Lenten Penance

Hello All,

Since the Baron and I are Catholic we have decided to sacrifice during this season of Lent.  We have both given up meat for the entirety of lent, he has given up sweet drinks, tea, and good coffee (he assures me the coffee at work is terrible and can not be enjoyed especially with no sugar or cream.)

We have also committed to helping out for our Parish's Stations of the Cross, meditation and soup supper.  This means I am making a meatless soup for everyone to share.   It is actually quite a nice thing and doesn't feel very penitential however it can sometimes be a inconvenience which is penitential.  I will try to post the recipes for the soup I made for the soup suppers.  The 1st soup I made was Soup Julienne.  It was quite nice and made a large quantity of soup.  This past week I made Shrimp and Corn Chowder.  It went over quite well.  I really enjoyed it also.

I have also made Saint Antorny of the Dessert soup the 1st week of Lent.  It was quite nice.  I had never used barly in a recipe before so it was a new expeiance for me.  I think I like it.  This also made alot of soup.  We ate on it for a few days.

I will try to keep up the recipes for soup suppers as well as any other new recipes I use try during my Lenten journey.

Quick Shrimp Chowder

• Ingredients
  2 tablespoons butter or margarine 
• 1 medium onion, chopped 
• 2 (10 3/4-ounce) cans cream of potato soup, undiluted
• 3 1/2 cups milk 
• 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds medium-size fresh shrimp, peeled
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 can of extra sweet whole corn
• Garnish: chopped fresh parsley
• 
  

Preparation

1. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion, and sauté 8 minutes or until tender. Stir in cream of potato soup, milk, and pepper; bring to a boil. Add shrimp; reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often, 5 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. Stir in cheese until melted. Garnish, if desired. Serve immediately. Serve with oyster crackers, if desired.
2. *1 1/2 pounds frozen shrimp, thawed; 1 1/2 pounds peeled crawfish tails; or 3 cups chopped cooked chicken may be substituted.

Soup Julienne

This was the 1st soup I made for out Parish's Friday way of the cross, meditation and soup supper. The Knight's of Columbus run the this event every year and the wives make meatless supper. It was quite a nice soup.  This soup makes about 3 quarts.  It is quite nice if not time consumming due to all the cutting of the veggies.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Soup Julienne

3 leeks (White part only)
4 carrots
2 medium turnips
1/2 medium head of green cabbage
1 onion
3 quarts water
3 bouillon cubs
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cups frish parsley, minced

1 Shred the cabbage and cute the vetables into thin strips, 1 1/2 inch long, and place them in a large soup pot with the water.  Add Bouillon cubes and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook the soup slowly for about 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.

When vegatables are done, add the salt, pepper and parsley; Stir few times, cover and simmer for another 15 additional minutes.  Serve hot.

Greek Pizza (1st lenten meal I cook)

Surprise! Two posts in one day. Wow!

For lunch we had Greek Pizza. I actually made is as prescribed except I put some black olives in it too. It was really good. The Baron was upset when I only let him have three pieces. It was a nice start to no meat. I get the feeling it will make a few rotation in the 40 days. O I just realized I forgot to put the onion it it. Ops. It was great even without it.

Greek Pizza with Spinach, Feta and Olives

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup crumbled feta cheese, divided
• 1 (12 inch) pre-baked Italian pizza crust
• 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon oil from the sun-dried tomatoes
• 1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 cups baby spinach leaves
• 1/2 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position, and heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix mayonnaise, garlic and 1/2 cup feta in a small bowl. Place pizza crust on a cookie sheet; spread mayonnaise mixture over pizza, then top with tomatoes, olives and oregano. Bake until heated through and crisp, about 10 minutes.
2. Toss spinach and onion with the 1 Tb. sun-dried tomato oil. Top hot pizza with spinach mixture and remaining 1/2 cup feta cheese. Return to oven and bake until cheese melts, about 2 minutes longer. Cut into 6 slices and serve.

Sorry for the delays

Sorry readers,

I've been super busy and that probably isn't going to change soon. I'm going to try to update as often as I can. With my new job I'm super busy. I only work three days a week but I don't know how people do this full time. I come home and pass out from exhaustion and hunger. I tend to sleep from just after I have dinner (my only meal of the day) till about 10:00 the next morning. Then I try to catch up on the stuff I used to do like keep the house half decently clean. This too shall end.

The job isn't terrible but I'm just a perfectionist and I feel so lost. I know I trained for this for years but the paperwork is killing me. And it doesn't help that I tend to see the clients only once and then have to write their weekly progress notes. Can we say EAK!

So now that I've complained I'll move on to my challenge for lent. I am going to go meatless all lent. This doesn't sound so hard and It probably wouldn't be if three days a week I wasn't working. I hope this works out. O and since the husband is on a diet it looks like we will be having a lot of salad and fish dinners. Today since I'm off I'm making Greek pizza for lunch and tonight I'm making Veggie soup. We can also have it tomorrow night for dinner. This should be an interesting adventure. I'm also going to try to make it to mass every day but Mondays and Fridays. There is no way for me to go to mass those days because Tomball doesn't have a mass that allows me to make it to work for 7:00 AM.

On the mass note, I missed Ash Wednesday because I got lost and by the time I would have found it Mass would have been over. Kind of a downer but on the upside it wasn't a holy day. I did go to confession on Tuesday though so that was a silver lining. I'll try to find a mass for me to go to today since I missed morning mass by sleeping in. I honestly didn't remember to set an alarm for me to get there.