An Easy Pesto Recipe...

...For the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross!

In addition to the wonderful list of suggestions that Mary shared earlier this week, I wanted to share a couple simple recipes using Basil.

In one of my favorite Catholic cookbooks, A Continual Feast, the author tells us that "This holy day is one of strict fasting among the Eastern Orthodox. In Greece, the priest distributes sprigs of sweet basil to his congregation, because tradition says that basil grew all over the hillside where Helena discovered the cross. " The author, Evelyn Vitz, goes on to suggest the following recipe for Pesto (a wonderful sauce for pasta made with fresh basil) since, "With this dish you can keep the spirit of the day as one of abstinence from meat and still serve something delicious and symbolic."

I just made the recipe in preparation for tomorrow, and not only is it quick and easy, it is DELICIOUS!!

Pesto

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tespoons finely chopped garlic
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1-1 1/2 cups olive oil (I found one cup to be plenty)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (I left the cheese out of a portion of ours, since a few of us have dairy intolerances. It still turned out very yummy!)

Directions:

Combine the basil, salt, pepper, garlic, pine nuts, and 1 cup of oil in the blender. Blend until the mixture is smooth; stop the blender every few seconds to stir the mixture slightly, and to press the leaves down. (If you happen to have a Vita-Mix, this won't be necessary and use the lowest speed.)

The mixture when pureed should be slightly runny; if it is still too thick, add more olive oil. Pour the sauce into a bowl, and stir in the grated cheese.

Serve hot on pasta.

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Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad

Tradition says that sweet basil grew all over the hillside where Saint Helena discovered the Holy cross on which our Lord died.

Here is a recipe for one of my favorite ways in which to use basil:

Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, sliced
Fresh Basil, carefully chop leaves to prevent bruising
Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, sliced
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Assemble the salad with slices of tomatoes, basil leaves, and mozzarella slices. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over the salad. Then add a dash of vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

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The Golden-mouthed Saint

September 13 is the feast day of St. John Chrysostom. He was an incredible orator whose fiery and eloquent sermons earned him the nickname Chrysostom, or golden mouth.

A frequent request by readers here is to post ideas in advance of the feast days. We are trying to do that as much as possible, but we are all busy moms, and well, sometimes that doesn't happen. But it is a reality of the busy lives of so many of us and it's good to remember that sometimes you don't need a lot of pre-planning to be able to pull something off in the kitchen that will help us to celebrate the day. For example, a suggestion for celebrating St. John Chrysostom's feast day is to make something "golden" in recognition of his golden-mouth. Catholic Culture's website suggests making something with golden honey. That's one way to go. But also go check your cupboards and refrigerator - there must be some golden options there, like maybe..

-Yukon gold potatoes

-yellow or butternut squash

-sweet potatoes

-corn

-cornbread
-golden raisins

-apricot preserves

-Golden delicious apples
-vanilla wafers

-crackers

-anything cooked "golden brown" (waffles, fried chicken)

-white wine

-white grape juice

"Glory to God for all things."

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

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Holy Name of Mary Cookies

I hope it's not too late to post this! I decided since my 2 and 4 year olds are learning their ABC's, cookie cutter cookies of Mary's name would be fun for today! My cutout cookie recipe always gets rave reviews by my husband's co-workers, and these men can be brutal. SO, here it is:

Cookie Cutter Cookies

1 cup salted butter (2 sticks)

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 cups all purpose flour

3 Tablespoons milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix baking powder and flour in bowl. On low speed, gradually beat flour mixture into butter mixture until combined. Add milk; beat until dough masses around beaters.

Divide dough in half or thirds (whatever you prefer). Lightly flour work surface and roll out dough to 1/3 inch thickness. Cut shapes.

Bake for 10 minutes. ( I usually bake them for 14, so I suppose it depends on your oven)

Cool and frost.

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

2 Tbs milk (or more depending on how thin you want your frosting)

Blue food coloring (or whatever color you need)

Cream butter and shortening. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. When all sugar has been mixed, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat on high speed until light and fluffy.

Makes 3 cups.
Makes enough for cookie recipe to be doubled or tripled.

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Mary Blue Jell-O Cake

My kids decided instead of a Berry Blue Cake, it should be a Mary Blue Cake and that is what we made to celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary. This was my first Poke Cake and I was a bit skeptical especially when I poured the blue goo over my beautiful cake and watched in horror as the outside of it turned green. Never fear though, because it was a true white cake (only the outside was golden), the inside is all blue.

Jell-O Poke Cake

2 baked (9-inch) round white cake layers, completely cooled

2 cups boiling water
2 pkg. (4-serving size each) JELL-O Berry Blue Flavor Gelatin

PLACE 2 baked 9-inch round cake layers, top side up, each in clean 9-inch round cake pan. Pierce cakes with bamboo skewer at 1/2-inch intervals. STIR boiling water into 2 pkgs. of gelatin in medium bowl at least 2 min. until completely dissolved. Carefully pour gelatin evenly over cake layers. Refrigerate 3 hours. DIP the cake pans in warm water 10 sec.; unmold onto serving plate. Frost cake. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until ready to serve. Decorate as desired. Store leftover cake in refrigerator.

To make the name, I printed the letters out on cardstock, using a thick font and an extra large font size (Matura MT Script Capitals 175pt.) and cut them out with a mat knife. Once your frosting has chilled for at least an hour and is no longer sticky to the touch, gently lay the letters on the cake and sprinkle blue sugar crystals into the open spaces. Blow off the extra and carefully remove the cardstock. If some of the frosting comes up with the paper, put the cake back in the fridge before trying to smooth it out.

Some coloring pages and other ideas for celebrating this feast day can be found here.

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Holy Name of Mary, "Ave Maria"

For the feast of the Holy Name of Mary I have made a very simple cake, I have used the same recipe from my Gregorian Chant cake for the Feast of St Gregory the Great except I replaced the white chocolate with milk chocolate and I added cocoa powder to the icing sugar.

I wanted to create the look of a wooden board with the words, “Ave Maria!” written on it. In each corner is a brown smartie, they are the nails, that nailed this plaque to a Moorish mosque in Granada just before it’s fall, ending the 700 year reign of Islam in that part of Spain.

That is a small part to a glorious and true story of the defence of the holy name of Mary...and when I read it I get teary at the thought that those battle hardened men could not BEAR the name of Mary be abused in any way. If you do make this cake, the story to read to the children is over at Starry Mantle, they are sure to enjoy it!

It is such a beautiful feast, that allows the Church to express it’s love and devotion for the beautiful name “Mary” which is such a word of motherly comfort and beauty.

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Looking for ideas for the Triumph of the Cross?

September 14 marks the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. In order to get you thinking about ideas to share with us for next week’s From Thy Bounty Fair (Monday, Spet. 15), we wanted to offer a few ideas to get you started.

In Cooking for Christ, Florence Berger discusses this feast. And while she indicates it was traditionally a day spent in fasting – as “it seemed like a day set apart from all the gay harvesting, preserving, and brewing” [of late summer and fall], we can also celebrate by incorporating the cross into our cooking.

As a symbol, the cross, is very easy to incorporate into many culinary methods. Any recipe that uses dough that can be shaped (cookies, breads) could easily be made into a cross. Hot Cross Buns are traditionally a food associated with Good Friday, but would be appropriate for this day as well.

There are many forms for making cross shaped or imprinted foods (cake pans, cookie cutters, candy molds, cookie press). And if you don’t have a mold, a cross shaped cake could easily be made from a rectangular one. Cut the cool cake in half, length wise. Then cut one of these sections in half width wise. Lay the long section on a serving plate. Set the two small sections next to the long section forming a cross. Frost and decorate.

Other ideas:

• Crosses can also easily be cut into pie crusts or carved it fruit.
• Pancake or waffle batter can be poured in a cross shape.
• Loose food (like grated cheese, bread crumbs, sprinkles) could be sprinkled on in cross shapes on the desired food.
• Any long, thin foods (carrot/celery sticks, pretzels) can be laid across each other to form a cross (and held together with cream cheese, peanut butter, etc.)
  

Catholic Culture mentions the tradition that sweet basil grew over the hill where St. Helena found the Holy Cross. In Greece the faithful are given sprigs of basil by the priest. A suggestion is to cook a basil pesto, tomato basil or some other type of recipe that includes basil, and explain the meaning to the family.

Remember - submit your fair links to Michele by this Sunday. Looking forward to seeing them as part of the From Thy Bounty Fair here on Monday!

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