trying to learn to cook

Things I've learned so far:

I still hate onions...be they sliced, diced, slivered, dehydrated, fried, powdered, soup mixed, etc. I hate ONIONS!



Superior Meat Loaf: (very easy and good if you like onions)

1 envelope onion soup mix

2 lbs ground beef

3/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs

2 eggs

3/4 cup water

1/3 ketchup

Preheat oven to 350. In large bowl, combine all ingredients. In 13 x 9 inch baking pan shape into loaf. Bake 1 hour until done. Let stand 10 minutes



Slow Cooker Pot Roast: (pretty simple and good aside from the onion soup mix)

1/4 cup water

4 medium red potatoes, cut in quarters

1 package peeled baby carrots

1 envelope onion soup mix

2 1/2 to 3 lbs bones beef chuck pot roast

Place water and three fourths of the vegetables in the slow cooker. Reserve 1 tablespoon onion soup mix. Sprinkle remaining onion soup mix over vegetables. Sprinkle and rub slat and pepper over the pot roast. Place pot roast on top of vegetables and place remaining vegetables around pot roast; sprinkle remaining onion soup mix on top.

Cook on low 8 to 9 hours or high 5 to 6.



Also, I hate mac n cheese, be it velveta or kraft although kraft is much better. It uses far less artificial ingredients even it is harder to make.

I like fried chicken....A LOT! :)

I like potatoes...particularly mashed but baked aren't bad either especially not if you load them down with all things bad for you. I'd like to learn how to Julienne a potato.

Bisquick does not make a good pizza crust even if they do have a recipe for that.



Biscquick Pizza
3 c. bisquick (less if like thin crust)

3/4 c. water

1 lb. ground beef

2 c. shredded

1 jar pizza sauce

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly grease pizza pan. Mix bisquick and water set aside. Cook ground beef until brown. Drain off grease. Add 1/2 jar of pizza sauce. Pat out bisquick in pan. Pour rest of pizza sauce on crust. Add beef mixture on top of tomato sauce. Top off with cheese. Bake 10 to 15 minutes until crust is golden brown and cheese melts.



I like sausage but only as balls so far.

Sausage Balls: (may be the best thing you can do with either bisquick or sausage)

2 1/2 cup bisquick mix

1 lb roll of jimmy dean sausage

8 oz grated cheese

Knead all of the above until moist. Pinch into ball shapes and bake on greased cookies sheet for 15 minutes at 425 or until tops are light brown



I like working with flour and sugar much better than with meat and flour.

Its more fun to make sweets than real meals because its easier to share sweets with the world.

I can make an excellent white chocolate macadmia nut cookie even if macadamia nuts are way over priced!

Its more fun to make cookies than cakes because the cookies always get eaten and the cake doesn't. It takes way longer to make cookies but it seems much harder to screw them up unless of course you add potato chips. That's not a good idea even though there is a recipe for that.



Potato Chip Cookies:

1 cup soft butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup coarsely crushed potato chips

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup sifted powdered sugar

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add flour, potato chips and vanilla, beat well. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cooll for five minutes on cookie sheet. Remove and place on wire rack. When cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.



I cannot make Rice Krispie treats no matter how simple that recipe sounds:



Rice Krispie Treats:

3 tablespoon butter or margarine

I package (10 oz) regular marshmallows

6 cups rice krispies

In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted, remove from heat. Add cereal and stir until well coated. Using buttered spatula evenly press mixture into 13 x 9 inch pan coated with cooking spray.



Honey cookies are really good even if impossible to put onto the cookie sheets.

Touch O Honey

1 yellow cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup margarine

1/c cup flour

Preheat oven to 350. Blend half of cake mix, honey, margarine, and flour, then beat until fluggy, mixing in rest of cake mix. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 10 to 12 minutes.



There is no way to mess up peanut butter cookies no matter how you make them.

Example 1: (very very easy and good)
Peanut Butter Cookies:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Mix all ingredients until it all forms 1 large ball. Pinch off small balls about the size of your thumb, place on cookie sheet and press our with fork to make crisscross design on top. Bake at 350 appoximately 10 minutes

Example 2: (very easy to mess this one up because the dough is very dry. I usually finess with more oil)
1 yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
sugar

Preaheat oven to 350. Mix together cake mix, eggs, and oil until powder is completely dissolved into dough. Stir in peanut butter. Drop balls of dough into a small bowl of sugar, then place on a greased cookie sheet. Press fork horizontally and then vertically across each ball to flatten. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Example 3:
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoo vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the peanut butter, egg, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the peanut butter

I'm not done with this topic just yet but its time to study insurance.

need to be bold

God is all powerful so he can allow Noah to live 800 years, years as we know them today, or years as they knew them in that time period or whatever. To God, a year is as a day so time is irrelevant to him anyways.

God is love. If we suffer, starve, are abused, molested, diseased, beaten, broken, robbed, cursed, alienated, tortured, neglected, and killed God's love is still unconditional. Just because bad things happen to you does not mean God has forsaken you or has stopped listening to your prayers or cries for help. God's plan for our lives is still right regardless of whether or not we can see or understand the plan and the big picture.

God allows free will. Just because sin and evil run rampant through this world does not mean God is not still in control. If the Devil lies to me and hardens my heart and I treats others harshly, coldly, and without love in my heart, God remains the same. My sin and my failure do not take power away from God. It takes power away from me.

Do I believe that the only people going to Heaven, that the only chosen people, are followers of Christ Jesus? With my whole heart! Being a part of this select few is not a view that I hold due to pride. How do I know? Because it does not make me happy to know that so few will spend eternity in Heaven with me. Why does a merciful God deny anyone Heaven? He doesn't.

Heaven is offered to us all and many reject it. God doesn't make you go; he just asks you if you want to and tells your heart how to get there. God allows free will because he created us in his own image to fellowship with him. If we are drones with no choice but him and no choice but heaven, it doesn't mean anything. He wants us to choose to give our lives to him. He doesn't want to take them from us.

I've been told that it is Hubris and close mindedness to believe that Christians are the only religion going to Heaven. That belief is incidental to me. I hold that belief by default. I believe in God and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. Here comes the default part. The fact that I believe that means that I believe I need a savior, and what am I being saved from if not eternal damnation and separation from God because of my sins? Therefore, believing that Jesus Christ came and died on the cross for my sins, and believing I need a savior, then how could I believe everyone else doesn't?

Adopting the tenents and beliefs of Christianity is not pride; it is the absolute letting go of self pride. It is to say: my life has no value if I'm not being poured out as an instrument of Christ. Salvation, following Jesus Christ, living the abundant life, and eternity in Heaven are gifts. Furthermore, they are gifts meant to be shared. God intended for us to be fishers of men, to spread the Good News.

He did not intend for us to look at living our lives for him as burdens to shield others from but as a gift to joyfully share, regardless of their response to it or the stereotypes that world would place on it. I cannot control the lies the Devil will feed those around me, all I can do is offer the Truth as an alternative. I do not look at sharing my faith as cramming what I believe down the throats of others. I look at it as offering them an alternative to the evil and superficiality of this world to accept the peace, love, comfort, and strength that comes from knowing Christ Jesus.

I will not "open minded" myself right into hell. My believing that this religious group or that one will or will not be in hell has nothing to do with where they spend their eternity. What I believe about my salvation does, however, have everything to do with where I will spend mine, and I do believe that in order to get to heaven I must accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I am not perfect. I am a sinner. Sin separates separates me from God and the wages of sin is death. Jesus Christ only can forgive me for those sins and reunite me with the Father.

God's word says many are called, few are chosen.
Wide is the road and narrow is the path that leads to salvation.
He stands at the door and knocks...

The Southern Way

I grew up in Alabama. I'm living in Texas. It's not the same.
Southerners, those from the Southeast, not the Southwest, as Texans still think they are Southern, have a way all their own.

Southerners are independent, stubborn, and proud as hell. We have this I can do it all on my own and take on the whole world while doing it attitude. It's this concept that I don't need anything from anyone and don't want to be a burden anyways.

The flip side of that is that no one in the South wants you to feel like a burden. They won't make you ask for help. Because they love and care about you, they'll take notice of your needs and just get it taken care of. They won't make you reach out and humble yourself to the point of saying I can't do this or I need help with that. Because they know you'd rather do without and endure any hardship to avoid that, and that if they have to ask you to do something for them that it won't mean anything. They know you have the same needs they do and that if you wanted to help them you'd have done it already. They don't want you to help them begrundingly and they'd rather eat shit and die than be your charity case. As a result, a Southern person will help the stupid SOB who won't ask for help and never mention having done it and not even expect a thank you.

The interaction goes a little something like this:
"You didn't have to do that. I could have taken care of that myself."
"I know. I just saw it needing doing and felt like doing it.

As you can see, much of what is transpiring goes unsaid. The emotion is lacking entirely from the conversation, but there is so much heart in what took place there that I don't know that outsiders can really get a feel for it.

Many Southerners don't really own anything of value. Therefore, the value is in the way they live and treat each other. Life becomes about how you can prove yourself a good man or woman and how you love those around you. Life is not about what you drive, earn, live in, or own. It's not about what you have or who you're trying to become. It's about what you give away and who you are. It's about who trusts and believes in you and what you believe in.

I was born and raised there. I'll you to my dying day that I don't need help with anything. That doesn't mean I don't want help and it doesn't mean I wouldn't let you help me.
It means I want you to recognize the need and never think of me as a burden, but think of it as a joy to do things for me because you care enough about me. On the outside, I'm a hard ass, but about six layers deep I have a heart of gold. Is it easy to get down there to see that? Hell no! I'll fight you every step of the way. Why? Because where I come from, people don't expect life to be easy, and the things worth fighting for are the only things worth having anyways. So why would I give you that which is valuable to me if you don't value it enough to fight for it?

I like Texas pretty well and I'm happy out here, but I miss feeling safe the way I do when I'm in the company of true Southerners. In my mind, heaven is being surrounded by a handful of people whose lives are lived to serve and please God, and whose goal is to figure out how to treat one another better. It seems like most of the people I've met out here live their lives only to have one experience after another, just to say I did that, I tried that. That's their definition of being alive, and their interaction with one another is not about being better to each other it's about trying to get the better of one another.

They never ask themselves of what value their expereiences are. They never ask whether it would be pleasing to God, whether they'd learn anything, or in any way enrich those around them. To me, they live their lives for no greater purpose than their own pleasure, and because of this I don't trust them and I feel like I spend my time in their company on the defensive. I feel like they wait to terrorize me and rip me limb from limb, just for the experience of it.

The people I've met out here seem to think you back your friends no matter what. I don't believe in that. I believe when they are wrong, you say their wrong. I believe you love them enough to make them experience the pain of growing into a better person. I believe we are a reflection of those we spend our time with. Therefore, if we don't reflect light back to one another, even when it burns, that we'll all walk in darkness.

I want to spend my time with people whose esteem I'm trying to be good enough to earn, rather than to spend my time with people I'm trying to be bad enough to impress.