Dough Knot: Try this at home!

I have always had mixed feelings about the Proverbs 31 woman, mainly because if each of her aspects were listed in a report card I would have a long list of "Fails", a few "Passes", and maybe one, possibly two "Excels". Maybe. On a very good day.

Yesterday was a very good day. I made these:

They are called Garlic Knots, and I found the recipe here at The Recipe Critic. It did not matter that there were dishes in the sink and laundry to put away. The house was filled with a wonderful hot bread and garlic smell that worked like a siren's song to distract everyone from all that other stuff. And they tasted wonderful. My son arose and called me blessed, my husband also and he praised me. 

Score one "Excel" for the day!

This morning I was up at an indecently early hour and decided to try another new recipe I found: One Hour Easy Cinnamon Rolls. 

Tah dah!

Except that because I am me, it took two hours. I just barely got them out of the oven before the morning power outage started. And it only made a dozen. So I will have to either double it next time or find another recipe. And instead of getting up early I will have to just not go to bed the night before. (Pillsbury Grands!, I miss you!) I think now I remember why I don't make cinnamon rolls very often. 

They were quite yummy, so if you are not me, and you don't have to feed a growing man-child, and you like to get up before the rest of the world goes to bed, it is a good recipe. I think next time my family asks me why I don't make cinnamon rolls more often I will just whip up a batch of garlic knots for supper and make them forget all about everything else.

Combining Cultures in the Kitchen

I see salted fish, (as in fish that has had a ton of salt rubbed into it and been dried for preservation) in the stores here all the time. It is sold in bags by the kilo. In a country where only a minority have refrigeration or freezers, dried fish keeps for months and by cooking it in stews, greens, and sauces, a little bit can be made to go a long way toward feeding a family. I have had it on occasion and liked it but avoided purchasing it because I didn't know how to prepare it. 

Last week I bit the bullet, or the fish, and bought some. Then I asked about a dozen friends how to cook it and got almost as many answers. All agreed on one thing: soak the fish, soak the fish, soak the fish. Then soak it some more. This is how you remove enough of the salt to make the fish edible. 

Out of the package, it looks like this.

It doesn't look like it came from a Gorton's box, that's for certain.

Not very appetizing if you have anything against skin, gills, fins, tails, bones, or...

...teeth.

Just to really get into the spirit of cooking with an African flair and dressing the part, I had to put on my zebra print apron. Sorry for the quality. I don't take a lot of selfies. Other folks are much more interesting. And yes, I meant to cut my head off.

I soaked the fish all day, changing the water a couple of times. 

Then I considered all my options and decided that the easiest choice would be to simply remove as many bones as possible, season it, and saute it, so that is what I did. It is common here to just cook it into your greens, but I knew if I did that I would be eating by myself.

We had b'teku teku, fried plantain, rice, and avocado to go with our fish. (My b'teku teku explanation and recipe are HERE.) Was it tasty? Yes, but it did not need salt.

Then on Saturday I made  good 'ole American cinnamon bread so we would have it for breakfast on Sunday. I am glad I did and that we had some left over because when we arrived home from church, our guard had a surprise for us: three of his kids were here for a visit! We gave them cinnamon bread and Fantas to go with the lunch Leopold had prepared for them and Daniel played soccer with the boys for a while.   

They were here because the youngest had been born just six weeks after we first arrived in Congo and had been named after David, so Leopold wanted them to meet each other. It is common here to name a baby after a life-changing person or event that happens near the same time as the birth, and getting a new job is a big deal in Congo. Both of our guards have sons named after David now.

Five Facts and One Educated Guess About Congo's Olympic History

Giant Olympic Rings unveiled at Heathrow ready to welcome visitors to London 2012 (Photo credit: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

Some friends of ours have a dish and invited us over to watch the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Since we don't have television, it was a real treat to get to see something live, and in English. I thought you might be interested in the Olympic history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. While there isn't a whole lot of information out there, and some of the information I did find conflicts, here is some interesting trivia about DRC in the Olympics.

* The Telegraph reviewed all 205 national anthems for the London games and the DRC made their list of the top ten worst anthems. You can go to the link above and hear a clip and judge for yourself, as well as compare it to the other nine.

* The Democratic Republic of Congo has never won an Olympic medal. Maybe this year!

* The DRC first participated in the Olympics in 1968, under the name Congo Kinshasa.

* The DRC's second Olympic appearance was not until 1984, under the name Zaire.

* Five athletes were sent to the 1968 games. All five were cyclists.

* How many athletes from the Congo are competing in 2012? Good question! According to Congo WorldWide Services, seven athletes were chosen to complete in six categories, including one participant in the Paralympics. The official Olympics website, along with several other sources, claims that four athletes are competing: one in judo, one in boxing, and two in athletics. The paralympics section of the Olympics website has no athletes listed as yet for DRC. Since the Paralympics don't start until the end of August, it is possible that all of the athlete names have yet to be posted.

English: Olympic rings with smileys inside (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Missionaries are known for going, not for staying. As a result, while the teams paraded into the arena you could hear people in our group saying things like "that's where so-and-so is from," "I know someone who lives there," "we used to live there," and "I've been there." We found ourselves cheering firstly for our own team, but secondly for the DRC team and the teams of all our friends who couldn't be with us.

Here's a recipe for you. This is one of my favorite quick and easy snacks to make. I've had this recipe for so long that I can't recall where it came from. Originally it called for pecans but pecans cost an arm and a leg here, so I decided to try it with peanuts and it worked just fine. You can make up a batch and munch it while you watch the games!

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

1 egg white

1 TBS water

3 cups nuts (any variety)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup sugar - for my friends in Congo, if you use the local sugar instead of white sugar, just increase the salt a little to balance out the added sweetness.

Heat oven to 300F. Beat egg white and water slightly. Stir in nuts. Mix remaining ingredients and stir into nuts. Spread on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Other sources:

Top End Sports

Guardian

Oh, Passion, My Passion

I wasn't sure what to write about this week, but in the span of a few days the word "passion" kept cropping up so I'll run with that and see what happens.  I was ordering produce from Papa Joseph on Monday and asked him what fruit is in season right now.  He said "maracuja," which means passion fruit.

Passion fruit flowers are stunning! I read that they received their name from missionaries, who were reminded by the flower of the passion of Christ.  The three stigmas represent three nails.  The "threads" of the flower represent the crown of thorns.  The purple represents the purple robe used to mock Jesus. The five petals and five sepals represent the ten disciples who remained faithful to Jesus throughout the Passion.

I used to confuse passion and exuberance.  I thought if I was passionate about Jesus, I had to show it by worshiping, speaking, and acting exuberantly.  But that just wasn't in line with my personality so I thought I had no passion and I felt guilty.  Then I met my introvert husband, who is far less exuberant than I am, but has a deep passion for Christ. I came to understand that passion does indeed compel us to action, but it doesn't require us to be something other than ourselves.  I was house cleaning yesterday and had my Selah cd playing.  Passion came to my mind once again as this song played:

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!  - S. Trevor Francis

Now that's passion!  I love that hymn, and had to stop what I was doing and just absorb it.  

I had never tried passion fruit so I ordered some from Papa Joseph.  We didn't even know how to eat it.  Emily told us that she sees people at school just scoop out the pulp, seeds and all, and eat it with a spoon.  So, at supper one night we tried it.  Oh my, it was tart! Everyone had a good laugh at the faces we made.  I decided to try baking something with them. I figured if a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down then a cup of sugar ought to help us eat our passion fruit.  I combined a few recipes I found on the internet and ended up with passion fruit muffins.

Passion fruit muffins:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
pulp from three passion fruits
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup milk

Glaze: 

1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbs melted butter
pulp from one or two passion fruits

I just mixed all the dry ingredients first and then stirred in the wet ingredients.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until done.  Add glaze when muffins have cooled.  Half of us liked them, including one of the cats.  She stole my breakfast muffin yesterday.

I Slept on a Popsicle

Popsicle - Orange Cherry Grape (Photo credit: frozenfoodjournal)

Last night I slept on a popsicle.  When we first arrived in Kinshasa, we were loaned furniture, appliances, cookware, etc. until our shipment arrived and we could afford to purchase our own things.  Last summer we finally acquired our own bed when a departing family was selling their water bed.  They told us when we bought it that we should keep a blanket between the mattress and the fitted sheet to avoid getting too cold.  Too cold?  We live in central Africa.  But, banking on the fact that they had more experience with waterbeds than we did, which was none, we followed their instructions.  Until yesterday.  I took the blanket off to wash and didn't get it dried before bedtime because the power was out.  So we just put the sheets on and went to bed, thinking that since the power was off it probably would be a blessing anyway if the mattress was a little on the cool side.  I started out cold as soon as my back hit the mattress, but when the power came back on sometime during the night and hubby jumped up and turned on the a/c, our bed became a popsicle.  (Yes, Marilyn, you told me so!)  It was like laying on a giant version of those squishy ice packs you keep in your freezer for when you injure yourself.  I ended up getting a pair of socks (I'd forgotten I even owned socks.) and another blanket so I could sleep on top of the covers and insulate myself.  David even got cold and turned off the a/c.

Not that I'm complaining.  Our old bed was hot and uncomfortable (see our bed story HERE).  And many people here in Kinshasa sleep on a mat on a dirt or concrete floor with no screens or mosquito nets.  I am very grateful.   But I have learned that when a good friend gives you advice, it is often worth heeding.

Speaking of good friends - several years ago we went to a New Year's Eve get together with some friends.  It was a sort of potluck, everyone bringing whatever they wanted to contribute to the gluttony of the evening.  My friend Amy brought pepperoni chicken, which immediately became a family favorite and we begged the recipe off her.   Pepperoni is a real treat here, hard to find and expensive, so this meal makes my family feel very much loved and a little less homesick.  Here's the recipe, with my Congo adaptations:

Pepperoni Chicken - serves 8

1 small package of ppperoni (or to taste)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or meat from 1kg chicken leg quarters)

1 package gemeli pasta (something curly like rotini or macaroni)

2 jars of spaghetti sauce (roughly six cups, I use more if I add extra chicken)

1 Tbs Parmesan cheese (Gruyere is a good substitute and cheaper in Congo)

2 Tbs oil

Dash of Italian seasoning

Dash of crushed red pepper

Mozzarella cheese (Just enough to spread over the top.  Gouda is a cheaper substitute and works OK)

Combine chicken, oil and Italian seasoning.  Marinate half an hour.  (I often forget to thaw my chicken in advance, then end up boiling it, leaving out the oil altogether, and just adding the Italian seasoning when I mix it all together.)  Brown chicken.  Meanwhile cook pasta.  Combine everything except the mozzarella and place in a greased casserole dish.  Top with mozzarella.  Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes.

Although my driver is still out of town, I was able to visit the orphanage this week!  I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

My Funny Valentine

What do you do when your turn to bring snacks to Bible study falls on Valentine's Day?  You make cupcakes of course!  A while back I found a rare treat - real cream cheese on sale for a somewhat reasonable price.  I therefore decided to make my first ever red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Naturally, in the best interests of the ladies in my Bible study group, I had to test them since this was an untried recipe.  Oh, my, these are good.  Maybe I still have time to make something else to take to Bible study.....

I found the recipe on the internet, here.  I have no idea who she is, but she makes incredible cupcakes.

My Valentine gift this week was so awesome!  To quote a song we used to sing in Brownies when I was a girl, "I am sure you couldn't guess it, if you guessed a long, long while."  Drum roll please.....I got a 12-volt light in my bathroom that runs off a battery!  No more shaving or doing other bathroom stuff in the dark!  Hubby finished installing it and we decided we like it better than the light that runs off the electricity because now we can see both sides of our faces in the mirror!  Ok, it's a strange gift.  But I love it!

I am still working on memorizing Isaiah 41:13 for the 52 Challenge.  I've almost got it.  Next I'm going to learn Psalm 141:3 "Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips." Nuff said about that one.

Cookies Worth Blogging About - Seriously!

Some time ago, long enough ago for me to forget who my wonderful benefactor was, someone gave me a bag of Heath toffee bits. I went googling for recipes that use toffee chips and found a recipe called "Nancy's Decadent Heath Bar Cookies." Well, if you were browsing recipes and found one that had both your name and the word "decadent" in the title, wouldn't YOU feel compelled to try it? I sure did. These babies are amazing! And - when people try them and ask what they are called, I get to truthfully call them "Nancy's Decadent Heath Bar Cookies" - hee hee. She doesn't say when to add the butter so I added it with the shortening. Her recipe calls for 12oz of chocolate chips, but after measuring I had about 1/3 cup left over so I just dumped them in. She also calls for 6oz of toffee chips. I had an 8oz bag. Knowing that 2oz is not enough for another batch of cookies, I dumped it all in. I had pecans so that is what I used for the nuts. I did have a lot of trouble with the cookies sticking to the pan (possibly too many chocolate and toffee chips? nah!). I tried letting them cool for different lengths of time, spraying the pan, etc but they stuck every time. I didn't want to try her foil trick because I was afraid I would end up with little pieces of foil stuck to the cookies. The foil here in Congo is tissue thin and doesn't really have a "shiny" side. Finally in exasperation, and after making myself sick from eating all the broken cookies that stuck to the pans, I tried the foil. It is imperative that you use the foil! It makes a world of difference. To view the recipe click THIS.

Stinky Pie

We are eagerly looking forward to Christmas break when Josh comes to visit! In the meantime, kids at Emily’s school are getting a two-day break next week due to the elections. We are hoping and praying that all will go well and kids all over Kinshasa will be attending school with safety and confidence on Wednesday. The newest rumor is that we will get a transformer no later than Monday. I’m not sure how the power company will pull that off on election day but I’m trying to be optimistic. I know two things for certain regarding the elections, electricity, and everything thing else here in Kinshasa. First, there are always rumors. Second, there are lots of people praying here and around the world! Yesterday some of us met to pray and my friend Deborah shared Psalm 4:6-8. "Many are asking, "Who can show us any good? Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety."
Thanksgiving Day we joined several other missionary families for a feast and a time of praising God. Hearing others tell stories of things God has done for them is always encouraging and exciting. Since we still have no electricity, I searched the internet and found a recipe for “no-bake pumpkin pie” that I could make on the gas stove and decided to try it. Pumpkin is not available here so I used a local squash that looks and tastes a lot like pumpkin. I made some whipped topping and added it in order to make my pie prettier. Here, whipped topping is called KlopKlop, which I think is funny – makes me think of horses walking on pavement. I used mini-chocolate chips to make a “P”, then decided someone might mistake the pumpkin pie for pecan pie, and added a “u.” The result: my pie was labeled “Pu”, as in “peeyew”. Oh well. There was none left, so I guess it wasn’t too bad, and I’ve included the recipe below. If you click on the photo it will enlarge so you can more easily read it.

"No Electricity Cookies"

Cover via Amazon

Our ladies' Bible study group has been working through a Beth Moore study, Beloved Disciple. At the beginning of our ten week study we drew names for "secret sisters" and enjoyed several weeks of praying for our sisters, giving them small gifts, and writing encouraging notes to them. I drew Christine's name, my same friend who helped me with the burned electric cable and invited me to her Bible study with the ladies from her church. Last Tuesday, we had a potluck dinner to celebrate finishing the study and we all planned to reveal our identities to our secret sisters. It turns out Christine had drawn my name also, and neither of us ever suspected the other. She gave me a really cool sewing basket made of rafia here in Congo, and she sewed a skirt for me out of local material. Talk about being spoiled! I will get lots of use out of both. During our ten weeks, most of the ladies in our group were without electricity about 18 out of every 24 hours. One week I was searching the internet for a dessert that I could make without electricity and without dirtying a ton of dishes. I found the one below and shared some with Christine, telling her that I was delivering it in behalf of her secret sister. It was the truth, I WAS delivering it in behalf of myself - I mean her secret sister.

"NO ELECTRICITY COOKIES"

1/2 cup softened butter
2/3 cup white sugar
3 TBS unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 TBS brewed coffee (or water)
1 3/4 cups oats
powdered sugar

Cream butter, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and vanilla. If your butter is soft, you won't need a mixer. Stir in oats. Roll into one inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar. If you do have electricity, the dough is easier to work with if you chill it for a little while, but it isn't necessary. On days when you are really desperate for a chocolate fix you can just eat the dough out of the bowl and save the expense of the powdered sugar. Don't ask me how I know this. Just trust me.

A Couple of Triples

Yes, it's been a really, really, really (triple number one!) long time. I could make a bunch of excuses, such as we have power outages nearly every day, we have internet problems frequently, I'm busy home schooling two kids and cooking from scratch, I got caught up in Thanksgiving and Christmas and potlucks and all that - all of which are true, but whatever the excuse, it has still been a really, really, really long time. I'm sorry. Ok, quick "catch-up", in as few words as I am capable of. All of the windows have been repaired. And the roof. Last month Emily told us her wall, the one between her bedroom and the bathroom (yes, the same bathroom that flooded with sewage and has a broken toilet) was wet. It had been wet for a while and she just thought the spot was a stain from when the roof leaked until she actually left something touching the wall and it got wet. The stain was wider than my arm span and about 3 feet high, and a nice mold was growing. So, the plumber came out and made holes in the walls to fix the pipes. At least he filled in the holes though, and Emily's wall is drying. We celebrated the holidays with our MAF team and other missionaries here. It was hard to be away from family, especially since our skype wouldn't work. Josh played in the orchestra for the school musical in December. We searched for things to buy for the kids for Christmas and could not find anything here, so I bought some local fabric and sewed gigantic bean bag chairs for each of them. We filled them with bags of chopped foam that we bought at the local mattress factory. They were a big hit! We still have power and water issues, almost daily. Once we had no power for 72 hours. A couple of times we ran completely out of water, even in our reservoir, and had to haul water from the Francis house. We had the annual MAF family conference in January. It was our first conference and we really enjoyed it. We have hired a tutor to help us improve our French. There are two things which make French more difficult here than I had anticipated. One is that our vocabulary is too small, we just don't know enough words. We're working on that. The other is the accent here. The Congolese don't pronounce their vowels the same way we were taught, and it has caused some misunderstandings. For instance, when they say "two", it sounds just like "ten". That makes shopping fun. A couple of weeks ago, I asked our guard how his family was doing and his response sounded like "sah vah impay". I knew what the first part meant, "ça va" means "it goes", a way of saying things are fine. I couldn't figure out what "impay" was, but I knew "paix" means peace, so I thought "he must mean all is well and peaceful", so I said that was good news. He looked at me strangely but said no more. Then David asked me a couple days later "what does impay mean?" Our guard had just said the same thing to him, again in response to an inquiry about his wellbeing. I told him I didn't know, that I couldn't find anything like it in the French dictionary, and what I had guessed it meant. He said he had guessed something similar and said "that's good" and got the same strange look. So the next time our tutor came, we asked him about it. He said it the same way our guard did, but when he wrote it out for us, he wrote "un peu", which sounds more like "uhn puh" (short nasal sounds, not long vowel sounds)in International French. Ding! The light was now on! It means "It goes a little", which here means the same as saying it is not going well at all. So our guard was telling us things were not going well for his family and we were telling him what great news we thought that was! I felt even worse when we learned that he had two children with malaria that week. So, that's one lesson we shan't forget and a mistake we won't make again. One more small chink out of the language barrier.
Ever since Christmas, my friend Sandy has been waiting patiently for me to remember to share my recipe for crescent rolls. To atone for neglecting my blog for so long, I'll share it here also. I got this recipe from my sweet mother in law and it makes nice flaky rolls. And the smell! Amazing! They are really, really, really (triple number two!) good! Here you go, Sandy!

Crescent Rolls

4 1/2 cups flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 package plus 1 TBS yeast (so you don't have to look it up like I did, one packet contains 2 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup Crisco (I try to avoid shortening. You know, the whole hydrogenation thing. So I use real butter and it works fine.)
1 cup scalded milk

Mix milk, butter, sugar and salt. Allow to cool to lukewarm. Add yeast and eggs. Add flour a little at a time until dough is too stiff to stir. Let rise, or chill until later. Three hours before baking, divide into three sections. Roll out into circles and baste with melted butter (not too much). Cut like a pizza into 8ths and roll into crescents. Let rise. Bake 6 minutes at 375 degrees.

Lessons learned

Yesterday we graduated from French language school. It's been a long and challenging ten months. It wasn't only challenging because of the French courses we were taking. This was a year of big changes for all of us. Josh experienced his first year in public school at the same time he experienced his first exposure to another culture. That's really like learning two cultures at once. Emily had to work independently in her studies during my class hours and save the rest for when I came home. Daniel sat through hours and hours of church without understanding what anyone was saying because David and I were required to attend a French church as part of our schooling. I had to balance being out of the home half of each day and having studies and homework of my own with teaching Emily and Daniel and managing our home. David had to balance school with being a husband, father, friend and neighbor. All within a new environment and culture/language. We learned a lot about relationships, priorities, flexibility, and faithfulness. When we first came here, one of my kids didn't believe me when I said that God knows our needs and will provide the relationships we need in Québec. Now that child admits being wrong and not wanting to leave new friends found here. But a lesson was learned, and now there is a confidence that God will take care of us. We are busy packing and cleaning our apartment and squeezing in every spare minute we can with our friends before we go. We'll be here a few more days because Josh has prom this weekend.
We have grown to love the people here. They have been very polite and friendly to us and very patient with our bumbling attempts to speak their language. We like our church and our pastor here very much and were just getting to the point where we understood almost all of the sermons. We have made wonderful friends, not just among our fellow classmates but among local people also. There are some things we won't miss so much: milk that comes in plastic bags instead of jugs, cold weather, having to go to several different stores to get things we need because the grocery stores here don't have built-in pharmacies, make-up aisles, toy aisles, etc.; stores that close at 5pm - the time when most people are finally free to shop. But really those aren't important issues as much as they are inconveniences. I would guess someone from Québec might feel overwhelmed by their first experience in a super Wal-mart, as the Wal-mart here is far from that. We have tried new foods and liked many of them: fresh, real maple syrup, tartinade (a meat pie that is traditionally made for Christmas), Cretons (a meat spread often eaten on toast or crackers), and poutine. Our very first week here we were told that no one has experienced Québec until they have tried poutine. Poutine consists of french fries, with gravy on top, and cheese on top of that. Not just any cheese, though. Fresh cheese curds, usually made that same day, that makes squeaky noises when you chew it. There are many varieties, but that is the basic poutine. Last night, to celebrate that all five of us finished a school year here, we went to Stratos'and had poutine one last time.

A Great St. Louis Recipe

Image via Wikipedia

I guess I am on a recipe roll. I expressed a desire on Facebook to bake a St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake and received some requests for the recipe. Yes, it did originate in St. Louis, in the 1930's. I have also heard this recipe called "butter chewies", but since it did originate in St. Louis, I prefer to call it by it's proper name. I grew up in St. Louis and while I am proud of my heritage, this recipe is a favorite of mine by its own delicious merit. Cut the pieces small - it is very rich.  It goes great with coffee!

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

1/2 cup butter
3 eggs
1/2 tsp almond extract (Vanilla extract can be subsituted but is not as tasty.)
1 box yellow cake mix
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 cups powdered sugar, plus a little extra
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan. Melt butter. Empty Cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in butter and one of the eggs. Press mixture into pan. In separate bowl, mix cream cheese, almond extract, 4 cups powdered sugar and remaining two eggs. Beat for three minutes on medium speed. Spread in pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes until golden brown on top. The cake will be gooey on top, so don't over bake! Allow cake to cool, then dust with more powdered sugar.

Cake! and conversation

Image via Wikipedia

The French Language School we attend is a ministry of Word of Life. In addition, Word of Life operates a number of Bible Schools, including one here at our campus. Most of the Bible School students are recent high school graduates, not much older than Josh. Last Fall when school began, each language school student was paired up with a volunteer Bible School student. We were assigned to meet for an hour a week and read outloud from the French Bible. Our students were assigned to correct our pronunciation and help us to understand what we were reading. This week was our last week of required meetings with our students because they are leaving this weekend on mission trips, then taking a two week break before beginning the summer camp season. I am blessed with a sweet and patient student who wants to continue meeting with me after she returns from her trip in order to practice conversation in French. I wanted to do something to show my gratitude and affection for her, so I made a chocolate cake for her. She loved it, and it was a great pleasure to be able to do something for her. I receive a lot of requests for my recipe, so I will post it below. I love chocolate, but I never used to enjoy chocolate cake. It just didn't taste chocolatey enough for me. I came across this cake recipe somewhere, I can't remember where, and it trumped every other recipe I had ever tried so this one is now the only chocolate cake recipe I use. The frosting recipe came from a dear friend. It's rich, so it is best eaten with coffee, but that's ok because I also love coffee.

Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp EACH baking powder and baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup boiling water
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Heat oven to 350*. Grease and flour two round or one 13x9 inch pans. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water. Pour into pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting - makes 2 cups
1/2 cup real butter, softened
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
Cream butter. Add remaining ingredients and beat to spreading consistency. If it is too thick, add a small amount of milk.