Lembas

According to the Lord of the Rings wiki page;
"Lembas, also called Elven bread or Waybread in the Common Speech, was a special food made by the Elves."

I thought I would try to be clever and send the guys some "lembas" during Lent, since cookies are a no-no.
Though I'll be honest, with 1.5 cups of sugar and a cup of butter, this isn't particularly mortifying food.
Unless you're allergic to sugar and butter. 

Pictures! Because that's one of the keys to a fabulously popular blog post!(which we all know this is bound to be!)

I was lazy and crudely cut some cheapy green cardstock paper for the lembas wrapping.

These definitely aren't as fancy as THIS post's lembas, but I bet they taste better! The recipe is from the mom of the British family I did Ministry to Mom's to while in Austria last semester. It's actually British flapjack, but hey, that might've been what Tolkien had in mind when he thunk the idea up!


LEMBAS BREAD (aka, British flapjack)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar (I use brown)
• 1/2 cup honey
• 4 cups oats
• 2 cups coconut or oats.

Melt the butter, then add the sugar and honey. Melt and mix well, then add oats, mixing well. Add coconut, or two more cups of oats. You can flavor with orange zest and cranberries, or something else - whatever you like!
Spread it all out on a flat baking tray, about 1 1/2 cms or so thick. Press down a bit and bake until golden brown, 15 minutes or so.

This stuff tastes a lot like the Sunbelt Oats and Honey granola bars, so if you like those, you're in luck! If you don't, then well, you probably won't like this stuff.

Crazy week

Last week was pretty crazy, but super fun.
Morning of the 13th, I Megasbussed (I know, it's not a word) out to Harrisburg to spend a little over 24 hours with Chuckie, Katie and wee Maria.

Maria - "Ew, Dad, cut it out, I'm trying to use my phone."

This is how Maria feels about her uncle John

She gave me lots of smiles before I left! Yes!!!

That was super fun, and then I Megabussed myself back on over to Pittsburgh super early Friday morning. Couple hours later, and I was on my way with John to Madison. The ride was super fun, but the evening was tiring, due to 3.5 hours of sleep the night before, driving all day, having dinner with a bunch of strangers at a loud German place, and then walking around Madison with a pair of (previously) trusted sandals that decided to be annoying and give me blisters.

D'awww!

However, the next two days were pretty fantastic - we didn't try to do a whole lot, and stayed with smaller groups that already had a couple people I already knew in it (I get tired/bored really fast in big groups). I got to meet some more cool people (including a priest that was super funny and nice) and hung out a lot with Emily. I won't lie and say it wasn't awkward at some points, but spending the extra time with her helped me get to know her better, and she is an awesome person and very holy. Without intending to, she showed me how to offer sacrifices better and how there's pretty much always an opportunity to offer something up. Things I knew before, but couldn't really get a solid picture of in my soul before of how I could do it.

I now understand why Sister Maria liked her so much. ;)

Anyways, I've got a LOT of packing to do. I spent a couple hours doing so today, and I'm still not done. 

Ugh. *cue in previous statement of always having an opportunity to offer something up*