Butterbeer Recipe

For starters, I want to give credit to the following site for this recipe as it is not mine in any way shape or form:
http://wizardingworldpark.com/top-5-butterbeer-recipes/2010/08/20/
But this is the best Butterbeer recipe that I have come across without counting what they actually have at the wizarding world.  I hope that with only 1 week left until the big day that this will come in handy for at least a few people! Enjoy!

Our final result!

Ingredients
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup heavy cream, divided
1/2 teaspoon rum extract
4 12oz. bottles cream soda

Directions
In a small sauce pan, over medium heat, combine the brown sugar and water.  Bring to a gentle boil and cook, stirring often, until the mixture reads 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer.

Stir in the butter, salt, cider vinegar, and 1/4 cup heavy cream. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the rum extract.

In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar mixture and the remaining heavy cream. Use an electric mixer to beat until just thickened, but not completely whipped. About 2 to 3 minutes.

To serve, divide the brown sugar mixture between 4 tall glasses. (About 1/4 cup each)  Add 1/4 cup of cream soda to each glass, then stir to combine.  Fill each glass nearly to the top with additional cream soda, then spoon the whipped topping over each.

Pumpkin Juice Recipe

So in all of the rush of preparations for the eighth Harry Potter movie, I'm sure that some people are going to engage in some Hogwartian festivities.  And what better to do this with in the summer than with Pumpkin Juice?  For some people it may not be exactly "convenient" to drive to Orlando, Fl to buy a bottle from the Wizarding World, so I have the next best thing.  After a few failed attempts I think that I finally have a solid recipe for a drinkable pumpkin juice!  So here goes!


Ingredients
2 quarts apple cider, divided
1 piece fresh ginger, (2") sliced
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 16oz. can pumpkin puree


Directions
Pour 3 cups of the apple cider into a saucepan; add the ginger slices, cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and cloves. Bring the mixture to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, add the honey and brown sugar, and stir to dissolve. Refrigerate the mixture until well-chilled, or up to a week.

When ready to serve, strain the apple cider mixture into a large pitcher. Add the remaining apple cider and the pumpkin puree; stir well.

Also, the pumpkin puree can probably be left out, but if it is used, be sure to use a good blender to cut it with.  And also be sure that you have a very good method of straining or else you will have bits and pieces everywhere!

I hope this works out for everyone and please tell me if it doesn't!! Oh yes, and tuck in!

Defending Our Castles

I was thinking about my friend the other day that has problems letting people in and I was thinking about how our hearts are like castles in a way.  We put huge walls and gates (sometimes with winged boars on each side) around them and we censor who we let in and keep out.  Then once we do let people into the castle grounds, there are still things outside the castle like the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid's Hut, and the Black Lake to deal with.  It's not until we allow someone into the Great Hall that we really start revealing ourselves to people.

Now, if you haven't figured it out quite yet, I am drawing a fair amount of parallels to the infamous Hogwarts castle from Harry Potter.  Whether or not this makes sense to do this, I don't quite know many other castles to make this analogy with.  So I am taking this paragraph to apologize for any disconnects that I have caused by this.  But for those of you who know about places such as the Room of Requirement and the Astronomy Tower, I think this may have some value.

Some people are perfectly willing to open up the gates to their castle and let in anyone who wants to join.  However, there is the opposite end of the spectrum to consider, the ones who let no one in whatsoever.  These are the people that are troubling to me, maybe not so much because they don't let people in, but rather because they allow people to see certain things about themselves without ever letting them in.  They let you look through the gates and gaze down from the mountains and you can get a good glimpse of what their "castle" is all about, but you don't actually know anything about it.

In a healthy relationship you would allow your closer friends into some of the more private rooms, such as Gryffindor Tower or the Room of Requirement.  And likewise, The person you marry, you would end up sharing your castle with, even allowing them access to the Headmaster's office.  Basically, the more intense relationships allow for more access inside of this "castle".

The goal is to have varying degrees of relationships on your life in order to have people to lean on when you need them.  Because at some point or another, in this crazy world we live in, our castle is going to be under attack.  It isn't pretty, it isn't fun, but it is the truth.  Granted, it may be feeble attacks, they are attacks nonetheless. And why it matters that we let people into our castle is this.  When we do undergo a large attack on our "castle", and make no mistake, we will, we have people backing us up.  We have people on our side, people to protect us.  Otherwise, we are left to fight the world by ourselves.  Otherwise, our castles will burn, and it becomes ever harder to let people in.  It becomes almost impossible to face our castles ourselves.  Then you are left wishing you just had a new castle, but that's the funny thing about it.  We only get one chance at a heart, so we have to value it more than anything.

A Choice to be Made

After reading the Harry Potter series again for the 3rd time, I finally am starting to see the underlying message that Mrs. Rowling had placed in her ever incredible story.  Yes, there is a clear and defined moral.  It's that our actions and desires claim who we are in life.  Even from the very beginning Harry is faced with the prospect of being sorted into the Slytherin House, which he sorely desires not to go.  But as we come to find out, he wasn't sorted into Gryffindor solely because he wasn't meant for Slytherin, but rather because he desperately didn't want to become a Slytherin.  

As the books go on we see more and more instances of this being true.  Harry saves Wormtail from the fate he surely deserved and not to mention the fact that he set aside his loathing for Sirius to hear his case.  Then he saves Cedric from Krum and also allows him to take the cup at the same time as himself.  Even in the face of being possessed by Voldemort, Harry finds the means to unlock his happiness and remorse to defeat him.  It's this constant stream of if vigilance towards all things dark that sets Harry apart from Voldemort.  Even in the most minor of details, it is Harry's yearning for good and Voldemort's thirst for evil that allow the story to unfold as beautifully as it does.  As Harry approaches Death so openly, it is his will to save the people around him that keeps him alive and eventually kills Voldemort.  His quest to not only set himself apart from all things Dark, but to also not let anyone suffer on his behalf embodies why Harry wasn't picked to be Slytherin that day.  But it does something even more essential.  It is meant to teach us something as well.

In life we will always be faced with choices.  Whether they are big, small, difficult, or easy, however, doesn't matter.  It is the consistency that we have in making them that matters.  If it wasn't for the choices that we make and for the desires that we have to be fulfilled, then what would we have to define ourselves by?  We haven't been put here to only think and feel certain things.  Harry didn't just think to himself that he wished none of this bad stuff would happen, he made choices, and those choices became actions.  God didn't put us here in hopes that we would only think He was our savior, master, and creator.  But rather he hoped that we would discover that and teach everyone around us what we have learned.  He hoped that we would not only feel His goodness, but live in it also.

Like it or not we are going to be faced with big decisions in life. They may not be good and evil decisions, but they will be life altering.  Because, by the nature of decision, life is inherently altered.  So what I am asking, what I am hoping for myself and my friends and my very few readers and really everyone in the world, is to be weary of our decisions.  Put stock in them, and really believe in them for specific reasons.  Don't just act because there is action to be had.  But act because there is feeling behind that action.  Or else we are shaking Draco Malfoy's hand in front of the door to the great hall.  Or else, we're just drones, at the mercy of world around us.  And that is something that I wish on no one.

Wizarding Gothic

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