Well we’re round to that time of year again, Easter, as I’ve said before- another stolen from the uld ways holiday in a ruthless attempt by Christianity to snuff out competition and assimilate the unwashed masses. Doubt me? Here proof from the mouths of one of early Christianity’s chroniclers himself:

E-ostre or Ostara (Northumbrian Old English: E-ostre; West Saxon Old English: E-astre; Old High German: *Ôstara) is a goddess in Germanic paganism who, by way of the Germanic month bearing her name (Northumbrian: E-osturmo-naþ; West Saxon: E-astermo-naþ; Old High German: Ôstarmânoth), is the namesake of the festival of Easter. E-ostre is attested solely by Bede in his 8th-century work De temporum ratione, where Bede states that during E-osturmo-naþ (the equivalent to the month of April) feasts were held in Eostre’s honor among the pagan Anglo-Saxons, but had died out by the time of his writing, replaced by the Christian “Paschal month” (a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since I‘ve plans to go rabbit hunting for my Easter dinner table today let’s get moving shall we?

EASTER YEAH! High Fives for the Holy Trinity!

Woman calls police, complains about bad weed

Woman tells police drug dealer wouldn’t give her refund

Author: By Michael Wesp Published On: Apr 07 2014 07:54:26 AM CDT

LUFKIN, Texas (KETK) – A Texas woman found herself behind bars Thursday after calling Lufkin, Texas, authorities to complain about bad weed.

The Lufkin Police Department received a call for help from the 200 block of Forrest Block Boulevard around 7:00 p.m. The caller, Evelyn Louise Hamilton, 37, of Lufkin, complained to dispatchers about a bad batch of drugs her dealer would not refund.

Responding officers asked Hamilton if she had any marijuana on her. She admitted to having some pot and turned over a small baggy hidden in her bra. She was then arrested for possession of marijuana. Her bail was set at $500.

The staff of Dewy, Cheatum & Howe and I’ve spent considerable time reading through what is commonly known as the Obamacare law, which includes both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA).

Since these bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, various agencies in the administration have published 109 final regulations spelling out how they are to be implemented.

These 109 final regulations account for a combined 10,535 pages in the Federal Register, where the government officially published them.

After having read each page twice, consulting the Tome of High Political Gibberish & Double Speak on an uncountable number of occasions and a heavily regimented course of sedatives and anti-depressants, I am now in a position to boil the law down to a simple relatively easy to understand 3 sentences for you all-

In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to un-insure the insured.

    Next we require the newly un-insured to be re-insured. To re-insure the newly un-insured, they are required to pay an extra charge to be re-insured …

   The extra charge is so that the original insured, who became un-insured, and then re-insured can pay enough extra money so that the original un-insured can be insured for free.

There…Now you understand what is going on. !!!!

All you Need to Know About American Government Bureaucracy:

· Pythagorean Theorem………………………………………………….24 words.

· Lord’s Prayer…………………………………………………………………66 words.

· Archimedes Principle……………………………………………………67 words.

· 10 Commandments…………………………………………………….179 words.

· Gettysburg Address……………………………………………………286 words.

· Declaration of Independence…………………………………1,300 words.

· US Constitution with all 27 Amendments………………7,818 words.

· US Government regulations on sale of cabbage…26,911 words.

· US Government Affordable Care Act (Obama Care)……1,147,271 words.

SORT OF PUTS THINGS INTO PROPER PERSPECTIVE,  DOESN’T IT?

The Easter bunny a Fanshionista or Pimp? I can’t decide!

Magic Clerk – Easter Edition

Tiny dog vs big dog – who’s the boss?

Delightful story that happened in Ireland. 

Click on the site below…  I know that you will enjoy this video! (about 5 1/2 minutes long)

http://funnycatsgallery.com/mom-cat/the-cat-and-the-ducklings/

Besides there baby ducks, another Easter theme!

Much like Christmas, the trappings of the Easter Holiday aren’t Biblical, they are a hodgepodge of Christian, pagan, culture, and circumstance.

Christians would have you believe that Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, and to a large extent, that’s certainly true, but Easter is about more than that. In many ways Easter is a traditional pagan holiday, celebrating Spring and the renewal of life. Since Beltane and the Spring Equinox are not generally celebrated by our society as a whole, Easter fills the void of “secular Spring holiday.” I think we all know that eggs, plastic grass, and chocolate bunnies have nothing to do with Jesus, and everything to do with the ideas of renewal and fertility (along with crass commercial marketing, but I digress).

The word “Easter” is problematic for many reasons. In non-English speaking countries the commemoration of Jesus’s return from the dead is called something else entirely, we simply translate it as “Easter” out of laziness. In Greece for example, “Easter” is called “Lambros” which translates as “shining” or “bright.” This is problematic because many Pagans like to make the argument that Easter is a specifically pagan holiday, because of the alleged origins of the word Easter. According to the British historian Bede (673-735 CE) the word “Easter” comes from the name of a Germanic fertility goddess named Eostre, whose name was given to an entire month “Eostur-month,” and then eventually to one specific holiday occurring in that month, the one we now call Easter.

The problem with all of this is that the only source for the goddess Eostre is Bede. There aren’t any tales of Eostre throwing eggs to all of the good little Germanic pagans, or of her riding a giant rabbit, so it’s hard to say with certainty that she existed and is the source for the word “Easter.” The only thing really pointing towards her existence in Ancient History is that her name shares a linguistic origin with that of various Indo-European goddesses of the dawn (like the Greek Eos for example). The questions then becomes whether the dawn was named after the deities in question, or if the deities were named after the rising sun. The word Easter then could be linked directly to a pagan goddess, or simply mean beginnings.

So while the word “Easter” may or may not be pagan in origin, many of the trappings certainly are, and I’m not talking about eggs or that bunny either. The most pagan element of Easter is probably Jesus himself as the dying and resurrecting god. At Easter, Jesus has more in common with Dionysus, Tammuz, and Adonis than he does with Moses or the various apostles. The idea of a man or god overcoming death would have been alien to Second Temple Judaism, but not to the millions of pagans living in the Roman Empire.

I think it’s important to remember that Jesus was one of many deities on the “god buffet” during antiquity. To be taken seriously as a deity he had to match up with the other gods of the era miracle for miracle. I don’t think it’s honest to suggest that Jesus turned aside the grave because he was a vegetation god in the tradition of Tammuz, but his pedigree demanded equal power over life and death. [While] There are many unique elements in Christianity; the dead man walking is not one of them.

Jesus as a dying and resurrecting god is a two thousand year old tradition, there’s no question of its connection to ancient antiquity. The other trappings of Easter, the egg and the bunny, are far more problematic. I’ve been conditioned to always think of them as ancient pagan practices, but researching this article has brought up more questions than answers in that regard. I can say with certainty that eggs as a symbol of fertility and rebirth have a long pedigree, but they were also very common items whose symbolism and role certainly could have changed and evolved over time.

In the Greek Orphic tradition the god Phanes was said to have hatched from a “world egg,” illustrating that the Ancient Greeks believed in the egg as a symbol of rebirth and new life. A direct link to Easter Eggs and Pagan Rome can be found in a legend surrounding the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The day when Marcus was born his mother’s red hen is said to have laid an egg spotted with red. That speckled egg was seen as a sign that young Marcus would become a great Emperor. When Marcus eventually assumed the throne colored eggs began to be passed around throughout the Empire as a symbol of congratulations. Later Christians adopted the custom. It’s hard to say with any certainty if that Marcus Aurelius legend is the origin of the Easter Egg, as it’s likely that eggs were being passed around before Marcus assumed the throne.

While colored eggs were shared in the Ancient World, there’s no continuous history linking the colored egg of pagandom to the Easter Egg. Eggs were relatively common in the Middle Ages, and an important source of nutrition in a society where meat was a rare treat. Monks and priests were often given “presents” (payment) on important Christian holidays, with Easter being one of those. Eggs were a common gift, and they were often given to priests in baskets. In Russia it was common for priests (and later, members of the nobility) to give out eggs as gift, especially around Easter. Eventually the eggs that were passed out were elaborately decorated, and the custom spread throughout the country. Eggs were also generally banned during the period of Lent, so people sometimes would decorate them as they waited on their Easter feast and the return to eating eggs.

Eggs were also begged for by children in Great Britain during the Seventeenth Century. Before important holidays it was common for the poor to “trick or treat” for food, and at Easter children begged for eggs.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to picture poor children begging for eggs to put in a basket transforming into the modern Easter basket full of sacred goodies like waxy chocolate bunnies and stale jelly beans.

Rabbits have been associated with fertility from pagan times into the present. (I have friends who like to say “they go at it like rabbits” when discussing the sexual habits of others.) It seems likely that the Easter Bunny is an ancient pagan tradition (though the association of the bunny with the myth-less Eostra is most certainly a modern invention), but the first references to the Easter Bunny only date back to the 1500′s. That doesn’t mean the Easter Bunny didn’t exist before those first references to the Germanic Oschter Haws (or Osterhase), it just can’t be documented.

There’s a part of me that believes human beings have a natural tendency to venerate “Pagan things,” and tend to be drawn to things in the natural world that correlate to what is going on in their own environments. Venerating a rabbit in April during the Earth’s annual period of rebirth makes complete sense. That doesn’t mean it’s pagan in the sense that people worshipped a rabbit in the year 100, but it’s Pagan in the sense that it taps into the natural rhythms of the Earth. It’s also possible that now forgotten myths transformed into now lost folk tales and then into the egg laying rabbit we now call the Easter Bunny.

No matter how pagan certain beliefs are at Easter, it’s a very difficult holiday to ignore. Many businesses are closed and millions of Americans celebrate it as both a Christian and/or a secular holiday. (I remember lots of Easter Baskets as a kid piled with candy and a toy or two, and my family certainly didn’t associate it with Jesus.) Instead of being bitter about the whole situation I prefer to celebrate it with food and egg hunts. Since many Modern Pagan traditions lack an April holiday, and I tend to think of April as the most “Spring-like” month, it’s nice to get an extra Spring holiday to celebrate, no matter what its origins.

Everyone thinks bunnies are cute and cuddly, but where I come from they are downright dangerous!

Monty Python The Holy Grail – The killer bunny

See what I mean?

These deaths actually occurred last week after my issue was already overfull and uploaded. While our Memorial might be ‘fashionably late’ our feelings over the loss of these two remarkable entertainers are no less sincere.

Mickey Rooney (1920 – 2014)

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Mickey Rooney’s approach to life was simple: “Let’s put on a show!” He spent nine decades doing it, on the big screen, on television, on stage and in his extravagant personal life.
A superstar in his youth, Rooney was Hollywood’s top box-office draw in the late 1930s to early 1940s. He epitomized the “show” part of show business, even if the business end sometimes failed him amid money troubles and a seesaw of career tailspins and revivals.

Pint-sized, precocious, impish, irrepressible – perhaps hardy is the most-suitable adjective for Rooney, a perennial comeback artist whose early blockbuster success as the vexing but wholesome Andy Hardy and as Judy Garland’s musical comrade in arms was bookended 70 years later with roles in “Night at the Museum” and “The Muppets.”

Rooney died Sunday at age 93 surrounded by family at his North Hollywood home, police said. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office said Rooney died a natural death.

There were no further details immediately available on the cause of death, but Rooney did attend Vanity Fair’s Oscar party last month, where he posed for photos with other veteran stars and seemed fine. He was also shooting a movie at the time of his death, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde,” with Margaret O’Brien.

He was nominated for four Academy Awards over a four-decade span and received two special Oscars for film achievements, won an Emmy for his TV movie “Bill” and had a Tony nomination for his Broadway smash “Sugar Babies.”
“I loved working with Mickey on ‘Sugar Babies.’ He was very professional, his stories were priceless and I love them all … each and every one. We laughed all the time,” Carol Channing said.

A small man physically, Rooney was prodigious in talent, scope, ambition and appetite. He sang and danced, played roles both serious and silly, wrote memoirs, a novel, movie scripts and plays and married eight times , siring 11 children.

His first marriage – to the glamorous, and taller, Ava Gardner – lasted only a year. But a fond recollection from Rooney years later – “I’m 5 feet 3, but I was 6 feet 4 when I married Ava” – summed up the man’s passion and capacity for life.

Rooney began as a toddler in his parents’ vaudeville act in the 1920s. He was barely six when he first appeared on screen, playing a midget in the 1926 silent comedy short “Not to Be Trusted,” and he was still at it more than 80 years later, working incessantly as he racked up about 250 screen credits in a career unrivaled for length and variety.

“I always say, ‘Don’t retire – inspire,'” Rooney said in an interview with The Associated Press in March 2008. “There’s a lot to be done.”
This from a man who did more than just about anyone in Hollywood and outlasted pretty much everyone from old Hollywood.

Rooney was among the last survivors of the studio era, which his career predated, most notably with the lead in a series of “Mickey McGuire” kid comedy shorts from the late 1920s to early ’30s that were meant to rival Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” flicks.

After signing with MGM in 1934, Rooney landed his first big role playing Clark Gable’s character as a boy in “Manhattan Melodrama.” A year later, still only in his mid-teens, Rooney was doing Shakespeare, playing an exuberant Puck in Max Reinhardt’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which also featured James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland.
Rooney soon was earning $300 a week with featured roles in such films as “Riff Raff,” ”Little Lord Fauntleroy,” ”Captains Courageous” and “The Devil Is a Sissy.”

Then came Andy Hardy in the 1937 comedy “A Family Affair,” a role he would reprise in 15 more feature films over the next two decades. Centered on a kindly small-town judge (Lionel Barrymore) who delivers character-building homilies to troublesome son Andy, it was pure corn, but it turned out to be golden corn for MGM, becoming a runaway success with audiences.
“I knew ‘A Family Affair’ was a B picture, but that didn’t stop me from putting my all in it,” Rooney recalled.

Studio boss Louis B. Mayer saw “A Family Affair” as a template for a series of movies about a model American home. Cast changes followed, most notably with Lewis Stone replacing Barrymore in the sequels, but Rooney stayed on, his role built up until he became the focus of the films, which included “The Courtship of Andy Hardy,” ”Andy Hardy’s Double Life” and “Love Finds Andy Hardy,” the latter featuring fellow child star Garland.
He played a delinquent humbled by Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan in 1938’s “Boys Town” and Mark Twain’s timeless scamp in 1939’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Rooney’s peppy, all-American charm was never better matched than when he appeared opposite Garland in such films as “Babes on Broadway” and “Strike up the Band,” musicals built around that “Let’s put on a show” theme.

One of them, 1939’s “Babes in Arms,” earned Rooney a best-actor Oscar nomination, a year after he received a special Oscar shared with Deanna Durbin for “bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth, and as juvenile players setting a high standard of ability and achievement.”

He earned another best-actor nomination for 1943’s “The Human Comedy,” adapted from William Saroyan’s sentimental tale about small-town life during World War II. The performance was among Rooney’s finest.

“Mickey Rooney, to me, is the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with,” ”Human Comedy” director Clarence Brown once said.
Brown also directed Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor in 1944’s horse-racing hit “National Velvet,” but by then, Rooney was becoming a cautionary tale for early fame. He earned a reputation for drunken escapades and quickie romances and was unlucky in both money and love. In 1942 he married for the first time, to Gardner , the statuesque MGM beauty. He was 21, she was 19.
They divorced a year later. Rooney joined the Army, spending most of his World War II service entertaining troops.

When he returned to Hollywood, disillusionment awaited him. His savings had been stolen by a manager and his career was in a nose dive. He made two films at MGM, then his contract was dropped.
“I began to realize how few friends everyone has,” he wrote in one of autobiographies. “All those Hollywood friends I had in 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941, when I was the toast of the world, weren’t friends at all.”

His movie career never regained its prewar eminence. “The Bold and the Brave,” 1956 World War II drama, brought him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. But mostly, he played second leads in such films as “Off Limits” with Bob Hope, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” with William Holden, and “Requiem for a Heavyweight” with Anthony Quinn.

In the early 1960s, he had a wild turn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” as Audrey Hepburn’s bucktoothed Japanese neighbor, and he was among the fortune seekers in the all-star comedy “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.”

Rooney’s starring roles came in low-budget films such as “Drive a Crooked Road,” ”The Atomic Kid,” ”Platinum High School,” ”The Twinkle in God’s Eye” and “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.”

But no one ever could count Rooney out. He earned a fourth Oscar nomination, as supporting actor, for 1979’s “Black Stallion,” the same year he starred with Ann Miller in the Broadway revue “Sugar Babies,” which brought him a Tony nomination and millions of dollars during his years with the show.

“I’ve been coming back like a rubber ball for years,” Rooney wisecracked at the time.
In 1981 came his Emmy-winning performance as a disturbed man in “Bill.” He found success with voice roles for animated films such as “The Fox and the Hound,” ”The Care Bears Movie” and “Little Nemo.”

“He was undoubtedly the most talented actor that ever lived. There was nothing he couldn’t do. Singing, dancing, performing … all with great expertise,” Margaret O’Brien said. “I was currently doing a film with him, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde.” I simply can’t believe it. He seemed fine through the filming and was as great as ever.”

Over the years, Rooney also made hundreds of appearances on TV talk and game shows, dramas and variety programs. He starred in three short-lived series: “The Mickey Rooney Show” (1954); “Mickey” (1964); and “One of the Boys” (1982). A co-star from “One of the Boys,” Dana Carvey, later parodied Rooney on “Saturday Night Live,” mocking him as a hopeless egomaniac who couldn’t stop boasting he once was “the number one star … IN THE WO-O-ORLD!”

A lifelong storyteller, Rooney wrote two memoirs: “i.e., an Autobiography” published in 1965, and “Life Is Too Short,” 1991. He also produced a novel about a child movie star, “The Search for Sonny Skies,” in 1994.

In the autobiographies, Rooney gave two versions of his debut in show business. First he told of being 1½ and climbing into the orchestra pit of the burlesque theater where his parents were appearing. He sat on a kettle drum and pretended to be playing his whistle, vastly amusing the audience.

The second autobiography told a different story: He was hiding under the scenery when he sneezed. Dragged out by an actor, the toddler was ordered to play his harmonica. He did, and the crowd loved it.
Whatever the introduction, Joe Yule Jr., born in 1920, was the star of his parents’ act by the age of 2, singing “Sweet Rosie O’Grady” in a tiny tuxedo. His father was a baggy-pants comic, Joe Yule, his mother a dancer, Nell Carter. Yule was a boozing Scotsman with a wandering eye, and the couple soon parted.

While his mother danced in the chorus, young Joe was wowing audiences with his heartfelt rendition of “Pal o’ My Cradle Days.” During a tour to California, the boy made his film debut in 1926’s “Not to Be Trusted.”

The Mickey McGuire short comedies that followed gave him a new stage name, later appended, at his mother’s suggestion, to the last name Rooney, after vaudeville dancer Pat Rooney. After splitting with Gardner, Rooney married Betty Jane Rase, Miss Birmingham of 1944, whom he had met during military training in Alabama. They had two sons and divorced after four years. (Their son Timothy died in September 2006 at age 59 after a battle with a muscle disease called dermatomyositis.)

His third and fourth marriages were to actress Martha Vickers (one son) and model Elaine Mahnken.

The fifth Mrs. Rooney, model Barbara Thomason, gave birth to four children. While the couple were estranged in 1966, she was found shot to death in her Brentwood home; beside her was the body of her alleged lover, a Yugoslavian actor. It was an apparent murder and suicide.

A year later, Rooney began a three-month marriage to Margaret Lane. She was followed by a secretary, Caroline Hockett – another divorce after five years and one daughter.
In 1978, Rooney, 57, married for the eighth – and apparently last – time. His bride was singer Janice Darlene Chamberlain, 39. Their marriage lasted longer than the first seven combined.

After a lifetime of carrying on, he became a devoted Christian and member of the Church of Religious Science. He settled in suburban Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles. In 2011, Rooney was in the news again when he testified before Congress about abuse of the elderly, alleging that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.

“I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated,” Rooney told a special Senate committee considering legislation to curb abuses of senior citizens. “But above all, when a man feels helpless, it’s terrible.”

That year Rooney took his stepson Christopher Aber and others to court on allegations that they tricked him into thinking he was on the brink of poverty while defrauding him out of millions and bullying him into continuing to work. At the time, Aber declined comment on the suit except to say, “this lawsuit is not from Mickey Rooney – it’s from his conservators who are stealing from him.” The New York Times reported that the suit was settled last year.

John Pinette (1964 – 2014)

PITTSBURGH (AP) – John Pinette, the chubby stand-up comedian who portrayed a hapless carjacking victim in the final episode of “Seinfeld,” has died. He was 50.

Pinette died of natural causes Saturday at a hotel in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office said Sunday evening. Pinette’s agent confirmed his death.
The portly Pinette was a self-deprecating presence onstage, frequently discussing his weight on stand-up specials “Show Me the Buffett,” ”I’m Starvin’!” and “Still Hungry.”

Pinette had been working on another stand-up project when he died, his agent, Nick Nuciforo, said. “He should be celebrated for the amazing comedian he was,” Nuciforo said.

The Boston native appeared in movies including “The Punisher” and had a trio of stand-up shows released on DVD but was perhaps best known as the portly carjacking victim whose plight lands the “Seinfeld” stars before a judge for failing to help under a “good Samaritan” law. Pinette also appeared in the television series “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.”
Pinette also appeared on state in a national tour of “Hairspray” as Edna Turnblad, the mother of the play’s heroine.

The medical examiner’s office said no autopsy was performed and Pinette’s own physician signed off on the cause of death.

Pinette had been preparing for a stand-up tour of the U.S. and Canada, Nuciforo said.

With planning & problem solving skills like that it just has to be a Liberal Arts College division.

Double Mustard and Herb Crusted Ham

 Total Time: 3 hr 40 min

Prep: 15 min

Inactive: 30 min

Cook: 2 hr 55 min

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

One 8- to 10-pound bone-in, smoked, fully-cooked ham, butt or shank portion
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup whole grain mustard
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Let the ham sit at room temperature 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Trim off any skin from the ham if needed. Score the ham through the fat in a diagonal crosshatch pattern without cutting into the meat. Place the ham, flat-side down, on a rack in a roasting pan. Pour 1/4 inch of water into the bottom of the pan. Roast the ham until it reaches an internal temperature of about 130 degrees F, about 2 1/2 hours or 15 minutes per pound.

Meanwhile, mix the mustards and honey together in a small bowl. Mix together the breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme and olive oil together in another bowl.

Remove the ham from the oven when it has reached 130 degrees F internally. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees F. Spoon or brush the mustard mixture all over the ham.

Carefully pat the crumbs all over the ham. Add water as needed to the bottom of the pan. Return the ham to the oven and roast until the breadcrumbs are golden brown, about 25 minutes more.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Garlic with Rosemary

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes (4 medium), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
6 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Arrange the sweet potatoes and garlic in a shallow flameproof baking dish large enough to hold them in a single layer. Add just enough water to cover the vegetables. Bring the water to a boil over medium high heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain in a colander.

In a baking dish, combine the oil and butter and melt the butter over medium heat.

Remove from the heat, add the potatoes and garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste and toss to coat. Spread the potatoes in a single layer and roast on the lowest rack of the oven, turning them occasionally, for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Transfer to a heated serving bowl and serve at once.

Roasted Asparagus

Total Time: 25 min

Prep: 5 min

Inactive: 10 min

Cook: 10 min

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

2 bunches medium asparagus
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Grated or shaved Parmesan, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Trim the woody ends from the asparagus, usually about 1 1/2 inches. Lightly peel the remaining stalks (not always necessary, but more of a personal preference). Spread the spears in a single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with the salt and pepper, and roll to coat thoroughly.
Roast the asparagus until lightly browned and tender, about 8 to 10 minutes, giving the pan a good shake about halfway through to turn the asparagus. Arrange the roasted asparagus on a serving platter and top with some Parmesan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Worried about the salt in the Parmesan or cheese intolerant? Garnish with a little lemon zest, lemon peel slivers or a few lemon slices instead.

Easter Pie

Total Time: 1 hr 15 min

Prep: 30 min

Cook: 45 min

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

3/4 cup powdered sugar, plus extra for garnish
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup cooked short-grained rice
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
6 sheets fresh phyllo sheets or frozen, thawed
3/4 stick (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Blend 3/4 cup of powdered sugar, eggs, vanilla, orange zest and ricotta in a food processor until smooth. Stir in the rice and pine nuts. Set the ricotta mixture aside.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Lightly butter a 9-inch glass pie dish. Lay 1 phyllo sheet over the bottom and up the sides of the dish, allowing the phyllo to hang over the sides. Brush the phyllo with the melted butter. Top with a second sheet of phyllo dough, laying it in the opposite direction as the first phyllo sheet. Continue layering the remaining sheets of phyllo sheets, alternating after each layer and buttering each sheet. Spoon the ricotta mixture into the dish. Fold the overhanging phyllo dough over the top of the filling to enclose it completely. Brush completely with melted butter.

Bake the pie until the phyllo is golden brown and the filling is set, about 35 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool completely. Sift powdered sugar over the pie and serve.

It’s Easter! Hit that thing with a little grated chocolate Easter bunny too or Pastel Sprinkles!

Lethal! We hate working with phyllo dough! Its hard and its time consuming you say? Don’t I have something simpler you say? Ok, here ya go, nothing is simpler or easier than dump cakes!

Cherry Pineapple Cabana Cake (Dump Cake)

Ingredients

• 1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple in juice (do not drain)
• 1 21-ounce can Cherry Pie Filling
• 1 18.25-ounce package yellow cake mix
• 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 7-ounce bag coconut, shredded
• 1cup macadamia nuts, chopped

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan. In the prepared baking pan, layer undrained crushed pineapple, then Cherry Pie Filling. Sprinkle dry cake mix over the top, smoothing evenly and covering the top.

Pour the melted butter or margarine over the top, covering evenly. Top with the coconut and nuts.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until brown on top and bubbly.

Let cool 30 minutes. Serve warm or cooled.

Don’t forget the ice cream!

Cherry Limeade

Total Time: 35 min 

Prep: 5 min

Inactive: 30 min

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

2 -liter bottle lemon-lime soda
1 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
1 cup sugar
One 10-ounce jar maraschino cherries, with juice
Thin lime slices

Directions

Chill all ingredients before mixing.
When cold, combine the lemon-lime soda, lime juice, sugar, cherries with their juice and lime slices in a large pitcher and stir. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Serve with a ladle, getting cherries and limes in each serving.

I’ve found the less sweet the soda is the better this comes out. I use original flavor Fresca, instead of something like 7Up. I also cut the sugar back to a scant 3/4 of a cup unless the limes are really tart if forced to use 7Up.

KEEP THE FIZZ TIP: Follow the instructions above using only one 2- liter bottle of soda. Chill both the mixture and the second bottle. Then just before serving slowly add the second bottle of soda for maximum fizziness!

No Parting Shot this week, at least not in the traditional sense. I often rail about how modern religion (ok so I specifically rail against Christianity as the largest offender) has made it a point to walk all over the old ways and beliefs in an attempt to stamp them out.

I thought given the subject matter of this weeks issue this would be a good opportunity to post a couple things showing how liberals and even Christians themselves are now doing the exact same thing to Christianity.

Madison School bans the word ‘Easter’ citing religious tolerance or something

One person complains to the school and all of a sudden the word ‘Easter’ is banned because it sounds too Christian? It was an Easter egg hunt for crying out loud. No crucifixes, no praying hands – nothing. Just your run of the mill Easter egg hunt with a big fluffy bunny running around.

But hold everything! Somebody is offended so let’s change the freaking world to accommodate this idiot in the name of diversity or political correctness or whatever you want to call it.

[Video of local news report here: http://therightscoop.com/madison-school-bans-the-word-easter-citing-religious-tolerance-or-something/ ]

The above is actually a Google Cached article dating back to the early 1990s.