Begin Your Days with Praise

There is just something about the morning that my body just does not like. I have the hardest time waking up!

I always said, "anyone else can get the worm this the morning, I'll sleep this one through"

I want to stay in the comfort of my warm blankets, and be lazy all day. I wish that was a way to glorify God, but really its a waste of my time. Yet, I still fight every morning to be happy to be up. (mind you this wares off after about an hour) But this morning I was convicted of this and realized that what I was doing was really affecting my whole morning by waking up without a thankful heart.

I had lost the wonder of God's power and love. 

There is that "Camp High" that you get sometimes and it just seems to last and last. This morning mine wore off.

That's not how I wanna live, from emotional experience to emotional experience... Knowing God is not about how I feel it's about fulfilling His will for my life, loving Him and serving him with all I have got, and knowing Him more because he is God! 

Sometimes I just get so stuck in routine and selfishness that I don't even think to thank God for my day until its over with. I want to thank him for the first breath of each morning, for the little things and the BIG things. The fact that he wakes me to another day, gives me a new morning, another chance to share the gospel, all those things and more should wake me up with JOY! 

When I found this verse it inspired and challenged me to wake up with joy and to seek his plan for my every footstep. 

listening to where He will show me to go. 

There is something beautiful about the fact that we have an unfailing morning. God is faithful and shows that in the fact that he sets and rises the sun the same each and every day. 

From now on I am going to "Let the morning bring me word of God's unfailing Love"

Have you been dragging your feet, or everything but joyful in the mornings like I have been? 

It's time to make a change! Make it with me!

Lets look at our mornings with inspiration, joy, peace and thankfulness. God is good.

Praying for blessings and Joy in your mornings to come,

Janelle

 

Baked Vegetables

Since My sister-in-law Savanna liked the picture of my veggies

I made last night I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone.

It is really simple and chad and I loved it!

I love a good pot roast, stew or twice baked potato.
Those all have lots of fats attached to the vegetables for flavor. 

This recipe is just the veggies, but it is just as juicy, tender and filling. 

not to mention, its sooo easy!

Baked Vegetables

Bake Time:

30-45 minutes

Cook Temperature:

400 degrees

Ingredients:

This recipe can be done with all or only one of the following:

Carrots

Cabbage slice

Potato

turnup

onion

beets

I was just making this as a snack so I only used a handful of veggies since I's only cooking for two. 

I also decided to experiment with the veggies to see how long it would take to bake chopped and not. (they were the same)

so I am assuming the quantity 

would not make a difference either with the time or texture.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

 Makes sure to wash your veggies, and then simply put them in your pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with some salt , sprinkle some fresh Parmesan cheese, cover with foil, and pop them into the oven for 30-45 minutes

It's that easy. carefully test your veggies with a fork for tenderness around 30-40 minutes and adjust time according to your likeness. 

I like my tender but not mushy and 35 minutes was perfect for that!
Serve nice and warm and use as a side dish or the main course (like I did)!

The cabbage and everything was super moist and really hit the spot for something warm without adding any unhealthy fats! 

The carrots are sweet, the cabbage is flavorful and the potato makes you feel nice and full!

*Chad liked to dip the potato in ketchup, (healthy fries I suppose) 

and *add pepper if desired.

This is sure to impress and to make you feel good about what your eating!

Happy eating. 

Blessings,

Janelle

Homemade Pizza

Don't Order Out; Order In! 

This is an easy Homemade Pizza that takes half the time of a normal delivery order for pizza that takes 5 mins to order, a few minutes to exchange payments info, and then the 30-45 min. wait for your pizza (thats not mentioning all the convenience fees and tip, and overpriced processed food!) 

oops, ill get off my soap box and let this yummy and easy meal speak for itself!!

Chad and I love pizza

And I love that it's easy to order! No kitchen clean up.

I know there is a clean up when you do it at home, but you can't beat the price per serving when you make your own pizza verse dining out or ordering in!

The average Large pizza costs 10-15 dollars.

My two pizza's I made totaled 7 dollars!
With 8 Large slices on my pizza that's only $0.85 a slice!

and I actually preferred the homemade flavor.. less gross meat or old veggies, it was all healthy and the richness of the spaghetti sauce was delightful!

If you have kids or are planing on having a few friends over. Let them pick out or bring along a few topping that are their favorite. Let the kids help, this is a fun way to get everyone in the kitchen! 

Prep time:
5-10 minutes

(depending on how long it takes to stretch your dough to appropriate size)

Cook time: 

25-30 minutes

Cooks at:
400 degrees

Ingredients:

2 cup Mozzarella cheese

1 1/2 cup Your favorite Spaghetti Sauce or Marinara

1 pre-made pizza dough ball from grocery store

1 tsp butter or olive oil 

1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

pinch of fresh chopped or dried chopped basil for garnish and flavor

Toppings:

Any thing you would like to garnish!
Make your favorite combo that you would order out at home!

For mine I am using:

1 Onion

1 Red Bell Pepper

1Green Bell Pepper

 3 Cloves of Garlic

Small Handful of Spinach

This is what I started with:

The pizza dough is awesome. I got it from Win Co. 

and I know that other places like Safeway and Savemart have Pizza dough for sale made fresh!

Whats nice about buying pre-made is it makes for an easy go to meal.

Leave the dough in the fridge for a quick fix for those nights that are just thrown together! 

Everyone almost always has cheese and a jar of Spaghetti sauce on hand! 

One other important part of this was my pizza stone! This made my pizza cooking experience easier and its my favorite way to cook a pizza at home. the stone adds a great crisp to the bottom of the pizza crust and helps cook nice and even.

First you start with the Dough. 

Since I had my dough in the fridge it was not easy to stretch right away. take the dough out and set it on your stone while you chop the veggies or other toppings you may choose to use. 

 (don't mind my nasty stone... It's "normal" from past store bought frozen pizza's, they are so greasy!)

 While we are letting our dough get warmed up a bit cut your veggies!

I made mine early in the day and so I put them in easy to store containers to  put in fridge and was able to easily get out later.

 Make sure to chop your veggies to bite size so there is less mess and easy devouring.

If you are planning on using your dough as a go to meal, chop some veggies early so you can easily grab them out and make your pizza in even less time when you need that quick meal like I did!

(chopping veggies ahead of time makes your pizza a one dish simple meal!)

I stored these in the fridge like this and they were nice and crisp when I needed them!

You can stretch the dough when its cold, it just takes a little more patience. You don't want to tear or stretch too thin, so take your time (but don't be too gentle if it tears, just pinch it back together!)

Lets nicely flour our pizza stone

then start to stretch by kneading the dough from the ball center outward like pie crust. Use your fists instead of a rolling pin.

Start to stretch it with your fingers pulling them from center to edges and turning to keep your round shape.  This might take a few minutes (don't loose patience) 

and stretch with love, till its a bit wider than the desired size leaving room to roll the crust.

 This is how large I made it and then took the sides in, 

Crust:

If you like large fluffy crust make your crust nice and round. You do this by slowly pinching and tucking out the edges, while  folding in and pulling towards the inside to keep the shape and size desired. For flat or thin crust leave pizza crust same as center and be sure to keep sauce away from edge when you top with toppings.

This is what my pizza looked like crusted and nice and round!

 Now you are ready to top your pizza with all the fix in's!

Take your favorite spaghetti sauce (mine is garlic) 

Grab a spoon and spread (as evenly as possible) your desired amount of sauce. 

*beware, the more sauce you put the longer it takes to cook your dough, don't make a mistake by adding too much and making the pizza soupy.

Add first your cheese and then all your toppings:

sprinkle with basil if desired and Ta-DA! 

Pop it into your oven at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes depending on how thick your crust is!

at 10 minutes in, brush some butter or olive oil lightly on your crust to brown

and let it cook the rest of the way. 

If you find that while its cooking there are large bubbles forming, just puncture them with a fork and they will fall right down no problem... 

Check the bottom of the pizza to make sure it is nice and crispy and firm at the end of timer, and take out if done (add additional minute or two if needed)

That was not too hard was it! 

Serve with a great tossed salad, and some Root Beer (my favorite pizza drink), and ENJOY!

Happy bellies make a happy home!

20 minute Veggie Soup

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook time: 20

Ingredients:

1 cup each diced celery, onions, carrot, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, spinach

2 cans diced stewed tomatoes

2 clove garlic

1/4 cup mushroom

3 cup water

18oz vegetable broth

2 teaspoons butter or olive oil

2 teaspoons each thyme and parsley (rosemary if desired) 

Dash of pepper

salt to taste 

This is one of my favorite meals! 

I love soup and yesterday it was cold enough to make it here in Washington. 

My husband is not a soup fan, but he really enjoys this one. (and he is not the biggest veggie lover)

Its hearty, easy, and super quick. 

Best of all i love to make a big batch so that I can have a freezer bag leftover.  (which makes those random nights where I just don't wanna make dinner a cinch!)

You can add any vegetable you desire and you can get rid of almost anything as well.

I am making a modified version of my recipe because I don't have all of the listed veggies.

this is what I put in mine last night:

I love to make this in a big batch so I am using my stock pot, the Christopher ranch pre-peeled garlic are amazing! and the seasoning blend of chopped onions celery red and green peppers parsley and oregano are so easy to pull out of the freezer to use in any dish. I have stewed tomatoes veggie broth some butter, extra carrots and celery and some yummy cabbage. 

 (use any veggie ingredient you'd like or have on hand at the time) 

Get your pot on the stove with some olive oil or butter in the bottom to warm up while you prep the veggies. First chop all of your veggies to desired bite size, add garlic and veggies to the pot to start to enhance flavor and soften. 

 This is the size I cut my carrots, celery etc.

It should take 5-10 mins cooking on high to soften veggies

when your butter or olive oil has started to simmer add the veggies and let them get nice and soft

this speeds up the cooking process and allows you to make the soup so quick (just boiling would take at least a coupe hours to soften the veggies)

Don't add the stewed tomatoes and the juice from the can or your cabbage just yet. 

add salt and pepper to the veggies as they are softening

  I had parsley in my seasoning bag of onions etc. so I did not add it here. But add your 2 tsp. each of Parsley, and Thyme (rosemary if flavor desired)

Make sure to stir so that none of these veggies burn. 

Once your vegetables are nice and soft (taste test here)

Add your cabbage and stewed tomatoes and juice from can as well as vegetable broth.

 Bring to boil: 10 mins

 Serve nice and hot

 My hubby approves and I hope yours does too!

 He had one hearty bowl and was full! 

Success!

With My leftovers I label and freeze flat in a freezer bag to have for another meal.

 This is a simple and fun dish to have. you can add chicken, corn, (seriously almost anything) even some spice to make it bite back if desired. This is a great meal that is sure to please the family.

Serve with bread sticks or rolls and dinner is complete!

Enjoy your one dish clean up and warm happy tummies!

Life as Wife:

Welcome to my life as a Stay at home wife, turning my house to home!  

This is me and my wonderful husband!

I am a God-loving God-fearing Christian wife, sister, friend, and daughter.

My desire is to be drawn close to God, and to walk with Him;

my very life is completely His to use for His good will and pleasure. 

"For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it."
Matthew 6:25 

God's will has me in the role of House Wife and I am Loving it! 

I wanted to start a blog to share some of the experiences that I am going through in making our 

House to Home offer support, advice and tips to wives alike!

 A little background on me;

I am 21 

I have been married for two years!

I love food, and as much as I love to splurge a bit every so often I enjoy eating healthy and love to cook! 

I have an adorable Pup (my dog baby) Bentley 

I have a garden and I cant wait to start that this spring. 

I am big on naturopathic healing and vitamin nutrition.

I am a California girl relocated in the Northwest (Washington) 

I love a good movie, 

Crafts are my thing,

And I have been known to sew a thing or two. 

Thats enough about me, 

Lets get started turning house to home!

I pray that those of you who stumble across this site will enjoy it and be encouraged. 

If you have any questions for me and would like me to try to address it on the blog
send me an email or comment on one of the posts.

Thanks for spending time with me. Blessings!

Janelle Dutcher