Water in the sand

Thought I'd show you something cool I found.

When water runs off the beach, it makes little patterns like this, right? (Not my photo)

So take a look at this beach. (Click to enlarge)

Except that it's the Mojave Desert seen from Google Maps.

Isn't that cool? It's not a desert, it's a huge beach!

Either that or Hell. Click on that second map. There's a town called that. XD

Genesis 8:1-5
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

Psalm 104:5-9

He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.

Tuesday Menu

As I sit here eating the last of a container of guacamole and reading blogs, I was suddenly struck with the desire to update.

I was craving avocados like nobody's business. Probably some kind of critical amino acid or something in them.

Anyway, here's the menu:

Today: Chicken fajitas

Wednesday - Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Thursday - Some kind of stir fry (probably Teriyaki, if Ryan isn't sick of it)

Friday - Pizza (if I make the crust a day in advance)

Saturday - Potato Soup (because I want soup, and will probably make bread to go with it)

Sunday - Nachos, which might get moved to tonight and be changed to "party bean dip and more guacamole".

Monday - Chicken penne. It started out as Penne Arrabiata from Macaroni Grill, but I lack the fancy frills like artichoke hearts.

Also, I still haven't cooked the two pumpkins I got from Mom's. They've sat patiently on the counter, looking all festive and orange, waiting for me to dice them up and puree their succulent flesh. But each day, I've had such a lot of things to do that I haven't wanted to bother.

I also figured that I'd roast the pumpkin seeds. I found all kinds of recipes, and I think I'll just salt them and oil them before I try any other fancy seasonings.

Dirt: good for the soul

Just to assure everyone that this blog isn't actually a cooking blog, here's what the munchkins have been up to.

Dirt!

Lots of dirt!

The past few days, they've gotten hyped up on Kool-aid and gone running up and down the sidewalk for hours at a time. When they get tired of that, they go play in the dirt. They are well equipped with spoons as shovels and lots of bucket-like objects.

Blessings

Well, just found out that munchkin number 3 is on the way, and will arrive sometime in March.

God says that the fruit of the womb is a blessing, so I'm clinging to that. Right now, in the midst of morning sickness, it's hard to see it as a blessing.

But things are looking up a bit. I have enough to eat now, so I can hold morning sickness at bay by never letting myself get hungry.

Our financial needs will be met until May.

We have a place to live, running water, electricity, food to eat, and gas in the car. Ryan has struck on a possible career path that looks promising in the long run. The kids are healthy and very busy.

I know I can manage a third one, because it will work so hard to catch up to its siblings, the way Holly did to Alex. The day she was home, she turned her little head to watch Alex because she knew his voice, and from then on it was all baby-exercise movements until she could crawl, and then walk, so she could do everything he did.

I think that's why she did everything so early. Like when I told her that she couldn't go outside until she could walk. Man, she walked very soon after that.

And Alex has been wanting a brother, I think. He keeps calling Holly "Hank". I ask who Hank is, and he points at Holly and says, "Holly's Hank!" Like she's his imaginary brother or something.

If this new one is a boy, we are not naming it Hank.

Easily influenced

First, my sister in law posted this ridiculous recipe for cinnamon rolls. I drooled over them for days. But the weather remained at 100 degrees, and who wants cinnamon rolls when it's that hot out?

Then, things changed.

The temperature dropped to 70.

We finally bought groceries.

And now these are rising on my stove top.

I am easily influenced by pretty pictures of sweet desserts. I want so bad to bake these up now and have them as a late lunch.

I didn't put brown sugar in the filling, though. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sorry, Meg. :-)

Edit: When I got to the glaze stage, I discovered that eating powdered sugar on pancakes had reduced my powdered sugar supplies to about half a cup.

Thinking quickly of a Good Eats episode where Alton Brown made caramel sauce, I threw a cup of white sugar, 1/3rd cup of water, and a tablespoon of butter into a saucepan. I let it come to a nice rolling boil, and babysat it, stirring only occasionally to keep it from crystallizing.

Once it tasted caramelly enough (I think somewhere in the 200 degree range), I dumped it over my cinnamon rolls.

Once they cooled enough to eat, we fell upon them and devoured half the pan. Oh man. Oh man. You can't imagine how good it tasted.

Tomato sauce

We're at the tail-end of the grocery-shopping cycle, and we have to somehow last until Tuesday with little to no food in the house.

Mom had given me a bunch of tomatoes that I hadn't done anything with. Being out of tomato products of every kind, in desperation I decided to try to make sauce. Roughly, Mom's tomato sauce recipe calls for:

Tomatoes
Onions
Garlic
Bell peppers
Hot peppers
Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper

And ... I'm sure there's more to it, but I can't remember the rest off hand.

Anyway, in between texting Mom for the ingredients, I threw all of the above into a pot to cook down. I had no idea what sort of cooking time was involved, but in less than an hour it had reduced by half.

I strained it through a screen colander, smushing it all down with a potato masher until the skins and things were nearly dry. In the pot beneath, I had wonderful fine tomato sauce. It was so acidic that it about burned through my tongue, though. It only came to about 3/4ths of a cup. I split it and made half into spaghetti sauce for that night.

Tonight I'm making a pot of chili with the rest. It has a very fresh, bright flavor, but I think I overcompensated for the acidity with too much sugar, because now I have chili that tastes like it started as baked beans. Oh well! It's still tasty.

Welcome to September

Now, if only it would actually FEEL like fall ..