Thanksgiving in Kentucky

A lot has happened since I last blogged, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.  One thing that is simply beautiful about Kentucky is the way that the leaves change color.  It makes it feel like it's really time for Thanksgiving.

I took this picture at the Seminary.  Aren't the colors just breathtaking?  We really do live on a very beautiful campus.  

Thanksgiving day went really well for us.  We were able to go over to one of the church member's homes in Campbellsburg.  It was so nice to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a family.  It would have been kind of depressing if just Matt and I had celebrated it on our own.  It was also special to see how this Southern family got along and some of their Thanksgiving traditions.  I will have to say that the food was wonderful, and honestly there wasn't anything different from any of the food that we have in California.  The turkey was great, but I sure did miss my dad's turkey, he cooks the best turkey in the whole world.  :)  We also played cornhole, which is a really fun Kentucky game that you play with bean bags filled with corn that you try to toss into a hole in a plywood platform.  They're pretty serious about the game here, and if you want to know more about it, just click on this link.  We also made a Christmas craft with the family and enjoyed talking with all of them.  It was really nice to make a Christmas craft because one of our Thanksgiving traditions when we lived in California was to make gingerbread houses with the family.  Making Christmas crafts really made us feel at home.  We had a great first Thanksgiving here in Kentucky, and we feel richly blessed to have such caring members in our church.  

Matt asked me a few weeks before Thanksgiving if I thought that I could make "Thanksgiving Burritos?"  Let me give you some background on where this question came from.  I've been making Matt homemade burritos to take with him to reheat at work.  He loves them; honestly, I would get kind of tired of eating the same thing every night for dinner, but he informed me that he could eat burritos for the rest of his time here at Seminary.  (I'm gonna have to hold him to that :)  Well, I've been trying to come up with unique burrito fillers to make his dinners a little more interesting, and that's why he suggested Thanksgiving burritos.  Well, that, and he got a free turkey from work that we needed to do something with.  So, I thought I would share with you all how I put these Thanksgiving burritos together.  I hope you enjoy.  Wait,  I have to share this blog with you where I got some inspiration for what to put into a Thanksgiving burrito.  Apparently Matt is not the only one to come up with the idea of a Thanksgiving burrito.  So, before you look at how I made these burritos, please visit the blog that inspired me first by clicking here.  

First I have to let you know that I used many different recipes, but they were mainly from the food network.  Now,  let me tell you everything that is in these burritos, then I will give you the links to the recipes if you are interested in making these burritos yourself.  

• Shredded Turkey
• Stuffing
• Black Bean and Corn Salsa
• Cranberry Sauce
• Cheese 

Now for the links to the recipes, and some pictures of the actual burrito fillers that I made.  

For the turkey I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe from the food network.  His turkey recipe is called Good Eats Roast Turkey.  The turkey turned out amazing, it was well worth the effort that went into making it.  I also didn't change a thing about the recipe, it was perfect as is.  I love this particular recipe because it also has a step be step video that you can watch before you attempt to cook your bird.  Click here to view this yummy turkey recipe.  

My turkey after Matt and I shredded it all up.  

For the stuffing, I used Paula Dean's recipe for Southern Cornbread Stuffing.  Once again this recipe produced some really good stuffing, and the only thing that I changed about the recipe is that I baked my own cornbread which is much sweeter than the one that her recipe baked.  Click here to view this yummy stuffing recipe.  

This stuffing was so easy to pack into the burritos. 

For the black bean and corn salsa I used Michael Chiarello's recipe for Grilled Corn Salsa (Also from food network.)  The only thing that I changed in this recipe is that I added two large cans of drained and rinsed black beans.  Click here to view this fresh salsa recipe.

You can also use this as a dip for tortilla chips, it's great! 

For the cranberry sauce recipe, I once again turned to The Food Network.  I used Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe for cranberry sauce.  This is a simple and sweet cranberry sauce; which is just the way that I like it.  I changed two things with this recipe though, first I doubled it, and second, I added two chopped apples while the sauce was simmering.  Click here to view this simple cranberry sauce recipe.  

This cranberry sauce really makes these burritos taste like Thanksgiving. :) 

Now for the assembly of the burritos. 

First, get all of your burrito fillers ready to fill the tortilla with.  Here's a little tip on warming the flour tortillas.  Get a clean kitchen towel wet and wrap it around five of the tortillas and microwave them for a minute and a half.  this will make the tortillas a lot more flexible.  Any of my Mexican family reading this right now is probably gasping.  It's kind of a cardinal sin to warm up tortillas in the microwave, but it really works well for making burritos that you just plan on freezing.  

Here's a picture of my burrito ready to roll.

After rolling them, you can either eat them right away (if you have enough people to eat 35 burritos) or you can wrap them in foil and freeze them.

Whenever our freezer is full of burritos like this, Matt says "We're rich."

To reheat your burrito, simply dampen a strong paper towel, wrap it around your frozen burrito and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  The time may vary according to your microwave, but it should be somewhere around 3 minutes.  The burritos still taste so fresh and amazing even after they have been frozen and microwaved.  Well, that was a lot that I just wrote.  I hope that if you try this recipe you will enjoy it as much as Matt and I have.  

In closing, Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner?  Time sure is flying.  In order to get in the festive Christmas spirit, Matt and I cut and hung about 50 paper snowflakes from our ceiling in our apartment on campus.  This is a tradition for me that I started way back when I went to college for the first time.  In order to liven up our dorm room, I decided to hang a few hand cut snowflakes from the ceiling, well, that few soon turned into quite a few.  Ever since my Sophomore year in college I have hung up hand cut snowflakes every year.  Most of the time I have hung them up in my classroom, but this year, once again, they are hanging from our "dorm room" ceiling.  Wow, the tradition has come full circle.  I have also always used the same website to get my patterns for cutting out my snowflakes.  Dave's snowflakes are amazing, easy to cut out and free.  If you are interested in cutting out your own snowflakes, click here to visit Dave's site.  

For those of you who actually read this far in this blog,  Wow, you are amazing!  Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about our first Thanksgiving over here in Kentucky.  'Till next week, enjoy the beginning of this Christmas season.  

Enjoying this Fall Season

The weather here in Kentucky is just so "Fallish" if that's a word.  The air is so crisp and often cold which is quite a contrast to the warm California weather that we are used to.  I just love walking outside of our apartment and walking through all of the leaves that have fallen from the huge trees on campus.  It truly is a beautiful time of year to be living in Kentucky.

Yesterday, Matt and I had to make a trip down to our credit union in Radcliff, KY (which is about 40 minutes south of Louisville).  The drive there is so beautiful, and we decided that on the way back we would visit historic old town Bardstown.  This quaint little town is known for quite a few things.  One being that it is the bourbon capital of the world (which is not why we went to visit :) ).  Bardstown has also won the title of one of the top 100 best small towns in America.  Anyone interested in hearing more about the history of Bardstown, KY can view the video be clicking the link below from vistibardstown.com's website.

Bardstown Video 

While in Bardstown, Matt and I ate breakfast at Mammy's Kitchen.  When we walked into the restaurant it felt like we were walking into a Southern Grandma's house.  We decided to split an order of eggs benedict and try their biscuits and gravy.  The food was amazing, but I have to say that no one's eggs benedict can beat my dad's; his is just simply the best.  After enjoying our meal at Mammy's Kitchen we went window shopping down old historic 3rd street.  There were many interesting shops to look at and most of the shops already had their windows decorated for Christmas.  To end our time in Bardstown we decided to go to an old fashioned soda fountain at Hurst's Discount Drugs.  This was both of our first times going to an old fashioned soda fountain.  We decided to sit at the counter that looked out over the street.  Matt ordered a banana split and I had a root beer float.  Matt said that it was the best banana split that he ever had.  My root beer float was very good too, and they kept refilling the root beer for me.  I wish I had brought my camera so that you could see some of the sights that we saw, but you'll just have to click on all of the words that I've linked in this post, and see the pictures from their websites.  We had such a good and relaxing day as we explored downtown Bardstown.

We are so thankful that God provided us with this time together to rest, relax and just enjoy being with each other.  God is truly blessing us here in Kentucky.  We miss you all back home and we can definitely feel all of your prayers.  Please keep Matt in your prayers as his finals are in two weeks.  He did finish his final paper for his Biblical Hermeneutics class and now he is waiting to hear the results.  Until next time, we pray that you are all enjoying this wonderful season of Fall.

Where is the Time Going?

Wow, time sure is flying by!  Can you believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner?  Matt and I are doing well over here in Kentucky.  We thank God for all the blessings that He gives us.  Because of our work and school schedules, we don't get to see each other too much during the week, but we make sure to plan extra special date nights on Saturdays.  This past Saturday we saw a high school production of the Sound of Music.  The high school did a really good job, and their auditorium was beautiful.  I love that I have a husband who doesn't mind going to plays.  We sure do enjoy being together.  Please pray that God will continue to give us creative and affordable ideas for our date nights.  I also wanted to thank you all so much for your prayers.  They are very needed, and we can definitely feel you all praying for us.  Right now, I would like to put out a special prayer request.  Matt is coming up on his first finals here at Seminary.  Please pray that God will strengthen his mind and that he will be able to pass all of his classes, especially Greek.  I don't want to make this post too long, but I did want to let you all know that we are doing well, and that we are missing you all, and the warmer California weather. :)  Until next time, enjoy your Autumn season wherever you live.