Trying to Stay Warm

I'm truly ready for Spring! It has been in the 20s straight here in Ohio with 6" of snow on the ground. It's beautiful and makes everything look clean, but I'm truly ready for Spring. :)

This week has been a good week. Got a lot done at work, now I'm heading off to teach a Cake Decorating Class tonight. I think I'm going to splurge and get a Starbucks tonight. Just don't tell my friend Paul who eats raw!

I've also been working on our family's cookbook project. We're compiling a Messianic cookbook of which I'll post about separately. That's going to be very exciting! We've gotten all the main Torah Teachers to agree to be part of it too! The recipes as they come in are looking delicious. :)

I Got My Snow Cream!!!!! :)

Yes, I did indeed get my first bowl of snow cream. In fact, we're planning on having snow cream for desert today for our company. :) Now, that I've hopefully gotten you good and hungry for it, would you like the recipe?

Snow Cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar (we use evaporated cane juice)
1 egg
1 Tbsp vanilla
Lots of Fresh Snow

Whisk together the milk, sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth and the sugar is dissolved. Bring in the fresh snow from outside, and add until the consistency is that of ice cream. Yield: 3 large bowls. Recipe can easily be multiplied to fit the size of your family.

Today, we are having company which is unusual for us on Shabbat...but I'm looking forward to it. Our assistant congregational leader and his wife are coming. We got all the food prepared yesterday before Shabbat!

Okay...now that was interesting. Our neighbor was going out to the car in what looked like pajamas...and we had noticed it being that it was snowing. I made the comment that it looked liked their church service had been canceled due to the snow...and my Momma laughingly reminded me that today is Shabbat aka Saturday, so their church wouldn't be until tomorrow. I guess that shows how Hebraic my thought is becoming...or maybe how blond I am!

On Thursday, we made homemade Mozzarella Cheese from Maggie's milk. It is an all day task. Not that it is difficult; it is just that every 30 minutes or so, you need to do something with it. We begin by heating the milk to 90 degrees, adding the starter, and letting it sit for a while. Then we add lipase powder...later on the organic kosher vegetable rennet. Then as the curd forms, we cut it, heat it, drain it, and finally stretch it. The stretching is always Daddy's job! It is then soaked in a salt brine at the very end. Now, realize that is ONE whole days worth of work condensed into a paragraph. Maybe I can take some pictures this next week of the process. It has been really neat the demand for the cheeses that we make.

We also made fresh homemade butter. We had about 2 quarts of cream saved in the fridge to make it with. So Mommy put that in the Kitchen Aid with the wire whisk, and put the mixer to work. It takes about 30 minutes to whip it from cream to butter. Then we wash it, salt it, and form into patties. We ended up with 1 lb 9 oz of finished butter. Our butter tastes like as my grandma so aptly put it "what butter used to taste like."

Oh, speaking of my Nana. She made a really cute comment the other day. In trying to explain to my uncle why my family "doesn't do Christmas", she told him that we understood that Jesus (Yeshua) was born on Saturday, so we don't do Christmas. She was so cute! She's trying to understand why we don't do things and had gotten Shabbat which is on Saturday and Christmas mixed up. So we got a good chuckle out of it...and appreciated that she is trying to understand. Gotta love my grandma!

Well, company will soon be here...we're all looking forward to it. Shabbat shalom to y'all!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow!...Plus a Recipe

Today it has lightly snowed all day off and on. We've got about 3" on the ground, and our temperatures have stayed in the lows 20s even during the day. As the sun sets now, it will fall into the teens. Thankfully, all of the animals have water heaters. For the cows, it is a small heater that floats in their water tubs...otherwise, their water would freeze. The cows generate enough body heat that keep them and the 9 chickens in the barn with them comfortable. We turn on a heat lamp at night for the other 15 chickens in the "house barn" or garage/barn. That definately helps them. With the newer chickens who are our meat/layer breed called Freedom Rangers - they are a heritage meat bird unlike the Cornish Rock Cross Meat Birds that are normally used - we are getting more eggs now. The Cornish Rock Cross birds are unable to reproduce, die from heart trouble if kept too long, and so many other health problems due to all the genetic modifying that has been done. We raised them the first year, but said "why are we feeding them organic feed and trying to be healthy, when they are not healthy birds to begin with?" So we did the Freedom Rangers this year and have been very happy with them. We kept 10 hens and 2 roosters to raise our own little meat chicks. That will be fun come spring.

Today was a good day at work...I got a lot done which always makes me feel good. A lot of projects are beginning to roll along which is always exciting. The new chat site that we'll be having will bring a lot of technical improvements that we've been hoping for. I was excited to welcome aboard a new trainer today, John. John is a great guy to work with and very detailed, so I know he'll work well on our team.

For supper tonight, we'll be finishing up the Cream de Glase, and as promised here is the recipe:

8 egg yolks

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup sugar (we use evaporated cane juice)

1 tsp vanilla

Combine eggs, milk, and sugar in the top of a double boiler, and cook over hot, not boiling, water stirring constantly. Cook until the mixture is thicked (similar to cook and serve pudding) and slightly coats the spoon. Pour into bowl to cool. Serve with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Makes approximately 6 servings.

My cake decorating class last night went really well. I have 10 students in my class, and they are all very excited. Everything went smoothly even with the bad weather and roads. Here is a picture of my cake from class last night...

Busy Start to the Week

Wow! It was a busy start to the week. Yesterday, I woke up not feeling quite myself...a dry throat, a bit stuffy in the sinuses, and just a bit blaugh. But being the first day of the week, I did get to sleep in. :) After getting up and having breakfast as a family, Momma and Daddy ran their paper-route. Daddy does three routes for The BAG which is a local "ad bag" with the Krogar, Meijer, Walmart, etc sale ads in it and delivered to each house at their mailbox. He and Mommy run a route and Mommy and I run the other two. While they were gone, I finished up the Elderberry Syrup that Mommy and I had begun making the night before. It is good for fighting colds, so I made sure to take a big taste when I finished it and another dose later that day. See the recipe below. I also made Cream de Glase which is an egg based custard that we serve with fresh strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Now, that fruit is just starting to come back in, we couldn't resist. I'll plan on doing a recipes entry later this week with the recipe for that! :) Between that and staying on the phone too while they were gone, I was a busy little bee. I told Momma..."boy, my feet are tired" when she got home. She said, "Now, you see why I say that my feet are tired!" I can certainly understand more so. Since my job is a sit down at the computer job...I sometimes forget how phsyically tiring (albeit rewarding) work that can be!

After lunch, Momma and I ran our routes... When we got home, we did a few other household chores and ate supper. By about 6pm, Momma and Daddy were going to run over to Nana and Gaga's (my grandparents) for a couple of hours and also take some medication to the nurses at the Assisted Living where they live. My grandparents are both 85 years old. While I was welcome to go and normally would, I stayed home and camped out on the couch. I was pretty tired by that point, so I curled up with my two sweet kitties and watched the movie called "The Pretender" by Christiano Films. It is about how a young man pretends to become a Christian just so he can win this girl...and how we need to be genuine in our relationships and watch out for the wolves in sheep clothing. Very good message! I've watched it before...but it's worth rewatching. Shortly after that, I headed on to bed...

Today has been a busy day. We got our bulk food order for our home based bakery. We also order in bulk for those in our local Messianic community. Plus today is my first day back at my regular job with Crown...so it's been play catch up with e-mails, phone calls, get projects rolling again, and the usual catch up. Now, it's off to teach the first night of cake decorating class tonight which I'm looking forward to.

And finally, as promised, the Elderberry Syrup Recipe:

2 cups dried Elderberries
4 cups boiling water
1/2 cup honey (fresh preferrably)
1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh squeezed from organic lemons preferrably)

Put the elderberries in a large saucepan and pour the boiling water over them. Let sit overnight. In the morning, bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Pour into a blender, add the honey and lemon juice, and blend until smooth. Pour into jars and label and refrigerate. Take about 1 Tbsp 3 times a day. It is supposed to help fight colds. It sure did seem to help mine. :)