31 days of writing on the same general topic.

31 days of Kitchen Inspiration.

I loved it.

I hope you did too.

Celebration Time!

Grab a bag and munch along with me…:)

Crispy Chocolate Popcorn with peanuts.  Mmmmm…

Thank you all for your commnts and visits during my 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration series.  I loved everyone of them. They made it all the more fun.

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To finish up this series I wanted to talk a little about Hospitality.

May I encourage you to reach out to those around you – co-workers, friends, neighbors or ones that go to your church?  Share a little of your own kitchen inspiration by giving hospitality.

Hospitality really isn’t an option although most of us practice it that way.  It is a command from the Holy Bible.

Here are a few Scriptures that talk about it.

…given to hospitality. (Romans 12:13 Read the whole chapter.)

Use hospitality one to another without grudging. (I Peter 4:9)

I love these verses commending Gaius in III John 1-8 for his hospitality.

The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.

²Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

³For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth.

⁴I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

⁵Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers;

⁶Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well:

⁷Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.

⁸We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth.

Read about Lydia in Acts 16:15 – another one who showed hospitality when she received Christ.

Hospitality is a giving of ourselves.  We share our family, home, time and our finances through the provisions we set on the table.  It’s not about whether we have a fancy meal or a nice house.  It’s all an attitude of the heart.  Showing Christ’s love to others.

My father-in-law is probably the greatest example of hostpitality I have ever seen in that he doesn’t invite just the loveable but also the undesirable.  In his eyes, there is none better than another.  And I have heard many stories of where his love and giving of hospitality (along with my mother-in-law) made a difference in someone’s life.

Luke 14:12-14

¹²Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.

¹³But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:

¹⁴And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

We all have different gifts and callings in life but hospitality is not one that we can opt out on.

May I encourage you to open your door and invite someone that you have never had before for a time of fellowship at your table?  Who knows what impact you might have.

Here are some ways to get started.

1.  Pick a time when it would be good for your family

2.  Contact the family or whomever you have decided to share your home with.

3.  Plan your menu.  I love to cook new recipes and so who knows what I will serve visitors but I do spend a lot of time thinking about it.  However, if cooking is not your favorite thing, plan something simple.  Soup, salad and rolls can be a delicious meal especially in the Winter months, not to mention economical.

4.  Plan your evening.  Will you be doing anything besides your meal?  Singing? Playing a game? Taking a walk?  It’s okay to just fellowship.  We do that mostly ourselves but sometimes we feel inspired to incorporate other things, too.

The most important thing to remember is that you’re sharing the love you have in your heart for others.

Do you actively practice hospitality?  What have you learned along the way?  Please share. I’d love to hear from you.

31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration

Always looking out for 100% fruit juice drinks that are carbonated, my hubby found one at Costco the other day made by…

It’s an Italian sparkling fruit drink with ingredients like carbonated water, blood orange juice and black carrot juice.  Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?

Apparently Audrey thinks so, too.  The other day she was wanting some but I told her no, that we were only going to open for special times.

 Then in a very whiney voice she said, “IIII waaaant some blooood juice.”  sniffle, sniffle

I broke out in laughter at that.  Oh, dear.  What kind of child am I raising?  She sounds a little blood thirsty.  Eeek!

This series of Fun Ways to Dine has been a lot harder to put together than I would have imagined.  I thought of fun and interesting ways to dine but when I would go online to find a picture, I had difficulties.

Don’t these places sound fun to have a meal in?

• snow cave
• tree-house
• teepee
• indoor tent (that the kids make)
• hayloft

Garden Parties

Well since I couldn’t find any photo material on any of the above ideas, I decided to go with garden parties – cultivated garden parties in the backyard and garden parties in the wild.  Hey, I live in Arizona, so cultivated garden parties aren’t too plentiful.

I love this garden party themed baby shower the ladies in Pennsylvania gave my sister when she was going to have her oldest child.

I have never forgotten that baby shower and it’s been 15 years!  The setting, the decorations, the flowers and food were unforgettable.

I did find this photo online.  A mix between cultivated and wild.  This, I hope, will soften the transition from the above photo to the ones below…

And for the truly wild garden party… the kind we have here in Arizona… 

and the same place 16 years later…

Just wrap some homemade Egg McMuffin sandwiches in foil, take along fruit and drinks, drive a short distance (preferably) and you can have a real authentic Arizona garden party  oops, I guess it’s a tailgate party.

Sometimes there’s more than wild overgrowth around… sometimes we even have… gasp!… water!

Breaking away from the normal routine is refreshing.

Join me for 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration for the month of October.

Now this is not the kind of mystery dinner where you have to find out “Who done it.”  This is a mystery dinner in that you don’t know what food you will be having for your evening meal.

I went to one of these once with our homeschool group and thought it so much fun.

So here’s what you do.

Plan Your Mystery Dinner

Decide on the food.  It would probably be wise to choose food you know the kids will like otherwise they may not want to eat at all.  I can’t stand picky eaters but it’s a fact of life and if you do it with kids other than you own, you might as well go with the flow.

You are going to be serving the meal in courses, so you will want some:

• Appetizers
• About 4 main dishes
• Several sides
• Desserts
• Drinks (or you can just give them a choice once you’ve served them their meal)

Enlist help because you will wish you had if you don’t!

Make up a menu for each person but don’t put the names of the real food items on it.  Make up clever and humorous names instead.

For utensils, there are a few ways you can do it.  You can give forks and spoons a unique name and they have to choose one that will be used for their meal.  Have you ever tried to eat soup with a fork?  It’s interesting. Another way is to use large utensils, like tongs, chopsticks, etc. and use them with or instead of forks and spoons.  Be sure you give them a mystery name and that you have enough of them on hand ahead of time.

Have Fun!

When the kids arrive, they shouldn’t be allowed to go in the kitchen because the “mystery” foods will be discovered.

Scuttle the kids into a different area of the house and give each of them a menu and  pencil.  Have them put their name at the top of the paper.  They then are to circle 1 appetizer, 1 main dish, etc.

For added mystery, they can draw a number out of a hat that will tell them which table they are to set at.

Collect their menus and get to work in the kitchen… with your helpers, of course. 

It’s 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration for October.  Join me!

Now why is that kids’ imaginations allow them to think outside the box and have meals somewhere besides the kitchen table?  Whatever the reason, no one needs to suggest to the littles to have tea somewhere besides the kitchen.  They think of it all by their own-self.

Have you ever had a meal where you sat on the floor?  That’s exactly what happened to me when I was invited to a luncheon back in 2008.

My heart melted…

Who couldn’t love being a mom?

I know all you mom have had your children do this for you.

Did you care that it may have only been grilled cheese & pickles?

with cookies for dessert?

No, because for us it is like being an honored guest at a special dinner.  It’s super special.  I love that kids don’t need everything to be perfect; they just use what they have and enjoy themselves.

Maybe we need to take a few cues from them and get out of the rut and make mealtime different once in a while.

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Here’s another time we had tea in an unusual place.

For some reason my Audrey likes to have her tea parties on the small landing of our stairwell that leads upstairs from the garage.

Justus joined her in the planning.  Serenity and I put on some fine tea party apparel.

Would you like a spot of tea?

And the live entertainment…  Oh, my… nothing like Maestro Wesley on the violin.

Challenge:  Have fun this week.  Make mealtime unusual.  You’ll be old soon enough so be “young” with the kids.

Now… I just need to follow my own advice.  Uh-huh…

October is 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration.  Glad you’re here.  How about leaving a comment?  I’d love to hear from you.

I barely got today’s post up but since I’ve almost reached my goal of writing the whole month of October on Kitchen Inspiration, I couldn’t quit now!  So here it is.  Quite late or early depending on where you live.  (It’s 11:30 p.m. here. )

I asked my sister if she would consider letting me put some of her anniversary photos online for this weeks theme of Unique Dining Experiences and she agreed!  All it took was some arm twisting and bribing.  (Just kidding.)

Thanks, big sis!

She even let me post her water heater closet turned pantry online.  She’s just too nice or it may even be that she loves me so much she couldn’t bear to tell me no.

She’s an amazing mom of 7 children and rarely goes anywhere for any type of getaway.  This year, on the occasion of her and my brother-in-law’s 30th wedding anniversary, they did actually get away.  WooHoo!  Her hubby planned it…

The anniversary couple…

my very kind and thoughtful brother-in-law and my sis… who is my mentor in so many areas

…the getaway was to a extremely scenic area of Arizona that is very secluded. You have to wonder why when it’s this beautiful…

 Perhaps it’s the 30 miles of dirt road? 

The food was cooked over coals from a small campfire.

Pizza dough was made at home then was pressed into a skillet and layered with ingredients once they arrived at their destination.  The salad was made ahead as well.

Who said you had to eat canned goods when you go camping?

What a gorgeous place. No manicured golf courses here…

 …just raw nature created by our Heavenly Father…

My sister’s family are all wonderful cooks so having these fantastic meals while in the wilderness is totally their style.

Someone lived here long ago…

What a perfectly unique and beautiful place to dine…

October is 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration.  Join me.

365 days in a year

104 of the 365 days are weekends (Friday and Saturday)

Subtracting the weekends from the rest of the year, you have 261 days remaining.

Have a Unique Dining Experience

That’s 261 days that you can do the normal and eat at your dining room table.  But why not spice things up a bit, shake the routine and do something dIfFeReNt?  The kids will love it and I daresay you might, too.

No money to go to a fancy restaurant?  No problem.  When you decide to have a special meal somewhere besides the normal dining room table, the rules all change.  Fancy is relative.  You could have the simplest of meals but that will be inconsequential because you have “spiced” things up in a different area. (lol  I love the pun.

This year for our 22nd anniversary, my hubby decided last minute that we really needed to do something to celebrate.  Things were busy at the time.  We had several boys visiting and my meal was already planned for the evening.  So instead of us heading to town (which is about a 30 minute drive) to a nice restaurant, he decided to bring home Chinese on his way home.

Eggs Rolls & Wonton Soup were the fare for our anniversary meal with Sparkling Apple Cider for our drink and a fortune cookie for dessert.  Whalllah!  It’s so simple any man could do it.   No excuses men that you can’t cook!

Russ heated up the wonton soup to make sure it was nice and hot, strapped it shut, packed up the rest of the food, along with the soup, strapped it to the quad and off we went to the woods that is close-by to our house.

May I present to you our anniversary meal of 2011 celebrating 22 years of marriage?

Notice the fancy tablecloth in that beautiful shade of beige set over the finest of tables when one is on a picnic – the ice chest.  Simply LOVEly.

See you tomorrow with more Unique Dining Experiences.

Check out my other posts on 31 Days of Kitchen Inspiration.

Acts 14:17

First we had Handmade Gifts for the Kichen on Day 19.  We showed some homemade potholders and an hand embroidered apron that was made for my daughter by her grandma.

Then on Day 20 we talked about Giving a Meal to New Mothers or 2nd, 3rd or 4th time Moms. (you get the idea, right)

Day 21 we again revisited Handmade Gifts for the Kitchen with a few more ideas for those of you who like to sew or are crafty.

Frugal Gift Ideas from the Kitchen

Today (Day 22) we’re going to wrap up this vast topic by showing you some frugal ideas one can make in their kitchen and present as a gift for any occasion.  Some of these ideas are small and some are on a larger scale but they are all gifts of love and will mean so much to the recipient.

I love the creativity my niece Martha shows in her gift giving.  I showed you the charming pot holders she gave me in the post Handmade Gifts for the Kitchen (Day 19).

A few years ago, she really surprised me with her Hot Cocoa Mix theme gift.  Her and my nephew, being newlyweds, are on a tight budget.  (I’m not a newlywed but a tight budget is a good idea for my family, too. ) So here is what she gave us for Christmas a few years ago.

There was actually one more tin than what is shown in the picture but I’m not sure where it is at this point.

• 1st tin – ziploc bag of homemade hot cocoa mix
• 2nd tin – homemade marshmallows (they were the cutest tiniest little things)
• 3rd tin –  crushed peppermint candies

These are not the actual pictures but for those of you who are visual I’m sure you will  appreciate it.  

The homemade marshmallows were the perfect touch.

Christmas 2010, my nieces gave me a basket filled with homemade items. Pancake Mix, Hot Cereal Mix (filled with nutritional grains that they cracked themselves), Homemade Granola, Jam and notecards. 

These gifts required much less $$$ than if they had went and bought us something and yet they meant so much to us.  Homemade is always good!

Last November I got in the baking mood but didn’t have anyone home at the time to eat my goodies.  What a dilemma! lol  I knew I really shouldn’t eat a whole Bundt cake myself wouldn’t be able to eat a whole cake by myself so I decided to make mini gifts.  I pulled out my bundt pan that I bought from Pampered Chef and made Spiced Eggnog Mini Pound Cakes.  I kept one for myself…

and gave the rest to people at our church.

Homemade is in good taste (pun intended) anytime.  It doesn’t have to be just at Christmas time that you think of others.  Do a random act of kindness.  People will look at you strange because it’s not something that’s commonly practiced but they will love it.

Hebrews 10:24
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works…