Chicken Paprika

This dish has become a new holiday favorite.  My stepmom makes it for us when she comes down at the holidays!  In fact, it's what we had for Thanksgiving dinner.  My husband and I want to find a quicker way to make it so we can enjoy it more often, perhaps with boneless chicken breasts.

 

Chicken Paprika with Spatzle

1 3 - 3.5 lb cut up fryer

1/2 C flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 C butter

1 Large chopped onion

2 Tbsp paprika

1 C chicken broth

1 C light cream

1/2 C sour cream

In bag, shake chicken in flour, 1 tsp salt, and pepper 'til coated. Save 2 Tbsp flour. Brown chicken in butter, pour off fat, but return 3 Tbsp to skillet. Saute onion 10 minutes or so. Add paprika, 1/2 tsp salt, and broth. Bring to boil, lower heat. Add chicken, turning to coat. Cook, covered, 30 minutes or 'til tender. Remove chicken. Stir in cream. Make paste of saved 2 Tbsp flour and sour cream. Slowly stir into pan. Cook, without boiling, 'til thick. Add chicken. Serve over spatzle.

Spatzle

3 C sifted flour

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp white pepper

3 eggs, beaten

1 C water

1/4 C melted butter

Combine flour, salt, and pepper in medium bowl. Make well in center. Add eggs and water and mix thoroughly. Scoop up dough onto spatula or lage spoon and cut off small pieces with a knife directly into a boiling pot of salt water. As dough bits rise, scoop off with a slotted spoon. Place in covered bowl with melted butter and keep warm as the rest cooks.

Little Observations

~ I am thoroughly enjoying the manual milk frother that my sister sent me for Christmas, seen in the second photo. It turns milk into a foamy wonder that is better than that from a coffee shop!

~ Today I am attempting to bake bread from scratch for the first time. Results will be known within the hour.

~ I haven't seen as many birds in my yard lately and think I know why. I put out a feeder of black oil sunflower seeds to try to lure the cardinals back several days ago. Lured they were, but whenever they got close to the feeder, a very territorial mockingbird swoops in and chases them off. Said mockingbird doesn't seem to care about eating from the feeders, however - they are still full. It also chased off the bluejay. I hung out a second feeder and hope the cardinals and jays will keep trying, because I miss them.

~ We've lived here for 4 years, but only yesterday finally visited Brazos Bend State Park for a much-needed walk in nature. Compared to western mountains and pines it's far from pretty, but it will do!

~ A large gathering of Bradford pear leaves awaits me in the backyard. They were gorgeous while they lasted. And I actually love to rake.

~ I am finally reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am quite inspired by it. I do think I will try making cheese and will put in a small spring veggie garden.

~ Likewise, I've just started Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition by Wendell Berry and am very grateful for his thoughtful words and clear vision.

Christmas 2009

Christmas was special for us this year because we had family visiting to spend the holiday with us. We have not spent Christmas with family since 2003, when we last returned to South Dakota for the holiday. Given the blizzard they're still in today, I'm glad we didn't attempt it this year! When family and friends visit, we get out and do things we don't usually do. This time it included a trip to Galveston and a walk on the beach, attending a great performance of The Christmas Carol at a downtown Houston theater, visting Lakewood Church per the request of visting family (what a contrast to my last post! photos of the Osteens were the only iconic images around), perusing and sampling the huge cheese selection at a new H.E.B. in West University Place, a long walk in a new park, a carol service at a local Methodist church, and my very first 3D Imax experience - wow! Cooking a large meal and opening gifts were all the more fun for having family with us. I am grateful for the company of loved ones at the end of the year.

My thoughts are now turning to 2010 and the things I want to work on. Home projects are at the top of the list - installing a gutter, dealing with water problems, and lots, lots more. Removing clutter to make the home more pleasant is a part of that, although the challenge seems huge. Craft and sewing projects are there, and a more consistent prayer and devotional life, as is trying to exercise more and plant a small spring garden. I don't make resolutions, but I do form loose goals!

How was your Christmas? What are your thoughts for 2010?

Top photo by my husband

Life as a Christmas Elf

Today I mailed off my last packages. Here are a few things that I included as handmade gifts, some of which might be quick for you to make as last minute gifts if you need ideas! (If you're a family member and have secretly discovered my blog, I guess your surprises are ruined! ;-)

Desk calendars for those with office jobs (4x6 inches), using wallet-sized prints of my flower photos and free yearly calendars downloaded on the web.

Beaded earrings - copper, glass, minerals, sterling silver.

Guilty pleasure - pretzels in almond bark with sprinkles.

Typed, printed, and bound booklets of the favorite family recipes my MIL wrote out by hand for our wedding.

Herbal sachets (many of these are for my own closets, fabric stash, etc.) They do contain lavendar, but also whole cloves, thyme, mint, and rosemary. They smell wonderful! I tried out a few decorative stitches on my sewing machine for embellishment, and even broke into my vintage hankie collection for a few of them.

I also did some simple scrapbook pages, easy cookie cutter clay ornaments, pottery for one lucky person, and made a pile of photo notecards. I haven't been able to craft much this year with study and travel, so it has been rather fun to get back into it. The hardest part of Christmas prep remains: cleaning and straightening my house before visitors arrive! I hope your Advent season is going well.

Magical Surprises

Last Friday, the very unexpected happened: it snowed in Houston. All day long. The flakes here were fat and fluffy, and enough accumulated to turn the yard white. This is a rare gift that I very likely will not see again in my time here. It made me quite happy and very tickled - what a joyful treat!

Today, looking at these pictures, I can't help but think about the unexpected snow as a metaphor for other unexpected good things: the upcoming feast of the Nativity, when God took on human flesh and was born in a manger, for one. I'm also thinking of changes that I've seen in people's lives and how heartwarming it can be. And even some changes in my own life. Spiritually, if you would have told me eleven years ago that I would soon become an Orthodox Christian and spend afternoons like today listening to the Paraklesis service sung by Eikona, I would have not taken you seriously. But God and life can surprise us - just like the snow did a few days ago!

Are you enjoying any unexpected events lately?

Advent Calendar

We're back from yet another trip, this time to attend the wedding of my husband's sister in Ohio and then to celebrate Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania with our good friends and adorable godchildren. But more on that later! I've admired the envelope-type Advent calendars that I've seen on many craft blogs (the envelopes are often clipped clothespin style to twine along a wall, etc.) and so I decided to whip up a quick one to take to our godkids. It's pretty self-explanatory from the photos, and it was a lot of fun to make. Using a packet of 20 icon cards about the life of Christ as the envelope inserts (available from the Greek Archdiocese website) was a good way to keep the focus on the reason for Christmas. For the other 5 days, I inserted photos of my husband and me and included little notes to the kids. There are countless ways to vary this idea.

I'll be trying to whip up some more Christmas crafts for gifts in the next week or two. Will you be crafting?

Noticing

Aloe vera blossoms taken in my backyard last week. The former owner of this house must have planted a house plant she'd grown tired of. The aloe is located all by itself in an odd corner, but it grows well and blooms like this a couple of times a year.

I am stalling today, slowly avoiding doing the things I know I need to do. It is warm here in Texas, and at 90% humidity. This makes me a little crabby. Updating my address book just now, I am reminded of a few small gestures that seemed to mean more to the recipients than I anticipated. I want to remember these, to remember that something that seems small to me can mean so much to someone I’m thinking of. In one instance, I wrote a Christmas card/thank-you note to the woman who volunteers as the bookstore coordinator at our church. She left a very warm, touching voicemail for me later that day thanking me. It stopped me in my tracks and made me wish I’d done more than just give her a card: perhaps brought in something baked or a gift certificate. Likewise, I took a loaf of banana bread to a woman in our neighborhood who keeps our phone list updated. Again, I later found an extremely warm, grateful voicemail from her. Their thankfulness was so touching to me and was almost humbling; I felt that my little gestures did not deserve such thanks. But it was also affirming and reminded me that it is worth it to do little things. So often it seems that most people don’t notice small courtesies or bother to really listen to each other, but moments like these remind me that it’s worth it to strive to let others know that we appreciate them, even if it’s just sending them a card. To me, a big part of Christianity is stopping to notice others for real, not with just a passing glance, to listen to them and acknowledge their presence by being fully present myself. Of course, this is sometimes easier said than done, depending upon how tired, preoccupied, or stressed out I am.

Have you found yourself in either the giving or receiving end in these sorts of situations? I’d love to hear.

Christmas Eve Day

It's Christmas Eve Day! Warm wishes for a peaceful evening as you celebrate tonight.

Early Christmas Getaway to Hill Country

We hadn't done anything in Texas all year, so when we finally had enough time to sneak away to Hill Country this weekend, we went for it. I know many of you are freezing right now, but on Saturday we were hiking this Western trail full of prickly pear in Colorado Bend State Park, which gets a whopping 56,000 visitors per year. It was 80 degrees and the sun was hot. Too warm for me, especially in late December - St. Nick, send some snow my way!

Our dry, hot hike led to these lovely little falls nearby the Colorado River.

For many years I yearned to be a park ranger. This hat reminds me of the one that Curious George's caretaker wears! In case it's not obvious, I believe in sun protection.

We stopped at the beautiful Inks Lake State Park on our drive back to the cabin. I quite contentedly sat at the water's edge and tossed leaves in the lake for half an hour.

Such a beautiful sunset leaving the lake.

It got even more beautiful by the time it reached its peak.

We stopped in the quaint town of Wimberley on the drive back, where I found some affordable little treasures. I brought all of our Christmas albums along for the drive for some holiday cheer. We will have a quiet Christmas, so this was a fun prelude to the holiday. Please do share your adventures this week, whether you're traveling for Christmas or not!

All photos by my husband, other than the leaf.

Christmas Crafting: Beaded Jewelry

A peek at some of the necklaces, bracelets, and earrings that I mailed off for Christmas (I'd mailed others before taking this photo.) A simple gift idea, just stringing and crimping! I don't wear much jewelry, but am drawn to natural mineral beads for their beauty: jade, aventurine, freshwater pearls, tiger eye, many types of agates, quartz, and more. I would have kept going but I ran out of wire! As you can see at my work table, I'm also rather messy! But I'm also oddly organized in some ways...How are your Christmas plans coming along?

Christmas Crafting: Ongoing Scrapbook

(I'm on the left, in case you were wondering what I look like! :-)

I like to make small scrapbooks for gifts for people, but I wanted to be able to make something for my sister that wouldn't be restricted to one event or one visit, etc. I decided to start an 8.5 x 11 ring-binder scrapbook for her this Christmas. I'm really liking this style of scrapbook, since it's so easy to add pages and I can use different sizes as well. I'll be able to send her additional pages as time goes on. Here are a few pages. As you can see, I like to keep things pretty simple.

Christmas Crafting: Beaded Suncatcher

A simple, if slightly time-consuming project: a beaded sun catcher for my dad's three-season patio. (His windows are cleaner than mine are!) I used an inexpensive doo-dad from JoAnn Fabric to wrap the wire in the shape it is, and then beaded away. I used a glass mix of small beads and beaded on wire, using crimp tubes to secure the ends of the wire, but perhaps monofilament line would work as well and wouldn't involve crimping.

Christmas Crafting: A Few Random Projects

Here are a few more simple crafted Christmas gifts. My mom is the most faithful journal-keeper I know, and she always requests these old-fashioned composition notebooks, covered with patterned paper. I glue a full sheet of paper to the insides and outsides of front and back, slipping a long ribbon underneath the inside back paper for a bookmark, and pile them under heavy books overnight to dry. You can use waxed paper to protect your books from glue leaks. I then trim the excess paper off with a craft knife and embellish as desired.



A very simple project: two pieces of colorful polar fleece (1.5 yards each) sewed together to make a cozy blanket for my nephew. Their high in SoDak today is 0 degrees, so he'll probably be able to put this to use! I'm hoping it will be a fort-building, baby sign language video watching, cold winter night snuggling type of blankie for him!

Very simple: photo strips for kids and grandparents to hang on the fridge or in the kid's bedrooms. Sort of a low-tech version of digital picture frames!

Please do be sure to share your gift ideas!

Christmas Crafting: Little Desk Calendars

Here's an easy and fun little crafting project/gift idea for friends and family who have desk jobs. I created this using 4x6 photos or cardstock/paper cut to that size. I use a lot of wallet-sized photos in my scrapbooking and so had extras to use on these calendars. It's also a good way to use up scraps of patterned paper. I searched google images for free downloads of 2009 calendars, printed them out, and added them to the pages. I did glue cardstock to the back of the full-size photos for extra stability. And, rather than bind the pages together, I chose to leave them loose to sit on these cute little easels I found at Michael's for $4. These would also be nice using family photos. How are your craft projects coming along?