Celebrations

I love celebrations.  Doesn't matter what kind, I just like any excuse for throwing a party!  I have some tips for throwing your own celebration - and having fun at it yourself.

I firmly believe in "tradition".  Tradition is not only fun to pass down to the kids, but helps you immensely as you plan.  For instance, we have certain things that MUST be done to make birthdays "just right".  We have the "birthday chair".  It's just the chair that the child will be sitting in on their birthday, decorated with streamers and balloons..  We have streamers going from each corner of the dining room into the middle light fixture, two balloons in each corner, a home-made cake of the child's choosing, and a pinata.  I'm not EXACTLY sure how we got into the pinata thing, but I'm not allowed to omit it!  Yes, it might seem repetitive, but I always know that I need balloons, streamers, and newspapers (for the pinata).

Make lists....and try not to lose them.  The very best thing is to have a notebook for all your lists.  Just some random $0.10 notebook that you can pick up before school starts, and you're all set.  Get a big Sharpie and write CELEBRATIONS on the front and voila - a list book!!

I make lists for everything.  Who's invited, what I'll make, EXACTLY what I have to do to prepare the house, shopping lists, thank yous (with columns for "required" and "completed".  Do what works for you, but write it down.  Then you'll know when you're done and won't have a nagging feeling about what you've forgotten to do.

Finally, get as much done ahead of time as possible.  Make the day of the event fun and relaxing for everyone, including yourself.  If you'll have to plate items, get those plates and utensils out and put them where your guests can help (someone always asks to help).  If you have to scoop ice cream, do it ahead of time into little cupcake wrappers, place on a baking sheet and freeze so you just have to serve.  Making punch, but it has to be last minute?  Make sure it's all in the fridge, cold and ready to be poured.

You CAN enjoy parties.  You have to choose to not stress over what's not perfect, and enjoy your guests.  Invite people you care about, have a glass of wine, and enjoy your day!!

Oooh.....chocolate.....cookies.....or....brownies????

So I'm feeling like cookies.  I have so many good recipes, it's hard to choose which is the best.  It really depends on my mood....oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, peanut butter, regular ol' chocolate chip, or....my whole family's favorite...."brownie" cookies.

Okay, so the REAL name is Thick and Chewy Triple Chocolate Cookies

Use a spring-loaded ice cream scoop to scoop the dough. Resist the urge to bake the cookies longer than indicated; they may appear underbaked at first but will firm up as they cool.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)

½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon table salt

16 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder

10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1¼ sticks), softened

1½ cups packed light brown sugar (10½ ounces)

½ cup granulated sugar (3½ ounces)

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

Melt chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over pan of almost-simmering water, stirring once or twice, until smooth; remove from heat.  To melt the chocolate in a microwave, heat at 50 percent power for 2 minutes, stir, then continue heating at 50 percent power for 1 more minute. If not completely melted, heat an additional 30 to 45 seconds at 50 percent power.  Beat eggs and vanilla lightly with fork, sprinkle coffee powder over to dissolve, and set aside.

In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Beat in sugars until combined, about 45 seconds; mixture will look granular. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add melted chocolate and chips in steady stream and beat until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula. With mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until consistency is scoopable and fudgelike, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Leaving about 1 ½ inches between each ball, scoop dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with 1¾-inch ice cream scoop.

Bake, reversing position of the baking sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until edges of cookies have just begun to set but centers are still very soft, about 10 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets about 10 minutes, slide parchment with cookies onto wire racks, and cool to room temperature. Cover one baking sheet with new piece of parchment paper. Scoop remaining dough onto parchment-lined sheet, bake, and cool as directed. Remove cooled cookies from parchment with wide metal spatula and serve.

Caveat to previous post

Now for a caveat to the last post.  We, as women (or maybe it's just me), have a tendency to take things just a bit too far.  Here's my example.

When we lived in Abilene, TX, I hosted and led a Bible study.  I had three kids, Tim was deployed, and I cleaned the house, led the study, and made a snack (from scratch, of course).  My goal was not to alienate people, but to welcome them into my house, with their children if needed, so they could be refreshed and have some "grown-up" time.  It turned out I was discouraging them.  One woman said something to the effect of, "I'd never host one of these - it's too much work."

All my hard work had been taken too far - and I'm glad she said something.  I started a sign-up sheet for snacks, I stopped worrying about my house being perfectly clean, and I started being more real.

I think women want to know someone who is authentic, transparent, honest, real - whatever adjective you want to use, I don't care.  We are so busy trying to show that we have it all together, that we scare people away from sharing their true selves.  I believe one of Satan's greatest tools against us is to make us think that we are the only one that struggles.  You are not.  If you think you are, you need to find SOMEONE to confide in that can encourage you.  If you can't find one, contact ME.  I am a hateful, horrible person apart from the love of Christ in me.  Just ask my friends from high school.

So here you go - I struggle.  I am a perfectionist, a control freak, prideful, and I have very high standards - that I too often rudely shove onto others.  You might think that "she does everything" - but you don't see my house, my room, my quiet time, my rude mouth to my kids.  I have learned that some things have to be let go - like my idea that I can control things.  I am learning that God's way is INFINITELY better than my way.  Do I waste time on the computer?  Yes!  Do I forget that my FIRST priority should be God?  Yes!  Am I rude to those that are the most important to me?  Yes!  I could go on and on, but I think you get it.

All this to say - yes, we need a clean house to be hospitable.  It doesn't need to be perfect....just try to keep it from being filthy and vermin-ridden.  <just kidding!>

'Tis the Season...

....no, not for Christmas...for chili!  The weather has gotten cooler (here anyway!), football season has started (go Pats!), and it's time to pull out the more substantial meals that I use for fall and winter.

I make two kinds of chili - red and white.  The red is fine, nothing special, and I find that pretty much everyone has their favorite recipe (with or without beans).  My white chicken chili is delicious, though, and it's good for you.  There's no sour cream and you won't even miss it!  

You'll see that many of the measurements for each ingredients are a range....I like lots of garlic and lots of beans, so I use the higher amount of garlic and beans and the lower amount of broth.  Change this recipe up according to your tastes.

3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed

1 onion, diced

2-4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 - 1 tsp cumin

3 cans northern beans

3-5 cups chicken broth

1 small can chopped green chiles

cayenne pepper to taste

Saute onions in a bit of oil; add chicken and cook until no longer pink.  Puree 1 can of northern beans and 1 cup of chicken broth (in a blender or food processor) and set aside for a minute.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Add the rest of the ingredients, bring up to a simmer and enjoy!  I usually put mine in a crock pot (I recommend the liners - makes clean-up SO easy!).  Serve with a salad and cornbread or cornbread crackers if you need something with it.

Two Other Facets

Wow, can't believe I've not posted in so long!  We've been gone on several little trips here and there, but it is always great to return home.  There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

I want to touch on two areas of hospitality that most people probably don't think a lot about - coffee and cleanliness.  How's THAT for a combination?

Seriously, now, let's think about the cleanliness part.  If your house is filthy, people do NOT want to come, and therefore you can't be hospitable.  I'm not suggesting that your house must be pristine before you invite people in, but I do think that a dirty house is repulsive to people.  You should know that I am NOT a good housekeeper at all.  My mom worked outside the house, so I was responsible for "maintenance" at my childhood home.  That meant that I did dishes and laundry on a daily basis - and that's it.  Saturdays were the big cleaning day.  My parents would blast some music on their record player (yes, we had a record player!) - usually the Eagles, Englebert Humperdink, or The Oak Ridge Boys, and we would clean all day.  Great fun, right?  Wrong.  Anyway, when I got married and had kids, I didn't know how to keep up the house.  No idea.  I remember a conversation Tim and I had about it.  He asked if I could do better at keeping the house clean (his mom stayed at home when he was young).  I asked how exactly he wanted me to do that.  He didn't know, but knew that what I was doing wasn't enough.  Now, this isn't the time to crab about how horrible my hubby was - because I knew he was right.  I had NO idea how to clean a house - how often should I dust?  Vacuum?  Mop?  How to work in cleaning cupboards?

Enter Flylady.  Even if you think you're a good housekeeper, you need to visit this site and start getting e-mails.  She breaks everything down into small pieces, gives a great deal of encouragement (which I need to have), and reminds you that your house didn't get like this in a day, it won't be fixed in a day.  She helped me to figure out a cleaning schedule (which I don't stick to religiously, but certainly helps!), and also helped keep me focused.  I'm a cleaner that would find something in one room, go to another room to put it away, find something in THAT room that needed to be done, and so on and so on.  Nothing ever seemed to get clean, because I didn't focus for more than a few minutes.

So, how does this go back to hospitality?  The most pressing example in my head is the bathroom.  Flylady encourages you to "swish and swipe" each day.  It takes all of two minutes to swish the toilet with the toilet brush and to wipe down the sinks and seat of the toilet with a rag and cleaner.  And then it's ALWAYS clean enough for company.  I have been to houses where the bathroom is repulsive.  Not just dirty, repulsive.  It takes all of two minutes to clean it...and if you do it daily, it's even less difficult to clean.  It makes me not want to return to houses like that.  And that is most CERTAINLY not giving the gift of hospitality.

Okay, enough of that yucky subject.  I still hate cleaning, but Flylady's made it manageable.

Now, onto coffee.  I hosted home group (a Bible study) in my home for several years.  I remember SO many times people would say, "you make great coffee".  What???  I could never figure it out.  I have now.  I have had several cups of "brown water" at other people's houses.  I will give you the secret to good coffee....it's really hard, so get ready to take notes....are you ready?  Okay, it's....MORE.

Yes, I said more.  One tablespoon per cup.  At least.  I've started adding a bit extra and it's even better.  For example, I normally make 6 cups every day.  So...that's six tablespoons (I've recently started doing seven - yum!).  If you have a coffee scoop, figure out how many tablespoons it is and convert.  It's really that simple.

This goes back to hospitality because quite often, we'll serve coffee to people....and if it's brown water, it's not tasty.  We want people to enjoy being at our house (cleanliness, conversation) and enjoy what they eat and drink (properly seasoned, pleasing to the palate and the eyes).

I'm off to drink MY coffee now (with a bit of hazelnut creamer).