Filed under: Annunciation, Feasting, Husband | Tags: annunciation, beauty, food
Just a quick post of instagrams today. We’ve been fighting colds at our house and life is busy, busy.
For the Solemnity of the Annunciation, I made Sweet Potato and Carrot Lentil Curry Soup and Spelt-Flour, Dairy-free biscuits (hello, bacon grease!) for Benjamin and my gluten intolerance and his dairy allergies.
It’s been so beautiful outside that last night I set up a table on our back porch for dinner. Benjamin thought it was mighty fine to eat outside and when Lucy and I woke up this morning, the boys had breakfast prepared on the back porch for round two of eating outside.
Days when you wake up next to your sweet baby, stumble bleary-eyed out of your bedroom, are immediately handed a cup of miraculously delicious coffee by your handsome husband and are treated to German apple pancakes, fruit, and granola on the back porch are…well…splendid.
Gluten-free, Dairy-free success! And North Florida this time of year is simply gorgeous.
Oh, glorious Spanish Moss! I’m feeling very grateful despite all the runny noses in our household…
How is your family enjoying springtime?
Filed under: Children, Farm Life, Feasting, Green Living, Husband, Motherhood, Saints, Seasons, St. Patrick | Tags: garden, lettuce, spring, swiss chard, toddlers
Here’s what’s been going on outdoors in our neck of the woods:
Lots of park dates and outside play for this little guy. Baby girl is content to just sleep in the baby wrap with Mama while Little Bear gets his wiggles out. Although the terrible threes subsided a little bit in the past couple of weeks (perhaps due to extra time with Daddy during our trip), they were back in full force yesterday. You know the mother you see at the park that is carrying an infant and attempting to wrangle a misbehaving toddler? A toddler that is screaming, I WON’T! I DON’T WANT TO! when she asks him to throw away his trash, then succumbs to sobs when a kind park user cleans it up in his stead and he screams, “BUT I WANTED TO THROW IT AWAY! GET IT OUT OF THE TRASH SO I CAN DO IT! *SOB*”? That mother? The one that makes you say to your friend, “she has HER hands full. A little discipline? I would be mortified if MY child ever behaved like that!” Well, I am that mother. Nice to meet you. I now sympathize with all mothers of children who misbehave in public.
After a full-fledged meltdown in the car and an early nap, Benjamin surprised me by saying, “Hey, Mama. You know what? I love you.” He doesn’t usually say that out of the blue. Made the difficult morning worth it. Thankfully, he’s been good as gold today.
Our vegetable garden is exploding with wonderful things!
Bright Light Swiss Chard has to be one of the prettiest things ever!
Tomato flowers already! I can’t wait to eat tomatoes with every meal. Daniel has grown so many seedlings of different varieties.
We’ve been eating all the lettuce we can handle. Picking lettuce for salad 10 minutes before dinner time is so fun.
Cabbages are looking lovely!
My farmer.
This was our St. Patrick’s Day feast. Guinness Beef Stew made by Daniel, Spring Salads from the garden with Strawberries, and amazing Sweet Potato Fries by our friend Kaitlin.
What are you growing in your garden these days?
Filed under: Feasting, Saints, St. Patrick | Tags: feast, prayer, st. patrick
I hope you all have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day today! It is spring in North Florida and the outdoors are green in honor of one of my favorite saints. The dogwoods, azaleas, and wisteria are in bloom and the scent of flowers is downright intoxicating.
From St. Patrick’s Breastplate (an ancient prayer attributed to him)
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ in my headway, Christ in my wake,
Christ alow and Christ aloft,
Christ at my right hand, Christ on my left,
Christ with me waking, waking and sleeping.
Christ in every heart thinks of me,
Christ in every tongue speaks to me,
Christ in every eye beholding,
Christ in every listening ear.
What’re your St. Patrick’s Day plans? We’re getting together with some friends to grill out and celebrate!
My husband is a farmer without a farm. So, he has transformed our front yard into vegetable-growing-egg-laying-awesomeness. I don’t remember the last time we had to get store-bought eggs. The ones our chickens Feven, Daughter, and Gas Can lay (chicken names compliments of 3-year-old Benjamin) are amazing.
Right now we’ve growing more delicious lettuce than we could ever eat, peas, green onions, and wonderful herbs: dill, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, thyme.
I made seriously good chicken salad last night and it made the last day of February feel like summer. Oh wait, we live in Florida. The last day of February DOES feel like summer.
And strawberries are super in season so now’s the time to eat some up!
Here’s one more shot of our owl friend who likes to hang around to give the chickens a little excitement for the day.
And for sticking around until the end of the post, a sweet baby picture to tide you over until next time.
We had some of our new friends over on Fat Tuesday for a New Orleans Feast made by this guy:
On the menu was Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, Shrimp Dip and Homemade Bread, King Cake, and old timey New Orleans cocktails.
I’ll post the recipes on Feast! when Daniel has a minute to write them down.
Then Ash Wednesday came and we transitioned into Lent. Last year I was battling some serious morning sickness during Lent so I don’t feel like I fully engaged and I didn’t have the energy to figure out how to help Benjamin participate. So, trying to do better this year!
I bought a grapevine wreath to have on the dining room table to remind us of the Crown of Thorns and put our purple tablecloth on the table. Yes, my tablecloth is super wrinkly. Ironing is just one of those tasks that I try to avoid at all costs. I tell myself that it’s so humid in Florida that whatever item is wrinkly will unwrinkle soon enough on it’s own. This is not true, but it makes me feel better.
I borrowed (stole?) some deep purple fabric from my mom to use to cover the crosses and icons in the house. I let Benjamin walk through the house to find all the crosses over the doorways and help me wrap them in purple.
I’ve seen so many ideas for helping little ones observe Lent that I feel pretty overwhelmed. What do you do at your house? What’s your very favorite Lenten activity for littles?
p.s. Mandy are you out there? Send me an email about winning the Pride and Prejudice Giveaway before next Wednesday or I’ll have to choose another winner! (my email is haley.s.stewart(at)gmail(dot)com)
Benjamin had a sleepover at Daniel’s folks house last night so Daniel and I had a date night in and he cooked delicious Indian food and we drank some ice riesling, the kind of wine we had when he proposed. Liz and Sara requested the recipe for the curry and for poori so here ’tis.
Daniel’s Red Curry Squash Curry
1 red curry squash
2 cloves garlic
1 can coconut milk
2 carrots
green onion
cilantro
½ lime
1 tbsp red curry paste
salt and pepper to taste
Chop red churry squash after seeding. Chop carrots.
Fry diced garlic in oil with TBSP red curry paste. Mix together. Add coconut milk and mix. Add chopped vegetables, cook until veggies are done. Add lime juice, some cilantro, and green onion. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for one minute. Serve over rice or couscous or eat with poori.
Poori
1 and ½ cup whole wheat flour
1 and ½ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP shortening or butter
1 cup milk
Mix flour and salt. Mix in or cut in shortening or butter. Add milk and mix together. Knead together on floured surface. Separate into 20 pieces and roll each into a thin 4 inch circle. Heat oil in sauce pan on high. Drop each rolled circle into the oil. Turn it over when it begins to puff up. Remove from oil to paper towel to drain, add salt on top.
The red curry squash curry was fantastic and we added mussels to make it extra yummy. The poori recipe was super easy but they didn’t puff up very well so I wasn’t crazy about it. Anyhow, Sara, it’ll do in a pinch.
Yesterday on All Saints Day we started out the day at Mass to celebrate and then went out for a special family breakfast at our favorite Midtown cafe. After Daddy had to go to work, Benjamin and I made Soul Cakes during one of Lucy’s naps.
We used a recipe from Catholic Cuisine. Unfortunately, the recipe wasn’t as good as the one Daniel used last year but, oh well, they were still tasty!
I can’t believe how big Benjamin is after looking at pictures from last year. Here’s a picture from last November:
And here’s a sweet one of him meeting his sister in the hospital:
Baby Lucy is doing great! When I get a minute to myself (hmm, yeah right!) I’ll do a post all about our little lady. She is such a love.
Filed under: Feasting, Michaelmas, Pregnancy, Saints | Tags: Feast of the Archangels, Michaelmas, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. Raphael
I LOVE the Feast of the Archangels. We’ve got a feast planned, but, I’m 38 weeks pregnant today on Michaelmas, so you never know if we’ll be having a Michaelmas Baby instead of a Michaelmas Feast. Just in case I go into labor and Michaelmas feasting gets skipped over this year, I thought I would compile some of the previous Michaelmas posts and some good resources I’ve found.
What is Michaelmas?
Michaelmas (pronounced Mickel-mas) is a feast day celebrating the Archangels. It follows the fall Ember Days (last Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) during which Christians traditionally thanked God for his creation and the bounty of the earth and fasted penitentially. Michaelmas was a Holy Day of Obligation until the 18th century and honors St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael. My linguist husband particularly likes the name Michael which means in Hebrew “Who Is Like God?” and is the battle cry of the angels. St. Michael fought against Lucifer and the fallen angels and defended the friends of God. You probably remember that St. Gabriel announced the coming of Jesus to the Virgin Mary and also the coming of John the Baptist to Zachariah. St. Raphael is found in the book of Tobit.
Michaelmas Menus:
For a seasonal table for Michaelmas, think of autumnal foods. Usually our Michaelmas feast is full of beta-carotene.
Carrots are very traditional. According to a Scottish custom, women would harvest wild carrots on Michaelmas by digging triangular holes with a three-pronged mattock. Apparently the holes represent St. Michael’s shield and the mattock represents his trident.
Terrible iPhone pic from 2009. My apologies.
I love this Whiskey-Glazed Carrots recipe by The Pioneer Woman. I can’t help but love her. These are seriously amazing. Whiskey? Butter? Brown Sugar? Can you go wrong?
St. Michael's Bannock on the left!
Another traditional food is St. Michael’s Bannock, a simple, sweet bread. We’ve used the recipe from Meredith Gould’s The Catholic Home. It’s super easy and turns out well.
Goose is also very traditional but we’ve discovered that it’s almost impossible to find an organic goose that’s remotely in our price range. So, we’ve cooked turkeys or chickens for the occasion. Last year we roasted sweet potatoes and onions with the chicken which turned out so yummy. This year we have tons of delicious sweet potatoes from the garden so we’ll definitely do a repeat!
Blackberries: There’s a legend concerning Lucifer falling into a blackberry bush after being expelled from heaven by St. Michael and spitting on the blackberries to make them bitter so that they cannot be picked after Michaelmas.
On Michaelmas Day the devil puts his foot on the blackberries.
-Irish Proverb
We’ve had blackberry buckle and blackberry cobbler but since they’re not in season right now in Florida, we try to just get organic frozen berries.
Ugly photo, delicious cobbler, promise!
A super easy and yummy blackberry cobbler recipe is The Pioneer Woman’s.
A Michaelmas Prayer:
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
Michaelmas Daisies:
The aster flower, also known as the Michaelmas Daisy is in season in North America at the end of September. We meant to grow some from seed this year but…never got around to it. Last year Benjamin and I got beautiful mums (as seen in the picture at the top) and this year my two sweet boys picked beautiful Daisies they found and Bachelor’s Buttons and Marigolds from our garden:
What a pretty sight to wake up to on Michaelmas morning!
“The Michaelmas daisies, among dede weeds,
Bloom for St Michael’s valorous deeds.
And seems the last of flowers that stood,
Till the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude.”
I can’t believe that two years ago, Benjamin was still a wee babe!
Just look at my grown up boy on this Michaelmas morning!
He’s still not into wearing pants, but my, he’s big and cute.
I guess I look a little different this year, too.
38 weeks and ready for Baby Lucy Elanor to arrive! Doesn’t a Michaelmas baby sound like a good idea?! C’mon, Lucy!
Michaelmas posts from other years:
Carrots for Michaelmas – September 29th
How the Michaelmas Feast Turned Out (2009)
Preparing for Michaelmas (2010)
The Feast of the Archangels: Michaelmas 2010
Well, we found them: the world’s greatest housemates. Our dear friends, Brian and Lois, moved into our third bedroom/library a couple of weeks ago and will be with us as they raise support for doing long-term missions in Nepal. It is so fun to have them around to share meals with and they could not be more helpful and great. This is our fourth endeavor into communal living and we feel like we are finally experiencing what we’ve always hoped it could be. They do awesome things like deep-cleaning our bathroom, weeding the garden, and cooking delicious meals without even being asked! It feels like we are really living in community, rather than attempting to run a household while having folks renting a room. And perhaps most amazingly, so far, 5 people sharing a bathroom hasn’t been half bad! Does that mean we don’t shower enough?
Because Baby Lucy’s arrival is only 7ish weeks away (eek!!!), Daniel and I have been trying to have as many special dates as we can, just the two of us, in the remaining weeks. Last night after Benjamin went to his weekly slumber party at Daniel’s folks house (yes, having grandparents in town is THE BEST!), I picked up Daniel from work and we went to Mass before our dinner date. At Mass, I ran into a friend I had done some musicals with in high school–Colleen. She and her husband have a baby and just moved back to town. It was fantastic to reconnect with her and she promises to hook us up with other Catholic friends our age. We really don’t have any Catholic friends in town which is hard. So the prospect of having some is thrilling!
When we got home from dinner, we were pleased as punch to read the splendid post about the Feast of St. Helena of the True Cross that our new contributors to Feast!, Joseph and Helen Thompson wrote as their debut post.
Read more about the Thompsons here in the About section of Feast! We are so excited to have them on board.
I have been so bad about getting our camera out and taking good pictures of Benjamin lately. Here’s just a few low quality iphone pics to tide you over until I get it together:
Silly boy “helping” with the dishes. He always want to help do real work: with the chickens, in the garden, cooking, etc. “I want to do some work, Daddy!” is his rallying cry.
Losing his two-year-old mind over his excavator from Uncle Garrett!
So this blog is about to reach 10,000 views…not a whole lot for a blog, I know. But, I was thinking it called for some kind of giveaway. Thoughts? How do you do a giveaway? What would you want for a giveaway? Cheese? Books? Books about cheese? Chime in, please.
Check out Feast! for last night’s menu, pictures, and recipes: Assumption Salad, Stuffed Zucchini, Baked Apples with Butter Rum Sauce!
Carrots for Michaelmas: Musings of a Catholic Wife, Mother, and Occasional Redhead 