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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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An Ethiopian Dinner for the Feast of St. Philip

The following post was written and submitted by Angie O'Connell, for publication here at Catholic Cuisine, in honor of the feast of St. Philip the Apostle. Thank you Angie!

I have always love the scripture about St. Philip baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. It is very vivid and exciting, especially for the kids! I thought it would be fun to try an Ethiopian dinner, especially since it is my 11 year old's patron saint's feast day.

Many of the ingredients were specialized, so I read through some Ethiopian menus and used the closest substitutions that we had at home. I did try a new recipe for African chicken stew. The whole family really enjoyed it!

The really neat part, is that in Ethioipia they use the ritual breaking of "Injera", a pancake made with Teff flour, to symbolize loyalty and friendship. The "Injera" is used for their plate. The food is shared in common in the middle of the table. (I did put food in the middle of the table, but then made individual plates for each person.)

 We used "Flatout" bread instead of the authentic "Injera". We also included salad "salata", hummus "buticha", veggies "fasolia",  "avib" is an Ethiopian spiced cottage cheese - we used regular cottage cheese, and the stew resembled Ethiopia's national dish "doro wot".  It was a big hit, and we will definitely try it again.

 

Here is the recipe for African Chicken Stew:

1 T vegetable oil
3 lbs. boneless chicken cubed
1 Lg onion chopped
5 medium potatoes peeled and cubed
2 cloves of garlic crushed
1 t coarse ground pepper
1 t salt
1 t coriander
1 t cumin
1 t crushed red pepper ( I used 1/2 t, and it was still a little hot)
1 cup water
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup peanut butter
2 cups fresh chopped spinach

Heat oil in large skillet. Brown chicken until cooked through, 5-7 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside. Add onion, potatoes, and all spices. Cook until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Stir in water, broth, and peanut butter. Add chicken, and top with spinach. Cover and simmer until potatoes are cooked through. About 20 minutes. (I stirred often and had to add more broth.)  Enjoy!

Prayer to St. Philip

O Glorious Saint Philip, at the Last Supper you said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us." Help us to make this our prayer also and to seek God in all things. Obtain for us the grace to know the Father and Jesus Christ whom he has sent - for in this does eternal life consist.

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