FYI: A Timely Exhibit in this Christmas Season

On KUHF yesterday, I heard about a new exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History called 'the Birth of Christianity: a Jewish Story'. It features, among other things, a stone tablet newly discovered containing what they're calling 'Gabriel's Prophecy' in which the Angel Gabriel tells of the Messiah who will die and then rise from the dead after three days. The KUHF feature on the stone tablet can be found here.

From the Houston Museum of Natural History site:

Explore the cultural, political and personal events that shaped Jerusalem and the surrounding region more than 2,000 years ago in The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story. View the earliest known manuscript containing the story of Christ's birth in the oldest known copy of the New Testament Book of Luke. Examine other ancient manuscripts including the prophetic Old Testament Book of Isaiah - one of the original Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran. Witness history first hand and be among the first to view a host of other authentic artifacts from this fascinating time and place, which to this day remains one of the world's most important and influential cultural intersections.

The exhibit runs from December 13th through April 12th, so there's plenty of time to get down and see it. Museum hours and admission prices can be found at the site. I hope to make a family outing of our visit.

Recipe of the Week: Chocolate-covered Helping Hands Cake

Scott's Dutch Oven Delight

This looked like such a fabulous recipe, I determined as soon as I read it to post it as the next Recipe of the Week. Unfortunately, I forgot all about it in my customary addlepation. Be that as it may, this looks like such a fabulous recipe and a ready-made Family Home Evening or Family Day activity, that I just had to post it despite my earlier offering.

The provenance proceeds as follows: the dutch oven competition at our recent annual BFO (Big Family Outing), a camp-out at Fish Lake, became the topic of conversation on my family list. The consensus was that my sister-in-law won the competition hands-down in the particulars of scrumptiousness, participation, entertainment, and finger-licking goodness. More to the point, no other dish included the unbeatable combination of chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. It was, ultimately, my brother's recipe, and he posted to the list as follows:

• 2 chocolate fudge cake mixes
• 2 (20 oz.) cans cherry pie filling
• 2 (8 oz.) bricks cream cheese
• 6 eggs (just those required by the boxed mixes)
• 1 cup oil
• 3 cups water
• 6 Tabs sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Dump the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and 1 egg in a large zip lock bag, seal it, and invite every little kid in camp to help squish the contents together by hand. Watch closely, and stop as soon as somebody squeezes one time too many and a hole appears. Licking the mixture off their fingers is their bonus.
2. In another zip lock mix up the cake mixes, the rest of the eggs, oil, and water. Repeat the cooperative squishing/mixing process. Have a grownup make sure of the corners, as dry pockets can happen.
3. Pam a 14” pot.
4. Cut the corner of the bag of delicious brown chocolate go and squeeze it into the pot. More bonus finger licking ensues.
5. Spoon in glop’s of cherry pie filling.
6. Squeeze in randomly-placed golf-ball-sized glop’s of cream cheese. More finger licking.
7. 10 briquettes on the bottom and 16 on the top for 1 hour, or until a knife poked to the bottom comes out clean.
8. Serve warm with whipped cream.

As a variation, a dutch-oven non-devotee could perhaps use a 10x13" pan, reducing the ingredients by half, then bake at 350F for 45-50 minutes. However, I haven't yet had the opportunity to try this, so you may be required be fluid in your settings the first go-round.