Egg Droppin'

I had several folks send me facebook messages asking how I made egg drop soup. Well,  let me be very clear, that I did not come up with this on my own. I just happen to be able to follow directions. :)

I decided a few weeks ago that I would begin following the paleo diet, so the original recipe came from a paleo diet website. However, I have to be very careful of my cholesterol right now according to my doc, so I'm not following it strictly (because of all the meat). I'm eating a ton of fresh fruits and veggies, and learning about paleo is showing me how to cook with natural ingredients -- so hopefully that will help as well. I just can't do a ton of meat right now. Side note, the doc says I'm very healthy otherwise! I want to fight against some of the genes given to me and take care of myself! I don't want any heart issues later on down the road.

Anyway, what can beat a bowl of egg drop soup when your Chinese food craving kicks in?

Here is the link to the original recipe if you are interested. Then I will show you what I did.

My Recipe's Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced 
• 1 Tbs Olive Oil (I didn't have coconut oil from the original... I do now and will try it next time around)
• 8 Cups Water
• 6 Beef Boullin Cubes (to make broth -- I didn't have chicken flavored from the original)
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp balsamic vingegar
• 1/4 tbsp white wine vinegar -- not sure where all the random vinegar came from in my pantry, but I used the above two vinegars in place of coconut aminos
• 1/4 tsp flax oil (I had flax oil <for heart health> and Matt is allergic to sesame and the original called for sesame oil)
• 3 Tbsp cornstarch + 4 Tbsp water (I didn't have arrowroot powder, and cornstarch IS NOT paleo, but I needed a thickener)
• 6 eggs (Next time, I will use egg beaters. I know, gross (and NOT paleo/natural), but I am trying to eliminate cholesterol where I can)

Directions:

Finely dice the onion and celery, and saute in the bottom of your soup pot in the olive oil for about 15 minutes on med low heat, until the veggies are translucent-ish

While veggies are cooking, boil your water and dissolve the boillin to make broth.

When veggies are done add the broth and bring to a boil. While heating add the ginger, vinegars and flax oil.

Dissolve the cornstarch in the water in a small bowl. Do this before adding into the soup to prevent clumping.

While heating the soup, whisk up eggs. After soup has boiled about 5 minutes, start adding the whisked eggs a little at a time. I did mine in three sets about 3 to 5 minutes apart. Megan and I were setting the table and such while the eggs cooked.

After the last of the eggs were added I left it about 3 more minutes then put it on the table with a ladle.

Hopefully that was clear as mud. You can probably change any of the oils to another flavor. You can also use chicken broth rather than beef. I'm all about using what I have on hand. Like I said before, this wasn't truly paleo, but it was a start. You can see the original recipe at the link at the top of this entry. Mine was really tasty and it was even good reheated as leftovers the next day.

Fame and War

Well, if you have read my first post, you know that I promised I was going to write a lot. Well you can obviously see that this is the first post since January. I guess if it's as important to me as I thought it would be, I would make more time for it.

I do enjoy blogging, however, I have just entered the world of having 2 children, and it has been the craziest thing I have ever done... And I'm sure all the many mothers of multiple children are smirking or laughing out loud at the remembrance of embarking on such a journey... but more on that later!

Since my last post was about Megan's (my pearl) name, I thought this one should be about our newest addition, Katelynn Louise.

As you may remember names are important to me. I know in bible times people used to give their children names that had a meaning that resembled their personalities. However, living in the 21st century we have to be quicker on the draw, you know social security numbers, etc. and name them quickly. So we needed to use a name that had a great meaning. My husband likes using family names as the middle name, so since Megan has a family middle name, we wanted to do the same. Megan's middle name is after Matt's grandmother, Julie.


Katelynn, has approximately 293,847,928,347 different spellings and we debated the spelling of her name for quite some time... but we figured the two names "Kate" and "Lynn" put together was the most straight forward. Katelynn means "pure" -- and as the mother of a daughter, I can't think of many other lessons that are more important than the lesson of purity, and don't mean just sexually. (Although that will be an important lesson later) You are handed this beautiful baby, and you love them so much and even the thought of something bad happening to them is terribly frightening. You wish you could shield them from all things bad, but you know it can never be that way living in a sinful world. The best you can do is to lead by example, bring them up in a Godly home, and teach the importance of a holy and pure life. That's one of the reasons we wanted to use the name Katelynn. It's such a vital part of life, why not build it directly into her name?

Katelynn's middle name is Louise. Her middle name is my Granny's middle name as well. Not only is her middle name a family name, but it means "fame and war" or "strong warrior" -- at least those are the most common translations that I have found. Something Matt and I have talked about a lot in our relationship, partly because of his occupation and training, is war. Whether it is the current war our nation is fighting or the war that Christians are engaged in throughout the world, and how we firmly believe that we are going to have to be extremely rooted and outfitted in the armor of God to withstand the coming years, even here in America. If it is going to be tough for us, it is going to be even harder place to live as a Christian for our children. That's a scary thought to new parents for sure.


Unintentionally, we saw later that Katelynn is a derivative of the name "Katherine" which also happens to be my Granny's first name... So we essentially used my grandmother's entire name without realizing it! But I digress.

So to tie up the loose ends, we want Katelynn to be a warrior, maybe not literally, but a warrior for her LORD. If she is to have fame, we want it to be for her strength and stand in the LORD, for holiness and purity in a world that severely lacks it.

Hopefully that makes sense to you. It makes sense in my head. I'm not a fantastic writer, but I like to put them out there. In other news, Katelynn so far in her 9 weeks, has been quite the warrior! She suffers from severe reflux, but her major adversary and foe is SLEEP! She sleeps well at night, but getting her there is a major battle. But I am happy to report that sleep seems to be winning more than Katelynn these past few days. I'm loving my little girl and she is teaching me so much and I haven't really enjoyed all the lessons the Lord is teaching me through her, but I'm better for it. (Remember that verse, "no discipline is pleasant at the time... and the other, "God disciplines those he loves") But I will save those lessons for another post. Hopefully it will come sooner than later.

P.S. -- Megan is pretty much the best big sister EVER!