Broccoli Cheese Noodle Soup

While I'm in the business of sharing recipes, this is another one of my favorites! There is no story to go along with this recipe, but it's perfect for chilly nights and leftovers the next day! I usually double this recipe and add cooked chicken. Also, I adjust the broccoli and cheese to whatever I'm feeling that night.













Broccoli Cheese Noodle Soup
10 oz chopped broccoli
2 oz angel hair pasta, in small pieces
1/4 cup butter
1 Tbls flour
1 cup water
3/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp. pepper
6 oz Velveeta cheese, cubed
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups cooked chicken, cubed (optional)

Cook broccoli and pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

In a large saucepan, melt butter; stir in flour until smooth.
Gradually stir in water, milk and pepper until well blended.

Bring to a boil; cook & stir for 2 minutes until thickened.
Reduce heat and stir in cheese until melted.

Stir in broccoli, pasta, chicken & sour cream.
Heat through, but do not boil.

Yield: 4 small servings

Grandma's Apple Crisp

Most of my tweets and facebook status updates have to do with food. I love food. I get excited about food that I love. I'm a verbal eater, meaning I ooh and aah over the best bites.

I'm not exactly a brave eater. The menus around our house are not necessarily adventurous or overly creative. We eat a lot of the same things a lot of the time. But none the less, I love food.

Particularly I love baked goods. Sweet breads, doughs, cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes. I do my best to only make these when a particular activity necessitates it, or when people come over. We have people over a lot.

I also love heritage. My paternal grandma, Bernadine Carter (Grandma Bernie, to me) has always given great attention to the preparation of food. "Presentation is half the battle," she always says. Her mashed potatoes are as smooth as she is thorough. But her great attention to food stems from her great value of people. She always wants to present the best, not so she'll get the praise, but so that the people she serves feel deeply cared for.

Years ago, she was the "chairperson" for the committee who put together a cookbook through their little country church. Bethel Church is a sweet little church in the country just outside Farmer City, IL. It is where my Grandma grew up. It is where my Grandpa's father was the preacher. It is where all of my dad's cousins grew up in Sunday School and social gatherings. Until my dad's generation moved out of the area, it was where 75-100 people would cram into the little basement every November for Thanksgiving dinner. Aunt Toosie always brought the noodles and Grandma her mashed potatoes! It is where most of my extended family met Jon. We were "only friends" though.

Anyway, this cookbook called "Recipes and Remembrances" is one of my treasured possessions. It is full of recipes, mostly from my family, and from the other members of Bethel who were like family. As I turn the pages of this recipe book, I'm filled with thankfulness for all the people who shared recipes, but who also shared life with my family, the good and the bad.

My banana bread recipe is from this book. Nothing fancy. Just a list of ingredients all dumped in a bowl and mixed well. I've added a few of my own things to it, but at it's core, it will always be Great Grandma Pearl's recipe. And I love it.

One of the other cherished recipes is Grandma's Apple Crisp. My Grandpa worked at the University of Illinois as an electrician for years and my Grandma would go to the orchard on campus each fall to get "educated apples" to make applesauce (another fav) and apple crisp. She always gets Jonathan apples. They are bright red and tart. A mixture of flour, cinnamon, sugar and butter go on top. And my mouth is watering. It's the perfect fall treat, and even Jon, who doesn't like fruit, loves it!

I stink at blogging...but today I'm blogging about pizza!

There are so many great things to blog about in my life...I just don't take the time to do it!

It's way to easy just to post a pic and a sentence on facebook or twitter, and completely forget about my blog...

So today...on Jon's 30th birthday...I blog about pizza!

For the past year and a half, Jon & I have been on a weekly mission to recreate Monical's Pizza ...and drag as many friends as we can into our obsession!

I grew up eating Monical's Pizza nearly every Friday night, while watching the Dukes of Hazzard. My entire family is obsessed by it, especially my uncle Ben who moved to Indianapolis, a town that had not yet discovered the heavenly pizza. If we celebrated Christmas not on Christmas day, we'd eat a huge lunch, open presents, then follow it with a huge feast of pizza!

When I began dating Jon, Monical's Pizza quickly became a favorite of his when we would go back to Illinois to visit my family. We love it so much that we catered it for our rehearsal dinner!

So a year and a half or so ago, we decided that since we probably will never have Monical's Pizza here in the Joplin area, we would do our best to recreate it in our own kitchen.

We read everyone's advice from crust recipes to the layering of toppings, to cook times and utensils. We purchased a pizza peel from a local restaurant supply store, plenty of basil and we were on our way.

It is now our Friday night tradition to make our version of Monical's and invite friends over to share.

The Student Ministry Center at our church recently acquired a pizza oven. Fantastic! I thought to myself, "I'm the Student Ministry Assistant and I oversee our cafe for students. I should probably learn how to use this amazing oven, right?"

So this past Tuesday Jon and I loaded up our pizza peel, homemade dough, rolling pins, corn meal, basil and toppings and invited a few friends to join us.

Here are the results:

I don't know how I can ever make pizza in my own oven again!

And we're trying it again Saturday night!

Our obsession has gone to new heights!

A birthday gift for Jani

March 23, 2010 is Jani Bravenboer’s 30th birthday!!! I realized that she has been in my life for almost 7 years!

Jani moved to Joplin in May 2003 from Pretoria, South Africa. All by herself, she showed up to the Oklahoma City airport, with 2 suitcases, both bigger than she is. She came here to work for Jr High Believe at CIY. We traveled all over this country together and quickly she became my kindred spirit.

That summer in 2003, Martin also moved here from South Africa. Jani & Martin were certainly acquaintances in South Africa, but it took them moving halfway across the world to find out that they were to make a life together. Martin quickly became a true friend and confidant for my Jon.

We traveled many miles, shared many meals and holidays, and lived through many good and bad experiences during their time here. In December 2007 they needed to move back to South Africa, and we were all devastated.

However, trusting God's plan and taking with them all of their American experiences and opportunities, they are now living in Cape Town, South Africa, ministering to a new group of people, who desperately need to hear the Gospel.

Not only are they celebrating Jani’s 30th birthday this month, they are also celebrating the birth of their little girl, Anke Louise, who was born 2 weeks ago.

Today I wish I were taking cupcakes to Jani’s house, sharing a strong cup of coffee with her, and holding her sweet baby. Many things in my house, in my garden and in my heart are daily reminders of my dear friend. And today I celebrate her!

Since I can’t be with her today and give her a gift in person, a picture will have to do. This picture leaves my computer with much anticipation, and many plans still to be made.

Happy Birthday Jani!

We’re coming to see you next December!!!!!

I’m tired of being uncultured. I’m tired of letting that fear keep me from experiencing some amazing things. So I'm taking one step at at time. First, tell Martin. Second, get passport. Third, tell Jani! South Africa, here we come!

Soon we will be eating cupcakes, drinking coffee, walking on the beach and playing with your sweet baby TOGETHER!! And we can hardly wait!

I love you my dear friend! And I can hardly wait to hug you tight!

Happy Birthday!

Ever wonder if you have something to write about?

Looking back on this year, I realize I have had so much to write about, but just haven't taken time to do it.

Taking the lead from a dear friend who lives too far away, I'm going to "sentence blog" tonight.

I started working at our church in June. Amazing.

I started sewing again on my mom's Singer.

I found out that a dear neighbor is a card maker too! She has inspired me to make cards for all occasions!

I built a bluebird house.

My garden got a bit of a face lift, thanks to a dump truck of dirt, a truckload of mulch and good friends.

Jon and I took our vacation in October for 3 days to busy New York City followed by 3 days to the peaceful mountains of Highland County, VA.

I love coffee more than ever!

I'm learning to Tweet.

We bought a fire pit - which I've wanted for a long time.

Jon tiled our guest bathroom!

I'm trying to read more.

My community has grown especially now that I work with the student ministry.

I've seen God work in the lives of many people and in many ways.

Jon bought me the best coat ever for our 7th anniversary!!

My car turned 10 years old this week.

I have always struggled with putting words to my emotions and experiences. There's always something to write about. I just need to take time to find the words.

God has been so good to me and I'm so thankful to be in His presence every moment of my life.

It's June now!

I'm in Holland, MI now. Beautiful weather. Beautiful place. We are sitting in a MOVE grid walk-through meeting.

Our getting here was very interesting! We left Joplin last Friday at 7:30am. Beautiful weather. A van with 10 people (3 of which are Jayson & Janice's awesome kids!) and pulling a trailer. We were moving right a long doing great. Kayla was driving. We made our famous stop at I-44 Exit 274 for lunch at QT.

We crossed over into Illinois knowing that we were most likely going to hit bad weather. We drove through Lincoln and were almost to Bloomington when the wind picked up. It started hailing and pouring down rain. We could barely see, so Titus got us to a rest area for a few minutes to let the storm pass.

Janice French started driving and we stopped for dinner around 6-ish for dinner just south of Chicago on I-80. By the time we crossed over from IN to MI...all crazy broke lose. It was dark, thundering and lightening everywhere. The rain was pouring down and the wind started to pick up just as we got on our final leg to Holland. Water was rushing over the interstate in several places...in the dark and the rain.

Hwy 31 was closed where we needed to go in Holland, so we had to snake through town. The roads were flooded. Cars were stalled. By they time we go to campus it was a mess. We had to park 3 blocks from our apartments and carry luggage, food, kids through knee deep water! It was a crazy experience at 10:30pm at night.

A lady had just tried to drive down the road in front of our apartments. Water started rushing into her car. We went to help them get out of the car. 4 people, a suitcase and 2 huge graduation cakes. We toted all of them across the street and up to the apartments until someone got there to help. Wreckers were making a ton of money that night!

A guy was kayaking down the street. Brave people were forcing there way through the streets hoping to make it. The "tidal" waves they created were rocking the other cars down the street! It was all very surreal!

The next morning when I got up around 7am...I thought was had dreamed it all...there was no water anywhere. Seriously!!!???

I promise I didn't make it up! See:








I was so excited to see the water gone the next morning! I got up and walked down to an amazing Farmer's Market. I got some fresh strawberries, nectarines and homemade spice cake doughnuts! Happy day!

So excited for the week to get started. It's going to be awesome!

New Hair Cut!!!

In May 2006, I had just resigned from CIY and began spending my mornings walking on the treadmill at the gym watching the Today Show on NBC. One morning they had the Rockefeller Plaza filled with 20 or more beautician chairs and hair dressers ready to cut hair. Their story that morning was about Locks of Love, which is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis.

They filled the 20+ plus beautician chairs with people of all ages who were donating 10 or more inches of hair to Locks of Love. I was inspired by the stories of the recipients and the donors to do this myself. I've never had trouble growing my hair, and it isn't all that unmanageable long because it is so straight. I also found out that it takes 6-10 donations of 10 inches each to make one prosthetic hairpiece. So I decided to do it.

It has taken me a year and a half to finally have 10 strong inches of hair. I was anxious in October, so I waited 6 more weeks to cut it.

I love my new cut and my heart is so happy to help some child feel pretty and normal.  I plan on doing this again, but it will probably take 2+ years to grow it back out.