STRAWBERRY, BANANA, ORANGE MUFFINS

I knew I would like these muffins.  Sometimes you just know when you read a recipe..  I fed them to my vegetarian young adult children one morning and they loved them. I made a few changes that I liked.  They would be lovely for Easter brunch.



STRAWBERRY, BANANA, ORANGE MUFFINS

     2 1/4 cup flour

     1 ½  tsp. baking powder

     ½ tsp. soda

     1/2 tsp. salt
      2 tsp. orange zest

     2 large ripe bananas, mashed

     2 eggs

     ½ C Brown sugar

     ½ C White Sugar

     4 T. melted butter

     4 T. vegetable oil

    ¼ c. fresh orange juice

   

     2 C. strawberries, cubed smallish  

     2  tsp. orange zest

     ¼ C sugar (coarse raw sugar is best

             but white granulated will work)

Combine the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and 2 tsp. orange zest together in a small bowl.

Using an electric mixer, beat together the bananas, eggs, sugars, juice, oil and butter until well blended. Stir in the dry ingredients until just combined then carefully add 1 cup cubed strawberries and gently mix together. Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tins, well sprayed with Pam.  (This will make about 16 regular muffins or 12 large)  Sprinkle the remaining strawberries evenly over the tops of each muffin. Push them down a bit.

Combine the sugar and remaining 2 tsps. orange zest together and sprinkle evenly on top of each muffin.   Bake 350 for 25-27 minutes or until solid in the center.  

 Ready to bake

BOOK REVIEW - SHANGHAI DIARY

 

I decided while reading this book that I like books about real life experiences, especially if I don’t know much about the time period.  I didn’t know that as many as 20,000 Jews escaped Hitler’s clutches by traveling to China during Hitler’s reign of terror.  If you had a boat ticket to China it was even possible to get out of a Nazi prison. 

Ursula Bacon is 10 years old when her family escaped to China in 1939. The story moves from their opulent home in Germany to the boat passage and on to the crowded ghettos of Shanghai.  There was no sitting and sulking in this family.  They immediately made friends, found jobs and worked hard to make life as good as possible in a forbidding exile.

 The details of their struggles and joys were intriguing.  Ursula’s parents were filled with patience and wisdom as they constantly encouraged Ursula to go on.  They proved that enduring is all about attitude. 

From her father:  "This is not a paradise, but we don't have to worry about the Gestapo and the SS. Compared to Hitler's death camps, his butchers, his ovens, his gas chambers - we had merely been inconvenienced!"

Ursula lost the carefree teen years in the stress of it all.  So many situations forced her to be and adult.   I was impressed with the social connections among the refugees.  They seemed to advise, support and expound wise encouragement to each other.  Even among the Chinese Ursula experienced friendships. 

From her mother:  “Memories are wonderful, and we all have them.  They are part of us.  But we need to treat them like a favorite picture book that we enjoy looking at, and when we close the book, the pictures stay on the pages.  If you let the past live your life, my child, then the present has no value, and the future is doomed to failure.  Look at what we once all had—those fine and generous gifts, be grateful for them, but recognize the new gifts coming your way.  Live in the present, take what life has to offer, adjust, and if nothing else, make a memory of everything.  In the depth of my heart I know that everything we are given now, we will be able to put to good use at another time.” (p. 77)
“Candles warmed the room—their flickering glow softening the ragged edges of our troubled times, and sent me straight into the pockets of my heart....”  (such a lovely thought)

“I came to realize that life was not about events, life was about people.  I have learned to treasure friendships and to recognize what it takes to be a good friend.”  (Friends got them through it all)

Advice from a Mrs. Goldberg:   “Go out and make a miracle today, God’s busy, He can’t do it all...she sent me on my way, giving me a purpose for the day and meaning to my young life for as long as I shall live.  She handed me wings to fly, opened my eyes to a world that needed miracles, and gave me the assurance I could do God’s work.” 

It was a time of spiritual awakening and questioning for Urusla.  Maybe we all do this in troubled times.

From Ursula :“I wanted the kind of assurance that there existed a plan, an orderliness of events, a reason, and a purpose.  I wanted to believe in a continuation of life as it changed form and substance.  I wanted to believe that I was part of it; I wanted to believe that I was not a mistake, I was not a joke.  I needed that deep, inner knowing that I too, had a purpose.  I wanted to trust that knowing.” (p. 228)

The family lived in China for 8 years, two of the years after the war had ended, as they worked on getting visas to come to the United States. 

For me the book was about the importance of a community in our life.   Wherever or whatever we are dealing with, our associations can help us get through.  

4 stars –an enjoyable read.

ASPARAGUS QUICHE

I love asparagus.  When spring comes I dream of picking fresh asparagus on the ditch banks in Green River, Utah.  We would pick bushels of it when I was a kid.  My mother made mashed potatoes with creamed asparagus on top.  The best comfort food ever. This Quiche is lovely! Pie crust should be made with butter not shortening.  This crust has a nice buttery flavor.  The addition of vegetable oil keeps it flaky.  You will want to use it for your fruit pies also. 

ASPARAGUS QUICHE

1 10 Inch pie crust unbaked
3 ½ C. Asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces, steamed for 2 minutes and drained
8 oz. Shredded Swiss cheese
8-10 slices crisp cooked bacon cut up (optional)
5 eggs
2 C. half and half
3/4 tsp. salt (only 1/2 tsp. if using bacon)
¼ tsp. pepper

Put the Swiss cheese in the bottom of the pie shell.  Sprinkle the bacon over the cheese and then the cooked asparagus.  Beat the eggs, cream, salt, pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional) Pour this over all and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Lower the oven to 350 and bake for another 30-35 minutes.  Cover with foil the last 10 minutes if the crust is getting too brown.  Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.  Makes 8 good size pieces. 

Pie Crust for a 10 inch pie

Mix together until crumbly:
6 T. butter
1 C flour
½ tsp. salt

Stir the following  together until you have a smooth paste: 3 T. water, ¼ C flour 1 T. vegetable oil and 1 tsp. vinegar.  Pour over the butter mixture and roll together into a ball and knead 30 seconds or so.  Roll out to a generous 1 inch bigger than the pie plate so that you can fold under 1 inch around the top to make a chunky edge.

WHY I BELIEVE

I am teaching a "Writing Family Stories" class right now.  We always do something called Anaphora which is repetition for emphasis and effect in a story or essay.  This is one I wrote and may be the most important thing I have ever written.  Here is another one.   What I have learned in 62 years

WHY I BELIEVE
By Charmaine Anderson August 2003

My patriarchal blessing confirms that I have a gift of faith.  I know this.  It made it easy to be a social Mormon most of my life.  I didn’t pray much.  I rarely studied the scriptures.  I thought I was doing fine because I attended church every Sunday and felt the spirit on occasion.  When my mother died in 1989 I knelt and promised God that if he would keep her from suffering any more that I would pray daily and diligently—that I would be a better disciple.  I realized the importance of such a promise and I have tried to fulfill it daily.  I began to study the scriptures.  I have attended the temple weekly.  I have been blessed and buoyed up for my efforts.  Now I have confidence in Why I Believe.

I BELIEVE because the scriptures have become a part of who I am.  I memorized the entire chapter of Isaiah 53 and say it most every day.  The 4 years I taught Gospel Doctrine in Sunday School I spent 1-3 hours each day studying.  I learned to love the Word.  Sometimes I feel like Jeremiah when he said:  “…his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” (20:9)

I BELIEVE because I have felt the power of the Holy Ghost directing me and giving me “sudden strokes of ideas,” as Joseph Smith said it would.
 
I BELIEVE because I have been captivated and taught by the spirit of the Book of Mormon.  I believe as someone has said that a bad man couldn’t have written it and a good man wouldn’t have tried. 

I BELIEVE because the temple has become a wonderful weekly experience.  I have gone fasting and praying many times over the years and when I look back I see answers to those prayers.  There are 4 winged vases in the Celestial room of the Bountiful Temple.  They have become a symbol of the hope I have for my 4 children.  Each week when I enter the room I say this scripture from Psalms:  “Be merciful unto me O God.  Be merciful unto me.  For my soul trusteth in thee.  Yea in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge until these calamities be overpast.” (57:1)

I BELIEVE because I have learned the power to love comes from Christ and I want to have that power.  In Moroni 7:48 it says:  “…pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure.”  I try to include this heartfelt plea in my daily prayer.

I BELIEVE because I have learned that God has sent many good men to the earth to teach who don’t have the fullness of the gospel. I have enjoyed reading many Christian writings by C. S. Lewis.   He was an atheist for many years of his life.  He studied and read thousands of books in his conversion process. This is what he said about the day he realized he believed:

“ You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him who I so earnestly desired not to meet.  That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.  In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.  I did not then see what is the most shining and obvious thing: the Divine humility, which will accept a convert even on such terms.  The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet.  But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?  The words…compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy.  The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.  (Surprised By Joy p.228)

Another favorite religion writer is Rabbi Harold Kushner.  What he said about church services I can testify is true:
“In congregational worship, regularly scheduled services on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I have come to believe that the congregating is more important than the words we speak.  Something miraculous happens when people come together seeking the presence of God.  The miracle is that we so often find it.  Somehow the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.  A spirit is created in our midst which none of us brought there.  In fact, each of us came there looking for it because we did not have it when we were alone.  But in our coming together, we create the mood and the moment in which God is present.”  (Who Needs God, p. 149)

I BELIEVE because my heritage gave me a gift that was precious to them and I know I have an obligation to open it and see it’s beauty for myself.  The first member of my family to join the church was Jacob Hamblin.  He knew Joseph Smith.  His reaction to the Prophets death touched me:

“We was often presented with public papers with different accounts of the death of the Prophet.  We did not consider ourselves under any obligation to believe them.  I know I felt very melancholy and my spirits depressed.  July 14, I ascertained from a private letter the truth that the Prophet and Patriarch were martyred.  My feelings I will not attempt to describe.  For a moment all was lost.  I was on my way to Bragore and was under no obligation to in as much as they had killed the man God had sent to restore all things.  I could not refrain from weeping. I turned aside to give vent to my feelings.  As I was about to leave the road I met two or three persons.  One of them observed, ‘I wonder what will become of Elder Hamblin’s Mormon President?’  I could hardly restrain myself.  I felt that if I could be annihilated it would be a great blessing to me.  I thought it would crush me to death.  At length, believing it must be the power of the devil and knowing that there was something wrong, I prayed to my Heavenly Father for the Holy Spirit.  After a little all was right.”   (From his journal)

Knowledge, prayer and the workings of the Holy Ghost are the basis of my belief.  In Isaiah 53:11 it says of Christ:  “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.”  If knowledge is important to Christ it is so for us.  I began by acquiring the knowledge of Christ in the scriptures the rest came along naturally. This is

Why I Believe.

BUTTERNUT SOUP WITH GARAM MASALA - From Spain

 Ron and Cheryl Miller and Me (not praying)

We spent a week in southern Spain last fall.  The hills around Malaga are covered with white pueblo villages.  We stayed in one and visited several other villages during our time there.  We had a wonderful lunch in the village of Frigiliana overlooking the valley.  We ate a butternut squash, tomato soup with garam masala, a spice I recognized.  It is often used in Indian cooking.    I have experimented twice changing the amount of tomato and spice the second time.  I am pleased with the final product.  I served it to guests both times and they liked both versions.  Roasting the squash adds a nice flavor but it is still good just putting everything in a pot if you are pressed for time.

Toss together the following in a bowl and pour onto a cookie sheet.  Broil on high for 10-12 minutes or until you have some browned edges:

5 Cups of cut up peeled butternut squash
1/2 chopped onion
3-5 cloves garlic grated
1 stalk of celery cut up
2 T. olive oil
(If you don't want to roast the squash, brown the garlic and onions in the oil in your soup pot before adding the other ingredients)

Cover everything with 5 cups of water and 2 tsps. of garam masala 1/4 tsp pepper and salt to taste (start with 1/2 tsp).  Add 1 cup canned diced tomatoes.   (You can buy garam masala spice but it is not easy to find.  I made my own and have included the recipe I used.  If you search the internet there are dozens of different recipes for garam masala.)  Simmer covered for 40 minutes and blend until smooth with an immersion blender (the hand held kind.  If you don't have one Walmart has one for about $10.  I couldn't live without it.)  Add 1/4-1/2 cups whipping cream.  (the richer the better but you may be counting fat.)

 Garam Masala spice mix :
1 tablespoon coriander; ground
1 tablespoon cumin; ground
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fennel seeds; ground (mortar and pistal)
1 tablespoon ginger; ground
1 tablespoon cardamom; ground
1 tablespoon nutmeg; ground
1 TEASPOON cloves; ground
Cayenne pepper to taste (I use about ½ tsp. You can always add more later)

MEMORIES OF NEW ZEALAND - For Leif

 

Oil on Linen Board - 16X20

My son Leif is graduating from the University of Washington in Seattle this spring. Last fall he went to New Zealand to help a friend photograph a  project studying some kind of rodent they have there.  (that's all I know)  I told him I would paint one of his photographs from the trip.  These are hot pools where they were swimming.  It was different from anything I  have painted and enjoyed the challenge.   This is Leif in the picture and yes, that is his hair.