Great Day--Mission Call

Sunday Dinner

Church for us has now changed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. I was so excited that now I will have time to prepare a nice dinner for after church, which in turn reminded me that REALLY I should be preparing what I can on Saturday. This has been an occasional goal of mine (to prepare most of the dinner on Saturday). So I guess now I am going to work on it a bit. Here are my Sunday dinner, prepare ahead suggestions:

Chicken and rice casserole
Porcupine meatballs and baked potatoes
Meatloaf and baked potatoes or au gratin potatoes
BBQ pork ribs and baked potatoes
Cheesy Ham and Potato casserole
Chicken and stuffing casserole
Italian chicken in the crockpot served over fettuccini noodles
Roast beef, pork, or chicken and potatoes and carrots (However, we LOVE mashed potatoes and gravy around here--but the peeling and mashing and gravying take way more work, which we often do anyway).

I love to have a nice dinner after church, but sometimes we end up with grilled cheese or hamburger helper, because, who can cook fabulous Sunday dinners all the time? All of these meals can be prepared ahead of time, refrigerated, and then put in the crock pot or oven on delay bake on Sunday so they are piping hot and ready when we get home. Who doesn't LOVE to come home to those delicious smells after a three-hour block of church?

Did you know that my new black flat top oven has a Sabbath Mode? Really, that is for orthodox Jews who want to override the oven's automatic 6- or 12-hour shutoff features, so that they can have warm food on the sabbath or other holidays without going against their religious standards.

Anyhoo, with our meals, we ALWAYS have a jello with fruit in it(which can be made ahead) or a fruit salad made from canned fruit cocktail and such mixed with bananas, grapes, or apples if we have them, just plain or mixed with marshmallows and cool whip. We always add a simple microwaved veggie like beans, corn, or peas, and we always have some kind of bread. I LOVE Rhode's rolls for their ease, but sometimes I get into a kick of making homemade rolls or bread for Sunday dinner, which, again, really can be made the day before. I'm on a Rhode's rolls kick right now.

Okay, so that is all about one of my "new" old goals for the year. Sometimes it happens on Saturday, sometimes on Sunday. But wow! Today, all I had to do was plug in the crockpot, stick the potatoes in the oven, and set out the frozen Rhode's rolls. The kids even commented that there were less dishes to do--so less work for them, too!

Then we made chocolate chip cookies because we were all craving them since they were replaced in December with every other treat imaginable for the holidays. MMMM.

Some things I want my daughters (and sons) to know.

Some things I want my sons and daughters to know come from two amazing talks on mothering: Julie B. Beck's "Mothers Who Know." http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know?lang=eng
and President Benson's talk "To the Mothers In Zion" http://fc.byu.edu/jpages/ee/w_etb87.htm

A really long blog post about Christmas to make up for never posting on my blog

Wow, I am a lousy blogger lately. BECAUSE--

Our camera broke.

Our other cameras are lousy (our traditional sitting-on-the-stairs-in-pjs picture was almost completely DARK) and I don't know how to get stuff off of them very well.

My RS calling, which is not lousy and is quite wonderful, but takes up time.

And Christmas, which is also not lousy but also takes up a lot of time.

And the lousy space bar on my computer sometimes works and sometimes does not, so writing anything requires more attention than I want to give it.

So, here goes anyway. I cannot figure out how put my sentences in the places they need to be. This is another reason I don't blog more. I am also not sure if it is sentences or sentances.

Merry Christmas! Above is our Christmas tree. It is fresh and looks the same as it does every year. But this year, bless Darin's heart, as he was handing out ornaments to go on the tree, he smiled at me as he slyly (is that a word?) set aside any homemade ornaments that were just plain past their lifetimes.

Anyways. Above is a glimpse of how fun our Christmas was with our little Ellie. Yup, she is spoiled. Well, she probably just gets more stuff and gets to do more than our other kids ever did. Princess clothes, a kitchen, a princess scooter. . .but she is the only little, so she needs something to keep her busy. The look on her face as she surveyed the Christmas room on Christmas morning and then lighted on her kitchen was so full of excitement.

The older kids got stuff they need like luggage for missions and cameras.

Maren got a beautiful guitar.

Spencer got a pogo stick.

Seth got walkie talkies.

We got some other fun things, too, as well as lots of things we needed (clothes, socks, underwear, ties).

Oh, and each kid got a 50 count box of chips (Doritoes, Fritos, potato, etc.) Hehe, that is fun.

My husband spoiled me. One fun thing he got me is this:
After all, I used to look just like her. The cookbook is so fun and now I know how to cook 25 things from cornmeal, and wild turkey, and rabbit, and blackbird pie, and cranberry jelly. . . call me if we ever have a dire emergency.

Darin got a weather station. It is 71 degrees in the house and 48 degrees outside and we are expecting rain. It rained last night but I can't tell you how much because the 'rain measurer' was under the picnic table. Hehe.

Lest you think we don't know what Christmas is all about, I just have to say that we have enjoyed the spirit of Christ all month in abundance. I took every single cart to the cart-parking spot. I put away (almost) every item at the store that I decided not to get. The guy I backed into in the Costco parking lot never called me back to get money. We felt the joy of giving. We thought of Christ, we spoke of Christ, we rejoiced in Christ. Christmas morning we beautified ourselves to go to 9 o'clock Sacrament Meeting. We basked in the spirit of those beautiful Christmas hymns and the message of a dear friend. We spent time reading beloved Christmas stories together. These are the things that make us feel Christmasy. And these are truly the kinds of things that make us feel the spirit of Christmas all year long when we do them all year long.

Oh Look! Darin emailed me our kids-on-the-stairs-in-pjs picture. We had to retake it later in the day (or was it the next day?) with his phone camera.

To all a good night.

Homemade bread and other yummy cold-weather recipes

Just had to share this bread that you can make in an hour and a half! It is from my awesome neighbor-baker, Chelsea Pike. I love homemade bread made into toast, spread with real butter, and dipped in hot chocolate! MMMM

Combine:
2 T. yest
41/2 c. water (I used milk)
6 T. sugar
Then add:
12 cups bread flour-I end up with 11 usually (I used regular once and it turned into a rock. Although the internet says you can add 1 t. gluten per cup of regular flour, haven't tried this)
2 T. salt
1/4 c. oil
Mix in your mixer (Bosch) for 10 minutes.
Make into 4 loaves.
Let rise 30 minutes in warm place (I use preheated oven to 200, then turn off and put bread in oven).
Bake at400 for 20 minutes, or 375 for a little longer.


Chicken Noodle Soup
Boil 4-5 chicken breasts, 1 onion halved, 2 carrots, peeled and halved, salt, and pepper, (and celery if you like it) in enough water to cover them until the chicken is done.

Strain the broth, add 2 T. chicken bouillon (I like the large jar in the Mexican section of the store) and add homemade noodles. Cook until done.

Add chopped carrots, celery, and chicken. Add 1 can cream of chicken soup. (You can use cornstarch and water, but the cream of chicken seems to make it creamier).

Noodles: 3 eggs, beaten, 2 c. flour, 1 t. salt. Roll out and cut. OR if you have a pasta machine: 3 c. flour, 2 large eggs, 3 T. water, 1 t. oil, 1/4 t. salt. Run through the pasta machine several times to make it stick.

Beef stew in the crockpot
Brown 1 1/2 lb salt and peppered stew meat in 3 T. oil. Place in crock pot. Add 3-4 large peeled chopped carrots, 3-4 potatoes, 1 bay leaf, and 2 beef bouillon cubes and enough water to cover. Cook on low 5-6 hours.

When everything is done add: 3 T.flour, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can beef broth, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. pepper, 1/4 t. thyme (this may be too much for you, try a little at a time), 1/2 t. onion salt, 1/4 t. celery salt if desired. Simmer awhile. Thicken with 3 T. cornstarch mixed with 1/4 c. water. Remove bay leaf.

Just slapping a few pictures on the page.

Maren's first date! Doesn't she just look so beautiful? Okay, it was the Harvest Dance. They were all nerds. Well, some of them were just dressed that way.

Seth's birthday cake, sideways. I am too stressed and out of time to rotate the picture. It is a penny cake-since he loves collecting coins. The cakes we googled were much nicer. Again, stressed, and out of time to do better. AND I can't find the picture of him blowing out the candles. It took him 3 or 4 tries. Hehe, poor Seth.

Halloween! Seth and Ellie in costumes we already had. Hip hip hooray! Especially for someone who is, well, you know.