Monday, May 4, 2015

Simple Sunday Afternoon

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. Church, quiet afternoons, church again, and then a Netflix movie with my hubby before bed.

The biggest challenge for Sundays, though, is feeding my family a good meal after church with very little prep time.

Both my husband and I teach Sunday School on Sunday mornings - he teaches adults and I teach kindergartners. (I won't ask you which of us has the harder job. Let's just say that his students rarely write on themselves with markers!) And after Sunday School is the worship service, which lasts about an hour and a half at our church - and we love it!

One of my Sunday School students on
her birthday. Isn't she adorable?

But by the time we get home, there are five or six starving people who want food. NOW!

A couple Sundays ago we had beautiful weather, so I fired up the grill to make my favorite quick dinner - Grilled Chicken and Summer Squash.

The grilled chicken is super simple -

Just take boneless chicken breasts cut into serving sizes (face it, some of those chickens must be Amazons....), season with your favorite spices, and grill until done. It takes about twenty minutes if your chicken is cut up and ready to go. I do that as a night-before prep.

Before you put the chicken on the grill, though, slice some zucchini and/or yellow squash, onions and mushrooms. Toss them together in a bowl with olive oil and more seasoning, and start them on the grill about five minutes before putting the chicken on the fire.


I love this pan for doing veggie stir-fries on the grill. It's non-stick, and the holes in the pan allow for the grill's heat to sear those veggies to a golden brown.

Turn the chicken a couple times, and stir the veggies often, and they'll soon be done.

Be sure to check the chicken with a thermometer to make sure it's done! You want it to be at least 165°.


I added some green beans seasoned with butter, salt, pepper and sesame seeds. Delicious! And ready to eat about thirty minutes after we got home from church. :)

After lunch, we often play a game or two. Settlers of Catan is one of our favorites.


The idea of the game is to collect resources in order to build cities and roads, and they add up into points. Those little houses are settlements, and the sticks are roads. My color is blue, so every time a nine, two or twelve is rolled on the dice, I get the resource that corresponds to the number. Nine is rolled quite often, so I should be able to collect a lot of wood, right?

My strategy for that game didn't work. When my son, Benjamin, won the game with his ten points, I still only had the two points everyone gets at the beginning of the game :(

I blame this creature.


This guy isn't part of the game - it's what Benjamin makes with his extra pieces while he's waiting for his turn. But do you see how he's bearing down on my little blue settlement???

Oh well. Someone has to lose the game.

What is your favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

15 comments:

  1. Oooooohhhhhh.....I like that little veggie grill thing. Do you know what it's called? I've never seen one.

    You've made me very nostalgic for Sunday afternoons and I've just had one. LOL Mine are usually the time my daughter and I get together. And I get to see my grandpuppy. :-) No board games are involved though. And I've never heard of Settlers of Catan. You live such an exciting life over there, Jan!

    Oh -- and Sunday is perfect for reading too, right? I'll skip the Netflix movie and read instead. Right now it's When Mercy Rains by Kim Vogel Sawyer.

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    1. Sorry Kav, I have no idea what the veggie grill thing is called. I just say, "my veggie griller thing." LOL

      My husband got it for me quite a while ago - it might have been a door prize at a food show he attended, or something like that. I've never seen anything exactly like this at the store, but I've similar things. You'll have to look around in the grilling accessories at your store. Not the grocery store, but one that sells grills. Around here I'd try Lowe's or Running's.

      And yes, reading! That's what we did last night. We had watched a movie on Saturday evening, so Sunday was for reading :)

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  2. I love your Sunday afternoons, and I love that our asparagus is poking up and wishing the sun a good day and I love things on the grill!

    My Sunday afternoons once the weather is nice are outside. Once I'm home from Mass, it's get-dirty-day and I give myself that afternoon to be outside, weeding, trimming, cleaning water gardens, killing weeds, puttering. To me this is my play time. I don't mow the lawn on Sundays, because while it's good exercise, it's work! But puttering in the gardens, planting new things, spreading mulch... I love that stuff. This year some of my Sundays will be spent painting because we need to start re-painting this big, old house. Side by side, it'll take awhile, but I love painting, so I'm gung ho on this, too.

    Beth and Jon are usually here with the kids, so there will be three little boys running around, having water wars and eating ice cream and Popsicles... and there's always a Yankee game on the radio so I can listen wherever I'm working... :) Baseball, cute kids, and fix-it projects. I love my Sunday afternoons!

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    1. Asparagus! I love asparagus :)

      And you make me want to get out in the yard! The weeds are just getting big enough to pull, and the garden needs to be planted sometime soon. I'll wait until the third week of May, when we're less likely to have a hard freeze.

      I'm with you on the lawn mowing. That's work. And who wants to disturb the Sunday afternoon sounds of children playing and baseball games on the radio with the roar of a lawn mower? Not me!

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    2. Ruthy, I would kill for some fresh, home-grown asparagus! Okay, maybe kill is a little harsh, but you get my drift. ;)

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    3. It's so good.... We get such a kick out of eating it!

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  3. I love this, Jan. And I hear you about Sundays and cooking. Always a challenge.

    It's rare we have a lazy Sunday around here. Aside from church, we're either traveling or, now that the weather's nice, catching up on some much needed yard work. No rest for the weary, I tell ya.

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    1. It's hard to carve out a time for rest, isn't it? Here's hoping you're able to someday!

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  4. Jan, the question is: Are you a good or sore loser???

    :) I'm sure you're a good sport. Just kidding you. :)

    Love the idea of the veggies on the grill. I haven't done that for ages. It's time to move outdoors once again! (although I need a new grill or a grill repair this year)

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  5. I also meant to say that Sunday afternoon is my nap time. :)

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    1. Missy, I'm okay with losing - as long as it doesn't happen six times in a row! (or more - I don't think I've ever won a game of Catan!). But the last time we played, I ended up with nine points before someone else won. I'm happy with that :)

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  6. There is something so yummy about chicken on the grill. We like ours with KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce.

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    1. Oh, I LOVE KC Masterpiece. Yes, that's fabulous, too!

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  7. I loved this post! I have never tried making veggies on the grill and can't wait to try it now. Do you remember where you got that pan? Also, we are huge Settlers of Catan fans. In fact, I played several games last weekend with my husband. I finally broke a losing streak! Yippee! :)

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  8. I loved this post! I have never tried making veggies on the grill and can't wait to try it now. Do you remember where you got that pan? Also, we are huge Settlers of Catan fans. In fact, I played several games last weekend with my husband. I finally broke a losing streak! Yippee! :)

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