A Bunch of Burts

Kudos to those of you who also memorized “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll in 7th grade. For some reason, I can remember that poem in its entirety, even though it has served no useful purpose in my life other than completing the poem memorizing assignment in 7th grade English class, and giving me a source of fun and odd words for various occasions.

So I have to ask myself, why I am able to remember this nonsense poem with apparent ease when I struggle with memorizing God’s Word? What better to memorize than the Living Word of God, His Scripture, our Sword of the Spirit? Even verses I know I knew, seem hazy and distant. I find it must be a constant effort and application on my part to fill my mind with those Words of Life.

Not so with more inane info and tidbits. Again from 7th grade, I can recite, in alphabetical order no less, all the prepositions. As well as all 18 forms of the verb ‘to be’. Now, in defense of my 7th grade teacher, those did actually come in handy for me while I was in language school and had to diagram sentences in other languages (with a loose translation to help me).

While we still lived in the States, our kids greatly enjoyed being part of an AWANA program. Although they truly did learn those verses then, I think they would be hard pressed to pull them out for you on demand now. We are working with the kids, and ourselves as well on memorizing Scripture together. To train our minds to absorb God’s Word.

Surely the ablility to retain obscure movie quotes, commercial jingles and useless facts such a what the first product marketed by Sony was, while at the same time struggling to have Bible verses at my recall is absolute proof that my mind is fallen and my heart is desparately wicked!

Now that we are studying Thai, I wish I could push out some of that old stuff to make room for the new. Some words I just have a mental block with. You think that after a year and a half I would have a handle on the difference between salt (gleua) and afraid (glua).

No thank you, I do not want to eat that, it is salty
Not the same as:
No thank you, I do not want to eat that, it is scary
Ok, either one of those could work when presented with this as a snack.

Look! There is a bag of little fried larvae ready for you to buy and snack on too.

Perhaps it is because, at heart I am lazy. I use a computer program to act as my concordance and help me find verses, I just cannot remember where they are. Perhaps, if I am honest, it is not important enough to me. Maybe I have lived such an easy life, that I take for granted having ‘helps’ available to me, having Scripture available to me.

Eeek, more evidence of my sinful nature.

But God is good and faithful, even when I am not.
2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny himself.”

And I can take comfort in His words to Moses.

Exodus 4: 11-12 “So the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.’ ”

Thank you Lord for using me, a sinful woman who too often seeks her own way, but a redeemed saint whom the LORD can use for His purposes, in His way and allows, encouraged and indeed, enables me to renew my mind each day through Christ.

One of the kitchen items I made to sure to bring with me to Thailand was the wonderful plastic scrapers that you get when you buy some stoneware from Pampered Chef. Sadly, the pizza stones did not come, but the scrapers did. They weigh much less you know.

I brought two of them and they sat right on the edge of my sink. Or they used to.

The last time I saw them, we had had some Thai friends for dinner and she helped me clean up. I fear they were thrown away with the remnants of dinner for they were never seen again.

Since that time I have looked high and low for a replacement, but with no luck.

But…..

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
I chortled in my joy!

My dear friend just sent me two, count them, two replacements!

Editor’s note. The scrapers my dear friend sent me were not PC, but so wonderful, complete with a rubber grip too! I had not seen them outside of PC before, but am very happy with these, they are Progressive brand. In case you do not want to or do not have the opportunity to place a PC order.

These things definitely work for me! They are wonderful for any stuck on food, especially if the pan has a so-called non-stick surface you do not want to scratch and then end up flaking into your food.

If you try making Cashew Chicken, these hummers really come in handy for cleaning up your wok.

You know what else works for me? Great friends who love you and send you fun packages!

There are lots of great ideas waiting for you at Sharons at Rocks in My Dryer Go take a look

P. S. The first person to tell me where I ‘borrowed’ the italicized line from will receive a small surprise!

I love the new look of my blog!
Much more colorful and fun don’t you think?
And a cute elephant button on the sidebar too.

Thank you Tim for helping me move out of boring basic into this!

I had a sweet comment waiting for me from Kim from Frogpondsrock and she gave me this!

Isn’t that sweet?
Thank you Kim, you made my day!

Well, our week was a bit caddy-whampus, and the Cashew Chicken was made on the scheduled day, but it did get made. Points for that right?

I even remembered to take pictures as I was making it!

You know your own family size, so you can adjust portions accordingly.

I used 1 kg of chicken cut into small pieces and about 4 cups of chopped vegetables. You can use whatever veggies you like, we tend to have onions, peppers (sweet), carrots and broccoli.

First, gather your sauces and such.

You will need: dried red chilies, Thai chili paste, oyster sauce, some soup flavoring ( envelope) and good soy sauce. The brand pictured is called Golden Mountain sauce. I believe all these things can be found at most any Asian market and many grocery stores now.

Before cooking, chop chicken, vegetables and mince garlic, about 3-4 cloves.
Heat a couple of TBL oil in a wok or large skillet over fairly high heat.
One of the keys to Thai cooking, is using high heat for a short time to cook the food quickly.

Stir fry the garlic until it just begins to turn brown, then add the chopped chicken.
To the chicken and garlice add chili paste.

There is room here for some fiddling. I found that for our family, we like the taste of this dish more as I added more chili paste. I use nearly 1/2 the jar at a time. This chili paste is really not all that spicy, just flavorful, although you may want to begin by adding less for the first time and increase it as your family tolerates.

Stir and cook the chicken in the chili paste until cooked through.
Add a small handful of the dried red chilies. This is what will add the most heat, so if you like it hotter, add more.

Add your oyster sauce. I have not measured this, but you can see the size puddle on the utensil.
Try somewhere around 2 TBL
Stir in a bit a bit of water, approx 1/4 to 1/2 cup and sprinkle some soup base/seasoning in. Stir to mix. If you cannot get powdered soup base, just crush up a boullion cube and add it. You should have cooked chicken in a reddish gravy at this point.

Keeping the heat high, stir fry the veggies for just a minute or two. You do not want them to be overly soft and mushy. They should still be slightly crisp.
(at this point you can also add your cashews and cook them in at this point, but some kids in our family do not like them and so we add them on top. No sense wasting perfectly good cashews on fussy children.)

Serve with rice, of course and enjoy. Aroy!

Here is a close up of the brand chili paste I use, the best one we have found. I know it is available in the US, but cannot say for elsewhere.

Happy cooking!

P. S. If you like to stir fry often, I love the spatula-type tool that I used in these pictures. I highly suggest looking at a cooking store or asian market for one. It is wonderful, and I have fewer spills using it than I did when I just used a large spoon or metal spatula. In Thai it is called a daa-lii-oo, if that helps.