A Day of Rest: Part Four, Food Prep

Welcome back to the fourth and final installment of my series, “A Day of Rest.” In Part One we talked about why your family may want to consider a day of rest, once a week, every week. (You can can catch up on part one HERE.) In Part Two we talked about preparing ahead of time for a day of rest, so that it actually happens. (You can read that post HERE.) In Part Three we talked about ways you could spend your day of rest. (You can read that post HERE.)

Today we are going a little further in depth on preparation for your day of rest, which we talked about in Part Two. Specifically, we are going to talk about meals, food, and preparing ahead of time for them. There’s something special that happens when we wake up on our day of rest and everything down to the very meals has already been taken care of. I feel like it makes it exciting and holy to know that when you wake up, no work needs to be done. Kids may get excited to wake up on Christmas Day, but I get excited to wake up on Sabbath. (By the way, you can prepare your Christmas meals with a Sabbath/Day of Rest frame of mind as well.) Read more: Exodus 16:23-24

Day of Rest meals must be planned out ahead of time in order to be successful. We don’t want to be filled with frustration or anger on the day we are supposed to be resting. Remember, you are not simply creating a day of rest for the people around you or in your household, it is also FOR YOU. Planning our meals and prepping for them can be done the day before. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do my cleaning on Thursdays, grocery shopping and errands on Fridays, and meal prep on Saturdays. If your Sabbath is Saturday, just back that schedule up one day to put you on track to be prepared.

What does it mean to have my meals prepped for our day of rest? It means that I have already done the shopping. I already know what we’re going to eat. And I have done everything ahead of time to prepare the meals, except for maybe putting them into the oven or getting the food out of the refrigerator.

Here are some ways that you can prepare your day of rest meals:

Select what your family will eat ahead of time.
Shop for all of the ingredients you’ll need.
Consider freezer meals, the crockpot, or make ahead meals like casseroles.
If you’re eating something cold, like sandwiches or salads, cut and slice all of your ingredients ahead of time.
Consider a “potluck” meal with other families, where each family contributes a few things (made ahead of time.)
Consider using paper plates to serve meals to avoid clean-up. Some people even like to use disposable aluminum bake ware.

Even if your family plans to do something like grill out, it is really easy to prep everything the day before.

Be sure to follow my Pinterest board where I pin make ahead meals and ideas.(Below) If you’d like to share a recipe that makes a great make ahead meal, please leave a comment below.

If you need to catch up or want to re-read the other installments, you can find the links below:

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