Friday, February 18, 2011

Valentines Day Dinner & Grammy's!

I love awards shows. I love looking at the fashion or lack thereof. But my favorite is the Grammy's. So it was necessary to make a night out of it, especially when the next day was Valentine's Day. I went over to Jessica Silverman's new home and we made a night out of it. We made a delicious dinner...I recommend making this recipe. It was beyond easy and delish!

Start with 1 lb. of shrimp. Make sure to have them deveined and shelled. Rinse them then saute them in butter and EVOO. Remove them from the pan before they are fully cooked. Set them aside, because you will put them in the sauce later. In another pot start to boil water...once it is at a roiling boil add salt and put it 1 lb. of pasta of your choice.


Once you have removed the shrimp, chop 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic. (depending on your love of onion, you might want to use less than we did). Saute until the onion is opaque.


Add about a glass of white wine. I recommend pouring yourself a glass while cooking!


Once the white wine has reduced a bit...add an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce. Then let that simmer. To make the sauce even more decadent, add a bit of heavy whipping cream. Continue to let that simmer. Then add the shrimp into the sauce. We cut the shrimp into bite sized pieces, but you could leave them whole.


Next add the pasta into the pan. Once you have added the pasta, add fresh basil. Roll the basil up then thinly slice it. Add that into the sauce right before you are going to serve it.


Lastly to make it even more of a hearty meal, serve the pasta with a fresh salad. We toasted slices of bread. Once removed from the oven we took a garlic clove cut in half and we rubbed it on the bread while it was still warm.


Finally enjoy your dinner! People will be impressed and you will know how easy it was! My last recommendation is to use salt and pepper along the way and taste as you go along. Enjoy!


Our dinner was a success and the Grammy's was too. Enjoy my favorite performance!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

"You are Never Strong Enough that you Don't Need Help"

This amazing quote is from Cesar Chavez. My good friend from Arizona, whom also shares a love of quotes, sent this to me. As June 1st quickly approaches, it is starting to sink in that I will be leaving for a long time. So I ask this of you because I know that I am not strong enough that I do not need help. I ask that you pray to help prepare my heart for my upcoming journey. I am coming home this Wednesday and I am starting to move things home; so also ask that you pray for my move back home.

On a side note, for my move back home my good friend from high school, Lesley, is making the journey with me. She decided that because she is not about to visit me in Africa a fun road trip should be in order. So our plan is for me to be back in good old North Tustin by May 8th!!!

Like I said earlier, I will be home Wednesday! I am so excited. I hope to see as many people as possible. If I miss someone, don't worry I will have almost a month of free time in May :)

As I conclude this post (and I apologize for the bouncing a around), I just ask that you pray that God gives me the Strength as well as my family the Strength to prepare us for my journey ahead. But please remember this quote, because more often than not, we think that we are strong enough to handle it on our own. We are not, which is fine. That is why we have a community to lean on and an amazing God on our side.