What I Cooked

Sunday:
We just ate our Cheesecake Factory leftovers.

Monday:
I don't know what to call these, but I make these quiche or fritatta-like muffin things with rice, cheese, eggs, and veggies. These had spinach, and we ate them with roasted sweet potatoes. Basically the recipe for the fritatta muffins is: 2 eggs, 1 cup rice, 1/2 cup cheese, 1-2 cups fillings. Bake in a muffin tin at 400 for about 20 minutes until slightly browned on top and eggs are cooked. This makes six: obviously it can be scaled up easily.

Tuesday:
Pot pie made with a "turkey" gluten loaf that I made and had in the freezer from Thanksgiving, salad, homemade rye bread.

Wednesday:
Wild rice and mushroom soup, more salad and rye bread, plus a wacky cake with peanut butter frosting.

Thursday:
I made a different version of the frittata rice muffins with chiles, black beans, tomatoes, and cheddar to use up leftover odds and ends. We also had eggless (vegan/Lenten) banana french toast.

Friday:
Red beans and rice, sauteed collard greens, cornbread. This is one of my favorite dinners. I love these collard greens, the recipe comes from Veganomicon.

Saturday:
Out of town. Out to dinner with family.

Icing--Or What to Do When You're Iced In

1. Clean your kitchen:
      a. scrub stovetop,
      b. scrub sink,
      c. clear clutter off your counters and clean them,
      d. clean the backsplash,
      e. wipe down your appliances,
      f. clear clutter off the top of your refrigerator and clean it,
      g. clean out your refrigerator.
      h. Get your husband to do the floor.

  2. Do four loads of laundry: wash, dry, put away.
  3. Count your blessings--in particular, thank God that the power has stayed on.
  4. Change the sheets.
  5. Clean the guest bathroom.
  6. Finish the book you're reading.
  7. Spend plenty of time reading blogs and playing on YouTube.
  8. And writing.
  9. Do a project you've been meaning to do for a long time, like seasoning cast iron.
10. Get a little stir crazy and go out in the back yard to take pictures

 11. Cook
      a. pot pie,
      b. a big pot of soup, and
      c. concoct a way to use up the leftover odds and ends you found when cleaning out the fridge.
12. Bake
      a. rye bread
      b. and cake--so you can do a little icing of your own.

Books I Read in May

I'm not sure if this is an exhaustive list. I may not have kept very good track, and well, it's been a little while, but here we go for the first catch-up edition of Books I Read.

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan
Books 9, 10, and 11 of the Wheel of Time series, which I discussed here.

A New Spring by Robert Jordan
This is a prequel to the Wheel of Time series. I greatly resented it when it was published, because at that point the series was nowhere near its conclusion, and the books in the series were getting incredibly bogged down and drawn out. I just wanted the author to focus on finishing the series in an enjoyable and reasonably efficient manner. And that was typical of the feelings of fans of the series at the time. actually complained to my brother that if Jordan was going to waste time with prequels and didn't focus on completing the WOT, he would die before he finished it. This seemed like hyperbole, because Jordan was only about 55 then, so he should have had easily 20 years to write. But then he was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, and sadly he did depart this life before finishing the series. So of course I regret my words, and I have to admit I quite like the book. Apparently Jordan planned to write 2 more prequels, so I'll be curious to see if those will be written by Brandon Sanderson (the author now completing the series) once the main saga is published.

The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway
Food memoirs are a favorite genre of mine. In this one, the author stops eating out for two years. I really enjoyed the book. It's fascinating to me to read about life in New York City. It's completely foreign because it's so unlike any of the many places I have lived. Yet at the same time it's completely familiar because it's such a constant subject in our popular culture. Additionally the book is interesting because the author is a very adventurous cook, and she combines the food stories well with the memoir aspect of the book.

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
I discussed this book here as number 100 from the list of the top 100 Children's books.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
I like Emily Giffin's writing quite a bit. Her characters are very real and for the most part likable. This the second novel in a row in which she deals with the topic of infidelity. In Love the One You're With she treats a wife's infidelity, and in this one it's the infidelity of the husband. This novel goes back and forth between the perspective of the wife and the other woman. As popular women's fiction, of course it's not presented as a book about sin and how it infects our lives, but in effect, that's what it is. By having the perspective of both the women, we see hw everyone is harmed by the relationship. The book deals with the relationship in a way where we can see how the couple are drawn into it. I like and could sympathize with them even when I didn't like or agree with the choices they made. It liked that to me it seemed it was written so that we root for redemption rather than retribution.

The Meeting of Our Lord

Today we commemorate the Presentation of Our Lord at the Temple in Jerusalem.  In the Gospel reading for the Feast, we hear the prayer prayed by St. Simeon upon receiving Him.

Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.

We learn from Holy Tradition that St. Simeon was one of the translators of the Septuagint, and St. Luke tells us that he was waiting to see Our Lord in person before dying (Luke 2:25-32). This puts him at 360 years old when he received Christ in the Temple. He recognized Him who is our Salvation, and prayed to God to depart this life. This prayer is said or sung daily at the conclusion of Vespers in the Orthodox Church, where we usually call it the Prayer or Song of St. Simeon. It is generally sung during Compline in the West, where it is known as the Nunc Dimittis, the first words of the prayer in Latin. Orthodox Christians also sing this hymn at the Churching of a child, which I think is a rather beautiful thing to do, since by seeing each tiny baby being presented in the Church as an icon of Christ being presented in the Temple, we are reminded that we are all called to be icons of Christ.

Because this hymn is sung so frequently, and probably also because it's such a beautiful prayer, there are many musical settings for it, both Eastern and Western. One evening with my husband's family as we sat around talking, somehow we ended up singing as many different versions as we knew, and we came up with about four or five, just from singing in churches over the years. Here a few different ones. You can find hundreds more recordings by searching YouTube for St. Simeon and Nunc Dimittis.   These are all in English; you can also find it in many other languages. For instance, the Rachmaninoff version is quite haunting.









I hope you enjoy them. Blessed Feast day to you!

Getting My House in Order:Bathroom Drawer

We have lived in our house almost two and half years now, and so, of course, we're facing the classic American problem: too much stuff. Right now we're embarking on a mission to amp up the storage around here and to pare down on the over-abundance. I plan to go through every drawer and closet in the house, and leave it looking like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine. Okay, probably not nearly that prettified, but hopefully by the end of the year (or sooner) we will have a place for everything and everything in its place.  I'd like our home to be as pleasant as we can make it, and I want to make sure clutter and confusion are not wasting our time and draining our energy.

So, last week I attacked my bathroom drawer. There is only the one in the master bathroom, and I'm the one who uses it. (James gets the medicine cabinet.) Here's the scary before--I know how inspirational a good before and after is. This is what my drawer actually looked like. It really was organized at some point, but clearly that system had long since stopped working for me.

Before:

Hopefully, everyone knows what comes next. I pulled everything out of the drawer and sorted it.

Most of the empty containers were recycled. I saved a couple for re-use with a project I have planned. I put the things that don't belong in the bathroom in their proper places. I got rid of old make-up items. I stowed extra stuff that I don't use on a day-to-day basis under the sink. I'm going to overhaul that cabinet soon, too. Then I cleaned every single item that was going back in the drawer: removed the general make-up gunk, cleaned the lint out of the vents in the hair-dryer, washed the make-up brushes, and cleaned out the hairbrush. I also wiped out the drawer, though that may have been after I took the next picture.

When I told James about this project, he suggested I might like to use this extra utensil organizer we had from a former kitchen. I was skeptical, but he was right. It works great! I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

After:

I put the make-up that I most frequently use in a small make-up bag that I also already had. I don't generally wear it, so I put it in the back of the drawer, but it's handy when I want it and conveniently corralled so I can grab it for trips. I put the soaps in the back of the drawer, since they fit neatly there, but they may not stay once I reorganize under the sink. I love how all my day-to-day stuff is neatly stowed in the utensil holder, with plenty of room for the hair-dryer. It's amazing what a joy it is to bring order to small areas of chaos in my life.  I feel a little giddy every time I open the drawer and see everything neatly arrayed.