The Perfect Teacher - Part One

After surviving the first few months of teaching and being a mom, I am back to blogging!!! :) Sorry it has been so long and I will update you guys on my New Year's Resolution on another opportunity but today I want to write about The Perfect Teacher.

Remember the three part series I wrote called "What is a lesson after all?" (Read part one here, part two here and part three here) ? Well, this series"The Perfect Teacher" is a follow-up to that series.

Last time we talked about it we discussed the attributes of a teacher and decided no one will ever be the "perfect teacher". Well, no human being. But there is a Perfect Teacher, and he is GOD. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Let's take a look into the Bible and see just a glimpse of His infinite knowledge and perspective versus our finite human mind.

We are going to start by taking a look at the book of Job in the Bible. Who was Job? In a nutshell, Job was a good man who followed God and had a bunch of kids and money (which translated into cattle and sheep back then). This is what God thought of him: 'There is no one on earth like him [Job]; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil'. (Job 1:8b)

But his status quo on earth was about to change and some of you may already know. He was about to lose everything. You see, Satan thought that Job was 'blameless and upright' because he had all those blessings from God. This is what Satan told God in response: "You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will curse you to your face." (Job 1:10b and 11) Basically he was saying that what Job really worshipped were the blessings, not the Blesser.

So God gave permission to Satan to take everything from Job, including his cattle and sheep, his children and his own health. All that Job was left with was a wife - who advised him to 'curse God and die' (Job 2:9b) and friends - who kept telling him that what happened to him was his own fault - of course he must have sinned and that is why all this disaster came upon him. To sum it up, he was left with nothing good, no family, no possessions, no health, no support. Nothing.

Now let's pause for a moment... Job is suffering physically, financially and emotionally, when all he did his whole life was to seek God... that seems unfair, right?

BUT GOD...

... The Perfect Teacher...

had and has a lot in store to teach Job and us in this whole situation....

I am going to stop this post here, before I continue I would like to hear from you...

What do you think those lessons are?
Why do you think God allowed all this to happen to Job?
Have you ever been in a similar situation?

The Brazilican Learner

How clean is the dishwasher? - Resourcefulness Resolution

Well, the baby didn't cry, as you can see (read more about it here), so I started cleaning... the dishwasher. (I had to start with something easy, you know). I decided I am focusing on areas that are usually neglected like the inside of appliances, under the furniture, door handles, etc...

I read in a magazine that in order to clean it from bacteria and etc, you should run an empty load with just one cup of vinegar and select the hot water cycle, so I did it. When it was done, I checked to see how clean it was. I have to tell you it was pretty decent, but I still found this:

Gross, huh? So I grabbed a paper towel, sprayed some cleaning product in it and wiped it down...

The red color in it is because I used red wine vinegar (that was the only kind I had at hand). And this is the after look:

So now I have a clean dishwasher and know for sure my dishes will be clean when I have them washed there!

The Brazilican learner

Keeping a clean house - Resourcefulness Resolution

Hi guys!

Following up on my New Year's Resolution (read about it here in case you missed it), I decided that in February I will focus on keeping my resources clean (February is perfect because it has less days hehehe). I figured that in order to make the most of the stuff I already have it I'd better keep it in good shape.

I also decided to write about cleaning your home in a blog series until the end of the year (40 weeks to be more precise, I will explain it better later) so that I have you guys to keep me in line since cleaning is something I don't like to do (I hate it but I am trying to be nice here).

So, let the cleaning begin! (hopefully the baby will start crying and I can use that as an excuse to start tomorrow ;))

The Brazilican Learner

Brazilian Savory Cake - New Year's Resolution

Hi there!

 This year for my principle resolution (read more about it here) I decided I want to be more resourceful, that is, to make the most of the resources already available to me. So, in January I decided to start in my kitchen. (If you want to be amused, read about my first failure here). When I opened my refrigerator last weekend, there were lots of things about to go bad... Tomatoes, carrots, onions... And so I looked on my recipe book and found a wonderful, nutritious and yummy recipe of what I am calling Brazilian savory cake. I haven't had this in years and oh, it was so good to eat it again. A special thanks to the Tofaneto family for the recipe :).

I did buy four ingredients that were missing, but that was it. I had all the rest at home - and trust me, the end result was waaaaaay better than my "invention" of Spam and cottage cheese.

But you may be wondering... What is this cake made of? Well, it is made of layers of crustless sandwich bread and three different fillings - creamy chicken, spinach and corn, and carrots. (I can post the recipe on another post if you guys are interested, just let me know)
All that covered in mashed potatoes icing (bear with me American friends it is worth it) and potato sticks. I will show you in pictures what I did. Here it is:

First I cooked the chicken for the first filling with chicken broth.

While that was doing its yumminess magic, I blended corn, olive oil and flour and cooked it until the flour taste was gone.

Then I added frozen spinach to it. And the second filling was done.

Then I shredded the cooked chicken and put it back in the broth (I tweaked the recipe a little) and added tomatoes... And let it cook some more.

Meanwhile, I added the carrots to cream cheese and table cream (creme de leite) and some nutmeg, and the third filling was done.

Then I added some table cream to the chicken, and the first filling was done.

Now the hard work is over. All you gotta do is cut the crust off the bread...  (I will use those to make breadcrumbs or croutons later, for now I froze the crusts)

Make a layer of the bread and pour some milk and salt to it for moisture...

Spread the first filling, make another layer of bread, spread the second filling, another layer of bread, the third one, another layer of bread and then top it with the mashed potatoes icing...(which is basically mashed potatoes and mayo)

And of course the potato sticks ( you could use the toasted crusts instead - just toast them with oregano, olive oil and salt and you have delicious croutons)...

And this is the result:

It is yummy, it has veggies in it and looks colorful and best of all, I used my resources! Yay! Oh, and when I was prepping ingredients I had leftovers of chopped green onions, onions and parsley, so guess what I did? I froze them as is...

Their textures will change a little, but they are still great for stews and other recipes in which they are cooked! So now I have to think of what I can do to use them and the crusts... hehehe maybe another experiment will come soon... ;)


What about you, how are you doing on your resolution?

About my New year's resolution...

There is a post on resourcefulness on moneysavingmom.com that I really like and has everything to do with resourcefulness. Click here to check it out if you are interested.
The Brazilican Learner

The sweet experiment - Resourcefulness resolution

As promised, here is the experiment that won't gross you out.

For my American friends this is probably not something new, but it was to me as a foreigner. Still trying to follow my resolution I came across the ingredients to this cute "acorn" in my cabinets: Nutter butter mini bites, chocolate frosting, Hershey kisses with almonds and chocolate chips... and that is it, only four ingredients!

Here is the recipe for my Brazilian friends: Spread the frosting on the mini cookie (and I wonder how peanut butter or nutella would work) and, on one side press on the Hershey kiss and on the other the chocolate chip! Simple, easy, cute and yummy... way better than the soupy Spam :)

The Brazilican Learner

Eating from the pantry in January - Resourcefulness resolution

Good January, y'all!

Here I am to show you some of my experiments that came from my New Year's Resolution. In case you missed it, read about it here.

So, I thought about my New Year's Principle Resolution and I decided to start in the kitchen in January... by eating from what I already have at hand in the cabinets, freezer, fridge and pantry. So yesterday I searched there and this is what I found:

Cottage Cheese to expire, half a box of Couscous, half a can of Spam (my dad bought it when he was here and ate only half of it), 3 packets of noodle soup mix, one whole wheat tortilla and half a bag of tortilla chips... (the porcupine is there just because he is cute). So, what to do with them?

The noodle soup reminded me of ramen noodles (Miojo for my Brazilian friends) and the cottage cheese of laughing cow cheese wedges (Polenguinho) and I like to eat those together (I know, my husband always tells me about my weird combination with food) so why not cook the soup mix and couscous together?

 And then we can cottage cheese... It can't be that bad, right? (It turned out awful, but we'll talk about it later)

And then I thought of carbonara pasta, which is basically an Alfredo Sauce with bacon and then you know Spam and bacon are of the same color when cooked so....

I fried it in olive oil, cut it and added it to the mix (at this point my husband was saying Nooooooo with the "what in the world are you doing?" expression on his face) :

And that is it... ready to eat, but...the taste was DISGUSTING!!!! You know when you can still taste the starchy water from the noodles and then the grease from the Spam together... yuck!
Soooooo, to cleanse my palate (yeah, right!), I did the one thing you can do to dignify a tortillla...spread Nutella on it and... well, you know :)

In conclusion, my experiment was a disaster then. Later on I made it edible by adding Queso sauce and some Cheddar cheese to it. At this point you may be wondering if I have burned all my tastebuds, but it did actually improve the taste, plus I got to use something else I did not want to go to waste (although my husband would disagree that Queso or cheese would be wasted LOL).

The bright side of it is that I am following my principle resolution! No waste! It feels great!

Now, for those of you who got traumatized by this experiment, I promise that the next post will be about something sweet that won't gross you out (unless you don't like peanut butter or chocolate).

The Brazilican Learner