Category: Catholic homemaking

A Living Liturgy · Advent · Catholic · Catholic homemaking

Planning for Advent

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The Annunciation - Henry Ossawa Tanner - 1898
The Annunciation – Henry Ossawa Tanner – 1898

Advent 2020 begins on Sunday, November 29th. Which gives me more or less four weeks to get ready. In order for Advent to be a peaceful and faithful time I like to get as much of the Christmas prep out of the way as possible. So in the four weeks leading up to Advent I have this plan.

Week 1 – Lists and Inventory
Week 2 – Deep Cleaning and Organize
Week 3 – Shopping
Week 4 – Thanksgiving and Prep

Week 1

This week we are making lists and taking inventory. We have a list of the things we want to do during Advent and put events on the family calendar, a list of crafts that we want to make and a shopping list for what we need. Any parties we are wanting to host and what we need for them. Menus, cookie baking, candy making and Christmas giving as well.

This is also the week for taking inventory of what we have and what we might want to let go of and what we might want to add. Make sure we have Advent candles. I also like to do a walk through of the house and add any small fixes or repairs that need to happen for next week.

Week 2

Deep cleaning and Organizing is pretty straight forward. (weather permitting we will put lights on the house but not start turning them on until after Thanksgiving. ) During this we will go through toys, cloths and craft supplies and get rid of anything that we can. Anything we find we will need can get added to our lists.

Week 3

Shopping week we will go through our lists and order any gifts that we need. My goal is to have Christmas shopping done this week so that I am not doing the stress shopping thing during December. We also buy non-perishables that we will need for baking and cooking and anything that is on our shopping lists and of course, Thanksgiving dinner shopping.

Week 4

Thanksgiving week is basically set aside for the big feast, and making Advent wreaths, setting up the Advent calendar and family time. We don’t do Black Friday shopping.

Which all leads into a more peaceful Advent that we can focus on the birth of our Savior and making happy family memories.

Catholic homemaking · Homemaking · Kitchen Skills

Kitchen skills

darcee3 Comments

This is a stub post of sorts for a series of lessons I am preparing for my children on kitchen skills.

Welcome to my kitchen: What says “home” better than a well run kitchen?  I suppose there is a bit of irony in the fact that most of what I learned about kitchen management I actually learned in commercial kitchens, but I suppose that is a sign of the times I grew up in.   There is so much that goes into creating a efficient, well run kitchen – but the reality is that if you wish to eat well and save money you have to cook and cooking is much easier, safer and more enjoyable in a well run kitchen.

If you were to step into a commercial kitchen you would see more or less exactly what you see in the home kitchen only on a larger scale.   The commercial kitchen will have stations where particular activities take place, hand washing, dish washing, cooking, prep stations,  storage:  dry,  refrigerated and frozen, trash disposal.  Additionally every activity from selecting the menu to cleaning up at the end of the day is carefully planned, this is the workflow.  The home kitchen also has these elements, though they may be a little more difficult to identify.  There will be work stations, but they often do double or triple duty.    Your kitchen sink is your handwash station and your prep-cleaning station and your dishwashing station.  The same counter that you do prep-cutting on will be used for baking.   Your workflow will be different, but it should be planned.

Now I don’t pretend that this is the only way to run a kitchen.  Kitchens are rather personal things, but there are some universal basics and many more hints, tips and tricks that you can pick up.   So let’s start with the basics.

Safety: Before you start there are some safety basics to know.  Safety really does come first.

Clothing |  Hot Things | Sharp things |  Slips and Spills

Cleanliness and sanitation:

Work flow

Work areas

Equipment

Food Stuffs

Storage

Gear

Techniques

Presentation

Menu planning

Shopping

Pantry

Perserving

Catholic homemaking · Homemaking · Kitchen Skills

Kitchen skills – Clothing

darcee1 Comment

Pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen?  No: safety first when it comes to cooking.

Shoes: You should wear closed toe, sensible, non-skid shoes.  If you are working with hot oil I recommend wearing non-porous shoes.  There is almost nothing that hurts quite as badly as a grease spill that lands on your foot.    Even a drop of hot oil on a sandal shod foot can be painful for days.    Dropped knives or cutlery, boiling water all spell disaster on bare feet or feet inadequately protected by open toe shoes or sandals.    Avoid high heals or shoes with substandard arch support – if you are on your feet a lot cooking and then cleaning you will want supportive foot wear.  Non-skid soles will help keep you from slipping, which in a kitchen with a hot stove could go from embarrassing to disastrous in an instant.

Shirts and blouses: Shirts should be cuffed at the wrist and somewhat trim fitting.  If you are wearing a loose fitting long sleeve  you should consider wearing sleeve garters or a chef’s  jacket.   Likewise if you are working with heat you might want to seriously consider a chef’s jacket over short sleeves.

Chef’s Jackets and Aprons: A chef jacket or apron will protect your clothing from spills, flour dust, water, oil and all those little kitchen “incidences”.    Chef’s jackets can be purchased from uniform supply stores and some kitchen supply stores – you can also find them online.  Aprons can be found nearly everywhere and come in a wide range of designs and colors.  Pick something sensible.  You can find many really pretty aprons that are very serviceable, but you can find many more that, while super cute, are just not cut our for kitchen work.   Aprons come in a variety of styles, look for a butcher, cook, or chef  bib style apron.   Bistro aprons are designed to be worn with chef’s jackets and those cute little hostess aprons are worn to serve not to cook.   Go for a sturdy, comfortable and washable fabric such as cotton twill.

Legs:  Be extra careful if you are wearing shorts or a skirt in the kitchen.  Hot liquid spills are the biggest concern.  A long apron can help save your legs.

Hair: If you have long hair pull it back; if it is really long wear it up.  While it is unlikely,  it has happened that hair has been caught in mixers and blenders  and set ablaze by gas burners.   Be safe.

Kitchen Skills is a serries I am working on for my children.

Catholic homemaking · Homemaking

Culling the clothing

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Every six months or so I walk into the children’s rooms to put away laundry, open the door and realise that I can’t fit everything in there.   I don’t think the children’s clothing actually breeds in the laundry, but it sure seems like it sometimes.  We start the season with the “right” amount of clothing and then through gifts, hand-me-downs and bringing things up from storage as the children grow into a new size we end up stuffed to the gills again.  Now if I was smart I would pull clothing equal to the gifts/hand-me-downs and I wouldn’t let a storage box open before I had sorted out the smaller size but most times I am just not that smart or diligent.

So the clothing multiplies and before many months go by there is just too much in the drawers again, so I have to cut back.  I have written before about my clothing inventory and clothing checklist here.   This system works really well for me.

So the time has come to go through the clothing again.

I pulled out the lists for the girls:

Hannah’s list

Sarah’s list

I am culling back to the list level, then I will be able to see what I need to get.

Catholic homemaking · Simplicity

A penny saved

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WWII Poster encouraging thrift - The National Archives
WWII Poster encouraging thrift - The National Archives

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”.  A well worn little axiom if there ever was one.   January is always a great  month to start working on new ideas, new plans, new goals.  With the current economic situation many of us are talking about ways to be thrifty, live more simply, basically spend and use less.

Right before Christmas Portland was blanketed in snow and ice.  After the holiday had pass and the snow was all but gone I took my oldest to get her hair cut and happened to overhear another customer talking about what a great Christmas she had had.  She hadn’t been able to get out and shop for all her last minute gifts, but she had a wonderful Christmas anyway.  She had made a couple gifts and just hadn’t given as many gifts as usual.  I thought it was really cool that she felt that way instead of feeling as though she had missed something.

Yesterday I found a really nice post about economy at  The Simple Wife.   I like her takes on the concept of economy and I agree whole heartily that we live in a culture with too much waste and trash.  We view everything as disposable — even people.

One of the themes in Tolkien’s work which has stuck with me is the thought of  things made to last.  He covers almost in passing, but as an enduring theme in his books,  the connections between craftsmanship, beauty and thrift.  All things functional also have form and where possible the form should be lovely and well crafted.  All things worth of creating are worth creating well and nothing should be wasted, tossed aside or abandoned.  Which is in a sense the essence of simple living, have less, do more with it and select those things we add to our life with care and care for what we have.  Only when something is ruined and twisted or wasted beyond repair is it destroyed.

Catholic homemaking · Catholic Homeschooling · Christmas · Homemaking · Mary Mary and Martha · My world · Simplicity

Holiday Grand Plan Week One.

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The Official Holiday Grand Plan starts on August 31.  In order to accommodate the Advent season I am starting earlier, this week, and I hope to have everything in order and ready for a calm and spiritual Advent season.

Week One
It is the middle of August and December Holidays and the cold and snow of winter seem a million miles away, but we all know that they are right around the corner.  It is also a busy time for moms.  School is starting, the summer is ended, there are peaches to preserve and weeds to pull and all those small projects that need doing in between squeezing in a last bit of summer fun or beating off the late summer heat. 

Cleaning:  The front porch is the space on the agenda this week.    While I am outside looking at my front porch I am also looking around the outside of the house and making some notes for the fall maintenance.  The cleaning list linked above is a good place to start. 

Planning:  I use my family planning notebook instead of a separate holiday planner.  This is called “List week” because you are setting up your lists.  I have the following that I am making:

Gift list – who we are shopping for
Card list – collect and update addresses
Parties – which parties we will host
Menus – menus for the holiday meals we will be hosting and rough menus for the Holiday season.
Decorating – plan for decorating for Advent and Christmas
Baking – plan for the baking needs for gifts and goodies
Devotionals – what devotionals will we be doing during Advent/Christmas and what supplies we will need
Traditions – things we enjoy doing as a family or things we might want to experience this year for the first time.

The main goals of the lists at this point are to decide a rough budget and space out the shopping for the Holidays, make sure that we have things we need ready (no shopping for Advent Candles the day after Thanksgiving), and to just get a handle on things.

I am not printing out additional calendar pages, because my master planner has the calendar in it already.   Most lists I make on the computer and then print out lists that I need for my dayrunner or my family planning notebook as needed.

Advent · Catholic homemaking · Christmas · Homemaking · My world · Simplicity

Christmas and Advent 2008

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I walked into Fred Meyer’s the other day and tucked away near the cards and the books was the first Christmas display, the American Greetings ornaments I believe.   Normally I am rather perturbed by the consumer driven tendency to market Christmas earlier and earlier each year, but this year I looked at it and thought about how dizzying the Advent/Christmas season is.  Every year I hope to be more organised and for the last few years I have note of “The Holiday Grand Plan” which starts holiday planning in the last week of August and finishes it in the main planning endeavors by the middle of December. 

Normally I forget all about the “Grand Plan” until mid October.  This year I actually remembered about it early enough to bump it back two weeks so I can use it for Advent and Christmas.  I plan to bump the Grand Plan back to August 17 and “Tweak” it so that I can focus on Advent too.

Catholic homemaking · Food · Homemaking · Mary Mary and Martha · My world

Serving sizes, serving less and eating better

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Jan Steen — Wirtshausgarten

Recently I have been reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by  Michael Pollan.   At the moment I am about half way through, but it has been expanding and reinforcing my growing concern about food.  Not just what and how much we eat, but also how the actions we take as individuals in acquiring our food shape and change the world around us.  It has also given us our latest running joke.  “hey, guess what you’re eating”  — “CORN”.  It will eventually get old, but we will run it into the ground and stomp on it a few times before we give it up.   But back to diner. 

Gestational diabetes has been the worst part of my last two pregnancies, but it has also been positive in helping me focus on two important facts.  I need to eat better and I need to exercise more.   These facts were drilled how when I met with the nutritional councilor who talked about managing the carbohydrates I eat and balancing my menus for better nutrition.  The other item she highlighted was serving size.  Portion control is important.  Not just to my waistline, but to the family budget as well.  

Rethinking serving sizes for health: Portions have gotten larger over the past 20 years.  To see this in a compelling way check out Portion Distortion from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.  (They also have a nice menu tool  where you can input your menu and see a breakdown of the calories, fat and carbohydrates. )   I know as I have gotten older I have seen this on my own plate.  I have allowed myself to be tricked into the idea that  more is better with regards to food, but that is just not true.  More is unhealthy.  The most expensive calories you buy are the ones that you over eat.  They cost money to purchase, time to store and cook, and money down the road dealing with health problems, they cost time to burn off, and they hurt your quality of life.  They are not a good deal.

Reason dictates that children need less food than adults, teens need more, older adults need less, but when I look at most serving suggestions (including those on packages and in reciepies) there is one serving size.   Menu recommendations for children usually reduce the number of servings, but this doesn’t work so well when I am cooking for the whole family.  So instead of changing the number of servings I am changing the portion size.

My typical family diner serves two adults (one serving each), one teen (1.5 servings), one older child (1 serving) , two younger children (.75 servings each)  and a toddler (.5 serving).  So basically I need 6.5 servings for the family for breakfast and dinner and 4 servings for lunch and snacks and box lunches for 2.5 plus “on the go” snacks for 2.5 serving.   But these can not be the bloated serving sizes that have crept onto our dinner plates, especially on the higher calorie items.  I will admit my visual judgment on what a serving is isn’t so great.  I need to measure and weigh items so that I can train myself to better judge what a serving is.  The Clevenland Clinic has a good resource for determining serving sizes.  I have a small kitchen scale and measuring cups and that pretty much lets me see what a serving size really is.  One of the fun things I did with the children we to take their favorite breakfast cereal and measure out one serving.  It was significantly less than what they had  been pouring out for themselves when they had the chance.  

Increased serving sizes leads to waste: When I cook too much it is almost guaranteed that at least some of it will go to waste.   Studies have shown that children under five won’t on their own eat more no matter how much you put in front  of them.  They stop eating when they are full.  But children older than five will eat more if there is more in front of them — to a point.  Too much food served up means food that is brought to the kitchen that need to be tossed.  Leftovers are great for boxed lunches especially, but more than one or possibly two days worth is a complete waste.   It will sit in the refrigerator until it resembles some misbegotten science experiment and then be tossed.  The second most expensive calories that you buy are the ones you don’t eat.

The sweet things in life: We are not machines.  We don’t just consume our food for energy.  We have a complex relationship with food, it is part of our culture, our family life and a real pleasure.  Or at least it should be.  Fast food, eaten quickly, on the go and alone doesn’t have anywhere near the same satisfaction as a well cooked meal, eaten with friends and family around the dinner table while talking over the days events.   Likewise we can’t eat ourselves into happiness.  While we might enjoy a piece of chocolate cake are we really going to enjoy a huge piece more than a small severing?  What is better, the small piece savored slowly or the huge piece eaten quickly?   A friend of mine once said, “With thing that you eat just for the taste just a taste should do.”  Smaller servings, prepared carefully and served in pleasant surrounds have a satisfaction that super-sized bloated servings just can’t match.   Taking the time to make food special has the double benefit of making less food more satisfying.