Vanilla Syrup

You know those bottles of syrup lining the shelves at your favourite coffee spot? (Unless you're a redneck and the most exciting thing at your favourite coffee spot is roll up the rim.) I accidentally made it one day while I was making baklava. It's a long story. You can use whatever flavour you can find. Vanilla, of course, is the easiest get. However, if you know someone who sells Watkins products, the sky's the limit! I use this syrup to sweeten homemade yogurt.

4 cups water
8 cups sugar
1/2 cup vanilla

1. Boil water and sugar to 100°C (use a candy thermometer)

1. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

1. Pour into glass bottles. This recipe will fill two bottles like the one shown below.

Chocolate Crinkles

I found many different versions of this recipe on my favourite recipe websites. This version is my favourite because it uses oil instead of margarine, butter or shortening. (Just because oil is quicker to measure and my life is too busy.) Sometimes, substituting oil for margarine changes the taste and makes cakes or cookies bland in comparison. This is an exception.

Ingredients
1 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) for coating

1. Mix together cocoa, sugar and oil.
2. Beat in eggs one at a time.
3. Stir in vanilla,
4. Add flour, baking powder and salt.
5. Chill two hours.
6. Roll dough into balls and coat with icing sugar.
7. Bake at 350 F (180°C) for 8 to 10 minutes. It's difficult to tell when they're done because of the chocolate colour. Take them out the oven sooner rather than later or they'll be hard.

Rejoice for Winter is Past

My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

Song of Solomon 2:10-11

For someone who loves to write, I seem to be the absolute worst blogger when it comes to finding the time to write down all the things in my spirit. My silence over this past winter is not because I have nothing to say. I am simply speechless listening to what God is saying. So for the two or three people that actually read this blog, have patience with me. I shall return to write it all down. For now, just know that God is far from silent. I start to write it down and then something happens:

I stop. I pause for just a moment. And then I am overwhelmed.

Selah.

At the end of March I was driving home and looked up to see Canada geese flying overhead. Tears filled my eyes and I whispered, "winter is past". As the words escaped my lips, I knew that I had just declared something far more significant that the seasonal transition from winter to spring. 

Aslan is on the move...