Noelle likes Good Food

I know I have been off the radar for a little while and I do have a good excuse. I was without power last week, and had to get a new power cord for my computer. I have also been without a camera for two weeks. I can be thoughtless and true to form, I left it at my parents house the last time we were there. My Mom graciously offered to send it to me through the mail, because she is cool like that. I told her not to worry, and we will just get it next time we are in town. I will be so glad to get it back when we go on Saturday. Because I haven't been taking pictures of my food I feel like I can't post recipes about it. But, as I don't get my camera until Saturday, and I have a great soup recipe to share with you, you will just have to imagine what the soup looks like. Or, even better yet, make it and find out for yourself. I had some veggies to use up in the crisper, and I wanted something warm. Hmmm... I thought about it and immediately decided to make soup. I love soup. I...

I was at my Mom's house the other day, and I was telling her how we have been trying to figure out better ways to save money.  She thought these books would be the perfect read, and is letting me borrow them for a while. The title alone intrigued me; The Tightwad Gazette-Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle. It started as a newsletter about saving money. They made it into a book by compiling two years worth of newsletters, with articles written by the author aka 'The Frugal Zealot', as well as a wealth of tips and tricks from the readers themselves. It is arranged into four sections divided by seasons. She continued the newsletter and that became the material for two more books; The Tightwad Gazette 2 and 3. I am almost finished reading the second one.  Now that I have revealed to you how this book came to be at my house, I can tell you that it has changed my life!! I have a whole new perspective on what it means to be thrifty, economical, and how to ...

I told you about how I went apple picking with my family. I have been faithfully eating through the apples, but not fast enough, and I decided to make applesauce with the ones that were starting to go bad. I really didn't know how easy it is to make, and I will be making it often from now on. I made a relatively small batch this time, but I will make a bigger batch next time and try my hand at canning. My amazing sister-in-law has just canned a bunch of her own applesauce and says it is super easy. I started with a pan full of apples. 2 hours later I had a pan full of sliced and cored apples. haha Yes, there are too many in the pan and I had to move them to a bigger one. I added honey, spices, and a little water and let it cook down until the apples were soft. Then I mashed it all up. After it cooled for an hour or two I put it in jars. I used about 24 apples, some were small and some were medium, and it made 2 small jars and 2 big jars of applesauce. It tastes SO good. I u...

I write this post with a full heart. I have so many things to be thankful for, and for the first time in a long time, I feel fulfilled. Today I want to give testament to what God has done in my life. I want to tell you the story of how God redeemed my relationship with Him. I am one of those people that like to do things for God. It seems I have always been involved in ministry. My parents set a wonderful example of serving in the church, and all of us kids have followed in their footsteps. After I graduated from high school I went and served the Lord as a missionary in Panama for a year and a half and I loved every minute of it. Serving God and helping people brings joy to my life.  However, I seem to have a tendency to fall into two very dangerous traps.  The first one is my incorrect view, one that God is still fixing, that God loved me for what I did. The second is that I spent so much time serving others that I didn't take time for myself. I knew something was wrong, b...

This came to be quite accidentally, and I thought it was super tasty! So I thought I would share the recipe with you. I know Chris has been wanting potato salad lately and I had a plan to make it for dinner last night. I am not a big fan of mayo and so my thought was to substitute it with plain yogurt. However, when I was at the store the other day, it had to get cut because I was didn't want to go over budget. I have recently been taking a calculator to the store to help me stick to my budget and it has helped SOO much! Alas, I did not bring any yogurt and I refused to use mayonnaise. I wanted it to have a good flavor because I was going to mix in some sweet potatoes and I don't really like sweet potatoes. Consider this one of many recent attempts to get myself to like them. Yes, I realize that they are super good for me and a lot better than potatoes, but I can't seem to get past that they are sweet and mushy. Hmmm.. So I used some olive oil, garlic, and some dried he...

I had every intention to post a new recipe today. I baked up a storm this afternoon and I have a picture of the mess here to prove it. Yes, I am a messy cook. I know it is better to clean as you go, but I figure if everything is out and dirty anyway, might as well see how far you can go before you have to wash or put something away :). Perhaps a somewhat flawed, but for me, very effective philosophy. However, I only cook like that when I am by myself. haha Oddly enough, I am usually the one keeping things neat and clean when I am cooking with others. Go figure. I made banana coconut chocolate chip cookies (or rather the dough as I haven't baked them yet). Apple Crisp Buckwheat Apple Date Coffee Cake topped with Coconut and Pumpkin seeds Unfortunately, though they were all good, they were not post-worthy. The apple crisp was a great concept, but turned out too crumbly and the apples a bit rubbery. I do look forward to eating it the rest of the week for breakfast though :).   ...

I like sauces. I like dressings. I like condiments. I like dips. Anything that I can scoop into, dip out of, spoon from, or be squeezed out is a friend of mine.  I was looking for a way to use up some black beans I had cooked up last week. Given my love of anything dip related, this recipe practically jumped out at me. It was a recipe for mexican layer dip from my Clean Food Cookbook. The 'sour cream' was made out of tofu and it was completely gluten and dairy free. I thought I would give it a try and put in my own few twists. The recipe called for 16 oz of bean dip. What I had were unseasoned black beans. I would give you the recipe for how I made my bean dip but I am not sure the exact amounts. I know I started with two cups of black beans, 1/2 diced onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tsp pepper, 1 chili in adobo sauce. I blended and tasted. It was bland but spicy. Eck. So I added 1 tsp chili powder and 1 tsp. salt. I tasted it again and realized I put in WAY too much salt. (Thi...

I got to go apple picking yesterday!! It has been six years since I last went and that is about 5 years too long if you ask me. I met up with my Mom and five of my siblings yesterday and we had a great time. This one is about to go into my mouth. I think I ate 4 apples just while I was picking yesterday. YUM! These are some of my siblings. :)  I didn't think you could fit 20 lbs. of apples in that bag. But by golly, you can. She is strong! My Mom and I. Isn't she hot! hehe Love you Mom!     Amicalola State Park Waterfalls. Definitely worth walking up all those steps.                                                                The breathtaking view at the top. Then we drove over and visited a pumpkin patch. Dried corn LOTS of squash Lots and lots of pumpkins. I LOVE LOVE LO...

Last week at the grocery store there was a sale on organic canned tomato products. I jumped on that deal and decided to make my mom's famous spaghetti sauce. My Mom is a wonderful cook. From a young age she has instilled in me a love of cooking and being creative with food. She enjoys making people happy with food and has a way of remembering what people's likes and dislikes are. She remembers that I like to eat healthy and brought brown rice chips for me to eat on vacation. She also knows I don't eat pork and while everyone else was eating ham on easter she got me sushi :). Yeah, she is great! She will ask us what are favorite foods are so she can make them specially for us on our birthday. I have so many wonderful memories cooking and working with Mom in the kitchen, that is something I have missed greatly since moving away from home. Even at our church people will come to an event if they know my mom is cooking. You know that there is love in the food she makes and I ho...

Most of the time I eat until I am full, more often than I would like I continue to keep eating even after I am full. But the point is I eat to feed myself. End of story. But there are other times, when I eat something I know is good for me and looks attractive, I feel not only fed but nourished. It goes beyond just eating to knowing I am doing something good and powerful for myself. I truly felt nourished after eating this dish. It is loaded with broccoli, carrots, onions, zucchini, and ginger providing a fabulous dose of calcium, vitamins, antioxidants, and beta carotene. Served over brown rice it makes a wonderful vegetarian dinner. I based this off of a recipe I found in Clean Food by Terri Walters. She focuses her cookbook on eating a diet of wholesome natural foods. It is strictly vegetarian and there are also many recipes that are gluten-free, dairy-free, and if not she writes out suggestions for substitutions. I find her recipes inspiring and delicious. The book has four sectio...