TIRED BUT HAPPY

I am back -- the wedding is over and I actually rested this afternoon!! Everything went as planned and Megan was a beautiful bride and Brandon was a handsome groom! Her mom looked gorgous too! Now if I get all this crystal put away!!!!

I've not really thought about cooking in a while -- I was too busy but guess I had better or Travis will disown me!! I have never seen so many recipes for one thing (unless it is chicken) than I see lately for Salsa. I have made watermelon and it is great - but I was looking through one of the books where I have collected recipes and I see Mango Salsa (similar but not exactly the same as mine), Grilled Corn Salsa, Avacado and Corn Salsa, Raspberry Tomatillo Salsa (and where I added many ingredients to help it(, Fire Roasted Salsam, Salsa Verde (I added ingredients to it too), Pineapple Salsa, --juat to name a few! Here is a recipe for Roasted Corn Guacamole that I want to make next.

ROASTED CORN GUACAMOLE

6 Tablespoons cooking oil
2 cups frozen corn kernals,thawed
6 Acadados, chopped
4 Tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup minced red onion
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tsp. minced jalapeno pepper
2 tsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tablespoon kosher salt

Spread 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in baking sheet.. Add corn and roast at 450 degrees for 8 minutes. T Add remaining 4 tablespoons oil, avacados,tomatoes, onion, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno pepper, garlic, vinegar, cumin and kosher salt to corn in order listed. Mix well. Chill until serving time. Serve with tortilla chips. Serves 10-12.

Of course I would add more garlic and jalapeno for a more spicy and flavorable taste!!

Here is a neat story that I think we all could learn from!

Good story!

No matter where you go.................there you are!


Don't know if this is a true story but it certainly sounds like it could be. At any rate, it is a good story.

A MAN AND A BUCKET OF SHRIMP

This is a true story. I had never heard it before.

It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier.. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave.

He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, 'a guy who's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.

Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida . That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were.

They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck.. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait.. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued (after 24 days at sea...).

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull.. And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

Reference: (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp..221, 225-226)

How many times do we fail to say thank you to someone that has either helped us or done something for us? How many times do we forget to say "THANK YOU" to God for blessing us so richly, helping us through problems and sickness - and most important for giving His Son to die for our sins? We need to remember to be more grateful to friends andespecially God for saving our souls!!

I had finished this -- and had given you two wonderful salad recipes but when I pulled the published blog up -- the auto save had not saved and it stopped in the middle of the first recipe. So I finished it -- gave you back this story -- and if you will join me tomorrow night - I will repeat the salad recipes. Right now it is just too late.

I do want to say THANK YOU to all of you who take the time to read my blog and then take the time to either comment or tell me you made one of the recipes!! May you have a blessed evening and join me again soon!!!!