Froggie's Cream Gravy Recipe

Norman (see below) didn't tell us how to make the bacon grease gravy (which we have always called "cream gravy"*, so I'll explain, based on what our mother, Ruby Mabel Hurt née Havard, a.k.a. "Grammaw Froggie" (pbuh**), taught us.

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:38 AM, my brother Norman wrote:

One of my favorite dishes was mother's (rip) white bacon gravy on toast.  And milk.  That's all.  Nothing fancy.  Just incredibly wonderful thick delicious mother's flour gravy made with bacon grease, with plenty of salt and pepper.  In fact, she would save bacon grease and use it to flavor just about everything, like green beans, etc.  We always had a old coffee can full of bacon grease.

The trick to good gravy and toast is to generously pour the gravy on thick.

One morning a friend from down the street (John Daniels) joined us for breakfast.  I didn't know how well off we were until I saw him apply the gravy like you'd put mayonnaise on bread.  He put the gravy on his toast with a butter knife.

I guess his family couldn't "afford" to be so generous with their gravy.  We were living high on the hog back in those days, and we dint even know it.

And now, Froggie's recipe...

Ingredients

• 2 TBSP bacon drippings (grease and crunchy detritus from cooking bacon)
  
• 2 TBSP all purpose flour
  
• 1 pinch of salt
  
• 3 pinches black pepper
  
• 1.5 cups cold whole milk (use Half and Half if you want to feel really rich)
  

Directions

You start with a skillet in which you have just finished frying bacon.  You cannot properly enjoy cream gravy on toast without crunchy bacon to munch on with it.

• Pour all but the prescribed amount of drippings into a container - you will need it for seasoning all kinds of things like green beans and corn bread.***  
  
• Get the pan medium hot so that it barely starts smoking****
  
• Add the flour and stir it into the grease.to make roux  
  
• Stir and let it cook a bit till it starts to brown.
  
• Pour in all the milk at once and whisk vigorously to break up the roux and homogenize it into the milk.*****
  
• Toss in the salt and pepper.
  
• Use the whisk to deglaze the pan, incorporating all bacon detritus with salt and pepper into the thin gravy.
• Whisk constantly while letting the thin gravy thicken and come to a boil. 
• Whisk and boil for another minute.
  
• Test the taste and adjust the seasoning - I like to add a little paprika or ground, smoked chipotle.
  
• Pour immediately into gravy bowl and carry to the table.
  
• Serve steaming hot - pour on buttered toast, grits, or potatoes and eat with gusto.
  

Notes

• * Cream Gravy turns out to constitute the most popular form of gravy in the world, made with water or milk.  The French call it "roux."  French and American chefs often flavor the roux with herbs and spices in addition to salt and pepper.  The roux with cheese and and cooked macaroni makes "macaroni and cheese."  
• ** Praise be unto her.
• *** Our poor neighbor lady back in Houston around 1956 used to put a teaspoon of bacon grease into her coffee because it reminded her of what breakfast could taste like.
  
• **** Variation - at this point you can toss in some chopped peppers or onions, sauté them for two minutes or more, then remove them from the pan, replace the grease used, and add the sautéed items back in before the last minute of boiling the gravy.  Purists like pure cream gravy with no sautéed additives.
  
• ***** You seriously risk lumpy gravy if you try to add a little milk at a time or add more flour after you add the milk, unless you first mix the flour with bacon grease.  If you get lumpy gravy, smooth it by pouring it into a blender and operating at high speed for a moment before serving.  Or toss it out and start over.
  

Bob Hurt

http://bobhurt.com
2460 Persian Drive #70
Clearwater, FL 33763
+1 (727) 669-5511

How to Prepare for (or against) an Islamic America

Title: How to Prepare for (or against) an Islamic America

by Bob Hurt

---------------------------

Executive Summary.  This article discusses Islam in Contrast to Christianity, shows a movie that explains Islam's practiced aims for dominion of the world (including the USA), and poses solutions for avoiding life under Shari'a - Islamic law.  I do express religious principles of the Jesus kind in this message, though not to shove it up anyone's nose and with no ax to grind.  If that bothers you, read no further.  If you do read further, feel free to comment to me personally on my blog at http://bobhurt.blogspot.com.

----------------------------

You know, I generally don't like all the Google Video and You Tube links I receive (because most senders could summarize them in a few words, and because I learn nothing much new or worthwhile in them).

However, today I make an exception with this link about 

Islam's Plans for America 

Yes, I consider this a law topic, in the "concept" category.  The law to which I refer:  Shari'a - Islamic law.

The above video takes you step by step through Islam's simple plan for world dominion, in terms of the percentage of Muslims in the population of the country.  It uses many other countries' histories as examples of what will eventually happen in the USA if Muslim expansion continues.  One source I read claims Islam has the highest growth rate of all religions in the USA.

I believe this video will sensibly inform you as to the course of Islam's growth and its consequence in the USA.  I suggest showing it to your family.  RIght now the USA has one of the world's lowest percentages of Muslims in its populations.  You will see specific and distinct repercussions as the percentage increases.  

The USA now has a Muslim-friendly President with seriously Muslim roots and many Islamic ties among friends and family.  It seems highly likely, therefore, that the US will experience substantial growth in the Muslim population in the next 4 to 8 years.  So I consider the information in the above video of absolutely vital importance.

As to Islam, the Religion

Islam had over 1.2 billion adherents as of the year 2000, and the religion grows while Christianity declines in membership. Muslims believe holy books known as the Qur'an (Koran, recitals by Muhammad of what Gabriel allegedly told him) and the Hadiths (interpretations of the comments of Muhammad).  They must embrace the five pillars:  

1. No god but Allah exists and he chose Muhammad as his exclusive prophet, 
   
2. Muslims must pray to Alllah 5 times per day, 
   
3. Muslims must give alms to the poor, 
   
4. Muslims must observe Ramadan (a month of daytime fasting) each year, and 
   
5. Muslims must make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
   

The Koran acknowledges Jews and Christians as their religious associates, but condemns those who backslide or persecute Muslims. It endorses the majority of the Old Testament and claims that Muslims descended from Abraham's and his handmaiden Hagar's oldest son, Ishmael.  The Koran lauds Jesus as the Messiah, a perfect, immortal creator, earth son of the Virgin Mary, spirit offspring of God, herald of the Gospel (injeel) who will preside over Judgment Day. Of course it makes no such claims for Muhammad, an illiterate man of humble origins who operated variously as merchant, prophet, pillager, murder, warlord, and religious leader who married a 6 year old girl (who consummated the marriage at age 9).  The Koran claims that people who don't embrace the Gospel will face severe chastisement (possibly in the afterlife).  However, it never recites the tenets of that Gospel.  It openly advocates showing mercy to enemies who ask for forgiveness and refuge, but encourages believers to "smite the necks" of the recalcitrant and infidel enemies.  It severely denounces Muslims who leave the faith.  

The Christian Imperative

Evidence indicates that Muhammad learned about Jesus from Gospel missionaries from Amman Jordan (Philadelphia in Jesus' day), for these did not suffer the errant "gospel" according to Paul, but rather stayed true to the Gospel Jesus had taught and lived.  The tenets of that Gospel, according to the Bible and the Urantia Book include these 3 main points:  

1. Acceptance of the reality of the sovereignty of God
   
2. Belief in the truth of the brotherhood of Man
   
3. Faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do God's will - to be like God.
   

Possibly the slide of Christians away from those principles (such as by extolling Mary the mother of Jesus as the "mother of God"), according the Gospel missionary who taught Muhammad, earned such Christians the enmity of Muhammad.  Clearly Muhammad declared that Mary was not the mother of God and that Jesus was not the [physical] son of God.  But he likewise declared that Jesus came from the Spirit of God and that he created a bird out of dust (referring to the apparition above his head as described in the New Testament story of his baptism).  So Muhammad accorded Jesus the status of prophet, and beyond -a supernatural quasi-divine status.

Thus you can see that many Muslims stand ripe for an expansion of the Gospel of Jesus in their understanding.  Most say the Koran contains the Gospel, but they have no scriptural proof of it.  If Christians did the right thing, they would not fight against Islam, but rather try to uplift it so as to reveal God as the loving spiritual father of all people, and not to portray people as merely his subjects with no spiritual lineage to him.  And such efforts could reveal all people, not just fellow Muslims, as one another's brothers and sisters whom one should love and to whom one should deliver unselfish loving service.

But if that does not happen, then Christians and other religionists will have to tolerate Islamic encroachment upon their liberties, step by sneaky and violent step.  They must suffer "fundamentalist" Islam and Sharia law with its imposed social regulation, religious police.  They must tolerate endless bickering between imams (Muslim clerics) and their whimsical, faulty interpretation of the Koran and Hadiths to suit the aims of their sects. And they must struggle for political and military pressure to prevent Sharia from becoming the law of the land.  If they do not, America will become like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or Pakistan.  Won't we just love that?

Christians have a mandate from Jesus himself to spread HIS Gospel, as he expressed it (not the so-called gospel of any of his followers) to Muslims by word and deed, by living that Gospel as Jesus did.  To do this, Christians must discard the trappings of liturgy, ritual, denominationalism, religious arrogance and provincialism, and attempts at social regulation that divide Christians while alienating non-Christians.  Bottom line, I guess, we need a new "John the Baptist" to come along with a commanding demeanor and straighten out bickering Christianity.

If they do not take responsibility for this, Christianity's membership will continue to dwindle because it is, basically, a "white man's religion" in its current form.  Loyalty to Jesus's real Gospel will make the only adjustment to Christianity necessary to make Christianity everybody's religion, vastly superior in doctrine to every religion on the planet.

As things stand, however, many people see much to praise in Islam as opposed to Christianity.   

1. They like the no-nonsense first two pillars - There is only one God, and you must pray to him 5 times a day.  Do you see the similarity to the first tenet of the Gospel?  
   
2. They like the living of the religion in the third pillar - giving alms to the poor.  Do you see the similarity to the second tenet of the Gospel?
3. And they will absolutely love the third tenet of the Gospel, the idea that people can become more and more like God if they sincerely work at it.  Do you see the working part, the practice of the religion, in the Pillars 2, 3, 4, and 5 and how it compares to that third tenet?

The Great Commission - Where, Today?

But Christians do not focus on those three tenets of the Gospel.  They focus on teachings of the apostles more than on teachings of Jesus himself.  And in doing that, they tend to forget the Great Commission, the final orders Jesus gave before leaving this world.  Just before disappearing from view for the final time on this earth, there on the brow of Olivet, Jesus stood with his apostles looking across the ravine at the brilliant white marble and gold trim of the Temple as it shown so magnificently in the early morning sun in honor of our Heavenly Father across the ravine.  There on 18 May 30 C.E. at about 7:30 AM Jesus said something like this to them:

"I bade you tarry in Jerusalem until you were endowed with power from on high. I am now about to take leave of you; I am about to ascend to my Father, and soon, very soon, will we send into this world of my sojourn the Spirit of Truth; and when he has come, you shall begin the new proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, first in Jerusalem and then to the uttermost parts of the world. Love men with the love wherewith I have loved you and serve your fellow mortals even as I have served you. By the spirit fruits of your lives impel souls to believe the truth that man is a son of God, and that all men are brethren. Remember all I have taught you and the life I have lived among you. My love overshadows you, my spirit will dwell with you, and my peace shall abide upon you. Farewell." The Urantia Book, Paper 193:5.2, page 2057.

probably paraphrased like this:

"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." The New American Bible, Matthew 28:18-20.

Then Jesus vanished.

Though he physically left this world, he left his personal spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, behind as a spirit blanket over all humanity, that people might never feel alone and isolated in the universe.

And he left us with his Great Commission, marching orders to spread his Gospel, not to fight against other religions.  We have seen how Islam actually propounds the tenets of the real Gospel with greater focus than Christians typically put on it.  And only 3 Muslims in the whole world can recite the tenets of the Gospel to you (three must exist somewhere).  Unfortunately, many Christians don't have much clue about the tents of the Gospel either.

But therein lies the great strength and opportunity of Christianity - to uplift Islam, not by converting its people to Christianity, but by finding the common points of belief and using them as stepping stones to ennoble Islam and Muslims with higher-level teachings from Jesus himself.  Christians can teach Muslims these principles: 

• we can refer to God and Allah as "our Heavenly Father," thereby certifying that we have a personal, familial relationship with God, that we don't consist merely of his subjects;
• we all operate as God's spiritual "children," in a spiritual manner of speaking;
  
• we have the destiny to become more and more like him as we devote our selves to knowing and doing his will - pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness, and manifesting that pursuit through love, mercy, and ministry; 
  
• we are all each others' brothers and sisters.  
  

At the same time Christians can learn more from Muslims about how to live our religion devoutly, giving proper time and attention to prayer and other practices that prove our devotion to the Father's will.  And of course Christians can become more publicly and privately devout, and focus on teaching these principles to our children, even as we live them.  Thereby we will evolve Islam and our own religion to higher, nobler quality systems of belief and practice.

And let us not forget that Christianity has 600 more years of evolution than Islam from primitive, rather brutal roots. Six hundred years ago Christianity had just finished a murderous series of Crusades and it routinely tortured people with inhumanities like witch hunts and inquisitions.  Many of the primitive aspects of Islam will similarly disappear as it matures.

If you can think of anything else this nation's people can possibly do to forestall Islamic dominion, let me know.  I don't believe the answer lies in fighting and war.

Bob Hurt
2460 Persian Drive #70
Clearwater, FL 33763
+1 (727) 669-5511
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