RECIPES

Blondie Caramel Heaven

Prep Time:
10 Min

Cook Time:
28 Min

Ready In:
40 Min

Servings  (Help)

USMetricCalculate

Original Recipe Yield 1 - 8x10 inch pan

Ingredients

• 10 ounces individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
•  
• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• Chocolate layer
• 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a small saucepan combine caramels and 1/2 cup of evaporated milk. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently until smooth; set aside. Grease an 8x10 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the dry cake mix, melted butter and remaining 1/2 cup of evaporated milk. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan, reserving the rest.
3. Bake for 6 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool slightly. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the surface. Pour the caramel mixture over the chocolate chips, then top with the remaining cake mixture. The top should be swirled with caramel and cake mixture.
4. Return pan to the oven for an additional 18 to 20 minutes, until firm. Cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate for 1 hour before cutting into bars.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 346 | Total Fat: 17.5g | Cholesterol: 29mg

Jen's Heavenly Egg Salad

Prep Time:
5 Min

Cook Time:
16 Min

Ready In:
21 Min

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place egg in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring water to a boil and immediately remove from heat. Cover and let eggs stand in hot water for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from hot water, cool and peel. For faster cooling, place the eggs in an ice bath before peeling.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, yellow mustard, lemon juice and green onions. Chop the eggs into big chunks and mix gently with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 212 | Total Fat: 18.4g | Cholesterol: 322mg

HEZEKIAH CONTINUED

Of these sources the account in 2 Kings is most purely historianic, originating at a time when religious and political values, in the Hebrew mind, were inseparable. In 2 Ch the religious point and coloring, especially in its later developed ritual and legal aspects, has the decided predominance. Sirach, with the mind of a man of letters, is concerned mainly with eulogizing Hezekiah. in his “praise of famous men” (*compare Sirach 44 through 50), of course from the devout Hebrew point of view. In the vision of Isaiah (Isa 1 through 39), we have the reflection of the moral and spiritual situation in Jerusalem, as realized in the fervid prophetic consciousness; and in the prophecy of his younger contemporary Micah, the state of things in the outlying country districts nearest the path of invasion, where both the iniquities of the ruling classes and the horrors of war were felt most keenly. Doubtless also many devotional echoes of these times of stress are deducible from the Psalms, so far as we can fairly identify them.
3. Side-Lights
It is in Hezekiah's times especially that the Assyrian inscriptions become illuminating for the history of Israel; for one important thing they furnish certain fixed dates to which the chronology of the times can be adjusted. Of Sennacherib's campaign of 701, for instance, no fewer than six accounts are at present known (see G.A. Smith, Jerusalem, II, 154, note), the most detailed being the “Taylor Cylinder,” now in the British Museum, which in the main agrees, or at least is not inconsistent, with the Scripture history.

*to find Sirach chapters go to  http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvSira.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=41&division=div1

ALEPPO CODEX

The Aleppo codex, the most revered Copy of the Hebrew Bible, survived intact for more than a millennium before it was ripped part, burnt, stolen, secreted, and finally rescued .

The Bible of Bibles.  often considered the most authoritative text of the Hebrew bible, the 1000 year old Aleppo codex-known in Hebrew as the "Crown of Aleppo"--has had a tumultuous history.  It remained fully intact until 1947, when it was nearly destroyed by an anti-Jewish mob  This fragment a piece of the ten plagues narrative from the Book of Exodus, is all that remains from the first four books of the Hebrew bible.  it surface recently, decades after it has been considered lost forever.  Are there other fragments, pages, or possible entire books that remain hidden?  Scholars believe that we have not seen the  last of the missing pieces of the lege legendary Aleppo Codex.

FUN FRIDAY

RECIPES

• PREP TIME15 min
• TOTAL TIME30 min
• SERVINGS6

 

5

ounces semisweet or bittersweet baking chocolate, chopped

1/2

cup plus 2 tablespoons butter or margarine

3

eggs

3

egg yolks

1 1/2

cups powdered sugar

1/2

cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

Additional powdered sugar, if desired

1

can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling, if desired

• 1Heat oven to 450ºF. Grease bottom and side of six 6-ounce custard cups with shortening. In 2-quart saucepan, melt chocolate and butter over low heat, stirring frequently. Cool slightly.
• 2Meanwhile, in large bowl, beat eggs and egg yolks with wire whisk or hand beater until well blended. Beat in 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar. Beat in melted chocolate mixture and flour. Divide batter evenly among custard cups.
• 3Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until sides are set and cakes feel soft when touched in center. Run small knife or metal spatula along sides of cakes to loosen. Immediately turn upside down onto individual plates; remove cups. Sprinkle with additional powdered sugar. Top with pie filling. Serve warm.

 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Heaven

Servings 

Original Recipe Yield 4 dozen 

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter and brown sugar. Beat in eggs, peanut butter and vanilla.
3. Add flour, cornstarch, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Roll into balls about 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls (or use cookie scoop) and place onto ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly because they do not flatten much while cooking.
5. Bake for 10 minutes.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 281 | Total Fat: 15.7g | Cholesterol: 38mg

FUN FRIDAY

Hezekiah's tunnel shows that almost all fractures and joints cut across the tunnel ceiling and walls.  Therefore the tunnel cannot originally have been a natural karstic-formed geological feature.
There were 4 different kinds of plasters in the tunnel. The oldest plaster was suceeded by Byzantine plaster, next by a Mameluke-period plaster, and finally by a plaster applied in the early 20th century by the infamous Parker Mission.  Natural sedimentary deposits laid down from running water (tufa) and  water seeping through tunnel walls (flowstone, a kind of stalactite attached to tunnel walls) also occur along various attached segments of the tunnel.  Patches of the oldest plaster were preserved beneath flowstone, a critical finding as we shall see.
Numerous drill cores that were collected from along the tunnel floor revealed that tufa and siltistone covered all the plaster layers but were never found beneath the oldest plaster.  This demonstrated that there was no percolating water and thus no incipient channel here that was later widened by Hezekiah's tunnelers.  Had there been a karstic channel guide the tunnelers, sediments deposited from the water (such as covered the Plaster) would have been found beneath the oldest plaster.  The absence of these sedimentary deposits also shows that the ancient plaster was applied soon after the tunnel was dug, before the natural sedimentation process could begin.
According to the Frumkin, Hezekiah's Tunnel is thus "the oldest accurately-dated long tunnel constructed without using intermediate shafts for the excavation work proper.  (one shaft-to-surface chimney does exist near the southern end of Hezekiah's Tunnel, but the researchers have determined from marks on the wall that this shaftwas not used for descending down from the surface and excavating in either direction.
That Hezekiah's engineer depended on acoustic sounding to guide the tunnelers is supported by explicit use of this technique as described in the Siloams Inscription.  The frequently ignored final sentene of this inscription provides further evidence.  "And the height of the rock above the heads of the laborers was 100 cubits."  This indicates that the engineers were well aware of the distande to the surface above the tunnel at various points in its progression.
The now discarded karstic-dissolution-channel theory to explain the route of Hezekiah's tunnel has depreved us of a "rather elegant adaptation of a natural feature."  But it has been replaced by an explanation that Shimron and Frumkin call "a major advance in tunneling technique

HEZEKIAH'S TUNNELS CONTINUED

In a Groundbreaking new study Israeli geologist Aryeh shimron and Amos Frumkin mapped the geological and main features of Hezekiah's Tunnel.Their map provides important insights into how the tunnel was (and was not) constructed.  Shimron and Frumkin fojund no geological evidence of a continuous karst  (def below) channel along the length of the tunnel, as geologist Dan Giff had proposed.  Shimron and Frumkin found that nearly all of the natural fractures in the surround rock-the geological paths along which karstic channels form--not across, and not parallell to the line of the tunnel

The tunnel  could not have originally been a natural karstic channel because the necessary geological conditions simply were not present.  But how did the two teams meet

The Proof is in the Plaster.  The flow of water causes sediment to accumulate over time on the surface of Hezekiah's Tunnel.  Vertical core samples taken from the floor of the tunnel show that , although fine layers of sediment cover the plaster on the surface of the tunnel (which in some places was plastered over several times in antiquity) there was no such sedimentary buildup beneath the earliest level of plaster (see section of photo above)  demonstrating that water had not flowed over the surface in a natural karst stream before the plaster was laid after the excavation of the tunnel.

Sounds of pickaxes and echoes of voices coming through the rock must have caused a greal deal of confustion and misdirection  --false tunnels found near meeting point. Places where these misleading sounds caused the team to chisel away in the wrong direction

Finding the Right Path  Shimron and Frumkin believe that a third team wor
king on the surface pounded out acoustic signals on the bedrock to guide the underground work of the tunneling teams. Initially, the southern team planned to take a fairly direct route northeast from the Siloam Pool so they would intersect with the northern team as quickly as possible.  The norther team, however, began by excavating almost due west, a course the geologistbelieve was eighter a gross miscalculation in direction or a deliberate attemt to exten the tunnel to a well shaft in the heart of the city

.
Both teams quickly realized, however , that the nearly 160 feet of bedrock and overburden in their respective areas made sound communication with the surface impossible, so they decided to adjust the tunnel's course.  Hezekiah's engineers directed the tunnelers to the shallower eastern slope of the city instead where the grinding signals of the surface team could be more easily heard.  Partial shafts in the bedrock may have aided in the sound communication.  From her the tunnelers followed the surface signals until they were finally within earshot of the other team's voices and pick axes, as described in the siloam Inscription.  On the plan at left areas in yellow have a shallow over burden and gradually progress to the deepest areas (shown in red) where it was impossible to hear the surface signals
                                                       

                                                                    KARST -DEFINITION

Pictured is one of the false tunnel.The reasons for the false tunnels confusion was caused  by  noises made by  pickaxes and echoes of voices through the rocks.

Due to subterranean drainage, there may be very limited surface water, even to the absence of all rivers and lakes. Many karst regions display distinctive surface features, with cenotes, sinkholes or dolines being the most common. However, distinctive karst surface features may be completely absent where the soluble rock is mantled, such as by glacial debris, or confined by a superimposed non-soluble rock strata. Some karst regions include thousands of caves, even though evidence of caves that are big enough for human exploration is not a required characteristic of karst.

Karst topography is characterized by subterranean limestone caverns, carved by groundwater. The geographer Jovan Cvijić (1865–1927) was born in western Serbia and studied widely in the Dinaric Kras region. His publication of Das Karstphänomen (1893) established that rock dissolution was the key process and that it created most types of dolines, "the diagnostic karst landforms". The Dinaric Kras thus became the type area for dissolutional landforms and aquifers; the regional name kras, Germanicised as "karst", is now applied to modern and paleo-dissolutional phenomena worldwide. Cvijić related the complex behaviour of karst aquifers to development of solutional conduit networks and linked it to a cycle of landform evolution. Cvijić defined two main types of karst area, holokarst, wholly developed, as in the Dinaric region along the eastern Adriatic and deeper inland in the Balkan Peninsula and merokarst, imperfectly developed with some karst forms, as in eastern Serbia. Cvijić is recognized as "the father of karst geomorphology".

The international community has settled on karst, the German name for Kras, a region in Slovenia partially extending into Italy, where it is called "Carso" and where the first scientific research of a karst topography was made. The name has an Indo-European origin (from karra meaning "stone"),^[3] and in antiquity it was called "Carusardius" in Latin. The Slovene form grast is attested since 1177, and the Croatiankras since 1230.^{[citation needed]}. "Krš" – "Krsh" meaning in Croatian and in Serbian "barren land" which is typical feature in the Northern Dinaric limestone mountains could also be an origin to the word Karst