Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month March 2015 {Handout}

This month's Visiting Teaching message is all about patience - one trait upon which I have much improvement yet to make!

I remember being told in a talk once to be careful when praying for patience, because you may not get what you expect. Rather than giving you an instant gift of patience, the Lord is more likely to send you trials that test your patience, thereby increasing your patience through experience.

I have been told in many blessings lately (as I have struggled with the injury to my right shoulder) to have patience and remember the the Lord works in his own time. I have felt many times that this patience I have had to endure was passive - literally sitting around waiting for my arm to heal so that I could get 'back to normal'. However, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, tells us “Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something … even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!”

“Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being ‘willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father’ [Mosiah 3:19]. Ultimately, patience means being ‘firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord’ [1 Nephi 2:10] every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.”

So I thought about how this applied to my current situation, and realised that it is in my attitude to my circumstances that I can 'endure well', rather than sitting around feeling sorry for myself and 'failing to act', I can still find ways to play an active roles in my family, community and church, even if they are different from those I am used to.

Click here to download the pdf of this month's Thought for the Month.

Click here for the Spanish pdf

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your Thought for the Month, click here for the printable and tutorial.

Click links below for previous month's Thought for the Month

• January 2015
• February 2015

Melting Moments Cookies & Choices {Recipe}

Melting Moments are crisp, shortbread-like cookies that are tender to the bite, a little crunchy, but then melt away in your mouth. They are simple, unassuming little cookies, but definitely moreish! And I think they look rather pretty with the bright red cherry in the middle!

I had a bit of fun with these cookies. I made a big batch for my Young Women lesson at church on Sunday - everyone really enjoyed them at the end of the lesson, and we had the Young Men appearing at the door looking for their share too.

Some of the cookies however, had a little extra, not so welcome ingredient - dirt. I presented a platter of dirt infused cookies at the beginning of the lesson and gave the girls a choice, they could eat a cookie if they wanted to, but I made them aware that there was just a little bit of dirt in each one. Only a tiny bit of dirt though, it probably wouldn't even really be noticeable if you were to eat the cookie, the few tiny visible specks could surely be ignored - the cookies still looked really yummy. Unsurprisingly, they did not rush to eat them. I then compared eating the contaminated cookies with making choices to do things that were mostly OK, hoping that the tiny little bits of 'bad' involved in those choices wouldn't affect them.

If you would like to make your own Melting Moments, here is the recipe (don't worry, I left the dirt out ;)

Melting Moments       PRINT

Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients:

225g butter - room temperature

175g caster sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 TBSP vanilla

270g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

60g rolled oats

15 red glacé cherries

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180ºC

Line 2 baking trays with baking paper or silpats.

Beat butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together. Add the flour, baling powder and salt and beat in until you get a smooth batter.

Spread the rolled oats out on a plate.

Scoop out about a 1 1/2 inch ball of dough (either with two table spoons or with a small ice cream scoop), and drop it onto the rolled oats.
My little ice cream scoop measures 1 1/2" across, I use it for all of my drop cookies, like chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles. It's just the right size and using it means that my cookies all come out uniform in size and shape.

Roll the ball of batter around until it is coated in oats.

Place on a baking tray and flatten slightly, then top with half a glacé cherry.

Repeat until all the dough is used up - you should get about 30 cookies - 15 on each baking tray. Ensure there is space around each cookie to spread out when cooking, about 1 1/2” space between cookies is enough.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until just going golden around the edges.

Leave to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes, then lift onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Best eaten within 48 hours.

Happy Baking!

Pink and Purple Girly Cake

One of my Young Women (at church) have a birthday this week, so she came over to my house and we made a cake for her together over the last couple of days.

She learned some new skills and we had a great time working together!

I love the silk-like finish of painting a cake with cluster dust!

This is how it looked before it got covered up with all the pink. I will definitely be using this technique again, so pretty.

Aimee LOVES pink, so we had to cram as much pink on the cake as we possibly could. I think we got the final cake pretty close to the design too.

The cake is chocolate (8" bottom, 6" top), filled with chocolate buttercream and coated with chocolate ganache before being covered in fondant and decorated.

Aimee aslo loves my Gingerbread Cookies, so she made a big batch, under my supervision, with a healthy helping of royal icing on top!

Didn't she do a great job on those cookies?

Pancake Tuesday! {Recipes}

In many countries, tomorrow is PANCAKE DAY!

Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent, is celebrated by many Christians. Before beginning a 40 day fast leading up to Easter, a day of indulgence, in foods that will be given up for the fast, is enjoyed, using up ingredients that would otherwise become wasted. Pancakes are traditionally eaten on this day because they contain fat, eggs and milk - all foods usually given up for the fast.

While we don't celebrate Lent, we do join in enthusiastically in celebrating Pancake Day. The biggest problem in my household however is, what kind of pancakes do we eat?

Do we go for thick fluffy American style pancakes, eaten with butter and lashings of syrup?

Or do we make English Crepes, traditionally served with sugar and lemon juice in England, or cinnamon sugar and lemon juice in South Africa?

It's a tough choice! I generally tend to lean towards the stack of American pancakes, and make a beautiful fruit syrup to pour over them (usually blueberry - YUM).

While my hubby chooses English Crepes every single time!

Well, in case you can't make your mind up, I've included BOTH recipes for you to enjoy.

Pancakes   PRINT

 American Pancakes

Makes 6

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Egg

2 Tbsp oil

1 cup milk

Method:

Beat / blend together all the ingredients to a smooth batter.

Leave the batter to sit for at least an hour before cooking.

Pre heat a heavy-bottomed non-stick pan to a medium heat. Season the pan with oil.

Pour 1/3 cup into the middle of the pan.

Cook until bubbles open up and become set. Turn over and cook for 1 more minute.

Serve immediately with syrup of your choice, ice cream, Nutella & bananas or whatever else you can dream up.

English Crepes

Makes 8

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1/2 Tbsp sugar

1 Egg

2 Tbsp oil

1/2 cup milk

1 cup water

Method:

Beat / blend together all the ingredients to a thin, smooth batter.

Leave the batter to sit for at least an hour before cooking.

Pre heat a heavy-bottomed non-stick pan to a medium heat. Season the pan with oil.

Pour 1/3 cup into the middle of the pan, then swirl the pan around to spread the batter into a wide circle.

Cook until the batter looks set and the edges begin to curl up. Turn over and cook for 1 more minute.

Sprinkle with sugar / cinnamon sugar and lemon juice. Roll.

* Both recipes can be increased by just duplicating the recipe. The salt will always just be a pinch though, albeit a slightly larger pinch, unless you are making huge quantities.

Happy Pancake Day!