Africa to... Houston?

Our church has a refugee ministry that Ross and I have recently gotten involved in. We have been spending some time helping the Izabayo family get situated here in Houston, TX. They came over from Africa about a year ago, where they had previously lived in various refugee camps for  ~10 years. TEN YEARS!!! There are 6 kids, ranging from 2 to 17 years old. Ross and I have had quite a good time getting to know them :) We had a "Spring Clean" clothes drive at church and collected quite a variety of things. Ross and I hauled a car full of donations down to the families. The pictures tell the story...

The donations took up their whole porch!

Bonair.

Little Hope is quite the character, definitely not camera shy...

Hmmm, Monkey on your back Ross?

Ross entertaining the boys... or maybe the other way around :)

A couple other refugee families came to get some goodies!

I think that the adults favorite item was a Swahili to English phrase book. They LOVED it! They said it would help them learn English. Quiz next week! :)

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Gumbo

Anyone like Gumbo??

Gumbo is a red heeler mix and the proud owner of Mom and Dad Huebel  companion to Mom and Dad Huebel. Here's another kind of Gumbo...

Gumbo is a favorite in our house! Ross made this meal from a variety of recipes, piece-mealed together. It contained fresh shrimp, chives, duck, venison spicy sausage, onion, rice... and the ROUX of course. I like a lighter colored, more liquidy roux than some recipes call for. I thought this one was perfect. For as much as I love gumbo, I really hate the smell that cooking the roux leaves behind in the house. I think it lingers for days. Any suggestions on getting rid of that awful "Roux Smell" aka burned flour!

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Bow Wow Waa

There are active dogs and then there is Roma. She loves fetch more than any other dog I've come across.  Right now she has to stay cooped up in the house till her toe toe heals more. She is so out of her element. When the neighbor dogs come out and bark to see if Roma wants to be a part of their song, she tries to sing along with them from inside the house, making her mommy CRAZY. Roma just stares out the window longingly...

She wants to go outside and play anyway you look at it :)

Ross just got home from running some errands and picked up some BRAND NEW tennis balls for Roma to munch on. She looks so happy. All is right with the world again.

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Baaaa Baaaa

My friend (and neighbor) Andrea is having her baby next MONDAY!! She is due 3 weeks earlier than the original due date because of how big and well developed Foster already is. We went to college station on Saturday for the BAA BAA BAABY shower. My contribution was a whole herd of sheep. 65 to be exact.

These little guys took me so long! I've never done this type of baking project before so I really learned a lot... For example, how to select frosting tip size, how to make royal icing, how to "flood" the icing, piping technique, mixing food coloring just right....  I was really happy with the way they turned out also. Here's a Ross quote, "These are waaay better than the cookies that you get at the bakery because these actually taste good too." I love him. The cookies were perfect with the rest of the shower decor!

Can you guess what this is?

If you guessed "a bandaged puppy paw" then you are right. (Sorry, no more sheep cookies for correct guesses). Roma has had a rough week and finally had her back left, middle toe nail removed on Friday. We all hope this is the END of this saga. The bandage comes off in a couple hours... we'll see. 

Love her.

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Captain Night Owl?

I got home from Wine Night at Jessica's (which was lots of fun... of course:) ) and Ross was sitting on the couch in the media room, aka the Ross Cave, laughing away at the TV. I asked him what was so funny and he proceeded to tell me about the "Captain Night Owl" commercial he'd seen numerous times today. "Babe his head swivels all the way around and his eyes blink one at a time, just like a real owl. It's so funny!" So naturally, I looked it up on YouTube.



Am I missing something?? I really don't think it's all that funny...EEEEE, maybe Ross just liked it because it features an Owl and he went to Rice?? Not sure. What do you think?

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Mediterranean Chicken

We tried a new Cooking Light recipe,  Mediterranean Chicken with Potato.

This recipe was so colorful!  Ingredients included chicken, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, kalamata olives, pepperocini, garlic, fresh basil,.. topped with grated parmesan. This recipe was good, but not blow your socks off good. It was a fairly quick and easy meal, which are great for week nights. Next time, I will use fresh thyme, lemon juice, and maybe use orzo as a base to soak up the liquid.

In this recipe I used organic chicken for the first time EVER. I really think it tasted better, but maybe it's all in my head. I need a to do a blind taste test (with a placebo perhaps) to really know. I sure hope it was all in my head because organic chicken is WAAAY more expensive than the other stuff. Maybe just for special occasions?

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Cook with Liz and Steph: #4

Yep it's that time of the week... Time for some chatting and cooking :) This was our best all around meal yet!

The Menu:
Grilled Ribeye Steak with Onion Blue Cheese Sauce
Awesome Spinach Salad
Buttered Rosemary Rolls
Dorie's Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

The kitchen got all smokey from cooking bacon. Have you had PEPPERED bacon? mmm.

The scene.

"Inside it looks like little brains!"

Cheesecake Crust

Where's that Bacon??

Please make this whole menu. The WHOLE thing. When I start to think the spinach salad was my favorite part, then I think of the rolls. Now, this isn't going to be your healthiest meal of the week, but you can lighten it up. We used butter substitute on the rolls, used minimal bacon fat in the salad dressing (1 versus 3 TB) by using olive oil instead, AND also used Splenda in the dressing. There is some BIG flavor in this meal. Wonderful. Please try it!!!

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Ranch Pictures

This post is all about the pictures! Welcome to the Ranch...

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