Happy 200th FFF-07.20.12

Today, we are celebrating the 200th Friday's Favorite Five.  200 Fridays ago, Susanne at Living to Tell the Story starting a blog party to emphasize looking for 5 highlights in each week.  Over the years, a lot of fantastic bloggers joined in and became faithful contributors in this exercise of recalling positive things.

Bonus * This post is my 122nd Friday's Fave Five. I began looking for the positive on January 2, 2009. You can read my first FFF here. I see I started my practice of sharing quotes then, and I also talked about loving a day off.

Some things never change ...

I love doing these posts because it helps me to "number my days."  I'm a very positive person and dwell mainly on the beauties of life, but it is easy for me to forget what happened on what day.  Recounting my 5 highlights every week helps me to remember.

Back to 2012:

1.  I've been raving about how much I'm loving peanut butter smoothies ... well, today, I'm adding a new love:  blueberry banana smoothie.  I gulped it down before I thought of taking a photo to share ... Anyway, it's low-calorie.  210 calories of luscious goodness.  I love to share, so here is the recipe:  8 oz. coconut milk (I use Pure Coconut milk found in the Dairy Case), 1 frozen banana (sliced and frozen as slices - blends much better) and 1 container of frozen blueberries.  I am sharing a pic of the blueberries below.  Only 50 calories in each container, cleaned, frozen and ready-to-eat.

Blueberries are a superfood, you know.  I need all the nutritional help I can get!

2.  Recently, a lady visited our church and passed out magazines that had a collection of summer-time recipes in them.  Her daughter had contributed to the recipes and her mom was a little proud.  Hence, the free copies of the recipes.  I am a cookbook lover, so I immediately opened the mag up and read all the way home.  Jim, of course, was doing the driving!  This week, I tried the Strawberry Cheesecake Cake.

I tell you, it's not easy to be a food stylist / photographer.  Kudos to Anne (Nikkipolani) who always does such a great job!

This dessert was a cool refreshing dessert, perfect for summer.  However, I do not have the name of the creator of the recipe with me, so I will post both her name and the actual recipe on Tuesday.  Please come back then to view it.

3.  I love the sharing of the ideas that you find on the internet.  One surprising source of cooking tips turned out to be from a former interim pastor of our church.  He forwarded to me a video of how to easily peel cooked potatoes for potato salad.  Sorry, I didn't save the video, but I can easily share with you how it is done.  After you have scrubbed your potato, score a line all around the circumference of the potato with a sharp knife. Go into the flesh of the potato a little bit as you score.  Just one circle around each potato.  Then place the potatoes into a deep pan of boiling water and cook for approx. 20 minutes.  Drain the potatoes and then plop them into a bowl filled with ice and water.  You'll then be able to rub the skins right off the potato.  Easy peasy! Thanks, Bro. Terry!

4.  My favorite post to write was Sunday's "In Which I Remember This World Is Not My Home".  I love receiving inspiration from scripture, and in this case, 1 Peter 2:9-11, packed a double punch.

5.  Quote of the week:  Again and again, Ann Voskamp challenges me:

“Prayer isn’t a substitute for action — prayer is the source of action.”

… Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience “10 Real ways You Could Really Change In The World”

May we always remember that praying really IS the best thing we can do, and it should be our FIRST course of action.

God bless you all, and may Friday's Fave Five continue to exhort us to remember the beauties of the life God has given.