Cheesy Sweet Heat Cornbread

So recently I have started going through my Pinterest pins and trying to actually make some of the hundreds of recipes I have pinned.  What a concept, huh?  I planned recently to make skillet focaccia but as soon as I lifted out my grandma's cast iron skillet I had to make cornbread instead. 

I love making cornbread.  I love it because making it and sneaking fingerfuls of batter that drip off the spoon is almost more fun than eating it after it's done.  I could seriously go on a batter bender, I'm one of those people.  I remember begging my mom to let me make the cornbread just so I could get at that sweet stuff.  Oh yeah, we make sweet cornbread.  Really, you could have it with your dinner or have it for dessert.  Or both, like me!  I was never much for the kitchen growing up.  I'd rather be in a tree.  So the fact that I would come running to help with cornbread sticks out in my mind. 

I asked my mom where she got the recipe.  I was expecting, "Joy of Cooking," or "Taste of Home," maybe even "Southern Living."  I laughed when I heard, "Missouri Conservation cookbook."  Of all the places to find some ridiculously good food!  Just goes to show, I guess.  Maybe I should start clipping out recipes from the paper like grandma.  Never know what you will find.  But then, I have Pinterest. 

Also, I can't leave well enough alone so I added a few things.  Cheese, onions, and smoked chipotle chili powder, my new love.  You're welcome.  

Alright, enough talk.  Let's cook!

Preheat your oven to 425.  Depending on how fast you can mix stuff at some point you will need to add a tablespoon or two of oil to the cast iron skillet and let it heat up in the oven before you pour the batter in.  Get the oil hot but don't let it smoke, 5 minutes is a safe bet. 
Then combine in a bowl
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 cup white sugar (I actually did less than this and I couldn't even tell!)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp smoked chipotle powder (or more if you love heat.  My kids at this bread too)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (or whatever cheese tickles your fancy)
This is where it gets tricky and you have to make sure you read the whole recipe!  In a two cup or larger liquid measuring cup, add 1/2 cup oil.  Add 2 eggs.  Then fill to the 2 cup line with milk.  Mix this all together and add it to the dry ingredients. 
At this point you will also want to add 1/2 of a grated onion.  I'd say it was probably 1/4-1/2 a cup.  I grated it on the cheese grater so that it would "melt" into the cornbread.  Otherwise it would have been a turnoff for the hubs.  It amps up the moistness and the house smelled great while this was cooking! 
Throw all this in the skillet that you've taken out of the oven (unless you forgot about it and had to go fan the smoke alarm, been there!).  Bake for 15 minutes or until the sides begin to brown and crisp and a toothpick comes out mostly clean when you stick it in the middle.  Remember, it will continue to cook a little after you take it out of the oven. 
When it's cool enough to touch but still hot enough to give you a pizza burn, cut that sucker up, put some butter on it, throw it in a bowl of chili, whatever!  Eat it!  And that's what I call Cheesy Sweet Heat Cornbread.  Thanks mom! 

My Magnified Funk

My last post was some time ago and it was about pizza.  I was contemplating writing about cornbread because I made a really good batch with my mom's recipe and maybe someday I will but I can't do it now.  I haven't written much because there was so much on my heart that I was afraid writing wouldn't fix it.  I was afraid that even after I wrote it out, it wouldn't be clear to me or you.  And maybe it's not clear now but I have to try to unravel things. 

We are starting over at a new church.  The uncertainty of change is not my friend.  Deep down I know this change is good, it's where God wants us to be.  Not that where we were was bad but it was like...well, it was time to go.  It wasn't like a shoe that didn't fit.  It wasn't like an old shirt with too many holes.  More than anything, maybe it was just us. 

Which brings another fear to mind: if I am the "problem," maybe we should just drop out altogether.  I mean, I could have the mentality of "it's not you, it's me," but if it's me, do I really want to inflict myself on some other church?  There is a brokenness that cannot heal in isolation. 

This battle has waged war in my mind for the last two weeks.  Am I worth another shot at church?  Sometimes I feel like I have so much to offer and sometimes I feel so broken that it's like people would just be carrying my casket around with them.  These are things I haven't wanted to write about because I haven't wanted to bring anyone else down.  I didn't want anyone to join in on my personal pity party (sorry for the alliteration) and I was so tired of myself and looking at myself and being sad about what I see. 

A pretty pathetic place (there it is again!) to be.  I knew what I was doing.  I was making my problems bigger than they were.  Of course, at the time I thought they really were that big of a problem.  I was magnifying my problems.  Zeroing in on myself and yada yada yada until I and my shortcomings was all I could see. 

Which brings me to Psalms 34.  It was the still small voice that I needed in the midst of all the chaos.  "Magnify the Lord..." 
Please leave your problems alone and magnify the Lord.  Make him so big that He is the only thing you can see.  It took some looking because it's not in the Message or the NIV or any of the other versions that have come out that I know of so I had to look backwards.  To the King James Version.  Inaccurate and flowery I know but bear with me.  It's what I remember while doing a stint in the Baptist church. 
Psalms 34:3 says "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." 
Honestly the whole psalm is a gold mine of encouragement if you're having an insecure day.  One of those days where you or others around you are just focused on how rotten life is and you can't get out of it. 

Psalm 34

New King James Version (NKJV)

The Happiness of Those Who Trust in God

A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.

34 I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
² My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
³ Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

⁴ I sought the Lord, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
⁵ They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces were not ashamed.
⁶ This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷ The angel^[a] of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him,
And delivers them.

⁸ Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
⁹ Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.
¹⁰ The young lions lack and suffer hunger;
But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.

¹¹ Come, you children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
¹² Who is the man who desires life,
And loves many days, that he may see good?
¹³ Keep your tongue from evil,
And your lips from speaking deceit.
¹⁴ Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.

¹⁵ The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
And His ears are open to their cry.
¹⁶ The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

¹⁷ The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears,
And delivers them out of all their troubles.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit.

¹⁹ Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
²⁰ He guards all his bones;
Not one of them is broken.
²¹ Evil shall slay the wicked,
And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
²² The Lord redeems the soul of His servants,
And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.

 

Got this from www.biblegateway.com.  Again, not trying to push NKJV on you.  It just had the word magnify in it.  I'm going to try to remember the next time I'm in a funk.  And if you see me in one and you remind me that I wrote this, I will try not to be snarky but humble enough to take my own forgotten advice. 

Pizza Night!

We love pizza around here.  It took me so long to find a recipe that my husband and I could agree on.  He's from the East coast where evidently they make "real" pizza.  The best pizza I've ever tasted was from a gas station up on Jefferson and Kimbrough that has since closed down.  It was operated by a Middle Eastern couple who churned our this pizza that was thin and foldy and had the charred little bubbles of cheese and Christian and I spent many an engaged afternoon splitting a pizza on our lunch breaks. 

The other problem we had was our affinity for delivery pizza.  It was really a love/hate relationship because the fat and salt was soooo bad for us.  When I was pregnant I would wake up the next morning swollen so that my skin was tight over my knuckles!  Not worth it! 

So I've been experimenting and we finally have a pizza we love.  I'm sorry if you love deep dish pizza because this is not that kind of recipe.  To cut down on the carbs, we've switched to a thin crust.  I've tried to sneak in whole wheat flour or ground flax seed and he catches me every time! 

Here's the recipe:

3 cups of all purpose flour
2tsp salt
2tsp active dry yeast (or one packet)
2tsp sugar
1 cup warm water (slightly warmer than body temp)
2 tbsp. olive oil

Throw the flour and salt into a big mixing bowl.  In a measuring cup, put your water, yeast and sugar.  Stir it up and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.  Add the oil.  Then pour it all into your mixing bowl and combine everything until mixed together.  Knead the dough for about five minutes and add more flour if you need to so that the whole glob doesn't stick to your hands.  It's possible, depending on the humidity, that you may need to add a half cup more of flour. 

Cover the dough with a little olive oil and a towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise for about an hour or until it doubles in size.  Find a warm place.  My best idea is putting it an empty dishwasher and turning on the drying cycle.

Once the dough is done rising, turn the oven on 425.  Coat your pizza trays with a little oil to help spread them out.  If you have a pizza stone, you rock.  I'm jealous.  Once the dough is spread out top it with whatever you want and pop it in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  Yum!

Another thing I discovered this week was cooking pizza on the griddle.  We've cooked it on a grill before but this was an alternative we tried to keep from heating up the oven. 

 

Tobin took this picture and helped me top the pizza.  We stretched it out on the pizza pan and then lightly brushed the griddle with oil, heating it to 350.  After transferring (very quickly and luckily, I might add) the dough from the pan to the griddle, I let it cook for about 5 minutes, just until it started to get golden on the underside.  Then we flipped it, topped it and laid the pizza pan, or in our case, a cookie sheet, over the top so the cheese would melt.  Again 5 minutes or so, lift off the pan, and voila!  Pizza without heating up the oven and the whole house!  There's no reason to go without pizza or spend a lot of money on delivery and eat all the salt and fat you don't need.  Of course, that's if you can resist the fact that it just tastes good.  My husband said he actually liked this method better than cooking it in the oven!  Hope it works for you! 

This I Know

Whenever thoughts swirl in my head uncontrollably, whenever they're about to consume me, whether it's doubt, fear, anger, I have to pin them down with what I know to be true. 

I know God is able. 
I know God has enough grace for me. 
If the choices I make lead me down a wrong path, I know God is patient and can lead me--albeit the long way--home. 
I know that no matter how screwed up and hard-hearted life has made me, God can still soften me.  He still has a plan and a purpose. 
He can use me in spite of all that, but more awesomely, because of all that.

I like to make lists and sometimes I have to make lists like this.  To remind myself of what matters and what is true. 

There have been many distractions this past week.  Much anxiety and depression and not a lot of running so my head has been quite stuffy with runaway thoughts.  My runs have become prayer runs.  I've gotten past the point of needing to mentally coach myself to the next light post so I have to keep my mind occupied or else I'll quit before my legs and lungs are tired.  Which is a great problem to have, might I add.  So I have prayer runs now.  I pick five or so things or people to pray about and go out and get 'er done.  If it's possible, it makes running more peaceful.  It's not like I can sing and run at the same time anyway!   And even though it's "me time", I still get to spend it on other people at the same time.  Multitasking, yeah baby!

Stick to what is true.  Leave the doctrine and the opinions and the anger behind and read the red letters. 

Unplug me!

Every morning I ask my kids if they had any dreams.  We always make time for dream talk during morning snuggles or breakfast.  Today my son told me a dream that was way too real for me.  He told me about how there was a tornado coming and he was trying to get my attention but I wasn't listening.  His words were, "You were too busy because...you were on your phone."  Nobody wins mother of the year for being on their phone too much.  It's not like I was helping clients or closing deals or doing anything that could help our family.  Sure, I look up events and find grocery deals and coupons but that's not the point. 

I've been sucked into a handheld world.  But it doesn't really matter what screen size you use.  The tv screen, the computer screen.  I bark at my husband for gaming but I'm raising dragons and following people on Facebook that I won't speak to until the second coming.  I grew up thinking-knowing!-video games are bad.  I played on the computer though.  And I'll never forget the first time I played World of Warcraft.  If you watch Big Bang Theory you may remember the episode where Sheldon introduces Penny to WOW.  That was me.  Christian got my account all set up and I made a character and was whisked away into an imaginary wonderland the size of a computer screen.  I didn't surface for 24 hours.  I did not eat, I hardly drank anything.  I played through the night and ended up making myself sick! 

Fast forward 6 years later.  I don't play WOW simply because I know what I would do and I have kids to keep alive, let alone myself.  It's in my retirement plan.  To travel the world...of warcraft.  Really, I do want to travel so we'll see how much WOW I actually get to play.  Technology will be so advanced by then we'll probably travel to Mars for a weekend to play it for real.  Like futuristic paintball.  Hmmm...

I digress.  Now I have a husband who is an unrepentant gamer and, honestly, as long as he keeps it in check there's nothing wrong with it.  We have also spawned a small 4-year-old gamer and while part of me wants to tell you how awesome he is at it, another part wants to unplug the whole darn contraption and run him outside.  I have books on how children should be outside.  I have a degree that screams "His brain is going to turn to mush!"  Not to mention the majority (it seems) of Christians that have deemed it sinful.  (They do go outside every day but I wonder at the quality and quantity of it.  We went firefly hunting last night!)   

There has to be a middle ground though.  Because Tobin is amazing at games.  I tried to play Rayman with him and he pretty much played the whole thing by himself and just kept resurrecting me so that I could be with him.  I have looked around at different articles, so many and it all comes down to balance.  It is more interactive than tv.  Games require problem solving skills and fine motor coordination that he could use one day to be a surgeon or musician.  The one thing I could watch out for is if your son has ADHD.  I've read that it can become very addicting.  The instant rewards, the dopamine release.  It hooks them and they become obsessed with the cycle.  And no kid needs to sit in one spot for a long period of time anyway.  It's tempting to plop them in front of the tv to get something done, believe me, I know. 

We've made a deal in my house though.  For every 20 minutes of game play, there are 20 minutes of outside time or reading or art.  And of course, once I get them outside it's always longer than 20 minutes.  And who wants to quit five minutes into an art project?  So we're making it work.  This isn't the way I was raised so it took me some time to figure out a way to live with it.  I can't just get rid of it all.  Games are everywhere.  Oh, we also monitor them for all that scary inappropriate stuff so really he only gets to play minecraft and Rayman at the moment.  No gory stuff.  I guess I should be grateful that Coen hasn't figured out how to play yet. 

All this is great for the kids but how do I limit myself?  How do I unshrink my world?  I think it's something that I turn to when I'm bored.  Today I made the choice to go to story time at the library and the kids loved it.  The got to dig for "fossils" in their chocolate chip cookies.  The theme was dinosaurs.  Honestly, if I get any more hobbies, I might go broke.  I know I have to unplug, though.  Focus on life around me and enjoy it to the fullest.  Tobin will be gone to school before I know it. 

If the screen is a temptation for you, how do you limit yourself?  A reward system?  Sheer willpower?  Have you added up the time you spend on it?  I'm kind of afraid to. 

Stay Salty, My Friends

I don't want to be Lot's wife.  I don't want to be so focused on the wrong things that my heart turns to salt because if my heart goes, the rest of my body might as well.  I've been troubled and struggling lately, trying to figure out my role as a Christian in my personal life and at church.  I think it's a classic case of trying to see too far ahead.  I like to know the plan, know how things play out.  Often times I just want God to show me the map but I know if I took a look at it, I'd still get myself turned around and going in the wrong direction.  His voice would keep saying "rerouting", or "make a U-turn here" and knowing me I probably wouldn't listen.  "I got it, I got it" but we both know it's just a matter of time till I have to give up and hand the mess I've made over to him again. 

What if I'm already stone and don't even know it?  I don't know how this story will play out.  I mean is it a Job story where God restores even more or is it a Saul story where Saul goes crazy and eats grass and tries to kill David?  What if the walls of my heart are rising and calcifying and I don't even know it?  What if the walls of the church are rising too?  Will I notice?  Or will I just be a frog in a pot of water minding my own business until I'm someone else's meal? 

Hence paragraph one.  As long as I'm focusing on the what if's in life I can't go forward.  I can't focus on the next thing God has for me.  Blurg.  And while we're focusing, let's zoom in on all the I's and me's in this blog.  Enough.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."

So here's the deal, even if I do focus on the wrong things and turn into a pillar of salt God can still use me.  I still get to be the salt of the earth.  Ha!  I know I might be reaching a little bit but I'm just saying God can handle a wrong turn.   Or two or three so I need to stop freaking out and get on with life.  And if Jesus is living water and I'm salt...working out...electrolytes...balance.  There's something there I just know it!    

Sleep Blogging

Sorry I haven't written in so long.  It's not that my fingers haven't been itchy, just that I'm in Nebraska!  Visiting family for the holiday weekend and such.  I'm exhausted.  I've averaged about six hours of sleep and for me that's just not enough.  I'm not even sure I'll remember I blogged.  I tried to go running yesterday and it was so sad.  I wanted to run in a new place but the wind and lack of sleep won out and I only got 1.5 miles done.  But now I can say I ran in Nebraska!  And on vacation no less.  I've actually missed blogging an awful lot but it's been great to spend time with everyone.  My newest niece is perfectly squishy!  And the playground here is unlike anything I've ever seen!  It's amazing! 

 

 

It's like a ropes course for kids!  And this is only one of them.  It's an elementary school so it has three different playgrounds including a wheelchair accessible that has an activity for learning braille!  Oh the problem solving possibilities!  Honestly, I'd love to get into playground design but I don't even know if I could dream up something like this.  Coen was convinced he was Spiderman, and he might as well be.  We found mulberries to eat and caught lightning bugs and watched fireworks.  All in less than 60% humidity! 

 

But in my heart what I really want to say is thank you.  Thank you for taking the time out to read this.  Thank you because if you are reading this, I'm pretty sure you've touched my life in a way I can never repay.  Sometimes that bothers me because I get caught up in a horrible game of "Even Stevens", but I know it's just a lie trying to distract me from the truth.  The truth is that I have to let the seeds other people have planted in my life grow in gratitude into fruit for others.  I can't just stop at "thank you".  I have to turn the soil and make those gifts to me gifts for someone else.  And they only grow in gratitude.  We are up here in Nebraska because of my in-laws generosity.  We made it up here on my parent's generosity.  And it has been great to see family but I've got some giving to do.  And not to win the "Even Stevens" game but because it would be a shame for these gifts to go unused.  To let them get burned up in the garbage heap instead of using them to grow a new crop of gifts.  

 

Sorry about all the farming metaphors.  It's Nebraska people!  There is a field of corn in between the houses in town.  I was running and I saw house, corn, house, corn.  Odd.  Oh and Omaha is huge.  I've only seen it from a distance and I kinda want to stay at a distance cuz I don't know if I'll find my way out! 

 

I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th and maybe next time I write I'll be fully awake!