Creation of the Week: Olive and Cream Cheese Penguins

Ok, this has not been the most productive week writing wise. I've still been struggling with not feeling too well, and have had quite a few other obligations, many of which required cooking!

The above photo is of my finest creation of the week, one of the Cream Cheese and Olive penguins that I made for our family dinner on Sunday evening. The theme of the dinner was "Black and White". We were to dress up in our best black and white and bring pot luck "Back and White" dishes to share. I immediately thought of these cute little guys that I first saw on a friend's Pinterest board a few days ago:

I've since found them all over the internet.  Check out
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Penguin+Olives+Cream+Cheese&Form=IQFRDR
for a myriad of links to the cute little guys.  I've been looking for an excuse to bake a cheesecake ever since Christmas, so I also put together an Oreo Cookie Cheesecake.  DD1 spent hours making plenty of gorgeous white Brazilian Limeade, DD3 and her friend whipped up some crepes that they served with blackberries, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and bananas,  and DH spent hours tracking down some  black Squid Ink Fettuccine that he prepared in a delicious Alfredo sauce.   Of course there were many other fabulous black and white dishes, including a delicious cream of chicken and wild rice soup that won 1st place in the family vote.  I need to find that recipe!

Other culinary creations  from this past week have included a Triple Chocolate Cake for a friend's birthdayand the traditional Poppy Seed Chicken that I made for another friend's family on Monday. 

I also took  a couple of hours on Saturday morning to sit down and hem a few flannel recieving blankets at our church women's group's annual conference and service project.  It was quite an assembly line with a long table filled with sergers and sewing machines.   I believe we finished more than 30 blankets and had at least that many more serged and ready to be hemmed.  Others were tying quilts or crocheting hats, headbands, and hot pads, all to be donated to a local shelter.  We also wrote some notes and cards to servicemen and missionaries, then had a nice taco salad and chili lunch.

I'm grateful for opportunities to be creative and opportunities to serve!



Mascara

I have never been one to wear a whole lot of makeup.  Sometime when I was in Junior High School I started wearing a bit of mascara and sometimes some blush and lip gloss.  On special occasions I might add some brown or grey eye shadow or lipstick or even some sort of foundation, but never on a daily basis.  I would usually don the makeup for school and church and work, but over the years I have become a bit lax, especially during the stay at home Mom years. 

When I started working part time I did better, but for the past couple of years it hardly has seemed worth the bother.  I mean really, how many wrinkles and grey hairs can a bit of mascara and blush and lip gloss hide?   I confess that my eyelashes have become lighter over the years, and the mascara does help to define my eyes, so occasionally I will still take the time to put on a bit of makeup.   And guess what?  People do notice!  I have taken the effort to put on a bit of mascara several times in the past few weeks, and one of my co-workers has had a nice comment every time:

"You look really nice today.  Are you wearing make up?"

OR

"Are you wearing mascara today?  Your eyes look really pretty!"

I'm grateful for a sweet co-worker who notices when I'm trying to take a bit more care with my appearance, and I'm grateful that a bit of mascara can really make a difference.

Safe From Harm and Accident

I grew up hearing the phrase "please keep us safe from harm or accident" on a daily basis as our family would kneel together morning and night for family prayers.  "Please help us to return safely to our homes" or similar phrases were probably repeated in most prayers that I heard at church and even community gatherings all during my growing up years.  These phrases have become a permanent fixture in my own prayers, not only in my personal prayers, but when I have the opportunity to pray for a group at church or in other situations. 

So, are these oft repeated phrases trite, or "vain repetitions?  I think not.  We may at times say them without much thought, but I feel that most people who pray these phrases truly do want to petition the Lord for protection from harm and accident for themselves and for their loved ones, on a daily basis. I also believe that the Lord answers these prayers on a daily basis.  I believe that he answers them much more often than we realize.  And when we do realize that he has answered our prayers with protection, we are always very, very grateful.  We need to remember to thank him for his protection, and for answering our prayers.  I for one am very grateful for the many many times that the Lord has kept me and my loved ones safe from harm and from accident. 

Opposition

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
      2 Nephi 2:11

And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
     D&C 122:7

So, so true.  Much as we do not like it, we must face difficult things and difficult times.  Without experience with misery, evil,, pain, and death, and other bad things, we would not grow.  Without opposition and difficult times, we could not appreciate the good things in life.  I have faced bad times and opposition in my life (like the miserable cold that I have right now), but over-all my life has been good.  I may not have reached every goal on my bucket list, but I have had good opportunities and experiences, and have sampled enough of the difficult to appreciate the good that I do have.  I have a pretty darn good life.  I am grateful for my family, my home, my friends and neighbors, my country, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Probably what gives me the greatest pain and sorrow at this point in my life is seeing the opposition that others around me are facing.  Family members, friends and acquaintances all around me are facing illness, pain, loss of loved ones, loneliness, infertility, financial problems, challenges in finding work, stressful work and school situations, difficulty in their social lives, heartache, sorrow, problems with drugs and alcohol, emotional problems, mental illness, struggles with faith and testimony, depression and sadness.  I know there are even greater problems worldwide:  war, poverty, famine, epidemics, abuse, natural disasters, and on and on and on.   It is discouraging.  What can I do to help?  Often there isn't much.  Lend a listening ear.  Pray.  Smile, encourage, and comfort.  Keep getting up and going to work.    Share my faith.  Share what little material blessings that I can.  And carry on with the faith that everything will work out.  Good will overcome evil.  Opposition and experience will bring happiness and growth.   It will all work out.  Carry on.  It will all work out. 

Trash Day

Today is Trash Day.  I'm grateful today for plastic trash bags/trash can liners.  It is so nice to not have to scrub out the trash can every time it gets emptied!  I'm thankful that we have curbside trash pick-up, and curbside recycling to encourage us to recycle some of the excess packaging and paper, cardboard and plastic that we seem to generate these days.  I am grateful for much of the packaging that helps keep our food clean and vermin free and helps to cut down on food waste.

I'm thankful for the incentive that Trash Day is to me to do a bit of de-cluttering and cleaning.  This morning I was motivated to clean out the refrigerator.  I won't say how long it has been since I tackled this chore (I can't even remember exactly), but I did find a small container of leftover homemade cranberry sauce among all of the other delightful surprises that have been lurking inside the fridge.

 It appears that the family may not have been overly thrilled by all of the homemade split pea soup, beef stew and goulash that have been prepared over the past few weeks, but I am grateful that I have been able to put good and nourishing food on the table every evening.   I am grateful to have a refrigerator to keep perishables cold and edible.  Many of the people I knew when I lived in Colombia did not have the luxury of a refrigerator.  I'm grateful that I don't have to go to the market every single day in order to have fresh food available for meals.  I'm thankful for the clean glass shelves in my refrigerator that allow me to easily see where the pickle jar is and the new package of unopened yeast that was hiding behind all of the leftovers.  I wasn't extremely happy about all of the dishes that needed to be washed, but now I'm grateful for a plethora of clean dishes and storage containers that I can once again fill up with leftovers! 

Ah, the many myriad blessings of Trash Day!

Chocolate Chips

 photo source

I believe that chocolate chips are one of the greatest inventions ever created.
Here's the scoop on the origin of Chocolate Chips according to Wikipedia:

Chocolate chips are a required ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, which were invented in 1937 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a huge success, and Wakefield reached an agreement in 1939 with Nestlé to add her recipe to the chocolate bar's packaging in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate. Initially, Nestlé included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars. In 1941 Nestlé and one or more of its competitors started selling the chocolate in chip (or "morsel") form.^[1] The Nestlé brand Toll House cookies is named for the inn.

How would it have been to have a lifetime supply of chocolate???   Heaven!!!

The Wikipedia article goes on to state that chocolate chips should not necessarily be substituted for baking chocolate since they are designed to hold their shape during baking and contain less cocoa butter, but, in a pinch, I have definitely made the substitution.  Granted, in a perfect world, I would always have plenty of the highest quality baking chocolate, cocoa powder, and chocolate chips on hand in the pantry.  However, due to the shrinking budget and the increasing cost of the above said items, I at times  have only one (or even, shockingly, but seldom, None) of the above goodie baking essentials on hand.  When it comes right down to it, if I must choose only one of the great chocolate baking products to have on hand, I will generally choose the chocolate chips.  While I can produce some form or another of almost any chocolaty treat or dessert with a bag of chocolate chips, I haven't yet been able to produce a chocolate chip cookie using cocoa powder. 

I have noticed that chocolate chips generally go on sale at most of my local grocery stores sometime during the months of October, November and December, so I make it a practice to stock up during those months.  This past year I was able to purchase two large bags at our local Costco in addition to several smaller bags at the other stores, so after the holiday baking was done; I still have a big unopened bag of chocolate chips in my store room.  And . . .

Guess what my wonderful DS1 and DDIL sent us for part of our Christmas present?  Another big bag of chocolate chips!!  That bag was put right to use, and maybe (I'll have to double check for sure) we still have some of those chocolate chips in the cupboard with the other baking supplies. 

Thanks Kids!  We love the chocolate chips!

Poppy Seed Chicken

DD3 spent some time at home this weekend, and yesterday she suggested that we have Poppy Seed Chicken for dinner.  Poppy Seed Chicken has been a family favorite for quite a few years, but for the past few months we have been trying to lower our sodium intake, so my first thought was "No, we can't do that.  The soup and the crackers have too much sodium."  And then I had a brilliant idea:  Why not substitute some plain Greek yogurt for the soup and the sour cream mixture that our old recipe calls for!  So we tried it.  It result didn't have much sauce, and though I can't speak for the rest of the family, I liked the newer version even better than the old favorite.  Here's what we did:

Generously butter a glass baking dish.  Place about 1 1/2 lbs.  chicken tenderloins in the bottom of the pan.   Spread about 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt over the chicken.  Melt 1/4 cup butter.  Mix butter with 1 cup cornflake crumbs and 1 Tbs. poppy seed.  Sprinkle over chicken and yogurt.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 to 60 minutes until chicken is cooked through.  Serves with rice, noodles, or potatoes.  Serves about 6.