Black Bean Soup

There are certain foods that I am drawn to, no matter what they are in. Some I have mentioned before: tomato and mozzarella, avocado, and pumpkin to name a few. But also, black beans. I LOVE black beans.

This morning a recipe for black bean soup showed up on one of the blogs I read. All day at school I could not stop thinking about that black bean soup, so I decided to try it out for dinner. This is one of those recipes that will become a staple for me. (Maybe it could even become my new speciality Missy, since I don't eat my old one anymore haha!) It literally takes under 5 minutes to prepare and it tastes great! Plus, you can easily keep these ingredients on hand for times when you want to throw something together quickly without any real planning.

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup salsa

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 t cumin

Combine everything in a food processor (or if you are me and don't own one, throw it in the blender haha). Blend until fairly smooth. Heat in a saucepan over medium heat. Ladle into bowls, and garnish with cheese and sour cream. That's it! It's so simple, but tastes really good! YUM!

It's time

If not now, then when?

Now is as good a time as any.

Maybe even a better time than most ...

Balance

Today I was working with a student at my table while the rest of the kids were doing independent work. I heard a large crash so I looked up to find one of my students on the floor, with their chair on top of them, and some of the things from their desk spewed about around them:

me: Um, what just happened?

student: Oh! Sorry, sorry! I just need to work on my balance, that's all.

student's neighbor: She just fell out of her chair. She was just sitting there and all of a sudden she fell. I don't know what happened!

later in the day the same student knocks into a table spilling a bunch of things over:

me: are you okay?

student: Oh, sorry! I just have to work on my balance!

Apparently balance is not a skill you can acquire without much practice. Who knew?

Letting go of the past

I've been doing some thinking about this since last week, and putting my words down on paper helps me to think out my ideas more clearly and solidify things in my mind. This is for me, but if someone else can benefit from it, than maybe it has a dual purpose.

Last Sunday in my ABF class, we watched this video about holding on to the past. The idea was that so many people waste so much energy wishing for things to be how they were "in the good old days", whether your good old days were many years ago, or just last year. I thought the video was very powerful and it really struck a chord with me. Those who know me well know that I am probably the absolute worst in the world at living in the past. It takes me SO long to adjust to something new, and I spend so much time wishing things could go back to how they were. Heck, I still wish on a regular basis that I could move back to the duplex on Holik, and I lived there 5 years ago for goodness sake! But the thing is, things can't go back to how they were. And by spending so much time holding on to the past, you (and by you, I mean me) are missing out on what wonderful things the present has to offer.

"when we're still holding on to how things were, our arms aren't free to embrace today"

There are a lot of things I wish I could change. There are a lot of things that are different that I wish could be the same...

"Life isn't static. It ebbs and it flows, and people grow up and move away and graduate and lose their jobs. And people that you love die, and some people get married and others don't, and some get divorced and some get cancer and things aren't how they were ..."

It's not the same, and it's not going to be the same. It's not supposed to be. That's not how life works. That doesn't mean that the new can't be as good as, if not better than, the old. You can't go back, only forward. Sometimes, all you can do is let go. Maybe it's letting go of an old friendship, an old hurt, or an old love. Maybe it's just letting go of the idea that a relationship can stay the same forever ... because it can't, people change, and that's okay. If you know that it isn't going to be the same you just have to decide if what the new brings is okay with you, or if you need to let it go completely. Holding on to what something was only keeps you from seeing what today has to offer. So, here's to making the most of each day, and looking forward not backward.

... But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 3:13-14

If you get a chance I highly suggest you watch this video. I searched for it online and found it on youtube, but unfortunately could only find it divided into two parts. It's about 12 minutes total, and if you need a little push, or a little encouragement, I'd say it's worth your time. (sorry about the spanish subtitles, it's all I could find)

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese

Another post about pumpkin?!? It's not like you should be surprised at this point. haha

Do you like pumpkin? How about bagels and cream cheese? Okay, wait for it ...

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Spread for Bagels!!

Are you excited?? If not, you should be! This is delicious!

I'm finding so many great pumpkin recipes that I love, I swear I am going to get fat eating them all! Seriously, it's getting a little out of hand! Just a little fyi, I currently have 27 recipes saved involving pumpkin. 27!! Thus far I have made 6 of them. That leaves 21 to go haha! No worries, I promise I won't make all of them (not this season at least), but I do have a number more different types of things I want to try. Clearly I have the canned pumpkin stock to do it. :-P Anyway, on to the recipe:

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Spread

Ingredients:

4 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup pumpkin purée

3 T brown sugar

2 T maple syrup*

1/4 t vanilla

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of pumpkin pie spice

*the actual recipe called for maple syrup. As I stated earlier, I don't really like maple syrup, so it seemed silly to buy a huge bottle when I only needed two tablespoons. I did a little research and came up with a substitute. Mix together:

2 T boiling water

2 T brown sugar

1 t granulated sugar

Beat all ingredients together with a mixer until smooth. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Slather generously on top of a bagel (if you buy mini bagels like me, this would make for a great snack!). Enjoy!

New look

I changed the look of my blog again. If you are reading through google reader you should head on over and check it out :)

I must say, I was pretty impressed with myself when I figured out how to use photoshop to add pictures to the frames inside the banner. I'm definitely no photoshop pro, but I totally figured it out in a minimal amount of time! yay!

Pumpkin Pancakes and a Pumpkin Spice Latte

It may be possible that I have a real problem here:

I may or may not have bought the entire stock of pumpkin purée when I saw it at the store today. What does this mean for you? LOTS of pumpkin recipes coming your way over the next week!

I started off today with a wonderful pumpkin breakfast. First, pumpkin pancakes!

yum yum yum! These are light and fluffy with a light flavor of pumpkin that is not at all overpowering (although we all know how much I LOVE pumpkin, so maybe if you hated pumpkin it might taste overpowering, I don't know). I'm sure they would be good with maple syrup, but I'm not really a fan at all. I thought about whipping up some whipped cream to dollop on top, but decided that since I wanted to make this next treat, I would pass on the whipped cream calories this morning, and simply sprinkle the pancakes with cinnamon and sugar instead. I wasn't disappointed. :)

Next, Pumpkin Spice Latte!

Just like Starbucks, but only a fraction of the cost! (And since I used Starbucks coffee, it really was JUST like Starbucks haha). This was really simple, and turned out really good. One of my favorite fall drinks is a pumpkin spice latte, so I was pretty excited to stumble upon this recipe. All you have to do is mix a cup of coffee, 2/3 cup evaporated milk, 1/4 cup pumpkin purée, 1-2 T sugar, 1 1/2 t vanilla, and a pinch of pumpkin pie spice together, and heat in a sauce pan until hot. Put the mixture in a blender, blend for one minute to make the nice frothy topping, sprinkle with cinnamon and enjoy!

Confession here: I have NO idea how to make coffee! NONE! I don't drink it. I don't like it. I love coffee flavored drinks, but I hate plain coffee. So, I never learned how to make it. My mom gave me a small coffee pot (just in case) and I pulled it out and didn't even know how to go about pretending to use it. Therefore, I bought some of these (which you can find at Starbucks, but also in the coffee section at Target):

Individual instant coffee pouches. This was totally made for me! If I was going to make this a lot, or drink coffee more, I'd learn to use a coffee pot because it would be less expensive. But these are just under $3 for 3 packages and I figure for how rarely I would need coffee, that's not a bad deal. Plus, it's Starbucks! $1 per pumpkin spice latte is much cheaper than the $4 I'd spend buying it there, so it works for me. haha