A Kitchen Poem

Chop, chop, chop. Red peppers in slivers
pile up, under my father’s flying knife
on the scratched, white cutting-board.
Onions fill the room next with their sharp smell,
their light purple layers falling apart
from each other into neat heaps.
Behind my dad, sizzling butter
is skipping around in the black pan,
leaving a bubbling trail behind it.
Crossing the room in sure, long steps,
Dad swings open the fridge’s white door,
plastered with papers and magnets.
He reaches in for the chicken and
behind his back I snatch some pepper.
The slightly sweet, fresh taste fills my mouth
as I watch another kind of rascal
skitter across the floor, a small black ant.
His eyes noticing the tiny insect,
my dad lifts one large foot and brings it down,
barely interrupting his stride towards
the stove. With a hiss, the chicken
begins to cook, sending savory aroma
rushing through the air warmed by the stove.
Turning back to the counter, my dad
swats me away. Laughing, I watch as
his deft hands scoop up vegetables
and tip them into a blue bowl
full of lettuce. He wipes his hands and,
“Dinner’s served!”

Molly Cavanaugh, June 2005

No huge surprise, but I'm not the only one who thought blogging about food, the liturgical year and the Christian life was a good idea. Fortunately, some of those who have also thought of it have had more time than I have for the past year.

Found the new site Catholic Cuisine. It is worth your time, with links to several cook books and other blogs.

We hosted Easter dinner yesterday afternoon. Laurie invited her whole family, so we made a party of 14. So the planning began about two weeks early for this feast.

On the Sunday before Easter I made a meatless lasagna, which went into the freezer. This would be the main entree for our two vegetarian relatives. Thursday night my son flew in from Washington from school for the weekend, so on Friday we moved furniture around to create a dining space in our living room, setting up three tables and moving the living room furniture into the much smaller dining room.

Saturday began a barrage of cooking. Laurie made crescent rolls and I baked a loaf of Irish Soda bread. I also made the dough for a double-batch of hot cross buns, which are a tradition with us on Easter morning.

Hot Cross Buns

1 Tbsp yeast
1/3 cup water
1/3 Cup scalded milk
1/2 Cup melted butter
1/3 Cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3-1/2 to 4 Cups flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
2/3 Cup raisins or currants
1/2 Cup confectioner's sugar

Add a pinch of sugar to the warm water and add the yeast to proof.

Add scaled milk, melted butter, sugar, salt and beat together. When cooled, add eggs and beat. Add yeast and water, beat, then add cinnamon, currants and flour, beating well after each cup.

Knead thoroughly on a floured surface (about 6-7 minutes) and let rise in a warm, buttered bowl.

Punch down, and form small round balls of dough (about 20) and place in a buttered 9 x 13 pan. Let rise until doubled in size and then bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.

When cooled make a glaze with confectioner's sugar and water (or milk) and use it to make a cross on the top of each bun.

I put the buns in the refrigerator as soon as they were rolled out, and then on Easter morning took them out before saying Mattins. After about 90 minutes they were ready to bake, and by the time everyone else was up, they were ready to be frosted with glaze.

Another, newer, tradition, is our special "Easter" Eggs. Unlike most Easter eggs, though, we don't color the shells. We color the eggs.

I hard boiled 10 eggs, and once cooled, took off the shells. Then, cutting each egg in half, I scooped out and saved the yolk, and put the halves into colored water.

To make the colored water, have four deep bowls, and add about 3 cups of warm water, with a tablespoon of cider vinegar. Then add a few drops of food coloring to the water.

Leave the egg halves in the water for at least ten minutes, then put on plates lined with paper towels to dry. Once dry, arrange on a plate and fill with the yolk filling:

10 egg yolks (hard-boiled)
1/3 cup mayonaise
1/4 cup mustard
1 Tbs horseradish
paprika

Mash together, and fill the egg cavity. This can also be made the day ahead; just cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

For dinner we had roast lamb and a baked ham, with lots of vegetables and the breads and potatoes. Recipes for those later this week.

Ash Wednesday is fast approaching
and it's a good idea to begin assembling Lenten recipes. One good online source of recipes that might not occur to you immediately is Meriadoc's Miscellany. This online book from members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) has lots of recipes. Because the SCA is very interested in Medieval European customs, which included much stricter fasting practices, many of the recipes are very good for Lent.

With Lent beginning in the cold of February, meals of hot soup and bread are seasonally as well as penitentially appropriate. The first recipe we'll look at is Rapes in Potage.

The recipe in the Miscellany is:

1 lb turnips, carrots, or parsnips
2 c chicken broth (canned, diluted)
1/2 lb onions
6 threads saffron
3/4 t salt
powder douce: 2 t sugar, 3/8 t cinnamon, 3/8 t ginger

Wash, peel, and quarter turnips (or cut into eighths if they are large), cover with boiling water and parboil for 15 minutes. If you are using carrots or parsnips, clean them and cut them up into large bite-sized pieces and parboil 10 minutes. Mince onions. Drain turnips, carrots, or parsnips, and put them with onions and chicken broth in a pot and bring to a boil. Crush saffron into about 1 t of the broth and add seasonings to potage. Cook another 15-20 minutes, until turnips or carrots are soft to a fork and some of the liquid is boiled down.

To make this suitable for Lent, substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth; and if saffron is beyond your budget, you could add 1/4 tsp turmeric, but a better idea is to look in the Spanish/Mexican section of your grocery store. The spices in that section are usually cheaper than in the "regular" spice aisle or the baking needs aisle, and saffron is a common spice in Spanish cooking. We've used Goya brand and found it quite suitable. You can also check in some of the larger dollar stores; around the Boston area, the Ocean State Job Lots have large spice areas, although I'm not sure if you'll find saffron there (but you will find the cinnamon and ginger). Also note that the original recipe from which the Miscellany's was derived, called for three vegetables: turnips, carrots or parsnips, and water parsnips. The latter are near impossible to find, but the first ingredients are plentiful, so perhaps having 1/3 pound of each would be a bit more authentic (and tastier too).

To go with this soup, a nice bread is in order. This recipe is called "Tear (as in cause a hole, not as in weeping) Bread" because it's brought to the table in a whole loaf and everyone tears off pieces.

1 tsp yeast 1/2 tsp sugar 1/2 cup warm water 3 cups flour 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 cup warmed milk (substitute almond or soy milk in Lent) add yeast and sugar to a bowl, pour in warm water (around 95 degrees) and let the yeast begin to proof (i.e., bubble). Add flour, salt and once mixed slightly, add warmed milk. Continue to stir and add more flour as necessary. Knead the dough for 7-8 minutes and place in a bowl covered with a towel for about 1-1/2 hours. After the dough has risen, punch down and knead for 2-3 minutes and form into an oval loaf. Put this on a cookie sheet dusted with corn meal or on a baking stone dusted with corn meal. Slash the top of the loaf and cover to rise a second time (about 1/2 hour). Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for about 20-25 minutes. Let the loaf sit about 15 minutes before serving and bring to the table to be torn into ; )

If you want to use this recipe for festive occasions outside Lent, you can add 1/4 stick softened butter and an egg, and adjust the amount of flour upward as needed.

You know we're nearing the beginning of Lent

when bloggers begin talking about fasting. Over at The Continuumthere's a new discussion about Orthodox fasting practices and a link to St. Nectarios Press cookbooks that can be useful in preparing food in the distinct mode that the elimination of meat, wine, dairy, eggs and oil requires.

One useful trick is to use soy milk instead of milk both for over breakfast cereal and in baking. If you want to follow fasting rules strictly and have no oil, you may have to read the ingredients label, as most soy milks have some oil. But buying soy milk is a whole lot easier than making your own almond milk, which was the solution that our medieval forebears came up with. You can buy almond milk, but it's rather pricey, and could interfere with your almsgiving, which wouldn't be a very good thing to do during Lent.

A Christmas Pudding

is waiting in the refrigerator, developing its flavors and asking for nothing more, as it prepares itself to be the piece de resistance of our dinner tomorrow, than a few drops of brandy now and again to refresh itself.

I had hoped to have the pudding ready for Christmas day itself, but it took weeks to track down some suet, my local butcher being of no help to me at all, and once I had finally found it, I didn't have the time prior to Christmas to spend at home while it steamed away.

Finally on Wednesday this week I did get that chance, and so while the pudding will be a bit young, I did reserve enough suet to make next year's pudding, and perhaps even enough to make a nice Spotted Dog for Carnival.

The pudding recipe I used is from Grossman and Thomas' Lobscouse & Spotted Dog, a link to which can be found on the right. The recipe follows below.

1 Cup flour 1 Cup sultanas 2 Cups soft, fresh bread crumbs Zest of 1/2 lemon, coarsely chopped 1/2 Cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 1/3 cup candied orange peel, coarsely chopped 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 Cup candied citron, coarsely chopped 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3/4 Cup slivered almonds 1/2 teaspoon mace 1/4 pound suet, finely grated 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 3 eggs, lightly beaten 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 3/4 Cup brandy, plus 1/4 Cup for flaming (optional) 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1 Cup raisins 1 Cup dried currants In a large bowl, combine the flour, bread crumbs, sugar, salt and spices. Stir in the fruits and nuts (the flour and bread crumbs will coat the fruits and prevent them from sticking together). Mix in the suet, then add the eggs and 1/2 cup of the brandy. Work the mixture thoroughly with your hands. Scrape the batter in a greased 6-Cup pudding basin (I used a small stainless steel bowl). Tie a well-floured cloth (cheese cloth works for this), allowing a little room for expansion. Place the pudding in a pot of boiling water, cover, and steam for 5 hours or longer. (Explanation: I put a small ceramic plate, face down, on the bottom of the pot, to raise the pudding basin, i.e, the steel bowl, over the bottom of the pot to keep it from burning. You don’t cover the pudding basin...have the water 1/2 to 3/4 up the side of that...you cover the pot, to keep in the steam.) You will almost certainly need to add more boiling water as it cooks. (Hint: Keep a tea kettle full and simmering along on another burner so you have the water to add to the steam pot.) Take the pudding out of the water and let it cool. Remove the cloth and pour in the remaining 1/4 Cup of brandy. Cover tightly and store in a cool place for 3 weeks or longer. To prepare for serving, uncover the pudding, tie it up again in a floured cloth, and steam it for at least 2 hours. Remove it from the pot, untie the cloth, and unmold onto a serving dish. Decorate with sprigs of holly, and serve flaming as follows: Warm 1/4 Cup of brandy in a small sauce pan, pour it over the pudding, set it alight, and serve it forth accompanied by Hard Sauce. Serves 6 to 12.

Celebrating the feast days of the Church

with food made especially for the occasion is one of the reasons I started this blog. For those who have checked out A Continual Feast which I described earlier (see the sidebar for a link), the riches of Christian festal celebrations are obvious.

I recently came across another cookbook, this one an online version of a 1950's book entitled Feast Day Cookbook in the EWTN library. Like A Continual Feast, this book has lots of recipes for individual saint's days, as well as seasonal recipes, along with background information on the seasons and days.

The only problem with the book is that the formatting is a little primitive; while that wouldn't be a problem for an individual recipe, the plain ASCII file would be tough to print in full. I'm hoping to clean it up and make a PDF version to post here, but as an appetizer, as it were, I have made up a PDF of most of the December recipes, which you can download.

A coffee hour brouhaha

has erupted over at the Mere Comments blog. While the original post had a very negative view of them, the majority of responses (37 at the point I looked in) were positive. It seems to me that the possible abuses (cliques forming and some people being left at the sidelines) can be avoided by becoming aware of them, and then striving to eliminate them.

In addition, if it is a problem that some people might be left on the sidelines at such events as after worship receptions, I don't see how banning such receptions will solve the problem. People who are shy and who don't easily break into exisiting social networks are not going to find it easier to do so if there are no opportunities provided to meet with people. Such folks will simply attend to worship and then go away. If fellowship outside of worship is something they need, they won't get it by banning receptions. The cure is the harder task of making receptions truly welcoming to the newcomer and the shy.

Two of the legacies that I have from my dad

are a love of fishing and of gardening. Many of his friends would readily recognize the first and be astounded at the second. But for several years as a kid my dad and we kids maintained a large garden at home. Large enough so that my Mom took up canning, putting up dozens of jars of pickles and tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. It was from Dad that I learned about composting, about putting a fish carcass under corn and squash hills (which we of course got from the local lore descended ultimately from Squanto, that Catholic-Indian savior of the Pilgrims).

And both activities, fishing and planting have often given me what I hope are decent insights into many of the parables of Christ, and a definite feeling of closeness with the original disciples and apostles, who were, for the most part, men of the earth and seas.

But gardening is a topic especially appropriate for this blog. This year I added yet another vegetable bed to our gardens. One bed has pole beans and bush wax beans (and so far the pole beans have escaped the scourge of the Mexican bean beetle, which devasted my crop the last time I planted them), another to herbs and cucumbers.



In the front yard, an 8 x 8 bed holds tomatoes and peppers. Another bed has purple eggplant and a rainbow of Swiss chard. A third bed has tomatillos, and spaghetti, crookneck and zucchini squash, as well as sunflowers. And this year I dedicated two boxes to corn.



I've always thought that it was a great waste to own property, but not raise food. Aquinas posited that property is proper to man, and that because it is necessary to the maintenance of human life, at least of the civilized variety, and good order among men. And that so directly contributes to the maintence of life than the provision of food. In America today, where less than 2% of the population is engaged in farming, it can be far too easy to forget that food is the product of human labor, and not just a commodity to be purchased with money.

Not much blogging time lately,

as I have been very busy with the rest of my family laying my dad, Ron Cavanaugh, to rest. Dad died on June 2, 2006, while preparing to leave Florida to come back to Massachusetts for the summer.

The only food related item from the past few weeks worth thinking about was my sister Laurie's work. Following my dad's death, I flew down to Florida to help mom out, and my sister, who also is in Mass., was calling several times a day. Like most of the family, she was upset by the sudden death, and also by her inability to do anything. Finally, I gave her some assignments, to prepare food for the Friday before the planned funeral so that the family, the six of us children, plus spouses, children and Mom, would have plenty to eat.

This calmed her down somewhat, and she set to work planning a meal of baked ziti, chicken divan, meatballs, etc. It was, on one level, just something to do, but on the other, it is very satisfying to be able to feed people. No matter what is going on, people need to eat, and providing the kind of staple foods that my sister came up with, foods both familiar and nourishing, was just what was needed as we gathered together, in the biggest get together we've ever had as a family. Preparing this meal was ministering on not just the physical plane, but on the psychological as well. An example of ministry and therapy combined.