A St. Joseph's Day Meal

With St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day both in the same week, this week of Lent has been filled with lots of feasting rather than fasting.  Today is St. Joseph's day and it looks like I will be making a few goodies.  Once again I have truned to Catholic Cuisine for some feast day food ideas so today we will be having these rasberry cream cupcakes and this minestrone soup along with some frozen dinner rolls.  Apparently cream puffs are a traditional St. Joseph's Day food though I haven't taken the time to research the background of this.  Italian food is also traditional St. Joseph Day fare as St. Joseph's Day started in Sicily when upon praying to St. Joseph the people were rewarded with rain after a long drought.

St. Joseph pray for us!

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  I am going to make Irish Beef and Guiness Stew as found on Catholic Cuisine along with Shamrock Pretels also found on CC.  I have been making menu plans for the past four weeks.  I plan two weeks at a time as I go grocery shopping every two weeks.  The actual planning takes a long time to do.  I am thinking about planning for just one week at a time as this may be less stressful or maybe I just need more practice. 

"Winging it" isn't really descriptive of the meal planning I had been doing before.  Although I hadn't  really written out an official menu for each week, I had certain groceries I got on a regular basis for the meals that I made at least once during the week making sure I made a list of the groceries I would need for a few new dishes for the week as well. 

It is nice knowing what I am going to fix for supper on any given day though I think I make more labor intensive dishes than I would if I had a looser plan.  This means that I have been expending more energy on cooking and perhaps have less time for other things like blogging or reading blogs.  This may be one reason why I haven't posted in a while.

Anyway, it is a work in progress.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Yummy Home Made Pretzels for Lent

Since I got my Monastary Soups cook book we have been having soups one to two nights per week. I make bread whenever I make soup but tonight I thought I'd try something different. I made pretzels! I used this reicipe form Catholic Cuisine. There are some specifics that aren't mentioned, like how many pretzels can be made (perhaps I should comment and ask) so I referenced this article for a little bit more guidance. I decided I would make eight pretzels. I ate one hot out of the oven and thought it was pretty darn good. It probably would have been better if I had let it cool a little more though. I'll save the rest for supper tonight.

Working on Menu Planning

I am going to work on menu planning.  The biggest advantage I think it will have for my family is that we will have a greater variety of meals.  They always appreciate it when I take the time to plan something new or at least something other than spaghetti.

In my current system of menu planning I usually buy the same things at the grocery store because we have standard dishes that we have every week with a few variations thrown in.  I have a few standard meals in my repertoire that can be made relatively quickly when I don't have anything else. These would include pizza, frozen burritos, and spaghetti. 

So, for example, when I buy groceries every two weeks,  I make sure I have enough spaghetti, sauce, and ground turkey for at least three meals of spaghetti;  I buy enough cheese for at least two pizzas and always be sure to have flour and tomato sauce on hand.  I buy two packages of burritos just in case we want something really quickly. For sides I try to have canned and frozen vegetables handy as well as a good supply of Romaine lettuce for salads. 

The more formal "planning" comes in when I incorporate new dishes.  For example, I have a new soup cook  book so I may pick four recipes from this, planning on two new soups for each week along with home made bread.  I  try to think ahead so as to make these recipes and the bread on days that aren't so busy so there is plenty of time for chopping vegetables and/or I start chopping vegetables a day or two ahead whenever I have time so I can make these recipes more quickly on the days that they will be served. 

So its not like I'm completely without a plan, but I am trying to formalize it a bit by writing down a specific menu for supper during weekdays.  It has been rather time consuming up front expecially when I try to plan two weeks at a time.  It has been helpful tough as long as I remember to look at my menu throughout the week and make sure I have everything ready (meat thawed or beans soaked)for a specific day.  Sometimes I don't use the menu I have planned for the day that I planned it.  I switch things around to different days but this still works well.  Just having something down is the important part.

Seven Quick Takes Vol. 12

1.  For Valentine's Day my husband made lobster tail and pork chops; and as if that were not enough he made chocolate mousse also. (I made the home made whip cream.)  Neither of us had had chocolate mousse before.  It was heavenly and it makes me so happy just thinking about it.

2.  Angelboy and I are seriously thinking that he will go to high school next year.  I think it will give us both more space and perhaps strengthen our relationship.  We may decide to go back to homeschooling but you don't know what will work until you try. 

3.  I am making French Lentil soup, salmon croquettes (recipe on back of can, I was originally going to make tuna salad using salmon), and homemade bread.  That sounds really good for a Lenten Friday supper.

4. I read a lot of the benefits of menu planning.  The only time I really plan a menu per se, is when I am going to try a new recipe and I need to make sure I get the proper ingredients from the store.  Otherwise I mostly buy the same stuff at the store and work with this.  Could anyone tell me why they think or don't think planning menus is helpful?

5.  One thing I am trying to do this Lent is to keep my in between meal eating to a minimum.  I think this will help me to be more mindful of what I eat.  Am I hungry?  How much do I need to eat to satisfy me?  What can I choose that is healthy?  I try to focus on the fact that I need Jesus more than I need that slice of cheese and learn to rely on him for happiness.  O.k. I am trying to loose a little weight too.

6.  I wasn't going to do seven quick takes but its much more fun to read everyone else's when you have some of your own to share.

7.  I'm trying to teach pumpkingirl how to help me clean the kitchen by sweeping, wiping, scraping off her plate and putting the recycling in its proper place.  That should keep her busy for a while.

For more quick takes see Jen and http://www.conversiondiary.com/.

Some Plans for Lent

Here are a few of my more solid Lenten plans:

40 days for life-signed up for one hour of prayer to end abortion every Wednesday with Angelboy.

Weekday Mass-at least once per week

Fasting-Give up sweets and eat meat only at the main meal.  Try to maintain a spirit of fasting everyday of Lent.
Here is a good list of things to do for lent from Nadja at Patch O' Dirt Farm.  I may be referring to this throughout Lent.

Seven Quick Takes Vol 11

1.  I just don't feel like I can think of a whole lot to write about these days.  I get these little snippets of things in my head that I think would be good to write about but then I get stuck.  I suppose that's what Seven Quick Takes are for: writing down all those little snippets that come into my head and there's not much more that can be said about them; at this stage of my writing ability anyway.

2.  Yes, I suppose its Valentine's Day on Sunday.  I usually buy the kids little boxes of candy or another trinket.  My mother did this for us and it was fun.  Maybe someday I'll make trinkets instead of buying them.  It's just a matter of finding the time.  Perhaps we could just all make cookies together?

3.  Speaking of making things, I'd like to learn to knit.  Are there any projects that anyone could suggest for a beginning knitter with very little experience?

4.  There is a string quartet concert that I would like to go to on Saturday night.  I'll probably take Angelboy with me.   There is a part of me that doesn't want to go as I will feel sad that as a musician I am not doing more with my music.  On the other hand I know that getting out to hear classical music will feed my spirit and I will enjoy it immensely.

5.  I saw the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist on Oprah Tuesday.  It was really a great segment.  I liked the dialogue that was taking place between the sisters, Oprah and Lisa Ling.  When else do you get to hear talk of the dignity of the human person and chastity as being part of the integration of one's sexuality on network television?  These topics and philosophies are so foreign to the popular culture and there they were being discussed with the foremost television mogul of our day.   Hooray for the Sisters for agreeing to be on Oprah and hooray for Oprah for having them on!

6.  I have been decluttering my kitchen cabinets this week by completely taking everything off of a shelf or two.  I have been applying the suggestions that I got here to a degree.  The gist of it is to take everything off or out and only put back what you have determined belongs there.  This has been proving very helpful.

7.  I have been intending on buying an external hard drive to back up the data on my computer.  My husbands hard drive crashed not too long ago and therefore the issue has been brought to the forefront of my mind.  I better not put it off too much longer.

Thanks for reading.  For more quick takes go to conversiondiary.com.