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Cinnamon Rolls

Hi, sweetie!
(Chris, Jenny and Annabelle making bread bags for future loaves of bread!)
This weekend was wonderful! I loved staying with you and Chris and Annabelle. Marriage agrees with all of you. You look wonderful, and so does Chris. I can’t get over how sweet y’all were taking me out to the awesome Lebanese restaurant. Yum! The food was beautiful and delicious! The Pie Kitchen was fabulous, too. I love Louisville. Can I move up there with you guys? 🙂
But, more importantly, the recipe for cinnamon rolls. Here goes!!
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups milk
1 stick butter
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 heaping tablespoons sugar
2 cups Whole Wheat flour
1 1/2 cups Bread Flour
1 egg
1/8 cup cinnamon
1 cup sugar
13″ by 9″ glass pan
cooking spray
Making the Cinnamon Rolls: 
1. measure 1 3/4 cups of milk and pour it into your bread pan. 

2. Measure 1 1/2 teaspoon salt into bread pan.
3. Measure 3 heaping tablespoons sugar into bread pan.
4. Cut your stick of butter in half.
Place the half stick in a measuring cup and place it in the microwave for 20 seconds, or until it melts. 
Pour the melted butter into the bread pan and save the other half stick in measuring cup.
6. Crack one egg into bread pan.
7. Measure 2 cups of whole wheat flour into left side of bread pan.
8. Measure 1 and a half cups of bread flour and pour into right side of bread pan.
9. Measure two heaping teaspoons of bread machine yeast into middle of bread pan. 
10. Place bread pan in machine and set for dough cycle. Press start 🙂
11. When dough cycle is complete, remove pan. Spray 9 x 13″ glass baking dish with cooking spray.
12. Pour dough into greased baking dish.
13. Press dough down flat stretching it and pushing it until it fills the baking dish. 
14. Melt the other half stick of butter in microwave. Make press holes in dough with your fingertips. Pour butter over dough and spread with hands. 
15. Make a cinnamon sugar mixture by mixing 1/8 cup cinnamon with 1 cup of sugar. It’s easiest if you mix it in an old cinnamon container that has holes at the top for sprinkling! Shake it all up, and then pour about a half a cup of the mixture or more until it covers the dough evenly.
Well, sort of evenly. You can’t put too much of the cinnamon sugar mixture on!
16. Now, you are going to roll the dough. Start at the top and begin rolling the dough down.
Keep rolling until you have the tightest roll you can manage. 
Now, wrap the bottom edge over the top and seal by pressing the dough together. 
It should look something like this when you finish:
17. Now, you are going to cut the dough into 16 rolls. Begin by making a cut in the center with a sharp knife.
Now, cut each half in half:
Continue halving the halves until you have sixteen even rolls.
Next, pull the rolls out one by one and distribute them evenly in the baking dish.
Next, preheat the oven to 200. When the oven is preheated, turn it off, and put your rolls in to rise. 
After about 20-30 minutes, when the rolls have doubled in size, 
turn the oven to 350 and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until the tops are brown.
Take out of the oven, let cool, and enjoy!
If you want extra sweetness, make some butter cream icing and slather over the top!
Butter Cream Icing

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Wedding Week

 

In less than a week, my oldest daughter is getting married.

This child has given me joy her entire life.

She smiled when she was less than two weeks old. She hasn’t stopped yet.

Father Joe said there were two kinds of people in the world: those who divide people, and those who bring people together.

She likes to bring people together. 

 

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Mama’s Oatmeal

This is what I make for Robbie almost every morning before he goes to school!

First, I get a microwave safe bowl out of the cabinet and put about 1/4 to 1/2 cup oatmeal in it.
Second, I dash some salt on top of the oatmeal–a couple of shakes depending on whether or not you like salt!
Third, I pour enough milk in to barely cover the top of the oatmeal.
Fourth, I put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Finally, I take it out and slather it with honey!

My sister taught me this recipe when she was pregnant with Hayley. She poured raisens on top of the honey and fed it to Jenny who was three. Jenny gobbled it down, and I never used water to make oatmeal again. Oatmeal made with water is called gruel. Oatmeal made with milk is called oatmeal. 🙂

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Happy Thursday! Using the mix to make bread

Hello, my sweet Angel. I miss you. Louisville is way too far away. Robbie and I are at the beach house watching a glorious sunset. Actually, he is surfing, I am watching the glorious sunset praying that  he has sense enough to come in before the darkness swallows him completely.

Landry says hello, and he can’t wait for baby sister Annabelle to come visit.

He’s saving his special white garbage can for her to play with.

If the bread machine came in, here is how you use the mix we made up to make bread.
 Add 1 3/4 cup water
 Add 1/2 cup olive oil
Pour half the bag full of flour on the left side of the pan, and half on the right.
Add 2 heaping teaspoons of yeast to center.

Select 2 lb loaf; select light; select whole wheat. Press start. Bread will be ready in 3 hours and 40 minutes.

I love you!

PS .
Bread Mix Recipe:
Using gallon zipock bags, fill with the following:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspooon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup powdered dry milk.
Seal and store in refridgerator or freezer.

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Bread Recipe

Yaay! Your Westbend Bakery Style bread machine will be here on Tuesday! It is the only bread machine that I have found that makes bread consistently perfectly with no thinking involved.
Ok, here is how you make the bread.
Ingredients needed in order
1 3/4 cup of milk
1/3 cup of olive oil
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of bread flour
2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 heaping teaspoons of yeast

To make:
pour in the liquids, then the sugar and salt.
make a mound of flour on each end of the bread pan leaving a large space in the middle.
pour the yeast in the gap in the middle.

Set your machine to light crust, whole wheat, 2 lb loaf. Turn on!

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Part II of a couple of weeks of meals

I love you, sweet angel! I know you and Chris are going to have the happiest life ever!
This is a recipe for Chicken and  vegetable soup that is heavy on the vegetables and light on the chicken. You start it out by cooking enough chicken for three different dishes.
Here’s how it goes.
I. Cook the chicken
Ingredients needed:
Crockpot
liquid chicken stock
Mrs. Dash
Garlic
A bag of frozen chicken
Salt and pepper
To cook the chicken: pour the bag of chicken into the crock pot. Turn on Hi. Throw some salt and pepper over the chicken. Add a couple of tablespoons of garlic and a dash of Mrs. Dash. Pour enough stock over all of it to fill about a fourth of the pot.
Now, let the chicken cook all day while you go to school.

II. Prepare  chicken for soup and further meals
Ingredients needed:
Kitchen scissors
platter
quart sized freezer bags
large measuring cup
When you get home, take the chicken out of the crock pot and put it on a large platter. Let it cool. Then, get your kitchen scissors, and cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Pour a cup and a half back into the crock pot. Freeze the rest in 1 1/2 cup increments in quart sized freezer bags.

II. Prepare the Soup
Ingredients needed:
2 cans of Italian style diced tomatoes
1 package of frozen mixed vegatables
1 can garbanzo beans
1/4 cup of instant brown rice
fresh spinach
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1 tablespoon brown sugar
To make the soup: add all of the ingredients above to the chicken already in the crock pot except for the fresh spinach. Cook on high for 2 hours. Add some spinach in the last 30 minutes.
Freeze all remaining soup in individual plastic containers so that you can pull one out and defrost it in the microwave for lunch or supper next week.



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Cooking Meals to Last a Week

You are really, really far away from home. So far away, I can’t drive over in two hours to bring you some home cooking. Did I ever actually do that? I don’t think so, but I love the idea.
Ok, so for a couple of weeks of food for you and Chris, here is the grocery list:
1 pound of ground hamburger meat
2 bags of frozen chicken breasts or strips
2 jars of salsa
2 cans of black beans
2 cans of garbanzo beans
2 boxes of minute brown rice
2 boxes of whole wheat pasta
2 8 oz  blocks of extra sharp cheddar cheese
2 8 oz  blocks of mozzarella cheese
4 cans of diced Italian style tomatoes
2 large boxes of liquid chicken broth (no msgs)
2 cans of corn
2 cans of green beans
2 cans of condensed tomato soup
eggs
spices you will need:
1 jar of garlic
onion flakes
garlic powder
Mrs. Dash
rosmary
italian seasoning
basil
mustard
bay leaves
thyme
cinnamon
vanilla
ground ginger
ground nutmeg

salt
pepper
bbq sauce
olive oil
teriyaki sauce
basalmic vineger
apple cider vinegar
regular vinegar
baking powder
baking soda
cocoa
flour
bread flour
whole wheat flour
sugar

frozen broccoli
frozen green beans
frozen mixed vegetables
frozen spinach

Recipes:
Quick, Easy Tacos (without taco seasoning) , Black Beans and Rice
Step I: Brown the meat
you will need:
frying pan (the big, shallow pan with a long handle)
ground beef
salsa
garlic
salt, pepper
onion flakes
salsa
To brown your meat
-place meat in pan
-turn cooking eye to 7 (or two below hi)
-put in a couple of tablespoons of garlic
-a dash of salt ( a couple of shakes)
-a dash of onion flakes
-dash of Mrs. Dash
break up the meat with a fork and stir while it cooks–the goal is to keep the meat pieces small, to break them up while they are cooking. I do this by squishing it down with the fork and then tossing it around the pan. This also spreads your seasonings evenly.
When the meat is no longer pink at all, throw in some salsa.Three tablespoons or so  should do it. This is to season the meat and make it taste like a taco, so add as much or as little as looks good to you.
Smell it as you go. You can usually tell what else it needs by smell.
*after you cook the meat, set aside half of it to cool, then place in freezer safe bag or plastic box and place in freezer.
Step II: Cook your rice
Ingredients needed:
a box of instant brown rice
salt
olive oil
a small pot (long handle, the medium size deeper pot)
follow the instructions on the box–do add a little salt and olive oil
Step III: Cook your black beans
Ingredients needed:
can of black beans
salsa
a microwave safe bowl (glass, corningware, or ceramic)
To make the beans: pour in the beans and a couple of tablespoons of salsa. Stir, then heat in microwave until bubbly. Be careful not to overcook.
Step IV: Assemble your taco bar
Lay out the following in small plates:
taco shells or tortillas
Grated cheese ( use your cheese grater and grate some cheddar cheese and put it on the plate)
A chopped, fresh tomato
a chopped onion
fresh spinach cut into small pieces
the meat you just browned
A bowl of rice
A bowl of black beans
VOILA! A lovely meal!


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Fired

The vice-regents and governors got together to find some old scandal or skeleton in Daniel’s life that they could use against him, but they couldn’t dig up anything. He was totally exemplary and trustworthy. They could find no evidence of negligence or misconduct. So they finally gave up and said, “We’re never going to find anything against this Daniel unless we can cook up something religious.”
The vice-regents and governors conspired together and then went to the king and said, “King Darius, live forever! We’ve convened your vice-regents, governors, and all your leading officials, and have agreed that the king should issue the following decree:
For the next thirty days no one is to pray to any god or mortal except you, O king. Anyone who disobeys will be thrown into the lions’ den.
“Issue this decree, O king, and make it unconditional, as if written in stone like all the laws of the Medes and the Persians.”
King Darius signed the decree.
When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed and posted, he continued to pray just as he had always done. His house had windows in the upstairs that opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he knelt there in prayer, thanking and praising his God.
Daniel 6:3-10
Daniel was a good worker. He was so thorough, so careful and so successful in his work that his co-workers were jealous and plotted to bring him down.
I have friends like Daniel who have worked hard only to have jealous co-workers plot to bring them down.
Most recently, it was an assoicate pastor brought down by the jealousy of her senior minister. She worked so hard and introduced so many people to the saving grace of Jesus that he began spreading malicious rumors about her. Eventually he was able to fire her. He lives in a posh house forty seven miles from his church and leaves ministering to his associate pastors. He shows up sober enough on Sunday mornings to preach.
Daniel didn’t focus on those co-workers intent on bringing him down.
Instead, he focused on God. He got down on his knees three times a day and gave thanks.
Wow. What a powerful lesson.
In a similar circumstance, I’m afraid my focus would be on those who brought me down, not on God.
My friend followed the guidance of Daniel.
In spite of the pain of her betrayal, she kept her focus and found another church. She poured her energy into a new ministry, and although it was a public ministry rather than a church ministry, she contined to do God’s work with a joyful heart.
Daniel’s story has a happy ending on this earth. The bad guys got punished and the good guy got rewarded.
Go, Daniel.
My friend didn’t get any miraculous rescue from her lion’s den. But she keeps her eyes on Jesus all the same.
Go, Girl.

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Humility

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:12-14

“Oh,” she said, holding my manuscript and shaking her head, “this is defininitely better than one of those trash romances.” 

She meant it as a compliment, but I winced.

“This is a literary, historical romance,” she said, smiling.

I returned a weak smile, my mouth barely able to hold its edges up.

I understood where she was coming from. After all, I had a Ph.D in literature with a Shakespeare dissertation from a university housing one of the country’s leading Shakespeare scholars. I understood literary elitism.

But I had learned humility the hard way.

Eight years ago, I decided I was going to transform myself from writing teacher to writer.

I set out to write the great American romance. In three months, I realized writing a romance was a skill that had very little to do with my scholarly understanding of Reniassance literature, or my ability to teach a classroom full of squirming freshman how to carve out an essay that mattered.

I began practicing my craft and studying the masters.

I found among those “trash romances,” fine writers who could hone a sentence until it sparkled and who could set a scene that stayed in my memory as if I had experienced in real life.

Isn’t that what good writing is about? 
I met the writers of those “trash romances,” and discovered they were intelligent women who worked hard at their craft. Most scored much higher than I ever thought about scoring on their SAT.

So much for smug, literary elitism. I realized quickly how much easier it is to write about literature than it is to write literature.

I was humbled.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves,not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philipians 2:3-4

Writing is, in many ways, the ultimate vanity. In order to continue writing, I have to believe my words are worth reading. But when I step out of the way, when I pray for God to guide my writing, to show me His way, I am no longer writing out of selfish amibition or vain conceit. I am writing because I feel God’s Glory when I write.

Perhaps if God is guiding me,  I will humble myself and learn something from everyone. I will see all writing, indeed, all people, as gifts placed in my path from whom–if I am paying close attention– I can glean understanding, knowledge, wisdom.

If I can see all writing as the human desire to fill that God hole within us, to make sense of what it means to be human, then within all writing I can find God.

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Who is God?

I love Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19:1-18. 
So here is my man, Elijah, facilitator of the greatest show-down between Jehovah God and Baal that the people of Israel have ever witnessed.
Elijah says, “Ok, guys, we’re going to have a contest. Here are the rules. You build an altar, prepare a bull for sacrifice, and then get Baal to light the fire. If Baal lights your fire you win”
There is a murmering among the priests of Baal,  their pointy white hats bauble.
The bedraggled  prophet in his black camel-hair beggar’s garb  has them in a tight spot. If they refuse, they look like frauds.
So they build their altar in the morning, and pray through noon until the sun disappears over the horizon and night falls. They pray, they dance, they scream, they cut themselves until their blood flows, trickling down the sides of their altar.
But their god is silent, and now it’s Elijah’s turn. The drama is heightened by the darkening sky. Evening turns to night and Elijah orders the people to dig a trench around his altar. They want to know why, but no one is brave enough to ask. The trench encircles the altar.
Elijah  places one stone after another on the altar, twelve in all “Asher. Benjamin. Dan. Gad…” There is a rustling among the people, an uncomfortable shifting when they hear their tribe named. It is a reminder that they were called by Jehovah God to be His people, and they have failed.
Elijah  lays out the wood and arranges the bull sacrifice.
 He orders the people to fill a cask with water.  â€śHaven’t we suffered a three-year drought?” they mutter, “where are we going to get a cask of water?” But they find one.
Elijah pours the precious water on the altar. The people gasp. He asks for three more casks, and one after another pours them on the altar, drenching the wood and filling the trench.
Who can ignite this water-soaked wood?
The night is now completely black, not a star in the sky, the moon invisible. Elijah stands and waits.
The air crackles with expectation.
 â€śShow these people, O Lord, that you are God. Bring them back to you,” Elijah says.
And suddenly, the darkness is pierced by light.  Fire falls down burning everything that is not stone, sucking the water from the trench and forcing the people back, a human wave.
Elijah, jubilant, tucks his cloak in his belt, and full of the Power of God, runs ahead of Ahab’s chariot all the way to Jezreel.  The people follow, a victory stampede.
“The Lord, He is God,” they shout.
Elijah is filled with pride.  No one will ever doubt the True God again. He imagines a cozy little house provided for him by God-loyal Ahab. He imagines taking a wife, raising  grandchildren. He has worked long and hard for the Lord his God. At last he can rest. He has earned this reward.
Elijah falls into a deep, contented sleep only to be rudely wakened by his servant who says, “Get up! Jezebel is after you. She is going to kill you when she finds you.”
“What is this?” Elijah can’t believe it. Surely, this is not happening. But he can feel the  hoof beats pounding the earth many miles away. They are coming for him.
He leaves his servant behind, and runs for his life.
 â€śYou know what, God?” He says, angry, defiant now, “I am done. I am done with ALL OF THIS. Just KILL ME already. Do you hear me? Kill me now. Apparantly I am no better than any who have come before me.” I’ve been good. I  deserve better than this.
Bless his heart. This is when I love Elijah the best. He got confused. He thought he was going to be rewarded for all the good things he did for God here on this earth.
Because Elijah is human, he measures rewards in earthly terms. Well, why not? God came down and acted like an earthly ruler; he won the battle through fire and the gory death of the thousand prophets, right?
Even Elijah missed the point. God had to act like a human to get the attention of the children of Israel because they were just that: children.
But Elijah ought to have known better. He had lived with God for decades. He knew how God worked. God was a heart-God.
He has to remind Elijah that all that hooplah, that was just show. That is not who God is.
So the angel taps Elijah on the shoulder. “God is going to appear to you, Elijah,” he says.
First a fire comes. But God isn’t in the fire, subtext: not to be Captain Obvious or anything, but dude, I am not a fire God! 
Next, comes an earthquake Subtext: I’m not an earth God.
Next comes a howling wind, a hurricane: I’m not a wind and rain God!
And then comes a gentle whisper, or sheer silence.
God, Jehovah God,  is in the dramatic moment that is silence.
I am the God of Love and  Mercy.
Can you hear me now?