Monday's Menu... Making Level Paths

I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised,
and I will bring you home again.
Jeremiah 12:10

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
Proverbs 4:26

Happy Monday! Aren't those two verses above so good? I love them. As a mom and a homemaker, they mean so much to me. God is doing some good things in our family throughout each day, and I love how He leads us home each night, around our table. Some nights it's later than others, and it takes a bit of effort, but God honors my efforts to have everyone around the table together. The second one has turned out to be one of my verses for 2010. I am trying so hard (with God's help!) to make "level paths for my feet." So many things become stumbling blocks for me, and disorder is one of them. Menu planning is one way I can make a level path through my week before I even get going on it. Unexpected things happen... life happens, but with a plan in place, especially in this important area, I seem to be able to handle it better.

I have some other posts "brewing" about how, specifically, I am making level paths for my feet in other areas of my home and life. God is so good to continue teaching me!

I read a book last week called "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan. It was so good and such a quick read, I assigned it to my high school daughter as part of her health curriculum. It has 64 "rules" for, well... food. Here are a couple that caught my eye:

• "Eat food." "Duh?" Not really. Pollan says (and I agree) that most food we eat isn't really food, it's really "edible foodlike substances. They're highly-processed concoctions designed by food scientists, consisting mostly of ingredients ... that no normal person keeps in the pantry, and they contain chemical additives with which the human body has not been long acquainted." Hm. So, eat food.

• "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." This one cracked me up. He uses the example of standing with your great-grandmother at the grocery store, and her picking up a tube of Gogurt. What would she think that is? Toothpaste? LOL

Anyway, I encourage you to pick this book up. Right now it's only $5 on Amazon.com! The kids and I enjoyed reading through it and it's got some great tips!

Another tip in the book, which I've tried (inconsistently) to do over the years, is to serve fruit with every meal. Every meal. Every. Meal. If I'm honest, I haven't really been doing that, so that is my goal this week. So below, beside each dinner item, mentally insert the word "fruit." Because it will be there. :)

Monday: Black Bean Lasagne Rolls and Mediterranean Fruit Salad (From Fix It and Enjoy It)

Tuesday: Crock Pot Chicken Tacos, black beans, corn casserole, and Fruit Cobbler (also from FIEI)

Wednesday: Ethiopian food night! Minchet Abishe (spicy beef), Fosoleay (carrots and green beans), Gommen (spicy collard greens), and Ayb (cottage cheese)

Thursday: Grilled chicken wraps on our way to a basketball game. I'm also planning to make cupcakes using the Honey-Sweetened Spice Cake recipe from FIEI to take along.

Friday: Crock Pot French Onion Soup, salad

For more menu ideas and some great organizational tips (and photos!) to help you make "level paths" in your home, visit Laura at Orgjunkie.com.