Mexican Cornbread Salad

Great Cooks: Jennifer Jones

Ingredients

* 1 9­-ounce package Cornbread Mix
* 1 4.5 can chopped Green Chilies
* 1/2 cup Mayonnaise or Aioli
* 1 cup fresh Cilantro, chopped
* 1/4 cup Lime Juice
* 1 teaspoon ground Cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon Salt
* 1 head Romaine or Iceberg Lettuce—best shredded
* 1 15 ounce can Black Beans, rinsed and drained
* 1 15 ounce can black Olives, rinsed and drained
* 1 11 ounce can whole kernel Corn, drained
* 1 8 ounce package Cheddar or Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded
* 1 large Red Bell Pepper, chopped
* 6 Plum/Roma Tomatoes chopped
* 3 green Onions chopped
* 1 pound cooked Chicken, chopped

Method

* Prepare cornbread mix according to package directions, adding chilies.
* Cool and crumble.
* Process mayonnaise, half of the cilantro, and the next 3 ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth.
Layer a 4-quart bowl with
* 1/2 of the lettuce and 1/2 of the remaining cilantro,
* 1/2 of the cornbread, 1/3 of the dressing, and
* 1/2 each of beans, olives, corn, cheese, bell pepper and tomatoes.
* Repeat layers.
* Top with remaining mayonnaise mixture and green onion.
* Chill.

Come, Let us Worship

My offering for next Sunday, Holy Trinity.

Come Let Us Worship And Bow Down

Come let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord,
Our God and Maker.
For he is our God,
And we are the people of his pasture,
And the sheep of his hand,
Just the sheep of his hand.

~~Dave Doherty~~

© 1980 Maranatha Praise, Inc.
CCLI #27329

Trio on Tuesday

Chipotle Southwest Sauce

This is an authentic recipe supplied to the National Turkey Federation by Subway Restaurant’s Executive Chef Chris Martune. The link for Subway’s Southwest Turkey & Bacon Sandwich, which includes the recipe for their Chipotle Southwest Sauce, can be found here.

Subway’s Chipotle Southwest Sauce

• 1 Quart mayonnaise
• 2 oz Dijon mustard
• 2 oz freshly squeezed lime juice
• 4 oz chipotle in adobo, pureed
• 1 oz. fresh garlic, minced
• Salt, to taste

Combine mayonnaise, mustard, lime juice, chipotle and garlic. Add salt to taste. Cover and chill before sandwich preparation, or before using as a salad dressing.

Yields sauce for 24 sandwiches.

Pentecost bulletin text

Here's the actual bulletin cover.

In the Bible and in Christian tradition, there is no narrative or legend about the creation of fire, but there are abundant experiences of visible evidence of the Divine Presence in some form of fire. From the desert of the Exodus through Isaiah's vision in the temple, to Malachi and to John the Baptizer's promise of One who will baptize not only with water, but with Spirit and with Fire, a strand of purifying, redemptive heat weaves through the witness of scripture. Luke begins the Acts of the Apostles with the risen Christ promising the apostles' forthcoming baptism with the Holy Spirit; in the next chapter, we hear about the Spirit given to individuals gathered in community.

The Spirit of Life that raised Jesus from the dead calls us from wherever we are, and gathers us into this assembly that already has experienced its first death and its second birth. The Holy Spirit of God and of the Christ shapes and forms us into the people of God in this place, a gathering of the ordinary that daily walks the extraordinary Way of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, living as an alternative community to those under the reign of death.

Like the apostles of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago, we live baptized into the cross of Calvary, into the empty grave of Easter dawn, and into the freedom and fire of Pentecost. When our friends and neighbors meet us, like Jesus' disciples of old, may they also become witnesses to the Risen Christ!

Tabouli Recipe 1

Ingredients

• cucumber, diced
• several roma tomatoes, diced (remove seeds if you’re not lazy)
• Parsley, finely chopped 1/2 to 3/4 cup
• 1/2 cup bulgur wheat
• 1 or 2 green onion(s)
• Lemon juice
• Olive oil
• allspice (optional)
• cinnamon (optional)
• salt

Pour hot water over the bulgur and let soak until soft and most of the water has been absorbed. Mix the diced veggies by hand, add the bulghur and mix some more, add lemon juice and olive oil to get the right flavor and consistency. Add the spice(s) and salt and mix a bit more. Refrigerate, eat and enjoy.

Chalupa Tostadas

First of all, you will need to make a batch of frijoles refritos.

Ingredients | Makes 12 chalupas

• vegetable oil
• 12 corn tortillas (the thinner the better)
• 5-6 cups frijoles refritos
• 1/2 lb cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 3 cups shredded lettuce
• Sour cream, Salsa and other ingredients to preference
  

Procedure

In a small skillet, heat about 1/2 inch of vegetable oil. Test the oil for proper temperature by putting in a small piece of tortilla.

When the oil immediately begins to bubble frantically over the tortilla as soon as it is put in the oil and the tortilla piece quickly becomes crisp, you are ready to cook the chalupa shells.

Fry tortillas completely flat on both sides until very crisp. Drain and keep warm on a newspaper- or paper towel-covered cookie sheet in a warm oven.

Spread about a 1/4-inch layer of refried beans on each fried tortilla. Top with a generous amount of grated Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese and 1 Tbsp chopped onion.

Place assembled chalupas on a cookie sheet and brown under broiler until cheese melts. Watch them carefully under the broiler! They can burn too quickly.

Top with shredded lettuce, tomato, other ingredients of choice and serve.

Time: 15 minutes, plus preparation time of frijoles refritos.

Pizza Salad Recipe

You can alter and improvise this basic recipe according to taste and available ingredients; the main thing is to assemble it – except for the cheese – as least 24 hours ahead of time. This is one of my favorite things to take to a potluck, and I like to save a serving for myself and eat it about a week later, though I'd never take anything that aged to a polite gathering.

• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 red pell pepper
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper (I vary the peppers according to current price)
• 1 medium red onion
• 1 container cherry tomatoes - cut each into halves or quarters
• 1 or 2 4-ounce cans of sliced black olives
• 1/4 pound sliced pepperoni
• Italian salad dressing

Slice all the above ingredients either coarse or fine, but for appearance and mouth-feel I'd advise being consistent; pour on Italian dressing, toss, cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Before serving or taking to event, drain excess Italian dressing, add and toss to blend well:

• Shredded mozzarella cheese – I buy it already shredded in those bags and use about 1/2 of the bag (not sure what weight, but not the giant size—maybe 4 or 6 oz.) per regular-size salad
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan or Parmesan and Romano cheese or whatever's your pleasure

Country House

Apple Pie

Monday; Sunday

Today is another Monday, routine and mundane, but yesterday afternoon I got to hear the San Diego Symphony and the Master Chorale performing the Requiem by Hector Berlioz. It all was wonderful, but the brass, stationed all around the heights of Copley Symphony Hall, were amazing!

Routinely mundane, yes, but I've almost finished the bulletin cover for Pentecost, which'll nake something else for my theological and design portfolios and something to blog, too.

Earth Day Stamps Artist's Statement

Since I've posted the Earth Stamps I'm submitting to the County Fair on this blog and the real one on sun country living, I decided I could use my Artist's Statement as fodder for this blog.

---

Assignment

To design a single stamp or a series of postage stamps.

Software

Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop; Adobe Acrobat for final presentation.

Concept

With Earth Day on the horizon, I looked through my digitized analog art and chose some favorites. Each design illustrates an aspect of humanity’s stewardship of creation: a small wood frame house along the beach; young plants growing up strong out of healthy soil and into the sun; a city abounding with healthy trees and gleaming in the sunlight; laundry hung up to dry in the sunny air on the roofs of an inner-city apartment building.

Process

For each individual stamp, I started by opening the PDF stamp outline template in Illustrator; I then opened the palette of my favorite Pantone colors. In Photoshop I opened a jpeg or png of each image I’d selected, selected a small slice of the image and pasted it into a layer in my Illustrator file. For the denomination (55¢), USA and my domain name, suntreeriver dot com, I used the same font, Cooper Black, on all the stamps.

Although each image was a different size, to unify the group, I also included a gradient background.

Outcome

I created a series of four stamps in the dimensions of the template we received. Two are vertical, two horizontal. For final presentation, I copied and pasted all the stamps into a separate Illustrator document and then saved it out as a PDF.

Summer Sandals

Stamps for the SD County Fair

I'll probably enter the vertical (portrait) version, but I needed a blog for today, so here's the horizontal – landscape – one I'm printing to enter in the San Diego County Fair.


Here you can view the other orientation.

Sweet Pearly Everlasting

Summer Sandals 2

Revelation 22:2

6th Sunday of Easter - Prayer of the Day

Here's the Prayer of the Day for Easter 6; I'm working on a graphic of Revelation 22:2, which was the second lection, but it's far from ready (just scanned it into Photoshop a few minutes ago) so I'll blog that separately and later. PS I predated this when I wrote it on Monday morning.

Bountiful God, you gather your people into your realm, and you promise us food from your tree of life. Nourish us with your word, that empowered by your Spirit we may love one another and the world you have made, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reign with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.