Deceitful Dainties

Greetings sisters in Christ!
Praise God we are rejoicing in another day!!!
As keepers at home, we constantly have to deal with food and the preparation of it so I thought I'd share this with you.

Here are a few verses that stuck in my mind (about food) ever since I was a babe in Christ and over the years I have begun to understand them and the concept has shaped me to who I am now.

When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.

Proverbs 23:1-3

This right here...

"Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat."

When I read that verse, I realized that we are to be careful in our choices of food and thought maybe it meant things like candy and junk food as we see it today. But as I mature, I see that it can also mean fancy foods that are even healthy. Let me share what I mean...

'Dainties' means: tasty or savory, delicacy, delectable food

It's obviously subjective to who is reading it and the culture they come from because each person could come away with a different meaning of what foods qualify as savory, delicacy or delectable. In America, as a Christian who tries to eat healthy, this could encompass complicated meals that are difficult and time consuming to prepare or have a lot of costly ingredients. There are restaurants that specialize in such foods and the recipes are all over the internet. I know because I used to be swept away in them.

As we strip our lives down, minimizing anything complicated and wiping out our thoughts of what we think we deserve, we find ourselves living more like a peasant than a king. Americans (I'm sure other countries have this problem) encourage people to live like kings but God's Word shows us differently and it's even addressed in our foods, as I've shown you.

I recall several events (from years ago) that humbled me in this area. One of them was before I was a new creation in Christ and was celebrating the pagan festival days. The neighbor, who lived on a very wealthy income and made sure everyone saw it, invited us to dinner. She told me to bring the ham and she would supply everything else. I thought hams were for rich people and always bought the imitation ones made from turkey, pressed into a loaf and were extremely reasonably priced. (We thought they were tasty too:)

I cooked it in a crockpot with pineapple rings on it, sliced it and brought it over for the dinner festival. She had a table set with fancy china, water goblets and all sorts of beautifully created dishes of food that were perfectly arranged. She lifted the lid of my old crockpot and said:

'What's that?' (As if she saw a snake in there or something.)
I said 'Ham'. (Like, doesn't everyone know what that is?)
She wrinkled her nose, said 'Oh' and put the cover back on.

Nobody in her family touched that ham and it made a lasting impression on me and even when I had more money to spend, I was still very frugal. BUT, once I became a Christian, for some reason I grew to thinking that we deserved to eat the more expensive health foods. I bought high quality supplements, exotic organic herbs, all natural foods and created these complex dishes that I thought were the most healthy for our temples. After all, we are to keep our temple healthy and mine was ill so I had to do whatever I could do, at whatever cost, to fix it... right? I'm not saying it's sinful to eat healthy (we all should) but do we have preconceived notions from the media, about what truly is healthy? Yes we do, and I had to repent of that.

One day a few years ago, I was knocked off the high horse I didn't realize I was on. I had just left the house of a teenage girl with a baby who was living with her mother, both of which were on a low income and we were trying to help them with some basic needs. As I was there, the mother mentioned what she was making for dinner and said she bought a container of sour cream on sale and they were very excited about having it on their potatoes. In my mind I thought that I would never eat regular sour cream, it had to be organic because of all the horror stories of commercial milk, the hormones and antibiotics etc. (I didn't tell them that of course.) After I left their house, I was walking into the grocery store to buy a few things and it hit me how lofty I thought I was in deserving the kings dainties (that verse in Proverbs popped into my head). I was horrified with myself because here was a poor family that was thankful for a simple thing like regular sour cream and in my mind I was scoffing at it thinking that we deserve better quality???

What happened to me???
I had become like my old neighbor!!!

I was humbled and that was the beginning of my long venture out of that trap.

As we ate our lunch the other day and I thanked God for being so patient with me and when I looked at the foods we were eating, I smiled...

Crackers with butter and cheese.

And kipper snacks.

It's pretty much fish and bread right?

*I no longer shop like a king.

*I no longer cook like a king.

*I no longer desire the dainties of a king.

*I've been set free!

Praise God!

Here's a simple way to make potato soup... we love potatoes! They are healthy and very inexpensive so I make a good sized pot in order to have left overs the next day. (It saves on propane doing it that way.)

I don't measure so you'll have to just wing it until you figure out how you like yours.

I use 1 to 1 ratio between regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. (You can use all of one or the other if you like, we prefer them mixed.)

* Cut your potatoes into bite sized pieces and put in a pot.
* Pour just enough water or broth over them so that you can see the water coming up in between the pieces but not fully covered. (If you use water, you can add some bullion to it.)
* When the potatoes are cooked tender, turn off the heat and mash about half of them. (I used the back of my spoon.)
* Add a good chunk of butter and some salt to taste.
* Stir well and you have a filling and inexpensive meal that's packed full of nutrients.

This is just the base recipe, you can add to it whatever you like.

We were blessed with a special treat the other day. Brother Jim stepped into my Titus 2 role and found a great deal on a fruit bread. (Good job brother Jim!!!) It was marked down to .72 cents each so we bought a couple.
(Well... three to be exact:-)

It looks like a big muffin but it's a light, somewhat sweet bread with dried fruits in it. After removing the paper wrapping we just tear off a piece for breakfast. Or a snack!

I really appreciate the foreign foods (which apparently this is, based on the name) because they use simple ingredients.

I'm also going to share with you an easy recipe that's healthy, inexpensive and fast! I found a big box of ginger / molasses cookies for under $2.
(It has minimal ingredients that we're okay with.)