Corn Bread with Honey Butter

Corn Bread with Honey Butter

Hot corn bread with honey butter is sooooooo yummy.  I try my best not to make this very often as it is so fattening.  The corn bread isn't really that bad, it's all the honey butter that ends up on it that is the problem.  To whom ever invented honey butter, I love you and hate you at the same time!

Here is a really good recipe for corn bread.  

Corn Bread

Here is a list of ingredients.  Flour, cornmeal (polenta), milk, egg, sugar, oil, baking powder and salt.

Polenta.
For those of us who live in Australia, American cornmeal is called Polenta here.

First mix your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add all your wet ingredients and mix well with a whisk.

This is how it should look.  Very similar to cake batter.

Spray a 8x8 cooking dish with cooking spray.

Pour the batter into the dish.  Bake at 200C or 400F for 20-25 minutes.  Check the bread by putting a skewer or knife into the middle at about 20 minutes to see if it is cooked.  

Don't over cook this or it will be dry and crumbly.  

It should be golden brown on top.

It should slice nicely into approximately 9 good servings.

Add some honey butter and you are set to enjoy.

Corn Bread Ingredients

• 1 Cup Plain Flour
• 1 Cup Cornmeal (Polenta)
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Oil
• 1 Large Egg
• 3 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Salt

Honey Butter

This is almost too good to be true...

The ingredients.  Honey and Butter! :-)

Make sure your butter and honey are at room temperature.

Place the butter into a mixer.

Mix for about 1 minute.

With the mixer running, pour the honey into the mixer. Mix for about a minute.

Scrape the sides down with a spatula.  Then mix again until the honey butter gets a nice glossy sheen to it.

 I have put it into a ramekin to serve.

Honey Butter Ingredients

1 cup Butter (226.8 grams) 

1/2 cup Honey

My Top 25 iPad Apps

My Top 25 iPad Apps

 Apple iPad

I would be amiss if I didn't do a technology blog so I decided my first tech blog would be on my iPad apps.  Everyone uses their technology differently and so this may or may not be helpful.  Regardless, I thought that I would show you how I use mine as it might prove to be useful to someone who has not seen some of the apps that I will show you.

When I started writing this blog I was only going to show my top 10.  I gathered my apps that I use regularly and ended up with just over 30.  Then when I started to categorise them I realised I hadn't really gathered all of my apps that I use and the list grew closer to 40.   I have a lot of apps so I'm only going to show you my most used iPad apps.  This is my top 25.  I have put them into categories to make it a little easier to look through.

Books / Magazines

Kindle

Amazon's Kindle is a great way to get books.  I find it a cheap way to get books when I don't wish to collect the physical book.  

Zinio

Zinio is an application that allows you to buy magazines on-line.  You buy a magazine subscription and then it is downloaded each month.  

Communications

Skype

I like Skype better than Facetime.  Skype allows me to keep in touch with my family during my work travels.   

If I'm not on my iPad, I can still connect from my PC and contact my family on their iPad or PC.

  

Cooking

All Recipes Pro

I have found that All Recipes is one of the best on-line resources for recipes.  It also allows you to keep your own recipe box, post your own recipes and rate others recipes.  It has a good lay out and I have found that the recipes are rated quite well using crowd sourcing.

Culinary Fundamentals

If you are an aspiring chef, this is the app for you.  It has short videos showing you basic methods of cooking.  It will show you how to cut up various types of meat and vegetables.  It will show you techniques and basic recipes.

Education

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a great learning tool.  Whether you are 5 or 65, you can learn on-line.  Try it, you will definitely fine it helpful in your learning.

BYU Studies

Brigham Young University (BYU) provides a tool to look at many published articles on religious studies.  This is a great app to help you in your studies.  It is easily accessed, rather than try and locate the same articles on the web.

Games

Scrabble HD

I had to at least include one game, so I included the one I play the most.  It is a great way to keep up your vocabulary and have fun doing it.

Health/Medical

WebMD

WebMD is a great app to go to if you are trying to find out about medical problems you might be experiencing.  If you want to look up symptoms it will help you find the most likely diagnosis.

Movies

IMDB

The Internet Movie Database is a great place to look at movies that are up and coming or have come and gone.  This is a good place to look at the content of movies before you send your children.

News

NY Times

The NY Times is a great app that has some excellent news.  They have great reporting on the US elections and have a great technology, food & dining, and arts sections.

The Weather Channel

This is a quick easy way to check the weather forecast.  You just put in your location and then keep track of the local weather.  

Deseret News

If you are from Utah, like I am, you know that the Deseret News is a great place to get local news.  However, if you are not trying to keep up on local Utah news, you will still like this app as it has great sections on the family and issues facing the family.  

LDS Church News

This app lets you keep up to date with the news of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It also allows you to connect to three church radio stations in Utah to listen to music, news and programs live.

Photography

Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express is a great app to work with your photos.  Whether you just want to adjust lighting or create an entirely different photo you will like this app.  

PhotoStudioHD

Photo Studio HD is a great app if you want to apply filters to your photos.  It has 190 effects and filters from Sepia to Photo frames.

Religion

Gospel Library

Gospel Library is an app that provides you with a full set off scriptures, church manuals, conference talks, and many other books and manuals.  I use this app everyday for scripture study and for talk preparation or lesson preparations.  A very handy app indeed!

Deseret Bookshelf

Deseret Bookshelf is similar to Kindle except that it is for Deseret Book store.  The Christian bookstore for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It is a great way to buy and read religious books.  They have many free books included with it.  Excellent app!

Science & Technology

MIT Technology Review

The MIT Technology Review app is linked to their website reviewing new breakthroughs in technology at MIT.  There are some amazing new technologies on topics of computing, the web, communications, energy, biomedicine, and business.

NASA HD

I love NASA.  I can't get enough of the Hubble telescope images and the Mars curiosity images.  What about the new SpaceX Dragon cargo ship docking with the International Space Station!  Have you seen Boeing's new concept passenger plane, the X-48? Or, what about Northrop Grumman's flying wing?  Radical, dude! 

If you love space and aeronautics then you have to get this app as it will keep you continually satisfied with information. 

TED

Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) is a nonprofit organisation devoted to ideas worth spreading.  You can watch talks from entrepreneurs, scientists, technologists, designers and global humanitarians on a variety of issues that impact us today.  There are some really awe inspiring talks and I would highly recommend this app.

Tools

Noteshelf

Noteshelf is one of my favourite apps to take notes of meetings and conferences.  It also has the ability to keep your personal journal and many other functions.  You can use your stylus to write directly on your iPad to keep you notes in your own handwriting.

Converter+

This is a great app to convert measurements, rates, weights and measures and many more conversions.

Travel

Maps+

This is one of the best map apps out there.  It can give you directions, allow you to pin exact points, and map routes.  I know Apple is trying to start their own but it isn't anywhere near as good as Google.

Flight+

Flight+ is a great app if you travel a lot.  You put in your flights and it will update you on delays and changes in gates and flight schedules.  

  

A Reading Challenge for the end 2012

The Hobbit

The Hobbit will be in the movie theater's on the 14th December 2012.  Are you up to reading the Hobbit either for the first time or the hundredth time before the movie arrives?   Perhaps you are like me and haven't read it for 30 years.  I am going to try and get it read before the movie comes out.  I invite you to join me in the challenge.

My introduction to The Hobbit was the 1977 Warner Brothers animation film directed by Jules Bass.  I fell in love with story immediately.  I first read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings when I was a teenager.  They were wonderful adventures that took me far away from my small country town.  Gandalf has always been my  favorite character.  Ian McKellen has played the character wonderfully.

When The Lord of the Rings trilogy came out in the movies, I re-read each book prior to the movie.  It was a good memory refresher and helped me keep up with what was going on in the movie.

Following the release of The Return of the King I decided to embark on a bit more J.R.R. Tolkien reading.  I decided to tackle The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin.  Both of them are very good books.  The Silmarillion is basically the story of how Middle-Earth all began from its creation down to the end of The Return of the King.  I must admit that it is difficult reading but very rewarding.

For those who don't know.  The Hobbit is being divided into three movies.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey  - 14 December 2012
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 13 December 2013
The Hobbit: There and Back Again  - This third film is partially based on the Hobbit as well as the appendices in the back of "The Return of the King" that expand the story of Middle-Earth.  - 17 July 2014

I'm really looking forward to the three movies.

Take the Survey!

I have included a survey, on the left side bar, for you to take regarding the challenge to read the Hobbit.  Take the survey and see the results that others have posted.

My Reading List for 2012

It is now October and less than three months left before the year is over.  How many books have you read in 2012?  I have listed my books below.  My comments below each book are not meant to be a critic but some of my thoughts on the book.

January

I'm glad I bought this on Kindle so I only wasted $5.00.  There are a number of false doctrines in there.  The author said that she saw the Universe from its inception by God.  She said, she knew and understood everything that was ever created or will be created.

This is a direct contradiction to what God said to Moses.  "And, behold, thou art my son; wherefore look, and I will show the the workmanship of my hands; but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease.  Wherefore, no man can behold all my works, except he behold all my glory; and no man can behold all my glory, and afterwards remain in the flesh on the earth."  Moses 1:4-5

She also talked about re-incarnation, although she didn't give any kind of doctrinal reference.  It is basically written like a penguin novel.  Based on the content, I wonder how much is truth and how much is her own ideas/beliefs thrown in.

February

I bought this on Kindle.  It was a very good book.  Maybe not for all you English majors out there!  It talks about the symbolism of numbers.  I found the history of numbers and their meaning quite fascinating, dating back to Gnostic and Pythagorean theories.  You find your standard symbolism such as 12 representing perfection in governmental rule or 40 being a time of probation, testing or trial.  This was well worth the purchase.

March

This book talks about the Tree of life in historical records from many different societies.  It is a very good book if you like history books.  I happen to really like history so I enjoyed it.  It is amazing how many ancient civilizations have had this story in their culture.

I have it in hardback.

Most of you wouldn't be too interested in this book as it is an IT book.  I had this given to me so I thought I would have a read.  Cloud computing isn't ready for prime time with all of its security issues but I believe it will soon overcome that.  Most people with smart phones or tablets are already using cloud computing.  Some big business has made the move but I think it still has some time to develop.  In addition, our network speeds need to catch-up before the technology is really viable for large information stores.

Could go either way...

 April

I liked this book.  It had a lot of good information about symbolism in scripture.  It is basically a compilation of other peoples work into a dictionary form.  I bought it on iBooks.

May

Okay, I know, this is just not very interesting to most.  I found it fascinating how companies like Sears and AOL quickly became obsolete as new technologies developed.  I guess the lesson here is for companies like Microsoft and Apple.  There is always someone trying to make something better than what we currently have.  It's always hard staying on top with everyone trying to do one better on you.  Very good for us as consumers as we get better products but it is very difficult for companies trying to keep on top of things.  I guess a changing of the guard isn't always bad.

June

I really like this book.  I have a goal to make some of the hard cheeses.  So far, I have made Queso Fresco and Ricotta.  They were both delicious.  The Queso Fresco is a Latin American cheese.  I made it and used it in some enchilada's. Yum!!  The Ricotta was used in a lasagna.  I'll share my cheese making experience with you on a  future blog.

This was an interesting and very comprehensive read on starting your own creamery.  I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon.  I still have bad memories of getting up to milk the cows at 4:00 am every morning and then again after school. LOL!

Brought back too many bad memories!

July

I bought this on Deseret Bookshelf.  It is not a very long book.  I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone interested in this particular subject of life after death.  However, I didn't find it to be anything new in terms of information or approach on the subject.  It is a compilation from many talks he has already given on the subject.  It felt like it was rushed in compiling it and doesn't really fit with his other books.

Feeling kinda blah about it...

August

This has to be my favorite book of the year.  I found so much useful information.  Did you know that there are varieties of lettuce that grow in the winter, in the snow!  There is a load of information in this book and I would recommend it to any gardener out there.  I always wondered how our ancestors survived during the winter.  I was sure it wasn't solely on deer or buffalo jerky! :-)

September

I read this but haven't had the time to do anything with it.  Perhaps in the Autumn after we get a few vegetables.  Also, I'm waiting on a part for my pressure cooker so I can only cold pack at the moment.  I will be doing a batch of homemade sweet chili sauce in the next month or so.  I may write a blog on it to show you how as you do not need a pressure cooker.

I would like to build one of these to start drying the Chili's I am growing.  Dried Poblano Chili's are used to make my enchilada sauce.  I'm interested in some other foods as well. The plans are not too complicated so it is a matter of trying to get the time.

The jury is still out on this one.  I have to see if it works first...

Well, that is my reading list so far.  Generally, my reading is full of classical literature.  I haven't read one classic this year.  Looks like The Hobbit will be my only classic.  Happy Reading!