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My favorite cookbook is a pink gingham photo album with two kittens on the front cover. Cute as it is, I actually purchased it many years ago simply because it was on clearance. It is what’s inside that makes it my favorite. I have lettered this on the spine: “Special from family and friends.”

Inside are plastic photo sheets with four slots per page. These are perfect for handwritten recipes on 3×5 cards. I taped handmade cardstock tabs to some photo sheets so I could divide it into categories. Examples of tabs are Mama Sue, Aunt Nan, Grandmother Joan, and also cities where Ray and I have lived.

I have other identical photo albums. These are divided by main dish, vegetables, etc., but my special recipe album is the perfect place for Mama Sue’s boiled custard and Aunt Nan’s caramel popcorn.

Life is a lot like my special recipe album. Many friends, relatives, and sisters in Christ have shared their recipes with me. God uses people to bless the lives of other people. Those people share their lives with us.

We can see this even in the earthly life of God’s own Son. God provided Mary and Joseph to be His parents. Shepherds and Anna and Simeon and wise men touched Jesus’ life when He was small. When He was twelve years old, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with His parents and with their relatives and acquaintances. He interacted with the teachers of the Law at the temple. Early in His ministry, He shared in the wedding of a couple in Cana.

We know that Jesus touched the lives of the people He came in contact with, but it is also true that those people touched His life. I encourage you not to be so busy in your homeschool that you and your children miss out on all those person-to-person connections with your parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and your brothers and sisters in Christ. God has lessons for them to teach your children, too.

This is My commandment, that you love one another
just as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this,
that one lay down his life for his friends.
You are My friends if you do what I command you.
No longer do I call you slaves,
for the slave does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you friends,
for all things that I have heard from My Father
I have made known to you.
John 15:12-15

The chicken curry recipe that our friend “Joe” didn’t care for when he and his wife came to dinner so many years ago has a place of honor in my “Special from family and friends” recipe album. I have typed it here for those of you who asked for it last week. Joe isn’t the only person who doesn’t care for curry, but for those of you who do, you are in for a treat.

Chicken Curry

Served over white or brown rice and topped with lots of yummies

Serves 4, but I have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled this recipe many times. It works fine. We love having it for leftovers. Begin by cooking 4 servings of brown or white rice, according to package directions — or more, obviously, if you are making more than one recipe of chicken curry. While that cooks, you can make your curry.

Ingredients for curry:

½ cup onion
5 T butter
6 T flour
2½ t curry powder
1¼ t salt
1½ t sugar
¼ t ginger
1 c chicken broth
2 c milk
1 whole de-boned chicken (this is enough chicken, even if you double, triple, or quadruple the sauce)
1 t lemon juice

Sauté onion in butter in a heavy pan. Set stovetop to between medium and medium high heat. Whisk in flour, curry powder, salt, sugar, and ginger. Stir until smooth. Add broth slowly, whisking constantly. Add milk. Continue to whisk until smooth and it starts to bubble slightly and thicken. It will thicken more quickly and be less likely to stick in a wide pan than in a tall and narrow one. Add chicken and lemon juice.

Our favorite toppings:

apple chunks, shredded coconut, grated cheese, raisins, sliced almonds, peanuts, pineapple chunks

 

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