simple dinner prep and 6 ingredients
This recipe is great for hot days & nights, when turning on the stove or heating up the oven is not an option. Like I mentioned last week, I am hoping for this to be the final hurrah of warm weather and for cooler weather to be ushered in :) It was between 90-100 degrees in San Diego over the past few weeks...sometimes I wish I lived in Seattle ;) *my Seattle friends are probably laughing right now.
the final product! mmm delicious!
Last Friday's dinner was a bit of a debacle (defined as fiasco by Merriam-Webster...haha *our friend Beau's favorite word)! There were FOUR short power outages on Friday afternoon due to the heat and high usage of power for ACs and fans. As I mentioned on facebook, putting your crockpot out on the porch is a great idea for hot days. The house stays cool and you have a delicious meal by the end of the day. Unless your power goes out. Four times. And, you didn't think to check the crockpot outside. Woops! It wasn't until the fourth outage that I realized it might be a good idea to see if the shredded beef was still cooking. The crockpot lights were blinking, waiting for me to select a choice...high, low, warm. Oh man! At the same time as all of this was going on, our dear guest called to see if we should cancel dinner because "it's just so hot outside!" It was 104 degrees that afternoon. I assured her that we could still have dinner together, but that it may just have to be out on the porch in the shade of the trees. It didn't occur to me until after we had concluded our conversation that the beef might not be fully cooked...oh no! I panicked for a moment. Then Ryan helped me change plans and we decided to take our friend out to dinner instead. Thank goodness for flexible people!
The dinner was good. It wasn't the beef tacos that I had originally planned on, but it was still good. Our friend did not cancel and we were able to share a great Thai meal together. She insisted that "that was a lovely evening!" I, however, felt a little discouraged as I had been trying to feed Eleanor during dinner and then was running around with her outside when she started to get antsy. I felt a bit distracted and unable to participate in conversations. I wanted deeper conversation and relationship with our friend.
I wanted to be in control of the evening. I though that if we had had dinner at our place, I could have put Eleanor to bed, let her play with toys, and have deep, intentional conversation with our friend...wait a second...that perfect, ideal scenario is just not what God had in mind for that night. I needed to be the flexible one that night. God is still good and in control, even when our plans don't go the way we intended. His plans always go through, and they are good. Our friend loved the evening and even sent a "thank you" email that same evening. How sweet. I am thankful to be in this lady's life, and I look forward to more "debacles" where God can be glorified and magnified. He is great and in control, so I don't have to be!
I wanted to be in control of the evening. I though that if we had had dinner at our place, I could have put Eleanor to bed, let her play with toys, and have deep, intentional conversation with our friend...wait a second...that perfect, ideal scenario is just not what God had in mind for that night. I needed to be the flexible one that night. God is still good and in control, even when our plans don't go the way we intended. His plans always go through, and they are good. Our friend loved the evening and even sent a "thank you" email that same evening. How sweet. I am thankful to be in this lady's life, and I look forward to more "debacles" where God can be glorified and magnified. He is great and in control, so I don't have to be!
love love love,
Meg
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