Home again

Two weeks after I wrote my last post here, I received a divine call to serve two congregations in southwestern Montana: Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Three Forks, Montana and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Belgrade, Montana.

After several weeks of prayerful contemplation, I accepted this call and began the moving process.  This, understandably, led to a blogging hiatus which is now over.

There are two events that hail the end of the blogging hiatus.  First, we have successfully located my pizza stone.  Second, we have ordered a new bread machine to replace the one that fell victim to a cooking accident a few months ago (don't ask).  Third, we bought two pounds of yeast last night (Yeah, so I can't count... sue me...).

To get back in the swing of things, I just want to mention how great it is to be back in the west.  We have several grocery stores to choose from, all of which stock real food (organic, natural). One of them, called Town and Country, even stocks the organic/natural goods side by side with the processed stuff.  This means that you can compare the prices side by side in the same location instead of having to run halfway across the store thirty-seven times.

The town in which we live also has Wheat Montana.  This means that all of our baking will now be done with locally sown, grown, and ground wheat.  Nothing about that isn't awesome.

Also, I've lost 42 lbs since my last post.  I'm walking two miles per day and eating less.

Also, I want to thank an anonymous Lutheran photographer and artist for the awesome new blog banner.

Finally, here's our new kitchen.  Yup... this is where the magic now happens!

Why are the L's in tortilla silent?

As I sat in my study writing about donkeys, palm branches, and the coronation of the king of the universe, I heard the tell-tale signs of activity in the kitchen.  This meant that Jen was getting ready to cook lunch.  That day we had huevos rancheros.  You can't have huevos without tortillas, and after making tortillas from scratch two weeks ago, there's no way that we're buying them again.

The recipe we used can be found here.  So far we've used shortening, but we're transitioning to lard soon.  We found that we can buy non-hydrogenated lard in our grocery store, and that's awesome.  Lard is pig fat... real food.  But when it's hydrogenated it transforms from porky goodness into a second cousin of plastic.

What seems to be our normal procedure with the tortillas is that Jen does everything but the cooking and I handle the cast-iron work.  My cast-iron cookware was a birthday present from her.  I need more of it.

There's really no comparing fresh hot tortillas to anything you buy in a store.  Last time we made them I was starving and the first tortilla went straight from the cast iron skillet into my mouth.  Elizabeth loves them too.

For the huevos, we went simple.  Scrambled eggs mixed with Great Value Salsa then scooped onto the fresh hot tortillas.  A dollop of sour cream on top of that.

Some of you may know that Great Value is the Wal-Mart generic brand.  Some Great Value products actually are great values.  Short ingredient lists, all pronouncable, and no preservatives.  Their salsa and pizza sauce can often be found in our cupboards.

Also, in the rural area where we live Wal-Mart is the only game in town.  The other options are extremely overpriced or far away.  Recently we've taken to doing Wal-Mart every other week and alternating it with the good, high quality grocery store that's about a half hour away.

We also shop for certain staples and spices at two local Mennonite groceries.  As I typed this I was getting ready to run errands with Elizabeth.  One thing we did was stop at the Springs Store in Springs, PA to get about a third of a pound of cinnamon for $1.  That makes me happy.