Mayonnaise - With Video

Mayonnaise

Homemade mayonnaise is so good! That’s all there is to it! I’ve never liked the stuff from the store, and I especially didn’t like the stuff we got when we first came here to Papua New Guinea! My grandma showed my mom how to make mayo when we first came to PNG in 2008. This recipe is easy, and tastes delicious! You can use this mayo any way you would use the stuff you can get from the store. It makes good dips and salad dressings, and is great on sandwiches! 

What you’ll need 

One egg 

One tablespoon lemon juice (or vinegar) 

One teaspoon salt (or, better yet, season salt)

One cup oil 

In a blender blend the egg, lemon juice, and salt. Then slowly....VERY SLOWLY....pour the oil into the mixer. If you pour the oil in too fast the mayo won’t be thick. Pour the oil in a thin, steady stream. Once all the oil has been poured in stop the blender and check the mayo. Should be wonderfully thick! 

If it’s not, don’t worry, that’s an easy fix. Pour the liquid mayo into a dish and add another egg to the blender. Then slowly pour the liquid mayo back into the blender. Remember....VERY SLOWLY....! 

I hope you enjoy this! This mayo is so simple and easy to make, and it tastes so much better then any mayo from any store in any country....in my opinion. 

Scriptures From Around the World - Canada

Hollandaise Sauce

One of my mom’s favorite breakfasts is Eggs Benedict.

You know, fresh sour dough English muffins, thick sliced, home smoked bacon, over easy eggs, and that thick buttery sauce that just is almost too delicious to be real!  

Sounds like it would be a complicated meal, but is actually very simple and easy to make! The hardest part is waiting for the sauce to be done! 

This sauce is another one of those recipes that you just have to eyeball it and make it according to taste. Some people may like their hollandaise sauce thinner, some thicker, some may like it more tangy, others may like to add paprika instead of pepper. This is a recipe that you can make totally your own! I love recipes like this! 

2 cups (250 grams) cubed butter

(Don’t worry, you won’t use all of it) 

3 egg yolks 

juice of 1/2 lemon (about a tablespoon)

Pinch of pepper 

Place a small pot over low heat (VERY LOW), and add egg yolks, lemon juice, and a couple cubes of butter. Using a whisk mix the sauce. Never stop! If you have to leave the sauce take it off the heat. This sauce is easy to make, but also easy to mess up. Constantly add more butter. Don’t wait until all the butter melts before adding more, add more before it all melts. What makes this sauce work is the cold butter bringing down the temperature of the sauce as it cooks. If the sauce gets too hot, the eggs will cook too fast and you’ll basically have buttery scrambled eggs. 

Continue to add butter until the sauce is thick and smooth. 

Serve over eggs and toast, or on broccoli or fish! There are so many things you can pour this delicious hollandaise sauce over!  

Scriptures From Around the World - Malaysia

Stuff Gets Said

Gossip and "fake news" have been around since long before social media. People like to talk about things that are different. Sometimes they are afraid of something new. As missionaries, we are often surprised to learn some new stories people are telling about us. Some stories are hurtful, some are just puzzling, but some are downright hilarious.

The Hurtful Stuff

Regarding the hurtful things said, we have to deal with that just like anybody else does. The best thing is to take it to the Lord.  This is true in any land. We have to remember who we are in Christ, and remember that the truth will come out.

The Puzzling Stuff

Sometimes we hear misconceptions about ourselves or our church that make us scratch our heads.  Usually my snarky replies remain unspoken. 

"Is it true that you can't drink coffee in your church?" Um, no, thankfully.

"We heard that you aren´t allowed to celebrate Christmas." That house with the giant Christmas tree in the window, it's mine.


"Why can't women talk in your church?" It would be really hard for me to teach Sunday school without talking. 

"Why are you against science?" I'm not, but my kids might have wished I were when they had to take chemistry and biology.

The Funny Stuff

Then there are the stories about us that are so bizarre, we can do nothing but laugh about them. 

About a year ago, I was feeling really good about myself - I know, pride goeth before a fall - because a local teenage girl had told my daughter that I was really nice and pretty. Wow! A few days later one of our church teens told me that she had heard something about me.  I couldn't wait to hear it.  Someone else liked me perhaps? No. The Lord had a cure for that pride of mine. A rumor was going around our whole village and had spread to some other towns that I was killing cats. Apparently they thought I was putting poison out in the yard and enticing cats to come taste their doom. It was talked about at home, at school, and even in the grocery store. Who knows how this even started. Okay, it was a blow to my ego to know something so blatantly false, and strange,  was being said about me. That first night brought tears of self-pity, but the Lord helped change those into tears of laughter. I joined my kids, our church teens, anybody who actually knows me in laughing about the silliness of it. 

My favorite story about the church, though, happened years ago when the military base was still here. The church was trying to build but was being stonewalled from several places. Because of that, we couldn't afford windows in the building.  Having no windows invited all kinds of speculation about what was happening inside, but one local village was convinced they knew the truth.  The story went something like this: "Those strange people in the window-less church are evil.  They dress in nothing but long underwear, dance around strange lines on the floor, and sacrifice hens." So there were some military folks in long undies under their clothes, and we did admittedly have an AWANA circle for the kids' game time.  That said, none of us knows where the hen sacrifice part started.  And why not roosters, too?  This is one that still makes us laugh today.  

People say stuff. We have to learn to take it to the Lord, grow some thicker skin, and sometimes just laugh about it. 

Patrick and Vicki Weimer, Iceland since 1999

Praying for Missionaries

Over the years there have been people that I know pray for me.  As time goes by, I have lost some of these dear prayer warriors.  I lost several in recent years as they went to their eternal home.  When this happens, I find myself thinking, “Who will pray for me now?”  

Maybe you have experienced this too.  This has caused me to be more diligent in my prayer life for others.  I was introduced to a tool a few years back that has been life-changing for me.  It helped me to create a plan that works for me instead of trying to make myself fit into someone else’s mold.  

As a result of working on this vital spiritual discipline, I have learned to pray more specifically for others.  One of the areas the Lord has lead me is in praying Scripture.  I believe  the Lord delights in our prayers when they contain His Word.

If you are a missionary woman, you understand the burdens that we face more than others and can pray more effectively.  A few years ago, I heard of a missionary family that walked through the unimaginable.  Although I never experienced that myself, I could somewhat imagine the difficulty and I began to pray for her and her dear family.  I saw the Lord answer my prayers and it was a great encouragement to me.  I have never physically met this family.  They may not even know that I pray for them.  What matters is that God used me to pray for them and He used them to encourage me to pray more specifically.

If you are reading this and you are not a missionary, your prayers are no less important.  My husband often tells others that we need your prayers more than we need your financial support.  This is so true as we serve in a spiritually dark culture.  

The tool that I mentioned above is wonderful for helping me to remember who and what to pray for.  Here is a download that you can use to begin to pray for missionaries that includes Scripture references.  I hope that you will find this useful.  

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”  ~Hebrews 4:16

Homemade Cheese

What is one of the foods you miss the most while on the field? My family probably misses dairy products the most. Cheese! Milk! Sour cream! All things that are cheap in America, and expensive on most fields. But what is a dairy product that is cheap (or cheaper) that most of us can get on the field? Powdered milk! Making cheese out of powdered milk is super easy! And it takes less than 10 minutes to make! 

The nice thing about cheese from powdered milk is that if you use one cup of powder you’re gonna get about one cup of cheese. So it’s easy to make for recipes. You can make small or large amounts without any extra math. 

The only problem with this kind of cheese is that certain brands of powdered milk don’t work. I don’t know why, I haven’t figured it out yet. So if you try this and it doesn’t work out like the video shows, try again with another brand.

To make simply mix the amount of powdered milk needed with just enough water to make a smooth paste. Then, add boiling water to the milk mixture until the mix is almost too hot to keep your finger in. Then, add vinegar (apple cider vinegar is my favorite) or lemon juice one tablespoon at a time until large curds form. When the liquid turns yellow you’ll know you’re ready to strain. Strain curds and toss the liquid. Add salt to taste, or seasonings. 

My family likes it when we put roasted vegetables or extra spices in the cheese. This cheese is great on just about everything! It’s great for tacos, nachos, or even as a substitute for ricotta or cottage cheese in recipes! 

I hope your family enjoys this cheese as much as mine does!