Dinner · entertaining · Family life · home · Home making · hospitality · main dish · Main entree · Make-Ahead · refreshment at home · Side dish

(L)Oven Monday – Successful Sunday Dinner Finale

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Today is the last post for Successful Sunday dinner.  I will continue to share my recipes and what I served at my house, but as far as the 1,2,3’s, we’re going to wrap it up and get you ready to dive into that great Sunday meal for your family!

Remember that if it’s your desire to make Sunday dinner special at your house, it’s going to take some intentional effort and planning. Here were the three crucial steps before getting the meal going:

  1. Ponder the needs –

  2. Plan the menu 

  3. Prepare ahead

  • Ponder the needs -Consider any allergies or health concerns, like diabetes.
  • Plan the menu around those needs, your time and budget.  Typically if I’m making a main dish or a bread that requires lots of time, I’ll make another part of the meal easier to prepare.
  • Prepare ahead by doing everything you can on Saturday (or before).  It will lessen your stress level!
    • Set the table
    • Chop all veggies
    • Marinate meat
    • Prepare the salad
    • Prepare the dessert
    • Get the side dishes started

Let me give you a little rundown on how my week may look when I’m hosting a typical Sunday dinner…

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Early in the week – 

Wednesday – 

  • Make Rolls and freeze
  • Check to see if tablecloth or napkins need ironing

Saturday – 

  • Prep chicken dish and  go ahead and bake it.  All it needs on Sunday is to be warmed up. I wouldn’t leave this dish in the oven during church – it would dry out.
  • Peel potatoes and place in water overnight
  • Cut up apples for salad and place in lemon juice/water mixture overnight
  • Make Vinaigrette for salad
  • Wash and slice strawberries
  • Make tea
  • Set table
  • Set out serving dishes

Sunday – Before church

  • Mix salad ingredients, except dressing
  • Put potatoes in crock pot, turn on high
  • Set rolls out to rise

Sunday – After church

  • Set out a light snack for guests, if needed
  • Warm chicken either in a large pan on the stove or in the microwave on a med setting.
  • Prep asparagus for roasting
  • Mash potatoes and keep warm
  • Bake rolls – Keep warm
  • Roast asparagus
  • Put into serving dishes

Enjoy the meal!!!

Serve dessert and then pray someone volunteers to help with the dishes!

I hope this series has helped you to see that you CAN make Sunday dinner something special and memorable.  Start out small and work your way into more complicated menus.  Do what you feel comfortable with and keep trying to improve your game plan.

 

Remember that the most important ingredient of any meal is THE PEOPLE!  Don’t make it about you and your inadequacies.  Make them feel welcome and important and they will love their time around your Sunday dinner table!

Is there an unanswered question that you have?  I’d be happy to address it!  Leave me a comment here and I promise to answer you!

Let’s eat!

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Family life · home · Motherhood · Parenting

Family Friday – The Price of Sparing the Rod

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When you bring a sweet little baby into your home, your last thoughts are about the time when you’ll need to correct them.  I mean, they’re so adorable and innocent when they’re little!  But those discipline days come sooner than you imagined, and you find yourself either taking up the rod and lovingly obeying Scripture, or you talk, reason, bribe and threaten until you’re sure someone will die in the process!

I can vividly remember one day with one of my daughters in which I learned a lesson the long, hard way.  She had been a “stinker” all day.  I had warned her and tried to use my words to correct her behavior  (using words as rods is just cruel!).  Late in the day I realized that I failed to obey God’s directives to take up the “rod,” and discipline her in love.  I pulled her to my lap and told her that what she was doing was sin, and that because she’d continued to disobey after my warning, I was going to have to give her a spanking because I loved her and didn’t want her to continue in her sin.  She bent over my lap and I administered the two or three swats with my little paddle.  She cried.  I cried.  I held her in my arms and we prayed that the Lord would help her obey.

Tears were wiped away and she merrily skipped on her way to continue her play.  She was so HAPPY!  Her attitude was completely transformed, as was our day!  It was as though she had been waiting for me to deal with her biblically to prove the amount of love I had for her.  

A parent who loves their child will discipline them as God disciplines us.  Over and out.  I had selfishly kept back from the training she needed.  But now, here she was, singing, playing, and happy after the loving rebuke.  She knew I loved her, and I had learned the lesson to give the correction when it was needed so we could both enjoy the child/parent relationship as God intended!

Do you find yourself frustrated as the parent of a young child?  Have you obeyed God’s Word and lovingly administered discipline?  It’s God’s way, and if used lovingly and consistently, will produce the results of leading a child to recognize their sin, and their need to repent – both to God and their parents.  Stop the frustration, and obey so your child can do the same!

Don’t lose heart; train your children with love and your relationship will be refreshed in unbelievable ways!

I read this article this week that was excellent.  I pray it will encourage you as a parent!

Lovingly,

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friends · Refreshment

That’s What Friends Are For!

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The beautiful scene above was the setting for the “Ladies’ Day” I was privileged to speak at last weekend in the UP.  The church has a very adequate and comfy mission house where we lodged.  The only thing between me and the church was this snowy parking lot.

I had the blessing of having a dear friend travel with me.  She graciously volunteered to accompany me on this adventure.  When I questioned if she was sure she wanted to make that sacrifice, she said, “What are friends for?!”

What a joy to have someone literally “at my elbow” all weekend!  We navigated the airports, meal decisions, hilarious situations in the airports, bumps in the presentation of my lessons, AND this parking lot, side by side.  She’s a decade+ younger than me, so she would link her arm in mine as we maneuvered across the parking lot, turned ice rink.  As we walked  I would hear,

Watch that patch of ice!

Look out for that rock – it’s pure ice!

Careful here!

Don’t slip right there!

Together we made it to the safety of the church building where we continued to serve together. Not many would have known she was serving – she did it from hidden places – the quiet of her room at the mission house when she prayed and also wrote me an encouraging card, in the mission kitchen when she fastidiously watched an egg boiling so it would be the “perfect” soft-boiled egg.  Then she served from way up high in their sound room as she flipped my Power Point presentation for me, all the while missing out on the action in the sanctuary.

Again she served as she snapped pictures of me talking to the ladies afterwards so I could remember them as I wrote their names in my prayer journal upon returning home.  She was always on the lookout for how she might serve, and she did it in a way that God was glorified and those around her were blessed.

She won’t like it that I’m recognizing her in this post, but I must because she is the essence of what a real friend does.  It’s far deeper than getting powerpoint slides on a screen – it involves coming alongside, looking for ways to serve and encourage.  Sometimes I think she has a secret camera in my world because her timing is uncanny!  That comes from a person walking under the Spirit’s control and allowing Him to prompt her, because “that’s what friends are for.”

I learned so much about friendship this weekend as I considered her.

  • Folks all around me need a “hand on their elbow,” if you will.  They need to know that someone sees their need and cares enough to reach out to them.
  • They need my close communion with God so that I will be directed to when and how I might serve them.
  • It’s risky business being a friend- she could have gone down with me, had I fallen, but she didn’t mind.  I doubt she ever gave it a thought.  She was more concerned with what I needed next, because “that’s what friends are for!”

My take–away’s about friendship:

  1. Look for needs – what could I give?
  2. Look for weaknesses – how should I pray?
  3. Look for gaps – how might I serve?
  4. Look for disappointment – how could I bless?

I’m not the only one blessed with this dear friend; she has more friends than springtime has daffodils, and it’s no wonder!  Today I honor her and the many other friends the Lord has poured so richly into my life.  Some are close, some are far away.  Some I don’t talk to very often, but we could pick up the phone today and pick up where we left off. Thank you for the blessing of your frirendship!

Let’s don’t isolate ourselves; we need each other.  Let’s link arms and navigate life together – That’s what friends are for!

Lovingly,

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breakfast · Cooking · home

Wednesday ~ What’s Cookin’?

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I thought we’d do something new today.  I’m demonstrating a recipe I’ve shared here for my homemade granola.  You’ve seen this picture –

granola

and you’ve seen the recipe,  but sometimes it’s just good to watch someone do a demonstration to realize that you can do it, too!  I’ve made up a half batch in the following video…

Hope you’ll watch it again and make up a batch for your family!

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Christian Life · God's character · joy · trust

I’m Not Going!

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Reflecting back on the retreat I was privileged to be a part of this weekend makes me shake my head in amazement once again at my great God.  That He would allow me to share His Word with ladies and teach them from the overflow of what He’s taught me, is absolutely amazing!  It is a  joy beyond compare!

It’s also the hardest thing I ever do.  There is such an overwhelming understanding of the responsibility to handle God’s Word correctly and lead ladies to Truth, and to do it in a way that God alone gets the glory.

If you could hear me before I go to speak, you might wonder why in the world God would send me!  Seriously!  I go through the agony of:doubting that what I’ve spent many hours preparing is what I should be doing.  I gasp and wonder what in the world I was thinking when I was sure this is what God wanted me to share!  My husband and close friends will hear me say,

I’m not going!

It’s then that they know they need to pray much for my weakness.  It’s also at that point that I fall on my knees before Him once again and give Him everything – myself, my words, my outline, my heart, myself.  It’s  a cycle that happens every. single. time.  But it’s necessary, you see, because it empties me of myself and makes me realize that I indeed do NOT have what it will take to go speak and help anyone.  I CANNOT make anything happen in myself.  I am totally nothing without God’s empowering.
My words are empty. My strength is weak.  My plans will fail.

But God…

  • is strong when I am weak.
  • is almighty.
  • is able to do exceeding abundantly .
  • is my all in all.

I sincerely believe that the Lord allows me to speak so that I will continually be drawn to Him in utter dependence.  I’m so thankful for that!  I don’t want what I can do because I’ve seen what He can do!!

What is it in your life right now that is making you realize that you are so very unable to do what is before you?  God gives each of us at least one thing to cause our eyes to look upward, pleading for His possible power when the situation seems impossible to us!

Lift your hands toward heaven and remember that He is your All in All!  He can do the impossible in and through you when you let go and trust solely in Him.

Do you have an impossible situation?  Will you allow Christ to be your All in All this moment?  He is enough. Take it from someone who knows because she DID go, and God did all the work.  Praise His name!

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