If you use Pinterest for cooking inspiration, you know that it is very easy to sit down on an afernoon when you’re starving and pin a ton of recipes that look amazing, but never get around to making them!  I took a good, hard look at my boards last week and decided it was time to push up my sleeves and make/bake some of these fantastic recipes!

I started with Bo-Berry Biscuits from here on Saturday.  My future son-in-law, Andrew, loves Bojangles’ version of blueberry biscuits, so I thought I’d try my hand at them and serve him some while he was here for the weekend.  

Bo-Berry Biscuits
Biscuits:
2 Cups Flour
1 Cup milk – I only used about 3/4 cup.  Add a little at a time so they’re not too wet.
1/3 Cup sugar
5 T of butter
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 oz of blueberries (fresh or dried)

Look at that lovely glaze on that biscuit!  Yum!

Glaze:

1 Cup of powdered sugar
1/8 Cup of water
1 tsp of vanilla
½ tsp of lemon juice

Freeze butter. Preheat oven to 450F. Mix salt, sugar, flour, and baking powder in a bowl and sift. Add the cold milk into dry ingredients and mix. As dough begins to form, use a cheese grater to grate your frozen butter evenly over dough. Fold dough, and knead… repeat until all butter is spread evenly throughout dough. (If dough is too sticky to handle, add 1/4 Cup flour.)

Fold in the blueberries. Gently pull of chunks of dough and pat to form biscuits. Place on un-greased cookie sheet or cake pan. (Or spoon into muffin tins!)

Place in oven and bake for about 7-12 minutes (until golden). Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the microwave, and paint finished biscuits with pastry brush. Mix glaze ingredients in a bowl, and drizzle over BoBerry Biscuits with a fork.

 Saturday night we had guests over.  My menu was Beef Carnita Tacos from Cooking Light.  You use stew meat simmered a long time for the tacos.  It’s a wonderful change from hamburger meat on tacos!  The fresh salsa served alongside is great, too!

Beef Carnitas Tacos
Directions:
Ingredients


2 cups chopped plum tomato (about 2 medium)
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup diced peeled avocado
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
2 cups Beef Carnitas – See below
1 lime, cut into 8 wedges

Preparation
Combine first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl; toss well. Warm tortillas according to package directions. Spoon 1/4 cup Beef Carnitas onto each tortilla; top each with about 3 tablespoons avocado mixture. Fold in half; serve with lime wedges.

Beef Carnitas
Ingredients

Cooking spray
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 pounds beef stew meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup less-sodium beef broth
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 large unpeeled orange wedge – I don’t add this, but help yourself!  Lime would be better, in my humble opinion.

Preparation
Heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion; sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add beef; sauté 5 minutes or until beef is browned on all sides. Stir in broth, sugar, salt, and pepper; nestle orange section into beef mixture. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 ½ hours or until beef is tender.**I cook mine for about 3 hours because I want it to shred apart.   Remove and discard orange. Continue simmering, uncovered, 8 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates, stirring frequently.

As a side, I added this dip, also from Cooking Light, that I have made, but it’s been a while, and it is so worth repeating!  I spread cream cheese in the bottom of the dish, then layer the dip on top and serve with tortilla chips.

Tex-Mex Black Bean Dip
Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup diced tomato
1/3 cup mild picante sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded reduced-fat Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

Preparation

Place beans in a bowl; partially mash until chunky. Set aside.

Heat oil in a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and sauté 4 minutes or until tender. Add beans, tomato, picante sauce, cumin, and chili powder; cook 5 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add cheese, cilantro, and lime juice, stirring well. Serve warm or at room temperature with fat-free corn or flour tortilla chips.

I have a couple other Pinterest recipes planned for this week.  I’ll let you know how it goes!  Do you have some recipes you need to pull off the board and bring into your kitchen?  What will you try this week?

With love from my country kitchen,

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends! I hope you have something fun planned for today! I made a special treat for my Valentine a day early, since we had all that lovely snow and it made things romantic a day early! I’ll use any excuse to celebrate with my love!

This pie has been featured here before, but since it was never added to my recipe index, I thought it needed to be highlighted again! This is my favorite Valentine dessert, because my husband sent me this recipe when we were dating and I made it for him then, and have made it many times since. It’s our special treat for February 14th!

Here is the luscious treat just after being popped into the oven….

Then after being baked and cooled, it is served with Whipped cream that has cherries mixed in. I found bing cherries at the grocery this week in the marked down section of the produce department. I knew immediately where they were going! Yummmm.

After Christmas, we found bags of Nestle chocolate chips that were red, green and regular colored on sale for a great price.  We snagged several bags.  Did you know that if you melt those together it doesn’t make a strange color, it just melts into a lovely brown? Yeah, me either! That’s what I used for this pie. Lovely find!

Here’s the recipe:

Sweetheart Fudge Pie
1/4 Cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 cups semi-sweet real chocolate pieces
2 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
9 inch unbaked pastry shell
1 cup whipping cream
2 Tbl chopped maraschino cherries

Cream butter with brown sugar; add eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Melt chocolate over hot, not boiling, water; add to creamed mixture with coffee and vanilla.  Stir in flour and walnuts.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  Cool.  Whip cream stiff (I like to add about 1/4 cup powdered sugar).  Fold in cherries.  Spread on top of pie; decorate with chocolate or candy hearts.

Okay, now onto a little idea to additionally freshen up your Friday.  Which would you rather pull out to clean your bathroom…

I found these cute little spray bottles for $1 at the Dollar General in our town.  I immediately knew how I’d use them!  I had purchased a large refill bottle of bathroom cleaner, and rather than just pouring it into the old bottle, I labeled one for the cleaner and the other for my glass cleaner.  They are a handy little size, they spray well (some bottles are aggravating!), and they’re cute!  If you need cleaner in two different places, like the kitchen and the bathroom, why not divvy up some for each room by using plastic spray bottles?  I bet you’ll smile while you use it, too!

Happy cleaning!  See you in church!

Be refreshed,

There is a cartoon drawing my husband and I saw years ago that we have laughed at and referenced many times. Let me set it up for you:

A pastor is in his home at dinner time. He’s standing before his family behind a pulpit that is near the table. His wife and children are seated at the table and he says, “Before we eat, I have a few announcements I need to make.”

It’s hilarious to us, because, though it’s hard to imagine, that is often how people view their pastor’s family. They are different in some way. He is not a normal kind of man with normal pleasures, temptations, likes and dislikes. Could a pastor enjoy a football game on television wearing his jeans and team sweatshirt? Would he ever get angry with his wife or children? Would he ever wish he could stay home when there’s a church event scheduled? Does he ever get down?

Recently I came across an article, written by a pastor. It’s entitled 20 Things You Should Know About Your Pastor. It is written by Cary Schmidt who writes a blog entitled, Encouraging Words. Here are his words of wisdom:

Here are twenty things I believe are true about most pastors I know. I hope you will work together with your pastor for the good of the gospel!

1. He loves God and you a lot. (Be mindful.)

2. He is a painfully limited human being. (Be realistic.)

3. He probably has a pretty low view of his “performance”. (Be kind.)

4. He wishes he were a better preacher. (Be awake.)

5. He really does want God’s best for you and your family. (Be open-hearted.)

6. His work knows no time or locational boundaries. (Be patient.)

7. He hears much more negative information than positive. (Be encouraging.)

8. He has chosen a vocation in which few remain. (Be praying.)

9. He has chosen a highly leadership-intensive call. (Be lead-able.)

10. He needs help. (Be available.)

11. His God-given vision is bigger than himself and the church. (Be faith-filled.)

12. He wants to personally meet all the needs, but knows he can’t. (Be understanding.)

13. He’s going to say some dumb things every now and then. (Be forgiving.)

14. His family is patient with you, so be patient with them. (Be conscientious.)

15. He is greatly encouraged by your faithfulness. (Be there.)

16. He is passionate for God’s Word to be made practical to you. (Be hungry.)

17. He longs for church to be your spiritual oasis. (Be loving.)

18. He dreams for your and your family’s spiritual health. (Be receptive.)

19. He needs to hear that you prayed for him. (Be interceding.)

20. He’s just a regular guy. (Be real.)

This list is all TRUE. So while you sit at your dinner table tonight and laugh, talk and have your family time talking about your day, know that your pastor and his wife are doing the very same thing (and without the use of a pulpit in the kitchen!).

Thanks for listening and reading so you can better pray!

With love from my pastor’s wife heart,

If you were to peek into my kitchen or hallway you’d see a new wreath and arrangement I made last week. About this time of the winter the blues can come – not just to your heart, but also to your home. Because the Christmas florals have been put away, things are kind of blah everywhere.

Now is a time to take a trip to a silk floral department to pick up a few sprigs of fresh looking flowers to brighten up your home! That’s what I did last week. I saw that Hobby Lobby had their florals half price, so I knew the time was right! I bought three bunches of flowers and spent $16. It was enough to make both a wreath and a centerpiece! Eight dollars for each silk arrangements is pretty good, I’d say!

Don’t just take the picks and stuff them into a wreath or vase. Get a pair of wire cutters and cut the sprigs apart. It may take some muscle, but it will look much prettier. Here are the results of my efforts:

I like a free form kind of look with the smaller flowers spilling down over the side of the vase.

This wreath hangs on the guest bath door. I heard a designer say it’s a good idea to hang a wreath on the door of the guest bath so you can say to your guests, “The bathroom is the room down the hall with the wreath on the door.” That way they know what to be looking for and don’t embarrass themselves by stepping into the wrong room – or a closet!

I chose not to hot glue the flowers onto my wreath. I made a little bouquet, holding the stems in my hand and arranged them, then I tied that bouquet onto the grapevine. It will be simple to redo this when I get the whim to do so!

The fabric heart was made from scraps I had leftover from my chair slipcovers.

I traced a heart-shaped cookie cutter onto the wrong side of the fabric, sewed it 3/4 the way around. Then I turned it right side out and stuffed it with cotton balls, and finished by stitching up the opening by hand.

Is there a place in your house that could use a little sprig of flowers to chase away the winter blues? Thanks for stopping for a peek from my porch!

With love,

There is a page in my prayer journal for each day of the week to pray for lost souls. Every Tuesday for about five years, I have prayed for the family of a man who was in our church. His name was Arley. He died of cancer and went to heaven, burdened for his daughter and son-in-law, with whom he was living. While he was still alive, Arley’s grandson attended VBS at our church and trusted Christ as his Savior, to the great joy of this dear man! However, because his mother and father were not believers, the young lad was forbidden to come back to church, hindering his spiritual growth and knowledge this new-found relationship.

My heart hurt for Arley. He loved his family and desired that they know and love His Savior, and have the assurance of a home in heaven. The Lord placed the burden to pray for his family on my own heart after he went home to be with the Lord. How the Lord would work, or how He would reach this family, I did not know, but I have prayed.

Last Wednesday I met with a couple of friends, so that we might spend time together in prayer. One of the ladies asked prayer for a lady she had recently met at a local business in our city.

“She needs the Lord! Oh! She said her father had attended our church before he died of cancer.”

After giving a little more detail and description, my eyes widened, and then welled up with tears as I realized that the Lord had put my friend in the path of Arley’s daughter! My friend faithfully gave her the Gospel, and is endeavoring to stay in contact with her. I was so in awe of this! God was answering my prayer, and He even let me get a little glimpse of how He is doing it. What a wonderful blessing!

To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting anything like this! It’s easy to just “go over the list” of names each day as I pray, without really considering that person in depth, and then watching with expectancy to see the answer! It’s too easy to just spit out names. It can become like doing roll-call at day camp, rather than asking the Lord to intervene in their lives today, or send someone to witness to them now.

I’m not sure who has been more affected by my friend’s encounter with Arley’s daughter; the daughter or me, but I pray it will lead her to Christ, and I pray that my prayer life will be all the stronger because of it. This was a wonderful reminder that my God hears! My God answers! My God is at work, and I need to be praying and then watching to see how He is working!

Don’t doubt that the one you are praying for isn’t being affected by your prayers! God is at work in their life! Keep calling out their name while you’re on your knees for them!

The other great reminder in this story, is that you and I might be the one God uses to be the answer to someone else’s prayer! Be ready today to share the Gospel with whomever God puts in your path!

With love,