I haven’t posted much about food recently, but among my kitchen concoctions this past week were delicious tuna cakes with a chipotle lime sauce. The following evening I made poor man’s Steak, crazy ranch potatoes, pistachio bundt cake, and coffee pudding for some friends, but made enough for our dinner, too.
Today for our Cyzick/Sych reunion, I made periogis with sour cream, sautéed onions, and crispy bacon crumbles. Pepperoni rolls, double chocolate bundt cake and caramel pudding.
The tricks? I bought a bag of frozen periogis at Costco and added the toppings. For the pepperoni rolls, I bought a bag of frozen Rhodes rolls, thawed them on a tray, tore them in half, flattened each piece into a small disc, laid a few slices of pepperoni into each one, rolled them and baked them. The recipe for the “shortcut” bundt cakes are at the bottom of this post. Both puddings were made completely from scratch and required much more attention. These shortcuts still make for delicious “heritage” food without as work. And those are just my contributions. There will be even more deliciousness at the reunion!
I’ve been experiencing increasing intense pain in my left side for two months. Initially I figured it had to do with carrying a twenty-six pound toddler on my left hip all the time. This past week though, the pain became unbearable and spread into my back making it hard to function, so I finally went to the doctor. Turns out, I had a severe infection! After a second dose of antibiotics I’m feeling significantly better.
Although the pain was excruciating, I truly didn’t know just how bad I felt until I started to feel significantly better. Sin can be that way too. One wrong choice here or there, unacknowledged, unrepented of, and justified by any number of reasons, will eventually take us to a place where we must address our pain and issues in order to function in a healthy way. When we repent and ask God for forgiveness, he who is rich in mercy, unfailing in love, and slow to anger, will always hear our cries and respond with heart-healing and soul-reawakening. Once we receive the beautiful gift of forgiveness and healing, only then do we start to glimpse how truly lost and pain-filled we were before.
This morning, our children were playing “tug-of-war” clean up. They were holding on to opposite ends of the dog leash, pulling each other this way and that and seeing how much they could accomplish by pulling each other in opposite directions. As one might imagine, they accomplished little to nothing. Life is often that way. We are all running in our own directions trying to pull others with us instead of trying to find ways to work together. May we all do our part to work together and be the positive change we want to see in this world.
As promised, here’s the simple bundt cake recipe.
Fabulous Bundt Cake
1 cake mix, any flavor
1 (3.4 oz) package instant pudding, any flavor
1/2 cup oil
1 cup hot water
4 eggs
Method: Mix all ingredients together until well blended, then beat hard for two minutes. Pour into greased bundt cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.
As suggested in the recipe, we LOVE using a yellow cake mix with pistachio pudding for the cake and serving it with homemade coffee pudding.
The cake I made for the reunion was a chocolate cake mix with chocolate pudding. This recipe is so simple, I actually let our 5-year-old daughter make it this morning.
Let me know if you try any of these tricks or recipes and how you liked them. Have a great weekend.
Inspired Ramblings 