Now She's Cooking!

Yes, I am back. After seriously considering shutting down my blog! I just lost interest, especially doing almost daily “updates” on Facebook. On the other hand, this week I realized that I cannot write my thoughts and any stories on Facebook, so here I am again and with a new background too! Do you like it?
I won’t even try to catch up on all these months that I haven’t been keeping up with the blog, but lots of interesting things have happened. During Carnaval, last week, I finally got myself a slow cooker because I discovered they were actually available here in Brazil and the model I wanted was on sale half price (magic words). My oh my these cookers have come a very long way since my old RIVAL Crock-Pot of the 70’s. This model has three temperature controls, and three removable stoneware bowls. I have been excited to use this, because it’s just been too hot to bake or really cook anything that takes awhile and I recalled a crock-pot doesn’t heat up the kitchen. I’ve been studying recipes and have been excited about all the things you can make. I have, of course eliminated those typical recipes of open a can of soup, take out a package of frozen vegetables, etc. and make everything from scratch so I control the ingredients and my health. I don’t even use bouillon cubes anymore, since they like most manufactured foods provokes allergies.
At any rate, I was really impressed today that I was able to bake banana bread that you see just as it came out of the slow cooker.  It was thoroughly cooked, and although moist, it was not gooey like I was afraid it would be and it even browned a bit. I also was afraid the stoneware bowl would be a mess to clean up, but since I had buttered it, nothing really stuck and cleanup was a snap. The banana bread was actually delicious and had to hide it so my husband didn’t gorge himself. I used teeny-tiny “gold bananas” from a friend’s farm and instead of sugar, used honey (half the amount) and surprisingly the bread is very sweet. I am so excited to know I will not be able to “bake” things even in the very hot weather here.
I currently have the small bowl filled with French toast that I will put on before I go to sleep for our breakfast tomorrow. I’ll let you know if it comes out okay. I sure hope it’s not soggy. In the medium sized bowl, I have a pot roast and vegetables seasoned and ready to be cooked for our Sunday dinner while we are at church.
In the next few days I’ll share my future experiences with the slower cooker. Also I’ll show some of the art work I’m into right now. And most importantly I want to share more fully about my Bible memorization project. So at least for a while I won’t lack for something to say (now when have you ever known that to happen?).