Fast and Easy Sticky Buns

Making your own yeast-raised bread products can be daunting until you find out how easy it really is, however, you can attain a tasty glimpse of what you can do and avoid some of the kitchen trauma! Once you get a feel for working with yeast dough, it might bring you to the 'made from scratch' stage in your baking.

Fast and Easy Sticky Buns
2 loaves of unbaked frozen bread dough, thawed
2 cups brown sugar
Grated zest of one lemon
2 small packages of vanilla pudding
1 stick butter, softened
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix together the pudding mix, sugar, zest, butter, and spices.  Vegetable oil spray an approximately 9x13-inch baking pan.

Tear off chunks of one loaf of the bread dough and place in prepared pan. Sprinkle half the sugar mixture over it. Tear up the second loaf of bread dough and place on top of the first. Sprinkle with the rest of the sugar mixture. Place a sheet of plastic wrap over the top, spray with vegetable oil spray and then flip it over so the greased side is against the dough. Cover the whole thing with a clean dish towel and let rise until almost doubled. Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.

When the Sticky Buns are baked, turn it upside down immediatel onto a serving plate or cooling rack. Cool, slice, and serve.

Ideas . . .
You can add nuts, dried cranberries, or raisins to the sugar mixture.
Try butterscotch pudding mix.
Drizzle with a thin lemon glaze before it finishes cooling

Enough said!

“Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.” ~St. Augustine

Still looking for homes . . .

 Still looking for homes for the kittens that found us! They are a diverse bunch. The gray one, called Tugboat, is a feisty, all-important chap with attitude in his walk. He does like to have his chin scratched, however. The smaller black kitten is shy but enjoys being fussed over. The larger black kitten is a tough guy who will probably make a good mouser. The mother, Mrs. Black Cat, is very fond of her brood but will soon be letting them alone as the kittens are getting more kibble and making less demands on her.

According to some reliable information, too many kittens at the Humane Society Shelter and any kittens/cats brought in will be immediately put down. We are getting to the end of our ropes here but the thought of turning over these squirming bundles of fur and knowing they will die before the end of the day is too heart breaking.

It is sad that people still abandon their animals and then leave the problems and decisions up to other people.

Beautiful Prayer by St. Thomas More

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St. Thomas More's Prayer when imprisoned in the Tower of London Give me the grace, Good Lord: To set the world at naught. To set the mind firmly on You and not to hang upon the words of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of all its business. Not to long to hear of earthly things, but that the hearing of worldly fancies may be displeasing to me. Gladly to be thinking of God, piteously to call for His help. To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labor to love Him. To know my own vileness and wretchedness. To humble myself under the mighty hand of God. To bewail my sins and, for the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity. Gladly to bear my purgatory here. To be joyful in tribulations. To walk the narrow way that leads to life. To have the last thing in remembrance. To have ever before my eyes my death that is ever at hand. To make death no stranger to me. To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of Hell. To pray for pardon before the judge comes. To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me. For His benefits unceasingly to give Him thanks. To buy the time again that I have lost. To abstain from vain conversations. To shun foolish mirth and gladness. To cut off unnecessary recreations. Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ. To think my worst enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred. These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasures of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all in one heap. Amen.

True on both counts . . .

"The smaller the mind the greater the conceit."
-- Aesop

"People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it."
-- Ogden Nash

Are YOU a terrorist, too?

Interesting article (from Conservative Contacts) that outlined what the United States Government has determined to identify terrorists. Interesting that all aspects of this list seems to point to citizens who support the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and freedom. Doesn't hide the fact that the politicians we elected are not viewing the interests of the majority of the American people.

The following characteristics  are actually used in the study advising YOUR GOVERNMENT on how to identify terrorists:
· Americans who believe their "way of life" is under attack;

· Americans who are "fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)";

· People who consider themselves "anti-global" (presumably those who are way of the loss of American sovereignty);

· Americans who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority";

· Americans who are "reverent of individual liberty";

· People who "believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty."

· Americans who are pro-life or otherwise opposed to abortion;

· Americans who are part of "groups that seek to smite the purported enemies of God and other evildoers."

Something to think about . . . Good thought to begin the week!

Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.

- Publius Syrus