Guest Post by Melody Durant, Author of “& You’re A Preacher’s Wife?”

Melody Durant

“& You’re A Preacher’s Wife?”

Finger Lickin’ Good Cookbook
By Melody Durant

Join us in welcoming Melody Durant this week  Melody describes herself as: an Okie from Missouri who graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in Home Economics Education.  Not long after while ordering lamb fries at a restaurant, someone at the next table got her attention with "a woman after my own heart."  Three months later they were engaged, soon following with both coming to know the Lord and surrendering to the ministry.  Teaching Home Economic high school classes and becoming a 4-H Agent followed with a standstill of 14 years between the jobs which allowed her to raise four kids. 

 Recipes included in her cookbook were not created by her but collected through the years and served as family and friend favorites.   Recipes have been broken down step by step with many tips to make your life easier.  If it’s a good place to lick your fingers, that’s there also!  Humor is sprinkled throughout  the recipes along with her explanation of how God can use anyone, even someone with spikey hair and a  loud personality, for His purpose. 

As popular as the recipes are the many stories from her preacher and missionary wife days.  “Be prepared to have hankies close by when attempting to read through the book  as you will be laughing till you cry,” many have commented.   Upon leaving their last pastorate, Melody and her husband went in 2004 to serve in the missionary field of Mexico and Nicaragua, where they still serve today. Her Elijah Ministry website link is ww.likeelijahministry.com.

As the pastor’s family, our gift every year to the church was an OPEN HOUSE at the parsonage where EVERYONE was invited to fellowship and feed!   For 2 weeks I would mix, roll, bake, shred and hide the goodies for the big night.  Crawling through the house I would dust the baseboards (I was sure the little charter members would bring their white gloves), hang up the stockings with care and perfect the Christmas tree that my daughters had put up on Thanksgiving (my birthday gift to me).   Once, I called my husband to bring home punch from the store that would be made into a delicious concoction.  Now if YOU were shopping for punch for Christmas – what color would you get?  Well, it never even occurred to my honey bunny to coordinate the colors – as he brought home ORANGE!  You try disguising orange into green or red….it took some doing, and fortunately everyone was more concerned with the food rather than the drink!

Open House for the Durants in the 1980's

On that note…these were the goodies I always prepared for our OPEN HOUSE.

*Bon Bons

*Melody’s Pink Cookies (have won contests with these babies)

*Butterhorns (made with ONLY 3 ingredients)

*Cheese Ball

*Sausage Balls (have to make oodles of these as hubby expects a personal supply)

*Firecrackers

*Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows (think Russell Stover Santa Clause)

And You're a Preacher's Wife?

THANKSGIVING

*Crockpot Dressing (of course…the one that takes 5 hours to prepare is better, but in my random

sampling of female participants..this rated quite high).

*Easy Pumpkin Ice Cream

*Old Fashioned Sugar Cream Pie

*Not Another Pumpkin Pie (We were traveling with our pastor to do a revival, had time to freshen up at his inlaws and laying on the table were 2 warm pies, asking to be eaten…and we did.   While one can of pumpkin normally makes 1 pie, this makes 2!

*Aunt Deloris's Cranberries

*Sweet Potato Casserole

You can find several of these recipes on Colonial Quills (click here.)

CHRISTMAS

*Red Velvet Cake (You think you’ve tasted a good one, don’t say anything till you try this one)

*To Die For Uncooked Icing (Use this or the Cream Cheese for the cake.  Some want the heavy-- 

others want the light.)

*Aunt Deloris's Ham

*Really Italian Spaghetti and Meatballs (We did this for last Christmas)

*Broccoli Salad (won some contests)

*Christmas Cake (You won’t wonder anymore about the title of the cookbook)

*Candied Walnuts

THESE GO WITH EVERY HOLIDAY!

*Canned Bread

*Toilet Rolls

*Coconut Cream Delight

*Loaded Mashed Potatoes

*Homemade Root Beer

Melody's recipes will be posted on Saturday and they look awesome! You can purchase her cookbook via Melody's Facebook page.

Giveaway: We are giving away a copy of Melody's cookbook this week on OWG. You can get extra counts by reading any one, or all, of the serial stories in the Frontier Forted Holiday Anthology on CQ AND by answering WHICH one of Melody's Christmas recipes are you MOST looking forward to having?  Leave your comment with FFH# to indicate you read (# put the number) of the serial stories and tell us the recipe you want to know!  So if you have read ALL five serial stories you can count SIX times in the giveaway!