Ricotta Hotcakes with Berry Compote

Recipe, word and photos via I Heart Cake!

(serves 2-3)

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups ricotta
• ¾ cup milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 cup plain all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 50g butter

Method

1. Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a bowl and mix to combine.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the ricotta mixture and mix until incorporated.
3. Place egg whites in a dry clean bowl and whip until stiff peaks form.
4. Fold egg whites into the batter using a wide metal spoon. Do this in two batches.
5. Over a low to medium heat, lightly grease a large non-stick frypan with a small portion of butter.
6. Drop a ladleful of batter into the pan and cook for two minutes or until the edges have turned golden brown.
7. Flip the hotcakes over and fry until it is cooked through.
8. Transfer to a plate. Top with anything you like!

Some days you want to quit. You are at your breaking point and you have nothing left inside but pain, anger, questions and doubt. Those days are quite impossibly hard. Often, it seems they stretch into weeks and months and years. We have felt as if the world is passing us and our dimming dreams by, offering success to everyone but us. Cynicism seems to be lurking at the edges of our thoughts, and again, our minds turn to quitting. BUT…

Then there are these brief chances…moments when you have to stop and realize that there is a God that is in all good things. It’s not simply luck, or life breaking your way instead of so often going against you. Good is good. It is creative, bringing life to the voids in existence. We don’t see ourselves as good. We were told in Sunday School that we were born into sin. We have had injustices and neglect and violence thrown at our paths. Yet, our lives, our bodies ourselves are miracles. We are miracles. We are good. And in that, we glimpse an order in the middle of all this chaos. That order is God. And God is the type of good we know by another name: love. And love cannot be overcome. Even by death, or life as we know it.

WE GOT THE HOUSE.

We have a home (a rental home) that can be a haven when life slams against us. We have a place to, in the words of wiser people than us, invite the friend and the stranger to share in what we have been blessed with. We have a home for our future, and for our memories. We have a home that is big enough for more than the two + one puppy that is our family right now. It’s a home that is still on the west side of Fort Worth that we love, but in such a way that feels entirely new and there is a lot of merit to feeling that a new day and new and good things are happening in our world and life.

We have a home, a good home. And even if we have to squint with our hearts to see and feel it…that good is God speaking in the silence and showing us a love that needs no words. And that is enough.

Bo & Heather.

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Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

Recipe

• Yield Serves 8

All Photos and words credit to Fellow Fellow.

1. Measure the height and circumference of your jar, and cut strips of fabric to roughly fit (approx. 1cm wide – doesn’t have to be perfect).
2. In your small cup, pour in some glue and dilute it with a bit of water (about 1:2), mix well. It should be the consistency of slightly thicker water.. yes, I know I’m being vague but it shouldn’t make much difference to the end result.

3. Submerge your first strip of fabric in the glue. Once soaked, lightly run your thumb and forefinger down the strip to get rid of any excess glue.
4. Place the strip into your jar (pattern side facing the jar) and position it. Use your paintbrush to push any air bubbles out from between the fabric and the jar.
5. Repeat with the rest of your fabric. Allow to dry overnight before using.

Note:
– It would be best to use battery operated tea lights instead of real candles
– I find that it’s ok to have fabric going above the top of your jar because it can be easily cut off after it’s dried.
– I don’t mind the look of the overlapping lines of fabric once the candle is lit, but if you do try not to overlap the strips in the gluing process.

** I’m just going to add this little disclaimer… please be careful! Even though I’ve used real candles in my jars, it would be better to use battery operated tea-lights. If you do decide to go with real candles, make sure your jar is big enough that the candle has plenty of room around it (the bigger the better), with no chance of the flame touching the fabric. Make sure the glue is dried overnight before using the votives, and keep an eye on them – if you see any signs of them starting to burn, stop using them immediately! **

Heather

Update: He is out of the hospital and taking it easy. My grandfather is a very, very strong man!

We all live out a good portion of our lives online. Connecting with friends, collecting and documenting memories and of course, making plans for new experiences…filling out our social calendars. We have talked here on Lost In Drawers about our own discussions about any and all of us self edit online. We don’t show much of the struggle, we don’t ask the big questions. But the fact is that all of us struggle. And, honestly, it is time to talk about it openly.

We have weekly, if not seemingly daily, discussions on struggle. The question as it relates to our friends and family and to this blog and other social media is simply: can we be honest about life’s struggles yet not complain?  We constantly try and seek for perspective about our life. Yet, the doubts still hang out there about how we can be authentic and still talk honestly about life. We do believe that we can still love Jesus, lean on him, and still have a discourse about what goes wrong. So, here goes a round of transparency.

We have been married almost two and a half years, and yet it seems like no one tells you how hard real marriage is. There never was or will be a honeymoon period. It was hard from engagement until today. We are not financially stable. We have fought more than either one of us would have liked. We are stubborn, passionate, and Bo – who is an ordained minister – is in therapy for depression that has undermined much of our communication as a couple. So, the truth is this: save us the the pretty canned speeches about marriage, because we don’t need to hear theory. We need to know that it can get better, that the love we have deep in or hearts will spread to our circumstance and yes, will see us materially stable. Because in marriage, “all you need is love” isn’t enough when you have $20 and payday is 8 days away (which did happen once or twice or maybe even three times). This isn’t to say that we don’t have amazing moments, because we do.  We have explored more than most and we have the documentation in pictures and words to give us smiles for decades. Yet, we do ask ourselves: there is more to it than this, right?

The transparency has to extend further. It is easy to look at everyone’s carefully edited lives on blogs, Facebook and Twitter and wonder – what are we doing wrong? How come everyone else can buy houses left and right and we struggle to find a rental home with enough space to build a life and eventually round out our family? Because, marriage without two bathrooms REALLY is a trial. Seriously. Two bathrooms, two televisions and an office area. All married couples need this at some point. How do you talk about these questions and live a positive life? Do we need a mansion? No. But how is it that others (at least publicly) are doing well on many fronts – often at younger ages – and we look at life and ask… why are we still waiting on an answer to this or that, a path or a way to our future to open, a patch of hope in the midst of darkness?

Life is complicated. The issue we often have with our Christian faith is the the way our religious environments apply the story of God & Creation to life now. Being a minister and not having an outlet to use one’s calling with no ability to pay off a seminary education, and being a independently-minded prospective female business owner and always waiting on someone else to answer so we can move forward with plans can be maddening. “No” and “wait” and never yes is never easy. Yet, all our and your lives we are given simplified answers to impossibly nuanced problems. “Trust in the Lord” we are told. Okay, but how do we balance surrender/trust with engagement and truly caring about something. God is not a genie in a bottle, but our faith hinges on God still existing and active in our worlds. How does “simple faith” answer us, as when those who may not believe and even outspoken against Christian faith are better off in life than we are? Can we die to caring about these things without slipping into a life of mediocrity and giving up on big bold dreams for our life? Yet, all we see out of both ourselves and others in this digital world is carefully curated lives that smack of a magic show of Instagram, Pinterest, Etsy, inspirational quotes and digital friendships than never stop down to say – today I don’t understand how our culture can be so unfair and cruel.

Does the fact that we question and are honest about how society has stacked the cards against many of us change our faith? No. We remain in love with a God who’s earthly embodiment in one Jesus taught of a different way and proved his commitment even until death. We believe in resurrection, not only of Him, but ourselves and our hopes for a better life. Why? Because because of the same complicated nature of life that causes us to ask so many hard questions. Life is delicate, intricate and always surprising. And in spite of all our worrying, struggling to keep the electric bill paid, frustration in communicating, dealing with relationships with family & friends that are often in flux and spiritual searching (in hearts and for a new church currently) – we saw something. We are a part of something sacred and ancient. We saw that this is the story of the Scriptures. The stories of history. Anyone who is remembered dared to be honest. We hope we are doing the same.

Bo & Heather

P.S. I tried to fix every grammatical and punctuation mistake, but sometimes my passion gets the best of me!

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There is something about Disney that is beyond wonderful, no matter one’s age. So, our house has been buzzing when we found out the Disney vault was re-releasing the classic Beauty in the Beast…wait for it…in 3D! Now, to be honest we are not the biggest 3D fans but we were game and today we got to see the classic featuring everyone’s favorite Belle, that Beast chap and a cast of enchanted housewares. And it was everything we had hoped for and MORE. Disney above any other studio does 3D right, using it with care and to great effect. They know that good story is the key, and everything else is just a bonus. It was better looking than ever before and of course the story and songs are timeless, you know, a tale as old as time. Go see it!

Up next…The Little Mermaid 3D….September 2013! Pretty Epic!