cooking skills for the christian homemaker
Cooking skills for the Christian homemaker are highly important in giving your family wonderful meals at home by way of meal planning, preparation, and food storage.
Everyone loves it when someone's preparing a delicious meal in the kitchen; especially when mom is doing it! I know that when my mother prepared meals, everyone seemed to gather around to smell the wonderful aroma coming from the stove. It's just something that seems to make our hearts glad.
Learning these skills can be a highly valued undertaking and should not be taken lightly, of course, especially if you want to please your husband and your children with creating delicious meals. Other kitchen skills along this line of thinking are those of meal planning, preparation, and food storage.
Learning cooking skills
Everyone creates a meal differently. Many times we learn these skills from our parents (men are great chefs too, ya know!). We all come from various cultures and backgrounds, of course; so we each have a different spin on how we will prepare our food.
I learned the basics from my mother as she was always in the kitchen concocting something up that was unique and wonderful-tasting. She was a preacher's wife, and had to entertain nearly every Sunday afternoon. In so doing, she put me and my three other sisters to work, preparing meals, setting the table, and creating a warm family atmosphere of which to dine in. They especially enjoyed my mother's pies. She truly was a great Christian homemaker, in every sense of the word.
Every homemaker wants to please her family with creating hearty meals, made from scratch with love written all over it; however, this day in time with the highly busy lives we lead; you or I am just lucky to be able to stick something in the microwave and call it a day! You may have young children and husband who are very demanding of your time, so it may really be tough to try to manage yourself, all of them, work, school, church activities, and then attempt to create a "Betty Crocker" home-cooked delicious, out of a magazine, type of meal. Most times it's just not happening like that.
So, what to do?? If you have not already learned a thing or two from your own mother/father/grandparents in the kitchen before getting married; or before going out on your own as a young person in the world, then you may want to get your basics from Google, You Tube videos, from a family member or friend, your roommate, or just tinker a bit in the kitchen on your own, using various cookbooks to help you out.
I come from the South in the United States, where we girls were taught how to cook Southern meals. We all ate heartily together and made it a family-oriented activity. I lived there the majority of my life, until after my parents passed away.
I moved to New York City three years ago, where my daughter lives with her husband. Here in NYC, you will find so many different cultures, backgrounds, and spins on cooking, meal planning/preparation, and food storage, that somehow you just have to find your own style of creating meals. Not every woman here creates meals, plans or prepares food, or even has long-term storage for food. The school of thought here and in other major large cities around the world are: Dial-Up Takeout! "My meal planners are in the various restaurant menus I have at home. They already have all my meals planned out there, they cook them there, and their food storage is there as well." I'ts interesting to see so many kinds of food trucks advertising their meal delivery services to those who just don't cook, or have very little time, or no way of doing so.
It's sad, really, to see how this world is changing so rapidly. Our busy lives so often take the place of family-togetherness, of connecting with our family members in ways we used to do in the past.
A side-note here: Ever heard the saying that, "to get to a man's heart, you have to go through his stomach"? Many times this is true; at least it's reigned true in my own personal experience, with my husband, my father, my brother, my male cousins, etc. So, it may be quite to your advantage to learn the skills and art of cooking. Hint, hint ladies!
Cooking skills: meal planning and preparation
This can be a fun undertaking when you have all your tools to work with; but first, you may want to consider five things when planning and preparing your meals:
- Your food budget: How much do you want to spend on your food in a day, week, month? This is important if you are looking to save some money, while working on a food budget.
- Take into consideration the number of meals you will be making each day.
- The various ingredients or food items required to cook them.
- Coupons or weekly sales/ circulars that display discounted items from your local newspapers; how much each food item will cost, and...
- Check whether or not you can exchange an expensive food item for another that will create close to the same taste in your meal, etc.
Food planning and preparation can become a family affair as a way of getting everyone together to cook up a large delicious meal, along with a family get-together. The family table is a wonderful way to connect with each other, and to fellowship in Christian love.
There are a few passages of Scripture that come to mind along these lines of food and fellowship:
- Deuteronomy 12:7 says, "And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee."
- Deuteronomy 8:10 also says, "When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee."
- Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 says, "There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour; This also I saw; That it was from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?"
- Ecclesiastes 5:18 also says, "Behold, that which I have seen: It is good and comely for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour, that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion."
- Genesis 1:30 says, "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so."
- Genesis 9:3 also reminds us, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things."
Perhaps also, you will want to write down and try out various food recipes that resonate well with you and your family in planning and preparing good meals that they love. As you learn these skills, you will continually add to your repertoire of fun, delicious, and exciting meals.
Of course, you will want to create those meals from recipes that are healthy ones for a good foundation in building strong healthy bodies and minds, from the little ones who will be eating your food, as well as to the adults.
Before embarking upon a healthy course of diet, make sure to always check with your doctor, nutritionist, or a medical practitioner in helping your decide the best kinds of foods to buy in preparation for cooking all those healthy meals.
Its true that there are thousands and thousands of different recipes from all walks of life, but you probably already know just about how you want prepare your meals. You can continually adopting many ways of cooking either by watching others or doing it yourself. To me, that's the whole fun of it!
I've learned that preparation before cooking is the key to a successful meal for your family. For example: you may want to first prepare a good steak by marinating it for a time, while you cut up or dice vegetables, or make a salad to add to the meal, etc. I learned many of these skills from my mother, grandmother, other friends, as well as from good cookbooks!
cooking skills: learning food storage
I believe that having an extensive food storage is definitely important if you have a large family. Perhaps not so much if your family is small. You could get away with a smaller storage, unless you believe in storing up for long-term.
I've seen on some television programs where there are various families who are gearing up for the apocalypse and are setting aside everything from food storage to massive water tanks, guns and ammunition, and the like! Honestly, though, as a Christian believer I don't think that is necessary. It's best to trust in God for giving and providing you and your family with what you need.
It's great to store up for about a year's worth of food and home supplies, but after that things tend to go bad anyway, especially canned goods, grains and flour, and other foods that are not in certain storage containers which keep out air, bugs, mold, mildew, and such.
Part of learning cooking skills is to know how to store your food supplies. There are several You Tube videos and other very helpful websites/blogs out there that do a fantastic job in teaching you all these impressive skills.
Whenever I think about food storage and preparation, I remember the story of Joseph in the Bible, and how he was put in place by God to be a help to Pharaoh when Joseph interpreted his dream of Egypt going through seven years of famine and seven years of plenty. Here reads the account in Genesis 41:33-41, where it says, "Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, 'Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is'? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 'Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: Thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 'See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt." As you can see here, God showed Pharaoh through Joseph what the plan was in order to store up all the necessary food in the abundant years for the famine years that would be coming up. Later on in the scripture, Joseph was instrumental in providing food and land for his dear father and also his brothers who betrayed him. Isn't it wonderful how God works!
In conclusion, I'd like to say that learning and applying this great and most needed skill of cooking will enable you to make fantastic meals, to impress your guests, and to be happy and satisfied that you have given them a hearty meal to enjoy.
Cooking is one of those skills that allows you to show your deep esteem and devotion for those around you; as you do so in love, you also please the heart of God. Remember these words coming from 1 Corinthians 10:31, which say, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
Keep on cooking!
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