Best home-made Chicken Souvlaki & Rice ever!

This is the best recipe I have used for Chicken Souvlaki and Lemon Rice Pilaf. It's to die for! And I can't wait to get home tonight and enjoy it at dinner time!

I found this recipe from My First Kitchen blog.

Chicken Souvlaki
(serves four with one skewer per person)

Ingredients:
- two chicken breasts cut into one-inch cubes
- a few glugs of the best extra virgin olive oil you have
- a good palmful of dried oregano (about a tablespoon)
- half as much garlic powder or 3-4 minced cloves
- several good grinds of black pepper
- salt

Cut your chicken into cubes. Try to make than as much the same size as possible. Toss in a bowl with the olive oil. Then throw in the oregano, garlic, and pepper. Mix it up so all the chicken is coated in the seasoning. Let marinate over night or for a few house.

Put the chicken on skewers. If you put some cut bell pepper between each chunk, it will be the most amazing bell pepper you've ever tasted. You can cook the chicken on the stove (which was very hard for me, took forever, and totally made a mess of my pan), or your can grill it (which is what we're doing tonight).

And now for the side dish... I found this recipe on one of those recipe sites online.

Lemon Rice Pilaf

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, minced (or just chopped up really well)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 cups uncooked long grain rice
2 (14.5 ounce) cans Chicken Broth
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts (optional)
Salt and pepper

In a large saucepan, cook onion in butter for 3 minutes; add rice, stirring to coat. Add broth, lemon juice, peel and bay leaf. Heat to a boil; reduce heat to low. Cover and cook 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes. Remove bay leaf, stir in parsley and nuts. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Blocks!

Look what I made! Look what I made!!

Now that the recipient of this gift (Andrea) will likely retrieve the package from her doorstep before she sees this online, I can finally show off what I made!

Thanks to the scraps of 2x4's we have lying around our basement and Bill's skillfullness with the saw, I made these adorable blocks! (Yes, I'm very proud of these, especially since this was my first time working with wood!)

Have a slice of cake.

Just as we love our own children, our Creator also loves us. Why then do we strive so strongly for the approval and the love of other people and not just be satisfied with the never-failing and perfect love of our Creator? Why do we feel let down and a little sad when we don’t always feel the love of other people?

Perhaps our disappointment in the love we [don’t] receive from other’s should be our sign to offer our love instead? Offer the kind of love and treatment we wish to receive from them. Consider this - Matthew 7:12 says "Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get." (MSG)

Perhaps I shall begin this new mission in my own life – To truly demonstrate the love I want to receive by offering the same to those around me. Action is what leads to results, meaning I can’t just meekly go about my life, and expect meaningful things to happen in the way I wish. I can’t have my cake and eat it too. Instead, I will strive to offer slices of my cake to those around me.

And maybe you shall accept this slice of cake and share it with someone around you.

Oh dear... Oh my!

I want to bake.... NOW!

12-Layer Cake

Psalm 139

Psalm 139

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

.....

God's love is greater and more perfect than any love on this earth, and it never fails. I am His.

All the way UP

I'm about to shock you all.

I climbed a mountain last night.

Yes, me. To the top. The tippy top.

Despite my fear of heights, bugs, and animals. I didn't fear the animals that might have been lurking or the creepy crawlies that may have been in the brush I was grabbing hold of. However, I was scared to death the entire way up because I knew I'd have to find a way back down. But, word to the wise, if you ever find yourself atop a mountain and you're afraid to travel the trails down by foot, remember - your bottom may have more surface area than your feet!

I don't know what got into me though. The trail guide mentioned a really spectacular sight that I've only read about in books and I really wanted to see it. Really bad. Even though it meant traversing along a steep, narrow trail that I could possibly slide down into a ravine of rocks with one failed step. But I did it! I made it! And I saw this very old, and very neat, sight with my own eyes!! Going back was very scary though.. I scooted along on my butt some of the way. I don't know that I'll have the courage to get to this spot again.

Continuing up the mountain though, up, up, up, we came to a very peaceful, low-incline area. It was full of oak trees, offering much welcome shade and coolness after the steep, slippery, switchbacks up. There was some ground covering plants with leaves as big as my head, which proved an abundance of water in the area at some point. And finally, alas, we came to our destination - a beautiful waterfall, hidden deep within the mountain! The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Luckily, as my reward for making it to the top alive, nature presented me with a gift. A very useful hiking stick. This really, truly, helped alleviate my fears on the downward trek because it was kind of like having a third leg. It was also starting to get dark too. Perhaps the darkness though is what made me not as fearful of the ledges.

At the end, my feet were alot dirter than they would have been if I had gone to my yoga class instead, but this was well worth the hike. It put me in a position to trust in God to bring me down alive and with all my skin intact, and it allowed me the opportunity to see some of the beauty God has created. The view from many areas on this trail was magnificent as well and I could see the entire valley from where I was. I'm so glad I was somehow able to put my fears aside and do this hike!

Book Review (sorta): Unlikely Angel

Well, I didn't have anything to blog about (that wouldn't require publicly posting family pictures) so I thought I'd give kudos to a book I just finished.

Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero
by Ashley Smith

This is the account of a woman who was taken hostage by Brian Nichols in 2005. I don't remember hearing about this on the news or anything, but from reading the description of the book, I had an idea of what it was about. Because of this, I was on the edge of my seat when I first opened the book. She doesn't waste much time getting right into the story though.

It was amazing to see how God was working during this time in Ashely Smith's life and how she was being used by God to affect Brian Nichols' life as well. It was so clearly obvious who was in charge of this situation, and it wasn't Ashley. It wasn't Nichols either though. GOD is in control. Always.