Church Dinner Tomorrow

First Sunday of the month means church pot luck dinner (lunch). With a church full of old fashioned country cooks, your taste buds say, "We're in heaven." Your arteries say, "We're feeling clogged." And you blood says, "Whoa! I'm spiking!"

The ladies cook the yeasty white dinner rolls in the church kitchen. The heavenly aroma fills every corner and makes your mouth water. There are usually more dessert choices than anything else. Almost everything has sugar in it: the salads, the vegetables, the sauces, the salad dressings, the fruit dip... No wonder diabetes abounds.

I try to bring something healthy (no sugar, no animal fat, no processed flour, little to no salt) which means I often take most of my food home. Oh well, I keep trying.

Tomorrow I am going to make chicken and stuffing. Not the best time for that since so many people just had their favorite version at Thanksgiving and will probably have it again at Christmas. I live in cornbread stuffing country, something I never heard of before moving to Oklahoma. I was raised on wheat bread stuffing spiced with sage. And my parents were from Kansas, just north of Oklahoma.

My stuffing has no bread in it. The replacement ingredients are a mixture of whole grain brown rice, whole grain wheat, and a little bit of steel cut oatmeal, which I cooked together today. I meant to add quinoa too, but I forgot. Maybe next time.

I'll add 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, sage and nutmeg then let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

In the morning I may add some chicken broth, depends on what it looks like, then put it in a casserole dish topped with cooked chicken and let it warm up and bake in a very slow oven while I'm at church. I live two doors down from my church so it's an easy walk to go home and turn up the heat if needs be and be ready to walk back to church for the dinner at 12:30 p.m.

.