger by the day. We were very thankful when a friend of ours who works at the local Humane Society volunteered to take her into her home until Lovey had her kittens.

A couple of weeks later, Lovey gave birth.

She had 5 adorable little ones! They were all so cute! Their names were Chloe, Lola, Iggy, Winky, and Honey.

We were able to visit the kittens again when they were about 8 weeks old. It was so hard not to take one of them home! My favorite was little Chloe, a long-haired Calico.

Our friend got them spayed and neutered and started on their shots. All the kittens and Lovey were eventually adopted out of our humane society.

The next summer brought us yet another visitor: “Lewis.” Were we amazed at the resemblance between Lewis and our cat Zack. Here, Zack extends his hand in greeting to our new guest. You can read more about how Lewis came to us here.

Being an unneutered male, it appeared that Lewis had been in a fight with another cat. Thankfully our neighbor performed emergency “surgery” on his ear, and it healed up quite nicely after a few weeks.

Lewis was a very talkative, laid-back kind of cat. He was very content to lounge around and generally be lazy. J

He appeared to be quite young and playful. Many happy hours that summer were spent playing with Lewis.

He made a very good supervisor when it came to big jobs like mowing. J

Before the cold weather set in, we determined that we should take Lewis to the Humane Society to be adopted. After getting sick for awhile and being in isolation, he was finally adopted as well.

We are so thankful for all the opportunities we’ve had to show love to God’s creatures over the years! We have loved all of our pets and are thankful for each of their unique personalities and the joy they bring to our lives!

Pets: Newton

Pets: Novella

Pets: Panther

Pets: Noah

Pets: Scooter

Pets: Zack

Pets: Zinnia

Pets: Mikey

Summer Vacation: Ohio (and Pennsylvania again)

As I mentioned yesterday, we left Pennsylvania late Thursday afternoon headed towards Ohio to visit with my Mom’s parents. Because we left PA so late, we arrived rather late for dinner that evening.

Despite our tardiness, my Abuela served up a delicious birthday dinner in honor of Dad and I that she had been keeping warm for us. We had ribs, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, bread with butter, and cantaloupe.

She also surprised us with birthday cake! She bought a delicious ice cream cake that tasted just like a big Reese’s peanut butter cup, Dad’s and my favorite candy. It was good!

Photo Credit: Roma.

After dinner we opened birthday gifts and then went to bed. Our original plan for Friday had been to spend time relaxing at their house, go for a morning run, and spend the afternoon at the pool. But our plans had changed on Monday night when we received a phone call from one of Dad’s best friends who lives in Pennsylvania. His wife had died very suddenly that afternoon. They weren’t sure what caused the death, but whatever caused it was exacerbated by the 100+ degree heat wave that week.

We were very shocked as this friend was only in her 50’s. After thinking it over, Mom and Dad decided we would all go to the visitation on Friday afternoon.

We left shortly after breakfast and drove for several hours into the mountains.

Before arriving in town we stopped at Arby’s for lunch. We stopped a little bit early to avoid the traffic back-up caused by a visit from the President in a nearby town.

The heat that day was incredible. It was well over 100 degrees which is really unusual for this part of the country. I started sweating just walking from the van into the buildings!

After staying at the viewing for awhile, we turned around to head back to Ohio. On our way, we stopped by a gas station to get a light snack. We felt very refreshed after enjoying some icy drinks. Dad says that any time the temperature goes over 100 we’re allowed to get slushies! J

That evening we had a light dinner of sandwiches and watched a movie before bed to unwind a bit. Everyone slept in quite late Saturday morning after all of the traveling we had done in the past two days.

As we slept, Abuela fixed a HUGE feast of food for a late brunch. We had ham, cheese and spinach omelets, hash browns, bagels with butter, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, banana bread, and mugs of cool orange juice. Nobody ever goes hungry at Abuela’s house! J

After breakfast we kids finished the movie we had started the night before. Once that was done we slowly packed up and left around lunch time.

But we had one more stop to make! One of my Great Aunts and Great Uncles just moved up to Ohio from Florida because my Uncle is very sick and needed to be closer to the rest of the family. We stopped by their home to visit, since we hadn’t seen them in several years. It was so good to see them, and also to see one of my Mom’s cousins who had stopped by their house as well.

After that we made the long trek home. It was a different sort of vacation, but I’m thankful for all the opportunities we had to serve others and visit with lots of family and friends that we don’t often get to see!

Summer Vacation: Pennsylvania

Following tradition, our family spent a week on vacation earlier this month. But this year, our trip was quite different than normal. We didn’t touch a pool or visit the beach even once; we went to the funeral viewing for a dear friend who died unexpectedly; we visited a very sick relative on our way home; and we spent almost twice as long in the van as we normally would on a trip like this (over 20 hours!) Despite the fact that it was so different, we enjoyed our time and all the chances we had to serve others.

We started off our trip by visiting my Grandparents in Pennsylvania. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon. After settling in, we went to visit my Grandma at the nursing home she’s staying at. We stayed for several hours. Following our visit, we went out to dinner with Grandpa.

This restaurant is quickly becoming a family favorite! It has a country/woods theme (kind of a cross between Cabela’s and Cracker Barrel.)

The food there is really good! Dad, Ben, and I went to this restaurant when we visited PA for Mother’s Day. We ordered a cinnamon sundae to split four ways, and it was a good thing we did! As you can see above, this “serving” is the size of a large soup bowl! It’s a cinnamon roll filled with ice cream and topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce, and pecans. This time, we ordered 2 for all 8 of us to share.

On Sunday we went with Grandpa to church in the morning. We had lunch and then spent the afternoon with Grandma. Whenever it’s empty, we turn the lounge next to her room into our personal living room. Her room is very small and so the lounge is a much more comfortable place to visit. We enjoy putting together puzzles, showing Grandma pictures on the laptop and in her albums from home, playing cards, and otherwise visiting together.

Photo Credit: Roma.

After our visit, we went back to Grandpa’s for a dinner of crock pot pork with vegetables along with a delicious pineapple-upside-down cake given to us by a neighbor. We usually try to visit Grandma twice a day, so we went back again later that evening.

One thing I’ve always admired about my grandparents is how they have loved each other through the good times and the bad for over 50 years. They have really taken the line of the wedding vows which says “in sickness and in health” seriously. They are a great example to their grandchildren!

Monday morning found us working outside. We usually try to do landscaping work around the house whenever we visit. We didn’t have time to do any work on our last visit, so it was in desperate need of attention! We headed out right after breakfast to get in the weeding and bush trimming before it got too miserably hot.

Grandpa also ordered mulch for us to spread. It was amazing to see the transformation from the overgrown, weedy gardens into . . .

. . . neat and clean beds with a fresh layer of mulch!

The boys tackled the big job of trimming the bushes. They also pulled out the dead bush on the corner.

Quite a transformation!

Some of the kids found rather large weeds. J

After all that work, we cleaned up and had a dinner of grilled chicken, succotash, salad, and rolls. Then we went to the nursing home to spend more time with Grandma.

On the way home, we stopped by the marina to watch the sunset over the lake. It was beautiful!

 

Tuesday we had planned on spending the day at the beach. Unfortunately, scattered thunderstorms were in the forecast and there was a strong breeze. We consoled ourselves by remembering our time at the beach in April. So we spent the morning relaxing at home and then had an extra-long visit with Grandma in the afternoon, as she was feeling especially good. That evening, we ordered a pan of lasagna for dinner and visited Grandma one more time before calling it a night.

The fourth of July found us working again. While Dad cleaned the gutters, Ben washed all the windows—inside and out—on the sun porch. It was a big job, but he did a great job and they look a lot better now.

Grandpa acted as the supervisor for all the work! J You can’t see it in this picture, but Daddy’s feet were dangling down from the roof above his head.

For dinner that night, we celebrated with burgers, watermelon, potato salad, peach tea, and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was a delicious, all-American feast! We enjoyed lots of fellowship and discussion around the dinner table each night.

Photo Credit: Roma.

Once it got dark out (around 9:00 p.m.) we had our fireworks show! We usually buy a few small fireworks to set off in the street in front of Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We had lots of fun!

Photo Credit: Betsy.

More beautiful fireworks.

But the highlight of the evening for us kids was definitely the sparklers. J We love lighting them up and running around the house making swirly designs as we go.

Photo Credit: Betsy.

Thursday morning we went to visit Grandma one last time before we left. We ate a quick lunch at home and packed up our things before pulling out mid-afternoon. We were headed to Ohio for the remainder of the week (more on that tomorrow!)

Picnic and a Car Show

Back in June, the company my Dad works for had a picnic and a car show for the families of the employees. Two years ago, they had a similar picnic that we attended, and we had so much fun that we were really looking forward to this year’s show!

We started off by looking at all of the cars. I tend to naturally gravitate towards red convertibles. J ‘Though I’m far too practical to ever think of owning one. But they’re fun to look at!

We all loved looking at the classic cars! It made us look forward to the annual car cruise in our area.

Photo Credit: Betsy.

Josiah and Daddy take a look inside one of the cars.

Daddy explaining the parts of one of the engine models on display.

You can’t see it that well in this photo, but we’re standing in front of a dragster. Later in the day, the owner started up the engine and boy was it LOUD!

Photo Credit: Betsy.

Josiah and Ben had fun racing remote-controlled cars on the race track that had been set up. Josiah and the twins also had fun racing a match-box car on a pinewood derby track.

After we had looked at cars for an hour or so, we ate lunch. We purchased hot dogs, chips, cookies, and drinks. We were thankful that the weather turned out good for a picnic!

Following lunch, we toured some of the buildings and eventually made our way up to Dad’s office, where we chatted with some of his co-workers.

This was the view of the car show from the window near Dad’s cubicle.

Ben has been dreaming of owning his own motorcycle, but for now he has to be content with photos. J

We had a great time at the show! And we enjoyed the opportunity to visit Daddy at work.