Cookies – Plain, Simple, and Tasty!

I love to bake and enjoy fussing over presentation but there are times when I need something from the oven with limited time in which to get it into the oven. These very basic cookies work well, feed a reasonable crowd. Works well with a scoop of ice cream for a dessert night treat.

One-Baking Pan Cookies

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg yolk (reserve white)
1-2 teaspoons almond flavoring
2 cups flour

Cream together sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and flavoring. Add flour to form dough. Pat dough evenly on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush top of dough with slightly beaten egg white.

Combine ¼ cup granulated sugar and two teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over dough. Sprinkle finely chopped nuts over it all. (almonds, walnuts or pecans.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until very lightly browned. Cool and cut into serving portions.

*I like to double the recipe and press it out in one of my large, rimmed baking pans. Don’t forget the parchment paper lining to minimize clean up and insure nothing sticks. For some holiday drama, you could scatter on some gold candy glitter along with the chopped nuts.

**Gluten-free? Although I haven’t tried it with this recipe YET, I think that one of the cup-for-cup gluten free flour blends would work well with this.

Abortion Kills . . . Believe It Or Not . . .

Chickens Beware!

I’ve noticed that many of the accusers of Brett Kavanagh don’t seem all that informed about most anything other than their hate of the moment and being uninformed about facts. I think facts confuse them because facts are never in line with their fragile trains of thought. Even at their most clever (?), they lose their way and then have to repackage the facts du jour to meet their hoped for expectations of a win.

Even the current crisis in the Catholic Church isn’t distracting them and we all know that conservatives, especially Christian/Catholic ones are fair game to the ungodly.

Well, I thought I’d find a distraction to get them off course. It happened in my very own kitchen not more than an hour ago. I spatchcocked two chickens! I hope you made sure your children were out of the room. Yes, I decided that someone had to be bold enough to let loose with an imaginary laser pointer dot to get their heads bobbing and their bouncing brains off of Brett Kavanagh . . . so I really, REALLY did spatchcock two chickens and take all the blame for the incident. So, if the papers get hold of this information, Judge Kavanagh should have a reprieve from having to defend himself from the usual fairy tale allegations coming forth from the Democrats. If this doesn’t distract them, I don’t know what will. Therefore, I have attempted to do my civic duty with all the sacrifice that comes along with it.

Oh, by the way, all you nasty-minded people who ran immediately to the dictionary to get the sordid details of my kitchen activities today . . . Said chickens are roasting in the oven, they were dead when I did it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to apologize.

Happy Feast Day, Padre Pio!

When You Vote . . .

Midterms are coming up and a faction of our country would like to see the President go down in flames. No, they have no other reason than they didn’t get their way at the 2016 election and when crying and lying didn’t change the story have spent the last couple of years planning his ruin based on lies and misreported information.

The scary part of all this as that many people think our Democratic system of government is not a workable way to life. They want government control which means for many, a nanny state where the ones that actually have a work ethic end up paying for a slackers needs by way of taxes. Not all being of the inquisitive mind set, they call it government support not realizing the more they depend on the government, the less people working, and the less people working, the less for everyone.

The college graduates of today have come forth from the ‘institutions of learning’ without much actual, practical learning in mind. Just the other day, there was an article about college students who couldn’t send out their mail-in ballots because they didn’t know where to get stamps. And these are the people who will fly our planes, teach future children, and rule the country? They are being groomed for Socialism and even some of the brightest (comparatively speaking) find this form of government appealing. Everything will be free and everyone will be happy. History, however, doesn’t reflect that happy bucket of rainbows. The few that would be in charge will not care about the masses that want to depend on them.

Communist Body Count

Such governments take away identity, freedom of choice, free enterprise, and lives. If we don’t get a ‘red tsunami’ in November 2018, we will be drowned by a ‘blue wave’.

Our World . . .

“The world is still mobilizing, still ignoring the human, still counting bodies instead of souls, still thinking of poverty instead of the poor and of the masses instead of man.” Fulton J. Sheen

Horror Movies From the Kitchen!

Horror Movies From the Kitchen
by Barbara Jean & Julianna Barthelette

How many nightmares come true at the dinner table when your mom serves up something only a grown up could like. Here are our ideas of horror movies that would definitely scare us!

The Artichoke, a Dying Vegetable. Some wonderful children are punished for gagging at the dinner table when this vegetable made it debut.

Sour Puss or the Cat that Ate the Pickle. The story of a cat named Dill and the day his owners feed him a pickle for breakfast.

Deadly Nightshade or Mushrooms for Dinner. A suspenseful film of a mother not only serving mushrooms but making sure the children eat them!

A Bump in the Night or the Asparagus that Fell in the Cream Sauce. You can run but you can’t hide from this one as the plot as well as the cream sauce thickens.

Heartburn or the Chili Sauce that Went Bad. What happens when a mom serves leftover chili to her family. It was most frightening when the chili tried to climb out of the bowl.

The Mutant Avocado or the Gruesome Guacamole. Chips are destroyed at a dinner party as people are forced to dip them in the green stuff.

There’s a Leek in the Kitchen and we have to Eat It. Children are traumatized when they find out there is more than one onion in the family.

Tithing And The Budget

Tithing and The Budget
by Barbara M. Barthelette

Budget is always a constant in the lives of one-income families. And even though we are offering up the ‘freedom’ of the outside workplace, God still sees fit to send us crosses particular to our station in life.

We used have a sock basket of some sort. You know, the place we put the socks that come through the wash minus the mate they were made for! Our cross was that we never matched them all up, we never got to the bottom of the sock basket and we  often found socks we didn’t remember ever inviting into our homes. The size of the cross depends on the size of your sock basket!

Cooking can be a cross when it is days before payday and you have to be creative, not only in what you make but what you tell the children it is so they will eat it! That is why lids were invented for pots so family can’t come in and get preconceived notions about dinner.

Coupons for grocery shopping and special sales stretch the budget but can be a cross for the family. “Why do the fish still have their heads on?” They were on sale because they were cross-eyed. The store had to leave them on to make sure the customer knew this before buying. “How come you didn’t buy potato chips?” Go back to the Irish potato famine. Claim a shortage of potatoes. Check your history book.

Paper towels are a necessity in the kitchen. I usually ended up with an empty roll and find ‘used’ paper towels all over the house. There were once thirty paper towels, precisely separated and laid out on the floor from back door to bedroom. “We were pretending the floor was a deep river and the paper towels are stepping stones!” A sudden yell for help from the bathroom proclaimed a flood which quickly told me what they tried to use the rest of the paper towels for! They had used up the bathroom tissue to reenact The Mummy.

I kept trying to come up with time-saving, money-saving ideas to run my home happily yet frugally. I considered giving each person a sock basket of their own but quickly realized I would then probably have six or more baskets full of socks. I mean, what are the chances they would have ever compared the contents of their respective sock collections?

I tried starting a rumor that potato chips were made from creamed zucchini, carrots and turnips but my gang figure that if it is fried, it can’t be all bad.

I tried assigning each their own roll of bathroom tissue. I thought I had a system figured out. I would keep written records and the stuff under lock and key. I would check out a roll to each person, initial and date the inside of the tube and make note of the distribution in my notebook. When they brought me their empty cardboard roll, I would check the first date, the date returned and give counseling on waste not, want not as needed. It didn’t get off the ground, My husband wouldn’t cooperate on this one. He said that if we weren’t a one-income family with mismatched socks and on a budget, he would take me on a long, long restful vacation.

The Saints in Our Lives

The Saints in Our Lives
by AnnMarie Waters

Each of us, by virtue of our baptism, is called to holiness. The call is one to which we recommit ourselves daily: through prayers the sacraments, and participation in the life of the Church. As we meditate on Jesus’ call to follow Him, and to conform our will to His, we cannot help but notice what a daunting task this can be.

How can we, in a world that is increasingly secular, succeed in growing in holiness? How do we instill in our children a sense of the sacred, a sense that we are not alone in our quest to reach our Eternal Home? The answer has many parts, because our Catholic Faith is so rich. Let us consider our path to holiness in light of the saints.

If we are to be beacons of light in the secular murkiness of the world, we need to take seriously the notion of the family as the ‘domestic church’, and to strive to create and nurture Catholic culture in our homes. I am not suggesting that we transform our homes into monasteries. I am suggesting that we live our family life in harmony with the liturgical calendar of the Church, and that we invite the saints to be a part of our family.

In our family, we read accounts of the lives of the saints throughout the year. Whenever one of our Patrons’ feast days come up, we recognize it in some way. Sometimes it is a simple as discussing the life of that saint or as elaborate as making a cake and decorating it with a symbol of the saint (a bishop’s mitre for Saint Patrick, for example) so that we can have a little party.

I have always had a great kinship with the saints and feel a particular closeness to several of them. The loneliest times in my life have never been truly lonely, because I have always found great comfort and company in the saints. I have been favored with many prayers answered through their intercession.

While there are many fine examples of living role models for our children, there’s an abundance of heroes to be found in the ranks of the saints. What child hasn’t been fascinated by the story of St. George slaying the dragon, or Saint Joan of Arc leading an army to victory? Saints’ heroic virtue and steadfast love of God are sure to make a lifelong impression on our children in a way no Power Ranger or Super Hero can. While our children listen with bland enthusiasm for the umpteenth time to the slogan “just say no”, the powerful story of Matt Talbot’s victory over alcoholism may inspire and compel our children to temperance and fortitude in the face of worldly excess and temptation.

The secular world wants to downplay the sacred, the transcendent, even to the point of glamorizing evil. In union with the whole church, let us and our families honor those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of Faith! We can help our children to love and emulate the saints and to never forget that they are there for us as our advocates, our companions, and our example as we walk the narrow path of sanctity to our true home.