Raspberries and Houseguests put the Extra in Extraordinary

It's a busy week. I suppose they all are! God wants us to be busy, not bored, I'm convinced! Katie has her friend Erica from California here, and they and her friend Haley are busy trying to fill the time as full as possible without it popping. They've had orange chicken at Haley's for lunch and hung around making an O Canada rap video together; they had carne asada at our house for dinner, hung around Haley's house again overnight, and then come back to ours; yesterday we all went raspberry picking--and picked a ton or so. Then they made some jam for Haley to take home. Alas, Erica probably can't take it home on the plane without it bursting. (Today, of course, I will Lord willing be making oodles of jam for ourselves and hopefully for gift giving.) I gave everyone a spoonful of the remaining jam after the jars were filled; I guess I was the only one who loves jam as much as I do. In fact, Erica was skeptical still about the jam, its texture, because actually, she had never tasted jam (she's probably the only one remaining in the U.S. who had never had jam, ever ever). After they made jam, and had carne asada leftovers, they went (as if that wasn't enough activity for a day) to a midnight showing of a Batman movie that Katie balked at but the others talked her into--and came in at 3 a.m. all hating the movie, and slept a good while into the day.
This morning (or was it early afternoon? I don't remember), I made them some pancakes and they put jam on them. I think we've made our case for jam, because Erica liked them with jam on them, didn't use the syrup I also put out. I feel like I did some jam evangelism. If spoon-feeding the gospel were only so easy! And now they are pondering the rest of their day; they've all taken some turns on the computer facebooking with friends and whatnot. I think they'll be out for the afternoon, while I make jam. I'm glad that they are as independent as they are, able to entertain themselves some of the time, because my hospitality is only any good in fits and starts, and then I have to attend to boring stuff like Costco runs and grocery shopping and jam making.
So it's a very ordinary post, on a rather ordinary but also extraordinary day at our house, without a particular point to it. I hope your day is as pleasant as ours, even if it is as ordinary. And may you be blessed with a taste of fresh raspberry jam, as well.

A Christmas recipe from me to you

Here's a present from me to you--my grandmother's shortbread recipe. It's a Christmas tradition in our family. When I took some to our dentist's office yesterday, our dentist broke his year-long diet to eat one (to the delight of his staff--they were tired of it I guess). Wow! So I share it with you because it's one of my favorite things, always reminding me of my grandmother who has been gone about 16 years. I miss her.

Nana's Scotch Shortbread
Very easy to make. (Don't be frightened by the soft dough--I roll it out on a cutting board and put it in the fridge until just before cutting the cookies out and putting them on the cookie sheet.)
1 c. butter (2 cubes)--never use margarine
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. corn starch
Pinch salt

Mix thoroughly. Roll out about 1/4-1/2" thick (use a mixture of flour, powdered sugar and corn starch for flouring the board and rolling pin to avoid a floury taste). Cut in about 1" squares. Mark each square with rows of dots using the tines of a fork (I think this is actually to avoid air bubbles on the surface--but it's the traditional design. It's always reminded me of the windows of the apartment building my grandmother lived in.) Since it rolls out in a round shape, some of the cookies will be kind of triangular. The smaller cookies should go in the center of the cookie sheet, and the points of the triangles should be directed toward the center, because they cook first. The thickest and largest cookies should be those closest to the corners of the cookie sheet. These cookies don't spread much, so you can put them fairly close together. Bake 10-12 minutes until the outside corners of the edge cookies turn a little bit golden brown. Don't wait for them all to turn dark, that will be overbaking--they may be fairly white when you pull them out but shouldn't look moist. Store them in a cookie tin or other sealed container, at room temperature, and not with other cookies or they will absorb the flavors. They develop a mellow taste with time; I like them new or old.

Joy and Hamburger Helper

Today Pastor Sean spoke about Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, and the joy one can find in work, when one lives to please God, versus the futility that unbelievers find in their work. He pointed out that it has nothing to do with the type of work, or whether it is difficult or frustrating, or whether one is able to even finish it. Last week covered some of the same topic, during which, by way of example, cooking with home-grown, home-butchered, home-combined ingredients on a wood fired stove in Bible times was more work than today when a cook takes a box with a bag of noodles, a bag of seasonings, and a bag of sauce mix and cooks it on their super-duper electric stove--and yet both can be joyful or joyless depending upon a person's point of view.
This hit a nerve. Pastor Sean was talking to me again; I didn't know he knew my story about Hamburger Helper and the frustration I find in it. You would think that if anything I would be delighted by its convenience, but I am not. I like to cook from scratch (though I don't home-grow yet; I will grow some fruit and vegetables this summer if God is willing, but I doubt that I will ever grow animals for food and/or butcher them), and I don't really relish the idea of sitting down to Hamburger Helper. It's helpful, I'll admit, to have it when I'm unexpectedly kept out for the day and have to make dinner in 20 minutes.
Here's the typical scenario that I find: I might make 40 different dinners in pretty regular succession from scratch at our house, and I enjoy doing that. The process of thinking up a meal that can be made from ingredients we have on hand, finding a recipe for it and adapting it to our tastes and ingredients or to make it healthier; then browning the meat, peeling and chopping the vegetables, making the sauce, cooking the noodles or rice, and bringing everything to be done at the same time and before people are hungry enough to eat my arm...I enjoy the challenge of it. So I make the 40 dinners and don't generally hear any comment from my dear husband in appreciation. I'm sure he appreciates it and means to cast no slur on the meal; however, it doesn't occur to him to say so. But the night I make Hamburger Helper, that stuffer of stomachs necessitated by a stressed schedule, well that night, I invariably get a comment. My husband loves that stuff! I think it brings him back to his childhood when his mother made it. She was a working mom, and back then Hamburger Helper mixes were a novelty dream for the working woman, as for some they are still.
Yes, I think I get joy in the process of the usual making dinner. I'm glad that my husband's comments aren't what I live for, though I like to please him and feed all the family nutritiously. I often thought it would make sense to give up and make Hamburger Helper every night, but I can't picture it happening. Now I think I might understand why God built joy into the other form of cooking. Though I know not everyone looks at it that way, I like to think He sees the value in the variety and the process as well.