Just for Peter

Below is the recipe you requested. :)

1 pkg oreos *
1 pkg cream cheese, softened
Two kinds of dipping chocolate **

Mash oreos until fine. I usually put them in a ziploc and use a rolling pin to mash them. A food processor would probably work as well.

Thoroughly blend in cream cheese (fingers are usually the best option on this one). Roll into small balls. If the mixture is too sticky to work with put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Melt the chocolate and dip each ball and place on wax paper on a cookie sheet. The best way I have found to dip them it to place them on a toothpick and set it in the melted chocolate. Use a spoon to cover the ball with chocolate and then remove it with both the spoon and toothpick. If you just use a spoon, you will end up with huge globs of chocolate at the base of each bonbon, but if you use a toothpick the ball generally falls apart. The two together seem to work well. :)

Drizzle each bonbon with the opposite color of chocolate. This is easiest if you put the melted chocolate in a small ziploc and cut off a corner then drizzle. Thanks to Jeanette for this tip. :)

Place the cookie sheets in the freezer until chocolate is hard.

Now for more of my personal notes:

* Any kind of oreo is fine. I usually just use the regular but most recently I tried mint and they were really good as well.

**Almond Bark dark and white chocolate work really well for the dipping. :)

Enjoy!

One Year Ago Today

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream.

-Thomas Moore

Hungry for Homemade Bread??

Jeffrey and I made twelve loaves of bread yesterday! We purchased a new grain grinder, and have already put it to good use. They turned out nicely. I think I've been out of practice as some of them weren't as "pretty" as my previous ones. Most people wouldn't care as they taste pretty good. But girls are always looking for beautiful things, eh? Jeffrey thought the entire experience was quite fascinating. Someday I'll let him do the bread by himself. Now that should be interesting.

Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad, but bread is king.”
Louis Bromfield, American novelist (1896-1956)

The Kitchen

I love the sunshine in the kitchen,
The glory of the light awakens
All the familiar textures of pot and china.
This is the home of the house,
The center of its warmth,
The articulation of its love,
In the rise of bread, the crust of pie,
And the richness of gravy.
It is the place of your caring,
Fleshed out in the daily details,
Too small to be noted one by one,
But each constructing the heart of the house.

Your delight in us is incarnated here,
And this is the place of our true receiving.
Here we come hungry, thirsty and in our need,
To meet the kindness of your hands.
And your friends came,
Finding a warmth they sought and a love they craved.
Not a pretentious place,
A good cause or a moral crusade.
If you will, another Nazareth,
Hidden in the wilderness of the world,
Where kindness feeds a poor Christ and his friends,
And bids them come in from the dark.

-Tim Marks