A few years ago I didn’t even know what a charcuterie board was or how to create a charcuterie board—now they are one of my favorite things! Why? Because I love meat and I love cheese and these are the foods a charcuterie board is made of!
My husband and I try to get together on a somewhat regular basis for a game night with a small group of friends. One of our favorite things we do now is to have a picnic style/charcuterie tray dinner. All of us bring different meats, cheeses, and bread or crackers as the base for our charcuterie tray as well as veggies, jams, spreads, pickles, and fruit.
Another way I have been using the charcuterie tray idea is on vacation. Lunch is so easy when all you have to do is pull out several different meats, cheeses and a cheese-cutting board! It is easy to pack and easy for everyone to access. You can then simply make yourself as many little mini sandwiches as you want! I don’t have to worry about one sandwich not being enough and then someone being hungry because we did not bring anything else.
To me the best part of a charcuterie board is the meat and cheese but you can also make a charcuterie board more healthy by going heavy on the fruit and vegetables!
My favorite ingredients for a charcuterie board are:
Base:
· Baguette
· Crackers (I like the Triscuit-like crackers—salt and pepper flavor!)
· Multi Grain Crackers
Meat:
· Turkey (I love smoked turkey breast. It is very versatile.)
· Pepperoni or hard salami
· Ham
Cheese:
· Pepper jack. (It spices things up!)
· Cheddar
· Havarti
· Goat cheese
· Brie
Veggies:
· Sugar snap peas
· Carrots
· Mini bell peppers
Fruit:
· Grapes
· Apples (These can be a little tricky since they brown quickly.)
· Berries (Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries—you can’t go wrong!)
· Baguettes, turkey, Havarti cheese, black raspberry jam
· Crackers, pepperoni, cheddar, bell pepper
· Crackers, ham, Brie cheese
· Crackers, turkey, pepper jack cheese, artichoke spread
Other Ingredient Ideas:
· Pears
· Roasted red peppers
· Sun-dried tomatoes
· Spicy mustard
· Olives
· Any flavor of jam
· Broccoli florets
What To Consider When Setting Up Your Charcuterie Tray
The great thing about charcuterie trays is they can fit your tastes no matter what! However, if you want a few guidelines to follow here they are:
· Include at least the options of your main items (bread, meat, and cheese).
· Include a variety of flavors: a sweeter option, a spicy option, and classic option.
· Don’t get too fancy with all your options, try for at least two safe choices you know people will like, then go for one more daring option.
· Add a little pizzazz to your board by having a sweet and a savory spread option available!
Favorite Tools
· A large tray to corral everything on
· Little knife spreaders
· Small bowls for dip
· A cheese slicer (The cheese slicer is what is most important to me—it is what takes all the work out of it! I take it with me because it feels easiest to me, but you can also get a handheld cheese slicer too.)
If you are looking for some ideas of how to switch things up for your Labor Day plans, I hope this will inspire you!
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13
I have seen the saying, “Love is how happy your dog gets when you get home,” and I am inclined to agree with this saying. I love my dog, and I think she loves us too. Actually though, I think she would love anyone who fed her.
Our dog is a Red Lab named Rosie. Greeting me with enthusiasm is not the only thing she does with great excitement. To Rosie, all of life is one big adventure. A tennis ball? “Woohoo!” To her this is an exciting event! She wildly runs in search of the tennis ball, finds it and brings it to me. I throw it and she gets to retrieve it. What fun! In Rosie’s world, life just doesn’t get better than this . . . well, possibly breakfast and dinner—but it’s close!
There are many times in the course of the day that she gets all wound up. She looks at me with her big mouth open in a smile and every time I take a step, she takes a little leap. She just can’t control herself. I could understand this excitement if we were getting ready to go for a walk or a car ride, but we’re not! Often times, I am a wet blanket and tell Rosie there is nothing to be excited about. Nothing. She usually doesn’t believe me and stays excited for a little bit until, true to my word, nothing exciting happens and she decides to take a nap—just a short say two hours or so?
I was thinking about this and it seems that much of the time we do the exact inverse of how Rosie is in her excitement for life when it comes to our faith. Here we are with direct access to the Creator of the Universe any time we want and we barely take time to speak to Him in prayer. We get to go to church and worship and sing praise to the One who sent His Son to die for us and we act like it is a chore. In short, we act like there is no Good News, and nothing to be excited about when in fact there is everything to be excited about!
Now I am not suggesting that we run around our whole lives on some superficial high—that’s not realistic—but I am suggesting that we need to realize the magnitude of what Jesus did for us when He willingly laid down His life for us. My Pastor stated a while ago that we have had the best news ever delivered to us and we act like its bad news. We are afraid to tell people about our faith for the backlash that could occur. We act like Jesus dying on the cross for us and saving us from eternal damnation wasn’t a big deal. We act like there is nothing to be excited about. But there is!
Because of Jesus’s death on the cross you, me, and anyone who chooses to believe does not have to suffer eternally. Through the Holy Spirit we have a helper and an intercessor. Because of who God is we always have a friend to talk to, to cry to, and to be excited with throughout all of life’s ups and downs. We have every reason to be excited, so maybe we should act like it. Maybe we need to be like Rosie and instead of bemoaning how different everything could be, we need to approach the little things in life like the adventure they are. Maybe we need to approach life more with the unbridled joy with which Rosie approaches life.
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
I have long held the belief that time is but an illusion. Time is not reality, it is merely what gives shape to our reality.
I’m not sure when exactly this idea came to me, I think it was in whichever grade that we learned about Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the idea of time bending. I’m not much up on the science of today to know what the current thought is regarding Einstein’s theory, but I do know it shaped my own theory on time—that time is but an illusion.
We act like all time is equal but is that really true? Is the same hour spent in total frustration trying to figure out where a math error occurred in your checkbook equal to an hour that flies by while laughing and sharing a good meal with friends and family? If our perception equals reality and we perceive an hour spent with loved ones as shorter than an hour spent in frustration, is it really the same thing?
At the beginning of this year my “word” for the year, if you will, or rather my focus was on enough. Not plenty, but enough. Enough of what is needed—the contentment that comes with enough without the scarcity of falling short, while needs are still being met. Enough for what is needed without the gluttonous feeling of too much. Like Goldilocks and the three bears, not too little, not too much, but just the right amount. Just enough. And so I told myself there would be enough time this year for the things that are most important.
This time of year, when summer is quickly sliding into fall, and schools are starting, the sunlight shifts, is when I am always tempted to say, “There just isn’t enough time!” There are always more things I want to do each summer; more hikes to take, more activities to do, more days reading in the sun. I want more! There isn’t enough time to enjoy everything the season has to offer.
Intellectually, we know that there will always be more things we want to do. We know we won’t get to everything, but that doesn’t stop us from still trying to do everything. In the past I have told myself this; I’ve reminded myself to let the unrealistic expectations float on by and, while that has helped some, I still have always found myself partially panicked thinking there just isn’t enough!
This year though I am telling myself that there is enough. There is enough time to do the things that are truly important. There is enough time to slow down and immerse myself in the moment before I look back and think, “That was fun, why didn’t I enjoy it more?”
There is time enough to slow down the moments that mean the most to us, to drink the moment in, and to make time bend and stretch for us until we have breathed in the moment and can thus release it to the ether to live on in our memories. Then the next time we are stuck at a task we despise, we can recall this memory to give us a light reprieve and allow ourselves to be immersed in the reliving of this memory once again—allowing time to stretch and bend for us once more. There is just enough time in each of these moments for us to capture them and store them away in our soul so that we will not be robbed of the moments that we want to last forever. Through our memories we can recall and relive these moments over and over again, stretching that moment on and on. If time is but an illusion, then reality is that we will keep things stored within our hearts forever and that moment will never really fade away.
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
P.S. If you are enjoying these posts you might also enjoy following along with me on Pinterest! Just look for me on Pinterest at: @essentiallyemmamarie.
These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
I knew a family that seemed to have it all. He was a successful lawyer, she a talented photographer. He had just made partner in a large firm, she had started her own business and it was going great. They had just moved into this big beautiful house tucked away in the woods. It was top notch technology in this house complete with the fanciest coffee maker I had ever seen. Their lives seemed utterly devoid of tribulation.
I pictured them on a quiet morning drinking their coffee from their fancy coffee maker and sitting on their flower-covered porch as the sun broke through the trees and filtered down onto the house. “How great their lives must be,” I thought. Imagine having such a beautiful, quiet start to your day!
I dream of having quiet mornings where I make my coffee and drink it on my back porch as I watch the sun crest over the distant hills. Of course I only get to do this sporadically–weekends, and the occasional work day that starts a little later than normal. But to do it every day? Heavenly!
Anyway, I Idealized their life in their beautiful house, choosing to see only that which I wanted to see in their lives. I would think of the picturesque setting and think how nice it must be to have a life like that. Then, as I got to know them better, I found out about the less beautiful side of their lives. About her health issues and all the complications they created. About the struggles they endured behind their smiles. And I realized I wouldn’t want to trade places as I once thought I would.
How often do we do this? Envying the part of someone’s life that we see while ignoring or not acknowledging the rest. We want to pick and choose the good, ignore the bad, and imagine that other people really do have the dream life that we always wanted. But it doesn’t exist–no one has the dream life.
The perfect life does not exist here on earth; we don’t know what people are hiding behind their smiles. We cannot envy the good in someone’s life and think that they don’t have struggles too.
We all have struggles in this life–Jesus told us we would! But He told us something else too. He told us that He has overcome the world. Did you catch that? He has overcome the world–the whole world, and all the troubles it contains. He has overcome the pain of loss, the discouragement of medical troubles, the hurt of betrayal. He has overcome it all–and through Him so can we.
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
Do you like to host? We love to have people over, to make food, and have people gather around our table. Life is busy and this doesn’t happen as much as we would like but we are happy when we have a houseful. Hosting can be stressful. Especially for an introvert like me. I value hospitality and I want my guests to feel comfortable in my home. I want it to be a place where they feel comfortable and not like they are imposing. Over the years I have found 7 tips for better hosting that I go to regularly for better hosting!
My mother once found a 1950s edition book on the art of hosting and entertaining by Betty Crocker. In it the author talks about how her nephew attended a college in her town, so she opened her home to him and his friends so that he would feel that he had a place to call home as his parents did not live nearby. Anytime he wanted to have friends over, she would painstakingly labor and prepare beforehand. One such night she overhears her nephew, oblivious to the amount of work going on behind the scenes, comment to one of his friends, “You guys can come over anytime—my aunt always has stuff ready at a moment’s notice!” His aunt, hearing this laughed: she didn’t have it ready at a moment’s notice! It took a bunch of work to pull it off, but her guests were blissfully unaware! This is the number one rule for hosting: your guests must never feel like an imposition. In this day and age we are much more casual and expectations are arguably lower than they were in the 1950s, but this is still the experience we want to create for our guests. We want our guests to feel welcome so they will come again!
I have collected several tips that help make hosting less stressful for me. I hope these tips help things to flow better the next time you have people over and make you more excited to open your home, and spend more time with the people you love.
1. Plan for Early
I hate rushing around at the last minute trying to tie up loose ends before my guests arrive so I always plan to have everything ready one-half hour before anyone is supposed to arrive. Sometimes people come really early; sometimes I run late, but if I plan to have everything set a half hour before people arrive then I should have extra time. lf they are arriving while I am still pouring chips and salsa into bowls, it doesn’t look like I’m late—it looks like I was just waiting for them to arrive!
2. Clear Out the Coat Closet
We have a tiny coat closet in our entry. I love the placement of it—it is right at the end of the runner by my front door, which gives people enough room to get through the door and take off their shoes, but not so far that they have to wonder where in the world to put their things. However, as I stated, it is a tiny coat closet. Especially in winter it is very difficult to squeeze in many extra coats, so we take our coats out ahead of time and put in extra hangers. This way there is plenty of room for people to hang their things. Otherwise, their coats and hats may get slung over the back of the couch or loveseat and will inevitably need to be moved later so people can sit down.
3. Does it Smell?
Our house had a funky odor when we moved in, that sticky, sweet, dusty smell that just seems to hang in some homes. We have since ripped up the old carpeting, washed and painted the walls and now the smell is gone. However, since then, I have become super conscious about how my house smells. Plus, we have pets. Every house has its own scent and that’s not a bad thing—just make sure it’s the scent you want your house to have! An hour or two before your guests are due to arrive, start an oil diffuser, or light a few candles (keep an eye on the candles!) so that your house is filled with the scent you want before your guests arrive. (You can do this even when you don’t have guests coming over.)
4. Is It Livable?
Is your house arranged to accommodate the number of people you are having over? You may need to grab an extra chair or two for the dinner table and doing so before people arrive is much easier. If seating in the living room is tight, maybe stash nearby a few pillows. Make sure your house isn’t just cute but guest friendly too!
5. Cue Your Guests
The shoe question: do we leave them on or take them off, that is the question. I personally find it rude to ask people to take off their shoes. I feel rude if I don’t take off my shoes before going into someone’s house. If I don’t take off my shoes, I feel bad if I should track in any dirt, and some people don’t want outside germs to get tracked all over the inside house, especially if they have little ones. If I take off my shoes, my feet get cold, or the hem of my pants might drag on the floor (short people problems!), and well—I hope your floor is clean because you just asked me to walk around in my socks or bare feet!
It’s impossible to cure the shoe situation, it is a rather complex one for me as you just read! One thing you can do is cue your guests on what you would have them do. If you are okay with them wearing shoes, greet them wearing shoes—not slippers! If you want them to take their shoes off, don’t wear shoes while greeting them.
Cueing your guests works in other areas too. Turn lights on where you want guests to linger. Shut doors or keep lights off in a room where you don’t want them. If you have a hallway that leads to a bathroom, turn on the hall light so it looks more inviting for them.
6. Do What You Can Ahead
If you are cooking for lots of people, prepare as much as you can so it’s all ready before your guests arrive. If people are bringing prepared dishes, set out hot plates or make space for them to set their dishes. If they are bringing chips or something that will need to be put into a bowl, have some in mind and at easy reach so you aren’t trying to climb to the top cabinet to get it while everyone is arriving.
7. Go Simple
If the thought of preparing a lot of side dishes with synchronized baking times makes you a little crazy—choose a simple dish! Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it won’t be delicious! My fall back is soup, salad, and garlic bread. I have several different and delicious out-of-the-ordinary soup recipes. We like salad so I always have lots of different toppings on hand to make the salad a little special. It’s easy, it’s good, and I don’t stress! Plus this can feed a lot of people, if necessary!
I hope this helps to give you some ideas on how to simplify things the next time you host, and hopefully will encourage you to open your home and host more! Remember the most important thing is that you are spending time and making memories with the ones you love!
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
