Mike's power muffins

We are trying to lower our cholesterol. That means an improvement in our diet. Mike has been making these muffins, he calls them "power muffins", and eating 2 every morning for breakfast. I have been eating 1 because I am afraid of what my stomach would feel like after 2. He doesn't use a recipe but some of the ingredients that he incorporates are: bananas, raisins, oat flour, oat bran, flax seed, spelt, wheat germ,  agave or stevia, sweet potatoes or carrots, apple, applesauce and spices. I like to have a spoon of organic, natural peanut butter and a tall glass of skim milk with mine. They are packed with fiber and are very delicious. In a couple of months, maybe we will see some results...lower cholesterol.

Easy, Delicious White Pizza

I made these to go with a spaghetti supper one night for everyone on our beach vacation. They were really delicious, so I made them again for movie night at church. Those were even better because a friend of mine gave me some of his homemade mozzarella to use. If you would like to have a supper quick and delicious meal.....here you go.

White Pizza
1 refrigerated thin pizza crust (I used Pillsbury and it was wonderful)
garlic oil
3 cups grated mozzarella
8 oz. whole milk ricotta cheese
grated parmesan cheese
chopped fresh oregano
chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper

 Make garlic oil by placing 2 chopped cloves of garlic in 1/2 cup olive oil. Heat for 1 minute in the microwave. Let the garlic infuse the oil for at least 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350. Place the crust on a parchment lined cookie sheet (oiled with the garlic oil). Spread garlic oil over the crust as well, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and prebake for 5 minutes. Layer the mozzarella cheese and fresh oregano (you could use dried). Dollop the ricotta cheese on top. Sprinkle on the parmesan cheese, then salt and pepper again. Bake until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is browned. Add chopped fresh basil and drizzle with the garlic oil. Cut into squares and serve. The plain cheese ones are our favorite but you can add any additional items you desire. I made one with fresh chopped tomatoes and one with pepperoni, so good!

25 years

Happy Anniversary to my husband....25 years with you. It has been amazing.

Helping Out

Peanut Butter Fudge balls.

In Bible School this year, we focused on helping others. We made 50 packages of this peanut butter fudge to give to the local Community Kitchen. We are a small, rural area but the need to feed the hungry is large. This community kitchen feeds 400 people twice a month and also distributes food boxes to them. I wanted the kids to feel like they helped in some way. Rest assured that we only sent the completely "clean" batches-those of you who cook with kids know what I mean. If you would like to try this with a group, here is the recipe I used:

1/2 stick softened butter

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar (you may not need all of it, add it a little at a time).

Mix all ingredients together and knead it with your hands when it becomes too thick to stir. Make into one inch balls or pat into a rectangle and cut into squares. For really little kids, it is fun to make the fudge ahead of time and let them use it for "play dough" before they eat it.

We made 4 batches and divided it into 50 packages of 3 balls. And they had some left to eat of course!

It was nice to focus on making something to give away.

4th of July-Celebrate!

I think this is one of the best celebrity performances of  "The Star Spangled Banner" that I've ever seen. I hope you enjoy it. Happy 4th of July!

South of Broad

This is the Pat Conroy book that I am reading and it is getting good!

Excerpt from Chapter One:

On June 16, 1969, a series of unrelated events occurred: I discovered that my mother once had been a Roman Catholic nun in the Sacred Heart order; an Atlas moving van backed into the driveway of a nineteenth- century Charleston single house across the street from ours; two orphans arrived at the gates of St. Jude’s Orphanage behind the cathedral on Broad Street; and the News and Courier recorded that a drug bust had taken place on East Bay Street at the Rutledge- Bennet house. I was eighteen, with a reputation as a slow starter, so I could not feel the tectonic shift in my fate as my history began to launch of its own volition. It would be many years before I learned that your fate could scuttle up behind you, touch you with its bloody claws, and when you turn to face the worst, you find it disguised in all innocence and camouflaged as a moving van, an orphanage, and a drug bust south of Broad. If I knew then what I have come to learn, I would never have made a batch of cookies for the new family across the street, never uttered a single word to the orphans, and never introduced myself to the two students who were kicked out of Porter- Gaud School and quickly enrolled at my own Peninsula High for their senior year.
But fate comes at you cat-footed, unavoidable, and bloodthirsty. The moment you are born your death is foretold by your newly minted cells as your mother holds you up, then hands you to your father, who gently tickles the stomach where......





I have to get back to the novel...the main character has been confronted by a psychotic stranger in an alley, who is apparently the father of the new girl next door. And...he has a knife.

Contemplating the full moon

June 13,  2011      Cooks Point Texas

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.
Carl Sandburg



“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”

George Carlin


“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

Mother Teresa


“The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.”

William Shakespeare


“Don't tell me the sky is the limit, there are footprints on the moon!”

Dorothy Parker


“Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.”

John Lennon