Almost Homemade Ravioli Soup

I don't claim to have much culinary genius, but I do enjoy making a meal that tastes good yet costs little. Sometimes my creations turn out good, sometimes not so good. Tonight I think I came up with a good one.

It was soup night (mostly because 50% of my family is sick) and I wanted a soup that was quick and tasty. I took a poll of the kids and Italian soup won. I had a recipe for a tortellini soup, but decided to adapt it to what I had on hand. Here is my final creation. It had a lovely, thick tomato base and a homemade touch thanks to the sauteed veggies.

Yummy soup, full of good tomato sauce and ravioli. 

Almost Homemade Ravioli Soup

2 T. butter
1/2 c. onion, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 T. crushed garlic
2 carrots, grated
1 can tomato sauce
2 c. water
1 can red kidney beans
1 can Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli
Oregano, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, to taste

Melt butter in skillet. Saute onion, celery, garlic and carrot until softened. Meanwhile, combine tomato sauce, water and kidney beans in a saucepan. Heat to boiling. Add vegetables and mix well. Reduce to a simmer; add can of ravioli with the sauce. Season to taste. Cook until pasta is heated through. Serves 4-6.

Notes: I love the aromatic smell of sauteed onion and celery, and I think taking the time to cook them and add them to the soup gives it the homemade flavor that's well worth the effort. However, if you didn't want to take the time to do this, you could add dried chopped onion and some frozen mixed veggies to the tomato/water mix instead.

I added the kidney beans to boost the protein in the soup and still keep it an almost-meatless main dish. It's a healthy and inexpensive way to "beef up" the soup!

Approximate cost: $2.75 (one can ravioli, $.88 on sale, one can kidney beans, $.88, one can tomato sauce, $.25, onion and other veggies and spices, approx. $.75.)

I served the soup with cheese sandwiches: wheat bread slices, cheddar cheese, grilled under the oven broiler for 2 minutes or less. My kids love them and they are so easy. Growing up, our family would eat cheese sandwiches almost every Sunday night for a quick dinner after our big Sunday after-church feast.

Another way to round-out the meal is to make homemade biscuits. Cut the biscuits extra-thick and serve hot with butter--nothing could be more delicious and still inexpensive!

A batch of homemade biscuits takes about 20 minutes to mix and bake. 

If you try out this recipe, leave a comment and let me know how your family likes it!

Insanity

It's 10:47 on a Saturday morning. I'm still in my pajamas. I did have a healthy breakfast of just hot chocolate... because there were no clean bowls from which to eat my cereal. My big plans for today include folding that basket of laundry that has been sitting there since last Saturday, and maybe getting dressed.

That's when I think, "This is insanity."

This thought has plagued me several times since the beginning of the year when it was time to make New Year's resolutions, and I didn't make any. I thought about making some, but couldn't settle on how, exactly, I wanted to change my life.

Insanity.

This one word keeps coming to mind--as defined by Einstein (or not... see an interesting discussion of this quote at Psychology Today... http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-therapy/200907/the-definition-insanity-is). "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

So if I want my home to be clean and to have a bowl ready to eat my cereal in the morning, I have to do something different. Like not leave the dishes piled in the sink at night.

If I want to feel like my Saturday has a purpose, I need to treat this day differently from last Saturday.

My real goal in life, one I've had since at least fifth grade, is to become a published author. I tried--I wrote a book and sent it out for publication--and was not successful. But I do want to succeed, to try again. I want different results this time.

I read a blog from another author today which reminded me of my deep internal desire to be among the published authors of the world. She's going on tour for her new book in a week, and wrote about her dedication to her genre and the number of other authors she has researched and read in the past year. She's doing it! She's living her dream! And I am so jealous. I want to be that person.

And what's stopping me? Only my own insanity of thinking it'll happen someday... and then waiting. I know I need to put in the effort to make it happen. To make it a living, breathing, demanding part of my life... like a fifth child. Ugh... that sounds like so much work! And that's when I stop.

I dream a lot, but work so little. Somehow this equation needs to balance better.

I admire my husband, who is going back to college now. It's super hard! College is so much more demanding than I remember it being when I was 20. He is only a couple of weeks into the semester but he's a changed person--a better person, I think. So admirable. So NOT insane. :)

So I think I'll take a few minutes today to do something different. Maybe I'll start with getting dressed. And loading the dishwasher. And I can tell myself I did some writing today. And I can rethink what goals I have for the rest of the new year... and then actually make some goals and write them down and put them in front of my face each day... and then actually get up and do them.

Maybe I won't be so insane after all.

My first memory

In my earliest memory I am sitting on the floor, surrounded by the disemboweled packages of Christmas morning. This would be Christmas day, 1979, and I have just turned three.

If I tune in the picture like a fuzzy old TV set, I see myself sitting on the floor in a narrow hallway. I see dark wood paneling on the walls. I don't remember the flooring--perhaps orange or brown carpet as was common in the 70s. Or maybe it was a wood or linoleum floor. I know this passageway is just a few feet long, leads from the living room into the dining area, and to the back of the house where the kitchen lies. I don't know where my older sister, Rachael, is, or my baby sister Marian. Probably playing or sleeping. I know that Christmas excitement has just ended, and it's time to start cleaning up.

My "big" Christmas gift was a tea set--plastic cups and saucers, tea pots and spoons, in green and yellow and pink. It's a beautiful thing--my own dishes to play with! I found the tea set inside a green and white checked drawstring bag. And when it was time to clean up, my Mom scolded me. The drawstring bag was not just wrappings to be thrown away--she made that bag so I could have a safe place to keep my new tea set. I wasn't supposed to dump out all those dishes onto the floor.

I think it's the combination of the excitement of the day and the stress of the scolding that has burned this memory into my mind. I remember nothing else of Christmas when I was three. A lot of my memory of the house comes from pictures I looked back on later. Our tradition was to go to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house, just a few hundred yards down the road, later in the morning for breakfast and more presents and then dinner and day-long playing with cousins while the adults talked (adults always talked so much! and about boring things!). So I know we were probably cleaning up at our house to prepare to go to Grandma's.

There's a fuzzy picture somewhere--so blurry you can hardly distinguish the subject--of my sister and I sitting on Grandma's orange upholstered rocker/recliner, grinning for our dad behind the camera. Even though the shot turned out fuzzy, I'm glad that he forever captured the impressions of the day--two happy, blond girls, the pride of their parents, on the happiest day of the year, surrounded by family in a house full of love. It's the essence of Christmas that comes through on that piece of photo paper--a little bit like my first memory. Not clear or distinct, but a hint of what joy, what bliss, can be found in the simple treasures of Christmas morning.

A bicycle story

This is a true story from my childhood.

I grew up in the country where there were no sidewalks. Without sidewalks, we seldom had any use for roller skates, skateboards, and even bicycles. Bikes in these days had banana seats and skinny tires--not the hefty "huffy" style bikes that could go off road. I remember when they did start making "10 speeds" and "mountain bikes," and we all really wanted one. But they were a hundred dollars (and this is back when a hundred dollars was like 300 dollars today). So we went without bikes for the most part. My mom had an old Schwinn bike from her college days, but it always had flat tires. The only other wheeled device I remember was a tricycle when I was very young.

When I was about nine years old, I went to visit my cousin, Erica, in Wyoming. I stayed with her family for a week. When she learned that I couldn't ride a bike, she was appalled. She took it upon herself to teach me to ride. We used her bike and her brother's, and she patiently pushed me up and down her long, rutted, dirt/gravel driveway until I finally got the hang of riding a bike. Then we rode around her neighborhood and town. I enjoyed this new-found freedom of getting somewhere quickly.

When I got home, I had a bug in me. I wanted a bike. I really wanted to be able to keep up this skill of riding a bike, and I now knew that I didn't need sidewalks (my cousin had no sidewalks in her neighborhood... dirt paths worked just fine). I asked my parents if I could have a bike, and they said no... maybe... we'll see.

I don't remember how or when, but I eventually got a bike. It was bought used, and assembled from pieces and parts of older bikes, but it worked and it was fun to ride around the farm and down the lane and up to the canal. The only place I didn't like riding it was along the street--our street was a highway with a speed limit of 50 mph, so I felt like the cars would almost blow me over when they drove past. I'd ride as far from the asphalt as I could without getting into the weeds and thistles and ruining my bike's tires.

It was late fall, almost winter, a year or so later. I was almost 11. I had been riding my bike on a Sunday as I went to do my chores, and when it was time for dinner, I had simply dropped it in the driveway and started walking around the house to go in the back door. I didn't know that my mom would be leaving soon for a meeting at church--I assumed that no one would be going out again on a Sunday evening. I was wrong. I heard the car start, and I ran back around the house--too late. My mom ran right over the center of my bike. She immediately pulled the car forward again when she heard the crunch, hopped out of the car and came running to see what the problem was. I was devastated, but she was mad. Hopping mad. She yelled at me for leaving the bike behind the car, yelled that she was late and couldn't worry about bikes now, and yelled at me to move the bike out of the way so she could leave. I dragged it to the side of the driveway, and she zoomed out of the garage and headed to the church.

Now I was mad. I felt all the injustice of being robbed of my only bike. I felt like a victim of circumstance. I had no bike, and I had no apology, and I didn't take time to think about what I was doing.

I had many times driven by a house, about a mile and a half down the highway from our farm. The people in this house had a hobby of fixing up old bikes and selling them. I knew I'd seen some bikes lined up out in front of the house the last time we'd driven past. I determined that I would take all the money I had saved (somewhere close to $20), walk down to that house (despite the fact that it was Sunday), and buy myself a new bike and ride it home.

I immediately went to my bedroom, still wearing my chores clothes and boots. I took my money and shoved it in my pocket. Then I started walking down the highway to the bike seller's house.

You can imagine me walking, in the dimming twilight of a cold, windy fall evening. I walked quickly at first, energized by my anger and inspired by the vision of how my mom would be sorry that I had to spend all my money to buy myself a new bike. I walked and walked--walked past the church where my mom was at her meeting. Walked past the house of everyone I knew, and came to the farther end of the road where I didn't know anyone who lived around there. I walked with my socks falling down and my rubber chore boots chafing against my heels. I walked with  my chore coat open (all the old, hand-me-down coats with broken zippers ended up as chore coats), the wind blowing and chilling me to the core. I walked in my chore pants, which had been my scarecrow Halloween costume the year before. They were turquoise corduroy pants, four inches too short in the leg, with red and yellow patches sewn up and down the legs. I walked until I finally stood in front of the bike peddler.

And then I was crushed. In my hand, inside my pocket, I gripped my nearly twenty dollars. And I stared at the price tags attached to each bike. The small ones, ones that would fit my 4-year-old brother, were $20. Bikes my size cost $30, $40, or $50. I had nowhere near enough money. My anger melted into sheer disappointment. I was crushed. I might as well give up ever having a bike.

And to top it all off, I had to walk a mile and a half back home.

Turning back to the north, with tears running down my face, I realized I had done something pretty stupid. I hadn't told anyone where I was going. I didn't know anyone around here. I had no one I could ask for help and didn't dare ask a stranger to use their phone--and besides, my mom had the car at her meeting at the church. I was stuck walking home in the near-dark. To top it all off, I really had to go to the bathroom! Downcast and discouraged, I trudged along the gravel shoulder of the road, forlorn and alone in my ragged old clothes and rubber chore boots.

I must have been a sight, because not long afterwards I heard a cry from a passing car. The car quickly pulled off the road and parked just ahead of me. A young lady rolled down her window and stuck out her head.

 "Do you need help?" she called.

"No, I'm OK."

"Are you sure? Do you have ... someplace to live?"

I realized then that I made the perfect picture of a street urchin... patches on my clothes... dirty, tear-streaked face... walking alone on a dark, cold night.

"Yes," I replied. "I just live down this street." I could tell she didn't believe me.

"Well, can we give you a ride?"

"No," I replied because, after all, they were strangers.

The lady's husband leaned over. "Are you sure? We can take you home."

I hesitated. I knew I shouldn't get in a car with a stranger. But I felt my bladder was going to burst if I didn't get to a bathroom soon. Was it better to knock on a stranger's door and ask to use their bathroom, or get a ride from a stranger and use your own bathroom at home? I pondered briefly.

"I... I guess I'll take a ride."

"Oh, good. We were so worried. Where do you live?" the lady asked as she got out of the car so she could lean the seat forward and let me in the back seat.

"It's only about a mile away. Straight down this road."

I know they asked other questions while I rode that brief time with them... but the only thing on my mind was crossing my legs and hoping I could get to the bathroom on time. I finally directed them to pull over in front of my house. They slowed, stopped, and let me out (thankfully I wasn't going to be kidnapped). I said thank you, and they expressed their concern that I was really OK... I'm sure they thought I'd escaped from the orphanage and was just pretending this is where I lived. So I dashed up the hill to our front door and went right in the house, if only to prove I did live there... and to make it quickly to the bathroom.

I never replaced my run-over bike--in fact, I never owned a bike again until I was an adult. But I did learn to never leave your bike in the driveway.

Why my teen boys don't have iPods

Maybe some would call me overprotective. Or controlling. Or fearful of letting my kids grow up and explore and make mistakes like all kids do. And I might say they were right.

But I see danger in this generation of kids constantly connected to the cyber world, and I am fencing my kids off from it.

Here's the situation: My two oldest boys, ages 14 and 12, went to church recently and found out they are the only boys in the class who bring their scriptures on paper, bound in a book. Every other teen boy has their scriptures on their smart phone or their iPod. My boys have often asked for these devices, but we have held off for one main reason: any electronic device that can connect to the Internet can also expose them to pornography.

Pornography is evil. It is filthy, denigrating, vile sleaze. And it has affected people I know before--marriages have started and ended wrong because of it. As mentioned this past weekend in Conference, it's the one addiction that society hasn't started an uproar over--yet. I am willing to add my voice to a growing uproar to protest the harmful effects it brings to families. (See more information and join in the protest at pornharms.com.)

When it comes to my boys, I won't rationalize that all the good things they can find and do on a wi-fi connected device outweigh the risks. The harms that come from even accidental exposure to pornography are too great. So every device in my home that connects to the Internet is secured with a password, known only to my husband and me. The wi-fi router password in our home is kept secret. We no longer have satellite TV because there was just too much "borderline" content that was accessible, even with parental controls set up. Maybe I'm being a vigilante, but my kids are too precious to lose vigilance in this war. Their minds should be pure, their thoughts clean, their appreciation for the human body and intimate relations kept sacred.

So they'll have to use bound scriptures and old-fashioned "apps" like pencils and paper to learn at church. They have their fun toys and video games and e-readers--and use them under adult supervision. I hope they don't hate me for "ruining their life" or being "no fun." I just love them so much, I want them safe and happy and filled with positive influences in their life.

That's my personal position, my private war. I hope our society will eventually be successful in eradicating pornography--but until then, I'm protecting my kids the best I know how.

Thoughts on "the purple pen"

I recently read a book entitled Never the Bride by Rene Gutteridge. The book is a Christian romance, and it's a quick read and a fun, light novel, but it had a concept in it that invited deeper inspection.

The protagonist of this book keeps a journal, and has since she was 10 years old. In these hundreds of journals, she has written thousands of ways a man could propose to her and what her dream guy/marriage/life should be like. She's 30 and still single, and therefore a little despondent. But even in her current state, she journals every day with a fluffy purple feather pen.

The "twist" or "gimmick" of the book was that God appears to her, and asks her to give up her purple pen. He is going to orchestrate the perfect relationship, but she needs to give up control and let Him do the guiding. Everything from quitting her long-time job to showing up at random laundromats to dancing with God (who is invisible to everyone but her) at a crowded restaurant is asked of her. And I give her credit for having enough faith to do these things, even if she gets really crabby and back talks God some of the time (would someone really do that?).

In retrospect, I found myself thinking that I am a purple pen hogger. I do not like someone else to control my destiny, even if I know in reality my life is never really that much in my control. I like to think it is. I like to imagine my efforts are what guide me to better life situations. But reflecting on the need to trust God and leave the penning of our life story up to him made me realize my pen-hogging is really futile. If I really trust God, and believe He is omniscient, all-powerful, knows when even a sparrow falls, etc., what makes me think I can see my way to a better future than Him?

What really bugs me, I guess, is that I can't see in the future and know what direction things are going to go. It's the not knowing that leaves me wondering... is God even paying attention? Maybe later I'll look back and see what feels like a trial now was really a blessing, or I'll see that disappointments at certain points led to greater joys and more fulfillment. But I can't see that now. I have to blindly stumble along (like this lady who was told to cook teriyaki chicken at 7:24, or show up at the church on such-and-such street in the rain) until some future happiness (hopefully) is reached. Why? What will it get me? Where will life lead after that? Why, why, why? I'm sure God is tired of me asking that.

There are two concepts in juxtaposition here: work and faith. On one hand, we are told to strive for salvation, doing good works, relying on grace "after all that we can do." So we are to be busy. That's okay. I'm busy all the time... it makes me feel in control to be busy, to see my own handiwork. Then there's faith. We are told that faith is believing in things not seen, trusting, and having a hope or assurance that all will turn out well. It's all part of a master plan, right? Well, I'd like to see a copy of the plan, get rid of some of these detours that have been redirecting my path, and stay busy planting flowers along the straight path to the happy life.

Alas, I know that's not how life works. I know I need to leave the purple pen in more capable hands. I know if I take a step in the darkness, the light will catch up and eventually I'll see my way clearly. Yeah, I know... but do I have faith? That's another point that will best be evaluated in retrospect.

Words on Words: Lesson 1

Class is in session. Listen up, people, and you'll learn something new today.

First, on the word "couple." If you are referring to two romantically involved people, they are a couple. Example: That couple booked the last hotel room.

If you mean two items/people/nouns grouped together, the world "couple" must be followed by "of." Because they are NOT romantically involved! For instance, I have a couple of books to return. (A couple book would be a marriage self-help text.) There are a couple of doughnuts left. (Couple doughnuts would be shaped like a figure eight.)

Now, I know you will be self-editing every sentence that leaves your mouth tomorrow. ;) See, you still have a couple of things to learn about the English language!

Stay tuned for lesson two.