My Desktop Photo 48: Still In The Ogilvies

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click on photo for larger view)

Favorite Things: Heritage Grill . . . and Lefse, Too

I got my Bethany Housewares Heritage Grill with Teflon finish for making lefse. I’ve used it 5 or 6 times for that and it works great.

Better yet, it is the best grill I’ve ever had for frying eggs, hash browns, sausage, bacon, pancakes, or cooking just about anything else that’s grilled. The non-stick finish means it’s not necessary to use more than a light brush of oil to fry eggs, hash browns or other food that contain little grease of their own.

And the Teflon seems indestructible. My grill has been used almost daily for a year and a half, often by family members who are not as protective of the finish as I am, and it’s still pristine.

Come to think of it, I’ll have to take back the bit about me being the most careful one using my grill. Just the other day, I left it on with a turner on top—a turner that melted into a liquid plastic pool on the beautiful non-stick surface. But everything wiped right off once the hot plastic cooled enough for me to do the wiping. Did I mention the surface seems indestructible?

The only drawback, I suppose, is the late sixties look. That, I’m guessing, is because it’s such a good product there’s been no big push to change things up since the sixties. I think of it as stylishly retro and rejoice that this grill’s consistency over the years means I can order replacement legs or a new probe control from Bethany Housewares if needed. [Update: I also found replacement handles.]

I could live without my electric fry pan or George Foreman type grill, but I wouldn’t want to live without my Heritage grill. A quick google search shows that this grill is available from several different suppliers, including Amazon and Target. I bought mine at the Ace Hardware store in my Minnesota hometown.

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Speaking of lefse, here’s the recipe I use to make it. It comes from my friend Judy, who calls it Norwegian manna. [Update: See photos of the lefse making process.]

• 2 1/2 pounds of baking potatoes
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• Soft butter and sugar for serving

Peel and boil potatoes. Drain and cool.

Put potatoes through a ricer or mash. Beat in butter, cream, sugar and salt. Refrigerate uncovered.

The next day add flour. Stir well. Divide into 20 pieces. Heat grill or pan.

On a floured surface roll out the balls into circles as thin as possible. (My grandmother would slip the wooden stick out of a window shade and use it to transfer the lefse to the griddle.) Cook on each side of the ungreased pan. Stack between towels. After they are cool I stack them together, fold in half and place in a large plastic bag.

As needed butter and sugar a circle. Fold in half and butter and sugar again. Fold once again and cut the quarter in half.

My kids have been know to spread their lefse with peanut butter and fold it up, or wrap it around a hot dog.

Sinclair Ferguson Answers Questions

At the Ligonier Ministries Blog, Tim Challies has posted an interview with the author of In Christ Alone, the book I reviewed and recommended last week and quoted the week before.

Here’s how he answered the question “What does a Gospel-centered life look like?”

A “gospel-centered life” implies several things. First and foremost it implies that we trust in Christ as Savior and submit to him as Lord so that everything in our life is subordinate to Christ himself. This means also that we live as children of the Father and walk in the presence and power of the Spirit. So a “gospel centered life” is also a life that has been bent back from its natural condition to have its center in God the Trinity. But to live a gospel centered life we also need to learn the “grammar” of the gospel. I mean that we need to see that all the imperatives (commands, exhortations) we find in the New Testament are rooted in the indicatives of God’s grace. So we see the gospel’s “therefore” (for example in Romans 12:1) as underlining for us that all of our Christian living arises out of our new life in Christ.

Read the whole thing.