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| The Noble Arnee!! |
We are having a glorious Victoria Day Weekend here in Montreal. Tomorrow being a statutory “Holiday “, I have planned to devote the day ( and the next two!) to advance baking and cooking for the Team Training Retreat.
I am an inveterate “planner”. Not so much in the long-term ( like “years”) but in the shorter term, as in “months” and certainly in “weeks” and “days”.
Now I am not so foolish as to ignore entitling all my plans with a “God Willing” proviso, nor am I crazy enough to assume that all my plans will actually come to fruition; knowing the vagaries of daily life BUT….. I ALWAYS plan the menus for the Retreat the previous January and I ALWAYS start advance cooking in late May.
Here is my dilemma…. Do I confidently move forward cooking and baking for 20 + young adults with healthy appetites or do I succumb to all the annual doubts and fears that beset me at this time and either hold off until closer to the beginning of Training ( sheer madness because everything will be totally chaotic by then) OR cook for a smaller group given that, today, we only have a miserable total of 8 applications, many of those being incomplete?
Every Summer, almost since I began directing Day Camps I have tortured myself in the weeks prior to our start time. Will we find enough Team Members? Will we find enough Host Churches? Will we balance our modest budget? Just how can I best serve the Lord and fulfil the plan which He has for Day Camps.
I have prayed. I have waffled but I have decided to move ahead………
After all, I even had a VOLUNTEER in the person of Arnee ( our noble Program Manual Typist) who actually offered to come and help tomorrow morning!!
I have to trust that God will bless us with “enough” Team members and “enough” Churches to carry out His plan. Maybe it will not seem like “enough” by human (my) standards but, if all of us do everything that is “humanly” possible then surely, our faithful Lord will honour that.
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| Mandu supervising! |
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| Wil Helping? |
So tomorrow morning I intend to roll up my sleeves (metaphorically as it is supposed to be 30C so I won’t need sleeves!) and get down to cooking. Maybe I’m supposed to cook and the Holy Spirit, at the same time ,will do the “badgering”, by convicting some candidates that they need to spend their holiday tomorrow in filling out Application Forms! I did not think it practical to share any recipes for the Retreat since, as previously noted, they are planned to serve 20+ appetites!
So instead I’m going to share one that I just found in the blogosphere and which I sampled for the first time today!!
Roasted Strawberry Popsicles……yum!!!
Yield: 8 popsicles
- 8 ounces small strawberries, hulled and quartered
- 1 (15) ounce can coconut milk (not light!)
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cane sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
Preheat. oven to 350 degrees.
Toss strawberries in one tablespoon sugar. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the strawberries on paper. Roast until tender and caramelized, about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, warm the coconut milk in a small pan over a low flame. Add the 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cardamom and stir until sugar is just dissolved. Remove from heat. When the strawberries are ready, remove from heat and let cool for at least 5 minutes. Combine the strawberries with the coconut milk. Using a glass measure with lip, carefully pour the strawberry coconut milk mix into 8 popsicle molds. You may need to stir them just a little so that the fruit is
distributed. Chill for a minimum of four hours.
distributed. Chill for a minimum of four hours.