Cold winter days beg for some kind of comforting potato dish. Right?  Right. Yesterday was cold, and I loved coming home from church to this dish! This is a twist on scalloped potatoes.  The ingredients may sound a little odd, but trust me, the combinations are fantastic together, turning a simple potato into a gourmet style side dish.  I don’t really like cabbage, but the way it’s flavored and pared with the apples, I’m hooked.  Any vegetable that has whipping cream in it has to be good!  It gives the dish a rich taste.

We had Delmonico Deviled Chicken as the main course; I shared this recipe a long time ago, but it never made it to the recipe index until now, so I’m going to re-post the recipe today.  How in the world the simple combination of ingredients turns a piece of chicken so delicious, is beyond me, but it does!  The Chicken  has a little mixture spread over it before baking, and it flavors it incredibly!  Read on for the recipe.

Here was the menu:

Homemade Biscuits

 Layered Potato Casserole

4 medium raw potatoes, pared and sliced
1/2 head cabbage, sliced
1 1/2 cups apple, diced
1 medium onion, sliced
Salt and pepper
3 Tbsp butter
1/2 pint whipping cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup bread crumbs

Butter a 3 quart long, flat casserole dish.  Begin with potatoes as the bottom layer, and layer the cabbage, apple, and onion.  Place butter dabs on top; pour whipping cream evenly over casserole.  Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees, covered.  Uncover and top with Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs, brown additional 10-15 minutes.

Delmonico Deviled Chicken
2-1/2 to 3 lbs chicken, in quarters – you could also use thighs and breasts
4 T butter, softened
1 T prepared mustard
1 T vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t cayenne, or to taste (I use about 1/8)
1 C bread crumbs (I like to use Panko bread crumbs, found with the Japanese food)

Wash chicken and pat dry with paper towels.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Place chicken in shallow roasting pan.  Mix all ingredients, except bread crumbs – will be like a thick paste.  Rub mixture on topside of chicken.  Sprinkle with bread crumbs.  Bake 45-60 minutes, or until juices run clear.

To prepare this on Sunday, I use bone-in chicken and baked it at 300 degrees, covered.

Did you come home to dinner yesterday?  What was cooking in your part of the country?

With love from my country kitchen,

The best thing I’ve done in the last several years is memorize Scripture.  Oh, I’d tucked away a verse here and a verse there in the past, but to buckle down and memorize chapters/books of the Bible has been such a treasure.  I pull up those verses in my mind in stressful times, in times of anxiousness, in times of need in others’ lives.  No one can ever take that treasure from me.  What a blessing!

Most of memorizing is just pure work, but there are tools to help, and I found a new one this week that I have to share with you.  This is an app for your phone!  How handy is that?  And it’s free!  My favorite price for anything!  It’s called Don’t forget.  

You can choose the translation from which you want to memorize and it will download onto the app.  Then it will say the verse outloud so you can listen to it over and over.  You can choose to eliminate one verse from the written form, one word at a time until you can look at it and say it from memory!

I LOVE this app!  You can upload 25 verses.  It tells you how many times you’ve reviewed the verse, and I believe you can have it remind you to work on it!

Refresh your heart with the memorization of Scripture, and freshen up the way you go about it with this great tool!

See you in church!

Be refreshed,

You see, at Christmastime I look at all that has to be done, and I realize that it’s pretty much me that has to get it all accomplished.  This list includes:

With love,

I haven’t done a lot of pictures of my house yet – just little snips here and there.  That’s on purpose.  For one, I’m still settling in, AND then I’m wanting our church people to stop in and see it before it gets posted here.  We have our Open house next weekend, so I’m saving my Christmas photos until after that.   However, I thought I’d give you a little peek today of my favorite room (however, that changes by the hour!)  and its Christmas touches.

This is my bedroom, but it’s also the place where I’m enjoying having my quiet time with the Lord on these winter days.  I love being able to create a cozy place to meet with the Lord.  This is my current spot.  I don’t think it could get any cozier!  I never thought I’d have a fireplace in my home, but to have two is an extra-special grace blessing from the Lord. I don’t deserve God’s goodness, and I marvel in it every single day.  On these recent cold mornings, I’ve been enjoying sitting up close to the fire while I open my Bible and hear from the Lord.

I’ve decorated my mantle with white lights and greenery and a little splash of red.  The Christmas tree there is one I made years ago from pieces of wood.  It’s flat on the back, and hangs on the wall.  It’s perfect for a spot that needs a tree, but not a full-sized one.  I’m not a fan of huge television screens hanging on my wall; I’d rather have something pretty!  If I ever hung over the mantle, I’d put one of those beautiful covers over it, or the lovely woodwork around it.  Something like this picture I found…

But for now it’s just …

Not sure why my tall lamp is a white-out, but that’s what the “glow” up there is!

Do you decorate your bedroom for Christmas?

From my country porch,

What a fun evening last night was!  It was our Ladies’ Christmas Tea; a night of yummy finger foods, festive decorations, friendship, laughs and encouragement from God’s Word.

I won’t lie – these kind of events, while they are definitely all the above, they are also physically exhausting, mentally draining, and can even be spiritually difficult.  The devil fights when anything good for the glory of God is going on.  Before the event things get tough.  During the event, slip-ups happen, or guests don’t show up.  Afterwards the accusations and doubts step in.  You wonder if it was really all that great, if it accomplished the desired goal, and if it was effective for eternity.  It’s at this point that right thinking must step in.  As swiftly as we grab the broom and dustpan after the guests have departed, I must run to the Lord in my quiet place and give to Him (once again) every moment of this work I’ve done for Him.  I realize that if anything was profitable spiritually for those that attended, it was all by His strength.  Just as the dust and crumbs vanish from the floor, so the worries and stresses must be cast aside; covered by His grace.

Is there a work, or ministry that you’re involved in?  Can I encourage you to not let yourself get discouraged by the onslaught of criticisms, or discouragements that come your way, either real or just “felt.”  There is no “perfect” work, only a perfect Savior.  Keep doing what you’re doing for His glory.  One day we’ll all have eyes to see what the Lord did in the humble, feeble attempts we made at serving Him here on this earth.  Then the fatigue, the weariness, and the warfare will be worth it all!

Let’s just keep serving!

With love,