Are you going to Heaven?

We discussed this at last weeks Bible study and my boss encouraged us to discuss this concept with all of our friends. Since I've come to think of many of you as blog buddies, I decided to discuss this here.

So, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Do you think you are going to heaven? Why?

Here, I'll go first.

I believe I am going to Heaven because God sent his Son, Jesus, and that he died on the cross and in doing so saved me from all of my sin. I accept that Jesus did this for me, as my Savior. I believe accepting Jesus' sacrifice is the only way to spend eternity with God.

If you agree, or not I invite you share your thoughts below or email me at rrwrites at hotmail dot com and I'll do my best to explain my beliefs.

In a similar vein, I am looking for guest bloggers to fill in so that I can spend some more time working on my novel and finishing my tshirt quilt. Feel free to comment or email me if you'd like to help.

Book Review: Unleashed: Release the Untamed Faith Within by Erwin McManus

This book relates the way Jesus lived his life to the way we out to live our lives when we profess ourselves as Christians and claim to follow Him. To sum up the book, Jesus never promised this following him would consist solely of sitting in church pews in pretty clothing. The author reiterates that the Christian path can be a hard, dangerous and surprising one- but that because we have Christ we have no need to fear it.  Rather he suggests we embrace it.

I love the author’s ideas and he writes with great passion. I believe, like the author, that we often put Christianity in a nice safe box and don’t experience life to the fullest because we don’t unleash our untamed faith.  I very much want to live as a disciple, and not merely a Christian, to go where Christ calls me, no matter what the cost.

However, I did find flaws with this book. The authors style is somewhat disconnected. It’s almost as if he published his first draft, without undergoing any editing process. He has passion, but lacks finesse (much like me in the kitchen haha). I’m not sure that I would recommend this book because there are several other good books out there with a similar perspective-like anything by Mark Batterson. However, the passion behind this book could make it a faith changer. Overall, I think I have a fairly neutral opinion of this book  (which is pretty rare).

PS: I was given a free copy of this book (via BookSneeze) in exchange for my thoughts.

Once a Month/Week Cooking Review

If you remember, a few weeks ago I tried my hand at freezer cooking. I opted to try just a weeks worth of meals to see how the process worked for my family.

Boy am I glad I let me husband talk me into that! Otherwise we would have wasted a huge amount of food.

I made 7 recipes and only 5 came out edible and only 3 were enjoyable.

The pasta tasted terrible, although it had smelled amazing on cooking day.
The pizza crust refused to bake, but the toppings and sauce were delish.
The chicken cordon bleu, was so-so.
The breakfast burritos were a hit with the hubby.
We both enjoyed the breakfast and bean burritos.
The meatloaf tasted okay but took almost 2 hours to cook.
I like the taste of the frozen fruit cups, but they take a good 20 minutes until they are thawed enough to get a spoon into. Maybe my freezer is too hard core. Because they take so long to thaw I have been eating them as dessert instead of breakfast.


I think I'll try the pizza again, make it, bake it and eat it all in the same day.

Overall, I think I will just strive to do my chopping and prepping in advance but leave everything to be cooked the day of.

How have your once a month cooking experiences gone?

PS: I'm going to be looking for a few guest posters soon. Email me at rrwrites at hotmail dot com if you're interested!

Stash Busting Monday: Taste of Home Cannoli Cake (2 for 1)

Yummy! I found this recipe in Taste of Home and had been waiting to try it. A coworker offered to bring in chicken scampi the other day, so I offered to bring in dessert.

I thought this would be the prefect combination.




The Taste of Home recipe calls for a french vanilla cake mix but since I shy away from cake mixes I baked up a buttermilk vanillabean cake that I found in Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life. (I highly recommed her book. Its full of lovely stories and recipes)

To turn the vanilla cake into a  cannoli cake, you need to make the filling and frostings and chill until spreadable:

Filling:
16oz ricotta cheese
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Frosting:
16 oz marscapone
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup whole milk
2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Because I used Wizenberg's recipe, I had thinner cake layers and thus had extra icing which I think I will use to make hummingbird bread.

After filling and frosting the cake (place filling on top layer of cake, to within 1 inch of edge and then use frosting on the edge and sides) press almonds around the sides of the cake and sprinkle chocolate chips on top of the cake. Chill until serving.

PS: If you want to pick the next recipe I make, post a comment with a number from 1-329!

Cooking Through Christmas: Spiced Fruit Bowl

I made this for our Christmas celebration and it was super easy and tasty!

Ingredients:

2 cans (29 oz each) sliced peaches
1 can pear halves (29 oz)
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
4- 3in cinnamin sticks
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1 pound red grapes, halved

Instructions:

Drain juice from peaches and pears into saucepan and set aside. Add vinegar, allspice, cloves and salt to juices. Add cinnamon sticks. Bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat and cool 15 minutes.  In a large bowl, combine the peaches, pears and grapes. A dd juices and cinnamon sticks. over and refrigerate at least 12 hours. Sir occasionally. Remove cinnamon sticks prior to serving.

I found the leftovers made a great (and fairly healthy) breakfast.

I would definitely plan on making this again. To pick the next recipe I try, comment with  a number from 1-329

PS: This recipe is from TOH's Treasury of Chrismas recipes

He's a Turkey!

Last night I pulled back the covers, and found....

I ran downstairs and asked my husband what he meant by this. He siad "Happy Birdday!" and died laughing. (No, it wasn't my  birthday)...He's just a turkey.

Guest Blogging Today

I know its a little late in the day, but I'm the guest blogger today at Life Blessons. Won't you join me as I discuss the ways Christ helps me overcome my fear?

Freezer Cooking

Has anyone ever tried Once A Month cooking? I've been contemplating it for some time. And then I was introduced to Once a Month Mom. Its a subscription based site, but does offer quite a few free menus to try before you buy, including diet and whole foods. 

After discussing this with my husband, he suggested that we try cooking only one week worth of meals, to use during the my 5pm week. I spent about 2.5 hours preparing 5 dinners and about 14 breakfast servings.

I made:

BBQ Pizza
Pasta Primavera
Pizza Stuffed Meatloaf
Beef Burritos
Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
Frozen Fruit Cups (breakfast)
Chorizo and Egg Burritos (breakfast)

Since I was cooking for a only a week I was able to make a menu pieced together from several of the sites menus. I'll update you later in the week on how the recipes tasted.

Any freezer cooking tips?

Friday Favorites!!!!!

Oh man!

I almost forgot it was Friday. What a week. Sheez.

Anyway. Here's what you came for today- a list of things I discovered this week that I'd love to make. Linked up at the lovely Finding Joy in My Kitchen, of course. All recipes and pictures belong to the linked blogs.

1. Spicy Buffalo Cauliflower



2. Chocolate Hazelnut Baklava



3. Avocado Truffles

 

4. Chocolate Avocado Milkshake

 

 

5. Dark Chocolate Avocado Cookies

 

6. Macaroon Kiss Cookies

 

 

Looks like avacado's the thing.

The Book That Totally Creeped Me Out

...As in floating fairyheaded nightmares...but we'll get back to that in a minute.

I went to a book club a few weeks ago where everyone brought a book that they had read and liked and were willing to swap.

I took Nora Robert's  Daring to Dream (the first of three) and came home with Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.

I was about 3/4 of the way through the book and was really into the story. It was strange, mysterious and holding my interest and then it got creepy.

********************SPOILER ALERT*****************
Towards the end of the book you discover that the twins (two of the main characters) are daughters of their father, and his wife's twin. The adult twins switched places to try to test the husbands fidelity, the wrong one got pregnant, and they switched again. The true mother to never see the children twins again until after her death when she remains in the apartment that she bequeathed to her nieces/daughters as a ghost. One of the twins falls in love with the mother/ghosts/aunts former lover and decides to fake her death so that she can separate her life from her more controlling twin sister. Only the plan isn't to fake her death but to actually die, have her mother, the ghost, catch her spirit and put it back in her body later and then move away. Well the mother goes along with the plan up until the point of putting her daughter back. The daughters ghost doesn't have enough ghost strength (which the mother knew all along) and so the mother puts her spirit into her daughters dead body and goes on living with her former lover and has a baby through him and her daughters body

***************END SPOILER********************************

I'm not sure if it was the lack of God in this novel that upset me so much or what but the whole conniving ending and exploiting of others just really stuck a cord with me.

Back to the floating fairy headed dreams. As a child I had a dream that fairys kidnapped me, made me pepetually wash dishes and eat cake. Non stop. I woke up with my hands numb, stiff and pulsating. And then I promptly vomited. From all of the cake, of course.

I've had an occasional experience that gives me the same feeling. The night after I finished this book, I had a dream that the mothers ghost was trying to get into my body. And this produced the same "floating fairy headed" feeling. And I awoke several times feeling quie nausous.

I normally try not to not recommend a book, but I can not encourage anyone to read this. Just because I don't want you to be creeped out like I was.

Have you read this? What did you think? Am I overreacting to the creep factor?

Chocolate Disaster

What the actual name for this dessert is I'm not sure.  I call it chocolate disaster because it can easily wreck havoc on your diet, resolutions and pearly whites  all in one sitting.

But boy are they scumptious!
Or fandamntastic, as a long lost friend once said.

Bottom layer chocolate chip cookie dough.
Middle layer peanut  butter  stuffed Oreos
Top layer, gooey, fudgey brownies.

And if thats not enough, top it with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream. oooooooh.

The original  recipe comes from this blog that I found via Pinterest.