A Bunch of Burts

Ahh, a familiar scene in our house: everyone hungry, and Mom with no dinner plan, even though she wrote up a menu for the week already! Probably did not get to the store, or the store did not have the necessary ingredients for said menu.

Hubby is not on his way home, he is already there! That is what happens when his job is studying language at home. Hmmm.

What usually works for us here in Chaing Mai, is take out! hehehe.

you do have to be specific when you order though, or you get a tidbit like this on top of your food!

Really it is cheaper than making my own dinner many times. But, the kiddos, especially #2 and #3 are not so exicted about Thai at dinner after eating it at school for lunch.

Personally, I could eat it all the time. We used to have a great restaurant at the end of our street that made great food, but the cook disappeared one day and was replaced by a very inferior imposter! No more riding the bike down the block to pick up lunch or dinner. But I digress.

Our fast and easy, and actually fairly cheap meal of choice is chicken baked in BBQ sauce (the most expensive part) or other tasty marinade and Mustard Potatoes.

Mustard Potates
Cut enough potatoes for your family into small pieces.
Microwave in covered bowl with a bit of water until soft.
Set potatoes aside
In saucepan, melt a couple of TBL butter and saute some chopped onion and garlic.
Once the onion is clear, add a cup or so of milk and a couple of squirts of yellow mustard.
Sprinkle a bit of cumin -or- yellow curry powder and blend well.
Salt and pepper to taste. Be careful with the salt here, the mustard already gives it a bit of saltiness.
Toss with the potatoes and bake in a greased covered casserole dish 20 minutes or so, at the same temp as the chicken is using.
(of course if you have a large family, you will need to increase the amount of milk and mustard. You just need to make sure you have enough sauce to coat the potatoes well. )

Add to the chicken and potatoes a variety of fresh veggies, like carrots, broccoli and tomatoes and dinner is served!

For more fast and easy dinner ideas, go to www.rocksinmydryer.typepad.com for this week’s edition of Works for Me Wednesday

Last month, we took the oppourtunity to go to the annual family weekend camp with our church here in Chaing Mai. The church’s name, Saisanpan, means fellowship, and that was exactly one of our goals in going to this weekend. We desire to move past being the ‘farangs’, the westerners at church, and begin to be one of the membership there, to be thought of as belonging.

We knew this would not be an easy weekend going in, but felt confident God would bless this weekend for us, and help us to build on the buds of relationships that we have begun.

Before we left, we briefed the kids on what to expect. Firstly, no English! Yikes! This would be an immersion weekend, for all of us! Second, I had no idea about the menu being planned, but cetainly it would be relatively inexpensive (translate : veggies and tofu!) and very ‘authentic’. Third, we would not be hanging out with the kids weekend. Usually at church, I go with them and help to translate and encourage interaction with the other kids. We were leaving them to their own devices this weekend.

Ok, we did make a concession for breakfast. I bought 6 bagels, for the kids, enough for them each to have one each morning for breakfast. Greg and I were committed to eating whatever was served, but I knew the kiddos were not jazzed about rice for breakfast.

Ema is much happier with her bagel than kaw dom, rice soup.

Leah actually decided to eat what they served for breakfast. We are so proud of her adventurous taste buds! She had rice soup and leftover curry for breakfast each day and also bravely ate whatever else was being served for meals. Way to go Leah!

Since we have a truck, Greg helped to transport all the needed supplies up to the camp facility earlier in the day.

What kind of camp would it be if there was no sports equipment? Too bad for us it rained the whole weekend

Perhaps I should clarify. When I say camp, I do not mean a conference or retreat center. The kids asked what resort we were going, clearly coming off our week at our own mission conference still! The location was perfectly adequate, but not what any of us had imagined. It was an agricultural research facility, that both teaches and studies various planting methods. It does therefore have a fairly large meeting room and two sleeping rooms, one for the boys and men and one for the girls and women.

Overall, our time was well spent! Praise the Lord for the chance for our kids to just hang out and play with the kids from church. In general, at church on Sundays, they segregate both out of fear of trying to communicate and the unknown. But this weekend, especially the girls, seemed to connect with each other. We hope it carries over to church this weekend.

Especially helpful for us was that everyone wore name tags! Ok, so they were in Thai, but if someone stood still long enough, we could figure out thier name. Most of the time.

This family we know. It is the pastor, Boontip, his wife Philene, and his two daughers. Philene is also our language teacher.

We were awfully tired by the end of the weekend, but were encouraged by the time we had there. Both Greg and I felt as though some friendships were begun and other improved, as we had more time to chat and get to know some of the other members of the church.

Me and my friends, Pin and YuPin. No comments about pink sweater over my black and red shirt. It is very tame compared to some of the outfits I have seen here! And besides, it was cold that weekend!

How is this for a cultural difference. Here is Greg to take you to the kitchen to wash your dishes after each meal.

There are four tubs, one super soapy, one somewhat soapy, one mostly plain, and one rinse.
Never mind the dogs at your heels looking for the scraps!