prayers needed: not so jumbo jack

Little Jack Fanning is in the fight of his life right now. Born prematurely at just under 28 weeks, he's an itty-bitty boy. Please keep him and his parents, Mike and Trish, in your prayers. Get on your knees, pull out your rosaries, make your way to the Blessed Sacrament, offer some sacrifices, get your favorite Saint on the job, tell your friends...whatever you can do, it's time to storm heaven! We must be persistent in this prayer! You can read about Jack on his blog, www.thefannings.blogspot.com

Let us pray.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God, our Father, Who are the giver of all life, we offer our prayers and petitions this day for little Jack Fanning. We trust that You know and love this family. We know that all things You ordain or allow will be for their eternal good and happiness. We beseech You, if it is in accord with Your Divine Will, that Jack will be blessed with full development, that he will be home in his parents' arms as soon as possible and that this family will have many happy years together watching Jack thrive and grow. We ask this through the Sacred Heart of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and through the immaculate heart of Mary, the mother of God. Amen.

a new way to egg

When you're finally getting 3 or 4 eggs everyday, you start to wonder if there are other ways to prepare them than boiled, fried, saladed, etc. For dinner tonight I flipped through How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and found a recipe for Shirred Eggs. When making shirred eggs, you bake the eggs either in a ramekin or on a bed (nest) of something like spinach, onions, mushrooms. This method makes for a luxuriously creamy texture something akin to having the entire egg over medium consistency. I prepared our shirred eggs on a bed of sautéed onion and spinach (a slight variation from the Bittman recipe, as I had spinach that needed to be eaten). These were a cinch to make, very hearty and can easily be made to feed 2 or 20.

Shirred Eggs with Onions and Cheese

Makes 4 to 8 servings

Time: about 1 hour

• 4 tablespoons of butter or olive oil (I used 2 tablespoons of an olive oil/butter mix)
  
• 4 cups sliced onions
  
• 1 cup plain bread crumbs (I used a little extra)
  
• 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
• 8 eggs (I used 9, because they fit nicely...I'll let you know how the leftovers are)
  
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Place the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Two minutes later, add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft and tender but not browned, about 15 minutes. (I added the spinach for the last 5 minutes of cooking.) Spread the onions over the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking pan, or other similar-sized baking dish.
3. Top with half of the bread crumbs and half of the cheese. Use the back of a spoon to make 8 little nests in the mixture and crack 1 egg into each. Top with salt, pepper, and the remaining bread crumbs and cheese.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the eggs are just set and the whites solidified. Serve with toast.

Here we are right out of the oven

A generous meal of 2 eggs and a mess of onions smothering a piece of sprouted grain toast.

Making Lemonade

So with 2 work-snow days and a Saturday around the house, what did I do during DEEP...EEP..EEP FREEZE...EZE...EZE 2008...8..8? Well, I wrote our Christmas letter, put all of our contacts in an Access database, mail-merged our Christmas card list to avery labels, got the cards signed, sealed and (mostly) delivered. I also got the Chickens ready for the storm, restapled some of the plastic sheeting that is covering the coop, cleaned out the bedding and restocked the feed. I also got Christmas presents wrapped and shipped to distant family and, oh yeah, did the Christmas cookie baking! Mix in a lot of dishes being washed and some straightening up and there you have it!

This year I made several varieties of butter cookies. Plain, plain with dark and white chocolate, plain with dark chocolate and toffee bits, walnut, walnut with dark chocolate, coconut, coconut with white chocolate, and back by popular demand (E asked for them) chocolate cherry biscotti. I also had some leftover chocolate, toffee and coconut, so I mixed them all together...yum. These are our little Christmas gifts this year, so some of you will get to taste them! Hope they're as yummy as they look. (okay, you caught me, I tested them...ALL...and I have to say my faves are the walnut and the plain with toffee.)

strength in numbers

In case you didn't know, we in the pacific northwest are smack-dab in the middle of (cue the dramatic music)...dum, dum, dum...DEEP...EEP...EEP FREEZE...EZE...EZE 2008...8...8...8. I mentioned how peaceful the snow is in an earlier post. I have to qualify that thought. It's peaceful when not accompanied by 80-100 mph winds. That's what we're in for tonight and tomorrow morning. We're fine hunkering down...as long as the power stays on...please God. I should say that E and I are fine...Melvin the wonder dog is a teensey-weensey bit afraid of any noises that he's not familiar with (thunder, fireworks, wind). He just tries to hide under everything, the table, the ottoman, chairs, everything. These pictures won't do it justice, but here are a couple of the front of the house.

Here is a shot using the night setting on the camera. You can kinda see the snow gusting in the street light.

Here's a shot taken with the flash...look at all of the flakes

So many lessons. Like even though we're each just one person, when we work together we can effect great change. We in the pro-life community need to work at being a blizzard. :) We'll take our blizzard to Olympia next month during the March for Life!

Christmas Cheer!

Recently we spent a lovely evening catching up with friends at a good old fashioned gingerbread house party!

Some of the lovely friends

First things first, there were adorable babies present

Very adorable, and very new in this case

Our hostess, Kiki, had everything ready, including pre-cut walls and roof panels

and all of the fixin's to spruce up a home

No joke, this was CJ's fist taste of sugar...he was literally shaking and couldn't keep still

Ah, and then the competition began

That's my creation on the right, I ended up having to lighten the roof panels...in case you didn't know, necco wafers and spree are heavy

Here they are coming off

And here are a few shots of my finished creation, notice the architectural details, the skylight, marshmallow supports and licorice trim.

the pretzel rod and the unfortunate cookie-man are actually supporting the roof and wall...hey you use what you've got

home, sweet home

and here was one of the competition...mid-century trailer...or a purse, you decide.

dreaming of a white Christmas

While up late finishing laundry, I looked outside to discover that everything outside had been tucked beneath a bright white sheet of snow. Have you ever noticed how quiet it is when it snows? Especially when it's falling, it seems to absorb all of the little noises that are normally present.

Looking from our front door...I didn't expect that we were going to see snow until the week after next when we visit family up in Alaska...who knew.

You can't see any of the weeds under the lovely white blanket. :)

Things that happened last Sunday

Our friends, the Flynns, loaned me their egg basket! It's the perfect size to collect eggs from our chickens. Thanks Flynns!

Later we had dinner with our friends, the Ritters and Dornays. Yes, the men cooked in very fetching aprons.

very fetching aprons

unknown talents were revealed

about half a second later one of those apples bounced and rolled over to my feet

I think she's trying to be nice to him...but it looks like she's poking his eye. :)

I couldn't resist adding this one