I am headed this morning, Lord willing, to The Wilds Christian Camp for the annual ladies’ retreat. I am going with a group from our church and it’s a group that is pumped about going! Some wonder why we would go to all the trouble to be away for one night, but it only takes going once to bring understanding to that question.

Before I begin talking about cooking, let me add one thought to the entry from yesterday. When you do comparison shopping at Wal-Mart, you cannot use the “buy one, get one free” items. You have to use price comparisons. That being said, we’ll focus our thoughts today on saving money by the way we cook.

Trying new recipes is a favorite hobby of mine, but sometimes buying all the ingredients for a particular dish can be expensive. Here’s how I cook creatively, as well as keep within a reasonable budget…

We buy nearly all of our meat when it is marked down. The meat isn’t spoiled, it’s just that the date on the package is for today or tomorrow and the Ingles near us wants to get it out of their store before that date. We may go and find chicken breasts on sale for $2 a package, ground chuck for $1.50 and steaks for $4. We’ll load up our cart and stick the meat in the freezer. If what I’m buying is in a package with many servings, I’ll repackage it into usable portions. This meat is what I use to create my meals.

I always plan a menu for the week; this is really a money-saver! If you wait until the afternoon to try to come up with a plan for supper you probably won’t have all the ingredients and will have to make daily runs to the grocery store – this is really costly. I sit down at the beginning of the week and create my menu based on what meat is in the freezer. I also look at the sale papers and see what’s on sale to consider what I’ll fix. Lasagna can be expensive to prepare with the meat and cheeses, but if I already have the beef and I see that Kroger has Kraft cheese for $1.50 a package, I’ll see that this would be a good week to prepare a lasagna. If red peppers are on sale for $1 each I may decide to use the chicken strips in the freezer and make chicken fajitas.

Have you noticed that one of my favorite tools is my freezer? My 17 year-old laughs at me because I’m always suggesting that we stick items in there. Often a recipe will make a huge dish-full and we don’t need all of it since there’s just three of us. Instead of baking the whole thing right then, I’ll assemble it, label it (things don’t look the same once they’re frozen!), then separate it into two dishes, sticking one in the freezer to use on a busy day, or to share with someone else.

When I’m making a single pie crust I’ll go ahead and make two, putting the other one in the freezer after covering it with syran and foil. It’s great to have a crust ready at another time. When I buy shredded cheese on sale I freeze what I don’t need. When we make cookies I’ll stick 2/3 of them in the freezer in a ziploc bag to keep them fresh until they’re needed. I bake small loaves of sour dough bread or sweet breads and keep them in the freezer to give as hostess gifts when we’re invited out. If I’ve made a big layer cake, like I did last Sunday for Easter, I’ll take the leftover cake, slice it into individual slices and put them into ziploc sandwich bags for the freezer. If someone wants a snack they can go pull out just one slice of cake.

If you’re wondering what things freeze well, think about the frozen food aisle at the grocery store. They sell hundreds of items that have been frozen. Look it over the next time you’re there and then use that as your inspiration! You can even buy frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with no crust! If your child is begging you to buy those kinds of prepared foods that hike up your grocery bill in a hurry, be creative and make your own!

Saving money while preparing good food isn’t a gift, it’s a matter of organizing your time to buy ahead, plan ahead and prepare ahead. With all the money you save you could buy yourself a new pair of shoes…on sale, of course!

(Do you have any creative ways you save in the kitchen? Share it with us!)

One thing that can really make my day is getting a good bargain. I love TJ Maxx and Ross, the Talbots Outlet in Lexington, KY or a nice consignment store. I’ll only buy my clothes when they’ve been reduced down to a bargain (I was trained by a professional – thanks, Mom!).

Does it ever seem to you that the things you are experiencing right now are lasting “forever?” There seems no end in sight to perhaps suffering, financial struggles, relationship issues, etc. You may be asking the Lord, “When will this end?”
I read this morning in Luke 16 about Lazarus, a man who knew what it meant to suffer. Here’s what we learn about him:

· He was a beggar; he was poor and had no means to provide for himself
· He is lame and was brought with someone’s help to the gate of a rich man
· He is covered with sores
· He ate from the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table
The next thing we read about Lazarus, the beggar, is that he died and was carried to heaven by the angels. His suffering is now over. Now he is seated at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God. He is no longer a pauper; he is feasting!

There is another man mentioned in this passage, he is referred to as “the rich man.”Here is what we learn of him:

· He is clothed in purple and fine linen
· He ate sumptuously every day
· He fed his dogs to the full and overlooked the needs of this hungry beggar, Lazarus

We read that the rich man died too – this is the only thing he had in common with Lazarus. Death has no partialities; And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). However, after his death he finds himself tormenting in hell. He is not there because he was rich, there is no sin necessarily in riches. He is there because he allowed his riches to be the center of his life instead of God. In his mind he thinks about Lazarus and can see him in heaven with the saints that are there. It seems that these two men have changed places. Lazarus, who had suffered on earth, is now faring sumptuously. The rich man, who had it easy on earth, is now the beggar. His plea in his torment is that Lazarus might bring him a drop of water to cool his tongue and relieve his torment in the flames. Think of it – a man who had all he could want on earth is begging for a drop of water; that is poverty!

Now, what about this thing of suffering lasting “forever?” For one that has made this earth their heaven and has rejected Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for their sins, their suffering will begin the moment of their death and will continue for eternity. Don’t let death be the beginning of your suffering; God loves you and desires that you become His child by receiving His gift of salvation. But God commendeth (proved) His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Lazarus’s suffering ended with his entrance into heaven, and so shall ours if we know Christ as our Savior. What a glorious thought!

This Easter weekend was a blessing. I had the privilege of going to Bob Jones University to view The Living Gallery. View the Link here: http://www.bju.edu/ If you’ve never been, it’s impossible to try to describe it, but you could get a little glimpse of what I saw by viewing the web page. It was a blessing as we listened to the story and saw art depicting Christ’s death, the darkness, the earthquake, the burial by Joseph of Arimathea, and the glorious report of the empty tomb!