Simple, Yummy Pumpkin Spice Muffins

 Greetings All,

This is a wonderful recipe that a church member shared with me a few years ago. Super simple. Very Yummy! I post it here principally for my convenience.

Ingredients:

1 Boxed Spice Cake Mix

1 Can of Pumpkin

1 12oz. package of cinnamon chips (Hersey is the only ones I have found)

1/4 cup of milk

1 egg

1 Tbl. Cooking Oil

Mix all of the ingredients until all ingredients are folded in. Spoon into greased muffin pan. 

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. I find 18 to be just about perfect.

Sugar Free, Low Fat Blueberry Muffins

 I have a deep and abiding love for blueberry muffins, but every time I see a calorie count on these favorites I am overcome by a bit of guilt for eating them. So, I have adapted a couple of different recipes to come up with this guilt free version that is still super yummy!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cups Splenda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 serving of light and fit blueberry greek yogurt

1 egg white

3/4 cup 1% milk

1 cup fresh blueberries

1/4 cup Splenda

2 tsp cinnamon

Spray butter

Directions:

Mix flour, Splenda, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside.

Mix yogurt, egg white and milk in a large mixing bowl.

Gradually blend in flour mixture, once fully incorporated fold in fresh blueberries.

Spoon into greased muffin tin.

Mix cinnamon and Splenda, spray tops of muffins before cooking with spray butter and sprinkle 1 tsp of cinnamon mixture atop each muffin.

Cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes

Simple Ham Salad

The mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has had people asking questions for almost two millennia, but there is one Easter question that continues to plague humanity that falls on Sunday evening or Monday morning. The question? What to do with the bottom half of the spiral sliced ham that has not been spiral sliced! There are various answers, but I would offer the following combination as the simplest solution. First, trim all of the usable ham off the bone and chop it in a food processor. Divide this into two parts, put two cups in the fridge to make a Tuesday after Easter Quiche Lorraine. The rest set aside for today's ham salad recipe. Finally take the bone carcass and either freeze it to use later, or immediately make a pot of soup beans or black-eyed peas. All yummy! All easy! And there is nothing left over.

Simple Ham Salad

5 cups finely chopped left-over ham
1 cup lite mayo
1/2 cup pickle relish
1/4 cup pickled jalapenos
1 bunch green onions
1 red bell pepper
1/2 sweet onion
1 Tbl Sweet Hot Mustard
2 leftover deviled eggs (4 halves)

Directions:

1. After chopping the ham transfer it to a mixing bowl
2. In food processor, combine green onions, sweet onion, red bell pepper, jalapenos, pickle relish and deviled eggs. Chop until the ingredients are more of a liquid puree'. Transfer to the mixing bowl with the ham.
3. Add mayo and mustard to the mixing bowl and mix all ingredients for 1 minute on low
4. You can serve immediately or let stand in refrigerator for a few hours to allow the flavors to mix to their fullest.

Easy Pork Marinade

This is a quick and easy marinade for pork chops done on the grill.

Ingredients:
1 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup soy
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 tsp Thyme
1 1/2 tsp All Spice
4 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup pickled jalapeno peppers
1 bundle of green onions (using only the top)
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 Olive Oil

Instructions:
Put all of the ingredients in a blender except the olive oil in the blender for 1 minute, then reduce blender speed to lowest setting and drizzle the olive oil into the blender. Once done, coat your pork and refrigerate for a few hours before you but the chops on the grill.

Bacon Apple Jalapeno Pop 'Ems

Bacon-Apple-Jalapeno Pop 'Ems

Last Saturday as I was putting finishing touches on my sermon my Gmail account dinged with a "new" email.  It was from the Food Network and was this recipe.  I was hungry and Christa was at the grocery, so I sent her the list of ingredients and I made these to go with our pork chops as an appetizer.  They were spectacular!  So I am posting them here so it is easy for me to find the recipe in the future!  It is a cut and paste from their website.  I actually replaced the scallions with half of a medium white onion minced.

Total Time:
1 hr 5 min
Prep:
30 min
Inactive:
5 min
Cook:
30 min
Yield:40 pop 'ems

Ingredients
One 8-ounce package light cream cheese, at room temperature
3 large scallions, roots sliced off, green and white partsminced finely
1 large Granny Smith apple, cored and minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
20 jalapenos
20 strips thin-sliced bacon, chopped in half
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment.

In a large bowl, stir and break down the cream cheese until smooth. Add the scallions and apples, plus as much salt and freshly ground black pepper as you like.

Don a pair of plastic gloves so you don't burn your fingers or your eyes like I did. Slice each jalapeno in half lengthwise, and then either slice out the membranes or use a measuring spoon to scoop them out. Discard the seeds.

Either using a teaspoon or a small icing spatula, fill each jalapeno half with the cream cheese mixture; fill until just over the rim of the jalapeno. Wrap each pepper with a bacon half and secure with a toothpick. Line up the pop 'ems on the prepared baking sheet and pop into the oven until bacon has browned on the bottom, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes (which will be as long as you can resist them). Enjoy with a cold beer! Aaah!

Recipe courtesy of Aarti Sequeira



Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/bacon-apple-jalapeno-pop-ems-recipe.html?oc=linkback

Israel:Day Eight

Greetings all from the stranded tourist,

Well the rumors were true when we got back to the hotel. We went to dinner while the Educational Opportunities (EO) staff worked diligently to get us booked on alternate flights. We gather in the lounge after dinner and await news. Here comes Tom, some have flights and some don't, hold tight more info to come. Enjoy some coffee and pretzels and relax and wait. Here he comes again. They have been successful in getting 36 out of 68 of us flights. Time for them to load onto the buses to get to Tel Aviv. You can sense the frustration and disappointment in the rest of us who didn't make the flight. We gather downstairs to here the plan
 EO has set us all up in rooms and is working on getting us flights home. We are all confirmed into JFK leaving at 11:30 p.m. On Friday. What? Not Thursday? No Friday. The disappointment rises. We get everybody keys and get them settled into their rooms. At this point, apart from the group leaving for Jordan tomorrow, I'm the only Elder here that has been to Israel, so I have become the default leader of our motley crew for the remainder of our time. There are a few who desperately need to get home, so EO works their magic and we get 7 more out that night. We are down to 25. We try to get folks to see the blessing of two more days but things are still a little raw.

Once we have done all we can do for the night, I head to the lounge and tell Dia the bartender I need an American sized cup of coffee. He holds up a beer mug and says it is the biggest he has. PERFECT!!!! I drnk coffee until the wee hours of the morning and finally head to bed.

I get up early to see the Jordan crew off. We have flights all confirmed all the way home and EO has authorized is a guide and a bus for the day and EO is picking up the tab. How incredible is that? Oh the choices we have. We settle on three: the temple mount sifting project, the main part of the Israel Museum, and the night spectacular at the citadel of King David.

At 10:30 we hit the road. The first stop is the sifting project. A number of years ago the Muslims were excavating on temple mount and simply throwing debree into the valley below. The Israel Antiquities Authority got permission to gather the debris and transport it to another location. Now they allow tourists to work with the archaeological staff to sift through it looking for antiquities. We had a ball, dump a bucket of material on the shifting screens, wash out the bucket, spread the material and wash it down, then sort through it in a systematic way looking for pottery, mosaic pieces, arrow heads, coins, glass, etc. Our group found one ancient coin and lots of pottery shards. We had a ball, I know I don't have a calling to be an archaeologist, but something compels you to do one more bucket thinking the next one will have a treasure. They summarize our time by categorizing and dating our good finds and we are off to lunch. A local place, not one of the tourist destinations. It was delicious.

Next stop, the Israel Museum. There is a gigantic model of Jerusalem at the time of Christ which really helps put things in perspective. Some head to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, others head to the main building. It is a giant museum. There is an archaeology section that takes you from pre Canaanite thru today, a history of Judaism that includes four reconstructed synagogues from around the world, two giant art galleries, and an area of exhibits from other nations and cultures. Two hours isn't enough to take it all in. Back on the bus headed to the hotel for dinner.

After dinner we are on the bus headed to Jaffa Gate to go to the Citadel of King David for a light and sound show. No one is really sure what that means but we have been told it is spectacular. And they were right. For the show we are seated in the middle af the ancient crusader fortress watching the history of the land of Israel projected across every surface
if the Citadel. It is an incredibly moving presentation and is an incredible finale to a spectacular trip. Tomorrow is a free day.

Your brother in Christ
Faron

Israel: Day Seven

Greetings from our last day in Israel,

Tonight is the night we return to the land of bacon, breakfast sausage and pulled pork BBQ! GOD BE PRAISED!!!! This is our sort of lazy day. We get to sleep in, but me and a few others decide to get up and catch the light rail, think above ground subway train, to the Jewish Market. This is local, real life Israel not a tourist area. They will only take shekels. The market is filled with the sights sounds and smells of Israel. Fresh produce stands, meat markets, seafood markets, candy, fresh baked breads, pastries, spices and the list goes on. I want to get bags full of all of the above and go home and cook something extravagant. Instead I just gorge myself on pastries, fruit, candy and finally hot foccia bread straight from the oven only 4 shekels, which is basically a dollar. YUMMY! We catch the train back and it is time to put our bags outside our room doors and load up on the bus. First stop lunch. Another Kibbutz, this one commemorating Rachel. Full belly's and it is time to head to the upper room.

We approach the Old City at the Zion Gate but we don't actually enter as we turn west in front of the gate. The upper room sits above the Tomb of King David. This is another vanerated spots but may not he the actual location, but it does fit some of the scriptural evidences. There has been a chapel commemorating for centuries and during the Islamic control it was converted to  mosque, so now the site is a unique blend of Jewish, Christian and Islamic symbols and architecture. After an explanation and pictures, and a quick trip.to the Tomb of David. We are off to Caiaphas' house. I shared about this beautiful site yesterday, so I won't linger here with more words. Our time here as a group finishes with all.of us in the pit together singing amazing grace. It is pretty overwhelming.

A visit to the gift shop, mom gets me a stohl that the sisters of Carmel made and had delivered that morning. It is beautiful, but you don't get to see it unless yall let me preach in a robe every now and then. ;) On the bus headed to the Garden Tomb.

This is a site discovered in 1842 and offered as an alternate location for Calvaryand Jesus' empty tomb. It is a place that looks more like what one pictures when they think of the tomb and Calvary. There is a cliff, that sort of looks like a skull. Granted it is above a bus depot, but it is a real cliff rather than a protected spot under am altar. There is also an actual first century tomb in a garden. This places appearance tugs at your heart strings but the guide's explanation, a volunteer at the site not ours, feels a little like a time share sales pitch. After the tour we gather, both buses, for a communion service led by the bishop. It is a fitting close to an incredible trip. The only catch is a rumor running around that our flights been cancelled. They site is closing and we are urged back to the bus, headed to the hotel for dinner then departure for the airport.

Bad news, or perhaps good, THE RUMOR IS TRUE!!!!!!

Your brother in Christ
Faron