For Those Sailing Related Saints - Taco Boats

I recently saw this new product from Old El Paso - Mini Soft Tortilla Taco Boats - and immediately thought of the uses for all the saints and feast days associated with boats and sailing (and there are many!).

Today's feast of Our Lady of the Pillar is connected to Christopher Columbus, the holiday also recognized today in the United States.  Under King Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Queen Isabella, devotion to Nuestra Senora del Pilar (Our Lady of the Pillar) took on national importance in Spain. When Columbus embarked on his journey to find a sailing route to India, he placed the three ships under Mary's patronage. As the weeks dragged on and no land in sight, the sailors grew restless. Columbus' journal indicates he invoked Our Lady under this title, declared that if they did not see land by her feast day they would turn back. On October 12, 1492 the navigators spotted indications of approaching land - one of the islands of the Bahamas - which was named San Salvador when they landed.  Our Lady had interceded.

Today, in commemoration of Our Lady of the Pillar, and of the three ships - the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - we enjoyed a dinner of taco ships.  These edible little boats can be filled with a variety of different fillings, made to your liking and specifications. Here they are filled with spiced ground beef, cheese, salsa and sour cream with a tortilla chip sail. Thought a "New World" Hispanic inspired meal with spices (Columbus' travels were intended to make it easy to reach the spices of far east.) would be fun. Made with or without a sail, can be a quick and ready made boat for a variety of saints and feast days.

Some ideas to consider:

• St. Brendan (May 16)- Called Brendan the Navigator, patron of mariners; it is said he sailed across the Atlantic in 6th century
• St. Nicholas (December 6) - patron of sailors and ships
• St. Elmo (Erasmus) (June 2) - patron of sailors, especially against sudden storms and lightening
• St. Raymond of Pennafort (January 7)- miraculous story of him sailing on cloak across the Balearic Sea after being barred from boarding a ship
• St. Catherine of Siena (April 29) - often pictured holding a ship (represents the Church)
• St. Anthony of Padua (June 13) - ended up in Italy because a storm forced a ship he was on in opposite direction and so he did not return to Portugal
• St. Jude Thaddeus [& Simon] (October 28) - often pictured holding a ship (represents the Church)
• St. Peter Gonzales (April 15) - sometimes also called St. Elmo, patron of Spanish and Portuguese sailors
• St. Francis Xavier (December 4) - known for his missionary travels to Asia, often pictured with ship
• St. Peter (June 29) - the title "Barque (ship) of St. Peter" often used for Catholic Church
• St. Paul (June 29, February 10) - known for his missionary travels by ship to spread the Gospel, shipwrecked
• Our Lady of the Rosary (October 7) - Naval battle of Lepanto: Christians victorious against great odds, feast of OL of the Rosary instituted after her intercession
• St. Frances Cabrini (November 13) - Immigrated to US on ship, story of her dropping violets in paper boats as a child who wished to be a missionary

Past posts with sailing themes: Deviled Egg Boats, Victory Vessel Potatoes, Sts. Peter and Paul Sailing Cupcakes, St. Paul Apple & Cheese Ships


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Babybel Cheese St. Nicholas

I have seen these cute Babybel Santas online for several years. I thought he could be converted to St. Nicholas with a few modifications. Most of the instructions are the same as those in the link, which are so nicely detailed. 

For the St. Nicholas modification:

• Use Mini Babybel cheese rounds.
• After opening the wax covering and removing half of it from the cheese round, you have his mitre left. Using a sharp tipped paring knife or x-acto knife, cut from the side up to a point toward back of top. Do other side to middle also. Approximate cut lines drawn in below. Bend that section forward to make the mitre pointed and standing upright in front. 

• Cut out a small cross from the red wax mitre with x-acto or paring knife. 
• From the bottom wax covering that was removed, cut a small circle for the nose. 
• The original instructions indicate using a food marker for the eyes (and mouth). I found that a toothpick dipped in concentrated gel food coloring (ex: Wilton brand icing color) could be used to add the eyes (and mouth) if you don't have a food marker.
• Dip bottom half of cheese in softened or whipped cream cheese. For the St. Nicholas I made the beard longer and pointier than the Santa version.  You can shape and texture beard with toothpick or pretzel.

• Draw in a mouth with marker or food coloring on toothpick. 
• Add a pretzel (or mini candy cane) crozier to the side.

St. Nicholas Day Blessing

Gracious and good Lord, we bless you on this feast of St. Nicholas, your servant, who is an example to us of a life of charity and love. May we see in his life an invitation to imitate his good deeds. Make us always mindful of the needs of others and help us rejoice in the abundance of your goodness around us. Through Jesus our Lord.

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All Saints Guessing Jars

I just shared this post over at Shower of Roses, but thought I would add it here as well for anyone who is still looking for All Saints' party game ideas!   

A few days ago I happened to run across the link to some Saint Themed Guessing Jars at Catholic Inspired.  I loved the idea and and was inspired to create a variation for our annual All Hallows' Eve / All Saints' Party which we will be hosting again this week!

I prefer to keep the games simple for the party we host at our home, focusing on mostly group games like our All Saints Scavenger Hunt, All Saints Bingo, and the All Saints Puzzle Races - leaving plenty of time for standing around the bonfire, roasting marshmallows, lots of great food and visiting with friends and family.  This game will be a perfect addition and something that everyone will be able to participate in, both the children and adults!  

When I was out grocery shopping this past weekend I picked up a few of the original suggestions, adapting and adding some of my own ideas as well.  I then created saint themed labels for each jar.



I decided to use my Wide Mouth Mason Jars with White Storage Lids. (I plan to dump the contents of each jar into a treat bag or ziplock for each of the winners.)

   

St. Thérèse of Lisieux :: I didn't have much luck finding candy roses, but I couldn't leave St. Therese out of the game, so I used my rose candy molds and red and pink candy melts to make my own! ;) 

 

Our Lady of Mount Caramel ::  I opted for individually wrapped Rolo's.  Not only are they filled with caramel, but they are wrapped in gold and look like little crowns, don't you think?  Regular caramels would work great too.

 

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton :: I thought the Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies from Trader Joe's would be perfect for this dear saint who laid the foundation for what became the American parochial school system.  

  

Holy Souls :: One bag of Jetpuffed Ghostmallows will represent the "Holy Souls" in purgatory, for whom we must always remember to pray.

  

The Holy Trinity :: Miniature "3 Musketeers" candy bars represent our one and the same God in three Divine Persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.



St. Francis of Assisi :: I also picked up the box of Animal Crackers at Trader Joe's, though any brand would work just as well for St. Francis of Assisi, Patron of Animals.

 

St. Isidore :: Any sort of fruit or vegetable shaped candies would work for St. Isidore, the patron of farmers.  I choose candy pumpkins.  If we do this again next year I might go with candy corn!

 

St. Anthony :: Colored Goldfish will represent the legend of St. Anthony and the multitudes of fish that rose out of the water to listen to him preach.

  

St. Andrew :: Rainbow Fish were our pick for St. Andrew, the patron of fisherman.  

 

I also created labels for Mary's Starry Mantle (Anything start would work - Yogurt Stars from TJ's, Star Shaped Pretzels, or handmade Star Candies) and St. Nicholas (Costco has a large bag of Chocolate Coins that a friend is picking up - the extras can be saved for St. Nicholas Day which is coming up in just over a month!).

To keep each person's guesses secret I also created little sheets of paper for each contestant to write their name and guess, before folding it in half and dropping it into an empty jar with a matching label.

  Our children are so excited and can hardly wait to start guessing!  

Printable Guessing Jar Labels
Printable Guess Slips


Find more All Saints' Party Printables over at Shower of Roses!

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All-Saints Themed Cookies

The following post was submitted by Lynne from Adoro Te Catholic Home Educators. The All-Saints Themed Cookies were made for a parish bakesale to fund their home school groups March for Life bus and are simply beautiful! Thank you Lynne! 

All Saints Day should be a joyful feast in its own right, but its timing leaves much to be desired. For moms who’d like to combat the blur after a night of shepherding and last-minute costume changes, resist the urge to crunch on that rapidly-hardening candy corn and pull out a cookie sheet. The folks at Adoro Te Home Educators recently held a March for Life fundraising bake sale featuring some sweet, saint-themed cookies that are easy to recreate at home. All it takes is sugar cookie dough, a cookie cutter, pre-made fondant and a cookie mold.

All of the cookie molds were ordered online. St. Nicholas, Madonna of the Portal and St. Cecilia are springerle cookie molds purchased from House on the Hill . The St. John the Evangelist and Salve Regina springerle molds were purchased from Springerle Joy.  St. Gabriel and St. Michael are bread stamps from Prosphora Stamp Central.



*Cookie mold tip: The St. Nicholas mold can be used for several saints. Color the fondant red and the image is St. Nicholas; color the fondant green and the image is St. Patrick.

Roll out your cookie dough to a 3/8 inch thickness and cut out the shape of the mold. This can be done in a few ways: purchase the custom cookie cutter available with some molds; use the cookie mold as a template by laying it on the dough and cutting around the edge of the mold with a ravioli cutter; or find the right sized cookie cutter from Cheap Cookie Cutters.  If possible go a slight bit smaller with the cookie cutter because the dough will spread when baking. Bake the cookies, in the center rack, at a 325 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (oven times vary).



* Rolling tip: We used dostix to roll out the dough evenly. Dostix make the rolling process fast and easy. They are the best baking purchase I have ever made. 

* Baking tip: Because these cookies are rather thick they have to be baked at a low oven for a longer period of time to ensure they are cooked through.



After the cookies are baked and cooled it is time to work on the fondant tops. Using pre-made fondant, we used Wilton brand fondant and gel food coloring, knead and roll out the fondant to a ¼ inch thickness. Lightly dust your mold with powdered sugar. Press the rolled out fondant into the mold starting from the center of the mold and working your way to the edges. Be sure to press the fondant into all of the deep areas of the design, you can feel the indentations as you press down on the fondant. Starting from the edge carefully peal the fondant from the mold. Trim the edges of the design then ‘glue’ the fondant to the cookie by brushing the top of the cookie with light corn syrup.



* Fondant tip: When coloring your fondant use plastic food grade gloves.

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Candy Cane Coffee Cake

I wanted to make Jessica's beautiful Candy Cane Coffee Cake as a special St. Nicholas Day treat this year but also had some crescent rolls left over from Thanksgiving to use up. So I decided to combine the shaping of that treat with the recipe for her Cherry Cheese Coffee Cake.

I opted for strawberry pie filling since I'm the only one here who likes cherry and only ended up using half a can. I made the cream cheese filling just like the recipe called for but didn't use all of it on the candy cane. I used two rolls of crescent rolls. The first one and a half I used to make the shape of the candy cane and then the other half, I used for the stripes. You can see the stripes better in this pre-cooked photo. It was delicious!!!

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Strawberry Santas

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas!  I was excited to receive this submission from HI Cookery earlier this evening,  since I had hoped to make these cute little treats, but wasn't able to find decent Strawberries in our area.  Aren't they darling!  You could easily pipe a cross on the hat/miter or in place of the buttons.  You can also use a slice of banana in place of the whip cream for the head/face! 

December 6: Feast Day of St. Nicholas

Make Strawberry Santas

for the Feast of St. Nick!

They’re healthy and cute

and can be made quick!

Strawberry Santas are a great last-minute idea for a seasonal snack and creative Christmas cuisine. Our friend Lisa L. had sent us an Internet image this past weekend suggesting we try these tiny treats. And then while at Whole Foods Market the other day, we even saw them being sold in the gourmet dessert display case! We just couldn’t resist preparing our own Strawberry Santas at home for a ho-ho-ho-holiday blog post and for a fast, fun and festive food on the Feast Day of St. Nicholas.

Recipe

Ingredients

• Strawberries
• Whipped cream (we recommend Cool Whip brand frosting)
• Mini chocolate chips, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, chocolate or black tube frosting or dark nonpareils (for the eyes)
• Red pearl nonpareils (we used a round 4 millimeter nonpareil) (for the nose)

Directions

Wash and dry the strawberries. Slice the leaves off and let the strawberry sit on the flat end. Slice a bit off the pointy end of the strawberry.

Fill a pastry or plastic bag with whipped cream. Use a star tip to form the head/face. Top with the strawberry piece for the hat. Use a small round tip to pipe the buttons and a little ball on top.

Finish the face with eyes by putting in two mini chocolate chips. Add the red pearl nonpareil nose. Arrange on a serving platter and chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Notes

• Regular whipped cream is soft and can melt easily so we recommend a stronger and more stabilized whipped cream product, like the new Cool Whip Frosting, or even sweetened whipped cream cheese.
• Strawberry Santas can be prepared as pops by putting a stick in the bottom of the fruit. Or they can sit atop cupcakes or cookies as a base.
• Santa hats can be made out of strawberries, too. Simply slice the leaves off and pipe whipped cream around the bottom and a ball on the top tip.

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St. Nikolaas Koekjes

The following recipe was submitted by HI Cookery in honor of today's feast of St. Nicholas! Thank you Highlander and Islander! 

December 6: Feast Day of St. Nicholas

Children traditionally leave out a plate of cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve to thank him for delivering gifts and to give him some sweet sustenance for his nightlong journey around the world before returning to his home in the North Pole.

In Holland, there are special cookies named specifically after the legendary gift-giver Santa Claus: St. Nikolaas Koekjes. These crisp cookies contain nuts and seasonal spices. In the tradition of Santa Claus/St. Nikolaas, and in the spirit of giving, we baked these cookies for a crowd at Christmas parties and for the Feast Day of St. Nicholas.

Recipe

(Adapted from 1001 Cookies Recipes by Gregg R. Gillespie and CooksRecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ¼ – ½ cup walnuts, chopped

Directions

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. In another bowl or mixer, cream the shortening with the sugar.

Stir in the sour cream until smooth. Gradually add the flour mixture. Blend to make a dough. Add the nuts.

Transfer the dough onto wax paper. Shape into a log with a diamter of 2 inches. Wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Slice the log about ¼ inch thick. Place 2 inches apart on a lightly greased baking sheet lined with foil or parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer the cookies to a wire rack. Allow the cookies to cool to a crisp. Yield: Approximately 3 dozen.

Notes

• Other nuts may be substituted for the walnuts in this recipe.
• After refrigerating the dough overnight, we firmed it up in the freezer for around 30 minutes for easier slicing.
• During this commercialized Christmas season, even Santa Claus/St. Nicholas knows that the greatest gift of all is Jesus! Thanks to Islander’s brother for gifting us with the “Kneeling Santa” ornament in the final food photo above. “Kneeling Santa” is inspired by scripture (Philippians 2:10-11).
• Read more about “Kneeling Santa.” There is a sermon from The Interim and a prayer/poem from the Santa Lady sites.

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Saint Nicholas Cookies

This year I decided to come up with an alternative to the usual Saint Nicholas Chocolates that I usually make each year.  I prefer to purchase the delicious Lindt Santas, and this year (with them priced at $3.49 each on sale totaling $31.41 for our family of 9) I decided to save the money spend it all on a few new books to add to our collection!  

I ran across an idea to make Santa Cookies with Nutter Butters on Food.com and immediately envisioned how I could adapt them for St. Nicholas.  I even had everything I needed other than a package of cookies... They were fun and easy to make, and I plan to put them each in a clear bag with a small candy cane Bishop's Staff and a few St. Nicholas Chocolate Coins.  I think my kids are going to love them!   

Supplies:

Nutter Butter Cookies

White Candy Melts or White Chocolate Chips, melted

Red Sprinkles

Mini Chocolate Chips

Mini M&M's 

Optional:

White Decorating Frosting

White Bead Sprinkles

Coconut

Dip each end of the cookie into the melted chocolate.  

Sprinkle the top end with Red Sprinkles for the miter.

Dip one side of a mini M&M and the flat side of two mini chocolate chips into the melted chocolate and place on cookie for the eyes and the nose.  

There are a couple options for this next step... I used some white icing to pipe a cross on to the miter.   You can also put some of the melted chocolate into a baggie, snip off the corner, and use that as well.  

I then decided to use some white bead sprinkles to embellish the cross on St. Nicholas's miter.  

I also added some coconut to some of the beards, though not all since a couple of my kids don't like coconut.  I also mixed in some red noses - it's COLD in December, at least in our corner of the country.  

Which way do you like best?  

"O Saint of love, be a guide for us in our lives, we pray, that we may create joy for each other, as you have done for so many."

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