Need to persist

Kent's reading C. S. Lewis, The Man and His Message which he got for his birthday. Here's a volume of insights by scholars on, indeed, the man and his message. In 1998 the colleges of Religious Education and Continuing Education at BYU held a conference in honor of the 100th birthday of C.S. Lewis in the hope that participants and many others would hold in high esteem his thought processes as a defender of the Christian faith and appreciate better the appeal these have over the world still. Written texts of eleven of the fourteen presentations at the conference make up the book.

Kent always shares out loud with me paragraphs that strike him. Here's one:

Furthermore, since discipleship occurs in a tight mortal time frame, it is all the more a rigorous and ongoing developmental journey. No wonder Lewis stressed our need to persist: "Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse—so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years." (C. S. Lewis, The Man and His Message: An LDS Perspective. p. 10)

Grandma Lulay's Chicken and Dumplings

The cooler weather this time of year sure makes me crave comfort-foods! We're wearing long sleeves now and drinking hot chocolate in the evening. I was looking through my recipe book the other day for something, well, yeah, comforting... and stopped at this chicken and dumplings recipe I got from Erin when we were in Colorado. She made it three years ago near Halloween and, oooh, I loved it! Seeing the recipe ingredients and remembering Erin's warm kitchen with this bubbling on the stove top brought back great memories!

CHICKEN:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3-4 pounds chicken pieces (legs, breasts, thighs)
1 small onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
3 cups plus 1/2 cup water
1 bay leaf
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper, to taste
5 medium-size carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

DUMPLINGS:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2/3 cup milk
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1. For the chicken, heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or other large covered saucepan. Add the chicken pieces and brown them on each side for 2 minutes.

2. Stir in the onion and celery. Sauté briefly.

3. Add 3 cups of water, bay leaf, bouillon cubes, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the chicken, covered, for 30 minutes.

4. Remove the chicken, add the carrots to the pot, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes or until the carrots are tender.

5. Meanwhile, remove the chicken meat from the bones.

6. Whisk together the flour and the remaining 1/2 cup of water in a medium bowl until smooth.

7. Add the mixture and the chicken meat to the simmering saucepan. Cover and continue to simmer.

8. To prepare the dumplings, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and fresh parsley in a large bowl.

9. Make a well in the dry mixture and add the milk, egg, and oil. Stir briskly to make a batter.

10. For each dumpling, spoon a rounded tablespoon of batter into the simmering broth. Cover and simmer for another 13 to 15 minutes, without stirring.

11. Ladle into wide soup bowls and serve hot. Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Friday

I'm not getting my vacuuming done and there's a lot of it, including the stairs. I very-much-dislike vacuuming the stairs themselves but don't mind doing the whole downstairs. I AM watching over a pan of chocolate chip cookies in the oven and taking a break here from kitchen duty to think and write. I've been looking up basil pesto recipes (found one with ricotta cheese and toasted almonds I'm gonna try) and putting ingredients together in the bread machine for sandwich bread – we stopped using Grandma Sycamore's delightful white bread to try a honey whole wheat/whole wheat pastry flour/bread-flour recipe (and water from canned garbanzo beans [aquafaba, look it up online...], crazy-good stuff); unloading the dishwasher and putting breakfast dishes in and baking bowls and utensils and, now, pans... putting away flour and sugar bins and salt and baking soda and vanilla, etc; cleaning the counters, yes.

And looking out the window at the house across the street from us, new construction, and the one beside it (walls poured yesterday, goodbye, goodbye view, forever) and the one beside it



framed while we were in Colorado and shingled since, and marveling that that man unloading the shingles hasn't pitched right off the roof! He almost did – drop – but did a hop and skip near the gable to save himself, gee. I've been reviewing recipes for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow as it's Conference Saturday: Ditalini pasta and white beans with garlic-rosemary oil for dinner (ahhh, for when Kent gets home from substituting at the temple) and baked chicken thighs with potatoes and carrots for tomorrow's lunch. I've been helping myself to the last of the raw cookie dough (which I shouldn't at all, not even but Oh. My. is it good!),



and listening to the Men of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir belt out "Brethren We Have Met to Worship," "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy," "Morning Trumpet," and "Fight The Good Fight with All Thy Might."

It's raining now.

I'm not getting my vacuuming done at all and it's on my list of stuff I HAVE to do. Also on that is eat leftover chopped salad for lunch, and it's almost lunchtime... in fact, it's five minutes past; go to Costco; visit dad and mom; make basil pesto (I said I would, it'll be great on pasta for Sunday lunch), text one of the ladies I visit teach to see if she got my first text about us coming next week; blog more posts: two days in September and another this month; drive to Trader Joe's for arugula and micro greens. Maybe I'll do that a different day, though it'd be good if I could get there today.



Marcia handed off this recipe to me a day or so ago after making the cookies and sharing some with Kent and me, saying it's Briana (her daughter-in-law's) favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I had to try it! There's cornstarch in it. I pasted the recipe right from Sally's Baking Addiction website (URL below the recipe).

Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

yield: 16 LARGE COOKIES

Soft-baked and ultra chewy. No mixer required. Use any of your favorite add-ins!

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/4 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour (Natalie used combination whole wheat pastry and all-purpose flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, melted (Natalie used room-temperature, softened, not melted to liquid)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Toss together the flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. In a medium size bowl or bowl of an electric mixer, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula or mixer paddle. The dough will be very soft, yet thick. Fold in the chocolate chips. They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to have them evenly dispersed among the dough. Cover the dough and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory. (Natalie did not chill dough; baked up great.)
3. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
5. Roll the dough into balls, about 3 Tablespoons of dough each. The dough will be crumbly, but the warmth of your hands will allow the balls to stay intact. Roll the cookie dough balls to be taller rather than wide, to ensure the cookies will bake up to be thick. Place on cookie sheet. Press a few more chocolate chips/chunks on top of the dough balls for looks, if desired. Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. (Natalie's oven cooked this size cookie-dough 12-13 minutes, 13 usually, before taking cookies out.) The cookies will look very soft and underbaked. (They do.) They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Make ahead tip: Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature and continue with step 3. Baked cookies freeze well - up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well - up to three months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw.

Additional Notes:

1. Salted butter can be used instead. Reduce salt in the cookie dough to 1/4 teaspoon.
2. Room temperature egg + egg yolk are preferred for even disbursement. Typically, if a recipe calls for room temperature or melted butter, it's a good idea to use room temperature eggs as well.  To bring eggs to room temperature quickly, simply place the whole eggs into a glass of warm water for 5 minutes. What to do with the extra egg white? Make these or these.

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/05/13/chewy-chocolate-chunk-cookies/

Can happiness happen NOW?

Sarah and I talked the other day and she taught me things she took note of from the General Women's Conference Saturday night. Her insights are priceless. I think we share a brain! I said Sarah you have to send me these so you can be my guest blogger on my blog. She laughed and declaimed needing attention that way. She WOULDN'T be my "guest" anything. She WOULD send me the notes as she took them so I'm posting them as they've come.
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Elder Uchtdorf is a Master Teacher who knows his audience. His words are a laser beam to the soul.
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Ava had to go and live with Aunt Rose for the summer while her mother had an operation. She didn’t know Aunt Rose. She hated it there. She had a cluttered house and a creepy, gray stalker cat who perched on the highest point in the room waiting to attack like a tiger.

Aunt Rose had never married, didn’t have any children. She struggled to get up the stairs and couldn’t bend over to tie her shoes. Yet, she was the happiest person Ava had ever known. Everyone wanted to be around her. Aunt Rose had a painting on her wall of a little pioneer girl skipping along the road. The colors were vibrant blues and greens.

Ava asked her what the painting meant. Aunt Rose said: “My life was one heartbreak after another. I was an absolute monster to be around. Then I discovered faith and hope in the Savior — because of Him everything will be made right. I knew I had a choice. I could drag my feet in the dusty road of defeat or I could be happy. It’s much easier to live in a puddle of pessimism and a mess of melancholy. But why get swallowed up in the past?"

Aunt Rose read to Ava from the Bible: And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Revelations 21:4). "Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you have ever heard?" Ava asked “Is all our happiness in eternity? Can some of it happen now?” Rose said, “Yes. I’ve learned that “now” is part of eternity. Forever is composed of “nows."

How to be happy? Fill your life with meaningful things. The heart of the gospel is love. The “shoulds” and “musts” of the gospel all lead to love.
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I like:

Stalker
Vibrant
Struggled
Happiest
Life was one heartbreak after another
Monster
Faith and hope
Drag my feet in the dusty road of defeat
Be happy
Puddle of pessimism and mess of melancholy
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes