Enchilada Soup

Enchilada Soup in a Crock-Pot


This is delicious and easy! I made it this week with my mom.

Ingredients:
3 cooked chicken breasts (cook the day before in the crock-pot, with onions if desired)
2 large cans cubed tomatoes
2 cans chicken broth
1 can green chilies

Directions:
Cube/shred chicken and put in crock-pot with onions from previous day. Add contents of cans. Cook on low for four hours, or until you’re ready to eat! Yum! Serve on tortilla chips if desired, with sour cream and shredded cheese on top.

Lemon Bars

Lemon Bars


I think I might have to change the title of “Tasty Tuesdays” to “Annette’s Adventures with Cooking” – I don’t actually cook much, and when I do, it rarely turns out. =P

Anyways, today’s share is from a boxed mix – Krusteaz lemon bars. It’s pretty easy to make. It tastes good, but mine turned out to be really gooey – not as firm as lemon bars are usually. This is probably because I was cooking at a high altitude though. It was nice – I didn’t have to gather all the ingredients to make a nice treat (for a college student).

Music Monday

So this week I bought three new tunes that I want to share with you. (Apparently Miscellaneous Monday is also now Music Monday =))


Your Hands by JJ Heller

This is just a great Christian song. A friend first shared it on facebook, but I didn’t think much of it. Then, a couple of girls sang it on our pilgrimage, where we met in hotel in Switzerland, to share our spiritual journeys while there. It is just a beautiful “you are loved” type of song. It makes me happy

Something in the Water by Brooke Fraser

This is the happiest song I’ve heard in a long time. It was introduced to me while riding a bus through Europe – there’s not much else to do besides listen to music. (A couple of friends tried to introduce me to metal music on the same trip). If you need a pick-me-up song, this is the one.

Crown of Thorns by Danielle Rose

This song gives me chills every time I hear it. I first heard it at World Youth Day, in a stadium in Madrid, Spain. The song depicts the passion of Christ from the point of view of the rose that made the crown of thorns. It is sung accapella, which gives it a beautifully eerie tone. Danielle Rose, who sings it, has an amazingly gorgeous voice that sounds just as amazing in person (the whole stadium was silent as she sung). She’s also a super nice, happy, upbeat person. This is a great song to meditate upon, perhaps while praying the rosary. Anyways, you should give it a listen.

Here’s a picture of Palacio de Deportes, where I first heard Crown of Thorns



St. Anne's

Happy New Year! It’s Sunday, which means I’ll be sharing a church with you. It’s also the Solemnity of Mary today, so honor your mother and get to mass! =P


St. Anne’s

This is my “home parish”, when I’m not at NAU. I’ve attended this church since I was in 5th grade (10 years!). Since it is quite large there are plenty of ways to get involved here. The church itself is pretty, with three arches framing the altar, and plenty of murals throughout the church. The community center is across the hall – the old church. This is where a lot of events happen, such as ice cream socials, high school youth group, vacation bible school and sorting gifts for the needy.

Here’s a picture of me as a vacation bible school teacher – the theme that year was Egyptian.

Reading Wednesday

It's Reading Wednesday! Which means it's time to share a book with you.

You Are Special by Max Lucado

This is an awesome children’s book. This book is about a society of puppets where each puppet shows if they like or dislike another puppet using a gray dot/gold star sticker system. One sad puppet is upset by his large amount of gray dots until he meets a puppet with no stickers at all – by her advice he goes to visit his creator. I used this book to teach my first grade class that “God Made You”. This is a great book for sparking discussion amongst younger children about what a creator is in general, and then who the creator is in real life. It’s also great to emphasize that everyone is special. For older kids, you can emphasize that you should never let anyone put you down and you should never let labels stick, nor should you label other people. At my age (college/ young adult) this is a analogy to God, and how we should have faith in him above all.

I was read this book as a child and then discovered it in Bookman’s and had to buy it. =) I hope you enjoy it as well!

Here’s a link to the book on amazon.com.

Sippin' Saturday

Starbucks Iced French Vanilla Latte (or Vanilla Latte with Hazelnut)

I first had a similar drink at McDonalds – their iced hazelnut latte brings back memories of road trips. This drink is the closest Starbucks equivalent I could find to it. Perfectly sweet, perfectly refreshing, great flavoring. While ordering this at Starbucks I discovered that vanilla+hazelnut=French vanilla, which is something I definitely didn’t know before. Anyways, this drink is a great mix of sweet vanilla and rich hazelnut.

Banana Colada Fuze

I’m not usually a fan of Fuze drinks, but I really like this one. It has a pina-colada flavor and a banana flavor combined. It’s a great tropical drink, with a little bit of a pineapple afterbite.

Snapple Tea Will Be Loved (Pomegranate Berry Tea)

This drink is the “Maroon 5” picked drink. While refreshing, it doesn’t have an extra-special flavor that would make me buy it again. It tastes like a slightly sweetened lemon tea.

Pic from bevreview.com

Crochet Flower Earwarmer

So a couple of days ago it was really cold outside, and my ears were not too happy. And, everyone else has these super cute earwarmers – so I found a pattern to make one on the internet. Actually, I had wanted to make one of these for a while, but I wasn’t really motivated to until the weather suddenly changed. You can find the pattern here. Here are a couple of things I did different from the pattern.


1. I didn’t notice the “Use size H hook” thing on the side, so I used a size J hook instead. It may have made the earwarmer a little bit bigger, but it seems fine to me.
2. It never clarifies if you should chain three before turning - I did, and counted it as my first stitch in that row. For most of the pattern, you need 9 stitches per row.
3. I made the flower in my school colors, because I’m a big fan of school spirit.
4. Also, the flower directions are hard to understand. When it says “sc around the first spoke”, it means the first spoke of the original flower – your original 4 chain loop. For some reason, I felt it would be a good idea to single crochet around each spoke in the bigger flower – it didn’t work out so well the first time.
5. Instead of sizing it and then single crocheting the two ends together, I just sewed a large button on one side, so that it would be easily adjustable.

Here are some pictures. I love this project! I think I might make another one, only in black/gray and with the right hook size next time.

What it looks like all spread out

Flower close-up!

Me, sporting my new, awesome, earwarmer!