Chicken broth with spring green onions and carrot medallons
Grilled chicken brushed with a garlicky lemon-mustard sauce
Macaroni salad
Smoky grilled asparagus
Dessert
French vanilla coffee
Cherry puff paste strudel
Monday, May 07, 2012
Planting Seeds & Family Memories
Today was a wonderful day weather wise. Sunny and in the low 60's .. perfect for yard work.
I planted cabbage, and more radishes and mesculin variety lettuce,
dahlia tubers that are supposed to produce dinner plate sized flowers,
and a canadice grape vine that will eventually climb a trellis hubby is
going to build over the garden gate. Our indoor plants needed some TLC
so many were repotted. The raised beds had been filled with a compost/sand
mix that really needed some clay mixed in ... so with wheel barrel and
shovel, I found a nice clay mound the was pushed aside when we built our
home. I think this will greatly improve the water retention of the
soil (last year the onions HATED this compost/sand mix.).
It was nice enough to get out the BBQ. Tonight's dinner menu was:
We've
really been playing up the importance of sit down dinners of late.
Even Nathan seems to enjoy all the fuss. He gets spruced up for dinner
and is practicing his best manners. Sunday is a day to have a special meal and use the good dishes. This is something I remember doing when
I was a child having Sunday dinners at my grandparent's home. Are you in the habit of fixing special meals other than on major holidays or when company visits? Time spent leisurely around the table makes for good family unity; and the clean up is easier if everyone works together.
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8 comments:
Dear Mrs. Mac,
What a lovely table you have set for your family gathering.
I will get inspired from that and make a more inviting Sunday dinner table for my family.
In my home (when I grew up) my mother would always find a special embroidered tablecloth, candles and napkins for Sunday dinners. She would set the table with silver and crystal this special day of the week. I think when I was really young we did only have two sets of table ware, one for weekdays and one for Sundays.
You are such a good reminder and role model.
Come to think of it, we had dresses for playing, for school, for Sundays and for birthday parties e.t.c.
We would never dream to wear Sunday outfits for playing or not to change after school.
Now we wear blue jeans all around the clock.
It's a loss.
Like Felisol, I recall "special" outfits which were NOT everyday outfits LOL
We do not dress up for dinner, ever, but ALL meals are eaten at the table - even pizza :)
The men folk in my family are not pudding eaters - they tend to scoff too much of the protein content of the meal and don't have space for anything else. So desserts are reserved for very special occasions, such as when we invite guests for dinner, or Christmas time and birthdays.
So nice to see a return to sit-down meals. When I was raising my boy, I insisted on that--and though he complained at the time, he now always talks about it. What a beautiful table setting. Where was OUR invites??????-LOL!
Every time family is together, we try to sit down at the table and have a wonderful meal. Table time is time cheerished as a family. Time to enjoy great food, have family conversation and remember the old days.
ugh. We really need to work on the manners in our house. I love your very refine bbq. The garlicky lemon-mustard sauce sounds so yummy.
I do try very hard to get the family all together around the table each night for dinner. I even wrote an article about the importance of family meal time:
http://www.examiner.com/article/bring-back-family-mealtime
I do not, however, make special meals and serve them with the good china and silverware often enough. Your table looks lovely.
We have big breakfasts together every Saturday and Sunday morning since during the week hubby and oldest son leave early leaving me and the little ones on our own.
Friday nights we eat together on our big bed as we watch a family movie together and I started that about ten years ago. It's "Family Fun Friday" and the kids STILL love it all these years later!
When my boys were small, the only way I could threaten to break their bad habit of wiping the mouth on the lower sleeve was to warn them that their next cloth napkin would be a cut-off shirt sleeve.
They're all grown now and can actually behave at the dinner table. But there were some trying times, I'll admit....
When our granddaughter comes on Saturdays, we have a sit down lunch with her. She loves my homemade soups and at least half the time, we have a soup. Unlike her father, she uses her cloth napkin nicely. lol
As a kid, I remember many sit-down dinners, especially those on Sunday or when family visited. Most Sundays, we had our large meal after church. Since it was before the days of crock pots, cooking was either done before-hand, a slow oven while we were gone, or in the pressure cooker. Special Sunday meals were roasts, chicken, spaghetti, beef stew, or ham. When we would get together with family on a holiday, my young brother once said, "And bless the hands that prepared it" after a phrase my grandmother used to say. It became the tradition.
The family dinner table really does make for good family unity. And the memories are keepers, too!
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