The Christian Homekeeper

...a God to serve...a family to love... a work to do...

Changes Coming to CHK!

03/05/2025 /

Hey Friends

I’m in the process of handing off Christian Homekeeper to my friend, Marie Hanley! So you will see fewer of my posts here and more of hers eventually.

You can still find me online at the Christian Homekeeper Facebook group and page. And you can find me at my personal blog, SylviaBritton.com  .   

There isn’t anything there right now because I’m still setting up house.

I know you’ll enjoy Marie and what she offers you here at CHK, so be patient, it will all be finished soon and the dust will settle.

God bless you as you serve Him in your homes!

Love,

Sylvia

 

Days Go By

02/01/2025 /

Wasn’t that the title of a children’s book from years ago? I just found the picture of the book. I’ll share it here. It is a Rod & Staff book that we used in the 2nd grade, I think.

The days do go by rather quickly now. I don’t mind but I realize because the days go by quickly and I’m a little slower than I used to be, I don’t get everything done I’d like to get done in a day.  When I look back on the first things I posted on CHK in 1997, I wonder what that version of me would think of me now. I wonder what she’d day to me?  I think she’d speak kindly to me.

I do have more wisdom now and more compassion, more love. I think those are the important things, not keeping a perfectly clean house. Not that mine was ever perfect, ha!

I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year, I don’t usually. Do you?  I am though trying to do something more than I’ve ever done it: talking to myself like I am my own best friend, speaking kindly to myself.

I realize I say very negative things to myself and it’s usually when I am anxious. So I have been trying to say to myself, when I feel anxious, “You’re doing great, it’s going to be OK.”  “That wasn’t the right thing to do but you didn’t know what else to do, you did your best, give it to God and rest in Him.”

For the longest time after we left our church of over 25 years, I berated myself and told myself that I was stupid, an awful person, that I must have caused all the problems the church was experiencing, that how I was feeling was my own stupid fault. I stopped calling myself names but the feelings remained until I started speaking to myself the way a best friend would.

I want to tell you something. I needed grace. I needed a human being to call me up and say,  “It’s going to be OK, you are doing the right thing (or the wrong thing!) and here is why …” But I didn’t have that, so I had to rely totally on the Lord and be that for myself.

Not long afterward, I saw the situation more clearly and knew that leaving was the only thing I could do and that I wasn’t responsible for the trouble. I don’t think I could see this until I stopped being so negative with myself.

I’m not talking about Word of Faith beliefs here. I’m not talking about “affirmations” either. I’m talking about that inner dialogue that happens for almost everyone where we either build ourselves up or tear ourselves down. You know in Ephesians 4 where it talks about not letting unwholesome words come out of your mouth?? Well this is about not speaking those unwholesome words to your own self.

Now with my husband’s stroke and some terrible things that happened at the same time, I started the whole berating myself and talking negatively to myself again. That was a year and a half ago and I have only just in the past few months started speaking to myself kindly again.  When I say talking negatively, berating myself, what I mean is I spoke mean, hurtful words to me, I beat myself up with words. And because I believed those words, I cried all the time.

You might say, “Sylvia, why in the world would you do that to yourself?”  I don’t know but it is my default setting to blame myself and beat myself up. I am devoted to stopping that behavior in myself and with God’s help, I will.

Speaking kindly to myself really is helping me not to be so anxious and I am not having the mental stress of thinking that I’m such an awful person. I created that feeling of awfulness with my words to myself.

I’ve been saying, “Do you need to pray about this? Do you need to repent for anything? You are doing the right thing in this and it is all you can do, so rest in the Lord.”

At the same time, I talk to the Lord. I ask for help and I worship Him.  As I read the Bible and pray, He shows me what His will is and I am convicted or encouraged where I need to be.

You should try it if you don’t already talk to yourself like this. It is reassuring and keeps me from feeling so negative.  Add it to your prayer life.  My 1997 version of me would have spoken kindly to me today, I think. And that is something I’ve learned from her just recently.

Apply this verse to others and to yourself as well … Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

I’m convinced that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to telling ourselves negative things. As the days go by, speak kindly to yourself, see if it isn’t a blessing.

Hey, while I’m thinking of it, if you’d like to get new posts from CHK in your email, scroll down to the very bottom of this page and enter your email address to subscribe.  Every time there is a new post, it will be sent to you. 

Stay

12/13/2024 /

Life got hard around 8-10 years ago. Then it got harder. And when it got really hard, people left.  So in case your life, or a friend’s life, gets hard, here are some thoughts.

People I thought were life long friends left. People who I thought had some kind of spiritual responsibility to stay by my side, also left. People I have known and served God with for over 30 years simply left my life. I guess they left because my life became messy and very hard and it was probably because I wasn’t willing to talk in depth about it. Most people though never even asked.

I’m not angry and I am not bitter now, though I was for a while. I was disappointed for a while. I was sad for a while. But I’m not even sad now because my understanding has been enlarged. And because this is about the ones who stayed.

The ones who stayed are few. They are not all related to me. Some are related and I sort of think that people who are related don’t have any choice but to stay but they do have a choice if they’re adults and they all are. Some are friends who are not related, and both of these kinds of people are super precious to me.

They don’t ask a lot of questions when I say I can’t talk about that right now. They are quiet when it’s needed and they’re always there. They have lives of their own just like everyone but they have taken the time and effort to stay and be present when I felt like I was losing my mind and when I was grieving and searching for light. When I just needed a hand to hold and to feel that hand in mine.

More than anything I see now that Jesus also stayed. He has become an even deeper Friend. I realize that everyone who has stayed with me through this valley is very much like Him. Some more than others but they all have His traits and the characteristics of a loving, caring, helpful  friend.

Life is still very hard but I am living it better. I’m learning about life, people, faith, what is important and about God Himself. I’m grateful for that.

If you ever go through what sometimes people call “hell on earth”, believe me, people will leave because nobody wants to walk through hell.

But there is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother and there are people out there who will come and stay with you while you walk through it. Jesus will be first in line, so call out to Him. Let Him in and He will stay with you while you weep and wonder. Call out to Him to bring you a friend who stays. Don’t dwell on those who left. Look around at those who stay and thank the Lord for them.

And if your friend goes through a hard time, be the one who stays. Don’t allow a friend to simply fade away and disappear. Ask questions, even if you don’t get answers. Persist and pursue them. They may reject you, but I think it’s so important to try.  I hope I can be a friend like that if I am ever called on.

How To Cook Collard Greens

11/24/2024 /

I was asked at the Christian Homekeeper facebook group yesterday how to cook collard greens. I think it’s something that many people would like to know, so here is my method.

First I wash those greens really well. Three or 4 times is not unusual. Since they are an agricultural product and grown in the great outdoors, they carry some soil and debris on them and that stuff won’t make your collards taste good.

I think collards are a beautiful green and they taste sort of similar to other brassica plants like cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, rutabaga, and turnip greens.

After washing them, I cut the big woody stems out of each stalk. Then I stack the leaves up and cut them into strips, then again into smaller pieces. How you cut them isn’t too important but great big pieces are hard to eat.

Collards cook down to about half the size they start out as. So you can over-pile your pot full of greens, fill your pan with water and they’ll cook down and fit the pan.

How To Season Collards

Like anything, seasoning collars is subject to taste. Here is how I like to season them.

I use a piece of smoked meat.  Sometimes it’s pork and sometimes it’s turkey.  For the past several yers it’s been smoked turkey wings.

For a very big pot of collards I use about 5 cloves of fresh garlic. You can use jarlic or even garlic powder if you like.

After you’ve added your smoked meat and garlic, one big onion, chopped, is next.

Then about 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon black pepper and 1 teaspoon salt.

Then I add about 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes.

Bring all this to a boil and then allow it to simmer for 2 or 3 hours, adding a little water if needed to keep the collards covered.

After 2 or 3 hours, they’ll probably be done and some people like to keep cooking them til they’re very soft. I like them to have just a little bite so I don’t cook them til they’re soft.

Taste them at this point and see if they need more seasoning. Sometimes I have added Cajun seasoning like Tony Chachere’s.

I pull all the cooked meat off the bone, discard the bones and add the meat back to the cooked collards.

These collards and a piece of cornbread is a meal for me!  If you have questions about cooking collards or other greens, just ask in the comments.

 

Be Kind

06/20/2023 /

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:3-5 (NASB95)

This is a familiar passage, especially to most Christian women. It’s the passage that instructs women on how they are to live.

Let’s look at the word kind in this passage. The KJV uses the word good and we’ll consider these two words to have the same meaning.

Adjective: kind; comparative adjective: kinder; superlative adjective: kindest . Showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature.

Kindness is lacking in our society, would you agree? The intentional showing of generosity and consideration to others is rare online especially.

You’re aware I’m sure that people tend to be rude and vulgar to others online because of the perceived anonymity of  being hidden behind a phone or computer.

Women will talk to each other online as if only they know the truth and must have the last word in a conversation. It seems like whoever can be the wittiest, offer the best one-liner and say the most cutting thing is the perceived “winner” of a conversation. Those who do try to offer up kind, conciliatory words are often virtually shouted down.

This has trickled into our face-to-face interactions as well. Think of how people treat each other in the market place, in offices and in public places. This has definitely changed for the worse.  This worsening disrespect and unkind behavior shows online now more than ever from people who aren’t even attempting to hide their identity.

I regularly read posts on social media from professing Christian women that are decidedly not kind or even civil. Think of places like Twitter where many women and men put their cutting, sometimes shocking or rude thoughts out there to attract attention not caring if their words reflect the kindness they are called to.

Somehow as a whole Christian women have decided that it’s more important to make an impact and cause shock with their thoughts and opinions than to offer up kindness and consideration.

God, on the other hand, has His own plan for how a Christian woman should speak and type out her thoughts.  It can be said that He also has instruction for how we speak and how we think. Specifically, In Titus 2:5, He tells us that older women are to be kind and teach kindness to other women.

If you’re not careful you might skip over the command to be kind. It’s there in the middle of several other adjectives that we’re commanded to be like sensible and pure. Sometimes I wonder if we’re just so accustomed to the word kind that we miss the fact that being kind is a firm command. Just as firm as the command to be pure, sensible and subject to one’s husband.

Kindness is one of the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. This lets us know plainly that we aren’t told to reach down in the depths of our souls to find some vestige of kindness to show others when we’d rather offer up a good lecture filled with biting rhetoric and told-you-sos.

The Holy Spirit in us produces kindness. If you’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to move in you like this what does that say about you? About your relationship with God?

The last sentence of Titus 2:5 should give us pause.   We are to be these things, including being kind,  under the influence of the Holy Spirit and teach these things so, ” ….that the word of God may not be reviled”.  When was the last time you heard the Word of God reviled because of how a Christian was acting or speaking? Yes, me too, just this week in fact.

Kindness eludes us so often. It's as if it is a kindergarten word and something we teach children, not women. We're more kind to animals than we are humans sometimes. Click To Tweet.

Yet kind/kindness is exactly what God expects us to be and to teach. Even when we must be firm and steadfast, we can be kind. It takes more effort than spewing words without thinking. And more prayer.

Such a simple word. Such a simple definition. Seemingly so difficult to show.

Poke Sallet

04/24/2023 /

You’ve probably heard about pokeweed, poke salad, poke sallet. You may have eaten it. It has other names you might recognize: American nightshade, cancer root, inkberry, pigeon berry.

Now, this isn’t a complete treatise on Poke Weed, it’s just a few thoughts about the plant and how to prepare it to eat.

Poke is a native weed. Phytolacca americana can grow as tall as 10 feet. It’s berries have been used to make a red dye and it’s root is used in some cancer and HIV treatment research. There are tons of other health claims for poke weed but none are scientifically proven. Except two: poke contains large amounts of vitamins A and C and large amounts of the minerals iron and calcium and poke has a lymphatic cleansing property.

Because it contains these nutrients and cleanses the lymph system it has long been a spring time staple on the dinner table. Our foremothers knew that after a long winter eating dried foods and salted meats, this little weed was just the thing to refresh her family’s vitamin stores and give them a good start toward renewed health. A Spring Tonic, you might say.

You may have heard it called Poke Salad, but Poke Sallet is the correct name. A sallet is a kind of cooked salad according to Old English. We’ve just eaten poke for so long in this country, we modern folks now call it poke salad.

Poke is edible, and it tastes like a mild asparagus, but it has to be prepared correctly before you eat it. Poke contains the powerful irritant phytolaccine.  If poke isn’t prepared correctly it can cause stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting. Some people are sensitive to even touching the plant or berries. I’ve never had that problem, but I have heard of folks who have.

To prepare poke first start with tender shoots that have no purple color on them. I pick shoots for a few days sometimes to gather up enough for a meal or what Grandma called a “mess” of poke. That picture up there is my latest “mess” of poke.

After you’ve gathered up your shoots, wash them and remove all the debris and soil.

Bring a big pot of water to a rolling boil.

Chop up the shoots if desired, I seldom do but if they’re long you might want to chop them.

Place the shoots in the pot of boiling water.

Boil the shoots for 3 minutes. Drain the shoots and remove them to a plate while you boil another pot of water.

Place the shoots in the second pot of boiling water and boil for another 3 minutes.

Repeat the draining and boiling for a total of 3 boilings and drainings. If you’re sensitive to plant products and different foods, you might want to boil and drain the shoots up to 5 times. I just boil and drain three times.

To finish off the cooking after all the boiling and draining, cover the shoots with water, bring to a boil and add the seasonings of your choice. Salt and pepper are common as is a piece of smoked ham. Garlic and red pepper flakes are another tasty add-in. Let the shoots simmer with the seasonings until the meat is cooked and tender. If you don’t use meat just cook the shoots for as long as you would other cooked greens like turnips or mustard greens.

Don’t throw away that final cooking liquid. It’s called “Pot Likker” or “pot liquor”, and it is delicious with a piece of cornbread and the cooked poke. The pot likker is where many of those vitamins and minerals end up. When I was a child, Mother always gave me a little cup of the pot likker to drink.

Another way of cooking poke after the boiling treatment is to scramble an egg with the cooked shoots.

Do you cook and eat Poke Sallet?

Bread Making Tutorial

03/17/2020 /

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Anyone can make bread. After all, people have been making bread for thousands of years. You can make bread, too! This is a very simple recipe for making a white bread. It is an Amish recipe that can be used for loaf bread or rolls.

You can make bread by hand, without a bread maker or machine of any kind. That’s how people used to make it, and you can, too. It will take perseverance and lots of energy. You will need a heavy spoon for beating the ingredients until the dough gets too stiff to beat. Then you will turn it out onto the counter-top and knead the dough.
To knead, you will push your fists into the dough and push the dough forward. then you will grasp the dough that has been pushed forward and pull it down over the rest of the dough, pushing it into the rest of the dough. Do this over and over. Add flour if the dough is sticky, just a little at a time, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.  I will be using an electric kneader in these instructions, but they are perfectly suited for making bread by hand.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups warm milk
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 heaping Tablespoon shortening
2 Tablespoons salt
6 -7 cups bread flour
1 Tablespoon lecithin powder optional, helps the bread stay fresh longer)

I have been having lots of trouble with bread not rising lately, and it has been due to the yeast. Sometimes bread will rise one time and then not again, this is usually due to weak, almost dead, yeast. So, I’ve gone back to proofing my yeast. Here is how to do that.

Put the amount of yeast you are using in a teacup. Add a pinch of sugar and about 1/2 cup warm milk. Let it sit until you can see the yeast start to foam and bubble. This will take from one or two to 10 minutes. If it doesn’t foam and bubble, you know that your yeast is not going to make your bread rise. Discard it and go buy some new yeast.

 

 

 

 

 

Preheat your oven to 500* F . When your dough is ready to rise, you will turn the oven off and place the dough in the oven with the door cracked open.

Proof your yeast as instructed above and let it sit in the cup until you have the other ingredients combined:

Combine the rest of the milk, sugar, lecithin if using, shortening and salt. Add the yeast/sugar mixture.

Add four cups of flour, one cup at a time, beating well. I use a dough hook from the very beginning, but you can start with a paddle and change to the hook if you like.

 

Now start adding the flour just 1/2 cup at a time. Depending on the weather, you may need from 6 to even 8 cups of flour for this recipe. Today I used just 5 1/2 cups. Knead the dough well between additions of flour.

As you add flour, look for the dough to stop being sticky, and watch for it to start pulling away from the sides of the pan. You may need to stop your machine and scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl a few times.

Now allow the dough to knead for 10 minutes. If you are kneading by hand, you will knead it for 15-20 minutes, and that will depend on how strong and good you are at kneading.  🙂

While it is kneading, you can grease a large pan for the dough to rise in.

 

 

 

 

After it has kneaded for 10 minutes, you can see how smooth the dough is and how it has cleaned off the sides of the pan.

 

 

Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and shape it into a mushroom by folding the edges under, under, under all the way around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now grab the dough firmly and place the dough in the greased pan, top side down. Rub the dough around in the grease, then turn it over so that both the top and bottom will be greased.

 

Turn off your oven.  Place a clean cloth over the dough in the pan and place the pan in the oven. Leave the door cracked and allow the dough to rise until it is doubled in size. this can take from 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on your oven and the weather.

OK, now your dough is risen!

 

Preheat the oven to 325*F.

Grease two loaf pans.  I prefer smaller pans because the bread rises higher in them and I get big slices for sandwiches. As you make more bread, you can decide what kind of pans you like.  If you don’t have loaf pans you can use casserole dishes or even place the dough on a cookie sheet for a round loaf with lots of crust.

Take out the dough and divide it into two equal portions. I just pinch the dough into two portions, but if you prefer, you can pay the dough on the counter and cut it into two portions.

Shape each portion into a mushroom and pinch together the dough on the bottom of the mushroom.  Place each portion of shaped dough into a greased loaf pan.

Pierce the tops of the dough with a fork a few times. This allows air to flow through the bread and gives the tops a nice look when the bread is done.

Cover with a clean cloth and allow to rise until it is at least 1 inch above the pan.  If you are not using a pan, you should let the dough rise on a greased cookie sheet until it is doubled in size.  This rising is not done in the oven but on top of the oven, since it is nice and warm now.

Now place the risen pans of dough in the oven and bake for 25 minutes. When you take them out, leave the bread in the pans for 5 minutes.  While the bread is still in the pans, rub the tops and sides with butter, this makes the crust soft and delicious.


After 5 minutes, turn the bread out of the pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.  If you don’t have a wire rack, and you bake a lot, you really should get one. They are very helpful for cooking baked goods quickly and evenly.

Once the bread is cool enough to eat, you are going to have a hard time keeping people out of the kitchen, so go ahead and slice one loaf and serve it with butter and jam.

To store this bread, you must wait til it is cool, then wrap in paper or plastic. Without the lecithin it will last about 4-5 days on the shelf, but I don’t think your bread is going to be around that long.  🙂

Chicken And Dumplings

03/16/2020 /

Did you know that there are at least three ways of making the dumplings for Chicken and Dumplings?  My Mother used to use biscuit dough and the dumplings she made were soft and fluffy. My husband’s grandmother made dumplings that were big and almost noodle-like. Then my own Grandmother’s take on dumplings was to make them very, very thin and even closer to being noodley.

I’ve made all three types and my favorite, also my family’s favorite, are the large, flat dumplings that aren’t thin enough to  be called a noodle. That is the kind of dumplings this recipe is.

And did you know that Chicken and Dumplings don’t make good photos?  They look kind of yuck in pictures but I’ll do my best.

To begin your chicken and dumplings you need to cook some chicken and keep the cooking water/broth to cook your dumplings in. Use the best chicken you can find and be sure to use the whole chicken not just white meat so that your broth will be as flavorful as possible. Don’t take the skin off the meat either.  Chicken and Dumplings are a high fat, high carb meal, so use good fats in it; healthy chicken.

Also, use a healthy flour. Plain Einkorn is good for this recipe so is plain wheat flour.  Using all whole wheat will make your dumplings very dense but you could use half whole wheat or whole Einkorn and half plain white wheat.

chicken 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the chicken or chicken pieces, lower the heat. Add a carrot, one stalk of celery, one small peeled onion, about 6 black peppercorns and about a teaspoon of salt. Cover the pot and allow it to cook til the chicken is falling off the bone.

Once the chicken is done and very tender, you can take the pot off the heat and the chicken out of the broth to cool. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, take all the meat off the bones. Keep the bones to make some more good bone broth.  Take all the skin and cartilage pieces off the meat as well.

Pull the meat into shreds or bite sized pieces and then add all the meat back to the broth. Remove what you can of the carrot, celery and onion. They make a good snack.

Now determine if you need more broth. It depends on how many people you want to serve. If you have enough from where you’ve cooked the chicken, that’s fine. If not, add some more good chicken stock to the pot.

Taste the broth and add salt or pepper to taste.

chicken 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make The Dumplings

2 cups plain flour (or half and half whole wheat and plain flour)

1 Tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup buttermilk

You can easily double or triple this dumpling recipe. I usually make three recipes of it for about 4 or 5 quarts of broth.

Mix everything together into a soft dough. Once you have a ball of dough, let it rest for 10 minutes. Then cut the dough into pieces about the size of a tennis ball and roll each piece out to about 1/4 inch thick on a well-floured surface. The flour keeps the dough from sticking to your work surface but it also helps your dumpling broth to get thick.

Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut the rolled dough into big square or rectangle shaped dumplings.

Bring your broth to a rolling boil.  Gently add dumplings one at a time to the boiling broth. Gently push the dumplings down under the broth. They’ll pop back up and that’s ok, but they need that initial dunking.

Once all the dumplings are in the broth, lower the heat to a simmer. Cover the pot and allow the dumplings to cook, stirring gently every now and then.

After about 10 minutes you can take out a dumpling and test for doneness. Be careful not to burn your mouth.

HINT:  Leave lots of flour on the dumplings after you cut them out, the flour helps to thicken the broth. If your broth isn’t thick enough for you, you can thicken it up easily.  Mix together 4 tablespoons of flour and some water to make a paste about the consistency of buttermilk. Next, put some of the boiling broth in the bowl of flour and water and stir it up, then pour it into the boiling broth. Stir well.  Let it cook a little bit and it will thicken.

chicken 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

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