Home Sweet Homemaker

I’m not sure what happened exactly, but between a few wordpress updates and newly installed plugins, my blog decided to self-destruct. The initial problem was that my category widget entirely disappeared. When I tried to update and even reinstall WordPress, my .css file and images went all haywire and my blog looked like I was celebrating CSS Naked Day. (It’s true, there really is a day in April when some web designers strip their web sites of their cascading style sheets to promote web standards and such. You can read about it here.)

After reading many forums and staring at the php admin screen trying to figure out how to do what the really technical forum people said would work, I opted to export my wordpress posts, comments, etc. and create a new database. After upgrading and importing, now I’m good to go. Well, almost. There are a few minor issues to work out, like category hierarchy and  amazon links, but the main thing is that some semblance of Home Sweet Homemaker is running smoothly again.

Please excuse the appearance of my site! I am having some theme compatibility issues with the latest installation of Wordpress so the plain blue and white will have to do for now! Not that there is anything wrong with this default theme… Also having trouble with widgets and Amazon links.

Here’s another recipe straight from South Beach. It’s slightly modified, but only because I’ve never been a fan of sun-dried tomatoes, and I’m not going to buy pesto since I grow basil in the backyard.

Ingredients

4 salmon fillets
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 package baby spinach, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon pesto*
3-4 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon pine nuts

Instructions

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Make a slit two-thirds of the way through center of each fillet. Season each with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine the spinach, pesto, tomatoes, and pine nuts. Spoon mixture evenly into each slit. Arrange salmon on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil 8 to 10 minutes or until the salmon is cooked and the spinach mixture is heated through.

Here is the original recipe as posted at Allrecipes. Check out the reviews as they have lots of ideas for variations.

* For the pesto, I use a couple of tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, a cup of basil, a little garlic and Parmesan cheese. Blend in the Ultimate food chopper for a few seconds and you’re good to go. If making pesto to serve with a pasta dish, I would follow a recipe but since this is stuffing that goes along with spinach and tomatoes inside the salmon, I just wing it.

I’m sorry I forgot to take a picture. It really is an attractive dish. Enjoy!

Boy, is Lamentations a sad book! In one of the devotions in my Daily Walk Bible, it says “you can almost wring out the pages, so soaked are they with Jeremiah’s tears.” After all the guy has just spent years upon years warning his countrymen what is about to happen: the Babylonians are coming! And of course it does happens (otherwise Jeremiah wouldn’t be a very good prophet).

If you grew up in the church, you’ve probably heard the wonderful old hymn “Great is thy Faithfulness”. The title and concept behind that old hymn is even more ancient, coming straight from Lamentations. Calamity has come as God foretold through Jeremiah and yet there is hope. There is praise to be given to the Lord (as there always is):

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. – Lamentations 3:19-26

I have hosted a book club on Monday nights for two years now. I rarely post about book club so I thought I would share what we are currently reading. We just started the Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. It’s by an ethnically Jewish but very secular guy who decided he will take the Bible as literal as possible and live accordingly – especially the laws of the Old Testament. The result is pretty crazy. He grows out a beard, wears tassels on his clothes and even attempts to “stone” an adulterer (he uses pebbles). It is at the same time hilarious and thought-provoking. Check it out at your library, or go ahead and buy it! It’s a very enjoyable read and worth calling your own!