Why is the world hungry when God’s people have bread? Are bread? …… This, all this, all this we ever give, this is in remembrance of Him. To be bread like Him. Because the Last Supper is the supper that never ends, His Love Body, his people, being broken and offered again and again and this is the testament to the power of resurrection.
No Fool Back to School Meals: A Linky Party
{Photo borrowed from Vintage Victuals. Her Salsa Chicken recipe looks delish!}
Happy Labor Day y’all! I hope this day finds you all not laboring too much…which brings us to this post.
As much as I love food and actually enjoying cooking, it’s the repetition that gets me. I wish I could just cook when I felt like it. And I wish I could leisurely sauté and sashay around my kitchen, serving up romantic meals like they feature on the cover of Food & Wine.
But when real life comes calling about 6:00 every evening, I am faced with the task of feeding a family of 5 for the third time that day…and I am seriously uninspired.
So let’s inspire each other with some easy meals that we can throw together in the crock-pot each morning or effortlessly assemble later in the day.
For the back-story of this post, click here.
I’ll go first.
Salsa Chicken has been my go-to meal for years now. If you have a baby and need a meal, I’ll probably bring you this with all the fixins. If you come to my house for dinner, I’ll probably serve this meal. My kids love it and it’s so easy they can actually make it. And once you add all the yummy toppings, it’s tasty and interesting enough for refined grown-up palettes.
Here’s the “recipe”:
* Desired amount of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins
* Desired amount of jarred salsa
* Optional: canned diced tomatoes and/or black beans to supplement salsa
(Example ratio: I use a 2.5 – 3.0 lb bag of breasts or tenderloins, combined with 2 jars of salsa, 24 oz. or so, a can of diced tomatoes, & a can of black beans.) Dump ingredients in a crock pot or just a large saucepan on the stove. Cook chicken until done. Shred chicken.
Serve chicken mixture over rice with toppings of choice: cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado. You can also roll it up in a burrito or serve it over tortilla chips.
Definitely make plenty of this! It’s great leftover and you can even make two totally new meals from it. It’s fantastic as quesadilla filling. Or, if you’re in the mood for a yummy Mexican soup, try this: Take leftover chicken mixture, add some chicken broth or part broth / water depending on how much you have. Sprinkle in fresh cilantro, avocado, lime juice {if you have it} and a big scoop of leftover rice. You will have an amazing soup identical to the one my favorite local Mexican restaurant serves. Top soup with crunched up tortilla chips, shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream, etc.
And there you have it: One ridiculously easy dish served four different ways!
This is the first time I’ve done a linky party. If you have a blog and want to link us to a recipe post or you want to do a post for this occasion, great! Link up. Just click on that little blue Cookie Monster looking icon at the bottom of the post and it will walk you through the steps. It takes 5 seconds. Make sure you link to the complete url address of your post, not to your general blog address.
If you don’t have a blog, just leave your recipe for us in the comment section. And if you’ve never commented, now’s your chance to de-lurk and introduce yourself {and your recipe.} It’s easy. Just set up an account with blogger. All you need is a username and password.
My hope is that we can all get a few new tried and true recipes from real families that we can work into our own rotation of meals.
Here’s a couple of recent resources I’ve found that are worth checking into:
- Free downloadable e-book from Money-Saving Mom: Smart School Time Recipes {breakfast, snacks, etc.} that are healthy and frugal.
- $3 downloadable e-book from The Grocery Shrink: Slow & Savory Suppers {36 slow cooker recipes that are tasty, easy, healthy, and affordable.} I love this little recipe book!
Bon Appétit!
All Systems Go {A Series}: So What’s For Dinner?
All Systems Go {A Series}: To Clean or Pay Someone to Clean? That is the Question.
What’s Inside the Box…
The Slate of Expectation
It feels like yesterday when I made the decision to keep her at home. You know, just for a year.
Ancient History
Marriage, Mess and Mercy
This is my first-ever guest post. I am honored beyond measure to share my words and story with Emily {Chatting at the Sky} and her gracious readers who have become my Tuesday sisterhood.
All Systems Go
It’s that time of year when mamas and school-kids are gearing up. I always have mixed feelings. Several trips to Staples, going through our school stuff, organizing binders, anticipating a busier fall schedule…and I am feeling the all-too-familiar tug toward systems.
But this year I’ve decided it’s going to be different. I’ve sworn off systems.
I’ve always been a fan of systems, methods that allow me to do life more efficiently and productively. I have a strong-willed tendency to equate efficiency and productivity with success. In theory, systems often seem like the answer. In practice, well, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never stuck with one long enough.
When inefficiency and chaos reign, I feel unsuccessful, which no one ever actually aspires to. Prone to distraction, escape, fussing at children, and downright tiredness, I look to a system as savior, wrongly assuming that the right method will eliminate the madness.
Systems seem to enjoy their annual heyday each fall. There is an endless array from which to choose, particularly if you homeschool. {And I do.} Homeschoolers have a love affair with systems. How else can they milk cows, stitch quilts, grind millet, read The Lord of the Rings, and conjugate Latin verbs all before sitting down to a hand-hewn table of organically-grown-in-the-backyard fare? How else can they do all of this while being so well-mannered, so musical, so National Merit-ish?
Systems.
I have dabbled in many over the years, always looking for the one that will finally make me a domestic goddess and make our home a beacon of order and tranquility. I’d think to myself, “If I can just cook a month’s worth of meals and freeze them, if I can just divide my house into zones and set the timer, if I can just find the perfect chore charts for my children, if I can just find the right expert or book to make me perfect, make my house perfect, make my kids and family-life perfect, we’ll all just be…perfect.”
Ugh. How perfectly nauseating.
Of course I don’t actually think I’m aspiring to perfection. No one ever admits to that. Yet on any given day that’s exactly what I do. I erect perfection and order as a shiny, golden idol and I bow down to it, resenting anyone and anything that gets in the way, myself included.
I’m learning, however, that my failure to adhere to any given system is not actually failure. There is no one-size-fits-all system. I should not equate a system with salvation and neither should you. The best system in the world will not cure my lack of discipline in certain areas or tackle the ugly issues in my heart.
Don’t get me wrong…a system is not bad in and of itself. In fact, I have been helped and taught by many a good system, taking with me the elements that worked and leaving behind those that didn’t. But I’ve found that it’s better for me to know myself, know my husband, know our kids, know our lifestyle, understand our values, and then create our own realistic ways of doing life.
The funny thing is, now that I’ve broken free from idolizing other people’s systems, I’ve found a great deal of freedom and confidence to create and embrace my own. I don’t need a book or an expert, just common sense.
I’ve got a lot to say about this, so stay tuned. I’ll be writing more from a real mom’s perspective on home and school and thwarting perfection. I’ll even be sharing some {gulp…dare I say it?} “tips” about what’s working for us right now. And I promise, such tips are in no way, shape, or form system-related.
So what about you? Are you a fan of systems?
Benevolent Blogosphere
I have, without a doubt, “met” some of the coolest girls since I began this adventure of recording life in word and picture, girls who love to write and look at photos and overthink things as much as I do. That’s a gift in and of itself, but the bloggy world has been exceptionally sweet to me lately.