Recipe: Watergate Salad

Today I thought I would share a family favorite recipe that I grew up with and now we enjoy in my family. It is a simple dish that is easy to make with young children and that they enjoy. In fact, my daughter has now taken over preparing this dish any time we have a family gathering or need to take a dish to a pot luck.

Watergate Salad

1 small package of instant pistachio pudding mix

1 can (15 or 20oz) crushed pineapple, undrained

1 tub (9oz) thawed frozen whipped topping

1 cup miniature marshmallows

optional: 1/2 cup chopped nuts 

optional: 1/2 cup marachino cherries

Mix pudding with pineapple, stir in remaining ingredients. Chill until serving. 

Alex mixing the Watergate for Thanksgiving dinner.

Jen

Meal planning with an app

Like Yvonne, I also have a binder full of recipes I have collected over the years from family, friends, magazines and even the internet. It has many favorites that I still use. But, lately, I started to realize that I consulted the internet for recipes a lot more than my books. If you have a tablet or smart phone, you too might find yourself keeping more and more info there. I recently found an app that makes it very convenient for me to store recipes, compile a menu which in turn generates a grocery list. It also has a pantry inventory so that when I go shopping, I can see what is already on my shelves (a handy feature as I tend to buy extras because I don't know what I have!)

This app has a feature where you can import recipes straight from the web. So now, when I hit pinterest or browse food sites, I can quickly add a recipe to my collection. This makes it much more likely that I will use the recipe, rather than it just sit nicely on a pinterest board. For recipes that I already have in books or cards, I can just type them in and add them to the collection. 

While I did have to pay a few dollars for the app, I have found that it saves me money in the long run as the menu generated grocery list keeps me on target at the store. I love having the database of recipes to help give ideas for what to add to the menu and it is very handy to have all my recipes at my finger tips. 

You can print your shopping list and your menu, or you can keep them on your device and check off items there. While I usually print my list if I am headed right to the store, I do find it handy to have it on the devise so that if I find myself out without a list, I know just want I need. 

The app I use is Mealboard, but there are others out there that I am sure are good as well. The key is to find a system that you like and that you will use. Whether it is the treasured binder full of handwritten and typed recipes or an app, as long as it is working for you and helping you provide good meals for your family, it is a good tool! 

Jen

In Praise of Family Meals

 

 
 I know. I write a lot about food.

Apart from the fact that it's a glorious gift from God for which I grateful, I'm also very happy about the family-building opportunities which meal-times have given me throughout my adult life.

When my husband and I were first married, we used to love to have friends round for a meal. I would experiment with new recipes and ingredients we first encountered on our many travels. I felt a great deal of satisfaction at planning and preparing to host a meal for friends.

Things inevitably changed when a baby came into our family, but I knew that I did not want to waste the valuable opportunity which meal times give us for building relationships, listening and talking, modelling and guiding.

I was very lucky that, for many years, my husband was around at breakfast time with me and the children. During their middle childhoods, he was able to walk to work and back and was there at the meal times at each end of the day. I wish I could say something holy about having Bible time or praying at each meal, but that wasn't really us.

Breakfast

No, my spiritual ambitions for meals were more modest. A whole family, 'breaking our fast' together, eating nutritious meals, being polite at the table, learning to take turns in conversations, and clearing the table afterwards before we started our schoolwork, this was our aim. (School always began with a Bible reading, though.)

 

Lunch

Weekday lunches were either taken on the run, as we moved through our busy week, or just simple sandwiches and fruit. At the weekend, I tended to make more of an effort.

Even so, we usually sat down at the table together and talked about our ideas, dreams and plans. Am I painting too sweet and unrealistic a picture? Probably. We had our fair share of spillages and arguments, sulks and food-fussinesses. Sometimes, I'd prepare a picnic for the children to eat on the living room floor while they watched a movie.

Dinner

Later, Daddy would be home and dinner would, more often than not, be ready. Sometimes, though, I couldn't manage to cook anything and he'd bring something home from the shop to prepare quickly. And then we sat and ate and talked about our days.

Are you picking up on a theme? Mealtimes for us were not just about eating; they were about talking.

Would it surprise you to learn that the simple act of eating a meal together around a table is becoming obsolete in the UK? An survey a couple of years ago tells a sorry tale of solo eating of meals on laps whilst watching tv.

According to the poll of 500 people, fewer than one in five said they ate at the dining or kitchen table “one or two meals a week” compared to 13 per cent who did once a day.  Almost one in three people admitted eating at the dining table only a “few times a year”, four per cent never did while three per cent of respondents do not even own a table.

Family meal times have even been proven to benefit children's development.

Having seen the blessings of focused family interaction around a table, I humbly ask you, Dear Daughter, not to let this practice drift into obscurity. Start when your children are babies. Pull up their high chairs to the table. Let them in on the conversations. Teach them to enjoy eating together, in an unhurried and grateful way. Yes, they will need to scramble down again quite quickly and I'm not advocating pinning them there until the last adult finishes eating! Meals are for enjoyment, after all, not punishment.

Start as you mean to go on. If you don't practise a habit, it will fade.

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

Developing Your Children's Faith Through Meals ~ Shabbat



10 years ago, when our children were about 10 and 12 years old, we began a new family tradition, that of celebrating an evening meal once a week, which would be dedicated to God and signal the end of the working week and the start of our Sabbath rest. It would be along the lines of the Erev Shabbat meal which Jewish families have on Friday night but, for us, it would be on Saturday nights.

 

The idea was that this would be time for our family to rest in God's presence and talk about the things of God, not the world. We didn't keep it 'religiously'; there was always flexibility. If one or other of us had pressing engagements elsewhere then it wouldn't happen, but we tried to keep it a tradition, even through the turbulent teenage years. It was sometimes a struggle, often because I was overworked and stressed, but the prayers and the deep breaths between the various elements of the meals helped me to unwind and appreciate God's many blessings to us as a family.

 

The essential elements of the meal we have are:

• 2 white candles,
• salt in a small bowl,
• 2 loaves of bread covered with a white cloth
• a meal cooked and ready to go and
• a bottle of red wine.

 

The table is ready

There are many 'scripts' you can use, but the one we developed over the years involved several elements:

• Mother lighting the candles and blessing her family
• Thanking God for the Sabbath
• Father blessing the children
• Husbands praising their wives (this embarrassed me, but was good for me)
• Thanking God for the wine
• Thanking God for the bread
• Dipping the bread in the salt
• Talking about what God is doing in our lives

After a few years, we dispensed with the ritual pouring of water over each others' hands. we felt that this element was unnecessary for us. For the first few years, I would bake my own Chollah, but it became a bit of burden, so now I buy some really good, interesting bread. (We can't get chollah here, but we have things like olive or walnut bread instead.)

 

One of the hardest things about the weekly meal was to keep the conversation Godly. It was always so easy to want to turn our talk towards 'affairs of the world.'

 

Although this was mainly for our family, we sometimes invited others. Sometimes another family, but more often, the children's friends. Our Daughter-In-Law, Damaris, came several times, once recently being 'mother' and lighting the candles.

 

Our Shabbat meals were always looked forward to and is still something we do as often as we can. One day, I hope to have Skype up and link the Oxfordshire and Aberdeenshire families during a shabbat meal. That would be fun!

 

The end of a long week!

 

Now, Dear Daughter, I am describing what we did, not because you need to emulate this particular family tradition, but to show you one way that your family's faith could be developed through mealtimes.

 

You will surely initiate your own family traditions and whatever they are, they will be perfect for you. I'd love to hear about yours some time!

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.

Cajun Stew

Today I decided to share a favorite family recipe. This is not one that I made, but my Father-in-Law used to make this all the time when I first met the family. Whenever we would go to visit and especially for holidays we would request this recipe. The name is not really very descriptive of the dish and the story goes that he originally got the recipe from the TV "Cajun Chef" show, hence the name. It is not particularly spicy or Cajun though. :-) My FIL died last year and was very ill for several years before that, so it has been a long time since we have had this dish. But I always think of it when I think of family gatherings with him.

 I will transcribe it as it is found in the family cookbook.

Bud's Cajun Stew (Serves 6-8)

1. Prepare 5 or 6 stalks of celery and cut into 3 inch chunks
Place in a glass bowl one-half full of water and microwave for about 6 minutes.
2. Peal and cube 5 potatoes.
3. Cut 4 onions in fourths.
4. Cut up 8 carrots.
5. Cut up 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of sirloin tip or chuck roast into 2 inch cubes and have 4 beef marrow bones ready.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

1. Put one teaspoon of flour into each of 2 brown and serve bagss.
2. Salt and pepper the meat and veggies. (you may add 1 T Worcestershire sauce if you wish).
3. Place 1/2 of all items into each bag- include 2/3 cup of celery water in each bag.
4. Tie bags and place in flat type backing bag pan. (FIL used iron skillets) Punch holes in bag with knife.
5. Bake in oven for about 60 mins.

(FIL included that it is good with Toast. And we did tend to have Melba toast on the table along with cheese. But I really liked it with a good crusty bread.)

Jen

Feast or Famine?

The chances are that, at least a couple of times a day, your family will expect meals. Every day! Unless you are sharing this responsibility with your husband and until your children are old enough to cook for themselves, this will, I'm afraid, be something you need to consider.

purple basil

Often.

Sometimes, I am full of ideas and enthusiasm about good foods and cooking and celebrating mealtimes with my family and, at other times, I go through weeks on end of culinary ennui, or extreme busy-ness, unable to think beyond whatever crisis I am dealing with at the time.

If you are careful, and frugal, during the times of energy and enthusiasm and use your freezer to capture your creative bursts, then you will be able to afford to splash out on frozen or ordered-in pizza (or whatever is your favourite quick food) occasionally, when you are too tired to cook. The one will balance out the other.

However, dear daughter, if you are so disorganised that you never seem to get ahead or you are feeling resentful about the amount of time you are expected to spend in the kitchen, well, that ways lies financial trouble and, possibly, poor nutrition for your growing children.

My advice is to invest in yourself. Buy a couple of good cookbooks that have stood the test of time and are built on concepts of Godly stewardship, like these two beauties.
 

 

Then, embracing your destiny, dedicate some time to developing your own versions of a few good freezable recipes, which you know your family will love, and stash them away, like money in the bank, to be withdrawn when they are needed.

 

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.



Thursday: Food

Frugal Food.

There are times of financial crisis or uncertainty in almost every marriage, sometimes brief, sometimes extended, but it's possible to survive and even to thrive during them. A big part of every household budget is food. What will make the difference is your skill levels. These are some of the things which have helped us survive some really long periods of little money.

1. Cooking everything from scratch and I mean everything.
2. Preserving my own food.
3. Eating seasonally.
4. keeping a store cupboard well stocked.
5. Planned purchasing.
6. Meal planning
7. Teaching children to eat a wide variety of foods from early on.
8. Using my freezer to its full capacity.
9. Growing at least some of our own food.
10. Being hospitable and thinking generously.

All of the above have helped me and I am sure that I have left lots off the list. I didn't mention using coupons because, in my country, it's not always terribly helpful. 20p off something that costs £2 isn't much help to me when there is another brand of the same item which only costs £1 in the first place. However, I know that in other countries this can be extremely helpful

Do you recognise that you need to skill up? don't panic. There will be more articles on these subjects in coming weeks. In the mean time, you could pick one topic and research it yourself! Invest in your own education, as mentioned in yesterday's post, and buy a good book on preserving food, for example. My Good Housekeeping Complete Book of Preserving for example is older than both my children and is still useful to me!

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.