Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Sunday afternoons around here are...quiet.

The kind of quiet I hated when I was a kid, but the kind I cherish now that I understand.

You see, I take a Sabbath rest. I love this day of rest and worship.

Sunday breakfast is easy-peasy. Bagels. Cereal. Juice. Everybody gets their own.

And now that everyone is older, we actually get to church on time :)

Sunday dinner is easy-peasy. Crock pot. Breakfast tortillas. Sloppy Joes. Pot Roast. Meatloaf.

And all the prep work is done the day before, so all I have to do is heat it up. I don't really cook on Sundays.

Next comes a long Sunday afternoon of reading, playing a family game, maybe taking a drive up into the Hills...until winter arrives.

On chilly Sunday afternoons, I like to keep a crock pot full of hot, spiced cider going - adding to it as needed - and we all sip cider while we're reading, playing games...or watching football!!!

(I'm the only one who likes the football - the others ignore me while the game is on.)


So, who's going to join me for a pot of hot cider this week?

First you need a crock pot. I have two crock pots - one for meals and one for side dishes and cider. It holds about a gallon.

Fill the crock pot with cider or apple juice, add 1/4 cup brown sugar, and then add the spices:

2 sticks cinnamon
10-12 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg





Put all the spices in a bag. You can make one out of a coffee filter, or you can buy one of these spiffy paper tea bags my daughter found to use with her loose-leaf tea.

I break the cinnamon sticks in half so they fit easier, and fasten the top of the coffee filter bundle with a safety pin I keep just for cider.





Stir the brown sugar into the cider, add your spice bag, and turn your crock pot on high. It will take about an hour for the cider to heat up and get all spicy. Once the cider is hot, turn the crock pot down to low.

You can also use a pot on the stove. Once the cider is hot, just let it simmer.

The bonus is that sweet, spicy, appley fragrance filling your house all Sunday afternoon...

Are you ready for the weekend???

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?

Lazy Day, Sunday Afternoon

Sunday afternoons around here are...quiet.

The kind of quiet I hated when I was a kid, but the kind I cherish now that I understand.

You see, I take a Sabbath rest. I love this day of rest and worship.

Sunday breakfast is easy-peasy. Bagels. Cereal. Juice. Everybody gets their own.

And now that everyone is older, we actually get to church on time :)

Sunday dinner is easy-peasy. Crock pot. Breakfast tortillas. Sloppy Joes. Pot Roast. Meatloaf.

And all the prep work is done the day before, so all I have to do is heat it up. I don't really cook on Sundays.

Next comes a long Sunday afternoon of reading, playing a family game, maybe taking a drive up into the Hills...until fall arrives.

On chilly fall Sunday afternoons, I keep a crock pot full of hot, spiced cider going - adding to it as needed - and we all sip cider while we're reading, playing games...or watching football!!!

(I'm the only one who likes the football - the others ignore me while the game is on.)


So, who's going to join me for a pot of hot cider this week?

First you need a crock pot. I have two crock pots - one for meals and one for side dishes and cider. It holds about a gallon.

Fill the crock pot with cider or apple juice, add 1/4 cup brown sugar, and then add the spices:

2 sticks cinnamon
10-12 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg





Put all the spices in a bag. You can make one out of a coffee filter, or you can buy one of these spiffy paper tea bags my daughter found to use with her loose-leaf tea.

I break the cinnamon sticks in half so they fit easier, and fasten the top of the coffee filter bundle with a safety pin I keep just for cider.





Stir the brown sugar into the cider, add your spice bag, and turn your crock pot on high. It will take about an hour for the cider to heat up and get all spicy. Once the cider is hot, turn the crock pot down to low.

You can also use a pot on the stove. Once the cider is hot, just let it simmer.

The bonus is that sweet, spicy, appley fragrance filling your house all Sunday afternoon...

And then after evening service, my dear husband loves to have a quick supper. Fried egg sandwiches are his favorite. No recipe needed!







And please, please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers the Moody Blues! If you don't remember their song, go here to listen. This is called a lesson in cultural literacy :)