Made Up Sausage & Cabbage

If you don’t like cabbage then this recipe is not for you. This isn’t one of those Pinterest recipes where “ It tastes just like chocolate cake, My Hubby couldn’t tell the difference”. No, this is cabbage and it tastes like cabbage. Adam and I happen to really enjoy cabbage, and thus really enjoyed tonight’s dinner.  I did see this dish on Pinterest, and  so if you want the official recipe 

click here to go to the blog where the recipe is. 

As some of you know, I tend to change recipes a lot. So as it happened, tonight I made Kielbasa and cabbage, but those was about the only same ingredients. Oh and salt!
 Just to clarify, I didn't change the recipe because I didn't think it would taste good, I think the original recipe looks amazing and I still want to try it.  I just didn't have those ingredients, so tonight I made it up.

Ingredients 

Sausage (Kielbasa) 

Cabbage

Salt

Pepper

Onion Powder

Chili Pepper Flakes

Sweet Chili Sauce

Butter or Oil 

First, Heat up a frying pan with a bit of butter or oil to cook your sausage, (Kielbasa is already cooked, but "browning it" produces nice flavour for the cabbage) Next, slice up your sausage and place it in the frying pan.  Fry for a few mins until the meat is brownish, then flip and cook the other side.

Xena was very interested in dinner while, I was cutting up the meat. 

Note: If you have a blog be careful how many pictures you take while cooking meat. It might get a bit too dark.

While the meat is cooking,  cut up your cabbage. I really, really wanted to add onion to this recipe but I didn't have any in the house, so as a side note, onion is worth adding.  I made my cabbage sort of a square cut, but you are more that welcome to do what ever you want. Also the bigger leafs can be saved as a garnish. 

Add the cabbage to the frying pan. Add your seasonings  For seasonings I added, onion powder, (Its a sad substitute for not having onions.) Hot pepper flakes, salt, pepper , and 2 Tbs of sweet chili sauce ( yes the kind you dip egg rolls in ) I know it might sound weird but it tasted really yummy.  I didn't really measure my seasonings, it was sort of a dash of this and that, so just make it to taste. Cook on medium heat until the cabbage becomes translucent 8-10 minutes. It will look similar to this when it is ready.

Place in a bowl or serving dish and surround with the top cabbage leaves as a garnish. 

Enjoy!

Scents of Summer

 
  Well it's Friday, and it's hot! 

What more could you ask for? ....How about some lovely scents? 

You know its the perfect house cleaning day when the sun is shining, there is a slight breeze, you can open the windows, let in the fresh air, and everything smells so clean and good. Well today is my cleaning the house day, and currently it says online that it is 88°F outside. According to my fancy thermometer in the garden is over 100° F in the sun. Now it could be wrong, but lets just agree its rather hot outside, and therefore I have the air on.  Anyways, to keep in the fresh cleaning mood I decided to try out a recipe that I saw online for Stove Top Potpourri.  You can do this with lots of different ingredients, but today I used whats listed below. 

Peppermint

Rosemary

Summer Time Potpourri

2 Limes

1 Lemon

1 tsp Vanilla Extract    

2-3 fresh sprigs Rosemary 

2-3 fresh sprigs Peppermint

2-3 cups water

Pour the water into a pot and boil on back burner. Slice up the limes and lemon, and toss all ingredients into the boiling water.  Boil for 1-2 mins then turn down the heat and let the pot simmer for as long as you want your house to smell great.  2-4 hrs is best. 

That's it, and it really does smell great. I used fresh rosemary and peppermint from our garden. 

Sunflower from our garden

Thoughtful Thursday : All The Way

 

    This morning I had the luxury of sitting on the couch, eating my peanut butter toast, drinking coffee, and listening to Ravi Zacharias. He has a lot of good, free, podcasts available online, and I really enjoy listening to him.  If you are interested in listening too, Click Here to listen to the message I was listening to this morning.  Its a really good message and I felt convicted after listening.  Ravi told a story saying, 

   "Years ago I was given the great privilege to be in Shanghai in the home of the famed Chinese evangelist Wang Ming Dao. He told us that he was put in prison for his faith in Jesus Christ, but he soon renounced his faith and was released from his imprisonment. Thereafter, he says, he lived with such torment of his soul that he walked the streets of Beijing saying, “My name is Peter; my name is Peter. I’ve denied my Lord.” Soon, Mao Zedong put him back into prison—this time for eighteen years. Wang Ming Dao said every day in prison he woke up and sang the hymn by the hymn writer Fanny Crosby,

All the way my Savior leads me;

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt his tender mercy,

Who through life has been my guide?

Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,

Here by faith in Him to dwell!

For I know whate’er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well.

At first the guards tried to silence him. When they weren’t able to succeed, they resignedly put up with his singing. Gradually, as the years went by, they would gather near the opening to his cell to listen as he sang of God’s faithfulness to him. Eventually, they began to ask him to sing to them and to teach them the words of the song. Such is the impact of one who walks faithfully with God."

It convicted me... Is my life a life of faith that impacts others? 

Show me your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
 Lead me in your truth, and teach me:
for You are the God of my salvation;
on you do I wait all the day.
Psalm 25:4-5

All about this blog and it's name

   First things first.... what is this blog going to be about? Well let me explain.... A few months ago I got married to my handsome husband and moved to the states, yes the United States. At the moment I am currently not working and living the life of a homemaker, sipping tea, laying on the couch, reading blogs, looking at Pinterest and dreaming of having babies. I jest!  Actually for the most part I have been cleaning, doing laundry, and writing Thank You notes. Yes, they are actually being written. Of course I do go on Pinterest sometimes, and have sat on the couch occasionally, but we actually have had a very busy five first months of marriage. ( Happy Anniversary Love)

    Since we got back from our Honeymoon we have had a grand total of 4 free weekends with nothing to do. I am not complaining. I love having company. Actually, I was super tired last week and in a complaining moment said to Adam, "Ok, we really just need to stop having company, not go anywhere, and just stay home and sleep." Within two seconds of that extremely over tired statement, I promptly forgot my current disdain for company and was like " Oh you know what we should have all the cousins over for a pizza party again." I can't help it, I really do like both sleep and company.

   Now that I have gone off on that tangent, on to the real purpose of the blog. There are two reasons actually. One its mainly so I can show our family and friends back home whats going on in life, with out sending tons of different emails. Warning: the posts in this blog could be at times very boring and not very wordy! I'll try to post once a week for sure, although right now I'm kind of excited about having a blog again so I might post more often that once a week. The second reason is because I have been taking too many pictures with my phone.... I am a professional photographer people, do you hear!! Professional! ( Insert huffing and puffing* ) Once again I jest. Well actually I am a professional photographer, but I'm not that upset about it. I do, however, want to start using my real camera again.

   As for the name (what's in a name?) .... Well you know it wouldn't be American if the title didn't have something to do with freedom, I jest a third time ( you should probably get used to this) Actually despite how busy our lives have been since Adam and I have gotten married, our home is my little patch of freedom. I grew up in the country where our neighbours were at least a field or two away, so when Adam and I started looking for our house, the idea of living in a postage stamp home seemed rather confining. I know I could have made it work, but none the less when we saw the property of the house we own now, it was like a breath of freedom. I feel like I am living in the country, we have a ton of large trees and almost an acre of property. So now you have the scoop, and welcome to A Little Spot of Freedom.