From the Lenz Family Kitchen...

Our family is glad to be home after a week-long trip to San Antonio, Texas for Vision Forum's Reformation of Food and Family Conference.  The event was wonderful on so many levels, and I think all the Lenz's came home stuffed with "food for thought."  One of my intentions following the lessons learned there is to post weekly food creations I contribute to the family diet.  The primary purpose will be to keep a record of successes, failures, discoveries and old favorites.

Many friends and customers have asked our family to explain the method we have for maintaining a healthy diet.  In some ways, we are not the best people to ask because we are spoiled.

Living on a farm means the fresh clean ingredients for any meal are literally at our fingertips.  Watching families we know source good food from multiple local farmers while we grow it a short walk from the back door has often forced me to question whether I would be as diligent and consistent about my food sources if I didn't live on a farm run on principles of health and land stewardship.

Ultimately, I believe an attitude of gratefulness for whatever God chooses to give us for food is essential.  At the same time, being purposeful about the food we eat is, as I am learning, an act of obedience and worship to our Creator and should not be taken lightly.

Our method?  The inspiration for most meals comes from whatever is in the garden and freezer.  Meal planning is established around a few seasonal ingredients on a daily or weekly basis.

This week we had cabbage and we were tired of cole slaw.  So I made big salads.  A Six Arrows Farm chicken went into the crock pot Tuesday morning and Daddy brought home a few ingredients we don't grow, like a lime and an avocado.

I tried a new dressing...Creamy BBQ Cilantro Lime from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, a recipe site we love.

Next time I will be adding more lime a bit more pepper than the recipe calls for and cayenne pepper (something we were out of at the time.)  It was very good, even so, and we don't have any leftovers!

An excellent piece of advice from Chef Francis Foucachon at the conference concerning cooking was to be prepared ahead of time for a meal.  This meal was not even planned until noon of the same day.  My "excuse" for being less than prepared was the fact that we arrived home from the Food Conference about 1:30 Tuesday morning.  Things missing, in retrospect, were a little red onion and black beans (I had them and forgot until we were past the first few bites.)  :)

After clean up Tuesday night, I mixed up a batch of a family favorite, baked oatmeal, to have for breakfast Wednesday morning.  I love the recipe because of the make-ahead style.  Because I put it together the night before, I can stumble into the kitchen half-awake and turn the oven on and breakfast is ready about fifty minutes later.  Ingredients in baked oatmeal are also inspired by whatever we have in the house.  Some favorite additions are coconut, raisins, apples, walnuts or almonds, and dried dates.  This time we ate it with delicious Apricot syrup Aubrey canned last fall.