Tina The Storyteller

This last week was my father in law's 70th birthday. We were able to go to Seattle and help with a surprise party for him. One of the cakes that my mother in law served was an Italian Cream Cake. Hannah loved it. So I'm sharing the recipe here. I'm not sure the original source. A cube of butter is a stick of butter, or a half cup. Let me know if you make it! Italian Cream Cake Serves 10-12 1 cube butter or margarine, softened 1/2 cup shortening 2 cups sugar 5 egg yolks 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup buttermilk 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup flaked coconut 1 cup chopped walnuts 5 egg whites, stiffly beaten Cream-Cheese Frosting, recipe follows Extra chopped walnuts, garnish 1. Cream butter and shortening. Add sugar and beat until smooth. Add egg yolks and beat well. 2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt and add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla. Add coconut and nuts. 3. Fold in beaten egg whites gently. Pour batter into three

Organic Outreach for Families is part of a series of books written by Kevin Harney that is based around the idea of our homes, churches, personal lives being lighthouses for Jesus. This edition is based mainly in rearing your children and interacting with them. With some practical advice on how to arrange your home and budget to be an inviting place for younger generations. One of the prominent ideas within the book is extending grace, to your children and to those in your neighborhood. There are numerous stories of events that occurred where the parents could have brought the hammer down on their children and their friends, but instead chose grace and it resulted in trust instead of fear. It is clear that the Harney family is unique in the extent to which they have answered this call for their home to be a lighthouse for the Gospel, but the tips they give make it something that any family can work towards. As two introvert parents raising a very outgoing child, some of the concepts ar

I didn't eat these, well, I did taste them but I didn't eat a whole one. I wanted to  though. They looked smelled and the little bit I tried tasted delicious. The reason that I'm sharing this recipe from See.Try.Eat is because my family loved it so much that between the two of them, they ate about six biscuits in one sitting. It was pretty intense and they finished off the rest the next day or so. Here's the link to Sweet Blueberry Biscuits from See.Try. Eat I would warn that you should NOT crowd the middle. There is an urgh that runs so deep that sees that big gapping space in the middle of your cast iron skillet and you think "It's got room, I can fill it!" but don't. It will require your biscuits to cook longer and they probably will still be a bit gooey in the middle. And you might think to yourself, "I don't really need to put that sauce on these, do I?" The answer is yes! Gild the lily as they say. It's needed in this recip

So, today's mess is a forgotten blog. My best advice for dealing with that is to not put up one of those "I can't believe that I haven't blogged in a gazillion years! WOW! I promise, I'll write more often! XOXO" posts. Either write something or don't. All of us blog readers out here in cyber land understand that things get busy and that people don't write, it's okay, no need to apologize, just get on with what you're going to do with yourself. Though if you're pretty sure that you aren't going to be writing on your blog again, forever, then that's something you might want to share with your readers. Hope you have a great day! I have an awesome recipe to share tomorrow. It's so awesome that I might just add it later today. It has blueberries! YUM!