My special helper took video of our trip to the Wednesday Market this week. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s easier for you to imagine our life here if you can see it. James took the video while we walked. He put the camera in his shirt pocket so it’s a little jumpy at times. But still, you can see what it’s like when we shop there every week. Enjoy!
Archive for month: April, 2018
Sunday was our final showing of the Jesus film at the refugee camp. Kabazana had been waiting to see it for more than a month.
The road to the camp has gotten even worse in the last few days. Benjamin, one of the men who helps us out there, said they’d had heavy rain several days in a row. It’s a good thing for the crops, but a bad thing for the roads. It took us much longer to get out there than we thought it would because we had to drive slow.
The steady drizzle slowed things down even further. Only a few people were even at church when we arrived. The people arrived in a steady stream, in spite of the rain. Soon we had at least 100 people, half of them children, in attendance. There was standing room only in the back.
Every one of our churches has a different…culture, for lack of a better word. At Kabazana, their responses were boisterous. They laughed out loud at the places they found funny. The women wept openly as they watched Jesus’ crucifixion. They laughed again and rejoiced when he was alive. 4 people raised their hands for salvation!
After the service, the ladies of the church served food to church members. It’s difficult accepting food from refugees. But we live in a hospitality culture. If you do something for people, they feel they need to do something for you in return. We’d shown the movie and brought food on other occasions so they wanted to do something for us.
The food they cook is SO GOOD!!! They make this cabbage dish…if a person could get fat on cabbage, I’d want to get fat on the cabbage they make. I’ve tried replicating it but haven’t been successful — yet. I’m determined to figure it out. I’ve asked. They’ve told me what they do. Mine never turns out right. One of these days I’m going to have to watch them cook it. The same with their beans.
But that’s another thing about here — you don’t go in the kitchen unless invited. The cooking area is usually a separate building or at least curtained off from the rest of the house. So I’d have to be rude to even ask for permission to see them cook it. I’ll have to risk it. Their cabbage and beans are too good not to!
The road to Nakivale has gotten particularly bad over the last several weeks. We decided to capture some of it on video while traveling today. Hope you enjoy this little glimpse!
A few weeks ago I saw a video going around on Facebook, in which a woman demonstrated how to make cream cheese.
The cheese she was actually making was either ricotta or queso (depending on how stringy it turned out). I don’t know how many times I’ve made ricotta cheese using the exact method she described. It’s simple. It’s quick. I’ve used it for lasagne and for any recipe that calls for cottage cheese.
But it’s not cream cheese.
Technically, to make cream cheese (or any cheese for that matter, with the exception of ricotta and mozzarella) you need a specific culture to get it going. “Culture”=bacteria that grows in the cheese and hardens it.
Yogurt is also cultured. Again, it’s not the same culture as cream cheese but it’s much closer than the method used by the woman in the video.
How to Make Cream Cheese
1. Make or buy yogurt.
As I posted on my blog a few days ago, yogurt making is quite simple.
2. Strain the yogurt until it’s thick.
I put mine through a tea towel lining my strainer. Basically, I dump the yogurt into the tea-towel-lined strainer, suspend that in a pot to catch the whey, and stick it in the fridge.
And forget about it for a couple days.
That’s it.
It produces a by-product called “whey” which you can use for many things (in place of water in bread for higher protein content; we save it when we want to cure a corned beef because it acts like a meat tenderizer), or just pour it down the drain.
The finished product looks and tastes like cream cheese.
I’ve used it to make cheesecakes, to spread on toast, or for any recipe that calls for cream cheese.
Here is one of our favorite cream cheese recipes. It calls for several of the milk by-products we make: butter, yogurt/sour cream, and cream cheese. I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we have!
Creamy Fruit Preserve Coffee Cake
- 2-1/4 cups flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup cold butter (I soften it to room temperature)
- 3/4 cup sour cream (I use plain yogurt)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon almond extract (I use vanilla extract.)
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and sugar; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside 1 cup for topping. To the remaining crumb mixture, add the remaining ingredients. Press into the bottom and 2 inches up the side of a 9 inch spring form pan. (I use a 9×13 baking dish.)
Filling:
- 8 oz. cream cheese softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup fruit preserves (peach, cherry, apple, blueberry, strawberry)
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds (optional)
Combine the cream cheese, sugar, and egg. Spoon over prepared crust. Spread the preserves evenly over this. Top with almonds (optional) and reserved crumbs.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until filling is set and crust is golden brown. If using springform pan, cool for 15 minutes and then remove the side of the pan. Cool completely before serving.
We celebrated Easter Sunday with Sangano. They’ve been getting a good amount of rain the last few weeks (which is good) but it’s made the road a mess. We crept down the road at about 30-40km/hour (less than 25 mph) and still felt like we were going too fast. We reached one section of the road that was a pond. Thankfully, there was a way around the outside of it AND our 4-wheel drive works.
11 people were baptized this morning. What better way to celebrate our risen Lord than to picture being raised to new life in Christ. We started the service earlier than usual and one of the young men who wanted to be baptized hadn’t arrived yet. He came running in as everyone was finding their seats inside the church. James climbed back in the baptistry and baptized him before we continued with the service.
Finally, we showed the Jesus movie at Sangano. The church was packed and more and more people came in until all the seats were taken. The children filled in the rows at the front. When the movie finished, James gave an invitation and several people raised their hands. We’ll be following up with these people (most of them children!) in the next few weeks.
One of the ladies at church had a difficult pregnancy. She gave birth to the baby, a little boy, about 6 weeks ago. Today was her first day back at church with him and we got to meet him for the first time. I think Brennah fell in love. He slept while she held him for most of the church service.
And there’s just a little glimpse into our Easter in Uganda.