In the Kitchen: Menu Planning, Spice Organization, and a New Recipe

Having some type of a menu plan especially helps me to be more consistent with cooking for just the two of us. Of course, it definitely helps when cooking for a crowd, but I need it just as much for a meal for two. 

The photo above shows the menu planner that I am using this year; sitting on my kitchen counter, ready and handy to refer to. The photo above was taken on Feb. 13, with the recipe written in for that day - a delicious new recipe I tried. We loved the Creamy Tomato and Spinach Tortellini Soup we had that evening. 

On the post-it notes you see the other two recipes that I had selected to use that week for main dishes. I made Teriyaki Salmon the next day (Valentine's Day!), a favorite of my hubby's. We love that recipe!

I like to be flexible with my menu plans, usually waiting to fill in the daily squares as I go through the week. But having the recipes picked out ahead of time helps so much, also gives me the time needed to shop for the groceries. And I like the flexibility of using the post-it notes. 

And on the additional days of the week when I am not preparing one of the recipes that I have picked out to use, you will most likely find us heating up a homemade freezer meal. I usually have a ready supply of those on hand in our extra upright freezer. This happens naturally as I continue to prepare my recipes as they are originally written, even though there are just two of us at home now. Instead of down-sizing them for just two of us, sometimes I will even double the original recipe so that I will have a number of freezer meals - for us, and also to share.

Last month we gave our kitchen a little new year gift! Our spice collection was becoming a bit of a mess. So many spices, and it was becoming a challenge to quickly find the ones that a recipe called for! 

So it was the right time to purchase some new spice racks, and also some new spice jars! I used my label maker to make the labels that you see on the jars. The round labels on top came with the purchased jars. Why did I wait so long to do this?! Click to see the spice racks (I purchased two of these), and the spice jars that I purchased from Amazon. And click for the label maker that I purchased a few years ago, and that I use often!

And back to that new recipe that I tried out mid-February ... here's a photo of it! I put several meals of it in the freezer, and yesterday we pulled out one of those freezer meals to use. It was just as delicious after being frozen, thawed, and heated up in the microwave as when I made it fresh earlier this month. Click here for the recipe: Creamy Tomato and Spinach Tortellini Soup.

(A few changes I made to the recipe: I doubled the recipe, and also substituted 1 can of crushed tomatoes for 1 of the cans of diced tomatoes ... also used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth. I chose to freeze it with the tortellini already added to it - instead of how the recipe describes doing it. The recipe also suggests adding cooked sausage to it, which also would be delicious!)

 

The Secrets of Prayer

For several months now, I've had a growing desire to focus my mind and heart in deeper ways on ... prayer. Over the years, I have collected many verses on prayer, choosing to call them my HEART CONNECT verses. For that is what I think prayer is ... connecting our hearts to His, in response to His heart of love for us. 

And there is so so much to learn and grow in. I have especially been longing for ways to connect more deeply to His heart in praying for others ... for our growing family, and then also for others, and for our hurting world. Do you grow weary sometimes, as I do? I find it hard to keep my heart and mind focused. Each of us operates in our own unique ways, even as we pray. And I am learning of some new ideas that are helping me.

Since I have a collection of verses on prayer already, I am choosing to go a bit deeper with these verses. One way to do that is to do a WORD STUDY with each verse. I came across a source that is very helpful with this process. This source explains about Bible Verse Mapping, or WORD STUDY as I refer to it. I've learned from this helpful source, ordered their Digital Verse Mapping Journal, am using the main ideas, and also adapting these ideas for my own use.

As I was focusing on a verse from my collection, Psalm 17:6-7a (pictured above), two of the words I chose to look into deeper were "unfailing love". For as we talk with Him, pour out our hearts to Him, we are communicating with Someone whose love is unfailing, never-changing. Looking deeper into these words, I discovered the Hebrew word from which "unfailing love" derives from ... hesed. 

Can we even imagine all that this word encompasses? "Hesed is not merely an emotion or feeling but involves action on behalf of someone who is in need. Hesed describes a sense of love and loyalty that inspires merciful and compassionate behavior toward another person." (online source)

Hesed is 'wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty - in short, acts of devotion and loving-kindness that go beyond the requirements of duty'. Hesed is translated in a number of different ways: steadfast love, mercy, kindness, and goodness. (online source)

As we pray, 

as we pour out our hearts to Him,

this is the God who hears us.

This describes our God, this is who He is, what His character is ... He is bound to us with unfailing love, mercy, compassion, kindness, goodness, loyal, and not in word only but acting on our behalf. Always. 

"Used nearly 250 times in Scripture, in such a powerful manner that some theologians have suggested it may be the most important word in Scripture, hesed is the forever covenantal, always unconditionally, unwaveringly loyal, kind love of inseparable bonding, of divine family, of eternal attachment. That's what hesed-love is: Hesed  is attachment love." (Ann Voskamp, in Waymaker)

This is the God who hears our prayers, our cries for help, and listens to and holds the deepest longings of our hearts. I, personally, can hardly even grasp the realities of this; our greatest gift, to be loved so deeply by our Creator, our God. And I am drawn in, pulled close, desiring to be in continual communication with this God. 

To read more of my 'Heart Connect' posts:

What We So Desperately Need