Making Sunday Restful & Cheese-less Pizza

Sunday is the day to rest and enjoy our families after we have set aside time to be with our church family.

I'll be honest ...

over here Sundays are just as hard or harder than our every day!

I mean I still have 6 mouths to feed, 4 bodies to dress and to look clean, and be out the door around 10am:) Then we get home with 4 (or 5, or 6) starving people and this Momma has to get a meal on the table, again!

After a month or two of some not.at.all restful Sundays we have begun to make some changes! And thankfully this week we had about as restful as a Sunday that we've had in a long while! It was delightful;)

Here is what we have done:

1. Laying clothing out the night before! We've done this for awhile now and know that when we move and no longer live next to our church, we'll have to start ironing the night before. And packing Nate's church bag, too:)

2. It seems like the last few Sundays we have started a little food routine for Sundays that makes it pretty fun, something to look forward to and RESTful for Momma;)

First we start Saturday night by trying to have a big meal that always produces leftovers;)

And then after the kiddos are tucked in for the night, I bake Banana Bread.

So breakfast Sunday morning is OJ or soymilk, fruit and Banana Bread:) And it's a treat that we really look forward to, especially the kids who hear me in the kitchen or begin to smell the bread in the oven as they fall asleep! I slice it up in the morning and the kids help themselves. The recipe makes two 8 inch loaves and we have yet to eat both with the kids having as much as they want:)

When we return home from church, we enjoy leftovers... sometimes from Saturday night or Friday:) Leftovers on Sunday afternoon means that Momma doesn't have as much kitchen duty! And fits perfectly into our "cleaning out the fridge" before trash day, if we have anything that has been lurking too long in the fridge (trying not to have wasted food!!).

After almost 6 months of not having pizza because we can't find dairy-free cheese locally, we have gone cheeseless with our homemade pizzas:) We think it's delicious.

 It's really cheap without the expensive vegan cheeses. Since we no longer have church on Sunday nights, it's been fun to make our pizzas together... I make the dough and the kids make their own with adding the amounts of pizza and toppings they like.

Pizza Dough Recipe
(adapted from here but we love the recipe from Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book)

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 T. sugar
2 T. olive oil
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1 t. salt
2 tsp of Italian seasoning (I add this!!)

Preparation:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast and warm water, mixing  until combined. Allow the mixture to rest for about 5 minutes, or until bubbly.

2. Add the sugar, olive oil, flour, and salt, adding more flour as necessary until forming a soft dough. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl and should feel just a little sticky. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 5 to 7 minutes, or until elastic.

According to Food Allergy Mama, the dough doesn't have to rise for an hour!! So we don't wait around, we make our dough and get to work putting on the toppings;)

Adding a quick salad or some fruit and we have a fun meal together.

We've been enjoying this food routine on Sundays.... I'm sure we'll tire of pizza after a while and go back to making breakfast or something else easy that we can make together;)

3. One of the reasons our Sundays looked soo much like every other day was that there was no time to rest (at least for the parents). With our older three children (7,6,5 yrs old) no longer napping, we'd go from the kitchen to playing outside or refereeing inside play. So from 2 - 8pm it was the same old, same old.... "play nice", "no, please don't do that", "wear your helmet", "yes, I'll get that".... serving the kids. I think it's needed as a parent... but there needs to be a time to rest as well.

So we re- instituted naps on Sunday ! Everyone! Everyone lays in their beds and quietly rests, reads, colors, writes for enough time that Mom and Dad get rest! It is amazing what an hour (or two) nap does for this Momma;)

4. Time for each other!! While we've been teaching this semester (both Brian and I teaching two classes) a lot of our weekend has included working to "prepare for the next week"! On Sunday afternoons though, it's nice to take a break from "work" and take some time to play with the kids.... truly refreshing for our relationships with each other. And this just takes discipline on our parts to complete the work before Sunday or do it after the kids head to bed:)

Last Sunday we did all of these things....

Sunday was truly relaxing and refreshing!! Feeding our hearts at church, our bellies with simple meals and our relationships with time together!! The Lord knew families needed a day set aside to worship and spend time with one another:)

Linking up to...
Tuesdays at the Table @ All the Small Stuff
Tasty Tuesday @ Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Blessed with Grace
Tasty Tuesday @ 33 Shades of Green 
Allergy Free Wednesday
Works For Me Wednesday