The Lutheran Ladies' Lounge from KFUO Radio

In honor of St. Michael and All Angels, Halloween, and the End Times readings for the last Sundays of the church year, Sarah’s offering “spiritual warfare ammo” in the form of hymns that rebuke the devil in Jesus’ name.

Lyrics featured in this Hymn Sing episode include “A Mighty Fortress” (LSB 656/657), “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe” (LSB 666), “Jesus Has Come and Brings Pleasure Eternal” (LSB 533), “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It” (LSB 594), and Sarah’s favorite hymn of all: “Jesus, Priceless Treasure” (LSB 743).

Loaded with Scripture, hymn lyrics, and the stories behind some of the hymnals most hopeful and defiant hymns, this conversation will help listeners better confess, as Martin Luther famously did:

“When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus: ‘I admit that I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation? By no means. For I know One who suffered and made a satisfaction in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.’”

Hear the full story of "God's Own Child, I Gladly Say It" in the Baptism Party Planning Committee episode.

God's own child, I gladly say it, text © 1991 Robert E. Voelker. Used with Permission.

Find the Lutheran Service Book: Psalms and Hymns Pocket Edition and Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns from Concordia Publishing House.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Thanksgiving is coming — and that means it’s time once again to put on our eating pants and enjoy some delicious “hot fat carbs.”

In this Iron Ladle Challenge, the Ladies discuss and share favorite recipes for what they consider the ultimate comfort-food Thanksgiving side: stuffing.

Do we call the dish “stuffing” or “dressing”? Should stuffing actually be stuffed into an uncooked turkey? Should it be served hot or cold — and if hot, how do you keep it warm while the rest of the feast bakes? Which is better: yeast bread or cornbread stuffing? What are the best add-ins to ensure the most savory, palatable, and memorable side dish?

And can Erin and Rachel agree to disagree about their very different approaches to "savory bread pudding”?

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. sliced bread, cut into cubes, and toasted in a 375 oven
• 1 lb. bulk sausage- Italian, breakfast, garlic herb, your choice OR 1 lb. bacon lardons
• 6 T butter, divided
• 2 c onion, chopped
• 1 c celery, chopped
• 1 t dried thyme
• .75 t salt
• .5 t pepper
• 1/8 t cloves (or a good sprinkle)
• 2 med/lg apples- sweet tart variety, small bite size pieces
• .5 c parsley, minced
• .75 c pecans, toasted (set a timer so they don’t burn in the oven! Start checking at 5 min)
• .75 c dried fruit- cherries are especially good
• 1 c stock- plus more

Directions:

Brown the sausage (or bacon lardons) in a large skillet. Once it is well browned, remove it to a very large bowl and strain off fat, if there is an excess. Alternatively, decrease the butter, if your fat is especially tasty.

Add half the butter to the pan and sauté the onions and celery until tender. Add the thyme, salt, pepper, and cloves. Combine well then remove to the bowl. Add the remaining butter and the apples to the pan and sauté until tender. Be sure to scrape up any good brown bits with the juice released from the apples. Add the apples to the bowl.

To the sauteed ingredients, add the toasted bread cubes, parsley, pecans, and dried fruit. Toss well to thoroughly combine. Then drizzle 1 cup of stock over the mixture and toss Even More Thoroughly.

If possible, let the stuffing mixture rest for an hour (or refrigerate for a couple of days). Before cooking, test a few bread cubes to see if they need more stock. They should be chewy and delicious- not soggy and not tough. Stop testing now. It will be even more delicious after baking, if you can even believe it.

Heat the oven to 350. Put the stuffing into a buttered 9x13 casserole dish. Cover with foil so it doesn’t dry out. Bake ~25 minutes then remove foil and bake uncovered for 15 minutes until brown and crisp and glorious.

• 1 box of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing
• Prepare according to directions. Don't skimp on that butter, folks. Chill stuffing.
• In the meantime, chop apples (gala are great) and walnuts (get the whole ones and crack them open if you want!), and gather raisins, all to taste. When the stuffing is chilled, add ingredients and combine. Return to refrigerator until ready to eat!

1. Sautee half a diced onion in a generous dollop of butter until almost carmelized.
2. Add fresh chopped sage and thyme to taste.
3. Add a cup or so of chicken broth and the juice from two cans of whole oysters. And also, if you like, more butter. :)
4. Bring liquid to a boil and add one bag of Pepperidge Farm Country Style stuffing.
5. Cover, remove from heat, and let sit five minutes.
6. Fold in oysters (chopped or not) and transfer to buttered baking dish.
7. Bake at 350 degrees to desired toastiness.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Nadine Grayl is a licensed clinical social worker, a trained deaconess, a pastor’s wife, a mom of three, and a fellow Lutheran lady. She’s also a survivor of postpartum depression who now has a passion for helping and treating other women suffering from perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

Between one in five and one in seven pregnant and postpartum mothers suffer from depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders — yet many of these women suffer in silence, ashamed of their feelings, frightened of their intrusive thoughts, and too troubled and weak even to reach out for help.

In this interview, Nadine shares her own story and offers a wealth of personal and professional insights to help Lutheran women better understand, identify, and help those facing a range of postpartum mental health challenges.

Resources referenced in this episode include:

• Postpartum.net and the Postpartum Support International helpline: 1-800-944-4773
• Mom and Mind podcast
• The Wellness Pod podcast
• This Isn't What I Expected: Overcoming Postpartum Depression by Karen R. Kleiman and Valerie Davis Raskin
• Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts: A Healing Guide to the Secret Fears of New Mothers by Karen Kleiman and Molly McIntyre
• Beyond the Blues: Understanding and Treating Prenatal and Postpartum Depression & Anxiety by Shoshana S. Bennett and Pec Indman

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Sarah’s going back to school — and we all get to go with her!

In this episode, the Ladies inaugurate a new series on the podcast: “Sarah Goes to School.” Drawing on study notes from her graduate courses at Concordia University Irvine’s Townsend Institute for Counseling and Leadership, Sarah shares what she’s learning about organizational leadership, vocation, character, and how relationships really work.

“If you take away anything from all of this, this is it: When in doubt, be present with people,” says Sarah. “It’s so important for people to feel like they have people who are ‘for them,’ even if you disagree with them.”

Click here to learn more about CUI’s Townsend Institute for Counseling and Leadership.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Author and musician FLAME joins Rachel, Sarah, and Erin in a recap discussion of the latest Lutheran Ladies’ Book Club selection, Extra Nos: Discovering Grace outside Myself.

The show bounces back and forth between host questions and reader questions (submitted via the Book Club Facebook event page).

How did FLAME become FLAME? How does a theological biography differ from an ordinary life story? What can we learn from FLAME’s journey from charismatic evangelicalism through Calvinism and into a profoundly Lutheran confession? How did faithful women play a vital role in that journey? And what’s coming next for one of Lutheranism’s most exciting recording artists?

At the end of the episode, the Ladies introduce the next Lutheran Ladies’ Book Club read: George Herbert’s The Temple. (Read along with Rachel in the Penguin Classics edition here.)

To learn more about FLAME and his work (including albums, podcasts, and other projects), visit Extra Nos Academy, check out the Extra Nos Academy YouTube channel, or follow FLAME314 on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter).

Order the book at CPH.org.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

It’s a question every Lutheran woman — indeed, nearly every human being on the face of the planet — gets to ask every single day. And in part two of her Big Question episode, Rachel’s once again asking it on air:

What should I wear?

Rachel begins by interacting extensively with a blog post by Reformed Evangelical writer Mary Kassian entitled “Does God Care What I Wear?” The Ladies then discuss common pitfalls Christians face when talking about modesty: body shaming, victim blaming, double standards, purity culture, hypocrisy, and more. Sarah, Erin, and Rachel each share their own “personal dress codes” and explain how they make decisions about how to dress and how not to dress. Finally, the Ladies head back to Scripture for a Christological, eschatological big-picture understanding of what it means to be eternally clothed in Christ’s righteousness in our Baptism.

ICYMI: Check out part one of this conversation here.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

It’s a question every Lutheran woman — indeed, nearly every human being on the face of the planet — gets to ask every single day. And in this Big Question episode, Rachel’s asking it on air:

What should I wear?

Beginning with a Wikipedia-level introduction to who wears clothes and why, Rachel then plunges into a range of relevant Scripture passages — Genesis 3, Isaiah 61, Ezekiel 16, 1 Peter 3, and 2 Timothy 1, among others — and revisits the writings of Early Church Fathers including Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian of Carthage. Together with Erin and Sarah, she explores ancient social customs from China to Greece and the history of female fashion from Helen of Troy to Mother Teresa, highlighting especially the extreme and unprecedented evolution of modesty norms that took place throughout the 20th century.

Towards the end, each of the Ladies shares her own story, exploring how from an early age she has had to navigate the tension between fashion and modesty — between showing off and covering up — as a Christian woman.

Stay tuned for part two of this conversation on modesty in the next episode.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Our intrepid kitchen scientist Erin wanted to know: Which is the undisputed queen of dessert bars on the Lutheran potluck table?

So, using Maximum Science™, she took to Facebook to help her find out. Beginning with a call for nominations that resulted in dozens of entries, she whittled the list of competitors down to eight, then used a series of polls to determine the ultimate winner. Throughout all seven Facebook polls, Lutheran ladies worldwide watched anxiously to see which dessert would be named “Best of the Bars.” Would it be the decadent 7 Layer Bars? The outsider Strawberry Pretzel Dessert? The upstart Jam Shortbread Bars? Or would that faithful classic — Lemon Bars — win the day at last?

In this Iron Ladle Challenge, Sarah, Erin, and Rachel enjoy a play-by-play of the Tournament of Bars, and each shares her own favorite bar recipe — for cranberry-almond shortbread bars, lemon bars, and peanut butter bars, respectively.

Cranberry Almond Shortbread Bars

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (Might work better at 375, depending on your oven.)

Shortbread:

Mix until well-combined:

• 2 cups blanched fine almond flour
• 4 Tbs olive oil (the more flavorful, the better!)
• 4 Tbs maple syrup (or honey)
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Oil a small baking dish ( i.e. 7x5, 8x8, etc.). Pack dough into the dish, making sure it's evenly spread. Bake in oven about 20-25 minutes, until the edges are golden and the middle is no longer soft.

Cranberry sauce!

In a medium saucepan, mix:

• 1 bag of fresh or frozen cranberries (I use from frozen almost exclusively.)
• 3/4 cup water
• 2/3 cup maple syrup

Cook on high heat, stirring frequently, until the cranberries begin to pop or separate. Turn down heat and mash the cranberries. Turn off heat and let cool before serving. Store in the fridge!

Serving options:

1. Put a layer of cranberry sauce on top of the bars for the last 10 minutes or so of the bake time to make more solid cranberry layer.
2. Keep shortbread and cranberry sauce separate and let people layer their own!
3. Make fresh cranberry sauce and mix a little gelatin in before layering on top to make a more solid cranberry layer.

*PRO TIPS:

• This burns very quickly! Keep a careful watch once the edges start to darken.
• It will likely not be done as soon as you smell it, like other baked goods. They will likely need 3-5 more minutes after you start to smell them.
• Do not layer fresh cranberry on completely done bars and let them sit for a long time. The cranberry will soak in and become mush!

Peanut Butter Fingers

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream together:

• ½ cup softened butter
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup packed brown sugar

Beat in:

• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• ½ tsp. vanilla

Separately, mix:

• 1 cup flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until well combined. Finally, mix in:

• 1 cup rolled oats

Spread in greased 9x13 pan and bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. As soon as the pan comes out of the oven, sprinkle evenly over the bars:

• 1 cup chocolate chips

After 5-10 minutes, when chocolate chips are melted, use the back of a metal tablespoon to spread the melted chocolate smoothly over the pan, up to within about ½ inch of the crust. Allow chocolate to cool and firm before cutting bars into rectangles.

Haley Hazen's Grandma Ebeling LEMON BARS: A 4-STAR RECIPE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix and press into a 9x13 pan:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Mix and pour on top of baked crust:

• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup flour
• 6 Tbs lemon juice

Bake again at 350 for 15 minutes.

"BE SURE TO USE BETTER, NOT MARGARINE." These are wise words.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Inspired by Bri’s Greatest Hits and the 200th episode of The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge, Sarah, Erin, and Rachel are each revisiting their own favorite episodes from the past four years of podcasting.

This week, Sarah looks back (laughing) at her all-time-favorite Trivia Challenge, in which she got to show off her rarefied knowledge of how to spell “pączki.”

It’s Episode 22: Rachel’s Trivia Challenge—Mardi Gras

From the original show notes:

How much do you (think you) know about the cultural and theological underpinnings of Mardi Gras? Test your knowledge in the latest edition of Rachel’s Trivia Challenge!

Learn more about the meanings of some of Mardi Gras’s many names, what Luther said (or maybe didn’t say) about the festival, how to spell the name of a popular Polish pastry, and the real reason Christians celebrate at this time of year. (Hint: it’s not pancakes.)

To dig deeper into a few of the sources mentioned in the show, check out Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller’s blog post on Luther and fasting, the Oma Way blog on German fastnacht traditions, and Bob Scribner’s article “Reformation, carnival, and the world turned upside down.”

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].

Inspired by Bri’s Greatest Hits and the 200th episode of The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge, Sarah, Erin, and Rachel are each revisiting their own favorite episodes from the past four years of podcasting.

This week, Erin revisits an unforgettable conversation with Elizabeth Entenmann, recorded in October 2021 to commemorate Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

It’s Episode 105: Erin’s One Question Interview

From the original show notes:

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and in this installment of Erin’s One-Question Interview, the Ladies welcome Elizabeth Entenmann as she shares the heartrending story of her personal experience with pregnancy loss.

Beginning with two first-trimester miscarriages and culminating in the tragic loss of her near-term son Rocky, Liz’s honest and open account provides a touching reminder to the Church that pregnancy loss may be closer than we might think—but that God’s love and mercy are always closer still.

Connect with the Lutheran Ladies on social media in The Lutheran Ladies’ Lounge Facebook discussion group (facebook.com/groups/LutheranLadiesLounge) and on Instagram @lutheranladieslounge. Follow Sarah (@hymnnerd), Rachel (@rachbomberger), and Erin (@erinaltered) on Instagram!

Sign up for the Lutheran Ladies' Lounge monthly e-newsletter here, and email the Ladies at [email protected].