Recipes for July ~ Month dedicated to the Most Precious Blood

The month of July is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood. (The Feast of the Most Precious Blood, established by Pope Pius IX in 1849, is celebrated each year on the first Sunday of July.) The early Fathers say that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ, and that the sacraments were brought forth through His Blood.

*Note:  The feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary fall on the 1st and 2nd of July this year.   You can find recipe suggestions in the June Archive post, or under the labels for the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart.


July 1, Bl. Junipero Serra (New):

• Celebrating Bl. Junipero Serra with California Mission Foods
• Mexican Chocolate Bread Pudding
• Flan -- A Spanish Delight

 

July 3, St. Thomas the Apostle (New):

• Chaldean Coconut Cookies
• Thomasstriezeln
• Grilled Chicken and Rice Salad with Curry-Saffron Dressing for the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle

July 4, St. Elizabeth of Portugal (New):

• St. Elizabeth of Portugal (the great-neice of St. Elizabeth of Hungary) is symbolized by a crown representing sovereignty and victory over hardship.  Any of the Crown Cake Recipes in the archives would be perfect for her feast! 

July 6, St. Maria Goretti (New, Hist.):

• St. Maria Goretti's Flames of Forgiveness Cupcakes
• St. Maria Goretti is symbolized by white lilies, so any of the lily ideas in the archives would be appropriate for her feast! 

July 14, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (New):

• Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (Cornbread Recipe)
• Lily of the Mohawks Cake and Cornbread

July 16, Our Lady of Mount Carmel (New, Trad.):

• Granita di Caffe
• Mystic Monk Coffee
• Carmel Iced Milks and Coffee
• Mount Carmel Steamers
• Our Lady of Mount Carmel Crown
• A Brown Scapular Cake
• More Scapular Cakes In Honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
• Celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Link-Up)
• Brown Scapular Brownies for Our Lady of Mount Carmel
• Scapular Cookies for Our Lady of Mount Carmel
• Carmelite Sundaes
• A Scapular Cake

July 22, St. Mary Magdalen (New, Trad.):

• Madeleines for the feast of St. Mary Magdalene
• Resurrection Rolls
• Magdalenenstriezeln (St. Magdalen Fingers)
  
• Magdalenas for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen

July 23, St. Brigit of Sweden (New):

• St. Bridget of Sweden (Swedish Meatballs and Swedish Chocolate Cookies)

July 25, St. James the Greater (New, Trad.):

• Nacho Stuffed Shells
• Tartelettes de Saint-Jacques à la Mangue
• Coupe Saint-Jacques
• Tarta de Santiago (St. James' Cake)

July 25, St. Christopher (Trad.):

• Transportation Shaped Candy in honor of St. Christopher

July 26, St. Anne (New, Trad.):

• Crème Sainte-Anne (St. Anne's Cream)
• Our Heavenly Grandmother
• St. Anne, "Flowering, Fruitful Rod of Jesse"
• Watermelon Pie for the Feast of St. Anne
• Watermelon Cupcakes (coming soon)
• Mum Cupcakes

July 31, St. Ignatius of Loyola (New, Trad.):

• St. Ignacio's Nachos
  
• Ignacio (Cake for St. Ignatius Day)
• A Feast for St. Ignatius Loyola

Precious Blood of Jesus, save us!
Sanguis Christi, inebria me!

Saints Peter and Paul Cupcakes

Tomorrow is the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and since we invited friends over for some Saintly Summer Fun I spent some time this afternoon trying to come up with a snack for all the kids.

My husband suggested making boats/ships for a craft, and so I decided to carry that theme over to the snack as well.   Recalling how those outside of Noah's Ark were destroyed, the ship became an early symbol of the Church with its associations with "The Barque of Peter, the Fisherman."  And although most of St. Paul's missions were accomplished by walking, he also traveled by boat.

Cupcakes and Wrappers:

Any cupcake recipe can be used for these, though my children opted for a "Triple Chocolate" cake mix, reminding us of the Blessed Trinity.

For the cupcake wrappers I used my Cricut with the Cupcake Wrappers Cartridge (I bought mine for much less at Walmart).    I love that it cut out a circle of fish all around the cupcake, in addition to the waves.

"The fish,  ever-watchful with its unblinking eyes, was one of the most important symbols of Christ to the early Christians. In Greek, the phrase, "Jesus Christ, Son of God Savior," is "Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter." The first letters of each of these Greek words, when put together, spell "ichthys," the Greek word for "fish" (ICQUS ).   Because of the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the fish symbolized, too, the Eucharist."  ~ Source   

If you don't happen to have a Cricut you can just as easily use blue cupcake liners and add some Candy Fish or Shark Bites around the platter holding the cupcakes.

I also opted to forego using any food coloring in our frosting, and I just plan to tell the kids that the boats are sailing on white water waves, though blue frosting would look pretty too.

Candy Boats and Sails:

To make the boats I just used some Orange Fruit Slices from our grocery store, though when I was looking through the candy aisle so many different candies would have worked great.   My boys liked the idea of molding caramels into the shape of a boat, or using mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  Yum!  I opted for the orange slices since they were the least expensive!

For the sails I decided to use the shields of Sts. Peter and Paul.  I resized them to 2.25" in height, which seemed to work well with a regular sized cupcake.  I printed it out on regular copy paper and made a tiny slit with my x-acto knife, making it much easier to insert a toothpick to be used as the mast.

The Symbolism of the Shields/Sails:

St. Peter's Shield:    Download Document at Scribd

The Keys are the symbol of St. Peter, the authority of the papacy, and the Church's power to "bind and loose" (Matthew 16:19 and Isaiah 22).  One key represents Excommunication, a locked door to the unrepentant sinner.   The other key stands for Absolution, the open door to the Kingdom of Heaven for the repentant sinner.

St. Paul's Shield:    Download Document at Scribd

Saint Paul has the sword assigned to him because he was a persecutor of the Church. The book is a symbol of his conversion into the greatest preacher of the Church. The great change in Saint Paul shows itself in this that he afterward speaks of the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).

God our Father, Today you give us the joy of celebrating the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul. Through them your Church first received the faith. Keep us true to their teaching.

Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, pray for us! 

Saints Peter and Paul Avocado Soup

I recently had the pleasure of reading a review copy of Brother Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette's The Monastery Garden Cookbook.  It was was sent to me by Monastery Greetings, a lovely catalog based website that combines hundreds of religious and spiritual gifts from Abbeys, Convents, Monasteries, and Hermitages.  (You may remember their Lamb Butter Mold that they also sell, which I linked to last year.) 

Anyhow, I already own a couple other books by Brother Victor, including Twelve Months of Monastery Soups and Blessings of the Table, and was excited to be able to add this one to my collection as well.   After talking to a friend and looking through the table of contents, it looks like The Monastery Garden Cookbook is a revised version of his out-of-print book Fresh from a Monastery Garden: An A-Z Collection of Delectable Vegetable Recipes, though I don't own a copy of the older book to compare for sure.

This book contains 200 vegetable recipes, starting with Artichokes and ending with Zucchini and Yellow Squash, direct from Brother Victor's kitchen at Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery, complete with illustrations and descriptions.

With the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul coming up tomorrow, the recipe for Saints Peter and Paul Avocado Soup caught my eye and I decided to give it a shot.    Brother Victor says, "This soup is often served in our monastery during the summer months, especially on June 29, the feast of the great apostles Peter and Paul, foundation stones of the church of God, whose icons are venerated in our chapel."

It was quite simple to make (the trip to the market with all the kids for some Avocados and Leeks was by far the hardest part) and it is chilling in the fridge right now.  I tasted a little bit and it is absolutely delicious!  Here is the recipe in case any of you would like to make it for tomorrow.

Saints Peter and Paul Avocado Soup

adapted from The Monastery Garden Cookbook

Ingredients:  

3 leeks, white parts only, trimmed and sliced
3 avocados, peeled and sliced in half
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 (8-ounce) container sour cream
1 teaspoon paprika
salt and pepper to taste
lemon rind as garnish

Directions:

Place the leeks in a saucepan, cover with 6 cups of water, and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat to medium-low and cook leeks for 15-20 minutes.

Remove pan from heat, allow to cool slightly, and then whirl leeks and water in a blender or food processor.  (I used my Vita-Mix.)  Pour the mixture back into the pan or a large bowl.

 

Tip:  If you'd like to use some of the lemon rind as a garnish, it is probably a good idea to peel the lemon before juicing it for your soup! ;) 

Place the avocados, lemon juice, sour cream paprika, and salt and pepper in the blender or food processor and whirl for about 1 minute.  

Add to the leek mixture and blend all the ingredients well by hand.  Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.  Serve cold and add some lemon rind on the top of each serving as garnish.  

Yields 4-6 servings

The Monastery Garden Cookbook, in addition to many other Catholic Cookbooks, is available at Monastery Greetings.  While you are there, be sure to check out their section on Fruitcakes!  I don't generally care for Fruitcake, but the new Tropical Dessert Cake from The Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe is out of this world, or maybe I should say just heavenly!  We'll be enjoying the rest of it for dessert!

Saints Peter and Paul, Pray for us! 

Penguins Bento and Bento Making featured in ZaoBao(联合早报)

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Recently my boy was fascinated with "The Penguins of Madagascar" showing on #kto(here) every Monday - Thursday at 6.30pm. He loves those 4 crazy Penguins known as Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private who rule the roost at their Central Park Zoo home with thier all-new adventures together with King Julian. And with his favorite show he has always wanted to make a Penguin Bento.

So finally last Sunday, I managed to come up with this Penguins Bento which is similar to his favourite Madagascar Penguins using Charcoal Bread(read more HERE) bought from "Lavender Bakery" at City Square Mall, Johor. He was so excited when we cut out the penguins shape from the charcoal bread using the cutter and assemble it featured with cheese and carrot. I am sure no matter who you gave this Penguins Bento to the receiver will definitely be thrilled.

This photo shows the tools and steps on how to assemble this cute Penguins Bento.

Ingredients:

1 Slice of Bamboo Charcoal Bread
1 Slice of Sandwich Cheese
2 Thin Slices of Carrot
1/4 Portion of Sweet Corn
Fresh Fruits of your Choice
Some Prawn Crackers
Nori sheet
1 Toothpick

Method:-

1. Blanched Sweetcorn in boiling water for about 2 - 3 minutes, removed and add in the carrot. Cook for 30 seconds, remove and set aside.

2. Using a Penguin shape food cutter to cut out two penguins from the bamboo charcoal bread.

3. Next with the same cutter cut out another two penguins from the cheese and using toothpick and drinking straw to cut out the stomach, mouth and eyes of the penguins.

4. Place the cut out cheese features on the prepared bread (give it a gentle press to stick the cheese on the bread), before securing the legs(you can use a flower shape cutter to cut out semi-circle from the carrot) of the penguins using carrot and thin spaghetti strips.

5. Lastly, assemble the sweetcorn, fruits, crackers and penguins bread into the bento box and serve.

FEATURED in 21.06.2011

ZaoBao(联合早报), Family Page

Here is a screen shot of our bento making featured in today's ZaoBao(联合早报), Family Page which might be an encouraging article for working parents to create a bonding time with kids by making bento as a food art and educational theme for them.

Although bento making in Singapore is not as popular as in Japan and Taiwan but there are still a lot of bento makers and bento item collectors in Asian countries. And my bento journey starts with a group of bento friends whom always inspired me with their creative ideas where you might be interested to take a look and read-up their fabulous bento from their blogs shown below:-

1. Mothering Corner @ http://motheringcorner.com/

2. Bentolicious @ http://www.mybentolicious.com/

3. Susan Yuan @ http://susanyuen.blogspot.com/

4. Hippomum @ http://www.wretch.cc/blog/hippomum/11108126

5. Tona Mummy @ http://ourfirstbabykimiboy.blogspot.com/