Happenings at Clough

Below, Pastor Jeff teaches our Sunday evening marriage small group. He is doing a great job!

Tim and I had the priveledge of teaching Anna's pre-school Sunday School class this week.  We always consider it a priveledge to work with our youngest members.  Few things in life are as exciting as teaching someone a story from the Bible that they've never heard before.  (And I have to admit....I get a kick out of seeing my seminary-educated husband trying to work a flannelgraph board!)

Christopher's Free Throw Contest

This video has especially been posted for grandparents, but anyone who wants to view it, this is Christopher's free-throw tournament a few weeks ago. He came in third.

Kara

CPBC Chilli Cook-Off/Cupcake Wars

Sunday night was the annual Clough Pike Baptist Church Chilli-Cook-Off and Bake-Off. Except this year, instead of doing a generic bake-off, the folks in charge decided to do their own Cupcake Wars, like the show on Food TV.

I've never won the bake-off, though I have tried every year. But this year I won! My cupcakes won the chocolate division. I was so excited!

Chilli is big in Cincinnati. Very big deal. People are serious about their chilli.

Here's my recipe for cupcakes. I took pieces of three different recipes.

Kara's Devil's Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Filling

and Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcakes:

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup plus 2 Tbps. unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup Coke

For the ganache:

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

For the cream cheese frosting:

1 pound cream cheese

2 sticks butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup almonds, roasted and chopped

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 325, Line 2 12-cup muffin pans with liners. Sift the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt together three times. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer at high speed for 15 seconds until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Continue beating until light and fluffy, and 6 more minutes. With the mixer at its lowest speed, beat in one-third of the flour mixture. Beat in the buttermilk and vanilla, then another one-third of the flour mixture. Beat in the Coke and then the remaining flour mixture. Fill the muffin cups halfway and bake and 25 minutes, or until the centers spring back when lightly pressed. Set the pans on a rack to cool.

Make the ganach: In a saucepan, bring heavy cream to a boil. Turn heat off and add chocolate chips. Whisk while chocolate chips melt into cream. Let cool.

Make the frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

If you don't have a cupcake pan that makes automatic holes for your cupcakes, cut a small hole in the center of each cake. Fill with ganache. Spread chilled frosting ontop. Garnish with chopped almonds.

Happy 39th Birthday Tim!!!

We gave Tim a reptile cake for his birthday. Anyone who knows him would know why that would be appropriate.

The kids were allowed to wrap their own gifts for Daddy (below). If you look closely, you'll see one gift wrapped in Christmas paper, and another wrapped in Valentine's Day paper. :)

And we took him to his favorite restaurant, a Hibachi grill.

Instead of giving Tim a birthday card this year, I wrote "39 Things I Love About Tim" and gave it to him. My favorite was #1: He loves Jesus more than He loves me.

Happy Birthday Honey!!!

Eat Raw

Tim and I had a real treat this week: eating at an organic/vegan/raw restaurant! When a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of raw food, my interest was peaked. So we found one of these restaurants downtown and went for lunch. I wasn't sure what to suspect...raw food (i.e. not cooked, no dairy, no meat, all organic, gluten-free, sugar-free) is NOT what I'm used to! But I have to be honest with you: it was really good! The flavors of the food come through better than usual, and you don't leave the restaurant with that "I feel awful, I ate too much" feeling that I typically have when I leave a restaurant. People who eat raw rave about it, and I can see why. I recommend it if you've never tried it.

(above) Me diving into a raw pizza. Yum! (below) Tim contemplating his raw taco salad. He's a good sport, but he's not quite sold yet.

Anna joined us, and she LOVED it! Her favorite was the smoothies at the restaurant.

(below) And yes. Here is Tim going through the drive-through at Steak and Shake on the way home. :)

The Lord gave us a glorious day. Warm enough to take a nice walk with my husband, and we were comfortable enough to even wear tee-shirts, without any jackets! If you ever think you can guess what God is going to do next, take a look at the flowers that He bloomed for us in February...just to see us smile.

Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

Psalm 36:5

MCA Basketball

Congratulations to the MCA Elementary basketball team for a great season! I'm especially proud of my Christopher, whose team won the end-of-year tournament, and who personally won 3rd place in the free-throw shooting contest that day!!! But Christopher, we are proud of you for who you are in Christ, not what you do. :)

Special thanks to Coach Alford and Coach Ainsworth, who did a great job with both the boys' and girls' basketball teams, and to Miss Baker, who did a great job coaching the elementary cheering squad.

Super Bowl Party

Mega thanks to the Schott family for inviting us to their Super Bowl party for Daryl Bisig's Sunday School class! We had a great time...

Quote of the evening:

Someone: "Janie, Whose jersey are you wearing?"
Janie: "It's my own."

Ha!

Gentlemen, let me give you a tip. If your Valentine's Day plans include making reservations at the White Castle, you need to seriously rethink your plans.

:) Kara

Cincinnati Enquirer Article

Check out this article in this morning's edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer.

And once again, way to go Team Bisig!!!

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20120205/NEWS/302060016/

Souper Bowl Sunday

Congratulations to Daryl Bisig's class for winning the 3rd annual Clough Pike Baptist Church Food Pantry Souper Bowl! It was an awesome year of giving: we set records for the amount of food we collected as well as the amount of food we gave away, and for the number of Bibles and tracts we distributed.

And although we can't go home and root for the Bengals this evening, we praise the Lord that we have so much to celebrate today in Eastern Cincinnati on Souper Bowl Sunday. Praise the Lord!

It was such an exciting Sunday!

Here's a picture of me being interviewed by the Cincinnati Enquirer...

Congratulations Team Bisig!!!

What A Fellowship, What A Joy Divine!

A few pictures of some of the fine folks at Clough Pike Baptist. Can anything beat a church family???

Below: Karen Klick and me. Below: Christopher and his fellow comrade Derek Cooley.
Below: Dawn and Mike CooleyBelow: Nancy and Bill Light.

They bring all their grandchildren with them. And they have a lot of grandchildren!
Below: The Cherry Men... Tim and Layne.
Below: Paula and Patrick Harrell.

Below: Brad and J.R. Bishop. UK Zealots. The Aeropostale Twins: Noah Bisig and Jacob Harrell.

Below: Linda and Chris Lindsay.

Below: Irene Hollon and myself. She's one of the sweetest people I know.

Below: Hobie and Betty Howard with Tim. Betty always makes Tim his favorite pickles.