Spaghetti Sundays Part II

I like to share things on this blog that are tried and true so you, my readers, can depend upon the fact that the things I share work well for at least one person, leaving it up to you to decide if they will work for you too. I will tell you that what works for me is having Sunday's lunch ready with only 4 minutes of work that morning!

Want to know how? Read on...



Spaghetti Sundays have been a tradition in our home for the past 18 months or so and it works for us. It works so well, that I think if I live to be 100 years old like dear old "Ma", I will still be serving spaghetti for whatever family and friends I am blessed to entertain each Sunday afternoon.

Our favorite sauce includes these meatballs which I make gluten free and dairy free. I pick up about 4 lbs. total of ground beef, turkey and pork each month and make them in a big batch. I freeze the meatballs in quart size containers ready to add to the sauce on Sunday morning.

Here is how I have Sunday's lunch ready with only four minutes of work that day:
(I do this while I am fixing breakfast and I timed myself!)

• Open 2, 28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes with a hand crank can opener
• Dump these two cans in the crock pot
• Stir in a palmful each of Italian Seasoning and dehydrated onions
• Add about a teaspoon of garlic powder (I just guesstimate the amount in my palm)
• Dump in a quart of frozen meatballs
• Give it a stir, put on the lid, and turn the crock pot to low so it can simmer for a couple of hours while you are away
• Fill a stock pot with water, put the lid on and set it on the stove

Now, when you get back to the house after an uplifting assembly, the first thing you need to do is turn the burner with the stock pot on it on high. I recommend having the stock pot filled and ready on the stove because if your Littles are like mine, they will be whiny and starving and are not going to be happy if you have to put them down to fill a pot with water and carry it to the stove. If it is already sitting on the stove, you can cuddle your sweet ones and simply turn on the burner with a free hand.

Hopefully you have made the most of preparing on Saturday, so pulling a ready made salad out of the fridge will be a breeze. If not, it's ok to skip the salad. We often do. Honestly, we usually only do salad and bread for company.

Something else that will make life with Littles simpler is to keep a "spaghetti shirt" handy. Bibs have been such a bother. It seems like they always manage to get their food on their clothes anyway, so I just go with a full t-shirt that is dark colored (preferably even red!) and a size too big, and we use these as our bibs when extra messy food is on the menu, and spaghetti is definitely messy!

Lastly, I've added a page under the Sunday tab of my Home Management Notebook with some benchmarks so I can be sure I am on track on Sunday mornings as far as time goes. Mine goes:

• Up by 7:15 am
• Spaghetti Sauce in the crock pot by 8 am
• Start cooking breakfast by 8 am
• Be dressed by 8:45 am
• Have the Littles dressed by 9 am

I also condensed my Preparing for The Lord's Day post into a simple checklist for my notebook for Saturday night:

• baths for everyone
  
• diapers washed
• bags packed
• clothes selected/ironed
• salad prepped
• breakfast: muffins, sausage, boiled eggs?
  

Referring to these lists keeps me on track and it's just another thing I've been doing for a while that works for me. What tips do you have for making Sundays go more smoothly?

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