Big Brood

… You go to a potluck and leave with more food than you brought.

This is adapted from Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church. I have a “talent” for always slightly altering every recipe I come into contact with, it drives my gander CRAZY! His theory is if there is a recipe it should be followed, mine is if there is a recipe there is probably a better way to do it!

• 2 cups white bread flour (I am sure all purpose would work)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 cup cold butter, diced
• 1 1/2 cups golden raisins
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 cup sour milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add first 5 ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter, blend butter into flour mixture until it resembles fine crumbles. Add raisins to mixture, stir to distibute. Add honey and sour milk. Stir with a fork until it is moistened but not smooth. Spoon into a large round pan. I use a 12 inch stone with sides (like a round cake pan only bigger.) A 10 or 11 inch heavy skillet may work well too, just be sure to butter the pan first. Bake for 1 hour or until the middle is set. Cut into wedges and serve warm with butter and honey. YUM!

How do you drive your gander crazy?

[Updated: 9:48pm our time…]

We’ve been thinking about refinancing our home to take advantage of lower interest rates. We missed the bottom which seemed hit at around 5.48% national average for a 30-year fixed-interest mortgage near the end of January. Today’s rate of 6.04% would still be OK for us as we’re currently at 6.8% (on one loan, we have another loan which was a dumb mistake that I’ll explain later.) The question, is: Is this the right time? The answer for us appears to be a definite “probably” (how’s that for hedging!)

With fed discount rate cuts, our first thought was to refi now! But, if you’ve been watching the trends you see that mortgage rates actually went up after the last Fed rate cut. So, I dug in a little deeper and found more information.

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