Author: bill

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Recipes from Cook’s Country

I got a free copy of Cook’s Country and decided to try a couple of recipes. I had seen the Skillet Lasagna recipe before and finally gave it a try. Its a thirty minute recipe and the folks ate it up. It is a good warm meal for a week night and a nice change of pace. I was not able to find the meat loaf mix they recommended so I substituted 1/2 pound of ground sirloin(10% fat) with the meat from two Italian sausages.
The triple chocolate cookies were a splurge. Two bags of chocolate chips is a lot of chocolate. The goods news is that the cookies were good but not addictive. Since they were so chocolately it was more likely we would eat just one or two rather than a whole bunch. It took us almost a week to go through the batch.

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My apologies to those offended by Verse of the Day

I have added a widget plugin to post the Verse of the Day on my blog page. To those offended by me pushing religion down their throat I am sincerely sorry because I have been there. Please either ignore it or look at it as wisdom from a history book.

However if God has a plan to jumpstart your faith then there is little I can do about it. My recommendation is to get over it and get on with it. Waiting to find what is behind Door B is not a good idea. God has a sense of humor but I don’t think you will like it!

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The Art of Civil Disobedience

It has come to my attention that the art of civil disobedience has fallen on hard times. The ousting of Mary McCarthy is the latest example of the poor state of this time honored art. Though Martin Luther King is the great modern day example, it is “Deep Throat” appears to be the role model for today’s pretenders. Before we knew her name we could empathize with her plight of knowing about prisons that most people would consider to be not representative of American policy and that revealing that secret information was illegal and disloyal to her employer. Now that we know her name and her background, we are dismayed, cynical, and our priorities have shifted. The issue of the “greater good” is overwhelmed by Mary’s conspicuous history of political appointments and donations. The focus would have remained on the prison issue if she was apolitical. Since she is so political, the focus has moved to Mary’s political motives. The important issue has become about a CIA employee abusing the trust given her to further her personal political agenda. I doubt the CIA promotes politicizing secret information as an employee fringe benefit. For her personal gain she has further damaged a wounded organization. Both Mary and Valerie Plame are examples of what we do not want to see in role models. Both woman abused their position with the CIA to further their political agenda. My wife was aghast to hear that the person who leaked secret information about the prisons was a woman with a history of Democratic party contributions. In a year with so much discussion about a potential woman president and the good characteristics of women, this a sad reminder that each woman must be judged individually. Some women behave badly.

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Watching the Ten Commandments with my son

Actually it was my wife who wanted to watch the Ten Commandments so my son and I went along. Last night we actually skipped 24 to watch it! However, my wife did not make it. She got about five minutes into watching it and figured out that she wasn’t going to make it. So she went to bed. We could of given up, too. Instead we ended up discussing the movie as we watched it. I pulled out my NIV Study Bible to check what it said about the events. We looked at the map and the best guess at the route taken by the Jews in the Exodus. His class at school had recently reviewed the Old Testament as part of their survey of major religions. He remembered seeing part of the original Ten Commandments movie in class so he had a few questions. We could see where the movie used some artistic license. Overall I liked the movie and I thought it did a good job of following the written version in the Bible without being boring. It is a nice complement to the “original” version and the written version in Bible.

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RE: A staggeringly good “Catholic response”

An inspired piece of apologetics:

You write that you disagree with the Catholic Church’s positions on divorce and remarriage, birth control, abortion, homosexuality, and the male priesthood. May I suggest that you bracket these convictions for a moment and consider a more fundamental question: Is the Catholic Church who she claims to be? This question must be asked and answered before you can reasonably address the specific teachings of the Catholic Church, for if the Catholic claim is true, then you will be forced to reconsider your present beliefs.

I don’t know if I buy the inquirer’s letter…but Al Kimel is awfully impressive in his answer. Read the whole thing.
H/T Julie.

UPDATE: I am currently reading Catholic Matters, which Kimel mentions toward the end, and I highly recommend it. It’s a terrific read. Not at all pedantic. Friendly and warm is what it is. It’s in The Bookshelf, too.

[Via The Anchoress]

I am not Catholic but I found Kimel’s response probes my belief structure.

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RE: Test Recipes: Pan Pizza

I love pizza – any kind of pizza. Traditional Italian style, Chicago deep dish, New York, Californian, and even those bagel pizzas. To me, every type of pizza has its charm. Sure, there are days where I feel like one type of pizza more than another, but in the end, I can’t say that I dislike any of them. To me, the key of making pizza is the dough – generally this is what differentiates one pizza from the next. Pizza Hut’s pan pizzas are particularly appealing to me as they have a crisp exterior and spongy interior. When I saw this recipe to recreate the pan pizza at home, I had to give it a try.

Pepperoni Pan Pizza (makes two 9-in. pizzas)
Pizza Sauce (makes enough for 6 to 8 pizzas)

Pizza Dough

Pepperoni Pan Pizza

General Pizza In Pan Layer Diagram

[Via Cooking For Engineers]

I have been making bread for thirty years. Some years ago I started mixing and kneading the bread in the mixer. There was a great discovery. Kneading by hand tended to make me lazy and quit early. Now I finish up with a little hand kneading to get the right texture. My next great discovery was to remember that someone had given me an electric warming plate and it was the perfect device for preparing the environment for the dough to rise. It is too easy to cook your dough with a too hot oven when you mean to let your dough rise. About ten years ago I experimented with using bread dough for pizza. It was fun. It was a lot of fun when I involved children. They love to be involved in making their own pizza. I will probably try this recipe for kicks. It looks fun and delicious!