Feast Day

I wanted to share this with you. It's an article worth reading about frugal cooking and a special meal once a week. Click here to read it.

Sunday Church Meals

We tend to eat just one big meal on Sundays after church. Typically we try to make ourselves available to go out to eat with anyone from church that wants us to go as a way of spending time with friends. Recently, we've been making BIG changes to save on our budget and so our most recent attempt is to eat at home on Sundays as much as possible. The big problem though is that Sunday mornings are longggggg for our family in particular and so by the time church lets out in the early afternoon, I've got a very hungry family to feed that is famished! LOL

My new attempt at solving this problem is yet again, my crock-pot. I've come up with a list of crock-pot meals that work well to cook during church and are done by the time we arrive home. Now if someone asks us to go to lunch we can offer to have them over instead and the meal is at home waiting for us all. Not every crock-pot meal works well because it's only going to cook during the service. I also have to discipline myself to get up early enough to throw the crock-pot ingredients together and tidy up the house real quick. No one said that saving money would be easy...in fact, it's hard work, but it's worth it! Like Dave Ramsey says, "live like no one else so that later you can LIVE like no one else!"

So, here are my Sunday Crock-pot meals that I've tried or am going to try.....
Chicken Enchiladas (cook chicken over night in the crock on low and assemble the rest of the ingredients in the morning and cook on low while at church)

Green Chicken Chili served on warmed tortillas (cook frozen chicken breasts on high with ingredients while at church. Before serving, remove chicken, chop it and return it to the crock)

Shepherd's Pie (cook ground meat and mashed potatoes the day before. Assemble in crock in the morning and cook on low during church. Gravy optional)

Shredded BBQ Beef Sandwiches (cook roast on low all night. Add BBQ sauce in the morning and cook on low during church. Before serving, shred the meat and serve with sliced cheese and rolls)

Meatball Subs (in the morning fill crock with frozen meatballs and one jar of pasta sauce. cook on low while at church. Serve with sub rolls and provolone cheese.)

Taco Soup (brown meat ahead of time. in the morning put all ingredients into the crock and cook on low while at church. Serve with corn bread or pita chips that were made the day before.)

Baked Potato Bar (wrap potatoes in foil and cook on low over night. I haven't tried doing these for Sundays yet but I think I would turn off the crock in the early morning and remove the lid and then before leaving for church I'd put the lid back on and turn it back on low. The break in cooking would help prevent them from being over done while we were at church.)

Chicken Broccoli Stuffing Casserole (assemble ingredients in the morning and cook on high while at church)

Most soups will work as well cooked on low from the time you get up and while you're at church. If it's a soup with something like lentils that need to cook a long time, you could try cooking it on high while you are gone.

Most chicken roasted/baked recipes will work well cooked on high while you are gone.

Easter Menu

Answering Jessica's question in her comments under this post .....but I don't know that I'll be able to do a whole series this week on it only because I've got a full schedule this week and I'm not doing the cooking this year for our family Easter celebration as it is.

Our family doesn't eat pork very often so we aren't very traditional about the Easter ham dinner. In light of that, I'll attempt to post some suggestions that may help you with a healthy Easter feast..... I tend to be drawn to dishes that feel like "spring" to me and have some fun colors.... =0)

First off, it depends if your family has an Easter brunch or Easter dinner or something in the middle but for the sake of ease, I'll lump them into these two categories (these are keeping with in the no sugar request as much as possible)....

Easter Brunch Suggested Menu Items:
Fresh cut fruit (especially berries) over yogurt with homemade granola
Quiche (there are so many great recipes out there but I'll post a recipe for individual appetizer sized ones in case you want to make it a finger food brunch)
Omelets
Country Potatoes
Baked French Toast (cause you can prep it the night before!)
Crepes
Soft boiled eggs
Spinach Fritta
Whole Grain Pear Crisp (without sugar)
German Pancake (it's a fun presentation for company)

Easter Dinner Suggested Menu Items:
Stuffed Mushrooms (I love these....I know they have bacon in them though...bad, bad, bacon. You could always omit the bacon.)
Another great appetizer that is basic but healthy are veggies and ranch...I love to buy those baby red, yellow, and orange peppers from Costco...they are beautiful on a platter and can be eaten whole, dipped in ranch)
You know me, I love cheese...so I have to put this one in there.. Baked Brie. You buy a round of brie cheese and then wrap it up in some pastry dough and bake it! How easy is that. When you cut it open the melted cheese pours out onto the platter and every one can dip in it with crackers. The pastry and the rind ARE edible as well. You can also get creative and spread some pesto and chopped pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes on the top of the brie before you wrap it in the pastry dough. Here are some links to a few of these ideas... here , and here, and here.
Hummus Dip with Pita Chips is a great appetizer as well. (Cut pitas into quarters and bake till crisp)
Strawberry/Blackberry Walnut Spinach Salad with Newman's Own Raspberry Vinaigrette
Sliced Tomato Cucumber Salad with an Italian dressing (you can add some cubed high moisture whole milk mozzarella cheese as well)
Fruit Salad (just cut fruit with nothing mixed in it)
Stuffed Cornish Game Hens (these are an impressive and fun presentation. The wrapping they come in usually has cooking directions....stuff them with regular whole wheat boxed poultry/chicken stuffing)
A Roast of any kind
BBQ (I think the BBQ idea is fantastic...you can also have your hubby BBQ sliced squash, peppers, whole green onions and other veggies on there for you and you've got another side dish done). Another fun BBQ idea is to do stuffed portobello mushrooms (1 per person)
Chicken Cordon Blue (if you wanted a little ham)
Braided Easter Loaf of bread
Roasted Veggies (either these or these)
Brown Rice Pilaf
Fruit Kabobs for dessert served stuck in a pineapple like this or in a watermelon like this. Or you could cut the watermelon in the shape of an Easter basket and fill it with fruit kabobs. You can also make a sugar free fruit dip by pureeing some fruits such as mango, pineapple, with some apple juice (to sweeten it) mixed with some yogurt for a sugar free dessert.
Old World Tart (picture) basically you take a pie crust, mix some sliced peaches with some cinnamon (about 1tsp) and some almond extract (1tsp) and a couple tbsps of frozen apple juice from a can (to sweeten it) or honey. Place the peach mix into the center of the pie crust leaving an edge. Fold the edge up to cup the tart. Bake it and serve sliced. Here's a recipe that gives you an idea of how to do it. and another one.

Don't forget some of the "empty tomb" rolls you can make with your kids. There are several versions but here are some links to some.
Here (homemade dough recipe)
Here (crescent roll recipe)


If there is a particular recipe you're looking for that you want on here, let me know. =0)