Frozen Ice Cream Key Lime Pie

I made the best pie today.  To my friends just starting to cook, this is a great sweet treat recipe to start with.  It is also very inexpensive.   HEB has a special which ends this Tuesday (Sept 2nd, 08):  if you buy an HEB frozen pizza you get a quart of HEB ice cream free if you use their yellow coupon, so both cost a little over $4 total.  It is a decent deal.  I got the key lime ice cream.

I made a graham cracker pie crust with a sleeve of crackers from my pantry.  Each box of graham crackers comes with three packages inside the box.  The HEB brand is less than $2 for a box.  One sleeve will make a pie crust.  It is about 6 full size crackers.  Mix 1/2 stick of melted butter or margarine (microwave is fine)  & 1/3 cup of sugar with mashed up graham crackers.  Just mash the crackers with your hands.  They don’t have to be like powder, chunks are fine.  Mix all this up, press into a pie plate and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  You’ll see the crackers starting to become brown and you’ll smell a good aroma.

Then let cool.  Once the plate is cool enough to pick up w/o mitts, then put in your fridge.  Once cool (about 10 minutes) take out and add key lime ice cream.  Try to pack it in so there are no air pockets. But be gentle b/c the crust will come apart.  Fill to almost the top of the sides of the graham cracker crust.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in freezer for 15 minutes.  To serve, slice a piece of pie and top with your choice of: cool whip, redi whip cream from the can or heavy cream you whipped.

This is soooooooooo good.  It gives you the crunch of pie and the lime flavor, but is not as tart.  If you used a store bought graham cracker pie crust and cool whip, this would take you less than 5 minutes to make.  And it is good enough to serve to guests.  In addition, you could have these ingredients on hand all way in advance because the crust has a decent shelf life.  And the ice cream & cool whip would be fine for a month in the freezer.

The cost for this pie:  approx $1.5 for the ice cream, 50 cents for the crackers, 10 cents for the margarine and $1 for the heavy cream.  Total is $2.10 (not including electricity).

Would you welcome an Exchange Student???

We have a lovely teenage girl from the Ukraine living with us and attending High School. We just agreed to be a “welcome family” for a second student. He is from Germany. The agency we’re working with needs a few more families to welcome students to the United States.

A welcome family hosts the student for 4 to 6 weeks. This is important because the student cannot get a visa until a family agrees to host him/her. It is not a full year commitment and gives your family the opportunity to show hospitality to someone from another country for a short period of time. This is ideal for families who cannot commit for the entire school year, but can open their homes for a month.

Also, many of these students do not attend church in their country. This is a great way to introduce others to our Lord.

We are working with Academic Year in America. You can contact them at 800-322-4678.

Frugal Friday – first step to cooking is the pantry

I’m joining Biblical Womanhood for Frugal Friday. See Crystal’s site where great ideas are shared.

Today I’m focusing on getting back into a cooking routine which saves so much money compared to eating out. I plan to start a series on how to manage your kitchen. It will be more than a list of recipes. In my old life, I had an unlimited expense account and ate regularly at the very nice restaurants in Houston. When I came home full time, we had a very tight restaurant budget but I still had an appetite for the food. Meatloaf and pot roast just didn’t cut it. I’ve really worked the last couple of years at preparing low cost meals that satisfy my desire for Houston restaurant food. It has really helped keep us home without feeling so deprived. I feed our family very nice meals for $75 per week. This includes health/beauty and cleaning supplies. It does not include dog food, coffee or the occasional weeks where I do a major stock up on great deals. When you consider four of us eat at home three meals a day including snacks, I send meals to work with hubby and our exchange student takes food to school, $75/wk is very economical.

I plan to start with how to manage a pantry. It is important you have a stocked pantry with basic items. I created a page in my blog where I’ve tried to inventory what I need to prepare meals without running to the grocery store.  I also added more pics of the pantry. I’ve also tried to carve it down to items that don’t perish quickly. If you have to run to the store each time you cook to buy items for a certain recipe, you won’t cook because it is too much work. It also costs much more b/c you don’t get the items on sale. Next week, I also plan to list out the basic items (“kitchen tools”) I use on a regular basis (pots, pans, special spoons, etc.) Then each week I’ll look at the grocery store ads and recommend which items are the good buys. And I’ll give meal ideas with recipes which use my pantry list, kitchen tools and the items on sale.

If you think I’m missing something in my pantry, I’m eager to hear from you. I love having a grocery store in my kitchen. I buy items that are on sale and with coupons. It costs so much less in the long run.

Democratic Convention

As Christians this is not our home.  We are visitors for a short time.  I say this because when I get disappointed at the direction of the culture in this country, I know that one day I’ll be in a place where there is unity that God’s Word is the absolute.  How marvelous that will be!  I see good things happening in American such as the homeschooling movement.  But I also see a shift to the left in much of our society.  The presidental election brings this even more to light.  I have to remind myself of my hope in God when I see coverage the Dem Convention is receiving from the media.  When I watch people go crazy over Barack Obama I am reminded that so many have totally opposite views.  I’m concerned that when a country has such differing worldviews, it will be hard to overcome many of the challenges we face. We are so concerned about attacks from the outside when our biggest threat may be an implosion.

One of the topics we’re in total disagreement is sanctity of life.  I think Voddie Baucham did an excellent job at writing about Barack and this issue. See his post at: http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2008/4/18_A_Wolf_in_Sheep%E2%80%99s_Clothing.html

Private Ballet Lessons

There are advantages to having a ballerina exchange student and hardwood floors. It means private ballet lessons. We love having Tanya in our home. It is good for us and good for her. She is teaching us about other cultures. We have many differences but there is also so many similarities. Girls from all countries love to dance!

It also teaches our family about hospitality. We’re in a world where people pull into their homes and shut out the world. I like teaching the girls to open their hearts to others in the world.

Negotiate the price of Groceries

Did you know that the price of dairy, produce and meat is negotiable? I usually get a markdown of something each time I’m in the store. Today I tried to get Aidell’s sausage for $1.99 per package. They are usually $5.99 per package. A few months ago my local store had about 16 packages that were about to hit the “use by” date. They had marked them down for a quick sale. I offered to buy all they had if they would mark them down even more. The manager said OK and agreed to $1.50 a package. I smiled all the way home and hubby was just as excited. I promptly put them in our freezer. We have enjoyed gourmet sausage for the price of hotdogs.

Now every time I’m in that store I check their inventory so I can “alert” them that it is time to mark down. Today I found three packages. I offered the manager $1.99 for all they needed to move quickly. This manager would only come down to $2.50. I just couldn’t do that price and thanked the manager so much, but passed.

My point is that you can ask for price reductions if you have a valid reason. Sometimes you don’t get what you’re asking for and politely thank the store. They don’t owe me anything. I’m grateful when we can arrive at a win/win deal.

In my old life I traded electricity on a large trade floor. I’m also an attorney who helped close commercial transactions. Now I’m using those skills at my grocery store:)

Horse Art

Bethany really wants a horse. She watches horse shows, plays “horse”, draws horses and is saving money for horse camp. She wants us to move to the country. She is just a simple girl, in a good way. No fuss and everything is black and white. We took her to a Liby Lou type party and she refused to have her hair in an up do. She told the stylist that hairspray is just too hard to wash out. When they came around with the hair glitter, she was adamant that it would not go in her hair. Too much shower time would be required. They compromised on a plain straight braid in the back. She also refused make-up.

This does not come from her Momma. I have big hairspray hair and have not missed a lipstick day in at least 10 years. I probably have 30 tubes in various colors. I love that Bethany is her own person and I think she will have a simple life as an adult. We’ll see…

Exchange Student

Last Friday we met Ruth (exchange student from Hong Kong) who is staying with our friends Will and Sherri. Our exchange student (Tanya) is from Ukraine. It is wonderful learning about their different cultures and watching our kids see the world with new eyes. Aren’t these girls beautiful! Red, Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in His sight.

Anti-Procrastination Day – Recycling

Recycling is inconvenient and messy. I have to separate trash, load it in my minivan and take it to a special place. But when I look at how much garbage we have, I’m glad we’re not filling up more landfills.

Al Gore wants me to do this to minimize my carbon footprint. However, as a Christian, I need to be the best steward of this earth that I can be. The liberals have really taken this topic and made it about “mother earth”. Christians should also be in this discussion, but in a different way. We are to manage “God’s Creation”.

Small Inner City Church

We live in the inner city of Houston.  We are the Mega Church capital of the United States.  The mega churches have wonderful facilities, great speakers and lots of programs.  They are also great at responding to a large crisis like Katrina.  There are many fine Christians who attend and support these churches.

We used to belong to one of our mega churches but left for a small inner city community church.  Since our change I’ve done a lot of thinking about church and the value of small church.  I grew up in a small church and knew everyone in the congregation.  After college I moved to the city and attended large churches.  These churches are very impressive to a small town folk like me who was amazed at the worship services, programs, etc.

After having kids, I found something was missing for our family.  One big thing was parking!  Most mega churches have huge parking issues.  So we take a shuttle from offsite and get to your location.  Then we scramble to get our kids to their location.  Finally we arrive at your destination and pretend to be spiritual.  Dave dreaded this adventure and I encouraged him by saying “people in China walk miles in the snow to attend church and face possible persecution.”

We changed our membership to a small innner city church one year ago.  Many small churches in Houston died and many of the ones remaining are just hanging on.  It is like when Walmart enters a town and puts all the mom/pop shops out of business.  That is what has happened as a result of our mega church explosion.

I’m seeing a renewed craving for small churches.  People are craving community and intergenerational relationships. The church I attend was at about 30 members 3 years ago with no children.  Now we have someone join most every Sunday and lots of families.  And we have baptized over 20 people in the last 12 months.  We even had a wedding after one service.  The pastor was preaching on “living in sin” and a couple was convicted and wanted to make things right.

Today our pastor talked about the importance of having the entire family in the worship service.  He wants to move away from sending kids to “children church” or a teenage program.  A church that worships together stays together.  He told us that one of the reasons young people are leaving the church is because they were never really a part of the church.  We are integrating our congregation.  Not in a racial sense, but in regard to martial status, age, gender, etc.  We don’t want  Sunday morning to be the most segregated day for families.

I’m seeing this with our kids.  They are making friends with people that are not their parents age.  Mrs. Claudia (a grandma) is praying for Maggie’s skin.  Today Shea sat with Clint and MaryAlice.  Shea especially loves MaryAlice.  If we were in a mega church it would be hard for Shea to get to know MaryAlice unless she was a worker in the children’s program.  And Bethany walks around talking to adults during meet/greet.

I’m just reflecting on the importance of community within a church.  We have a lot that is imperfect about our church.  But if it was perfect, I couldn’t go because I’d mess it up.  I’m glad to be back in a small church and I hope more inner city churches start coming back to life.