Penne Pasta "Quills" for the Evangelists

There are hundreds of kinds of Italian pastas, and each one has its own special name.  Each pasta name actually means something which can be really fun and symbolic for making a connection for a creative dish or celebration.

Penne pasta is a tubular shaped pasta with slanted ends. The name means “quills” or “feathers” and is so named because of this shape. We associate quills with feather pens and writing. Many saints who were writers, doctors, evangelists are depicted holding a quill.

Because of its shape, penne complement virtually every sauce and are exceptional when paired with a chunky sauce. Penne pairs nicely with chunky meat, chunky vegetable, cream, or oil based sauces. It is also a good shape to use for baked dishes.

Red is the vestment color used liturgically for the feast of martyrs and also for the evangelists. St. Mark, whose feast is today was both. Making a dish using the "quill" shaped pasta in a creamy sauce with sun-dried tomatoes will include the symbols both of him as a writer of the Gospel represented by the quill shape and as a martyr/evangelist with the red.   While I chose a sun-dried tomato and cream basse option, any of the marinara sauces would be equally fitting for an evangelist. 

Evangelist Feast Days

St. Mark - April 25

St. Luke - October 18

St. Matthew - September 21

St. John - December 27

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Penne

2 C. dried penne or mini penne pasta
1 T. olive oil
1/2 C. sun-dried tomatoes (chopped)
1/2 C. cream
1/4 C. freshly grated parmesan
1/2 t. garlic powder

Boil pasta. While waiting for pasta to cook, saute sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil for a few minutes. Add cream and mix. Add parmesan and garlic powder. Mix. Drain pasta and pour sauce over warm pasta. Serves 4.


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Feasts of St Augustine & St Monica

Today is the feast of St Augustine ~ a wonderful saint, who was raised from great sinner to greater saint..by the prayerful tears of a mother....St Monica.

It is a tremendous tribute to the prayers of a mother and as St Ambrose the Bishop advising St Monica said, "A son of so many tears cannot be lost"

Those prayers didn't just save the soul of her son Augustine, no, she raised up a mighty bishop and Doctor of the Church!

So our feast day cake for the family is based on this beautiful reality..a mother's tears and prayers brought forth a saint and bishop!

This sweet involves some cookie and cake making..The lovely image you see above of St Augustine is what I used as the template for cutting out a big cookie, so if you click on the image it will enlarge, save it to your computer and print up ready for cooking.

Here is the cookie already cut out, the template is next to it. Here is my very simple recipe:

Heat the oven to 315F (160C)

Beat together 4 oz (125g) cubed butter and 1/2 cup (125g/4oz) caster sugar until creamy.

Add 1 egg and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence and beat well.

Sift 1 cup (125g/4oz) plain flour & 1 cup (125g/4oz) self-raising flour & fold to form a soft dough.

Roll out dough and cut out cookie.

Don't let the dough be too thick or you will end up with a stout St Thomas Aquinas instead!

Bake for 10/15mins until lightly golden. Cool on wire rake until firm.

I also cut out a strip of cookie dough to use as a support behind the St Augustine cookie when sitting on top of the cake.

*If cooking the cakes is enough, and all you can do, just print up the image above onto cardboard instead.

I then cooked up two round, white chocolate mud cakes, I used this recipe which gives me a yummy and moist cake every time. I cut out a template in paper, a tear shape in order to cut the round cakes into individual tear drops.

You can cook one cake only and just cake it in half horizontally, the only reason I cooked two cakes was due to having guests joining us to enjoy it as well.

Each cake is iced with icing made up using icing sugar, butter and water mixed together with blue food dye added to give a pale blue.

I one of the cakes I iced in these words, "A son of so many tears cannot be lost"...I suppose you have guessed by now that these two cakes represent St Monica's prayerful tears.

Here is the finished sweet, I have iced the St Augustine cookie, giving him lovely definition. St Augustine is propped on top of the tear drop that has no writing. The second tear drop is in front with the famous, comforting words of St Ambrose.

This was a very effective symbol for the children to discuss with their friends today. Whose tears are they? Why were they shed? Who said the quote and why? Why is St Augustine standing on top of one of the tears? Why is he in his bishop's vestments?

Placing St Augustine on top of the tears tells us that he was raised to the priesthood and to sainthood through the prayerful tears of his mother.

This was hughly successful, it was a VERY yummy catechetical instruction, to say the least!

It is also a wonderful way to combine these two saints together as they should be.

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Eagle Cake

As I mentioned earlier, today was the feast of St. John the Apostle. One of the symbols for St. John is the eagle. Since we celebrate one of my sons namedays today, I decided to make an Eagle cake using the directions for an Eaglet Cut-Up-Cake in My Nameday Come for Dessert by Helen McLoughlin as a guide. It was really easy and quite fun to put together!

It turned out very homemade looking -- but that never does matter to children, does it?!

EAGLET CAKE

Modified from: My Nameday Come for Dessert

1) You will need a 9-inch square cake. Bake it from a cake mix or
from your best-liked recipe. When cool, cut a strip diagonally
across the center of the cake, 3 inches wide to use for the body.
Cut the corner off one end to make a beak.

(In case some of you need visuals like I do, I drew a picture for you.)

2) Place the cake strip so that the pointed end is the head; use
the cut-off piece for the beak. Use remaining cake pieces as
spread-out wings. Frost with white seven-minute frosting.

(I used canned frosting in chocolate and lemon.)

3) When the fluffy frosting is swirled on the eaglet, add coconut
for feathers. Make a red gumdrop eye and a glistening beak of
tiny yellow candies. For the feet and wing tips use split pieces
of licorice "shoelaces."

(I skipped this step since my goal was to use what I had on hand. I frosted the body with chocolate frosting, the beak with lemon, and used powdered sugar for the head. I then added a couple candy corns for his talons. To finish him off I just added a brown M&M for his eye.)


This cake can also be used for the feasts of Sts. "John of the Cross; Augustine of Hippo; Priscilla, an early Christian martyr; the Benedictines Cuthbert, Bertolph, and Thierry (or Theodoric); Leopold; and Wenceslaus, who is shown in art with an eagle on a shield." ~ Helen McLoughlin
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