Things to which I have been up

Since the last time I wrote here I have:

• Spent a long weekend with our dear friends in Grand Rapids. Young men don't turn 6 every day, you know.
• Celebrated my own birthday. For my 6th birthday, I got a Peaches and Cream bicycle with a banana seat. For my 33rd, I got an enameled dutch oven and Legos.
• Entered with faith and love into Holy Week, and passed through it to celebrate the most glorious Resurrection of our Lord.
• Sung and proclaimed Christ is Risen! throughout the Paschal season. I'm sorry I didn't do so here this year, so I'll say it now: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Because, of course, this is always true.
• Spent Bright Week in Decatur, Georgia for a conference for work, thanks to a grant. It was a really good conference, and I enjoyed Georgia very much. 
• Watched the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Braves in extra innings.

• Removed the wallpaper border in my bedroom, at long last.
• Loved heading straight to the farmer's market after work each Friday since the beginning of May.
• Gotten out of the cooking funk I was in, thanks to the joy of fresh veggies, and tried some tasty new recipes. I think I was really ready for the change of seasons. 
• Failed at finding my kitchen cleaning mojo when I got back in the cooking groove. Consequently it seems like the kitchen has been in a constant state of disaster lately. Ugh. 
• Planted my vegetable garden and my herb and flower pots.
• Weeded.
• Watered
• Weeded
• Watered.  Ad infinitum, it seems; we've had very little rain here since I planted the garden.
• Said good-bye to my beloved green VW Beetle. It needed over $3,000 of repairs. With much anguish, we decided it wasn't worth it to put that into the 10 year old car.

• Purchased a 2007 Honda Fit. It made more sense to put the $3000 toward a new car. I've mourned the Beetle, and am finding the new car to be a very good Fit for me.
• Spent Memorial Day weekend with my parents, and went to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It's huge. And free--if you're anywhere near Dayton, you should check it out. 
• Celebrated the Feast of Ascension, (speaking of things that are up).
• Signed up for Pinterest and have found it to be a lovely way to waste time, as well as a way to organize links that is fascinating to this cataloger's brain.
• Celebrated the Feast of Pentecost with green attire, kneeling, and a fund-raising dinner for a mission that's working to purchase a building.
• Spent some time with my grandmother.
• Been playing Word Feud. 
• Contemplated what I want for this space. I'm trying to decide whether it's valuable for me to establish some kind of discipline for when I post, or to just continue to let the blog be something I do when so inspired.
• Squeezed in a few other things here and there.
• Attempted to live a Christian life, with mixed success. 

And if you made it through that, we're pretty well caught up.

Fast Food Friday/What I Cooked

Here I am again with a Fast Food Friday/What I Cooked combo edition.  If you see something on any of my what I ate posts that you'd like to see the recipe for Fast Food Friday, let me know.

Sunday: We had dinner at church after Great Vespers for the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Monday: Quick and easy burritos with spinach tortillas, refried beans, avocado, salsa, and rice.

Tuesday: Banana French toast and scrambled tofu.  Breakfast for dinner is always a hit at our house.  The french toast is really good and uses simple ingredients that we usually have on hand, so we make this pretty often.

Banana French Toast
1 ripe (good size) banana
3/4 cup orange juice or non-dairy milk of your choice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
Sliced bread
vegetable oil

Blend the banana, liquid and cinnamon (if using) in a blender until smooth. Pour it into a bowl or pan. Coat the bread on both sides with liquid.  This will do 8-10 slices of french bread or 4-5 slices sandwich bread. Unlike with regular french toast, it doesn't really have to be soaked through. Oil a nonstick or cast iron pan, and heat over medium. When hot, arrange slices of bread in one even layer in your pan. Cook on each side for 2 minutes. I actually use a timer. Flipping too soon or too late doesn't turn out as well. Basically you're caramelizing the sugar from the banana, and since you're dealing with sugars, it sticks more than regular French toast. You need to give it a firm scrape underneath with the spatula when you flip it, because you want make sure you keep the yummy coating on the bread and not leave it on the pan.  Add oil to the pan for each new batch. Top with maple syrup and/or fruit.

This is adapted from Student's Vegetarian Cookbook by Carole Raymond.

Wednesday: I took chips and salsa for the pitch-in, so no cooking. I had planned to take 17 bean & barley soup, but I forgot to turn on the crockpot. Guess what we had for dinner Thursday?

Thursday: 17 bean and barley soup. I know, big surprise, right?  This actually worked out well, because I had a meeting Thursday night, and dinner was all set. I got the 17 beans and barley in a bag from Trader Joe's. I'd been eyeing it for a while. I'm glad I tried it, but I think I'll just go with my own mix in the future.

Friday: Ate at church

Saturday: Sushi! Yum :)  Some of these have red bell pepper, carrot, and avocado, and some have avocado and marinated mushroom.

I hope everyone on the new calendar has has a Blessed Feast of the Annunciation today!

8. Plant more bulbs--check

When I added number eight to the list, I envisioned planting more bulbs in our yard. When we moved in there were a few tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils in the yard, if I recall correctly. Our second fall here, when we had lived here a little over a year, we planted a lot of crocuses, and more tulips and daffodils. I had wanted to add some more last fall, but I didn't get around to it. So I feel very blessed this spring to see that they multiplying on their own. The crocuses (croci?) and daffodils are naturalizing beautifully. I do still want to plant more tulips this coming fall. I love bulbs--for one thing because spring is my favorite time of year. I am unfailingly joyful when I see those green tips start to emerge from the ground, sturdily resisting the snow, and then bursting into colorful bloom even when everything else is still brown and gloomy. Also, I am a very lazy gardener (as my weeds will attest). All it takes is a few hours of effort to plant the bulbs, and I get beautiful flowers every spring for years and years.  In fact, I think I need to choose some summer blooming bulbs and plant those, too.

I'm not giving myself a check mark for the natural multiplication of the bulbs in my yard, however. I planted some in the house, so I'm going to count that.  I was given a few paperwhite bulbs at Christmas, and while I didn't plant those, I did tend them. They had only sprouted when I received them, and they all successfully went on to bloom. Given my deplorable track record with houseplants, that's significant. And the one pictured below I did, in fact, plant.  I have loved having these beauties around over the winter. I would definitely plant some again next year, but we found that James doesn't really care for the smell. Paperwhites have a very strong scent. I do plan to try my hand at some other forced bulbs.

Fast Food Friday/What I Cooked

Wow, I can't believe we're almost 2 weeks into the Fast already!  This is what I cooked during the first week of Lent.

Cheesefare Sunday: Leftovers :)

Monday: James found out he had gotten a new job, so we celebrated by going out for Q-doba.

Tuesday: Curried Lentils

Wednesday: I took this Chickpea and Tahini casserole to the post Pre-Sanctified pitch-in.

Thursday: We had a fend for yourself kind of night. James had burritos with refried beans and salsa. I had a baked potato topped with broccoli, chickpeas, barbecue sauce, and some nutritional yeast.

Friday: Each week a different family or church group hosts a dinner before the Akathist to the Theotokos.

Saturday: I made this Black Bean Coconut Soup.  Easy and so delicious. It also happens to be oil-free. Another recipe adapted from Okay, So Now You're a Vegetarian by Lauren Butts.

2 14.5 oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed (or equivalent cooked dried)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
2 1/2 cups water
1  4 oz. can diced green chiles
1 cup fresh or frozen corn
1 14.5 oz can coconut milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup cooked rice (I use brown)

Add beans, tomatoes, water and chiles to a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 15-30 minutes.  It's even better the next day. The original recipe calls for a seeded and minced fresh jalapeno pepper instead of the green chiles. That's even tastier, I think, since it adds a fresh note, but that's not something I keep on hand. I often make it this way since it is entirely from pantry items. My guess is that shrimp would go well in this, since it's got a lot of Caribbean flavors, but I never tried that before I stopped eating seafood.

I hope to be in this space next week with some non-food related stuff. It's hard to tell from the blog, but I actually do think about other things during Lent. At the moment I'm finding the opportunity to spend so much time in corporate prayer a great comfort in the face of so much suffering around the world. May God grant comfort to all those suffering as well, and may He bless the efforts of all who give aid.

Fast Food Friday: Red beans and rice (belated)

I had totally forgotten how exhausting the first week of Lent is. I mean that in a completely good way. It's kind of exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. We don't even do the Canon of St. Andrew in my parish, but still church is occupying a whole lot more of my time. And I like that. I love Lent. I know that weak as I am, I could not keep up this pace of church-going and praying all the time, but it is my favorite time of year. I've promised to post Lenten recipes on Fridays, and I thought I was going to get this in under the wire. I got a phone call from one of my best friends and spent a few hours catching up instead, so it's a little late. This is oil-free, and is slightly adapted from Okay, So Now You're a Vegetarian by Lauren Butts.

2 cans dark red kidney beans--or any other red beans you like. I also sometimes use cooked dried beans instead.
1 cup vegetable broth--I use water plus vegetable bullion.
1 cup water
1 cup diced tomatoes (canned or fresh) I often use a little more than this, because I like tomatoes.
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
1 cup diced onion
2 cloves minced garlic

Place all ingredients in a large pot. Cover and simmer about 45 minutes. The broth will thicken and beans will get more tender. Serve with cooked rice.  I serve it with brown rice, which takes about an hour to cook in my steamer, so I start the rice, and then start the beans.  

Note that most Worcestershire sauce is made with anchovies. If you want to avoid that, you can often purchase vegetarian Worcestershire at health food stores. I buy the Kroger store brand, which is one of those "accidentally" vegan products.  You might look at other store brands, if you don't have Kroger in your area. Also, for years before I discovered Kroger brand is vegetarian, I just substituted 1 tsp. molasses and 1/2 Tbsp. soy sauce for the Worcestershire sauce, which I think is just as tasty.

As I've mentioned, we love this with greens, like kale or collards.  We usually just layer it all in a bowl.  Also, as a person with southern roots, I think red beans and rice require cornbread on the side, and I still haven't settled on Lenten recipe for it. However, I recently found this recipe. I haven't had a chance to try it, but I thought I'd share it now.