Planning a Tea Using What I Have on Hand

I told you yesterday that one daughter wanted a cook-out for a birthday meal. The other daughter chose a tea. In addition to baking hot dog buns and graham crackers, I have been preparing foods that would work for a tea. Here's our menu:

cup of tomato-basil soup

scratch scones

banana bread and cream cheese sandwiches

egg salad and watercress sandwiches on homemade white bread

watermelon rind pickles

fruit salad

chocolate mint patties
tea and punch

I made the tomato-basil soup from canned tomato paste and frozen basil. The scones are an easy, but good, scratch recipe. I baked a loaf each of banana bread and white bread from scratch. Watercress is growing in our garden right now. The watermelon rind pickles are from last summer's canning. The fruit salad was made with a banana, an orange, and an apple. And the chocolate mint patties were made with melted dark chocolate chips with a couple of drops of peppermint oil stirred in to flavor.

With twins sharing  birthday, it's been a balancing act trying to met each of their expectations. Dividing up the meals and allowing each to choose what they wanted seemed like a good way to go for our current circumstances.

Happy birthday to my darling daughters! And for the rest of us -- happy St. Patrick's Day!

Be Resourceful

In these challenging weeks to come, I have realized that I'll need to be more resourceful than usual.

Here's an example. My daughters' birthday is tomorrow. As we are not going out for any sort of celebration until after this virus has lessened in my community (could be many, many weeks), I told each daughter to choose 1 meal on Tuesday, and I would prepare it. So, one daughter chose a cook-out, complete with s'mores. S'mores require marshmallows (check), chocolate (check), and graham crackers (not checked).

To ensure this daughter has her s'mores, I dug out my recipe for graham crackers and made a batch over the weekend. Here's how they turned out. 

I snatched one, you know -- for quality control. These are good! And they're part whole grain and egg-free. 

What ways are you finding to be resourceful these days?

By not going out to a store just to buy graham crackers for this cook-out, not only did I not risk exposure to a virus that could sicken me or any of my household members, but I also prevented an instance where I could become a mode of transmission for COVID-19. I am treating this as not just self-preservation, but looking out for someone whose health might be more fragile than my own. 


Great challenges produce great faith.