Along with the Siopao meal we missed out on, the Carrot Cake Ice Cream I had planned to try was also pushed to the side. I finally made it a few days later. Or rather, I attempted to make it. It never really set right and it basically just tasted like a cooled pudding-ish food that had bits of carrots in it? It was not right! Next time I make ice cream, I was told I needed to strictly follow the recipe that came with the machine, as this is not the first time I have been steered wrong when attempting to make ice cream specifically.

But then, there was the lava cake Kris really wanted me to make. We love the lava cake at Chili’s and I could have gotten one over that weekend, but deciding to save money and feeling experimental, we decided to get the ingredients to a copy-cat Molten Lava Cake recipe.

Kris bought me mini bundt cake pans and away I went. I had extra batter after I filled the mini bundt pans so I pulled out a 5 inch cast iron skillet and made a cake Kris and I could share that night. It was pretty easy and turned out delicious! It would have been better if we actually had ice cream for the magic shell to form around. Because we shared the cast iron lava cake, that left us with 12 mini bundt cakes which we decided to freeze. I haven’t tried to thaw it out and make an individual lava cake but I plan to do that soon. Here are recipe cards for both options:

This recipe assumes you have already made up and frozen 12 chocolate mini bundt cakes! If you haven’t frozen them yet, you can alter the time you are warming it up.

I’m learning how to pivot. It has not been an easy journey. Plans changing last minute or being canceled entirely can be extremely disruptive to me. But I am learning to celebrate these little wins. They matter. Each one builds on the last, and eventually I’ll have enough collected that I will be able to steady myself in each moment more.

I haven’t achieved this peace fully. But I’m working on it.

That also matters.

Is it hard for you to change plans at the last minute or pivot? Let me know in the comments.

Jamie

Let’s Stay Connected

If this spoke to your heart, there are a few quick ways you can support my ministry:

• Subscribe: Hit the subscribe button here on Substack so you never miss a post or podcast episode. It is always free to subscribe. If you want to support my ministry with a financial donation, you are welcome to do that as well.

• Follow along: You can find me on Instagram @theweightofstillness for daily encouragement, behind-the-scenes thoughts, and community.

• Share the hope: If this message touched your heart, please share it with someone who needs it. You never know who in your life is waiting to hear that they are loved, valued, and worthy of grace.

Share The Weight of Stillness

I’m never going to have the most polished chef or photographer. What you see is what you get with me. I’m not trying to have a recipe blog, so I’m just going to share the most mouth-watering dishes or umami-packed bites. Well, that’s not to say that my food doesn’t have a great umami-ness to it. Most of it does. But I’m not sharing recipes that people just rave about so much as I’m just sharing the things I like to eat or cook.

So listen: I used to hate green peppers. For the longest time, I couldn’t eat them. The texture really bothered me. Fresh or cooked, I simply could not eat them. I also didn’t really understand why people liked the flavor of green peppers. But as I got older, I began trying to find ways to incorporate more vegetables. And while I won’t dare to eat a sweet pepper plain, and I certainly will not eat them cooked if they are large pieces, I have learned to eat them here and there. What I found out about green peppers is that I like them on my salad uncooked and on my pizza cooked, as long as they are tiny.

Many years ago, in order to help my kids eat more veggies—and Kris, if I’m being honest—I decided to try cutting up the following veggies into the tiniest pieces to incorporate into pizza: green pepper, red onion, and fresh mushrooms. I also hate the texture of mushrooms (cooked or otherwise…) but I thought, “Why not?”

You might notice that mushrooms didn’t make the list. Feel free to add them in if you’d like, and throw in any other ingredient you want. It’s not like this pizza recipe is anything special, though I am a huge fan of Pampered Chef’s Garlic Infused Canola Oil, so if you are going to follow anything on the recipe, get yourself some of that stuff. It might be expensive, but it is worth every penny. I’ve been using it for years and love to brush the crust with it. It’s also a great addition if you brush some of it onto the crust edges after the pizza is cooked for an extra burst of garlic goodness.

It was a game changer for me when I realized I could still enjoy peppers and onion if I chopped them up really small. So basically I’m a child. I’ll apparently only eat vegetables if they are in tiny pieces no one can pick out!

You’ll see, as time moves forward, that one of the reasons I want to change Monday and do more with recipes has to do with a dream I have had my entire marriage (27 years on June 5!)—to cook with my husband. Sure, if you knew me when my kids were little, or you’ve ever tried to help me cook, you know I can be a bit controlling. So I can’t say for sure if we will cook together consistently, but now that we are empty-nesters, and because I want to try new things this year, I want us to cook together more. Twenty years ago I don’t think Kris would have been interested in cooking with me. But over the last however many years, he has begun to get more confident in the kitchen. If we want pork loin, pork steaks, or brats, Kris is the man. He has been more and more adventurous, as he has learned that AI can help him with some of the things he has had no clue about in the kitchen. I know AI gets a bad rap here on Substack among writers, and if this were chef heavy, perhaps from them too. But not me. I love AI for certain things. Especially when it comes to doing things in the kitchen. I have converted a lot of recipes or quantities for recipes and it does the math for me—which is hugely important for someone like me who is, well, awful at math.

Because of that, and because I just wanted to think of something he and I can do together in this new season as empty-nesters, I am really looking forward to how this will play out. We decided we would pick three things and build a meal out of it. Motivated by my friend Rozzy who gave me my first ever Siopao (Chicken Asado flavor). If you haven’t had it and are familiar with kolaches, they are a similar dish. A pillowy dough, stuffed with deliciousness and it seems to me you could really modify the filling in so many different ways.

Anyway, from poetry last week to pizza today, you never know what you’re gonna get!

Jamie

Let’s Stay Connected

If this spoke to your heart, there are a few quick ways you can support my ministry:

• Subscribe: Hit the subscribe button here on Substack so you never miss a post or podcast episode. It is always free to subscribe. If you want to support my ministry with a financial donation, you are welcome to do that as well.

• Follow along: You can find me on Instagram @theweightofstillness for daily encouragement, behind-the-scenes thoughts, and community.

• Share the hope: If this message touched your heart, please share it with someone who needs it. You never know who in your life is waiting to hear that they are loved, valued, and worthy of grace.

Share The Weight of Stillness

But let’s talk about the main recipe and the title of this post.

Why lemon balm?

It was an accident, really. It’s possible I planted a small lemon balm baby outside the second year we lived here. I had an indoor hydroponic system that winter, and needed to make room for other plants. So I took several outside and just stuck them in the ground and forgot about them. None of them survived except a red leaf lettuce my dog kept peeing on. The next year, I was looking at my beds and found a strange plant coming up in the back of a bed that we let the dog make his own. I decided to use one of those plant identifying apps and it was lemon balm. I am not even 100% certain that I put one outside, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. But, I certainly didn’t plant it at the very back of the bed, right up against my house! So if I did put it out there, it reseeded itself further back. I dug it up, moved it to another area where I could keep an eye on it, and two summers ago it seemed to love it’s new home.

It wasn’t until last year that I began to research what you could do with lemon balm. My husband loves pesto. I’ve made it several times with basil, both from the store and from some I grew. It is easy, quick, and adds a great flavor to what could otherwise be bland at times. A friend told me I could make pesto with the lemon balm, so a quick Google search to verify and it was on. And it turned out great! I couldn’t believe it. So I did more research about whether or not lemon balm is perrenial or annual. Basically lemon balm can reseeed, but it does not come back every year. This year, the lemon balm is insane! It’s like this bush now that takes up half of a bed. And in addition to that, it reseeded so well! I keep finding lemon balm babies in the weirdest places in the bed. And I think at this point because it looks beautiful and smells excellent, I’m going to leave it where it is coming up and utilize it as ground cover.

Anyway, here are the recipes cards I made and a picture of the pasta salad with the lemon balm pesto in it. I really hate when I look up a recipe and have to read an entire book just to get to the recipe, and I realize I have done the same thing. I get it now. Sometimes a recipe needs context!

Jamie

Let’s Stay Connected

If this spoke to your heart, there are a few quick ways you can support my ministry:

• Subscribe: Hit the subscribe button here on Substack so you never miss a post or podcast episode. It is always free to subscribe. If you want to support my ministry with a financial donation, you are welcome to do that as well.

• Follow along: You can find me on Instagram @theweightofstillness for daily encouragement, behind-the-scenes thoughts, and community.

• Share the hope: If this message touched your heart, please share it with someone who needs it. You never know who in your life is waiting to hear that they are loved, valued, and worthy of grace.

Share The Weight of Stillness

Something I suppose you should know about me is that I love Pampered Chef. I have been collecting products (including appliances, for which I have an unhealthy obsession) for over 25 years. And I have no plans to stop!

In April, the company announced the FreezyFun Ultimate Frozen Drink & Soft-Serve Maker. Because I had to have it, I did what I needed to get it for 60% off. It arrived today and I immediately unboxed it. I didn’t have anything I needed to make a milkshake or soft-serve ice cream, but I did have pineapple juice and an assortment of liquors. So, with a little consulting on conversion amounts, I made up a little recipe with what I had on hand.

This was the result! And let me just say, it was delicious. The texture was soft and almost creamy. I actually hate slushies because I don’t like the hard, crunchy ice, but this was so much better.

I have been challenging myself this year to do new things. That includes making TikToks or other graphics that I want to use in various projects. I’ve been playing around with Canva and TikTok, and I felt comfortable enough to make this little video showing the machine, how it works, and the finished product.

My husband and I love the Mudslide at Applebee’s, and he has already challenged me to replicate that recipe using the machine.

Challenge accepted!

Hopefully, I’ll be back soon with a recipe and instructions for that. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this other side of my life and journey.

Jamie