Greek Babies

Okay, so I know that I promised a baking blog quite some time ago... but times have changed, and I have been a busy bumble bee. So instead of setting up a completely new blog, I have decided to just post recipes on this one. Starting today!

DAY 1: GREEK (dutch) BABIES!

Definition- sometimes called a German pancake, a Bismarck, or a Dutch puff, is a sweet breakfast dish similar to Yorkshire pudding and derived from the German Apfelpfannkuchen. It is made with eggs, flour and milk, and usually seasoned with vanilla and cinnamon, although occasionally sugar is also added. It is baked in a metal pan and falls soon after being removed from the oven. It is generally served with fresh squeezed lemon, butter, and powdered sugar or fruit toppings or syrup.

I decided to take my own spin off of the traditional recipe, and then bake it different ways for almost 50 straight days to culminate the perfect dutch baby. I am going to post the traditional recipe from allrecipes.com and then give you tips on how to make it your very own batch of deliciousness. It could potentially be a big party in your mouth- maybe even a rave with full on glowsticks.



You can follow this recipe and they will be good. Or you can follow the one below this one for a party in your mouth.

Ingredients

2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions

Place a 10 inch cast iron skillet inside oven and preheat oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until light. Add milk and stir. Gradually whisk in flour, nutmeg and salt.
Remove skillet from oven and reduce oven heat to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt butter in hot skillet so that inside of skillet is completely coated with butter. Pour all the batter in the skillet and return skillet to oven.
Bake until puffed and lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove promptly and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Altered Recipe:

Ingredients

3 eggs, 1 egg white
1/2 cup milk plus 2 tbsp of milk
1/2 cup (heaping)sifted all-purpose flour. Sifting is not optional!
2 tsp of pure almond extract
2 heaping tbsp of non fat greek yogurt
1 pinch salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar for dusting
Lemon Wedges to squeeze over the top
REAL maple syrup. like from the tree, not Mrs. Butterworth's bosom.

Directions

Place a 10 inch cast iron skillet inside oven and preheat oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy. Add milk, greek yogurt, almond extract and dash of vanilla extract and stir. Gradually whisk in flour, and salt. I would highly advise simply stirring in the sifted flour with a wooden spoon. If you over stir the mixture, you will over develop the gluten in the flour and the result will be hard and tough babies. But we don't want tough babies, we want greek babies! It is even okay if there are little lumps left in the batter.

Remove skillet from oven and reduce oven heat to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt butter in hot skillet so that inside of skillet is completely coated with butter. Pour all the batter in the skillet and return skillet to oven.
Bake until puffed and lightly browned, about 18.5 minutes. Remove promptly and sprinkle with lemon, powdered sugar. I dress mine with lemon, berries and maple syrup.

This is easy to prepare, and is a wonderful pancake alternative!

change

I thought I would take a little time to write in this thing, if anything to just let you know that I still intend to continue to do so in the near to distant future. So what to say, what to say...

Change is the only constant thing. Oh how true it is. Isn't it amazing how you can go through long seasons of time that seem eternal, and then look back on all of them and think "daaaang time goes by so fast?!" That is kind of how I am feeling right now. And as I'm sitting here even saying that, time continues to fly on by. So where do the Romero's currently find themselves? Well, still in the same house in Ft. Worth, Texas. We live 2 houses away from a convenient 7-11 and French Bakery that we have avoided caving in to up to this current point. I have been working at Del Friscos for 3 weeks now. It is the most physically demanding serving job that I have ever had (we have a basement, main floor, and upstairs) so you can just imagine how my calve muscles are growing. It is also the most mentally demanding job I have ever had. You have to be able to work smart, consolidate well, and constantly ask for help. Actually, if you don't ask for help you will totally tank in this place. They designed the entire structure of their restaurant upon making it impossible to survive without teamwork. It's pretty crazy there on weekend nights to say the least. But I have already started to see the rewards of it some nights, and I've been told that the fall and winter season is 10x better than it is right now. But the right now I find myself in is the middle of restaurant week. I will say no more than those 2 words.

I would say our biggest challenge right now has been trying to adjust our schedules to try and fit my new schedule which has me up until 1 or 2 most nights now. We're trying to figure out what to do about church as well. John plays a few Sundays a month at his home church, and it's impossible for me to go on the days he plays (he leaves at 6 am and I get home from work at 12) so were trying to figure that one out. It would be easiest for me to tell him to just go and play on the Sunday's that they want him and I will just sleep in and not go to church at all but that is of course NOT the right solution. Actually asking the Lord for wisdom would be a much better solution. We should probably get on that.

Marriage is sweet of course. I love my husband, he is incredible.

But I am exhausted. We need wisdom and a touch from the Lord. For real.

Del Frisco's crazy training

I am dropping in with a quick hello to everyone. This last week has been absolute craziness! I have been in training at Del Frisco's for the last week, and lets just say that it is pretty much the boot camp for all serving jobs. I have approx 3-4 hours of homework every night, as well as 3 hours in the classroom, and then a 5 hour server follow. By Monday I have to show up with a perfected 2 minute shpiel that I give to every table which is a mini menu presentation. If it's not perfect they either fail you out of training or give you an extra day. It is a different universe than Omaha or the Chop House. I know that it will be rewarding, but holy cow it's intense! So that's all I know for now. If you are reading this, pray that I make it through the final week of training. Everyone says it is well worth it to get through the hellish training that is designed to weed people out that aren't really committed. And the benefits are pretty incredible, which we really need. So that's it, more coming soon.

yes

I don't know if I would call this a real post- maybe a mini side note of realization is more accurate... It occurred to me this morning that my getting married did not change the devil's job description. It has remained the same. HE has remained the same. He still hates me, wants me to live my life in compromise. He HATES revelation, and hates it when I feel love. If you would like to take it a step further in to your marriage, you could say this: he hates your marriage covenant, and wants to bring division in your home. He loves it when you become angry and then harden your heart toward your spouse. He wants you to feel hopeless, defeated, and he wants you to feel as though you are the only one on the planet that is good for nothing. He hates it when you come together with your spouse and seek the Lord. He loves to throw in any distraction possible to keep this from happening. He hates it when you forgive, and hates it even more when you take it "off the list." His entire mission statement is and will forever be "steal, kill and destroy." It's what he does. It's who he is. A liar and a thief. He win's employee of the year at his job year after year. He will carry out his mission statement until the day he is thrown in to the lake of fire...

I am not writing this because overnight one night life got hard. I'm not writing this because I'm having problems with my husband. i AM writing this because it needs to be stated that no matter what your position is in life, the battle will continue to rage on. The enemy will continue to tempt you, and your Father will continue to sift you like wheat. The honest struggle in my own heart lately, is this: Who's process am I giving myself over to day after day? Both sides can be painful, but one bears incredible fruit for those who are willing to surrender their will and even their opinions about their life and where it is going.

The beautiful thing about this is that it is always His kindness that leads us to repentance. It's His presence that draws us in and keeps us. He is truly slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness towards us. And it all starts with a little tiny yes.

Old Spice Denali

I came to the dawning realization this morning that I have been wearing less Mac eyeliner, and more of my husband's Old Spice Denali deodorant. I figure if I am going to haul and sort of purchases (even if they are from BB&B) around in this blazing heat, then I had better be wearing something that is powerful. And it is... so powerful. I currently just finished our "oh crap were out of eggs and milk" shopping trip that always ends up yielding much more than eggs and milk. I think that today was the first time in my adult life that I have sent a text message making sure it is okay that I spend a certain amount of money. I've always just had a stash of it hidden away in the bank, and I can humbly say that this is not the case anymore. Had this been 2 years ago, I would be irritated and frantic. Apparently God has worked on me since then, because I am finding myself handling that very differently. This is a good thing. I have also been trying very diligently to make it possible for us to eat healthy pretty consistently and make that a habit throughout our marriage. This can be challenging because eating healthy cost like 10 million times more than eating crap. It's a sad but true fact. I am also working on an up and coming baking blog, so I will keep you updated with that. Well, Happy July 5th, I'm off to buy produce.

Job Interviews

After long agonizing days of searching the deep ends of the will of God, baking several loaves of banana bread, and at least 10 turkey sandwiches, I have come to a grand conclusion.... I am going to wait tables for a while longer. I know, I know, it is technically not a "career job" in the way that most of corporate America defines career. BUT I stumbled upon a dawning revelation yesterday... We are saving money to move to Tennessee. That is what we had decided before we even moved in to our new place. So if we are saving money to move to Tennessee and not necessarily planting deep roots here, AND I haven't gotten much of a leading from the Lord about what to do or what not to do then this is my conclusion: I am doing something. So yesterday morning I woke up craving the structure and consistantcy of a job. I had actually been dreading the idea of job hunting and resume writing after our month and a half nightmare of job hunting. The idea of being rejected OR even worst not called back at all was just not at the top of my list. But somewhere in the depths of confusion God lit the pilot light under my ass and I wrote up a simple resume (which my english major husband kindly revised) and filled out 2 online applications. One of them was to some City Club (like a country club with no golf course) and the other to Del Friscos Steakhouse (which i thought was a shot in the dark for sure) Some of those higher end steakhouses shy away from hiring female servers, it's just a fact of life. Especially in big cities! But low and behold the Lord had mercy, and BOTH places called me back asking for interviews today, no joke. I was pretty shocked. The Del Friscos interview is this afternoon, and the City Club one is in the morning. So I guess I'm slowly but surely climbing up the steak latter if I get this job. So here I go, off to interview #1, I'll tell you how it goes later.

This has been a morning of extreme searching for me. Extremely scattered searching, that is. I decided to take a slight detour from the land of job resume templates into the great land of "other job" ideas. Other jobs meaning ones that might potentially pay much less than what I would currently be applying for in the realm of fine dining. My internet search has gone something like this:

The book of 2 Peter (Bible Gateway)
www.ihop.org (a good hour of webstream backround)
List of jobs in food service (Craigslist)
List of other jobs (Craigslist)

(Selah)- accompanied with mental dilemma and momentary thoughts of going back to school.

www.ihop.org- one more hour of webstream.
best banana bread ever (All recipes)
Thoughts of opening a bakery (my head)
State Board of Cosmetology Website of Texas- Possible license transfer ideas swimming through my head accompanied with stronger thoughts about how much one cut and highlight already destroys my back in one day.
Looking through wedding photos again and reminiscing. Awwwwwe.
A few aimless moments of Facebook.
Sigh.

(Selah)

So here we are. Here I am. This has always been one of life's biggest battles for me. Figuring out what I was made to do. So while I'm waiting for the answer, I will bake my husband some banana bread and start my baking blog.