Tri-color pasta salad for Trinity Sunday

I came up with this recipe on my way to Mass yesterday morning. I was hoping to add three different kinds of cheeses, but I wasn't able to get the ones my kids liked, so I just bought one kind, although I included three of them in my recipe below.

1 box of tomato, carrot and spinach blend pasta
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 pound of Cheddar cheese, cubed
1/2 pound Jack cheese, cubed
1/2 pound Mozzarella cheese, cubed
1 pound of sliced boneless ham, cubed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Salad Supreme seasoning mix
2 tablesspoons olive oil

Boil the pasta, drain it and drizzle it with olive oil. Put it in the refrigerator to cool. Chop the peppers, cube the ham and cheese and add the remaining ingredients to the pasta salad. Enjoy!

A Trio of Sundae Solemnities

When the Church enters Ordinary Time after the feast of Pentecost, our time to celebrate is gratefully not over. The two Sundays following Pentecost are solemnities honoring the Most Holy Trinity, and the Corpus Christi , or Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The following Friday, the Church celebrates the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which our family likes to honor after Mass on the Sunday of that week. I have always wanted to come up with an idea for an ice cream treat, or sundae, to celebrate each of these Sundays as, in my mind, they sort of usher in the beginning of summer. With a little help from a friend, I was able to come up with a trio of sundaes to celebrate these upcoming feasts. I am delighted for the opportunity to share them here at Catholic Cuisine.

For Trinity Sunday:

Three in One Sundaes

• Neapolitan Ice Cream: The three flavors in one represent the Three Persons of our One God.
• Chocolate Syrup, Strawberry Topping, and Whipped Cream: These represent each of the three flavors of the ice cream individually, just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit each manifest one of God's Three Persons.

For Corpus Christi Sunday:

Bread and Wine a la Mode

• white chocolate bread pudding (recipe follows): to represent the bread
  
• warm blueberry or blackberry syrup (homemade or store bought) in wine glasses: this can be poured over the bread pudding after it is served to represent the wine
  
• coconut ice cream or sherbet: this can be placed on top the bread pudding, and used to surprise your family...what looks like vanilla ice cream is actually something else--a reminder that the bread and wine we receive at Mass appears to be bread and wine, but has actually become the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus

White Chocolate Bread Pudding:

Ingredients:
6 c whipping cream
2c milk
1c sugar
12 oz white chocolate
15 egg yolks
4 whole eggs
Sauce:
1/2 c whipping cream
8 oz white chocolate

Cut or tear 24 in of french bread into chunks. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 275 for ten minutes.

Heat whipping cream, sugar and milk just until bubbling at the edges. Add white chocolate and stir until melted.

Slowly add hot mixture to eggs while whipping steadily.

Place bread into a 9x13 baking dish and pour half of the liqid mixture over bread and press until absorbed. Pour remaining liquid over bread and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 1 hour on 350. Remove foil and bake an additional 30 min until golden brown. Let cool and set for a little while before slicing.

For the Feast of the Sacred Heart:

Heart Aflame Sundaes

• Strawberry ice cream or sherbet (to represent Jesus' heart)
• peach slices arranged like flames on top (I used canned peaches in the photo above, but fresh would give that red edge to make it ever so much more flame like)
  
• chocolate chips or sprinkles across the middle to represent the crown of thorns

I hope you enjoy the chance to step into summer with the Church as we rejoice in the goodness of our God! Blessings to you all.

Good Shepherd's Garden Party :: Week Seven and Pentecost Sunday

Well, with the celebration of Pentecost, the Easter season has come to an end and we had our very last Good Shepherd's Garden Party for this year, based on The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter.   This past week's Garden Party was based on the theme "The Heavenly Zoo!"

The Heavenly Zoo Menu Suggestions

Water
Deer Cupcakes
Lucky Lion Lemonade
Beehive Baked Pears
Pelican Toasties
Phoenix-Tail Shrimp

Dove Candy (for Day 50 ~ Pentecost) 

Decorating Ideas

Peacock Feathers
Water Fountain Centerpiece

First you can head over to Charlotte's blog, Waltzing Matilda, to see the pictures from her family's Good Shepherd's Garden Party ~ Week 7.

Then you can click over to Shower of Roses to see all of the pictures from Our Seventh Good Shepherd's Garden Party.

THANK YOU to all of you who joined us in celebrating the Easter season with the Garden of the Good Shepherd!  It was so much fun for Charlotte and I to plan these Good Shepherd's Garden Parties and share our ideas with you all.  We hope that your families enjoyed them as much ours did!  

Also, if anyone made a Cake for Pentecost, or any other special foods for Pentecost Sunday, you are welcome to share a link to those pictures as well!  

Now it's your turn! How did your family celebrate this past week?  

To Post:

1. Create a post about your Good Shepherd's Garden Party, activities for the seventh week of Easter, or special foods for Pentecost Sunday.
2. Using the Mr. Linky below, enter the exact link to your post.
3. Link your post back to this post. (Please feel free to include the Good Shepherd's Garden Party Button!)
4. Be sure to visit the links and see how everyone else has been celebrating!
5. The linky will be open until next Monday.

Holy Spirit Crackers for Pentecost Sunday

Here is a fun and easy snack, which we made for our Joyous Easter Tea inspired by Alice Gunther, which would be perfect for the upcoming feast of Pentecost! 

Holy Spirit Crackers

Ingredients:

Plain round or rectangular crackers
White cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, thinly sliced
Yellow cheddar or American cheese, thinly sliced
Slivered grape tomatoes or Sweet Red Pepper (optional)

Directions:
Cut a large flame out of the white cheese and a smaller flame out of the cheddar cheese.  Once they are layered on top of the cracker they will look like tongues of fire.  Add a sliver of grape tomato or red pepper, if desired. 

You can find more ideas for celebrating Pentecost in the archives! 

Good Shepherd's Garden Party :: Week Six

The sixth week of Easter has just passed, which leaves just one last week as we celebrate the Easter season using The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter. The Good Shepherd's Garden Party for week 6 was based on the theme "Oh! What a Beautiful City!"

Oh! What a Beautiful City! Menu Suggestions

Pretzel & Cheese Construction Kits
Shirley Temples
Bride Strawberries
Groom Strawberries
Crown Cake

Decorating Ideas

Play the “Hallelujah Chorus” by Handel
Have children decorate “Thrones” for the “Bride and Groom” (Mom & Dad)

Charlotte always makes the cutest Bride & Groom Strawberries!  Not only are they darling, they are delicious too!  You can see the strawberries, along with the rest of her pictures from their Good Shepherd's Garden Party ~ Week 6 over at Waltzing Matilda.

We ended up making a few modifications this week, including making some fun "Thrones" out of Wildberry Acai Toaster Pastries and cookies!  It was so much fun!!  You can see all of the pictures from Our Sixth Good Shepherd's Garden Party over at Shower of Roses.

Now it's your turn! How did your family celebrate this past week?

To Post:

1. Create a post about your Good Shepherd's Garden Party or activities for the sixth week of Easter.
2. Using the Mr. Linky below, enter the exact link to your post.
3. Link your post back to this post. (Please feel free to include the Good Shepherd's Garden Party Button!)
4. Be sure to visit the links and see how everyone else has been celebrating!
5. The linky will be open until next Monday when we add a new one for Week 7.

Ascension Sundaes

The following recipe was submitted by Tiffany, from Family at the Foot of the Cross, for publication here at Catholic Cuisine.  It is such a great idea, especially for those dioceses that celebrated the feast of the Ascension today.   I apologize for taking so long to add the post, but at least it will be in the archives for next year.  I hope you all had a very blessed feast of the Ascension!

Ascension Sundaes

Vanilla Ice Cream = Mt. of Olives

Chocolate Syrup = The trails from the mountain

Whipped Cream & Mini Marshmallows = The Clouds on top of the Mountain

The topper = Jesus Ascending to Heaven

You can click over to Tiffany's blog to see additional pictures, including pictures of their "cloud pizza!"  Thank you Tiffany!

Curried Chicken Salad

A couple years ago Mary shared about the tradition in some areas of picnicking on hilltops on the Feast of the Ascension.  Our family really enjoyed our picnic last year, and we are looking forward to having another one later this afternoon.  I will be following Mary's suggestions (for the most part) and thought I would take a second to share my new favorite chicken salad recipe with you all.  My friend Carrie shared the recipe with me, after bringing them to my baby shower last year, and it is delicious!

Curried Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups cubed, cooked chicken
1 medium unpeeled red apple, chopped
¾ cup dried cranberries
½ cup thinly sliced celery
¼ cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions
¾ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
2 teaspoons lime juice
½ teaspoon curry powder
12 slices bread
Lettuce Leaves

Directions:

In a bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine mayonnaise, lime juice and curry powder; add to chicken mixture and stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Assemble sandwiches with lettuce and chicken salad.

Happy Ascension Thursday!

Fatima Miracle of the Sun Fruit Platter

The following post was submitted by Tiffany, from Family at the Foot of the Cross, for publication here at Catholic Cuisine.  Thank you Tiffany!

We are busy preparing for a fun celebration tomorrow! We will be doing a "dual" celebration of the Ascension of the Lord and the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.  In preparation for our lunch, we made this Fatima Miracle of the Sun Fruit Platter tonight.  Though the miracle of the spinning sun, with rainbow colors, didn't occur until October 13th... it is still a beautiful part of the story!  Our family just loves it.

Fatima Miracle of the Sun Fruit Platter

(We had fun making sure all the colors of the rainbow were present with fruit...And in the right order!)

God Bless all of your domestic churches during this final stretch of Easter.

Heavenly Delight

This recipe for Heavenly Delight, to celebrate the upcoming feast of the Ascension, was submitted by Emily, from God's Canvas. Thank you Emily!

Since I was very small, my mom made this recipe, usually for guests, and I got the spoon.. now as a mommy.. I have Snowbabies, ages 13-3 all around me when I make this asking for the spoon… and why not taste a little bit of heaven?

For the Feast of the Ascension, we will celebrate with a taste of Heavenly Delight.

Heavenly Delight

What you’ll need:

Angel Food Cake… Make it yourself and you’ll love how light and fluffy (like clouds) it feels.
1 bag of Semi-sweet Chocolate chips
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/4 c sugar
1 large tub Cool whip
1/2 c chopped walnuts

Cool and tear your angel food cake into pieces in a large bowl.

Melt chocolate chips in saucepan or double boiler (to avoid cooking the yolk) stirring in the yolks carefully until smooth. remove immediately from heat.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until fluffy adding in the sugar and cool whip.

Fold in the chocolate and add the nuts.

For the Ascension, reserve half of the Angel Food cake.

In a large dish spread out the remaining angel food cake and Spoon Chocolate mixture on top until completely covered. Chill for a few hours for best texture.

When ready to serve, fill each glass with angel food cake pieces and top with heavenly delight!

Enjoy a taste of heaven and end with a prayer for thanksgiving for the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven.

You can find more ideas for celebrating the feast of the Ascension in the archives!

A May Crowning Lunch Menu

The following post and May Crowning Lunch Menu was submitted by Tiffany, from Family at the Foot of the Cross, for publication here at Catholic Cuisine.  Thank you Tiffany!

On the First Friday in May the beautiful sunshine was glorious in our neck of the woods.  We (sadly) have to miss 2 other opportunities, later in the month, for group May Crownings in our homeschooling community (sigh).  Settling with doing it with our immediate family, we decided to make the best of it!  This First Friday in May was picked with the intention of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in mind.  We are gearing up to plant our Mary Garden on Mother's Day so we crowned Our Lady (here at home) first, so we don't stomp over our newly planted flowers after Sunday!  Then we traveled over to our parish shrine to crown Our Lady there.

We followed our morning May Crowning with a Crown-themed lunch! We were originally inspired by the crowning lunch ideas that we saw here at Catholic Cuisine by Waltzing Matilda...Then we took off from there! We offer prayers and thanks to these inspiring and amazing ladies. Our menu would also work for many other Marian feasts...

This was our Crowning Lunch Menu:

Crown-shaped sandwiches

Crown-tipped Chips

Crown Jewel Berries

Our Lady's Blue Lemonade

~For Dessert~

Queen of Heaven Crown Cake

Crown Shaped Sandwiches

(These Crown Shaped sandwiches are cut out from the large-faced sour dough bread. I made turkey and cheese sandwiches first, cut them out, and then added the pickles as the crown jewels.)

Crown-tipped Chips
(Just Triangle Shaped Tortilla Chips)

Crown Jewel Berries
(Serve a bowl of Fresh Strawberries!)

Our Lady's Blue Lemonade

(Regular yellow lemonade with blue food coloring.)

Queen of Heaven Crown Cake

**Updated to add brief directions.  Please click over to Tiffany's blog for a tutorial on her beautiful crown cake!

We created our own "home" ceremony which we conducted prior to our crownings. It included the following prayers and hymns:

1. Regina Coeli
2. Litany of Loreto
Hymns:
Immaculate Mary
Hail Holy Queen

You can see the rest of the beautiful pictures from Family at the Foot of the Cross's May Crowning here.

Good Shepherd's Garden Party :: Week Five

This past week we celebrated the fifth week of the Easter season with The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter and a Good Shepherd's Garden Party based on the theme "The Gardener Plants Paradise."

The Gardener Plants Paradise Menu Suggestions

Maple Leaf Cookies
Lemon Crème Flower Cookies
Fresh Fruit
Owl Cupcakes
Olives and/or Rosemary Olive Oil Crackers
Palm Tree Picks in Cheese Cubes
Lily Sandwiches

Decorating Ideas

Roses, Lilies and/or other Flowers
Palm Tree Decorations (Picks, Napkins, etc.)

As usual, my family really enjoyed this week's Garden Party!  I posted some pictures from Our Fifth Good Shepherd's Garden Party over at Shower of Roses.

Now it's your turn! How did your family celebrate this past week?

To Post:

1. Create a post about your Good Shepherd's Garden Party or activities for the fifth week of Easter.
2. Using the Mr. Linky below, enter the exact link to your post.
3. Link your post back to this post. (Please feel free to include the Good Shepherd's Garden Party Button!)
4. Be sure to visit the links and see how everyone else has been celebrating!
5. The linky will be open until next Monday when we add a new one for Week 6.

An Israeli Spread for the Feast of St. James the Just

The following post was written and submitted by Bethany Hudson, from The Apple Cider Mill, for publication here at Catholic Cuisine, in honor of the feast of St. James.  Thank you Bethany!

Today is the Feast of St. James the Just, our James' patron saint. St. James is also known as James the Righteous, James of Jerusalem, James Adelphotheos, or James the Brother of the Lord. He was, as the final moniker indicates, a close relative of Christ, as well as the first Bishop of Jerusalem. He is widely held to be the author of the Letter of James in Scripture and of the Apostolic Decree spoken of in Acts 15. According to the writings of Josephus, St. James suffered martyrdom by stoning after defying the Pharisees by publicly proclaiming Jesus to be the Christ. It is recorded that, even as he was being stoned to death, St. James prayed for those who murdered him. It is speculated that the account in Acts of the protomartyrdom of St. Stephen may actually have refered to the death of St. James, whose name would have been changed to the illustrative "Stephen," which literally means "crown," as in the crown of martyrdom.

Not to be confused with James the Great (brother of John, and another of the original Twelve disciples of Christ), St. James' feast is celebrated on May 3rd (today) along with the feast of St. Phillip.

In honor of James' first Nameday, I made a special Israeli feast in honor of his patron's Jewish heritage and his bishopric in Jerusalem.

An Israeli Spread for the Feast of St. James the Just

Joan Nathan's Falafel

Hummus

olives

veggies

pita

blueberry-pomegranate spritzers

I had wanted to make some Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke Soup (which apart from the name has nothing to do with Jerusalem), but I couldn't find any sunchokes in our grocery store.

When James is older, we will be able to tell him more about his patron, but in the meantime, I think he's already forming a bond with this great saint--or at least forming a love of falafel!

St. James the Just, pray for us!

Good Shepherd's Garden Party :: Week Four

Can you believe it has already been four weeks since Easter?  The weeks are going by so fast!   We are still celebrating the 50 days of Easter with The Garden of the Good Shepherd, and our fourth Garden Party is based on the theme "The Wind and Sea Obey Him."

The Wind and Sea Obey Him Menu Suggestions

Apple or Banana Boats with Pretzel Masts

And Fruit Roll-Up Sails

Net Shaped Pretzels

Goldfish Crackers

Mini Pulled Barbecue Pork Sandwiches

Octopus Candy Cupcakes

“Sea” Water

Decorating Ideas

Pinwheels & Bubbles

*First of all, and most importantly, I'd like to ask you all to keep Charlotte and her family in your prayers as they grieve the loss of their precious little one this past week.  May our most Blessed Mother comfort them during this time of sadness.  

For this week, once again Angie emailed some pictures to share with everyone from her family's Good Shepherd's Garden Party.  Angie says, "This week we enjoyed pineapple boats, blue jello seas with Swedish fish, a real toy net as our tablecloth, and fish with BBQ pork. It was a fun feast, especially with the octopus cupcakes! We had the added blessing of celebrating my 7 year old son's birthday. He was thrilled with the party food!"

I posted pictures from Our Fourth Good Shepherd's Garden Party over at Shower of Roses.

Now it's your turn! How did your family celebrate this past week?

To Post:

1. Create a post about your Good Shepherd's Garden Party or activities for the fourth week of Easter.
2. Using the Mr. Linky below, enter the exact link to your post.
3. Link your post back to this post. (Please feel free to include the Good Shepherd's Garden Party Button!)
4. Be sure to visit the links and see how everyone else has been celebrating!
5. The linky will be open until next Monday when we add a new one for Week 5.