Food – Joyful Domesticity

May 4, 2022June 9, 2022

Cultivating Community, 8

To wrap up this conversation about community creation and cultivation, I want to back up from the hands-on how-to aspects, and revisit the philosophical, theological underpinning of it all. I mentioned before that as image-bearers of the Triune God, we were created for community. Did we really cover what that means, though? What does community mean? Adam needed a helper, so God provided Eve. Does that mean they only needed one another? God told them to multiply and to fill the earth. Does that mean that they just needed to procreate and then send their children off to all the far corners of the globe? (Can I just giggle at that idiom, too, please? Corners of a globe? We know the earth isn’t flat and doesn’t have corners, y’all…)

I mentioned concentric circles moving out from immediate family to extended family to close brethren/friends to more formal communities like a church family or school or co op affiliation and then the community in which you live… but there are other communities too. What about a place of employment? How about a particular ministry at your church? And then there are kids’ sports teams and orchestra connections and… and… and!

I mentioned the fact that I did not actually seek out being the community builder for a conference or a co op — and yet, here I am! I told the stories of how God opened my eyes to the need, gave my heart a desire, and then ended up tossing it into my own lap when I least expected it, and called me to be the one who orchestrates it.

How do all of these things coexist and coincide together? How did I know that I was supposed to say YES to those things? I certainly can’t say yes to everything! (Just ask my husband: he is good at reminding me that I can not add more good things to my plate simply because they are good things.)

What is actually required of you? You as an individual. With a particular set of giftings, a particular frame, a particular family, a particular life. What does God require of you? Check out Micah 6:8 for the most amazingly basic yet broad answer to that question. And then read Romans 12, which describes marks of a Christian in a bit more detail which can really get the creative juices flowing. And one of those things we are exhorted by Paul to do is to practice hospitality. In Hebrews 13, we also find a list of virtues and pursuits which are encouraged for followers of Christ – and you’ll find hospitality listed there as well. So this begs the question: what is hospitality? (And how is hospitality connected to the idea of community building like a conference or co op?)

To be honest, I don’t like the official dictionary definitions for the word hospitality. Words like “providing services” and also “entertainment” pop up, and I think that is only one very small, niche aspect of hospitality. In Hebrews, the word hospitality means to actually “pursue the love of strangers.” Additionally, I have heard some people say that hospitality is just a fancy way of saying “welcome others.”

So as Christians, we are called to welcome others. We are called to pursue the love of strangers. We are called to contribute to the needs of others (Romans 12:13) and consider their interests as more important than our own (Philippians 2:3-4).

But just because there is a need doesn’t mean that you are automatically the one who is called to meet it. I am not going to take the time to unpack that or defend it by philosophy from my underlying convictions. But I would be remiss if I did not at least make that statement. Another point which I feel the need to simply mention in passing is that if you start something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you will continue it. I went into my first year hosting the Paideia Northwest conference hoping that it would be an annual thing, but being willing for it to end up being a one-time event. I am going into the fifth annual conference with no particular desire to call it quits any time soon. But if the Lord leads me to step away, I hope to have the humility and discerning wisdom to follow Him. Either to let it go altogether or to pass it along to someone else who felt the call to carry it on next. I hope that I would have that same attitude in relation to my co op or any other place where I minister.

I show hospitality by welcoming hundreds of women each November to an event where I seek to bless their souls, encourage their hearts, and equip them to stand fast in the trench of raising children for the Lord. I show hospitality by organizing a weekly homeschool co op and its attendant planning meetings, and facilitating all the communication that is necessary for that to run smoothly. I show hospitality by opening my home every Sunday during Advent to multiple families. I show hospitality by having an open door policy for anyone who needs to swing by for fellowship, a play date, babysitting — while I have not often had people take me up on that open door policy, I am committed to keeping my life flexible enough that I can serve others through my home whenever it is needed. I show hospitality by willingly opening my home to two dozen employees of my husband — I am genuinely eager to welcome them to our home, as a small act of gratitude and care for the work they pursue alongside us day by day each year. I show hospitality by having a small, dedicated guest room in our house that always has a bed made in case somebody requires a place to crash — and a particular nuance of that hospitality is that my husband’s parents know that they always have first dibs on it.

And each of those examples of hospitality could be reworded to show that they are different ways that I cultivate community. These are the things that the Lord has impressed upon me, and my family, as the important places to prioritize hospitality. If you have not read Rosaria Butterfield’s book The Gospel Comes with a Housekey, I do recommend it — but with a reminder: not every family practices hospitality or community building in the same way. I have very much in common with the Butterfields’ philosophy and theology on the topic, but it is lived out in a vastly different way here in my home, and in my current phase of life. I feel like she and I are shoulder to shoulder with linked elbows — we don’t do the same thing, but we serve the same King with the same passion for His Kingdom, and we pursue hospitality and community according to the gifts with which He equipped us as uniquely individual women as well as within the means He has provided (location, phase of life, finances). At any rate, here is a great article Rosaria wrote that will be a great intro or recap for you. Read it with these questions in mind:

What do I see here that I find winsome?
What are the underlying principles that make this look beneficial?
How could I glean wisdom or practical tips from this?
How could I apply these tips to my own opportunities for serving?
What needs do I see around me, and how am I equipped to meet them?

And then ponder what the Lord might want you to do with the answers. Are you feeling the need to start a large but infrequent community, like I did with the Paideia Northwest conference? Do you see a local need for something like a weekly homeschool co op? What about a monthly women’s book club or Bible study? A quarterly dance or soccer playoffs or neighborhood food drive?

There are all kinds of ways to expand your hospitality practices and build community. But you can not pursue them all. That is a recipe for burnout. Once people recognize you as someone who loves to show hospitality or who is gifted at creating or cultivating a specific community… you may find that more and more people ask you to do more and more things. We need wisdom. Discernment. Boundaries. People like me need to learn how to say no, or how to offer advice rather than taking reins.

In conclusion, this is my personal story. These are the areas where I have felt the call of the Lord to take up a cross and follow Him. To gird up my loins and build my strength for particular tasks. I bring my family along in it with me. I’m iterating as well as learning to delegate. I seek to pursue leadership within the bounds of a joyful humility. And I will probably always want to say yes more often than I should… so my husband will probably always need to be hedging me and shepherding me in these things.

My encouragement to you is this: when you feel the call of the Lord, seek Him first and follow where He leads. Give something a try. Large or small or medium. Occasionally or frequently or annually. If each of us were to follow His call to pursue hospitality more regularly, wouldn’t that be a joy? If there were more opportunities to embrace Christian community, wouldn’t that be a blessing?

Romans 12:4-6
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one or another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them…

December 4, 2020December 4, 2020

Cranberries

I don’t know why, but I love the Cranberry books. Cranberry Christmas, Cranberry Thanksgiving, Cranberry Easter, we even have a Cranberry Halloween book while my family doesn’t really even “do” anything for Halloween. I just love the stories, the characters, the artwork.

But I also really love cranberries: they are just a delicious, pretty, little tangy fruit. Ha! I remember loving a particular cereal when I was a kid that had cranberries and walnuts in it. It felt like a very grownup thing to enjoy, and I thought it was super special when my mom would let me put a box in the cart when wandering the grocery aisles with her. (Have I mentioned that I am a second generation homeschooler? I did ALL the errands by my mom’s side, and sometimes we were even bold enough to run errands before 2pm… that was our kind of brazen rebellion back in the eighties and early nineties of California living.) My mom was big into country style shabby chic arts & crafts… and for a handful of years she partnered with a friend to do a Christmas market they called Cranberry Corner. I’m not sure I have ever asked her exactly why she chose that name. But I still remember it! And I remember the ambiance of that annual event, the pungent smell of cinnamon & a tart sweetness. Perhaps it was a cinnamon-cranberry candle burning in the back! My mom was also keenly into potpourri at the time. It was the nineties, after all.

I also have always loved my mom’s homemade cranberry sauce. Nothing particularly unique about it: just fresh cranberries with sugar, water, and some kind of orange flavoring – usually zest. She also occasionally made cranberry muffins and put dried cranberries in our trail mix or granola. I was never a big fan of raisins, but I sure enjoyed their cousin, Craisins. Yummers.

So here I now find myself continuing to love cranberries. But my kids don’t have the same affinity for them. So I’m trying to find ways to incorporate some cranberries into my kids’ holiday traditions. This year, I made a cranberry-pecan coffee cake for Thanksgiving Day morning. It paired perfectly with a side of crispy bacon and a hot latte… well, the kids had milk, but the latte is my favorite. Anyway, that is definitely a recipe we would enjoy again. We have had homemade cranberry sauce twice so far this season (including once when I added a splash of frangelica liqueur, which was a lovely touch). But I still want to try something else.

I think I may need to whip up a batch of cranberry orange muffins to start our Saturday with some zip. And then to pair with a pork loin roast tomorrow evening for our second Advent dinner, I think a cranberry apple chutney might work really well. And if I have any cranberries left that make it without getting gooey in the fridge by next week, I would love to try a cranberry balsamic chicken with cranberry brie bites on the side and cranberry apple upside-down cake for dessert.

It’s time to plan and prepare some more meals. It is just more part of the joyfully domestic life as a full time keeper of home, with seven people living here full time. There are no fewer than twenty-one meals a week which need planned and prepared to some extent. Perhaps breakfasts are mostly haphazard scavenging by the children on most days, but I need to be sure we have muffins or eggs or cereal or oatmeal available. That in itself takes some level of planning on my part. Lunches are often quick things to cook or compile, often just the heating up of leftovers and adding a side of fresh fruit and a cup of milk. But dinners can honestly be the bane of my existence sometimes. I go through seasons of loving the dinnertime routine… but often it is a rotation of cookery that simply feels like work without the pleasure. I know my people need fed well, so I do my utmost to use healthy ingredients and prepare tasty meals. But it honestly CAN get to be a bit monotonous and predictable and uninspired. Sometimes I ask a friend for new ideas. Or I will even just call my sister-in-law and ask, “what’s for dinner?” A friend of mine had dedicated a category of food for each day of the week (Tuesday is tacos, Wednesday is chicken, Thursday is soup or salad depending on the season, Friday is pizza, Saturday is leftovers, Sunday is takeout, Monday is meatless…) just to have a starting point. When I was preparing for my fifth child’s arrival, before I even knew that bedrest was looming on the horizon, I compiled a list of our family favorite meals and posted it on the fridge. So if I ever felt too sick to come up with ideas based around food myself, I could just have a family member glance at the list for inspiration and we would move forward with it… sometimes with Mommy sucking on peppermints while trying not to smell anything meat-based or heated and seeking to avert my eyes from certain things because they would absolutely turn my tummy just on sight. (Honestly… blackberry jam and ground beef are pretty much ruined for me for life.)

But so much of holidays are based around foods. So how do we maintain beloved traditions while not letting the grow stagnant? How do we make holiday meals our own? How do we incorporate our children into the planning, the preparation, the cooking, the work AND the delight?

For my part, I take what I loved from my childhood and mix it with what my husband tells me he loved from his childhood. And we take a few things from each… then we try out different things on our kids like guinea pigs. I try to log what is delighted in while tossing aside what wasn’t anyone’s favorite. Sometimes you know it is an instant hit (like when Grandmama makes homemade donuts for everyone after cutting down Christmas trees on family property… and all ten grandkids devour them, declaring it to be a new annual must), while other times it takes a couple of tries to know that it has made the cut (like hosting weekly Advent meals… not because of any particular recipe, but because the energy of a mama wavers & wanes from time to time thanks to motherhood and hormones and any number of other things).

So I am learning. Growing. Trying. Often succeeding. And praising the Lord for the lot of it. He is good. I am only fourteen years into my own specific homemaking, but I helped my mother before that, so I might be a couple of decades into it. And honestly, sometimes He gives me something as simple as a cranberry to remind me that this is good. From stories to memories to recipes ~ these are the things of which memories, traditions, cultures are made.

December 2, 2020December 4, 2020

Gather

I feel like I’ve never wanted a big old “gather” sign on my wall more than I do this year. It’s like our eyes are all opening to all kinds of things. Like covering coughs with elbows rather than hands- or washing your hands on the regular to remain sanitary- or that we actually do believe corporate weekly worship is important and needs to include singing. Other things I learned this year have included things like: my babies adore my parents, and ought not be kept from them- staying home for twelve weeks in a row can actually be an enormous gift- hugs & handshakes are not scary nor death-sentences- and welcoming people into our homes for various hospitality can not be taken for granted.

If you have ever had family drama surrounding holidays and extended relatives… that whole rubber band type stretch of how much you can fit in, or whose year it is (as though time spent with your family were a bargaining chip or hot commodity rather than an undeserved gift)… well, I’m pretty sure 2020 took the cake AND the icing on top.

So how about that “gather” sign, hmm?! I keep thinking I just need to rearrange some things on a wall or two… but then again, there are timeless options that I really want even more than that… because solagratia.co has this gorgeous option. Actually, let’s be real: they have LOTS of gorgeous options that would bless your home as well as mine. Consider that my unapologetic advertisement for a shop I love, as well as a resource I am saving pennies for myself!

All pithy pleasures aside, gathering for Thanksgiving this year was splendid. And because my family as well as my parents all have immunity to the bug that is trying to take over the world (tongue is in my cheek…), we felt zero guilt or shame in joining my brother’s family for the day. Honestly, we are basically just one big family anyway. They were in our pod from day one (literally! March 14!), and our kids are actually cousins but love each other (& treat each other) an awful lot like siblings. If there is a cousin-sibling hybrid out there, I guess that’s what these ten munchkins are.

I was happily assigned baked goods for the family feasting table. I made sourdough rolls plus six pies (pumpkin, pecan, and chocolate chess). A week later, we are finally licking clean the last of the pie plates. Of course we followed Thanksgiving up with two Advent meals for hospitality & celebration… so we have not been dieting our way through the pie plates.

But here is the real point of the celebrating, the abundance, the joy, the feasting, the hospitality, the pies that are decadent down to the last crumb: Christ has come to make us new, and He is coming again to finish the good work He began. He proclaimed on the cross, “It is finished”! And this is the best news for us as His people. Because it is finished, because He lived & died & resurrected & ascended, He will come again in glory! And from now until then we aren’t just waiting around for the good part of the story. We aren’t just wondering how to endure this life until we reach the life to come. No indeed, may it never be. This life in the meantime is a gift! It is our participation in the early/middle chapters of the story. It is our opportunity to imitate Him, to practice worship through work, to learn abundant grace by abundant giving, to learn immeasurable joy by immeasurable gratitude.

Gather. Feast. Sing. Show your gratitude through gifts like thanksgiving and gratitude-gifting. This is what Christ equips us for: good works. Let your hands get to work. Sweep the floor, make some food, fill the bellies of neighbors and strangers.

Be overcome with abundance. Because that’s exactly what you are.

June 26, 2018June 26, 2018

Hungry for Healing, Part III

Hungry for Healing, Part III
The Apple Pie

A number of months ago, I made an apple pie for my husband. Fruit pies are his love language. He loves when I get the crust just right. But he could probably revel in the filling with delight even if the crust weren’t flaky enough or got too browned around the pinched, ruffled edge. He simply loves pie. Really can’t live without it. And as long as it tastes delicious and close to heaven, he doesn’t care what it looks like.

While I washed, peeled, and sliced apples, I recall meditating on trees and fruit and baked goods. I contemplated Rachel Jankovic’s comment once that “trees which have borne much fruit should no longer look like a sapling.” I thought about God growing my tree, deepening my roots, expanding my trunk, filling out my branches, producing my fruit, and performing the harvest year by year. In her book, Loving the Little Years (which I haven’t read in a long time), I remember Rachel’s musings on trees and fruit: “The branches are our responsibility, the ground is not.” “The more fruit you make, the more fruit gets used.” “You cannot know the depth of His plan for your fruit. So throw it out there on the ground when you have no plan for its future. Waste it.” “Be bountiful with your fruit and free with it. The only thing that you can know for certain is that God will use it.”

AppleStrudel2

While I blended flour and salt together, and cut fat into its grains with dedication and delight, preparing to wrap, enfold, cover, and encase those apple pieces… I thought about the process with a sense of recognition and familiarity. I remember texting a friend of mine to say that I was writing a blog post about apples, apple pie, body image, and mom life. I remember telling her that I had been peeled, cut, seasoned, aged, and baked – that I was realizing I was no longer an apple, but rather a pie. I vaguely recalled Robert Capon saying something which planted that seed.

I never hit publish on that. Partly because I lost steam, partly because I wasn’t ready to really expose my struggle.

But the image has not strayed from my mind. I’ve written and rewritten thoughts about this numerous times. None of them felt right. But the repeated phrase Jonathan Rogers told me this winter was to trust my instincts and to worry less about what I write. So this morning, I don’t plan to edit, rework, or nuance. I am writing stream-of-consciousness style, for better or for worse. It may be a jumbly, hot mess. That’s pretty much the state of my work these days. It’s simply true.

At nearly 35 years old, raising four children full-time, with thirteen pregnancies and a host of health & hormonal nuances under my belt, I am a woman learning to live post-anorexia and post-bulimia, loving my smile lines, embracing the little streaks of white dappling my carrot top. I think about Nate Wilson’s poetic phrasing in Death By Living when he said that his grandmother was the tree from which apples fell and grew, from which apples fell and grew, from which apples continued to fall and grow.
Apple trees produce apples, which contain seeds to produce trees, which will produce apples, which contain seeds to produce trees…

Apple tree in old apple orchard horizontal.

I am not alone, stagnant, isolated, an island. I am an apple. I fell from a fruitful tree, I was sown and sprouted. I grew into a sapling.
But the rub comes when I fail to acknowledge that God has continued to deepen my roots, increase my fruit, lengthen my branches, and strengthen my trunk. I am not the girl I once was. I am not the firstyear fruit producer I had been. And while I love the imagery of remaining the tree, of looking forward to the days of needing my branches propped up, of having burls and truly gnarly bark thick with wrinkles and creases – there’s something about the idea of moving from the orchard into the kitchen that delights me.

I’m a baking addict, so that’s one thing.
I love flour, sugar, fat, spices.
I adore the sounds of thick syrupy fruit bubbling on the stove, and the schunk sound my knife makes as it slices through crisp apple flesh.
Even just imagining the smell of pastry in the oven makes my salivary glands dance.

And then there’s Father Robert Farrar Capon.
The man who really introduced me to onions.
The one who started me realizing that my hatred of my body and my war with food was truly a spiritual battleground, and I wasn’t seeing victory.
He is the one who reminds me that, yes, I fell as a crisp, ripe, firm, shapely apple from a strong and faithful tree. But when God took that apple, He didn’t set it on a shelf to be kept the way I was harvested from the tree of my lineage.

I was plucked in order to be used.
Apples are meant to give nourishment, to give joy.
I am meant to give life, nourishment, and joy too.

And just like the apple that is used up for those purposes, I will not be left the same.

Rachel Jankovic wrote, “our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in its eighteen-year-old form. Let it be used. By the time you die, you want to have a very dinged and dinted body… Scars and stretch marks and muffin tops are all part of your kingdom work. One of the greatest testimonies Christian women can have in our world today is the testimony of joyfully giving your body to another.”

She goes on to say, “make sure you aren’t buying into the world’s propaganda. While there are a great many rewards, the sacrifice is very real… [and] the answer to these obstacles is not to run away in fear as the world does, but to meet it with joy, and in faith.”

My life, my calling, my homemaking, my motherhood, my faith – these things call me to be used for the good of others, to give myself away, to be used up, to savor, to become considerable, to be relished.

As Robert Capon said in a beautiful benedictory passage in The Supper of the Lamb,

May your table be graced with lovely women and good men. May you drink well enough to drown the envy of youth in the satisfactions of maturity. May your men wear their weight with pride, secure in the knowledge that they have at last become considerable… And your women? Ah! Women are like cheese strudels. When first baked, they are crisp and fresh on the outside, but the filling is unsettled and indigestible; in age, the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling comes at last into its own. May you relish them indeed… Eat well then.

I will determine, then, to turn from buying into the world’s propaganda. I will meet these obstacles with joy, and in faith. I will embrace my season of apple pie as sweeter and fatter than my firm and slender days as an untouched apple straight from the tree. I will endeavor to appreciate my softened body with a heart of thankfulness rather than a sense of resentment. I will seek to glorify God with this sweet season of bodily life, not grasping for control over the size of my jeans, the fit of my swimsuit, the taut of my belly skin, the roundness of my cheek.

May I be used. May I be molded, remade, served up as something even more marvelous than I was to begin with. And may I see joy and glory in the process and in the result. Not because my determination is a victory. But because God is in the business of making things new, and I want to give myself up to Him as He works new things in me and through me. Muffin top and all.

Glory be.

AppleStrudel1

“for to this you have been called,
because Christ also suffered for you,
leaving you an example,
so that you might follow in his steps…
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree
that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
by his wounds you have been healed.”
1 peter 2:21, 24

February 28, 2018

Hungry for Healing, Part II

Hungry for Healing, Part II

For almost as long as I can remember, two physical features have been identifying features about me. Someone might ask, Melissa? Which one is she? and in a room full of people someone would simply have to say, she’s the skinny girl with the long red hair.

Those two terms have been about as defining to me as my homeschooling, my love of books & music, and my Christian faith. How’s that for a slippery position?! Skinny and redheaded. Because now at 34 years old, I am no longer skinny and the number of greys in my locks increases regularly (just ask my tweezers – we can’t quite keep up anymore).

How is it that I have allowed secular media and modern American culture to speak so broadly into my life?
Why is it that I have not been able to overcome this temptation, this struggle, this idol, this sin?
Where in the world did all of this hurt and pain and shame stem from in the first place?

The first time I viscerally remember feelings of shame surrounding my body was in a ballet class I adored, standing at the barre in front of the wall-sized mirror. Rather than my usual teacher, Miss Tammy, who was soft, sweet, and relaxed, the studio owner was teaching my class that day. I don’t even remember her name, I just remember the feelings of stress and shame I felt when she walked near me or gave me directions. On this particular day that stands out in my memory, she was adjusting my posture and probably some position, but all I really recall is her finger pressing into my abdomen and saying getting a bit chubby… I was eight years old. Eight.
After that, I remember really paying attention to my mom’s exercise routines and Jenny Craig diets. I picked up on the fact that she ate differently than the rest of us did – she ate “diet food” but cooked “regular food” for the rest of us – and I came to believe that that was a goal to tuck in my pocket for womanhood. Skim milk and diet soda were the norm, and the reasoning behind it in my head was to stave off fatness. My grandma always called me her “skinny granddaughter.” These were not things that happened out of purposed negativity – it was simply my life, and they are the things I remember about my childhood.
Then in my teen years I became entangled with a boy. A boy who wanted to be a man and continually fell short. Who manipulated me into believing him when he made compliments like, “you look pretty today – pretty and skinny.” I literally have journals full of these manipulative comments. Sneaking notes to each other in homeschool classes or after church, gigglingly talking about turning 21 someday so we could get married, me listening to turns of phrase that I did not even realize at the time were harmful, manipulating, controlling. It brought me multiple levels of shame and suffering which still infiltrate my life on a regular basis. Not the least of which is the skinny factor that he pressed into me. And as I felt more controlled and manipulated by him over the course of about six years of secrecy, the feelings of being spun out of control turned into actions of grabbing for control over the only thing I thought I could grab with both hands – my body. If I could not control anything else in my life, I was brought low enough to think that at least I could control the number on the scale and the size on my clothing tags.

While I don’t honestly know when I really gave in to letting the spiral control and pull me under, the seed was planted when I was eight, it was watered and fed in my preteen years, then sprouted and cultivated between about 14-18. By the time I entered college the temptation and struggle had taken root enough that I can now say it became a besetting sin and garnered enough of my focus to be an idol.

There are years of my life that are basically gone from my memory banks. I don’t know if it’s from a lack of nutrition and sleep or PTSD or a lethal combination thereof.
My tendency toward anxiety and OCD grew. I cared about a facade of perfectionism, straight A grades, and size 2 jeans. Maintaining the physique that would draw people toward my pretty clavicles, hip bones, wrist bones, and long red hair. Eating just enough in front of people so they wouldn’t question my habits. But flat out refusing to eat when I could, and coming to the point where I would eventually just forget to eat. Even now, I could definitely go 24 hours without anything but coffee before noticing it (and that’s only because I can’t get away from the comfort of holding a warm mug of aromatics). Old habits don’t die easily.

I was telling someone recently that it absolutely astonishes me that as a conservative Christian woman I am flabbergasted by some of the bad words I let take over my life. Want to know what those bad words are? Old and fat. That’s right: three letter, commonplace words that are as abhorrent as ugly itself.
That is where I have allowed our culture and mainstream media to infiltrate my worldview, to my own destruction. And I will be hogtied and hamstrung if I allow it to go on to the next generation and hand it down for their destruction.
In biblical culture – heck, in much of all culture, historically speaking – old and fat are words of goodness, blessing, prosperity, honor.
I want to see through that lens. I want to embrace that worldview.

In Rachel Stone’s book, Eat With Joy, she says, “it doesn’t help that images of extreme thinness are everywhere. Even the most seemingly mundane objects show the trend: the girl on the Morton salt container or on the bottle of White Rock water is thinner than she was twenty or thirty or fifty years ago. My children’s Candy Land game (made in 2010) shows highly idealized, thin female characters and muscular male characters, whereas in the 1984 version I grew up playing the characters were, if anything, a little chubby.” (p90)

Where are the role models for my children to show them the beauty of a wheat-heaped belly? that your navel is beautiful when in a rounded bowl rather than sunken between two jutting pelvic bones? that Song Of Solomon was right in praising the rounded beauty of the beloved bride?

Song Of Solomon 7:1-2
…Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.
Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.

And here is what I realize now. I am their role model. It must begin with me. It must begin with the things I bring to them. And it can’t just be the words I say, the books I read them, the videos I let them watch. It also starts with my very own body. This physical set of flesh and bones and blood and fat and freckles that God has given me, where I grew these children in my belly, where I nursed them on my breasts, where I carried them on my back, where I cradled them in my arms; where I still snuggle them tight, hug them, kiss them, lift them up; where I teach by example what health, beauty, and loveliness are.

“The words we use to talk about food and bodies matter, as well, because they nourish and shape and feed us — or poison, warp and starve us — every bit as much as food does. Who can eat gratefully and joyfully while thinking, I’m an ugly pig who doesn’t deserve to eat? I couldn’t. Who can eat with real pleasure when the table talk centers on dimply thighs, flabby bellies, calories, cholesterol, and what’s ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’? No one can and such talk actually fuels disorder…” (Rachel Stone, Eat With Joy, p101)

My children make me hunger to be whole, to find healing, to shed the shame.
They make me long to love and embrace things like getting older and getting softer around my corners.
I want to stop plucking out my grey hairs. I want to stop worrying about my muffin top.
I want to focus on truth, goodness, and beauty.
And this is my next step along the path of how I pray to get there.

“As Christians dealing with human hurts,
we have to remind ourselves again and again
that we are not called to be successful,
but to be faithful.
Our first directions come from the way Jesus told us to live,
not from what we think will work.”
(Doris Janzen Longacre, More-with-Less)

February 26, 2018February 26, 2018

Hungry for Healing, Part I

Hungry for Healing, part I

First thought in the morning,
last thought before falling asleep at night,
forefront of my mind every time I prepare a meal or feed my family,
choking me when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror,
paralyzing me when it’s time to get dressed or put on a nightie,
making me close my eyes when I have to undress – don’t look down – keep the lights off…

I’m fat and ugly, which translates to worthless and unlovable.
~~~

Processing through the written word has long been a healthy tool for me, and I have often thanked God for it. Throughout my life when I have dealt with something big, heavy, hard, complicated, or grievous, I have found my best healing through writing. When grandparents died, when romantic relationships broke my heart, when I struggled through endless miscarriages, when depression and anxiety gripped me ~ I wrote.

Often the writing happened in journals, tucked away for nobody’s eyes, but simply for the use they were in helping me process the burden God had placed upon me, the dark road He was leading me through. Occasionally, I have processed by writing letters with friends, working through a common issue or simply receiving the blessing of their listening ears (or reading eyes). When it has come particularly to my processing of the deaths of my babies and my physical problems resulting in miscarrying, I have been specifically open and honest in sharing my process through the medium of this blog. Of course, it helps somewhat that I have little-to-none as far as readership goes. Perhaps it sounds quite easy to be open and honest when you aren’t actually sure if anyone reads what you say to begin with. But I have not yet shared anything here that makes me feel ashamed. Perhaps I have delicately tiptoed across the questions of depression and anxiety in the past, rather than jumping in up to my neck. But I have had enough real-life relationships where I am comfortable sharing and discussing those struggles that I have not been pushed to the edge of needing to process through a version of public writing. Until now.

This morning as the kids were eating their breakfast and listening to an audio Bible before we packed up for a busy day at our homeschool co op, I was exercising in the back room and streaming a short podcast episode from Jamie Ivey on the subject of if you only knew which is based upon the premise of her new book by the same name.

Jamie shares,

For so long, I was so afraid that if you only knew the mess I am so good at creating in my life, then things would be different. In many ways, my greatest fear was what you might think of me if you only knew the whole story.

As the chore of guarding the stories of my past got more and more difficult, I found that I wasn’t just hiding my poor decisions, I was robbing others of the beauty of God’s grace that had redeemed these moments.

And I realized that I have preferred to spend nearly twenty years now hiding in shame rather than share my brokenness with you. I have concealed chaos in my life in order to put on a good face and put my best foot forward… but this, in turn, has caused me to present a facade that only shows part of what God is doing. I have not arrived, but deeply hunger for healing. I feel starved for truth regarding goodness and beauty.

And I am not doing any good to anyone by covering up the raw realism and gritty facts.
All I am doing is choking myself with the struggle to maintain the facade and present only the portions I want you to see.

I stumbled upon a rich book a couple months ago called Eat With Joy, and I finally finished it. Today. It was a good read, but sections of it were downright challenging. I have a deeply paradoxical relationship with food, particularly with eating. To say that it is a love-hate relationship barely tosses an ice cube on the tip of that iceberg. This book prodded and picked and peeled at all the right scabs. And I began to bleed.

Backing up about two months prior to finding that book on my library’s shelf, I was hosting a mom’s night for the women who participate in our homeschool co op, and while I was serving up cheesecake and putting together the ooey-gooeyist-most-delicioso caramel chocolate chip cookie bars you can imagine, 0ne of the women mentioned in a haphazard way that she had spent the better part of her life recovering from an eating disorder… but that while you can learn to control the habits, the mindset often remains with you for the remainder of your life…

…and I melted into a puddle of tears.
Those me too tears that authentic familiarity recognizes immediately.

She does not go around sharing that part of her story with everyone, but for some reason God put it on her heart to open up to me that night and show me the beauty of what God has done to redeem that part of her life; her relationship with food, her body image, her fight against what good things God could bring from her life if she would relinquish herself to His hand.

And now I feel lead to do the same thing.
Because I have long hidden in my shame, struggling with self-loathing and a distorted body image that has claimed focus and happiness and health from my heart for twenty years… I have fretted within myself if they only knew, wondering who would blow me off, look down on me, or pat me on the head with a Bible passage while patting themselves on the back for solving all my problems with a Christian snippet.

But I am hungry to heal.
I am ready to reveal the redemption God has slowly been working in me.
I am starving to share my suffering and Christ’s satisfaction.

And if you find yourself thinking, oh man, me too! while you read this ~ as I did when my friend bared her heart in my kitchen, or when I read that book, or when I streamed that podcast ~ send me a note so we can walk this road together.

This is only part one of what I am hoping to share.
But the beginning is this: I am recovering from a tedious, troublesome journey with bulimia mingled with anorexia.
It is by God’s grace that I can hit publish on this post, and share with you that I am following Him through to the other side of the tangled web of eating disorders.

~~~~
If you or someone you love needs some beginning resources, I found these additional links a good place to begin:
https://www.ibelieve.com/health-beauty/dear-christian-with-an-eating-disorder-you-re-not-a-failure.html
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/teens/truth-about-eating-disorders
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/topics/eating-disorders/
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/an-open-letter-to-my-friends-struggling-with-eating-disorders
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/gospel-hope-for-self-haters
http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2000/july/9.34.html

December 20, 2016December 21, 2016

Journey Bread

I have been baking bread for my family since I was pregnant with Gabriel… that’s a good nine years of healthy, delicious, economical goodness right there. I have come up with a couple different staple recipes that I can whip up easily and consistently. My typical loaf bread includes whole wheat (ground right in my mama’s basement), oats, cornmeal, honey, and extra goodies like flax and millet when I can manage it. I call this Family Bread and it’s basically our daily fare (not that we eat bread every day, but you get what I mean). Then I came up with something I call Canaan Bread which includes milk, honey, olive oil, sea salt, and potato flakes ~ it is our special occasion bread that makes light, fluffy loaves or rolls worthy of being related to the promised land!

This year for Christmas gifts, I have been baking up bread (three loaves at a time) to deliver to neighbors and friends. It is a little more practical than some options, and honestly it seems like folks are genuinely pleased to have a healthier alternative to cookie plates (although really, if you want to bring one to MY house, none of us would mind!). I made pretty labels for the loaves, including Scripture from John 6.

Jesus said, “This is the work of God;
that you believe in Him whom He has sent…
For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world…
I am the Bread of Life;
whoever comes to Me shall not hunger…
For this is the will of My Father,
that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him
shall have eternal life…
John 6:29, 33, 35, 40

Plus, for our neighbors (whether they have a relationship with Christ, we don’t know), I tied a copy of the current Our Daily Bread issue to the bottom of the loaf.

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I have had the kids each take turns helping me bake the bread on different days. Today was Evangeline’s day to help bake bread.We were going to make my Canaan Bread today, so we could deliver some loaves to friends tomorrow morning at a playdate… with a couple little tweaks, because I added some sourdough starter I’d had proofing and decided to toss in some whole wheat too…

Evangeline helped me put honey, milk, warm water, olive oil, sourdough starter, dry active yeast, and whole wheat flour in a bowl. We let it rest and proof while we ate breakfast (Mommy poured a cup of coffee, but only got one sip in… hmm… red flag anyone?) and read our Bible and Advent lessons for the day. Then Evangeline and I returned to our baking project. It may have looked like just a gloppy mess but oh! It bubbled beautifully and smelled so yeasty and sour and rich! I love that part of the process so much.

We added sea salt, quick oats, potato flakes, and high gluten bread flour, and got the dough hook working on the kneading process for us.
Everything was going smoothly, it seemed, while Evangeline manned the controls on the side of my KitchenAid mixer. Gabriel was practicing piano, Asher was working on a math page & singing at the top of his lungs, and Simeon was fussing at my feet so I picked him up & snuggled him on my hip. But the gluten didn’t seem to be developing properly because the texture of the dough was not getting stretchy and smooth. Evangeline wanted so badly to jump ahead to the part where she gets to punch down the dough and knead it into a loaf shape! I wanted so badly to gulp down my cup of coffee! But frustration was mounting, because clearly our bread was not verging on the bliss of Promised Land today.

In a Hail Mary fashion, I decide to crack an egg into the mixing bowl and let it get worked into the dough… but in the process of trying to stop the machine with a preschooler on a stool and a baby on my hip… attempting to crack the egg with one hand (because there are times, yes, where I can manage to pull off cool tricks like that… hah! thank you, Food Network and The Chew…)… my elbow knocks down a cup of flour and I accidentally crack the egg onto the floor.

Oops.
That’s right; I totally could have grabbed a fork and started whipping up a batch of egg noodles right on my kitchen floor…
You know, if it weren’t covered in dog hair and coffee grounds (and the bowl of Cheerios the baby threw on the ground).
Because in all honesty, my plan WAS to vacuum after the bread was in the oven!

For some reason, it seemed smart to plop the baby down on the floor so I could grab a spatula and a roll of paper towels… but of course the pile of flour and ooey gooey raw egg on the floor looked entirely enticing…
So yes, my 14 month old makes a bee line for the mess!
Meanwhile, imagine the loud piano combining with a kindergartener’s version of silly math songs pounding in your ears…
and just to top it off, my daughter jumps off the stool and tries to lend a hand with keeping her little brother away from the mess…

In one of my less glorious motherhood moments, I yell at the baby “no no! no touch!” and holler at my daughter to back away, and follow it up with a quick shout to the boys to be quiet so I can think straight about how to clean up this mess!
Yep.
That’s me.
Mom of the year.
Trying super hard to do my best at training my kids up in a Christ-centered, home-centered, family-centered, grace-centered home education.
Let’s just say, it’s a good thing I don’t have things like Pinterest and Instagram because you would not see a picture perfect snippet of me this morning.

I got the mess cleaned off the floor, shot off a few frenzied texts to my husband, and started to laugh at the whole situation.

I mean, really.
And all of a sudden I realize that my Canaan Bread is really much more like the 40 years in the wilderness today! It was punctuated with fussing, hunger, noise, frustration, faith to believe what I can not see, and me trying to take matters into my own hands when it’s not going exactly according to my picture-perfect-plans. That’s when I named today’s bread Journey Bread.

What I needed was grace. Saving grace. I needed cleansing waters and leaven for the lump.
I gulped down some coffee and took some deep breaths while I considered these things.
Then I had my daughter crack an egg into the bowl (yes, yolk & white successfully made it into the bowl this time) while I dissolved a bit more yeast into warm water, honey, and bread flour. Finally, we got it all kneading together and it was obvious that the glutens were developing properly now.

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We were beginning to see the fruit of our labors coming back together, and I couldn’t stop laughing at the previous antics.
I even had to text my grandma, asking her about her own memories from motherhood. I know the days can be long but the years are short. I know that babies don’t keep. And I want to know what a great-grandma recalls from her own motherhood journey decades later. What parts do I take pictures of? What snippets do I write down?
Do I just want to remember the weekly ritual of baking bread with my kids?
Do I want to remember the prettily packaged loaves we delivered to friends and neighbors while it snowed?
Do I want to remember the spilled flour and the egg I cracked onto the floor?
Do I want to remember the cacophony of crazy noise and the scramble to figure out how to clean the mess, protect the children (from the horrors of possible salmonella, of course, haha), regain my sanity, and rescue the dough before it completely flops?

All my grandma responded with was I wish I could remember more of those years!!
She didn’t say which parts she remembers. She simply shared her longing to remember what the years held.

I don’t only want to remember the picturesque moments. I want to remember living life.
I want to remember the journey. To remember God’s faithfulness even when I fussed (and when the children did too).
Something we love about Scripture, about the Gospel, is that we get to see the narrative including the tensions. It doesn’t let us just skip to the end and see how it all turns out in the New Jerusalem. Nope. It’s about the journey. Faith. Saving grace. Clinging to what we know and asking God to clean us up because we keep making messes out of things.

And you know what? It is good to laugh at myself. To revel in good things like noisy kids and a messy kitchen.
It is good to send frenzied texts to my husband… he needs snippets of what my days are like so he can more fully appreciate what he comes home to at the end of a day… right?

Oh my word – it’s a day! I may have been trying to bake bread with our daughter, while holding Simeon in one arm and cracking an egg with one hand… I just might have knocked a bunch of flour on the floor at the same time I cracked the egg onto to the floor instead of into the bowl…I might’ve totally tweaked my neck while trying to clean up the mess and keep the kids away from it…
This. Is. My. Life.

Bless him, my husband responded, “and I don’t know how you do it.”
To which I promptly admitted three little worlds: massage & coffee & wine.
And to top off the morning of laughing at myself, I added,
Oh. Probably should’ve been “Jesus” & “God” & “Grace” but you know… #realitycheck

March 25, 2016March 24, 2016

Savoring Friendship & Cookies

It was obviously an early day of spring.
Grey clouds and blinding sunshine danced together.
Robins were bouncing happily around outside while it rained.
The fire roared in our living room stove, schoolwork was spread on the table,
the baby was fussing, and the big kids were doing anything but focusing on their books.
I was fighting a headache with Tylenol & caffeine to no avail.

Grasping for a lifeline of sorts, I popped off a quick note to a dear friend,
the kind of friend who is more like a sister than not,
to ask her to pray for me.

She wrote right back.
She thanked me for sharing my needs and expressing my heart.
She gave suggestions that were rooted in love.
She jumped into a gap for me and filled it with prayers, love, compassion, friendship.

cookies 10

I shared a list of things with her that was making me thankful.
Across a distance of 375 miles, she gave me a virtual hug and a shoulder to lean on.
Together, while apart, we sought the Lord as well as praised Him.

She in her kitchen, surrounded by her little blondies.
Me in mine, surrounded by my wee gingers.

Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each other’s lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God’s love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God’s behalf in the lives of the people that we’re close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can’t always see from where we are.
~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p49

Then I noticed she sent me something else ~ a link to a recipe.
“If you need something sweet to eat today, here’s a link to a recipe we are making,”
she said, along with three pictures of her children helping her
stir batter, eat batter, and put trays of cookies in the oven.
“I wish we could share hot cookies and ice-cold milk with you this afternoon,” she added.

That’s when I decided it was time to stoke the fire,
strap the baby onto my chest,
put away the schoolbooks,
and take three sticks of butter out of the fridge to warm on the counter.

cookies 1 cookies 2

“Butter is out to soften!!” I told her,
declaring that we would make the best of it,
and we would join them in the baking efforts of the day…

and we spent the next hour or two occasionally popping messages to one another
on our progress in our own little worlds of flour, sugar, aprons, and children licking their fingers.

cookies 3

cookies 4

My children and I were able to not only connect with one another and savor our relationship,
but we were talking about these far-away friends & taking pictures to show them,
connecting in creative ways with these friends even when distance separates us.

When joy and grace are shared, it multiplies in ways indescribable.
When friendship is savored, it builds bridges undeniable.

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cookies 6

The short of it is that you really just need to click here and try the recipe out for yourself.
And then, once you have, share the link with a friend.
And share pics of doing the same thing as one another, even if separated by miles.

cookies 7

It is good to savor friendship.
It is good to find unique ways to share life together with those you love.
Even if it is two mamas with their little ones at their sides, separated by 375 miles,
we can still share life & friendship & motherhood & cookies.
Creativity can be both warm and delicious.
Just like friendship.

In our own unique way, my children and I
shared hot cookies and ice-cold milk
with the dearest of friends ~
our hearts were encouraged
while souls were fattened
and tongues rejoiced!

I know of no other recipe for making a good-bye bearable than the promise that the God who goes with us and stays with them will be the bridge connecting us, no matter how far or long the distance.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p95~

March 24, 2016March 23, 2016

Homemade Yogurt

I don’t remember exactly how long I have been making yogurt… but it’s been a couple of years now I think. We go through so much yogurt in our household each week that this is a really good way for me to save money for my family! Like with bread, this is something healthy & delicious I can make easily & economically from scratch as a way to bless my family. Recently, some dear friends of mine were asking how to make yogurt, and I thought it was a good opportunity to document it in pics and writing, rather than just in a spoken method. 🙂

Plain Easy Yogurt

Begin with a gallon of milk. I don’t buy organic, raw, or anything special.
I buy straight-up common milk (usually 2%) in a jug at the grocery store. That’s what makes this so economical:
I get 4 quarts of yogurt for about $2.80
~…~…~

To start, dump the entire gallon of milk in a large pot.
Stick a candy thermometer in there to monitor the temperature for you.
With the stove on med-high, heat the milk to roughly 185*F.

Stir it around occasionally (using the thermometer), but try not to scrape the bottom of the pot
because you will scrape around bits of milk that adhere to the pot during the heating process
which makes the end result of yogurt grainy.
But I do sometimes scoop off the film that forms on top of the milk, and toss it in the sink.
Generally speaking, I make yogurt in the morning while I’m feeding the kids breakfast,
doing Bible with them, and washing dishes; it’s very easy in that way
to simply stay nearby and keep my eye on things.
(But that’s not to say I’ve never lost track and let it boil over all. over. the. stove.)

I don’t do anything special to prepare my jars.
I figure they have been sterilized well enough in the dishwasher…
so I simply line up my wide-mouth quart jars on the counter
along with screw on plastic lids (although you’ll see in these pics I used a metal rim on one).

You’ll also notice that on this particular day, I was making more than a gallon
so I have six quart jars lined up.
It just means that I adjusted proportions so my milk to yogurt ratio
was still appropriate.

Once the milk reaches roughly 185*F, turn off the stove and remove the pot from the heat.
Now is the part that sometimes makes me impatient. 🙂
Wait for the milk to cool down to 120*F.
This waiting usually gives me ample time to do other housework,
homeschooling, or kitchen projects… I’ve never timed it though!
~…~…~

Upon reaching 120*F, once again lift the film off the top of the warm milk and toss it.
This is the point where you need yogurt starter: 8oz (a cup) of a previous batch.
When I made my first batch of yogurt, I used a single serving cup
of vanilla Tillamook yogurt.
I just wanted to use one that was as natural as possible
that was clearly labeled as having live active cultures.

Just dump your yogurt started into the warm milk and whisk it around,
without scraping the sides or bottom of the pot
(again, to avoid a grainy end result).

Now you need to pour the yogurt-milk into the jars.
I have a steady enough arm to couple with a pot that doesn’t drip when I pour from it,
so I do not use any kind of funnel.
But you just figure out what works for you
to get it poured nicely into the jars.
Don’t cry over spilled milk! 😉

Screw the lids on nice and tight.
You can see here that you don’t have to fill the jars to an exact science.
The one with the metal rim isn’t quite as full as the others.
It did just fine though.

There is something so thrilling about jars full to the brim
of something delicious.
I feel this way about jam and pickles too.
Glass jars make me so happy!

This is the fun part. 🙂
Put your jars in a cooler,
and run water from your tap until it reaches 120*F…

…and then let the warm water fill the cooler
until it’s at least halfway up the sides of the jars.
It’s okay if it gets on top of the jars, too.
Sometimes I have a pint in there with some of the quarts,
so the water basically goes to the very top of the pint.

Now while you let those happy little yogurt bugs take dominion
and reproduce in the warm milk,
just leave the cooler closed and left alone for at least 6 hours.
Go about your day!

After 6 hours or so (I promise, it’s very flexible!),
take the jars out of the cooler,
dry them off,
empty the cooler,
dry it out…

…and put the jars in the fridge.
By the next morning, it will all be solidified
and beautifully tangy & creamy.

We eat it plain!
We eat it with a drizzle of honey!
We eat it with a dollop of homemade jam!

~…~…~
Here or there, on a train and in the rain, on a boat and with a goat…
we do so like our homemade yogurt, we would eat it anywhere!
We love it, and hope you do too.

September 29, 2015September 29, 2015

Another Round of Freezer Meal Bags

Once my freezer supply dwindles, we may try to make another round of those “dump bags” for freezer-to-crockpot cooking. Not sure if we will need it before baby is born, or if I will wait until after he arrives. But here are a few more recipes I plan to sift through and choose from, and if we particularly love any of the ones we did last week (which we have not delved into yet), we may revisit a couple as well. Just thought I would share some of these while it is fresh on my mind, in case it is a blessing to anyone who stumbles upon this conversation here. 🙂

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Chicken Potato Casserole

In gallon Ziploc: 3 large chicken breasts, three large potatoes in big cubes, one sliced onion, 1 can mushroom soup, 1 tsp pepper, 1 chicken bouillon cube.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump bag into crockpot. Sprinkle one package of stuffing mix on top, and drizzle with ½ cup melted butter & 1 ½ cups water. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Lemon Pepper Chicken and Rice

In gallon Ziploc (in this order): 1 ½ cups brown rice, 2 cups frozen green beans, 1 cup baby carrots, 1 onion quartered, 4 large chicken breasts, 2 Tblsp butter, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp lemon pepper, 1 sliced lemon, 2 cups water, 1 chicken bouillon cube.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Slit the bottom of the bag and dump it in bottom-first for best results. Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Beans and Rice

In gallon Ziploc bag: 1 ½ cups wild or brown rice, ½ onion diced, 1 can pinto beans, 1 can kidney beans, 2 ½ cups chicken broth, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 4 hours. Serve with green salad.

Sweet Cashew Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 1 ½ cups brown rice, 2 cups broccoli crowns, ½ onion diced, ¾ cup cashews, 4 chicken breasts, 1 can diced pineapple.
Label: Thaw in fridge overnight. Dump into crockpot. Add 2 cups water. Cook on low for 6 hours.

Cheesy Chicken and Rice

1 ½ cups rice, 3 cups water, 2 bouillon cubes, 1 can cream of chicken soup, 16oz frozen broccoli, 3 chicken breasts, ¼ tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp pepper, 1 cup grated cheddar cheese.
Label: Thaw in fridge overnight. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: ½ cup tomato sauce, 2 Tblsp brown sugar 2 Tblsp soy sauce, 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 bouillon cube, 1 can pineapple chunks, 1lb chopped chicken, 2 tsp. minced garlic, 1 tsp. grated ginger, 1 onion chopped, 1 bag frozen peppers, 1 bag frozen snap peas.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump in crockpot. Cook on low 8 hours. Serve over rice.

Mongolian Beef

In gallon Ziploc bag: 1lb stew meat, 3 tsp oil, 1 onion sliced, 1 Tblsp minced garlic, ½ cup soy sauce, ½ cup water, ½ cup brown sugar, ½ tsp fresh grated ginger, ½ cup hoisin sauce.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump in crockpot. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serve with green onions and rice.

Chicken Cacciatore

In gallon Ziploc bag: 1lb chopped chicken, 1 chopped bell pepper, 1 cup sliced mushrooms, ½ chopped onion, 2 tsp minced garlic, 28oz crushed tomatoes, ½ cup chicken brother, 1 tsp oregano, ¼ cup chopped basil leaves, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump in crockpot. Cook on low 6 hours. Serve over egg noodles.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 4 chicken breasts, 3 Tblsp lemon juice, 3 Tblsp parsley flakes, ¼ cup olive oil, 3 tsp minced garlic.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump in crockpot. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serve with potatoes or pasta, and a nice salad.

Broccoli Beef

In gallon Ziploc: 1 ½ lb flank steak thinly sliced, 1 cup beef broth, 2/3 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 Tblsp sesame oil, 1 Tblsp minced garlic, ¼ tsp red pepper flakes.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 5 hours. Add 4 cups broccoli florets and a slurry of 2 Tblsp cornstarch + 2 Tblsp cold water. Cook another 30 minutes. Serve over rice.

Cilantro Lime Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 3 chicken breasts, 1/3 cup lime juice, 1 bunch chopped cilantro, 1 Tblsp minced garlic, ½ red onion chopped, 1 can black beans, 1 tsp cumin, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low for 8 hours. Shred meat and serve on warmed tortillas.

Easy Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

In gallon Ziploc bag: 3 chicken breasts cut in strips, 16oz frozen broccoli, 1 large green pepper chopped, 32oz jarred alfredo sauce.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 4-6 hours. Serve over pasta.

Hawaiian Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 3 chicken breasts, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup vinegar, 2 Tblsp minced garlic, 2 Tblsp soy sauce, 1 can pineapple chunks + juice.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 6-7 hours. Shred. Serve over rice, topped with mandarin oranges and cashews.

Creamy Italian Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 4 chicken breasts, 8oz softened cream cheese, 1 can cream of chicken soup, 1 packet dry Italian seasoning.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 4-6 hours. Serve with pasta and salad.

Honey Rosemary Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 4 chicken breasts cubed, 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup honey, 1/3 cup olive oil, 4 Tblsp chopped rosemary, 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Thai Peanut Pork

In gallon Ziploc bag: 2 lb pork tenderloin cubed, ½ cup salsa, ¼ cup peanut butter, 3 Tblsp lime juice, 3 Tblsp soy sauce, 3 Tblsp water, 2 Tblsp ginger, ¼ cup sugar, 3 tsp minced garlic.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 6 hours. Serve over rice noodles or rice, topped with green onions and crushed nuts.

Beer Orange Chicken

In gallon Ziploc bag: 1lb chicken breasts, 12oz beer, 12oz OJ concentrate, 3Tblsp minced garlic, 1 ½ tsp basil, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper.
Label: Thaw overnight in fridge. Dump into crockpot. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Serve with salad and potatoes.

Potato Soup

Note: this potato soup is not a very freezer-friendly meal (texture breaks down), so I would do this as a fridge-or-fresh meal.
In gallon Ziploc bag: 3 ½ cups peeled & diced potatoes, 1/3 cup diced celery, 1/3 cup chopped onion, 1 cup diced cooked ham, 3 ½ cups water, 2 bouillon cubes, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 2 cups milk, 1 cup cheddar cheese.
Label: Keep in fridge up to a week. Dump in crockpot. Cook on low for 8 hours. Stir in 1 cup sour cream before serving. Delish topped with chives, cheese, bacon crumbles, etc.

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