Hospitality

"Home" is often used to refer to the place where we live or grew up - whether house, city or country. But today when I began to reflect on what "home" means to me, I realized it's also much greater than simply that. Home is where I belong, not temporarily, but permanently. And when I think of home in that light, it changes everything, especially my idea of hospitality.

Christians often talk about helping bring God's Kingdom, that place where we belong, on earth. And although hospitality is a new endeavor for me, I think my home is a good place to start.

The idea of being hospitable can be pretty intimidating. My gut instinct is to go into perfectionist mode - cleaning, baking, fluffing pillows! But that's not what hospitality is about (although, it's certainly part). Hospitality's about creating a physical place and atmosphere that resembles our eternal home. A place of friends, safety and rest. It's definitely not a place created by fake perfection. Rather, authenticity, vulnerability and worthiness help establish and maintain it. I don't know about you, but I definitely want those things to resinate in my home.

My most cherished memories are of feeling at home with brothers and sisters. Those times in college when we talked on comfy couches late into the night about any and everything. Conversations where we didn't hold back. We put ourselves, along with our deepest questions and concerns, on the table. We were honest and felt safe in it. We also weren't consumed with how often our glass was being filled or when the ceiling fan was last dusted (although those things are nice).

And isn't real fellowship one of the things that makes Christianity most appealing? That we could be fully known and still loved? Isn't it the desire we all share down deep? Isn't it the reason we blog, go to church or invite people over to begin with? And if not, isn't it what we want our reason to be?

Hospitality is at the core of Christianity. And it's not just for married women. It's for all of us, single or married, male or female, rich or poor, fancy home or tiny flat. Why? Because God's Kingdom was created for all of us and should be ushered in by us.

Michaela Rae
P.S. Last week I added Kurt and my love story here. Just incase you're in a sappy mood. ;)

Easy British Scones

Good morning readers! I have to say, I had the best day off yesterday. Not only did I get to do my food shopping in my new favorite coat, but I made proper British scones and enjoyed them with clotted cream and tea. How appropriate of me, right?

Let me first show off my little red riding hood coat, as I like to call it. I snagged this one on Boxing Day. I love the color red, warm coats with big hoods and good deals, so this was a win x3.

Now for the scones. These are so easy it's hard to believe they taste so good. I started making these late in the morning and they were the perfect brunch. The recipe lends approximately 10 scones and takes hardly any time to whip up.

You'll need:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup butter at room temp.

1 cup milk

1 egg

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Cut butter into dry ingredients and mix it in with your fingers until only small pea sized bits are left.

2. In a small bowl beat egg and milk together. Sir wet mixture into flour mixture until fully moistened. 

3. On a lightly floured surface kneed dough briefly. Choose whether to add other ingredients, like dried fruit, lemon or orange zest. I cut my dough in half and added dried cranberries and orange zest to one part. 

4. Roll dough out into 1/2 inch round. Cut pie piece wedges out of the dough and place on baking sheet.

5. Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

While the scones are baking, I highly recommend making some Devonshire cream. Here's a great recipe for it. I was able to get Robba's Cornish Clotted Cream at my local grocery so I stuck with that. It's really tasty. I even enjoyed mine with the homemade blueberry jam my sister sent me for Christmas. Thank you Alicia, I love it!

So so good. 

What adventure did you have this week? Link up at Alicia's Homemaking. 

Michaela Rae

Cranberry Coffee Cake

It's been awhile since I shared a recipe, to be frank, I haven't spent much time in the kitchen recently. But today (hooray for days off), I made baking a priority. I wanted to try something warm and Christmasy - something I could enjoy by my Christmas tree with a cup of hot chocolate. This Cranberry Coffee Cake was the perfect thing. I love anything cranberry and Greek yogurt is my new thing and this recipe perfectly incorporates both! Thanks Two Peas and Their Pod and thanks Pinterest for guiding me there.

Here's what you'll need

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

Zest of 1 large orange

1/2 c butter at room temp.

2 large eggs

1 cup plain Greek Yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh cranberries

Streusel Filling & Topping

3/4 cup all-purpose flower

3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 stick unsalted butter at room temp.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

2. In a small bowl blend dry ingredients together: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

3. In a medium bowl combine sugar and orange zest. Cream together the butter and sugar mixture until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth. Add Greek yogurt and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.

4. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined. Gently fold in the fresh cranberries.

5. For the streusel topping and filling, stir together the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl. With your fingers work the butter into the mixture until evenly distributed.

6. Pour half of the cake batter into the prepared cake pan. Sprinkle half of the streusel topping over top. Spoon the rest of the batter over the filling and spread gently. Sprinkle the remaining of the streusel on top. 

7. Bake until golden and toothpick comes out clean, approximately 35-40 minutes. 

ENJOY! Before baking, I sprinkled a few finely chopped pecans on the top of my cake and it was a tasty touch. 

What recipes have you tried recently and loved? Has anyone made homemade eggnog? I can't find any here and I'm really craving it. Just might be my next venture.

Michaela Rae

Flat 3

Today I want to give you a virtual tour of our flat! It's been crazy trying to settle and we don't have internet in our flat yet - it's made blogging difficult, so I'm really excited to show you these photos. I also have many future blog posts in mind, I can't wait to fill you all in on everything.

Our living/dining room area before and after we moved in. 

Excuse my painting supplies on the right...hehe.

Our itty bitty kitchen. On the left we have our sink and fridge, right our washing machine (funny, huh?), stove and oven. 

Our bedroom. Yes, that's a pink bedspread, haha. Kurt was ok with it because it was the only one we could find for 12 pounds. 

The guest room before we put all our empty luggage in it & stood the bed up on itself and put it against the wall so we could put a desk in for Kurt. Don't worry, when you come to visit we'll make it all pretty & cozy for you.  =D

And that's about it! I don't have pictures of the bathroom yet, haha...but you're not missing much. I love having a little home; this is really the first time we've settled since being married. I must say though, homemaking is more work than I expected. Did I mention our flat is on the 4th floor? At least I don't have to worry about fitting in a daily work out. We've only been here a week and I can tell I'm "getting in shape"...it's great!

On our first night in the flat we invited Kurt's friend, Daniel, over for dinner. Kurt met him 3 years ago on a bus when he was visiting London and they've kept in contact since (a very Kurt like thing to do). Daniel brought us several little house warming gives: bread pudding, a bottle of chardonnay and a really delicious smoothie drink called Innocent Smoothie. It was fun to have a visitor and in a strange way it made us feel home. I'm praying we have many more visitors to our flat. ;)

Here are a few other pictures from the week. 

We don't have a dryer, so hang drying it is!

Central London

Flat view

Flat warming gift

Cath Kidson shop in Wimbledon Village

My two new favorite things

Michaela Rae

Settling in to Life in England

Ello from London!
The last few days have been a blur, but we've made it in one piece to our home for the next one, possibly three, years! We've been learning how to open a bank account/transfer funds, use the bus and tube system and the best way to flat hunt. Today's been exciting and I feel nearly recovered from jet-lag so I wanted to share some about it.

Yesterday we started to feel discouraged. All the flats we viewed were either out of our budget or too far from transportation. To make matters worse, most of the letting agents we spoke with were a little greasy. We weren't sure we could trust anything they said. But today the cloud finally broke over-head (actually, literally, it was sunny), we found a flat in Wimbledon. It's right across the street from the tube station, in an awesome part of town, on the main road full of shops and restaurants, has two bedrooms (something we definitely weren't expecting) and move in day's tomorrow! Kurt also excited that it's located above a Subway restaurant, haha. It's in need of cleaning and cute decorating, but all things considered, a great catch. I'll be sure to post pictures soon. It's such a relief to have a home.

After finding the flat we decided to venture into central London. The city is beautiful by night! A bit different than I expected but I love it. I snapped a few photos but I can't seem to load them now. I'll be more on top of things in the future. ;-)

England is beautiful. I knew from the moment I looked out the plane window, and saw all the clay-shingled roofs and luscious green below, that I'd like it. I've also been surprised by how friendly people are. I love all the conversations you have throughout the day on the tube, in the grocery store or waiting in queue. I definitely don't feel like a fish out of water as much as I expected I would.



Cheers!
Michaela Rae

Link up to my sister's blog to share your Thursday adventures: Alicia's Homemaking.