The Holy Triduum Weekly Menu including Easter

We are heading into the Easter Triduum....We have choir practice on Wednesday, Mass on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday.  On Tuesday, we are going downtown to see &Juliet.  We will have dinner out before the show.  

courtesy of Hail

Protein Packed Noodles #SundayFunday

Perfect for a Meatless Monday or Lenten Friday Meal, this noodle bowl gets a double punch of protein from peanut butter and silken tofu.

The Sunday Funday Bloggers are celebrating National Noodle Month......

D is for Dumplings

These tender Italian Dumplings are made with Ricotta cheese instead of potatoes and then coated in a delicious, comforting, and creamy Mushroom Sauce.

D is for Dumplings....

Garlic Butter Salmon and the Weekly Menu

Welcome to Fish Friday, Lenten edition.  Fish Fridays are a constant struggle for me.  My husband likes fish, fried.  He will eat shrimp occasionally, but also prefers it fried.  He will eat scallops once in a blue moon.  He will eat calamari, fried, of course.

So I am constantly looking for fish/seafood recipes that he would like that are a little healthier than the fried foods he prefers.

F is for Farro

This colorful, nutritious, and tasty bowl is a perfect Lenten meal.  It is meatless yet hearty and filling with fiber from the Farro, protein from the beans, and vitamins and antioxidants from the vegetables.

F is for Farro........

E is for Eggs

This quick Asian Stir-Fry is perfect for a Meatless Lenten Meal.  It is delicious, nutritious, and ready in a flash.

E is for Eggs.  It is also for Easy.  We are working our way through the Alphabet this year and this week we are sharing recipes and/or foods that start with the letter E.  This recipe is both......

Vegetable Biryani #SundayFunday

Warm Spices, Basmati Rice, Garbanzo Beans, and Raisins.  A wonderful Vegan meal that even your hardcore carnivores will love.

The Sunday Funday Bloggers are sharing Vegan Main Dishes today........

Quick and Easy Meatless Lasagna and a Book Review #SundayFunday #LitHappens

 This quick and easy Meatless Lasagna is the perfect Lenten Meal.  

I was inspired to make Lasagna while reading It Ends with Us, our Lit Happens selection for March.  I made it Meatless for our Sunday Funday theme this week........

Finishing up the month with a Spinach Pie Lasagna

April is nearly a wrap.  So many good things to celebrate during the month of April starting with Easter and followed by birthdays.  And then such sadness to remember during this month on the anniversary of our loss of Kirsten.

A plethora of emotions roiling around inside of me and such a sense of helplessness as I am faced with the fact that I cannot fix what is broken for those I love the most.  Perhaps it is God's way of telling me to let go and place my trust in Him.  A hard lesson for me to learn.

Pasta and Broccoli in Garlic Oil #LitHappens

"And Joe cooked them all a great garlicky pasta-and-broccoli meal."

This single sentence from The Midnight Library by Matt Haig was the inspiration for our Good Friday dinner.

Potato Chip Crusted Cod #SundayFunday

This simple and scrumptious Cod recipe is sure to become a family favorite.  The cook loves it because it is quick and delicious.  The family loves it because it is soooooo good.  Throw together a side salad and dinner is served.

We are celebrating Potato Chips today with the Sunday Funday Bloggers.................

Gromperekichelcher #EattheWorld

These tasty little potato pancakes are a delicious recipe to have on hand during the Lenten Season.

Join us as we travel to Luxembourg in our quest to Eat the World.......

Menestra de Porotos #ImprovCookingChallenge

This delicious and easy bean stew from Ecuador is perfect for Meatless Mondays or Fridays during Lent.  Beans of your choice simmered in a fragrant tomato sauce and served with steamed rice.

It's also perfect for the Improv Cooking Challenge of Beans and Rice.......

A Book Review and The Weekly Menu

My friend, Chad Richardson, has completed another novel.  He sent me an advanced copy and asked for my honest opinion.  All thoughts and writings are completely my own. 

This is the third novel, written by Chad Richardson, that I have read and reviewed.

Happy Little Christmas

photo from Bing

Today, in the Christian world, we celebrate Epiphany.  Also called Three Kings Day, Theophany or, as in our home, Little Christmas.  It is the day that our Lord was revealed as the Christ.  Our Lord and Savior.  God made man.

It is our final day of Christmas.  We will celebrate with one final family dinner being hosted by Frank's sister, Roz, and her husband, Ron.  The Christmas lights will shine for their final night.

Tomorrow, life returns to normal.  The decorations will start coming down.  The Christmas décor removed, the winter décor put in it's place.  It is going to be a short "normalcy" this year.  Our Lenten season begins February 14th with Ash Wednesday.  Yes, our season of atonement begins, this year, on St. Valentine's Day.  

Photo provided by Bing

Thus will start our 40 day journey to prepare ourselves for the resurrection of our Christ.   Easter, more than Christmas, is the holiday that is the most important to me in my faith life.  It is by His death and resurrection that I see Jesus as the Christ.  Had He not risen from the dead, Jesus would have just been another great man.  It is this resurrection that proved Him our Lord and our God.

Photo from Bing

Easter this year falls on April 1st.  Yep, Easter is on April Fool's Day this year.  I'm sure some of my agnostic and atheist friends will have a riot with that one.  It's okay....our God has big shoulders.

photo provided by Bing

Lent will not be completely solemn though.  The 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays.  Sundays are set aside to revel in our Lord's goodness.  So our Chinese New Year celebration will take place on Sunday, February 18th.  

This is the year of the dog.  It officially begins on Friday, February 16th. The characteristic word this year is Action...that is a very good word.  I have decided that it will be my word and goal for this year.  My birth year is in the year of the dog....the prediction is that this will be a very good year for me but also an exhausting one.  THAT will be a switch LOL.

Each year, since Tingting became our daughter, we have celebrated Chinese New Year.  We first would go to a restaurant that had a celebration each year, including dragon dancers, fortune tellers and fireworks along with traditional foods.  They stopped doing this several years ago so I continued the tradition by preparing dinner and having a party here at home.

The final day of the Chinese New Year is celebrated by releasing lanterns that had been used as decorations for the homes in which the celebration was held.  These lanterns were provided by our friends, Linda and Greg, the first year we celebrated at home.

Last year we celebrated the Year of the Rooster, with a family dinner.  The previous year we also celebrated Nicole's birthday and Valentine's Day along with Chinese New Year.  In 2015, Chinese New Year fell on Ash Wednesday so we moved our celebration to the following Saturday.  The first year, that I had this bash, we celebrated on Super Bowl Sunday.  I gave the most in depth account of the festivities and posted a lot of photos in this post.

I am looking forward to this year's celebration.  I will spend the next few weeks planning my menu and finding the decorations to make this a special day for our Chinese daughter and granddaughter. 

Happy Little Christmas everyone!!!

Ifisashi (Zambian Peanut Stew) #CooktheBooks

Our book selection for this session of Cook the Books, is Life from Scratch.  This memoir by Sasha Martin was chosen by Debra of Eliot's Eats.  This year seems to be the year of memoirs.

We started the year off with Stir a memoir that inspired these delicious Poached Apple-Pears and followed that up with Dinner with Edward which  prompted these lovely Coquilles St. Jacques. Following this memoir we are going to be reading Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking.  I can't wait.

Should you wish to join us for Life from Scratch it is still early enough to join in the fun.  Get yourself a copy of this touching memoir and stop by Debra's Invitation Post for further submission information.

You won't be sorry you decided to join.  I loved Sasha's story of the flawed mother that she loved unceasingly.  Of her struggles trying to adapt and accept her "new family". Of her tragic losses in life and finally of her discovering her self-worth with the assistance of a good man, the demands of motherhood and the solace of the kitchen.

I especially enjoyed that Sasha started as a food blogger.  Her goal was to cook from every country in the world.  Posting from one country each week until she covered 196 countries alphabetically. I liked how she portrayed that the family of a food blogger is just as involved as the cook and writer, not always willingly and happily, but involved nonetheless.

My meals are often met with Frank sticking his fork around the dinner I serve, trying to identify the ingredients before looking up and saying "What is this?".  I will start on a long dissertation of all the ingredients and how good they are and he will say "Oh, it's a blog thing".  I guess that just about says it all.

Our families learn never to eat anything without asking if we have already taken photos.  Once, not knowing if I had already photographed a cake that I made and since I wasn't home to ask, they photographed it for me so that they could have a piece.  Oh, the sacrifices they make LOL.

This meal I made, was one of those meals that was met with a look from Frank.  I told him it was a traditional dish from Zambia and he responded with "you're blogging about Zambia?".  This led to an entire discussion about this memoir and made wonderful dinner discussion as we enjoyed the dish.

I got the recipe from a Lenten handout from CRS that I got with my rice bowl for donations, and knew it was perfect for this memoir about cooking around the globe.  I adapted it slightly by using mixed greens instead of spinach because that was what I had in my refrigerator.  The following day, I cut up some Citrus Marinated Chicken Thighs and added it to these leftovers and it was a wonderful lunch.

Ifisashi (Peanut Stew)
adapted from CRS

2 c. water
1 c. peanuts
1 onion, sliced
2 tomatoes, diced
5 oz. mixed Spring Greens
salt and pepper to taste


Bring water to boil in a medium pot.  Add the peanuts, onion and tomatoes.  Cook for 3-4 minutes, then add the greens.  Continue cooking over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened and peanuts are softened, 15-20 minutes.  Serve over steamed brown rice.  Print Recipe

I am also linking up with Foodies Read 2017

Our Homecoming, an Audible Book Review and the Weekly Menu

+9/*I guess I'm just a weirdo.  As we stepped out of the airport last night and into the crisp 22* night all I could think is how good it felt to be home.  The weather on vacation was perfect, in the 80's with blue skies, little humidity and cool ocean breezes.  Everyone else looked at me like I was nuts when we were walking to the shuttle from the terminal and I exclaimed "I love this weather".  Sorry folks but I do love cold crisp days and brisk clear nights.  I don't like the gray of Michigan winters but when the sun is shining....Michigan is perfect in the winter. And in the fall and spring too.  Our summers? Well, they are my least favorite...humidity is not my friend.

Speaking of friends.....There is nothing better than coming home after a vacation and walking into an immaculate house, flowers on the table and well cared for dogs that are so happy to see you that they whimper with joy.  I have a jewel in my friend Karen but it takes a village so we also had Tingting, Tami and Kirsten step in to take care of things at home as well.  I can't thank any of them enough.

On the way to the airport for our scuba vacation in Dominica, I finished listening to another audible book by James Hankins. In this novel, Drawn, the author changed his writing genre to embrace the paranormal, much in the style of Dean Koontz, who is another of my favorite authors.

In this story, four seemingly unconnected lives are "drawn" together to a remote area in New Hampshire. Unlike most of Hankin's novels this story actually had characters that you could like. There were several that you could hate as well but the lines between good and evil were clearly drawn in this novel.

In previous novels by this author, I found myself often liking the best of the bad guys since there weren't really any good guys to be found. However, in this novel, you get to know and care for the characters separately before they come together about mid book.

You get to meet Alice, a young, lonely housewife who unable to conceive a child, occupies her time with her painting. When she takes her paintings to be seen by an artist, hoping that he will consider her for the last opening available in his school, he points out that in many of her paintings and drawings is a young boy who seems to be beckoning to her. He suggests that perhaps this is her muse but Alice cannot remember ever sketching this child.

Boone was a very successful and handsome photographer who suffered a terrible accident that left one side of his face severely scarred with complete loss of sight in one eye and partial loss of sight in the other. His disability has left him with a severe case of agoraphobia rendering it impossible for him to leave his one block perimeter of safety surrounding his apartment.

Nathan is a man broken by the loss of his longtime wife followed by the disappearance of his son, Jeremy, who came home from Afghanistan suffering PTSD. Why is Jeremy suddenly reaching out to Nathan in his dreams? Is his son, whom everyone else presumes dead, in danger? Nathan
will go to the ends of the earth to find Jeremy and protect him from whatever evil is pursuing him.

Miguel is a young boy when his father starts visiting him in the middle of the night. Unable to cope with his father's abuse, Miguel beats him off with a baseball bat and has been living on the streets, alone, for two long years.

How do all four of these people end up "Drawn" to the same location. I guess you will just have to listen to or read the book....no spoilers being given here.

While in Dominica, I was able to kick off our Lenten season with Mass and Ashes last Wednesday, but my true Lenten journey is set to start on Monday.  I will use the next 4 weeks to spend more time with my Lord in prayer both at home and by attending daily Mass and scripture studies when possible.  Fasting by returning to the Fast Metabolism Diet during this period and putting money saved on wine and alcohol into the rice bowl for CSA.

So, with that in mind, I am sharing our week and the Weekly Menu. 

This afternoon we will go to Mass and then to the grocers.  While on vacation, Frank said that when we got home he wanted chili and hot dogs so that will be dinner tonight along with Chocolate Souffle as these items will no longer be included in our diet come Monday morning.

Tomorrow will be family dinner with as many of the kids as are available to join us.  Monday, Frank gets his hearing aids.  I cannot begin to tell you how excited this makes me.  Tuesday we get our taxes done in the morning and then we will go visit with Aunt Irene.  Wednesday I have a dentist appointment and choir practice is moved to Wednesday evening.  Thursday our German son, Max, arrives....we are so excited!  Friday we have a memorial service to attend for our friend Wes who died last month.  

Busy week but we still have to eat so here is the Weekly Menu.  Please stop by each day for recipes and photos.

Saturday

Chili

Hot Dogs

Chocolate Souffle

Sunday

Tomato and Cheddar Pie

Pot Roast

Roasted Root Vegetables

Scones

Lemon Cake

Meatless Monday

Dalma

Brown Rice

Tuesday

Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew

Fruit Salad

Wednesday

Rosemary Pork Tenderloin

Spinach and Mushrooms

Thursday

Steak and Roasted Veggie Salad

Fish Friday

Guinness Glazed Halibut 

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Phase 3 Friendly Cole Slaw