Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Week night Meals

I have become even more convinced that cutting costs on week night meals is the way to go if you are looking for ways to add feasting into your weekly budget. Sometimes I have gone a bit far. Making 10:00pm trips to Taco Bell because my husband is starving, kind of defeats the point. It is hard to cut back and fill up the boys. If anyone has any filling but cheap recipes please share.

Julie

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

When Does it All Get Done?

So, I have been trying to figure out how to not have my entire Saturday Taken up with feast preparations.Sometimes I have other things to do. Like this Saturday coming up. My husband gave me a couple of gift cards for Christmas. This is the first "free" weekend we have had since then. I would like to go shopping without a time limit and just enjoy pretending like there is nothing else to do. I have carefully planned my Sabbath feast accordingly. I will make my side dishes Friday. I can do my glaze for the ham on Thursday. Dessert will more than likely be ice cream.(The children love it!!)The children can set the table while I am gone.(With assistance from Dad of course.) This all sounds great, but what about the everyday things that will need to be done on the days I am preparing for Saturday? There are some things I have started to do to help out in this area. I was once expressing concern that I could not handle the very stressful"witching hours". From 4:00 to 6:00 everyone in my home turns evil. My friend suggested that I put dinner together earlier in the day. I try to this as I am either getting lunch together or cleaning up breakfast. The children are not exhausted yet from the day. We are not in a frantic panic because Daddy will be home soon and it looks like a hurricane has been through every room. When it comes time for dinner I can just stick in the oven. While I am doing this early preparation I will usually do something having to do with our feast. I am not sure about you, but with me after an incredibly stressful week I cannot think about putting a huge meal on the table and possibly entertaining. I just want to go somewhere that i cannot hear or see anything that has to do with keeping a home, potty training, or anything that means I have to keep it together and be the wife and mother God has called me to be. Therefore for me it has been helpful to find little ways through out the week to keep things less stressful so I will have the energy to pull the feast off, and it allows the time to do other personal and family activities on Saturday. I'll let you know how it works this week.

Julie

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Planning

It is Sunday night and I am planning out my week. I usually try to assess what is in the pantry and freezer to see what my feasting options are. I then try to pair it with whatever is on sale at the grocery store. I also explore what my options are for preparing food ahead of time. I have a ham in the freezer that I purchased when they were on sale at Christmas. I have ingredients for corn pudding that were also on sale at some point. I think I will do twice baked potatoes as well. I will plan a healthier vegetable after I check out the sale paper. I also have the ingredients to make an apricot-honey glaze for the ham. It took me some time to get in the mind set to always be on the look out for sale priced ingredients that would make great feasting options. I rarely pay full price for these things. It takes planning. I am usually thinking a few weeks off. I will let you know through the week how my preparations are going. I would love to hear tips from anyone else on this subject.

Julie