Waiting on the Lord

In Sunday school this week a guy named Andrew lead worship and it was really good but he really hit on waiting on the lord. As many of you know i have been waiting for some time of my acceptance letter from moody and this week i fond out that i have been excepted to Moody Spokane which is there campus in Washington. I have waited a long time for this knowledge and have cried, lost sleep, and became angry by waiting. But one thing that hit me wail hearing Andrew talk over waiting on the lord after knowing that was when he quoted Psalm 27:13-14

13 I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

He also says that waiting is not fun. And oh so true, but waiting is so important in our walk as Christians. What my waiting brought was contentment. It funny but i said that i was content before i found that i was not excepted for early decision. Truth be told i was not. But i have learned so much these past 9 week or so, I became aware of my need for God. I have grown in my walk like i never have before. Knowing and trusting he with all that i hoped and longed for was hard at first but when i really started believing it, life became so easy. I have loved how my life has been peaceful and just about living to the fullest and serving him. I discovered what my spiritual gifts where, desires i had, hopes i had killed, and new butterfly's in my stomach.

I took a break from blogging as you may had seen and i am planing on being back now but i would recommended most diffidently that if you are in a place of confusion detox form technology for just a small amount of time and go get coffee with someone else. IT helped me. But i am a little different then other people. :)

I am not working on finishing extremely strong in AP Macro Economics's. Working on about 20 art projects that i will get done before the end of the year. Graduation invitations, senior dinner and tea, and lost of college and summer job stuff. Its quite epic.

But to sum up this post...... waiting on the lord is really hard and its not full of easy times but it is the time where you find who you are in Christ and how to live instead of a mundane life style and i came out in a pretty good spot. :)

Songs i listened to on Pandora wail writing this post......
gray or Blue
Jaymay

Little Romance
Ingride michealson

Be ok
Ingride Michealson

Breath In
Frou Frou


How Lucky We are
Meiko

You and I
Ingrid Michealson

Better
Regina Spektor

*All I Want Is you
Tristan Prettyman

Happier
A Fine Frenzy

Reasons to love you
Meiko

Anyone can cook/ cooking with my cousins

So i know that i have taken FOREVER to post and i am sorry. But my cousins are KICK BUTT awesome cooks and i would just like to say that the title of this post is not a reflection on them but on me and Steven. :) Now here are my most excellent recipes for the month of march........

French Crepes
I made crepes with my cousins wail i was on spring break in Phoenix, and they are SUPPER easy to make.
The recipe is just flour, sugar, eggs, salt, milk, and butter.
Mix the dry ingredients together, then mix the butter, milk, and little beaten eggs together and them pour that in with the dry bowl. After it is all mixed and soft looking grab a 1/4 cup and your ready to go.

*Things to remember......
1-Brush the pan EVERY time before pouring the batter in.
2-Pour the batter and then move the pan so you get a nice, even, thin, crepe.
3-And my last advice to you is be bold, flip the crepe. As Julia said you have to have enough courage.Take that risk and laugh if you fail and perfect it for who you are. :)

Greek Taziki Sauce
This sauce will give you one of the best dip/condiments of all time. I also think that it is a really good healthy substitute to sour cream sometimes.
It is Greek yogurt, chives, lemon, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and cucumber.
*CAUTION* this is a recipe that depends on how and what you like, you will want to try it your self first and then make it the way you like it. And it takes time to getting it right every time. I will not tell you the cup and tablespoon amount for me but i will say, don't do a lot of lemon it can over power it, garlic takes time to really develop its flavor, and the cucumber needs to be dice but still pretty big so that you get a good amount of it and a nice texture.

Peanut butter Kawala crisp bars
this is a really good but healthy alternative to rice crispy treats. It is honey, coco powder, peanut butter, and Kawala Crisps(organic cereal). You heat up the peanut butter and honey. once they are pretty smooth you pour in the coco powder and after that is all mix in you pour in the Kawala crisps and mix together it all. After its pretty cool put it into a pan where you push it some what together so that you have thick bars. then cut and enjoy.

Last is Sausage pasta(of cores i wrote a pasta post)
Aunt Terry made this really good pasta that me and mom remade/ tried to make.Aunt Terry's was spice sausage, marinara pasta and then a mild sausage marinara version. Me and mom worked with what we had which was a mildly spice sausage pasta with whole wheat penne rigate pasta. The sauce was a marinara sauce with white wine and tomatoes, and we put it in with the sausage when it was about done. It was fantastic and of course we put Parmesan cheese on the top which little eminently melted on to it. :)

These recipes where really good and the fact that they all where done with or associated with my family makes them even better. My cousins and me had not hung out really since i was little and i went to phoenix with Katy for spring break so just hanging out with them once again was really amazing and i miss them very much. LOVE Y'ALL TONS!!!!!

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

The crust


CHOCOLATE!!!!!


What is in it. :)


Where getting there


Mixing time


Pouring the mixing the crust




Its so beautiful *snifful


Where supper amazing!!!!!

"What do you love to do?" .............."EAT!!!!!!"

So the month of February went by and its now time to post my cooking blog. I have pictures and so i could not post this with out them and so i had to wait for when my moms computer fond its way back to me. SO here are my recipes........

First for single awareness day formally known as valentines day me and my mom made a FABULOUS dessert. It is a dark chocolate cheese cake. It consist of......(this is so good that i actually decide you had to make it just as it says with out "i thinks" mixed with it.)

Ingredients

Crust

• 24 chocolate wafer cookies (from one 9-ounce package)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Filling

• 1 9.7-ounce bar Scharffen Berger 70% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate,* chopped
• 4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Scharffen Berger)
• 4 large eggs

Topping

• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• 6 ounces Scharffen Berger 70% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate,* chopped
• 1 tablespoon sugar

OR

• Bittersweet chocolate curls

Preparation

For crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 3-inch-high sides. Blend cookies in processor until finely ground; blend in sugar. Add melted butter and process until well blended. Press crumbs evenly onto bottom (not sides) of prepared pan. Bake just until set, about 5 minutes. Cool while preparing filling. Maintain oven temperature.

For filling:
Stir chopped chocolate in metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water; cool chocolate until lukewarm but still pourable. Blend cream cheese, sugar, and cocoa powder in processor until smooth. Blend in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in lukewarm chocolate. Pour filling over crust; smooth top. Bake until center is just set and just appears dry, about 1 hour. Cool 5 minutes. Run knife around sides of cake to loosen. Chill overnight.

For topping:
Stir cream, 6 ounces chocolate, and sugar in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until smooth. Cool slightly. Pour over center of cheesecake, spreading to within 1/2 inch of edge and filling any cracks. Chill until topping is set, about 1 hour. Do ahead: Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover with foil and keep refrigerated.

Release pan sides. Transfer cheesecake to platter. (Top with chocolate curls). Let stand 2 hours at room temperature before serving.

SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!

The next recipe that i did was spaghetti and yes this is a little lame after our chocolate cheese cake fiasco but it was still fun to make and eat. And i am not trying to be Martha Stewart meats Babara Walters. But i made it with already made in a jar sauce and whole wheat noodles which where actually really good. Topped with parmasan cheese and toasted bread with butter it was quite enjoiyable. I put a little parmasan cheese in with the noodles after i drained the watter and it was a little weired but it made it a liitle more fun. But tricks that i use when i make pasta are......

• Put your faucet on just hot water and let it heat up so you start with hot water and don't have to wait as long for it to boil.
  
• Put olive oil in with the noodles and water so they wont stick together after you drain them and so they don't have a weird texture if you put olive oil in after you've drained the water.
  
• wine makes any pasta sauce better. But there's a line don't cross it.

The third thing i made this month was more PASTA!!!!! ok so this is kinda cheating kinda not. I wanted to improve or try changing up my homemade pasta recipe that me and mom invented. The cream and Parmesan cheese one. What i did was used angel hair pasta instead of normal/ spaghetti noodles and it really dose make a difference. Its so much thinner and i think it makes all the difference. And instead of fresh tomato on top i put shrimp in. It was supper good. I think that it could be better than the tomatoes. :)

My forth and final recipe is cookies. I made chocolate chip cookies but made them all different. I made Heath bar chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip(best result is with the peanut butter chips instead of using plan peanut butter from the jar, less oil.) And the ones that i liked the best but where a little weird were snikerdoodle chocolate chip cookies. You make the doe and after you start rolling it and its in the shape you want you roll it in cinnamon-sugar. And some may think this sounds gross but i wanted to make something different and we did not have a hole bunch of stuff.

Those are the 4 for this month and well see if i can get more created next month. :)MAKE THE CHEESE CAKE, ITS AWESOME!!!!!!!! :)

Whiplash. haha you don't know why its called this yet. hehehe I think im very funny. :)

what two say. I have no idea where to start.

Images that come to my head are a painting on display in a museum being critiqued, a episode from fairly odd parents on emotion, Francis chains radical video, and a heart enthroned with pain.

I am the painting, unique beautiful and different. I have been a a museum hall for as long as i can remember. And as people passed me by they enjoyed, watched and saw things that where hidden to them over the years. i never thought anything of it. I was given encouragement and love thought out my time there, and i grew. My colors changed, some faded and some glowed over the years. I working on finding out what i was going to be. But one day i was moved to a new hall in that museum. And i enjoyed the life i had there but thought of the old room i use to be sometimes. After sometime i was able to return on a short expedition to my old little hall. But i was not embraced with open arms; i fond that it was changed. The people that once passed by me and looked on with kind eyes had a tune of disappointed written all over them. They were filled with harsh, ugly, judgmental words. They watched what i did wail i was there. How i appered, what frame i wore, and just how i interacted with my old friends in my similar hall. And if i did anything that demed me unworthy of their time i diffidently heard about it or saw their discontentment. After my expedition was over i when back to my second hall but fond that i was not feeling right. Like i have a new adventurer coming to take me to wear i will truly feel right but i don't know what to do until then. And that disheartens me.

Fairy odd parents is a show i watched with Steven in jr. high. There is an episode where Timmy(the main character) asked his fairy god parents (Cosmo and Wanda) to take away his emotions. And of course you can't just wish them away so they have to come out of you and be put in a box. well timmy has to go to school but he can't allow his emiontons to fall into the wrong hands so Cosmo the most unintelligent and irresponsible of the trio is left in charge of them. The since that comes to mind this week and this weekend was where Cosmo opened up the box and all the emotions ask out who they are against each other. So Angry started beating up Happy, Jealousy and Envy argue about who love's Love more, Fear is hiding under the bed, and bravery is about to jump out the window with common sense is telling him that he should not do it. Wail Cosmo is in terrible trouble telling them all to stop and to put them in the box witch them came out of. And wail its quite comical it was what felt like my life this past week/weekend. All my emendations where out of control wail i was frantically trying to act and be presentable.

Francis Chain has this video that is quite amazing that i really like. Is just a small clip but it is really awesome and it talks about being a radical christian which is something that i am wanting to have more of in my life. And i have spent 10 min. looking of the quote and have not fond it yet so i am going to post this and them add it latter.

But the heart in pain is just a picture in my head right now and maybe a better way to put it is i have a heavy heart. Just maxed out on life. But it is feeling liter, because i meat with Francie today and we talked about who god was. Like we where talking about these thoughts and some other things that i am going thought and them we stopped and started listing off characteristics and just saying who God is and for all my emotions and questions he was the answer because he causes all thing to happen for good, he loves me aboundently, he knows what those people are going thought, and he has all in his hands and under control and i don't have to worry. These where jsut a few of my thoguths about him ofcourse the list was much longer. But i jsut need to wright and get them down and out away from me so i would not worry about them any more. It just m getting them out. SO sorry for my whiplash y'all i did not give you very much clarity hu? Well a cooking blog is coming so just hold on till then. :)

the mashmellow wall.

So i promised Francey that i would post this and so that is the meaning behind this.

On Tuesdays i meet with my mentor Francey. I look forward to it every week. I totally completely love it. Me and her are very similar which makes it so fun to meet her. We have been reading a book right now and so we read a chapter every week and then talk about it.

But the marshmallow wall is a example that i used to describe how i feel like we need to act. And it was all that i could come up with. It shows the 2 sides of a Godly women. We need to be soft and yet still protective of our hearts at the same time. The marshmallow wall is soft and still lovely wail dealing with conversations and just life in general. But you still need to protect your self in the area of not having gossip and hard times and yes it gets sticky and deformed sometimes when life gets hard and it beats you down. But the wall enables you to show and give love and be a good example, But you are not mean and harsh. You are soft, sweet, pure, comforting, and lovely. wail; still being protective,smart, and a women of integrity.

And that is the marshmallow wall.

Julie & Julia

A movie that i saw over winter break was Julie & Julia. It is a beautiful movie about two extraordinary women who face huge struggles in different time spectrum's and how one impacts the other.

How such is Julia Child is a wife of a diplomat who is located in Paris. Julia looks for a hobbies wail they are stationed there and finds a huge talent hidden in cooking. She goes on to wright a cook book and it ends up in the hands of a Mrs. Julie Powell 40 some odd years latter. Julia is a 30, underemployed new yorker who is looking for a way to allow her inter writer to come out. But as i said she comes across a cook book that changed her life. She started a blog stating in the begging that she was going to cook 524 recipients in a time period of 1 year. They both faces every obstacle possible but continues down these crazy journey.

Well i am not a Julie or a Julia but i am taking on a challenge. I am going to cook 4 recipes at least every month and then wright about them to you. I will offer challenges that i faced and ideas to change or make the recipes even more amazing for special occasions. And i know i missed the ball on January but i did make a few things i helped with that my mom made. Our success came from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and Bon Appetit. But that dose not include our awesome improvements. :)

1- We made a amazing pasta dish consisting of minced garlic, shredded Parmesan cheeses, olive oil, white win, half & half, and butter because butter makes everything better. Put in garlic and olive oil first after the garlic is melting add in the cheese and wine. After the cheeses is melted put in some half & half. it should be very thin and soupy. Taste it and use your own opinion to see if you need to add any more or if you think its missing something. The sauce was a amazing mixture of creamy light but thin texture but it had a pretty strong taste because of the win. And it was KICK BUTT AWESOMENESS. :)The pasta was simple angle haired with a little bit of olive oil in it to stop it from sticking together. Cook like the instructions say. Heat to a boil, put in for 8 min. with a splash of olive oil, drain and server. We mixed the sauce and pasta together and then finished it off with some very rip and fresh tomatoes, diced them, and sprinkled them on top of the pasta after its severd on plates. Save the rest if you have any and hid it from roommates or your spouse and take it for a easy lunch the next day.
*This recipes can also be used for a wonderful dip. Just change out the pasta with toasted bread and you have a superb dip for a curtail event or a snack dinner for two.

2-I made a rice crispy treat dessert and yes this is Jr. high stuff but it is making it up on the blog as a recipe because i finally was able to use some of my marshmallow puff mixture that i got for my survival kick form my friends at the beginning of the summer. Yes i mean June 10 of 2009 was when i got it. But luckily for me and the puff stuff it NEVER expires and i had never opened it so it was still air compressed or what ever its called. I used both marshmallows and the puff stuff because i did not have enough real marshmallows so the last ounce was puff. Heat 4 tablespoons of butter up in the microwave(best invention ever) then put in your marshmallow and puff and heat up on high for about a minuet and a half till they are a could of sugar goodness. DO NOT watch them exploded, its not worth it. :) Them add in about 7 cups of the rice crispy's. After all mixed up put in a like 9 by 13 pan and wait till they are cooled. It was really good and it was all gone by 11 o'clock that night. :) it was made with love which is how you must always enter the kitchen or your food will never be a success. Or so said my very wise head chef boss sir. Otherwise know as Mr.sir or Todd.
*Thoughts for next time Wail heating up the marshmallows but in both red and blue food coloring to make a black color. And use chocolate rice crispy instead, to make a Halloween or just different treat.

3-OK to start the new year right Me and my mom made a cake that was GREAT!!(Bon Appetit). Its a devil's food cake with peppermint frosting which is composed of two cakes with coco powder in it and so it is a dark bitter but very good chocolate cake. With a chocolate ganache and white chacolate cream in between cake layers. You cut the cakes in two so you will have four layers. So it will be cake, ganache, cream, cake, ganach, cream, cake, ganache, cream, cake. You can them make the pepermint frosting by hand, or for new years eve drissle the remander ganache on the whole thing.
*You WILL need to put strais into the ckae so that it dose not fall over.

4- Another pasta we made was a shrimp tomato pasta(from The Pioneer Woman Cooks). Which had Shrimp, olive oil, onion, garlic cloves, white wine, tomato sauce, heavy cream, basil, pepper, and butter because butter makes EVERYTHING better. Pasta is pasta so make it like you normally would. We put half the butter and olive oil in a pan first on medium heat after butter is metaled cook shrimp in it for 2 min. Then put the remaining olive oil and butter in a new pan and add garlic and onion (both diced) cook till they become golden and translucent. Pour in wine, then the tomato sauce after the wine has sat for a min. Reduce heat to low and then add cream. Strum together and then add the shrimp. after mixing that put in the basil and pepper(and parsley but we where out), mix, add pasta stir and LOVE!!!

If you would like to get the exacts measure for these recipes let me know but really measures are not as much fun as going at it with your kitchen. :) I hope you will follow my journey but even start your own. But i will end this blog with what i think Julia Child and Julie Powell would by saying........

Bon Appetit!!!