Cheese Puffs . . . way too addicting!

As you know by now, I like cheese and if a recipe calls for cheese, I'm sure to stop and take a look. This is a great take on cream puff batter. It is good for a snack, goes well with a salad course, or as a hot bread with dinner. Just having them in the freezer provides you with a quick snack for hungry children.

Cheese Puffs

1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Tiny pinch of cayenne
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
4 ounces of softened cream cheese
5 ounces of your favorite process cheese spread - I like sharp cheddar
Grated Romano or Parmesan for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a cooking pot, combine water, butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Bring to a boil and add flour all at once, stirring constanting until mixture forms a ball and leaves the sides of a pan.

Remove from heat and place in a mixing bowl and beat in the eggs, one at a time until batter is smooth and glossy. Stir in the softened cream cheese and processed cheese. Drop by teaspoons onto either a well-greased or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.

 Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from baking sheets immediately and serve warm or cold.

You can freeze the baked Cheese Puffs and just reheat them in a 350 degree oven for about 8-10 minutes.

Food for Thought for Christians of All Faiths . . .

“True followers of Christ; be prepared to have a world make jokes at your expense. You can hardly expect a world to be more reverent to you than to Our Lord. When it does make fun of your faith, its practices, abstinences, and rituals-then you are moving to a closer identity with Him Who gave us our faith. Under scorn, Our Lord ‘answered nothing’. The world gets amusement from a Christian who fails to be Christian, but none from his respectful silence.” ~Bishop Fulton Sheen

Cynical but, alas, also true . . .

"Every increased possession loads us with new weariness."
-- John Ruskin

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
-- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

"Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it."
-- Alfred Hitchcock

"A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors."
-- William Ralph Inge

Feeling scrappy today . . .

I've been busy clearing out my fabric cupboards and, more especially, my large collection of fabric scraps. Up until now, I felt there was no way I could part with any of them until I had the time to incorporate them into a quilt. I reached my limit on 'memories' and ruthlessly either cut them into precise squares or put them in the thrift store bag. I managed to reduce two boxes of scraps into filling only one-fourth of a box. The ones featured in the above picture are for sale. I figure that there are people out there who would enjoy getting some different tastes is colors and designs into their own collections. I still have a bag of scraps as well as another box . . . but that is for another day!

Tired of having the radio on, today, but the neighbor has had a handiman who pulls his car halfway into their garage while he works and turns on his car radio rather loud with, of course, lots of deep bass going on. It provides the perfect acoustics for transfering the bump, bump of the music into my work area. These people are so intent on the environment yet don't recognize noise pollution when they hear it.

The promised heat arrived and reached up into the 80's today. Fortunately, at this time of the year, the house remains pretty cool so we don't need to resort to turning on the air conditioning.

Dinner is popular but an easy fix except for lots of chopping and dicing. I'm braising slices of Hillshire sausage with olive oil, chili flakes, and lots of garlic and bell peppers. We have it with steamed Jasmine rice and, for some reason, it is a perfect compliment to each other. Let's see . . . I got the sausage and peppers recipe from an Italian cookbook and am pairing it with Asian Rice. Small world, huh?

Politically inclined . . .

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
-- Ronald Reagan

California weather . . .

Monday, we had the car problems and made five, long distance drives in the pouring, cold rain to see to the recovery of the car's ailments. Yesterday, we broke a record for temperatures for this time of year with it being over 80 degrees, dry, and hot. California seems to plan its days around you more than yu can plan your days around the weather.

We are heading into two very dry days with 50 mph gusts of wind and a fire danger warning. It has been a frustrating winter as no sooner do we get a drenching, the winds kick up and dries us to the bone, again.

Still getting used to our new schedule the my son being in college. Even with only one class, it changes around our week. I'm sad to miss out on daily Mass but relish my hour and a half waiting for my son to get out of class - guilt-free time to crochet! His class is at eight but he likes to arrive around 7:15 so he can learn his way around the entire campus and be on time for class. On the rainy day of class, the powers that be forgot to unlock the main door to the history class building. The teacher had the key to the classroom but not the main entrance. They were ten minutes late getting finally settled into class and the teacher immediately gave them the promised quiz and they got on with the lecture. Ten minutes after that, more students showed up. Just before class ended, the really, really late students inquired as to whether there would be the quiz! Interesting as the ones that were only ten minutes late, lucked out with the locked door but the ones arriving twenty minutes late were not. Strange, new world as I don't recall people being that late, if at all, when I was in college. Perhaps, we appreciated the value and cost of an education back then and didn't feel so entitled.

Interesting, our governor wants to raise the State-wide sales tax to cover education costs. When polled, people were in favor of using the raise to fund education but were not in favor of the sales tax being raised. Seems our media should either reread their copy or phrase their questions better when they take a poll like that. Every time our leaders temporarily raise a tax or fee for a set amount of time, it lasts forever. They should take a leaf our of our homemaker's book - if you need money, cut out something else. If there isn't any money, don't spend it. It is so simple yet our politicians don't seem to understand the workings of a checkbook. I guess that is reasonable for them as it isn't their checkbook account they are invading!

I keep finding new favorites . . .

We've heard that a million monkeys at a keyboard could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

- Robert Wilensky