A Follow Up

I began expressing some thoughts last evening on Facebook. What I wrote there just scratched the surface of what my deep thoughts are. Those thoughts ran through my head most of the night, I slept some, but I did not sleep soundly. When I really did awaken, I prayed that God would allow me to fall back to sleep. This prayer was not answered the way I wanted. Instead, I felt I needed to come here and work on completing the thoughts that I had prior to going to bed. I knew that I needed to follow that nudge or I would waste these thoughts.

I really like the movie, "Crash". Not sure is many remember it, but the theme was a connection between many lives that really were not connected in an obvious way. I feel like that is why my thoughts are not letting me rest; there is a connection in so many of the things I am thinking about.

Let me start with the crisis in San Bernadino where 14 people lost their lives at the hand of an ISIS terrorist. I heard of it, thought about it being another terrible tragedy in the lives of people I didn't know or have any connection to. Then, I read a post on Facebook by my cousin. She stated that it had been a tragic week and she was thankful that her sons and she were safe. I don't know California geography so never made the connection as to how close that was to her. I contacted her after seeing her post and found that the massacre that took place was within one half mile of where she works and the apartment where all of the arsenal was found was within a mile of her home. I am thankful she is all right.

Recently there was a tragedy that many people in the area were aware of and commented on. A police officer named Ryan Copeland was killed in a head on collision while working as a policeman. I didn't know Ryan but from all that was said about him, he sounded like an outstanding person. His father is my husband's step brother. Although we have little to no contact with that part of Jim's family, he was nonetheless connected to us.

Friends of ours from church tragically lost their 17 year old daughter this week. Maria has struggled. We have hope in Christ that her struggle is over and she has been made whole.

Both of my kids have been deeply touched by the loss of Maria. Ryan talked to me about how he felt bad for her because he knew how she was treated by other people, he said no one escapes the pain of others not being nice. He was honest and pained by the tragedy. Dan asked me to accompany him to the visitation because Maria's dad was a teacher of his and really took Dan under his wing in high school. He felt he needs to be able to express his condolences and offer something of himself to the family. I did not expect to hear this from either of my kids. It touches a mother's heart when she feels she did something right (when it seems we've done nothing right)

I was watching the web page for the obituary for Maria and saw an article about a man being arrested for robbing a bank this week in Janesville. I clicked on the article and read it. In that article I read that the person who was arrested is Seth Gardner. I know is mother. I know that he has a long criminal record and has been in prison a couple of times. My heart breaks for a mother who loves her son and yes has to see him end up in this kind of situation. But, a connection that I didn't realize until just before going to bed last night.

Another friend from church posted that her week was one of the worst. That 27 years she has carried a memory that was brought right up front in light of this bank robbery. I don't know if she was at the bank when the recent event happened, but I do know she works for this bank. I also know that years ago she as working in a bank that was robbed and a co-worker was killed. I am sure even if she was hundreds of miles from the bank when this took place, those memories had to be real and raw.

I have a friend who is being treated for cancer. She faces surgery on the 2nd of January. She is a faithful friend. I cannot even begin to explain our friendship and though we are separated by many miles, we are as close because of the bond we have in Jesus Christ. We were chatting online last night, I was sharing about the death of this young lady. She asked her name so that she could hold up this family in prayer. Linda is the epitome of prayer warrior. She doesn't just say she will pray, she PRAYS!! I am honored to be her friend. As you can imagine, she has many, and I am so thankful that God allowed me to be one of hers.

Last Sunday in church, I was struck by a thought of my need to be more knowledgeable about scripture. Not just knowing what it says, but to be able to defend it and to explain it to others. I was overcome by a hunger I have not really ever had before. Since my dad died, I have read the Bible nearly every day. I can't say that reading the Bible through in a year has changed me a lot, but it has become a discipline that I had not had prior to Dad's death. I started in honor of him. I fell off course a couple of times, but I got back on and have been doing well at the activity. But, absorption is challenging. It has become  more of an exercise than a learning. However, I am not going to give up getting into the word daily. I can find time to do this, even if it means less sleep or less of other things that are not important.

One last thing, I have carried a burden for months now at the tragedies that have occurred so close to my life. The tragedies of the losses of marriages. I had a month or so that every week there was another failed or failing marriage brought to my attention. I ache. I cannot express the sorrow. I cry for these losses, I pray diligently for the people whose lives have been touched by this. I pray for conviction for those who have sought happiness outside of their marriage. I have prayed for the lives of unborn children being brought into this world by way of these illicit relationships. There is pain, I try not to judge. I know nothing of the secret parts of the lives of these who choose to walk away, but I do know that marriage is hard work. I do know that love is a choice and that we are not promised happiness anywhere in the Bible. So, I will keep on praying. Praying for the ones who are in this situation and praying for protection of marriages that appear fine. If you have arrived at this point in this reading. please, please, please, make me stay accountable to you for my marriage and for my commitment to studying to show myself approved by God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly able to divide the word of truth--2 Timothy 2:15 (my paraphrase)

Thanks for sharing in my thoughts.

Math Lessons for Dinner

We'll just start with dessert. I made Chocolate Lasagna. I couldn't resist this one, it looked easy and I made it with some lower fat and less sugar items, so it isn't absolutely the worst a person can do. 

 I simmered my chicken stock all day, thanks to lots of advice I got on Facebook. It smelled tasty by the end. I put it in a large container to cool and will separate it out tomorrow into smaller portions and freeze it.

 This was what I needed for dinner. I used one cup of my fresh stock. I made this stir fry because I thought it looked awfully tasty. Well, it was tasty and it was awful. But, Ryan liked it, so 1 out of 4 isn't bad. And, in honor of the math lesson of the day, 25% of the family liked it. That would be 0.25 in decimal. 1/4 in fraction. Glad we have an even number in our family and that math is easy.

 I recorded the steps since I was accused of not having food pictures lately. Someone thought maybe I had quit cooking. No!! I am still at it. Just less photography along the way.

 The veggies looked so good...and they weren't bad, nor was the chicken, just the flavor in general was not a favorite. I think it was the ginger that did it.

 But, presentation is important.

 Rice with a tad bit of quinoa tucked in it, I am gradually introducing it to the family.

 But, the dessert--that was amazing. Super easy to make, way easier than real lasagna and a big hit among our 100% chocolate lover family.

Thanks for reading. Sorry the stir fry wasn't more exciting.

I did make a scone this week too, lots of work to get it right, but oh, it was also very tasty. I repeated the cabbage rolls last night and tweaked the recipe a bit. I will be tweaking it back next time, per request of 33% of the family who ate last night.

I love math.
Oh, I would be remiss to not mention the other changes our family has made. We are now reading from the Bible at the end of the meal. This was a challenge by our pastor last Sunday and I decided that if I was cooking for the body, someone better be helping the soul. So, we began. Ryan chose the book--Judges. He wanted to hear the story of Samson and Delilah. So, Jim started...if you haven't read the first chapter of Judges in a while, it is a huge challenge to pronounce all of the people and cities. We got through it though. Jim read the first two nights and Ryan read the third chapter tonight. He got to read about the left handed judge and a really fat guy. I said to them all, "The Bible is not boring!" Can't wait to see what else we are going to learn from the Judges.

Thanks for reading!!

Roasting

That is not how I would explain what it feels like outside right now, although, this has been a considerably mild winter thus far...hopefully, it doesn't decide to become not so mild in March or April, but, we are in Wisconsin. Anything can happen here--except a Superbowl win!!

But anyway, on with the cooking stories. I have been a little lax in keeping up with my entries and keep forgetting to take pictures of what I have made. If I would take the pictures, I would at least remember what I had made.

Let's see what I can recall and what I can get from the few photos I have:

I decided to make granola from a recipe I had used many years ago out of my "More With Less" cookbook.  Believe it or not, I had all of the essential ingredients in my pantry. It was fun to make. The cereal is pretty tasty.

 I bought this magazine in hopes of getting some ideas of what to cook. I haven't really even had a chance to try anything out of it because of all the other recipes I have been using. It will be there when I need it!

 Finished Granola. Can you smell it?

 Tonight we had a roasted chicken. Last night we had roast beef. I did it the way Mom used to with searing it and putting it in the oven covered with potatoes and carrots. I probably roasted it a bit longer than I needed to, maybe I was trying to imitate the length of time we always had to wait to eat Sunday dinner. It was tasty nonetheless. Ryan said, "I really wish we could have mashed potatoes sometime." He is getting tired of skins on his potatoes. So, today I did a chicken and mashed potatoes, green beans and homemade bread. As you can see by this photo, the chicken was tasty. And, there are no more potatoes on the plate either. Ryan looked at me at one point and I could just tell he was so FULL!! But, he loved this meal. We all did.

Last week I made a couple of other dishes that I didn't photograph, they are on my Pinterest page. One is the Chicken Mozzarella Pasta with Sun-dried Tomatoes. Yummy!!! We had a salad with that and an unexpected guest so it was fun to share that meal with someone else.

On Sunday before the sad football game, I threw together another recipe off Pinterest. It is called Million Dollar Spaghetti. It was!! Rich, but oh so good. It was super easy and if you can modify it to make it a bit less fat, but it is not very low calorie, that is for sure.

Well, I think that is all I can tell you about this week's cooking. Not sure what is on the menu for tomorrow. I probably should go a bit "lighter" for a change.

Cooking Skepticism and Thoughts about Jacob

I thought maybe cooking lettuce would not work. I asked a couple of times about this and no one answered my specific question, so I tried it--with fear and trepidation.

I served it up and it was quite nummy. I of course added a dollop of Daisy (light). The three of us ate nearly all of it, there was enough for four. Dan came home later and warmed it in the microwave, I would not recommend that way of reheating. It made the chips soggy.

So, another cooking situation I had this week. I wanted a "roast beef like my mom made". I should have done it like I had seen her do it for 24 years (or more). I didn't, I went to the internet for help. Sometimes the internet is the right answer, sometimes Mom's ways are best. I read a couple of sites that said to preheat the oven to a very high temperature and then put the roast in for a certain amount of time and turn the temperature down, or to turn it down as soon as you put it in. I followed (kind of) one that had the vegetables (carrots and potatoes) on the bottom of the roaster and the roast on top of the vegetables. I won't do it that way again. I heated the oven to 450˚ and put the roast in. I had let the roast sit out at room temperature for a couple of hours and made several slits in the meat and stuck in some garlic cloves. Salt and pepper were added along with olive oil.

I let it be for 30 minutes and then turned the temperature down to 400˚. I cooked it there for an hour. The recipe I followed said it would be done now. I knew a bit better than that. But, I didn't really know all. I then turned it down to 225˚ and roasted it for about 2 or more hours, I am not exactly sure of the timing.

I took it out and followed several people's recommendation of letting it "rest" before slicing into it. So, while I tried to rescue the vegetables (story to follow) and make gravy, the roast rested.

The potatoes and carrots were not even close to being cooked. Potatoes can be so tricky!! I threw them into the microwave hoping to get them cooked further. I know from experience that it is not the best way to make a potato, but I had to do something to make them at least edible. I didn't want the meal to be a complete fail. But, having made bread in the bread machine, I knew I was going to have at least one redeeming factor in the meal...let them eat bread!! (They were probably thinking, "Off with her head!")

So, roast was rare--almost mooing. Potatoes were almost as hard as rocks. Carrots were shrivelled up in a way I cannot even express in my vocabulary. Gravy was good. Bread was good. BUT!!! The meat, although way more rare than I prefer, the flavor was WONDERFUL!!!

Lesson learned. Mash the potatoes, skip the carrots, cook the meat longer, and always serve bread.

Now, on to Jacob. I was reading today in Genesis the account of when Jacob decided to leave Laban--his twice father-in-law and set up a home of his own. He was leaving for several reasons, fleeing really. His brothers-in-law were grumbling about him because he was successful and his father-in-law's attitude had changed about him. The story struck me because I think of all the times the in-laws in stories just don't get along. Just like present day. Parents usually think their children don't know what they are doing (which I know is usually the case) but then you bring in another person, not really part of the family and that person really doesn't know what they are doing. I know this isn't the case in every family, but it does kind of make me chuckle that even way back then, it happened too. Jacob was so mistreated by Laban, tricked into marrying the ugly sister before he could marry the beautiful one. He endured. He endured for many more years and then God told him to go home. Thankfully, the wives (sisters) agreed and were willing to go with him. God blessed Jacob for his obedience and tomorrow's reading will tell me how things went with Jacob reuniting with his brother whom he had duped out of his birthright.

The Bible is not a boring book.

Thanks for listening.

No Smoke Alarm Tonight

Tonight I tried the chicken recipe that I saw on Facebook. It was quick and easy and very tasty. 

 I used the leftover baked potatoes and fried them up in a pan with some onion. These were tasty too. I didn't take a picture of the vegetables or the homemade bread. But, we did have green to go with this meal.

 Now, the real treat for the night, my new POPCORN popper.  As I was recording the process, you may actually hear Jim's commentary on our sorry life.

 Hey, don't you have better things to do than read my stupid blog on food?

Supper Is Ready When the Smoke Alarm Goes Off

Dinner tonight was a bit crazy. I had a good plan, for four. We had six! Ryan had two friends over. These two brothers are such good kids, I really enjoy their company, so I gladly said they could come. Now, I had to improvise dinner a bit.

The original was four bacon wrapped filet of beef. Sounds fancy but I got them at Aldi. I had potatoes in the oven that I had wrapped up and put in the oven early in the day with the auto start feature on so I would not have to "remember" to get the potatoes in soon enough. I saw a video on using pancake batter to coat food for frying. I know, frying isn't probably the best, but I wanted a more "restaurant" experience so we would eat more at home and see eating out as something a bit more special. I sliced some onions, dipped them in pancake batter that I had added paprika and garlic powder to. I had some Crisco-think-"The Help". I deep fried the onions. Not quite a success since the batter did not stick to the onion, but, the onions cooked and the batter became crunchy, so with a stretch of the imagination, they were pretty good onion rings.

I sauted mushrooms and onions to top the steaks. They were really good. That, was a success. I used butter.

So, four steaks, six people. Ryan and one friend opted to do goulash...it is officially gone now. Jake, opted for pork chops. Ryan and John ended up splitting the last steak and we had the rest of the loaf of homemade bread from last night.

Baked potato with steak and mushrooms, onion rings, and I topped mine with a salad. Vegetables never seem to be as important to others as me. So, I think I am the only one who had a salad. Oh well. We got some food eaten out of the refrigerator and Ryan shared his hot fudge with his friends by having hot fudge sundaes.

But, you know, it wouldn't have been a real meal without the smoke detector going off. Happens every time I use my broiler. I need to remember to close the bedroom door next time.

Thanks for visiting.

Christmas Ornament

I made a few of these before Christmas. It was something my arm could handle in small increments of time. I finished this one today. I have discovered that all my left hand has to do is stabilize the ball while I pin with my right. I plan on getting a few more done and then put the project away for awhile.

Anyone want one? I will be giving them away.