I am in Awe of how my Heavenly Father is continuously taking that which is unlovely, broken or discarded in and around me and creates something of great beauty and value. How He is able to take the difficulties and even the tragedies of life and use them to perfect and refine us into someone that brings Him Glory...to bring Beauty from the Ashes.
This morning, this adorable little basket was filled with Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I knew I should have taken a picture....if you look closely, you will see the grease evidence on the red napkin. There were a minimum of 6 dozen cookies in this basket, I kid you not.
It was oh so cute too, the girls and I felt like Little Red Riding Hoods....just wishing we could deliver these to Grandma.
Who does this to a perfectly good cookie!?!?!?
Scavengers I tell you!
Well, since there were no grandmas within delivery range, the girls had friends over to go sledding and Mike had an overnight Gaming Buddy....and this is what is left of my sweet little basket of cookies.
Sorry Nanny.
We were thinking of you.
~~~~~
Now, you all understand why Christmas Baking must be frozen in this house if there is any to be left for Santa on Christmas Eve.
Even still, I am afraid to look in my cookie containers stored away in the freezer....I have noticed a lid or 2 sitting helterskelter on more than one occasion.
Now, these little guys....were made by my ever so artistic daughters yesterday. There is a replica of every family member including Kallie and Tutter, (our pets).
Heaven forbid that anyone dare to touch one of THEIR creations...
and yet..........
WHO ATE MARIA!?!??!?!??!
hmmm.....Jianna appears to be missing a hand as well!
1/4 cup quality white chocolate -- coarsely chopped
1/4 cup minced candied ginger
For Frosting:
4 ounce cream cheese -- softened
1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon butter -- softened
2 teaspoon orange juice
For Garnish:
2 Tablespoons minced dried cranberries
2 Tablespoons minced candied ginger
1/3 cup white chocolate chips -- melted
Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a jelly roll pan. Beat butter and sugar together for the cakebase, and add eggs/vanilla beating until fluffy.
Sift together flour, ginger, and salt and then add to the butter/sugar mixture beating well.
Fold in the cranberries, chocolate, zest and ginger.
Spread thick batter in pan and bake for about 15 minutes or until light golden. When cake is cooled, mix all frosting ingredients together and spread a thin layer over the cake. Immediately sprinkle with the minced cranberries & ginger. Then use a cake decorating bag of melted white chocolate with a tiny decorating tip (the size used for writing on cakes) and drizzle the chocolate over the cake. Cut into bars immediately as the white chocolate hardens pretty fast and makes cake cutting messy.
I initially cut 6 x 4 squares, then cut each square on the diagonal to make 48 triangles.
This is one of those wonderfullly simple recipes that just screams "SUMMER". Mind you, looking at the photo right now....I am thinking this is going on my list of Tree Trimming Party Foods this weekend. Actually, if it wasn't 10:38 at night, I think I'd be heading to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make it right now....Soooooo Yummy....and guilt free!!
Ingredients
8 Ripe Tomatoes
1 Med Onion
1/2 Seeded Jalapeno finely chopped
1 Fresh Lime
4-6 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 Bunch Fresh Cilantro chopped
Procedure
Chop onions and tomatoes and toss together in med sized bowl.
Add chopped Jalapeno and chopped garlic.
Sprinkle with salt.
Squeeze juice of lime into the bowl. (Microwaving the lime for 20 or so seconds will enable you to squeeze more juice)
Add chopped Cilantro, stir together.
Let set in fridge for 1 hour if possible before serving.
I know, on first glance, you are thinking..." what in the world?!??!?! I am NOT making that let alone eating it!'
This is just one of those times where you are going to have to do a wee bit of self talk, "Has Jen EVER posted a recipe that was lacking in flavor? Has she led me astray even slightly when it comes to taste?"
Believe me, these babies are incredible....I served them to 10 people the very first time I made them. Six of which were kids....there was not one unhappy tastebud in the bunch. In my world, if a main course passes the multiple kid test....it is worth repeating.
I served them with Fresh Pico for which I will post the recipe following this one. It's simple, fresh very healthy and Divine.
In my family of 6, only one child and myself like fresh tomatoes...ALL of my family loves this stuff and eats it by the cup full.
Ingredients
2-½ cups Cooked, Shredded Chicken
2 cups Reserved Broth From Chicken
1 Tablespoons Canola Oil
12 Tortillas (I like to use Spinach tortillas...my theory, "If it's green, it's gotta have some nutritional value")
1 Bell Pepper Chopped
1 whole Large Onion, Diced
1/2 Jalapeno, Seeded And Finely Diced
1 teaspoon Paprika
½ cups Heavy Cream
2 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Flour
1 cup Sour Cream
2-½ cups Monterey Jack Cheese, Grated (or Mozzarella)
Salt And Pepper, to taste
Cilantro, Chopped
Preparation Instructions
Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil in skillet over medium heat. Add onions, peppers and jalapenos and saute for 1 minute, just to start the cooking process. Add chicken, , and 1/2 teaspoon paprika. Stir together. Add 1/2 cup chicken broth and stir. Add cream and stir, allowing mixture to bubble and get hot. Turn off heat and set aside.
In a separate large skillet, melt butter and sprinkle in flour. Whisk together and cook over medium heat for one minute. Pour in 1 1/2 cups chicken broth. Whisk together and cook for another minute or two. Reduce heat, then stir in sour cream. Add 1 1/2 cups grated cheese and stir to melt. Add 1/2 teaspoon paprika. Check seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.
To assemble, spoon chicken mixture on top of tortillas, one by one. Top with plenty of cheese and roll up. Place seam side down in a 9 x 13 casserole dish.
Pour cheese mixture all over the top of the tortillas. Top with extra cheese if you’d like, then bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Sprinkle generously with chopped cilantro.
These incredible brownies are a favorite from my years living on the Ranch.
I recently sent them to my oldest son in University who shared them with friends. I am posting this recipe in response to their requests for a copy.
I have to say, these would certainly help keep you awake for late night exam cramming.
Ingredients
1 pkg. (18.25 oz.) chocolate cake mix
1 cup chopped nuts ( Optional )
2/3 cup Evaporated Milk (canned)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
50 caramels, unwrapped
1cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
Procedure
Melt Caramels and 1/3 cup milk in microwave or over med heat on stove top.Grease and flour 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan.
In large mixing bowl, combine dry cake mix, butter, 1/3 cup milk and nuts. Press 1/2 mixture into pan. Reserve rest for top.
Bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes.
Sprinkle chocolate pieces over baked portion.
Spread caramel mixture over chocolate pieces.
Spoon reserved dough over caramel mixture. (this part is tricky...easiest way is to flatten bits of dough and place over caramel...covering as much Caramel as possible )
Return to oven and bake 15 minutes. Cool slightly.
Refrigerate about 30 minutes and cut into squares.
This is a recipe I found a few years back and received rave reviews as well as requests for the recipe when I took them in to work. I LOVE pumpkin pie and still can't have Thanksgiving without it but if you don't like or are intimidated by making pie crusts and still love pumpkin pie filling...you really must try this recipe. So, So Yummy it really is sinful that it is so easy to make.
The recipe says to cut it into 12 but if you are wanting to serve along side other desserts, cut it into smaller taste size squares.
Ingredients:1 box plain yellow cake mix 4 eggs 1 cup brown sugar 1 can (30 oz. size) pumpkin 1 cup margarine or butter 2/3 cup milk 1 tablespoon cinnamon ( I added 1/2 tsp ginger and 1/2 tsp nutmeg)
1/2 cup brown sugar
Directions:
Reserve 1 cup of the cake mix. Set aside. Melt 1/2 the margarine and mix with remaining cake mix and 1 beaten egg. Spread in bottom of 9 x 13-inch greased Pyrex dish. Mix together the first measure of brown sugar, the milk, cinnamon, remaining beaten eggs, and pumpkin. Pour over cake mix layer. Combine the reserved cup of cake mix, remaining brown sugar and the remaining softened margarine. Crumble over pumpkin layer and bake 45 minutes at 350degreesF. Serve warm, or chill in refrigerator. Cut in squares and serve with whipped cream or whipped topping.
(click the link above if you would like to read the first and second parts)
After having spent a couple of days reacquainting with a few of my friends from a life time ago and with this county that was once my home, a peace began to settle in.
There had been no episodes of panic, no fear or nightmares clouding my nights. In fact, I was laughing over old memories as my friends and I caught up. We talked and talked about the good times that had drawn us all together as teens. There was a tear or two at the absolute disbelief that we were actually all together after so many years...and really, it was as if a single day had never passed.
We caught up on most of what had transpired in the 22 years since and we made wonderful new memories which were more and more over shadowing the old.
Together, we visited some of our favorite places...Melmerby Beach at Midnight was pure perfection. We walked the down town streets during a street fair
complete with East Coast music.
I was completely taken by surprise at the many positive changes that had occurred in this town in the years since I had left.
George Street Bridge that crossed the East River, connecting East and West New Glasgow had a new sign erected over top and to me it was a powerful declaration:
"New Glasgow
Flourish"
... truly she had and was.
The town I remembered as struggling and sleepy was alive, vibrant and full of places and events to attract visitors and to encourage her residents to come out and celebrate all that she had become.
My heart felt full knowing that a place I had once known as home was not becoming a ghost town or a retirement town as I had anticipated...she had become more alive and more beautiful and prosperous with each year that had passed.
Having initially driven by some of the places that were once a part of my daily life and having faced some of the darkness that I had thought might still have a hold on me, it was time to venture out alone to walk the streets, to photograph some memories and to just stand on my own seeing and feeling whatever might come.
I knew I wanted pictures of my schools, of the streets, the beautiful East River that as teens we crossed via a train bridge to go and hang out at the mall.
Many a day saw screaming, running girls flying across that thing sure they would have to jump into the river to be saved from the impending trains that we always heard...in our imaginations more often than in reality. To be honest...there were a few close calls, but they could never create a barrier between us,
the mall and friendship!
There were so many places I wanted to visit and to photograph but I had still not reconciled in my mind if my old house would be one of them.
In my mind, that house held more darkness, fear and trauma than it did happiness...and it was one of the places for which I did not wholly trust my emotions. I suppose the emotions themselves were not the greatest fear by this point, it was the pain that I might feel which would bring on the emotions.
As I'd mentioned in previous posts concerning that time of my life, I had learned to push down pain and to stifle emotion...yet, I had come to learn that pushing them deep down inside and ignoring them, does not cause them to magically disappear. Pain and emotion are not to be feared and silenced, they are to be felt and released...there in lies the freedom from their grip.
This I know intellectually and had even experienced concerning other areas of my life....yet old patterns are difficult to break and there was still a tendency to equate pain with something that was bad or wrong.
I began to liken it to being a mother of a young child with a deep sliver in their hand.
That child will hide and refuse to even tell you that the sliver exists in order to avoid the inevitable pain of having the sliver removed. I know as a mom, I have on more than one occasion, been party to holding tightly to a screaming child in order to have a large sliver extracted.
I never once did this so that my child would experience more pain, in fact, I soooo wished I could do it without hurting them at all...but never the less, leaving that thing in place was likely to cause infection and even greater pain than if I became the source of temporary pain now but got rid of that foreign object that should never have found it's way into my child's flesh.
I began to realize there is pain from injury or infection and there is also pain with a purpose.
Sometimes, even willingly, we have to endure a level of discomfort or even pain, in order to be free from something that does not belong or as in childbearing, to receive something that is an absolute joy and gift.
I was unsure of my own reactions but had decided my house was something that needed facing. I had determined that I would in all likelihood take some pictures of it and would decide later if I wanted to keep or delete them.
As I drove down my old street, photographing street signs, I remembered walking by certain houses daily on the way to and from school. I saw the house that always gave out pop to the earliest trick or treaters at Halloween. A stain glass window, long forgotten, now taking me right back to those days of having been a part of this world. The house where my Youth Pastor and his wife had once lived.
Then as I approached my old house, I noticed an elderly lady picking berries from the property. I was concerned a stranger taking pictures of her home might be quite a fearsome thing to this little lady so I decided to stop and ask permission.
I asked her if she lived there and explained that I had lived in the house many years ago. She began to recollect the family she'd heard had been the previous owners and after some brief confusion it was clear that it was indeed the Pateys she was remembering.
Her name, she told me was Marie and she had read my mother's obituary in the Halifax paper 11 1/2 years previous. My mother's name was Donna-Marie....interesting "coincidence" I thought.
Marie informed me she had no problem with me taking pictures of the house and went so far as to invite me to come in. I had not at all expected this and was taken aback a bit. though I had prepared myself for many scenarios and emotions...actually being in the house was never one of them. I felt safe enough at that moment and after double checking that this dear old lady was sure she wanted to invite a stranger into her home, I followed her inside. I met Marie's 90 year old husband George, who didn't seem to so much as blink
at his wife bringing this unknown woman
into their home.
My eyes scanned the kitchen which had been redecorated but was laid out with table and chairs exactly as my mom had arranged hers. I followed Sweet Marie into the living room which was brighter now and whose walls were lined with the memories of this dear lady's life.
Memories that she began to share with me one by one.
How they had lived many years in Ontario but had decided in their 40's that it was time to come home to NS.
Then, with the wisdom that can only be learned after living an entire lifetime, this 85 year old stranger spoke my heart right back to me.
"There is just something about the Sea you know, once you have lived near her, she becomes a part of you and eventually calls you home"
As Marie shared with me her life's memories, I looked around and remembered some of my own from what seemed like a life time ago. Simple things like an unchanged light switch cover or the window reminded me of the many sparkling decorations my mom used to prepare this room for Christmas. I remembered the sectional couch that once sat where Marie's own chesterfield now was and the many, many friends who had once sat there with me and my siblings, laughing and visiting.
After I heard about Marie and George's love for music, their band that eventually had to stop playing as George could no longer hear the music, of how Marie at 85, still went down to the Seniors' home periodically to play for the residents...I thought of my own mom and how she would be so happy to know that music was such an important part of the lives of this couple who now called this house "home".
Marie took me on a tour of the upstairs.
She showed me the bathroom whose panelling she had never changed because she really liked what my parents had done. I remembered wrestling with my siblings, my pregnant Aunt Karen and my dad who won by piling us all on top of each other in the bath tub...with Karen on top to keep the baby safe.
The rooms seemed so much smaller than I had remembered them, the decorating had been changed and many of their uses had changed as well. My bedroom was now an office and was really the only room that gave me a hint of the emotion I had feared. Truthfully, it was not even that bad...I simply had a knot in my stomach and decided I did not want to be in that room.
Having faced not only the house of my youth, but even the rooms, seeing the changes and hearing the stories that now belonged here...I was able to say good bye to Sweet Marie and my house with the full realization that this place did not and never would have a hold on me again.
I walked out that door just a little bit freer than I had walked in and I was very, very thankful to my God.
I could never have orchestrated or anticipated the events that transpired that day and in all honesty, I don't believe there is another possible scenario of people who could have been living in that home, that would have made it feel like such a very safe place to be. This was no longer my house with all of the negative memories, this was Marie and George's house. A house I once lived in....a house where a lot of good times were had as well.
It was just that...a house.
I am in awe of the depth of healing and freedom that took place in that one day...yet it was the most gentle of surgeries I could ever have imagined.
My heart was so very full as I drove away...another giant had been slain and I was indeed,
