Depression Cooking with Clara

I saw this on Good Morning America this morning and I just loved the idea. Simple food for simple times. Clara is a 91 year old woman that was talked into doing these YouTube videos by her grandson. It's ironic to think about how two generations, separated by years and technology, have been able to meet in the middle with a common goal of being thrifty. Which is something that everyone has an interest in these days. Minus the bread recipe and with a modified pasta recipe I think I can probably do most of these since they all seem to encompass potatoes.

More than the recipes I enjoy the fact that her grandson has her sharing her memories of the depression and how she and her family lived through that time. I'm thinking about randomly posting more of her videos just so that people get to see them all.



It reminds me of the time that I complained about having crust on my bread, in front of my Grandma Margie when she had come out to CA for a visit. My mom was making me lunch and I was pretty particular about how I liked my bread cut. Cut diagonally into quarters, and very important there must be no crust on it. Well my mom left the crust on this one time and I whined about it, my mom told me to give her the sandwich and as I started to pass the plate to her my Grandma stopped me, stared me right in the eye and told me that the crust was perfectly OK to eat and that I was going to eat it. So I choked down the sandwich with a lump of tears in my throat and never complained about food in front of my Grandma again. My Grandma was never really one for correcting us in front my parents, that I remember, but I do remember this incident, like it was yesterday. I understand her wisdom in saying that to me now,and it was well deserved, but as a child the reproof of my grandmother was something that devastated me. Ironically, I can no longer eat bread anymore, or at least loafs in the traditional wonder bread sense of the word. Eternal punishment for shunning crust all those years.
I know it;)

I'll be staying tuned to Clara and her wisdom.

Proverbs 31:14 She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.





I hope I'm this functional and sweet when I'm in my 90's.

The SPG's serve the Sweethearts

In case you're all not up to date on what the SPG's are about let me fill you in. Two years ago, at our churches vision Sunday (it's where out Pastor tells us what the Lord has showed him about where the church needs to go in the coming year) Pastor put forth the announcement that there would be a new ministry in Bible Baptist Church called the SPG's, a.k.a Singles Pleasing God. Unlike most singles groups that churches have, we're not strictly a social outlet for mingling amongst the opposite sex. Our task is very simple, name the animals.

What does that mean?

The principle is taken from Genesis 2:18-22, where God promises to make a help meet for Adam, and while God is preparing Adam, Adam is busy naming the animals. In other words Adam was busy about serving the Lord while he waited on Him to bring him his wife, Eve. So really our ministry as SPG's is to serve others and be busy about the Lords work until he brings us our future spouses.

These past 2 years have been full and busy for us. We don't have a "college and career" Sunday school class because most of us teach and are used in other Sunday school ministries (I love teaching the primary girls, truly they are a blessing). Then there is our HWY 20 project where we'v been used to try and evangelize the towns along HWY 20 in WA (where fruit is starting to come forth and we're hoping to plant a church soon), and although we haven't done it in a while it's always a joy when we get to home visits to others in the church who may need a little encouragement. However, I think that collectively our favorite time of year is when we get to minister to the married couples for our Sweethearts Banquet. Now I can probably hear most of your thoughts now. "Why do a bunch of singles want to be around married couples on Valentines Day? Isn't that a little depressing, getting to watch others enjoy something you desire for yourselves? Actually, I find it just the opposite. Loneliness, depression and envy (envy is a sin by the way) really only happen when we're looking inward to our our own wants and desires instead of looking at how we can be a blessing to others.

The first time that we did it was two years ago, then the following year we ended up not doing it due to other things going on (which really was a bummer), but once again this year we were volunteered by our leader Tim to undertake the Sweethearts Banquet (I guess that the married couples enjoyed us so much in 2007 that nothing can compare now;)). As much fun as we had in 2007, this year was truly unbelievable as to what the Lord enabled us to do for the married couples, or Sweethearts, in our church.

The theme was Continuing the Commitment, to go along with our church theme this year, and we had it set up in a restaurant style, like something you would see at a wedding reception. Which was actually how we planned to the night to be. Each one of us held "wedding party" rolls. Kali, Anna, and Alyssa were bridesmaids. Nicki was the wedding coordinator. Josh W., Chris, Josh H., and Levi were groomsmen (Chris and Josh W. were also valets for parking purposes). And yours truly was the photographer. We even had help from some of the teen girls who took on the role of chefs, taking care of cooking all the food (trust me when I say we could not have done this without them. It was a real blessing).

Rings Up!
(We were all wearing fake engagement rings)

A stellar waitstaff. . .

Superb valets. . .

And World class Chefs await you at
Che SPG!

First of all, lets give a round of applause for Kali and Alyssa with the cake. Made solely from their own ingenuity. They toiled away, making 2 practice cakes, fine tuning the design, battling off dogs and moms (who both wanted to taste test, only the dog was successful which forced them to make another bottom layer). The people that I talked to that evening were incredulous over the fact that they accomplished this task, but this is what you get for diligence and patience. I think it pays off, what about you?

3 tiers
Top layer = Red Velvet and Cream Cheese filling
Middle layer = Chocolate and mocha filling
Bottom layer = Vanilla and chocolate chip filling

Watch out Martha Stewart these two are a force to be reckoned with

This was my little cake that I made for Vicki. Like me she is has Celiacs and so I volunteered to make her a special meal and cake so that she could enjoy all the same things that the others. Personally I think she got the best deal. But that's probably just bias talking.

GF Red Velvet with white frosting and cream cheese filling

I also made her her own personal spinach lasagna, but I failed to get a pic of it. Anyway that's another recipe that's a keeper. The rest of the Sweethearts had spaghetti and garlic bread (a Celiacs nightmare).

Dinner was also accompanied by the lovely musical stylings of Alyssa. She played various hymns with non traditional arrangements as well as some Abigail Miller music. It was awesome.

Tickle those ivories

Of course the SPG's aren't just about dinner. After all we do love a good game. Chris, Josh, and Levi put together the questions, but the game was my idea.

Some of the categories of questions

It was a lot of fun to watch the tables compete for bible knowledge glory.

After a rousing game of Jeopardy, Pastor Sargents table wound up as the victors. Between Pastor Sargents infinite knowledge and Josh Craig's speedy hand raising, they were pretty close to unstoppable.

The "A" Team

A close second place was taken by the Vaughn's table.

and following up in 3rd was Pastor Jeremiah's table.

The fun of it was catching people not answering in the form of a question. Of course it always helps when the SPG running the power point, starts giving out the answers.

The foil in our perfect preparation;)

Of course those questions didn't end up counting for the teams. Much to their chagrin.

The night was concluded with a vow renewal ceremony. Chris ran point on executing vows and his presentation was really great. Very mature and heart felt for a guy in his early 20's. I mentioned this aspect of the banquet plans to my step-mom back around Christmas time and she was dubious about us being able to pull it off without getting some distension from those, like herself, who may want to keep something like that more intimate and private. However everyone, even if they may have been embarrassed or hesitant, participated. Personally I think everyone rather enjoyed the thought of it. In a day where most marriages are thrown away, and the sanctity of marriage is becoming more compromised by the values of the world it was nice to see couples take the time to affirm the gift that God has blessed them with throughout the years that they've been married. Some have been married for 30+ years and some have been married for 3, but however long the marriage has lasted it doesn't negate the fact that it's still a gift and that the vows hold the same truth today as they did so many years ago. It really was a special moment.

This was a special certificate that we had made up for people to sign. The SPG's signed as the witnesses.

After the vows it was cake time and people soon started leaving since we started at 7 and it was now 10, but everyone has agreed, so far, that it was the best Sweethearts banquet in a long time. We may be single, but never let it be said the the SPG's don't know how to execute an atmosphere of love.

For those of you that read this, that were there, let me just say that as much fun as you had that evening was as much fun as we had planning it. It was out pleasure to serve you:)

Here is a video I took of some of the chaos in the kitchen. There were a couple of tables that got their dinner late due to a mis calculation in how much needed to be cooked. It was funny to watch so I hope you enjoy the video. GO Linnea GO!!!

Valentines Day Satisfaction

This won't be a very ong blog, because I have a monster one coming soon. But last night was the Valentines Banquet for Bible Baptist Church. It was a smash!!!! Fun was had by all, including the SPG's that hosted it. It's amazing to see what the Lord can do with willing spirits. I'll be working onmy post for it throughout the next wee or so, that way all of you who missed out can see how much fun we had. For those of you that were there it was a true blessing to be able to serve you last night. Happy Valentines Day <3!

God created this!

Genesis 1:20-23
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

This was Sturgeon was caught on the Willamette River, in Oregon about 2 weeks ago. . .

I had to post this photo that I got this afternoon because of how amazing it is. I tried to get it larger, but the settings won't cooperate with me. Here are it's stats:

Weight: 1,000 lbs
Length: 11' 1"
Diameter: 56"

It took 6 hours and 4 men taking turns to finally reel the monster of a fish in. Any Sturgeon over 5' has to be released for breeding.

God's handiwork is, in a word, Amazing! However, this fish is exactly what creeps me out about swimming in open water.

To my followers

If you are in my email and automatically receiving updates from me, I apologize if you receive and influx of posts over the next few weeks. For whatever reason when I changed my background the color of the font for some of my older posts didn't change so I'm having to go back and do it manually. I'm glad that I found a background I'll like for a while because it's a lot of work. Again I apologize for the influx, hopefully it will be done by the end of the week.

#2 on my list, Cook 15 new dishes (#5)

This is a sure fire winner! No one who has eaten this dish suspects that it's GF. Also, for those of you who know the Glovers, I've been told by 2 people so far that they like my Mac & Cheese better than Corey's. For those of you who don't know the Glover's, Corey is a cook by trade, so it's a compliment. Anyway, I've been procrastinating in posting this recipe. I made it while at home for Christmas, but I never wrote the recipe out and posted it.

The first time I made this dish, however, I was making it for an SPG get together that we were having. We had to come up with a dish for "family favorites". Basically recipes that were our family's favorite that we want to carry on a tradition with. Well, my family favorite was probably Pierogies while I was growing up. However, GF Pierogies are really expensive, and right now I don't have the time to work out the ratios of flour that I would need in order to make themfrom scratch. I was stumped for other reasons too, but that was the biggest one. So I decided to just make a recipe that thought would potentially make a good family dinner one day. Like I said, it was the first tim I had made it so my friends swere going to be total guinea pigs, but there were no complaints! The only thing, that I thought of afterward was that I should have put Kali's oven on warn so that the dish would be warmed when served, but other than that it was perfect. Even Chris, who is notorious for making a stink when eating anything GF, liked it. So obviously it fit into the "family favorite" category.

A couple of weeks ago I had my friend Sherri over for dinner and I made this for her. She's not a big fan for this dish, which I didn't know before hand, but I think I've sold her on it. She really liked it!!! I served it with a fresh veggie filled salad and homemade Italian dressing.

Tonight I made it for dinner, which will last me basically all week, except this time I wanted to try it with Pepper Jack cheese, and honestly I can't tell a difference. There's a slight bite to it, but it's not as spicy as I would like.

I don't really have a catchy name for this recipe yet, so if you can think of one let me know and I'll consider changing it.



Super Cheesy Mac & Cheese

Ingredients
2c. of GF penne or elbow pasta
8oz. of cheddar cheese

Sauce
3/4c. of milk
2 eggs
1 TBSP of corn or potato starch
3/4 tsp. of salt
4oz. of Monterey Jack or Pepper Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cook pasta according to directions on the box. Rise and set aside.

3. This step is optional if you're shredding your cheese from a bar. I usually get mine from a bag. If your shredding your own cheese, this is where you'd want to do that. Shred 10oz. of cheese (put 2 aside for topping) and also shred the 4oz. of whatever Jack cheese you choose. You'll need it for step 4.

4. In a microwave bowl combine the sauce ingredients. Microwave in 20 second intervals until the cheese is melted and sauce is slightly thickened. The frequent stirring is needed so as to avoid any scrambled egg effect.

5. Combine the pasta, sauce, and the 8oz of cheddar cheese. Mix well and pur into an 8x8 casserole dish. If you want to use a 9x5 dish double the recipe.

6.Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. After the timer goes off uncover and put the 2oz. you set aside on top for more baking, then put back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes, until the top is a golden brown. Honestly I use more cheese then just the 2oz. I like my Mac & Cheese really cheesy. Hence the recipes current name. Then serve it hot. You won't be disappointed:)