My Sunday Drive - Egg Bake Recipe

My Grandparents are in town!!! 

Today was an early start! I grabbed a triple caramel macchiato from Starbucks and headed to practice with my love, Derek. It's so great he is on the production team because early mornings alone are hard. Plus, who's going to wipe any sleep out of your eye that you may have missed!

The sermon today was so good! Pastor Mark spoke on James 2:1-7. I encourage you to take some time and watch the video! Totally worth it!

We had lunch at Spud's on Alki then headed over to Husky's on California for some ice cream. I really enjoy my grandparent's company. I love hearing their stories and experiences. Growing up, I wasn't too interested, but they have been on this earth alot longer than I have and I've come to realize they know a thing or two. I want to be able to share their stories to my kids. 

I did get to make one of my favorite egg bakes for us to enjoy for breakfast!

Recipe for Plasch's Family Egg Bake:

2 lbs of breakfast sausage, browned, drained, and crumbled

9 slices of white bread, crusts removed & cut into squares

4 tablespoons of butter, cut into small cubes

3 cups of milk

5 scallions, chopped, including green tops

1/4 cup of chopped green bell peppers

12 eggs beaten

2 cups grated cheddar cheese (8 oz)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper 

 Serves 12-14 folks.

1. Brown, crumble, and drain your 2 lbs of sausage. 

 2. Beat the 12 eggs well. Add milk.

3. Chop your green peppers and scallions and add to eggs.

 4. Cut the crust from your bread, and cut into thirds, then the thirds into squares. Add to egg mixture.

 5. Add cheese to the mixture.

 6. Add sausage. Stir well.

7. Butter the inside of the 9x13 inch casserole dish.

8. Pour the mixture in casserole dish and cover with aluminum foil.

9. Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.

 10. Bake the casserole at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 to 30 minutes.

Make sure the middle is cooked!

ENJOY!

Way Back Wednesday - Sailing to Seattle - Week Three

*This is a pre-written blog post from April 9, 2013 to look back on why we left Texas to live in Seattle.*

I would like to say, in no way do I mean to offend anyone by posting this. I am simply sharing our testimony to God’s glory, which will in fact reveal our sin, our struggles, our forgiveness, and the Lord’s hand in it all. We do not intend to single or call out any one ministry or persons. We love the Body and are in no place to judge or condemn, but we must make the best decisions for our family by the leading of the Holy Spirit and leadership of my husband. Thank you for your love and prayers.

Planning, we laid our “map” out on the table, considering all options according to what we believed the Lord was calling us to do. We have no kids, no mortgage, why be afraid of something "big"? We began to pray and knock on each door. One place seemed certainly promising, and we began doing a deep investigation on the church's doctrine, history of the staff, and vision. This particular ministry had a branch that extended to a recording label that lined up completely with what Derek felt called to do with his music. Meanwhile, we both knew the importance of not forsaking the assembling of the family of Jesus, so we knew we needed to find a place locally to sow into, serve, and love for the time being.

If you haven’t had the chance to “Church surf” in Houston, and you are looking for more than just great shows, goosebumps, and a rockin band, it can get kind of disheartening.

Derek and I personally talked about things that were important to us in our church home like,

“Do they believe that Jesus is God?”
“Do they talk about, know, and love Jesus?” “What’s the fruit of their labor?”
“What’s the heart/foundation of the ministry?”
“Do they encourage learning, and community?”
“Does the teaching challenge or convict?”
“Do they preach the gospel?”
“Do they pray?”
“Could the ministry run without the lead guy?”
“Do women run the show?”
“Does one man run everything, and have a pocket full of ‘Yes’ men?”

Having lights, camera, and action is great, but do they exalt themselves or the real, biblical, Jesus, God-man, Lord, Savior, and King?

Interestingly enough, a lot of people condemned us for having these “unreasonable standards” saying we were seeking perfection, which kind of blew us away. There are somethings that are copable but some of this is basic necessity in a home church, and should not be compromised.

With an enemy who’s full-time job is to deceive and mislead the children of God, why do you not take questions like these seriously?

It was hard to find people or a church that felt the same. We have come to the conclusion that, there are churches here in Houston that are lead by the Spirit of the Living God because God is omnipresent and loves his people everywhere, but He didn’t allow us to find them because we would have probably stayed. He told us,

"You are not running from anybody [including "church folk"]! God is leading you out of here, and the God of Israel is also your rear guard."

We weren’t drawn to leave the Katy/Houston area because of the ministries there, our past, or the people. This was all because of God's plan. He was up to something, and we certainly did not want to miss out or be disobedient. "He has sent out fish to swallow and take those whom he loves, who are rebelling, to where they were supposed to be in the first place…" Thank you Jonah. It was hard at first, not to be offended by what was going on in the walls of some of the buildings they were called the Lord’s house. What was happening grieved our hearts deeply.


But I am no ones Savior, I can only live and preach the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have to remember that God is as much their Father as He is mine, and He has a plan for them just as much as He has one for me, that glorifies Him!
Then we found Crossings Community Church. The leadership was incredible and accountable. They weren’t afraid of tough scripture or hard questions, and encouraged us to seek God and obey Him. What a refreshing group of folks.
The church that we were pursuing from our “map” was in Portland, OR. It had numerous positive check marks on our “That’s-where-we-are-supposed-to-be” check list. We were going all in on the pursuit. We added them on facebook, twitter, listened to sermons, went to their concerts, called them, and called them, and called them. We left messages, at least two on the church’s message machine, about us planning to move there and looking to get connected with leadership… nothing happened.
Nothing! No replies to emails, no call backs, no replies to tweets. Nothing! What started out as what seemed to be an opened door. Which we knocked on really hard, just wouldn't budge. We continued to pray, and didn’t recieve peace about the thought of moving to Portland. Especially with nothing opening up. We were still knocking on the other doors but we really thought this would be the one.
To be continued…


Just because it is good doesn’t mean it is what you are supposed to do. Just because bad things are happening doesn’t mean it’s not what you are supposed to go through and experience. But when you are two steps from Chuck-Norris-Roundhouse-Kicking a door down because it is what you want to do, something is obviously wrong. Especially when you have been praying for God to open the right doors, and keep the wrong ones closed.

Time to do some recalculating and allow God to be God. His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.

My Sunday Drive

Sundays are probably one of my favorite days of the week.

I get to serve at my local church, spend time with friends, take a nap, and cook dinner for our roommates. I have a pretty busy schedule, so I don't always get the time that I want in the kitchen throughout the week.

Through this series, I'll let you come with me on "My Sunday Drive."

After church, Derek and I came home quite hungry. We normally start our Sunday’s off at 5 am, grab some coffee and serve at our church from 6:30 am till 12 pm. My husband is an intern over the productions department and I get the honor of singing with the band. We really enjoy what we do, but you sure work up an appetite. So we had a classic turkey sandwich.

Since we are getting ready to do our taxes soon, we have a box in our room with all of our important papers and it was time to sit down and go through it. Probably my favorite part of that was when I found some old checks and I gave Derek one of these...

...and I got this look and a "What is this?"

Priceless!

Throughout the week, our roommates are so gracious to cook dinner for us, so we decided to call Sunday's our cooking night! This is where I can try out new recipes and "Wow!" the crowd. But this weekend, was not so great. I found a sweet recipe online for Tilapia with Green Beans. It sounded amazing, check it out.

So, you'll come to find when I cook I don't always measure my ingredients. I would say I normally have a good eye for that sort of thing, but seriously, this was not good. (This was not the recipes fault it was definitely mine! Don't try the green beans, it's not worth it!!!)

However, I did get to redeem myself with a classic Peach Cobbler.

Peach Cobbler:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 large can of peaches in juice
1 stick of butter (Give me a break, I'm from the South!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add the can of peaches to a casserole dish and place it in the oven. Mix together the dry items in a large bowl. Whisk your eggs in a separate bowl, and then add it to the mixture until nice and crumbly. Remove the peaches out of the oven and sprinkle the mixture evenly across the top. Melt the stick of butter in a microwaveable safe dish for about 45 seconds. Drizzle the butter across the top and let it sit where it falls! Bake for about 45 minutes or until it has a nice golden look to it. Enjoy with ice cream or right out of the dish!

I got to finish my day playing with my roommate's two awesome kiddos, had a glass of wine with my love, and watched the Grammy's. This was a tasty, fruity Cabernet. I lean more towards the sweeter, light wines because I don't typically like a lot of alcohol. But I do enjoy a small glass with friends or my family.

So overall, it was a pretty good "Sunday Drive."