Casablanca

At the end of dinner at the Tusker House in Disney's Animal Kingdom, I told our hostess I’d enjoyed everything – especially the mango chutney. She said if I shared my email address she’d see I got the recipe. Eight weeks later I assumed my address was tossed with the lamb bones and paper straws (I  must tell you some other time about Animal Kingdom straws.) Then, to my astonishment, this appeared in my inbox. Disney is amazing!

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Tusker House Mango Chutney

3 lbs. mangoes (1/2 gallon) coarsely chopped 

1 lb. onion minced 

1 cup sliced almonds  

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups sugar  

1 1/2 cups vinegar  

1 small  jalapeño minced

1/4 cup fresh ginger chopped

4 cloves garlic chopped

Combine all ingredients in large pot; add water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer until liquid is as thick as honey. Mixture thickens as it cools.  Makes 40 portions.

Raspberry Cocoa

This is a fun recipe any time of year, but it’s especially nice in the summer, when the berries are everywhere and firing up the oven is a terrible idea. Someday I’d like to try it with only raspberries and a package of devil’s food cake mix.

Slow Cooker Jumble-Berry Cobbler

1 cup raspberries

1 cup blueberries

1 cup strawberries

1 cup blackberries

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 package yellow or white cake mix

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

Rinse and drain berries, then dump them into the bottom of the slow cooker. Sprinkle cornstarch on top and gently fold. Pour dry cake mix evenly on top of berries. Cut butter into small pieces and scatter them on top of the cake mix. Cover and cook on high for two to three hours. Serve warm with cream, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Pink and Chocolate Stars

When Heather was still in school I made a Turning Twenty quilt for her bed. The pattern is called that because it turns 20 fat quarters of fabric (each 18”by20”) into a bed-sized quilt top in a single afternoon. I’d been collecting plaids, stripes, gingham and calico prints in pale pink and chocolate and had amassed more than two dozen fat quarters. When I was done with the Turning Twenty there were still lots of scraps leftover; mostly 3.5” wide strips. I bought 1 1/4 yard of cream fabric for the background, and another yard of floral pink (the centers of each star) and this 54” square quilt was the result. I wish I could take credit for the design. It was a free downloadable pattern, most likely from Moda.com. I could probably find it if I could remember its original name. But we’ve been calling it Pink and Chocolate Stars so long, it hasn’t any other.

Four Premium Stars

The preamble to the US Constitution says our federal government was established to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Nowhere in there does it say federal money should be funding the Public Broadcasting System. It’s not that I don’t think PBS is a worthy cause. I’ve made donations to PBS for many years, and so can you. But just because it’s a worthy cause doesn’t mean our federal government should go deeper into debt to support it. In fact, that’s probably the least efficient way to fund any worthy cause. I’d be willing to bet serious money that our country could operate in the black if it only wrote checks for things the founding fathers originally intended.

Chickadee

“Jesus’ visit to the Nephites after His Resurrection was carefully organized to teach us the things of greatest importance. It began with the Father testifying to the people that Jesus was His Beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. Then Jesus Himself descended and testified of His atoning sacrifice, inviting the people to know of a surety that He was the Christ by coming forth and feeling the wound mark in His side and the prints of the nails in His hands and feet. These testimonies established without doubt that Jesus’ Atonement was complete and that the Father had fulfilled His covenant to provide a Savior. Jesus then taught the Nephites how to obtain all the blessings of the Father’s plan of happiness, which are made available to us because of the Savior’s Atonement, by teaching them the doctrine of Christ.” - Brian K. Ashton