fall flavors

Although I've had little time to blog this fall, I just finished our family's October menu and thought I'd pass it on if it helps you organize or inspires your family's meal planning this month.
Most every dinner recipe comes from the Whole Foods website.
Enjoy!
Until next time, I leave you with these photos, taken today on our family's hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

summer's peak

Summer's at its peak in the High Country!

We're making the most of these last summer evenings by firing up the grill and enjoying the season's best produce.

Click here if you'd like to visit our our printable August menu!

Want to find the recipes? Many of our August suppers are from Whole Foods.

Others you can find through google. 

If you're just in, you are welcomed to visit our posts on menu rationale and method.

juicy july

Strawberries, peaches, and corn on the cob... oh, my!

Summer salads, suppers from the grill, and even a birthday party await us this July.

Incorporating flavors and colors fresh from the farm, bursting with summer sun and juicy goodness,

I had a feast just preparing this height-of-the-summer menu! Enjoy.

Click here if you'd like to view our printable July menu.

Want to find the recipes? Many of our July suppers are from Whole Foods. 

Others you can find though google.

If you're just in, you are welcomed to visit our posts on menu rationale and method.

bbq

Ever since I've known Erik, he's enjoyed hosting a good party. 

Having little kids hasn't kept Erik away either from entertaining or from the grill

 when summer comes a-callin'. 

In fact, now he has four junior entertainers to help him kick off the good times.

We hosted a BBQ for about 30 single staff and interns at our home earlier this June, and 

our friends Chris and Carly Mainland captured some of the moments on film.

Erik, grill master 

Jack,  cookie inspector

Mimi, cookie taster

Catherine, running c - i - r - c - l - e - s around the porch crew  

Jack, with his cars, letting the good times roll

the girls, settling down with Mrs. Ginger, before they have to say
So long, farewell
Auf wiedersehen, good night!
and head for bed.

fairy godmother

Yesterday I shared a little of the rationale behind our family's month-long menu. Today, if it would be helpful to you, I am happy to share specifics of how our family's month-long menu works as well as a copy of our June menu at the bottom of the post. If you can use it, please feel free to "slice it and dice it" in the way that best serves you and your family!

"Recipe" for making our month-long menu plan

1. I created a page that looks like a month calendar in Microsoft Word.

2. I brainstormed dinner themes that our family likes (Eg: pasta, turkey, fish, ham, chicken, salad, beef).

3. I thought about what our week typically looks like and chose what dinner theme would work best for which night of the week. (Eg: Sunday- salad, Monday - chicken, Tuesday - fish) The rationale behind nightly dinner themes was to ensure that I wasn't serving pork three nights in a row!

4. I thought about our favorite family meals and plugged them in first to the appropriate days. (Eg: on a Sunday when the dinner theme was "salad", I would ensure that one Sunday in the month had one of our favorites: Cherry Chicken Lettuce Wraps)

5. In the gaps in the calendar left after that, I got on-line and researched what I needed. I googled "beef" or whatever. Recipes that looked tasty I'd "plug in" to the remaining gaps of the menu and then print out the recipe for future reference. This enables me to experiment with new recipes.

Notes:

I started this in January, but as the days have gotten longer and warmer and more spring and summer variety appears in the markets, I have been getting back on-line to freshen our menu to reflect the flavors of the season.

Once I got the calendar grid ready, the nightly themes designated, and the skeleton of our favorites in place, the actual updating the calendar and filling in the gaps with new recipes takes me about an hour each month.

The menu also helps me with my shopping. The menu becomes my shopping list, ensuring I have the ingredients I need. I do a local run to the grocery store each week for the fruit and veggies I need, and we go as a family into the city to do a "big shop" maybe twice a month for big ticket items. My pantry and fridge are stocked, ready for me to cook, ready for our family to eat.

If you're feeling motivated, you can also add on breakfasts, lunches and snacks to help "rise to the occasion" when it's meal time for your little loves. It may seem overkill, but for me, having something written down saves me time and time again when it's time to eat and I'm chewing my bottom lip looking for mealtime solutions.

Do I stick with the menu? It's a tool. It's there for me. It supports me with my work, but I am at the controls. Sometimes I'll swap a meal around or completely drop it that day... it depends on what we need and what works for us that day. But 90% of the time, this little menu's been my fairy godmother - transforming my daily chef from frazzled to successful.

Click here to see our June 2012 menu. 

daily bread

Let's talk about food, shall we?

So many colors, textures, flavors, combinations, and opportunities!
It's aesthetic.
It's aromatic.
It's flavorful.
And it's functional.
Food nourishes the grown up bodies and the tiny bodies in our homes. It helps them go (and grow!).

God could have packaged up our fuel in freeze-dried, flavorless form, but He made it so full of variety and gave us the pleasure of creating with it, sharing it, enjoying it, and being nourished by it! (Thank you, Lord!)

How many meaningful conversations have been had over a meal? Mealtime is an ingenious conduit of togetherness and fellowship.

Food... what a literal treat!

In our family, one of my responsibilities and privileges as a mother is to ensure my family is getting properly nourished by providing healthful meals each day.

After all, our children are growing mentally, but equally physically. In the same way I want to feed their minds with good books, thoughts, and opportunities, I also want to ensure that their calorie craving bodies and lengthening limbs are getting the proper building blocks of nutrition that they need.

As for my wonderful husband Erik, he has no expectations for me to cook amazing food, but he does appreciate a good meal at the end of his day. A good meal is a great way to encourage him!

However, I was finding that I was repeating many of the same meals, which ultimately lacked variety both nutritionally and flavorfully... Or worse, I was finding myself at five pm staring into an improperly stocked refrigerator wondering what I could make from odds and ends while hungry children waited patiently.

I felt like my days as a Mom with four little children were tremendously demanding - sometimes just going from one part of the day to the next - which left me no time to properly plan, shop, and nourish my family with a good meal at the end of the day. I was struggling with the apparent conflict of my responsibilities as a mother.

I was discouraged that such a significant, regular, and presumably delicious part of our lives was, well, BLAND.

I wished that I could not only be productive in the kitchen for the sake of our own family, but also that we could capitalize on the multiple benefits of sharing a meal with friends from our community and town.

Can you relate?

Do you feel a desire to love your family by providing a variety of nutritious meals for them, but find that your meals are "repeats" from week to week? Do you desire to make good food, but when it comes down to it, the ingredients aren't there when you need them? Do your minutes matter and you find yourself at the end of the day without enough time to think through a menu and decide on ingredients and then go shopping? I think this may be true for a few mamas reading this.

May the Lord guide you and help you with the desire to care for your family in this way.

For me, I expressed my heart to Erik, who is not only such a wonderful husband, but also friend who knows me well and cares about my concerns and wants to support me in any way he can. I feel that God often shows me things about myself through the eyes of my man, and I am so glad for this. Erik reminded me that I frequently do well - both in preparing a project and feeling satisfied at the end of it - if I've made a list.

From this concept, the month long menu was born and has been developing over the past five months.

I spend about an hour each month "refreshing" each month's menu, but the pay off is that I have a variety of meal ideas, the ingredients I need, and the joy of knowing my family is being well-fed.

One of the highlights of feeling more confident about mealtime due to our menu is that we are able to have more people into our home, especially for dinner. I am not only able to care for my family, but also welcome students, staff, and neighbors from our community into our home regularly. What a blessing this is!

Even Jesus nourished the hungry tummies with loaves and fish while teaching them of the Bread of Life. It is a privilege to serve my family in this way, and I am grateful for this tool to help me with my responsibilities at this stage in our family's life.

Lord, thank You for making us body, soul, and spirit 

and for abundantly providing everything they need to be sustained.

Sustain our families as we share Your food, 

both bread for the body and the Bread of Life for the soul.