Marriage Truths

"Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God.  And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.  It displays the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His people to the world in a way that no other event or institution does.  Marriage, therefore, is not mainly about being in love.  It's mainly about telling the truth with our lives.  And staying married is not about staying in love.  It is about keeping covenant and putting the glory of Christ's covenant-keeping love on display." 
                                         ~ John Piper~

Homemade Alfredo Sauce

I love all things Italian but rarely make anything except spaghetti.  So while I was making my menu plan a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go out on a limb and try homemade alfredo sauce.  I just poured it over linguine noodles (I was out of fettucine), cooked some salad shrimp in garlic butter to throw on top, steamed some broccoli, and tossed a Caesar salad.  Everyone loved it!  

All I can say is WOW!  I kept on licking the spoon to "make sure it's just right."  It was so rich and creamy.  Olive Garden didn't have nothing on me that night, y'all.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but yum-o! :)  It was super easy to make, and did I mention it was delicious? And it's made with REAL food!  Not something in a jar with ingredients you can't even pronounce. 

For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got this recipe.....somewhere on the internet for sure. 

Without further ado, here's the recipe! 

Homemade Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:

-3 Tablespoons butter
-2 Tablespoons flour
-2 Cups milk
-4 oz. cream cheese
-3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (I used grated, but shredded would work too)
-1 teaspoon garlic powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat.  Once melted, whisk in the flour.  Gradually add milk, whisking to combine as you go. Add about 1/2 cup at a time, whisk, then wait for the milk to heat up and thicken a bit before adding more.  Once all the milk has been added and it's hot, but NOT BOILING, add the cream cheese.  Whisk to combine.  Heat the sauce back up before adding the Parmesan cheese.  Simmer this until all is melted and mixed well.

Go forth and make thee some alfredo sauce!  Your taste buds will thank you!

Memorization Tools

If you follow Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, you might know about her Romans Project.  She is memorizing Romans 1,8, ad 12 this year.  That sounds very daunting but at just two verses per week it's really do-able.  Of course I am behind......but hey, at least I'm still in the game.  :)

One tool that has really made a difference for me is Scripture Typer.  It's an online source to help you memorize scripture.  You choose your verses and your Bible version and then type away! 

There is a tab to "Type It" where the verse is displayed in its entirety and you copy the words.  "Memorize It" removes every other word, leaving you to fill it in from memory.  It keeps track of your words typed per minute and will tell you when you are ready to "Master It".  To master the verse, you type it entirely from memory and have to be quick about it. :)

You also have to get all capitalization and punctuation correct.  Punctuation and I do not get along.  I know very little about it, as you have observed if you've read any of my posts at all. So that's a biggie for me. Also, at any level, if you make a mistake, the color of the words changes to red to alert you to correct your words.

I have had a blast with this!  It's been extremely helpful to me and I highly recommend it.  It's not too late if you want to jump in and start the Romans Project too!  There's nothing more powerful than to have the Words of God in your heart and mind!