Recipes

What is agar?

What's for dinner?

The questions that is asked every day by every wife... what's for dinner? If you are smart you've got a weekly menu (or a monthly menu, if you are brilliant. I am not.) from which you can remind yourself, "Oh yeah, we're having ______ for dinner tonight.

This is a fun one. I bought a sirloin roast on sale -- $1.38 per lb!! It's been in my freezer for 2 weeks now and I pulled it out yesterday and told it that it would be eaten in less than 24 hours. It promptly defrosted. Good boy.

Meat is such fun now that I am married. It really scared me for a while because I hadn't really practised meat when I lived at home. I made lots and lots to ground beef recipes.

So here I am about to enbark upon another meat experiment. Note to self: don't plan anything else on a "Meat Experiment" day. :-)

Here is where I am getting my recipe! Complete with pictures too!

Enjoy!

Be Fruitful and Multiply

"Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominon over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" -Genesis 1:28

This dominion mandate is easily divided into two commandments as stated in the middle of the chiasm: "fill the earth" and "subdue it". We assign the female to the role of filling the earth and it the lot falls to her to people the world. But is this only answer to the Lord calling?

"but all the members do not have the same function...having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them." -Romans 12:4, 6

Perhaps she says to herself, "I can never have children" or "perhaps I will never marry." And yet the commandment is still directed towards us. "Be fruitful!" "Multiply!" How Lord? How can I accomplish this?

Remembering that you can not accomplish anything. You must remember that all things are from the Lord. He brings two together to make one; that He opens and closes the womb; that He brings the rains in the spring and the sun in the summer for the multiplication at harvest. Rembering that God is the one who does all this, what has He multiplied for you? How has He increased your number? Be thankful for that increase, whether it be related to only you, or if your husband got a promotion, or if he got a compliment, or if you were given a new opportunity.

Thanks be to God for a faithful husband, good jobs for us, an increase in wealth, a growth in maturity, and a desire for more.

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of you heart." -Psalm 37:3,4

Chocolate Cream Pie

One of the first recipes shown on the movie Julie and Julia is Chocolate Cream Pie. Julie says, "No matter how awful the day was at work, melted chocolate whisked into egg yolks will always firm up and make a pudding." Today was one of those days so I made a chocolate cream pie.

I bought Bakers semi-sweet chocolate from Winco. It comes in an 8 oz. box with each 1 oz cube individually wrapped! Cute!! I found this pie recipe online and substituted 2 cups soy milk for the regular non-Jesse milk and added 1 Tablespoon of almond extract. It lost a bit of the chocolate flavor; rats! Next time I'll leave out the almond or decrease it by half, but I was trying to mask the soy taste (I tend to notice these things).

Happy Kitchen Time to You!

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9 inch) pie shell, baked

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine sugar, flour, milk, and chopped up chocolate in 2 quart saucepan. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until mixture begins to bubble. Continue stirring for 2 minutes.

2. Mix a little of the hot mixture into the egg yolks, beating rapidly to avoid cooking the yolks. Stir the warm yolk mixture into the remainder of the chocolate mixture, and cook for an additional 90 seconds. Remove from heat, and stir in butter or margarine and vanilla.

3. Pour filling into pie shell, and chill until set. Top with whipped topping, and a little grated chocolate

Jesse took me to see the movie Julie & Julia this afternoon. It was wonderful; I laughed, I cried, "it moved me, Bob". We walked home and discussed the 2 characters. Jesse called it a "Plutarch plot"; comparing 2 characters against each other. My favorite was Julia Child played by Meryl Streep, if only for the fact that she was protrayed as more feminine. I loved her cheerfulness and courage in the toughest times ("I am SO happy" and "well, I certainly was busy"). I feel like that is not me, but it's who I am becoming. Jesse loves me so much when I am strong, when I am couragous and thankful and contented. I strive for subduing my selfishness and taking dominion over my sin so that I may be 1)more God-like and, 2)more lovely for my husband.

I came home from the movie and read 3 cookbooks on cakes and eggs. Then I fried french bread in sausage grease, poached 2 eggs (for the first time in my life) and didn't poach a third (yuck.) and made a hollendaise sauce (also a new recipe for me). Jesse and I had our evening snackers and then he asked me to make French toast. He's a sucker for sweets and I'm a sucker for him. I made the French Toast.

This evening Jesse found 2 blogs by Julie Powell. The "salon" blog is the original blog which the book and latter the movie are based on. It's still on the web and comments have been made in the past recent months, but only fans are reading it now. Julie is currently posting on a blogspot. It's pretty good. Curse words are visible, however. View with a grain of salt and tongue in cheek.

http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/

http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html

My Neighbor Totoro

Do you remember watching My Neighbor Totoro when we were really little? I think our cousins brought it from Boise when they came to visit. Anyways we watched the movie during a rest time (I think it was a nap time for the little kids) at Grandma's house. I remember liking it, but Grandma didn't.

My husband introduced me to the films of Hayao Miyazaki. He wrote and directed films like "Howel's Moving Castle", "Castle in the Sky", "Porco Roso", etc. I watche all those with Jesse before realizing he also did the Totoro movie. So I got it this week and we watched it. Pros and cons.



The characters in the story are very well drawn. It was reviewed as a rare film where the kids really act like kids. And they do! Running around, the little sister following the big sister and mimicking her. It was very amusing to watch the family's interaction. The father was pretty good too; enjoying his children and loving them up. I really did enjoy them in the story.

The story was good too. About a family that moved from the city to the country because the mom was sick (and in the hospital) and she needed the clean country air. The children explore their new home and find "forrest spirits" (as they say in the translated English). The father doesn't contracdict this, but even teaches his daughters to ask the forest spirits to protect them when they play in the forrest. At one point in the story, the two girls get caught in a rainstorm and find shelter at some form of an ancestor memorial. The girls again bow and ask for shelter til the storm is over.

Although spirits and demons dwell on this earth with us, they have been put under our Brother's feet. God has commanded us to put all things to submission under Him. This includes spirits and forrest fairys. We have no need to ask for their protection when we are protected by the Protector Creator. We have no need to ask for shelter when we are sheltered by the Storm Maker. We bow in reverence to no one, but Him.

This movie might be a good one to use to teach some of these things, but at the same time I think it's one to show the kids when they are older and can talk through these things. Our toddlers up to teenagers probably have enough outside play time and books and other movies that they don't need this one.