Category Archives: Desserts

A Curious Hodgepodge

Anyone for pie from Leoda’s Bakery Maui? We have Leoda’s Banana Cream and Chocolate Macadamia.

Hello mid-October Hodgepodge. Thank you, Joyce!

1. Do you think you’re driven more by curiosity or comfort? Explain. 

Oh boy, this one is tough. I am a very curious person but I choose to seek things out in comfortable settings. I love to discover new places and historical sites etc., but I’m not traveling to unstable regions of the world to see those places. I won’t walk into dangerous situations. Enough of my curiosity can be satiated in comfort and safety.

2. What non-food item is in your refrigerator or freezer? 

Cold packs for our shopping trips to Costco which is 90 minutes away from us.

3. Are you comfortable with silence? If you’re home alone, do you like silence or do you need regular background noise? Do you seek out times and places to be silent? What’s your favorite place to find silence/be silent? 

I do enjoy worship music being on while I do household things but I don’t consider that noise. I’m not a fan of background noise in general.  After very noisy functions I let out a sigh of relief as we get in the car and head home. I like quiet in the morning while I read my Bible and other books and make my lists for the day.

4. Carpentry, electrical, plumbing, landscaping…which skill would you most like to possess and how would you put that skill to use today?

Landscaping with a lot of muscle included so I could clean up my planters and know what to prune, what to pull and what to leave alone.

5. Do you lean more towards being too needy or too independent? Which do you find harder to deal with in others? 

I lean more toward independent and less needy. Sometimes being independent doesn’t serve me well in ministry, though. I’ve had to learn to ask for help more and more the older I get. I’m not a great recruiter. I admire people who are good at it! Genuine neediness is okay with me. Professional neediness drives me up the wall and what I mean by professional neediness is those who think the world and those around them owe them everything without a hint of gratefulness for what they are handed.

6.  Insert your own random thought here. 

We just got back from a trip to Maui with our family plus our DIL’s mother and Granny. I’m starting my posts of our time there. As usual there will be a lot of photos from our days and our adventures while there.

 

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Ellen B. is still away from her computer until next week but wanted to leave you with this recipe since we have entered pumpkin season.

My family has a favorite easy Spice Cake that I’ve made over the years and I decided to switch it up a bit for pumpkin season. Instead of using applesauce that the original recipe called for I used 100% pure canned pumpkin and pumpkin spice instead of nutmeg.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Ingredients:

  • 1 pkg. yellow cake mix
  • 1 pkg. 4 serving size Jello instant vanilla pudding (3.4oz.)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup pure pumpkin filling (not sweetened)
  • 1/2 C. water
  • 1/4 C. oil
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. pumpkin spice

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Combine all ingredients in large mixing bowl of electric mixer and blend then beat at medium for 4 minutes.
  3. Pour into well greased and floured 10 inch tube or fluted tube pan or angel food pan.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.
  5. DO NOT UNDER BAKE.
  6. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then remove and cool on rack.
  7. When the cake has cooled and before serving give it a dusting of powdered sugar.
  8. It’s good by itself or served with vanilla ice cream.

Pear Crumble

On our previous property we had a pear tree that produced lots of pears and this is one of the recipes that I made to use some of the pears up.
 This is a simple to make recipe with the preparing of the pears taking the most time in the process.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 2-1/2 cups quick oats
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (may be omitted)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 6 cups pears, peeled, cored and chopped (this was about 13 pears)
  • 1/3 cup white sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan.
  3. Mix together first 6 ingredients to make the crumble portion.
  4. Sprinkle the chopped pears evenly with the mixture of white sugar and cinnamon.
  5. Press half of the crumble mixture onto the bottom of the pan all the way to the edges.
  6. Top the crumble with all the prepared pears evenly.
  7. Sprinkle the remaining half of crumble mixture over the pears evenly. You can press down lightly.
  8. Bake in preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes.
  9. Serve warm or cooled with ice cream or whip cream or just as it is.

You can cut this recipe in half and bake it in a 8 or 9 inch square pan.

Cambridge Dinner and Evensong

Another journal entry for our time in Cambridge in March of 2026. This one will be for the evenings of March 11th and a back track to the evening of March 10th.

After our train ride back from Ely we hailed a taxi to drive us back to our lodgings. We freshened up and relaxed for a while but soon determined we were hungry and set out to find the likely spot for dinner.

The Cambridge Chop House looked good and we managed to get seated without a reservation.

The views of King’s College were a nice added treat.

A lamb chop for me and short ribs for Greg.

We shared sticky toffee pudding for dessert. This was a top notch and very satisfying meal.

It slipped my journal posting radar about our Tuesday evening March 10th Evensong at St. John’s College. St. John’s College was closed to visitors the whole time we were in Cambridge but they did have Evensong that the public could enjoy. We were so happy to be able to attend it in the college chapel and get a little view into some of the architecture and history.

Evensong is a musical form of evening prayer, most familiar in the Anglican and Episcopal traditions. It’s typically held in cathedrals, collegiate chapels, and parish churches, often at the close of the day. Unlike many other church services, much of Evensong is sung by a choir, accompanied by an organ, with the congregation usually participating through silent reflection or by joining in a few responses and hymns. The primary purpose of Evensong is to offer thanks for the day that is past, to seek spiritual peace for the evening ahead, and to provide attendees with a space for contemplation through beautiful music and scripture. 

It has been a wonderful way for us to end a day of sightseeing in our travels to attend Evensong.

Where we were seated to enjoy Evensong I was able to see some of the floor tiles in the transept/crossing section of the chapel.

Moses and the burning bush.

Abel and his offering to God.

While waiting in the narthex of the chapel, I was thrilled to see the following tribute.

Greg and I have read about William Wilberforce and seen tributes to him in different parts of England. His book, Real Christianity, is a book I can recommend. I have the revised and updated version by Bob Beltz.

Wilborforce and Thomas Clarkson both members of St. John’s College were honored for their prominent role in passing of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade 1807.

1776 & 1779 William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson begin their studies at St John’s. Joining forces in 1787, they will spend the rest of their lives leading the campaign to abolish the slave trade and slavery.

“Britain’s abolition of its slave trade and then colonial slavery is the most dramatic example in human history of moral convictions overcoming national self-interest.” David Brian Davis

While we were in Oxford at Christ Church College in 2022 we saw a tribute to one of Wilberforce’s sons.

The plaque on the left reads Culham College, Founded by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, to prepare school teachers to serve children within the Diocese of Oxford and well beyond its borders. 1852-1979

Samuel Wilberforce, FRS was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce. Known as “Soapy Sam”, Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his day. He is now best remembered for his opposition to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution at a debate in 1860.

We also read an extensive plaque in his honor in the north transept of Westminster Abbey when we visited in 2003.

William Wilberforce is buried in the north transept of Westminster Abbey in London, England.
He was laid to rest on August 3, 1833, following a major state funeral. He is buried next to his close friend and former British Prime Minister, William Pitt.

Wilberforce was a member of parliament from Yorkshire. When we were visiting the Yorkminster in 2023 I spotted a plaque dedicated to him at the entrance to the gift shop.

You can read more about Wilberforce at the following link;

William Wilberforce

I’ll leave this post with a couple quotes from Real Christianity.

The Bible is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. It tells us of the greatest gift that men and women have longed for through-out the ages and of which the prophets spoke about for centuries. When Jesus finally came, His arrival was hailed by the angelic host with the exclamation, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). How can you measure the value of the good news of Christ? It is spoken of in the Bible as light in the darkness, freedom from slavery and life from death. Look at how much the Early Church valued the message. They received it with great joy and overflowing gratitude.

Surely all these things should help us come to terms with the inexpressible value of true faith. The greatest gift of God is often either rejected outright or treated as if it is of little worth. But if we really began to study the Bible, we would be impressed with the proper value of the gift.”

Cambridge~ Monday March 9th

I’m working on finishing off my posts about our days in Cambridge. These posts are from Monday March 9th.

I’ve already posted about our early morning walk and seeing the famous clock here.

And I also posted about our lunch at The Eagle and all about it’s history here.

On this same day we visited the beautiful Wren Library.

From the Wren Library we continued on enjoying ‘the backs’. ‘The Backs’ is an area to the east of Queen’s Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam with their grounds covering both banks of the river.

St. John’s College

1776 & 1779 William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson begin their studies at St John’s. Joining forces in 1787, they will spend the rest of their lives leading the campaign to abolish the slave trade and slavery

1787 William Wordsworth arrives as a 17-year-old Cumbrian undergraduate.  With his sympathy for the common man and love of nature, he becomes a central figure in shaping English Romanticism and perhaps our most famed alumnus

This is a photo of the back of the building where the Wren Library is housed.

Punting along the river Cam which is a major tourist draw. We did not choose to take a ride.

Signs like this were all along the sidewalk along Queen’s Road.

We made our way along the road for our destination for refreshment and along the way we saw many signs of the promise of Spring.

We were beat by the time we found the Pickerel Inn which is now a traditional public house established in 1608.

After our treat we walked back to our lodgings just a short .3 miles from the Pickerel.

The dish towels in our kitchenette had this saying on them.

The door signs made us chuckle, too.

We stayed in for this evening after it seemed we were walking all the day long.

We were looking forward to being able to make our own coffee in our room on Tuesday morning since we purchased a French Press and coffee while out and about this day.

Rhubarb Pie Roll

This is a shortcut easy pie roll to make with a store bought refrigerator pie crust. I used a rhubarb walnut mixture to fill it but feel free to use other fruit and nut combinations to fill it. You can leave out the nuts if you desire. I’ve added some notes and steps for a better result.

Ingredients:

For the Roll:

  • 1 refrigerated pie crust (I used Pillsbury 15 ounce box)
  • 4 stalks of rhubarb, chopped (approx. 2 cups)
  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped.
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter, softened.
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Frosting:

  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 Tablespoon milk

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Lightly coat a baking sheet with nonstick spray or line with parchment paper.
  3. Shred the rhubarb in a food processor. Drain as much of the liquid as you can from the mixture. Keep pressing the rhubarb in a sieve until you remove up to a cup of liquid.
  4. Mix together the cornstarch, walnuts, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon. Add the drained rhubarb and mix well.
  5. Place the pie crust on a lightly floured surface.
  6. Spread the rhubarb mixture lengthwise on one end and roll into a log, moisten and seal the ends.
  7. Place on baking sheet with the seam side down.
  8. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Glaze:
In small bowl mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk to a drizzling consistency.

Remove roll from oven and let cool.
Drizzle the glaze on top.
Add sliced almonds if you desire.
Cut into slices and serve.
Yield: 6-8 slices

The roll is still not perfect in appearance but it is tasty and not overly sweet.

Al Fresco, Chef’s Table and Jimmy’s

This is my River cruise Food post, three of our special dinner evenings and other meals on board the AmaMagna. When you board the boat at the beginning of the cruise you can choose and make reservations at these special dinners that serve fewer folk than the larger Journeys Restaurant. The specialty restaurants are Al Fresco, Jimmy’s and The Chef’s Table. You need a reservation for these restaurants at the dinner hour. Journey’s Restaurant is always open to everyone without a reservation. Lunches are available at all the restaurants except for The Chefs Table. You will never go hungry on a river cruise!

These meals were from March 4th to the 7th.

We were seated alone for the Al Fresco Dinner (which was a disappointment) so I took more photos of the food we ate.

The following night we enjoyed the Sip and Sail hour before our meal at the Chef’s Table. Sip and Sail was a daily event an hour before dinner.

For The Chef’s Table we sat with a couple from Texas. They were regular cruisers.

Here are other fun desserts and savory dishes we had on board.

On our last night we had dinner at Jimmy’s Restaurant.

Weinerschnitzel

Back to the Present:

All our kids are here for the weekend to celebrate. Our Westside kids arrived on Friday. Today is Saturday April 18th, this afternoon we have JJ’s Birthday Party. Tonight we will have a full house for dinner to celebrate our Son-In-Law, Andrew’s birthday, too. We like to pack it in when we are all together. We will be together at church tomorrow morning and then our Westside kids will drive home.

Hope your week has gone well. Thanks for visiting.

 

Addy’s 9th Birthday Party

If you are a fan or have watched ‘Survivor’ or ‘Alone’ you will understand the challenges we enjoyed at Addy’s 9th birthday party. We all gathered on Saturday dressed to survive any challenges thrown at us by our challenge host, (Jeff Probst) Dad Dan.

Addy’s most talented mom made her logs on fire cake or campfire cake! The flames were made from jolly rancher candies!

Before cake and before our survivor challenges began we enjoyed lunch of chili and homemade sourdough and cornbread.

Fortified for the challenges Addy and JJ (the captains) chose their teams.

Team Addy on the left and team JJ on the right with Dan (Jeff) giving the rules and asking the bonus questions for extra supplies to build our shelters. Each team was given a set of supplies to begin and then had the chance to earn extra supplies. The shelters would be judged as to whether they could survive a rain storm (simulated with buckets of water).

 

If you’ve watched ‘Survivor’ you will notice that Dad Dan had Jeff’s look captured to a T! Here he is giving us the rules and the go ahead!

The Shelter making challenge was borrowed more from the TV show, Alone.

There was a time limit and everyone worked fast to get their shelter completed. JJ’s team had supervisors overseeing the work.

Team Addy’s shelter!

Team JJ’s shelter.

The Bucket test would be after cake and presents!

Time for cake before either Addy or JJ would get soaked or stay dry in the bucket challenge!

Time for presents!

From presents we moved on to the very exciting fire starting challenge with only select materials to get our fires going. The team who’s fire burned through the rope first would win the challenge. No matches only a type of flint, a little kindling and other elements plus wood to get the flames going.

The rope you see was what we needed to burn through to win. Not an easy task. It was a group effort from beginning to end.

We got a flame!!!

It was a windy afternoon and we had that challenge to deal with, too.

Team Addy for the fire making win! What an intense and fun challenge this was!

The final test was to see if team Addy or team JJ would stay dry in their shelter.

Team JJ won this event. Addy got the wet end of this challenge! Well done on your shelter, team JJ!

Thanks to Addy’s mom and dad for hosting such a fun 9th birthday for Addy and guests!

After all the excitement of Addy’s birthday party there were more gatherings for dinner and cake and presents for my belated birthday.

The March birthday girls got the hats and songs at the Mexican restaurant.

We then all gathered at our home.  We enjoyed another cake that Addy’s mom made, a Persian cake, for my belated birthday celebration. I was showered with presents and kind words of encouragement.

It was an evening of reminiscing about years gone by and we talked about my mom’s last days and how we had visited her for the last time in person in August of 2013. Laura remembered she had photos from that day on her phone and quickly found this next photo which brought back the memories of our mom wanting to share this portion of Jude with all of us. This is my hand next to the verses that were important to our mom to share.

Here is part of the post that I published on my blog in August of 2013, after our visit with our mom/Baba. Our mom was received in heaven by her Savior on September 13, 2013.

MomAfter the beautiful wedding on Saturday we packed up and headed to my mom and pop’s apartment for a short visit before our flight home. We had a wonderful time around my mom’s hospital bed where she shared her favorite verses from the Bible with us with some added words of counsel. She was able to walk into the living area for a while to eat and watch the video of the wedding of grandson Caleb and sweet Marie that was recorded with my sister’s IPad during the wedding ceremony.  By this point she had to go back to her bed and rest. Dear, Josh, Laura, Katie and I said our goodbyes knowing this would be the last time we would see her alive.  Heavy…

Jude 17-25:

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. and have mercy on those who doubt, save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever, Amen. 

It was a lovely way to end a day of joy celebrating our dear granddaughter and being celebrated by my dear family.

Thanks for surviving our 9th and 75th celebration!!

Eating in Budapest

On Saturday February 28th we walked from St. Stephen’s Basilica to the Jewish District looking for Mazel Tov. We had reservations for a meal at 4:30 but we wanted to see if they would slip us in at 1:30 instead since our dinner reservations at Retek Restaurant were for 7:30 on Saturday instead of Friday. (Did you follow that?)

The area had a lot of interesting murals.

We arrived tired and thirsty from our 1.6 k walk in the sunshine. They graciously changed our reservation and we joined the crowd of diners for our meal. We met someone from Costa Mesa, California who is studying abroad. That was fun.

 

Our meals were both delicious. Greg ordered the DIY Falafel Sandwich and I ordered the spicy lamb shank ragout, couscous with root vegetables, raisins and red onion chutney.

We had another long walk (1.6k) ahead of us to get back to our hotel. We were entertained by interesting buildings on the way.

Our dinner reservations at Retek would be a 1 k walk so we opted for a taxi ride to the restaurant and then we’d walk back to the hotel after dinner.

We went traditional at this very popular restaurant.

Hungarian Beef Goulash with the fresh bread.

Chicken Paprikash

Cottage Cheese Dumpling and Grandmother’s apple pie for dessert.

A delightful all around experience. This was all my kind of comfort food.

This statue was the beginning of history we would learn all through our cruise about the Habsburg empire.

The year 1795 saw Archduke Josef, son of Emperor Leopold II and brother of Emperor Franz, being appointed Palatine of Hungary, a post he held for more than half a century. As such he was the deputy of the King of Hungary – who was of course none other than the Emperor in his capacity as the head of the house of Habsburg. 

The streets we walked at night in Budapest seemed safe.

I’m saving St. Stephen’s Basilica which we visited on this two restaurant day for another post.