Hallowed Days

I’m a bit late for the Catholic Cuisine Hallowed Days Blog Fair, but I wanted to share a few ideas.

I love this time of year — the change of seasons, the winding down of Ordinary Time with the month of the Poor Souls. Hallowe’en, All Saints Day and All Souls Day are the three days that illustrate the Communion of Saints: The Church Triumphant (saints in heaven), Church Militant (people on earth praying for living and dead), and Church Suffering (Poor Souls in Purgatory).

I’ve written a few thoughts on these feast days in the past, Ideas for Sanctifying Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day and also a reminder on
Praying for the Dead and Gaining Indulgences During November. I love visiting the cemeteries, both of family and friends and strangers and praying for the Poor Souls.

Hallowe’en or All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day each are marked with their unique foods and festivities and popular piety.

Because of my sons’ food allergies, most of the great festive recipes won’t be happening here. We can’t even do the the great Mexican Sugar Skulls because they require meringue powder or egg whites, which we can’t eat or touch. So, once again, I’m starting from scratch to find feast day recipes. I’m not a big experimenter with recipes. I like to tweak recipes, when I know ingredients. But since our family has food allergies to wheat, eggs, and milk, this is an area I don’t like to experiment much. I haven’t found the perfect substitutes, so switching out recipes for baked goods have always been a dismal failure, and I get too discouraged. So my general approach is to find existing recipes that only need small tweaks to be allergy friendly in the family.

Apple cider and doughnuts (soul cakes) are my favorite foods for these feast days. I have not tried rising with yeast with gluten or wheat free flours. So I’m thrilled to actually find a recipe that doesn’t even use wheat flour. I don’t have chestnut flour here, though. I have a favorite food store in PA that carries it, and I wish I found this when I was visiting this past weekend! So the trial will have to wait two weeks. This comes from one of my favorite Italian cookbooks, Festa: Recipes and Recollections of Italian Holidays by Helen Barolini:

Chestnut Fritters

Makes 6 servings

1/2 pound chestnut flour (available at Italian groceries and specialty shops)
1 cup water
Pinch salt
1/2 cup seedless black raisins
1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts
1 tablespoon finest grade light extra virgin olive oil
Peanut oil for frying
Confectioner’s sugar

1. Put the chestnut flour in a bowl, and slowly stir in enough water to make a thick paste. Stir in the salt, raisins, pistachio nuts, and olive oil. Mix well.

2. Pour 4 inches of peanut oil into a deep skillet or deep-fat fryer. Heat oil to 375 degrees F on a deep-fat frying thermometer.

3. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful into the oil, and fry the fritters, a few at at time, until golden brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towels.

4. Serve hot, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.

Instead of raisins, I might substitute a bit of sugar to sweeten the dough.

I forgot that Halloween falls on a Friday, which I prefer to keep meatless, so I’m going to make our special dinner for Thursday, which will be better since we won’t be running around. This is also from Festa. There are some steps I would tweak…either eliminate the flour part, or substitute with corn starch or rice flour, and no parmesan cheese.

Beef Stew in a Pumpkin Shell with Potato-Pumpkin Puree

Makes 6 servings

1 medium pumpkin (about 6 pounds)
Salt, to taste
1/2 onion
4 slices bacon
1 stalk celery
1 carrot, pared
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter (or margarine, if necessary)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds lean beef cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup seasoned flour (flour mixed with salt and pepper to taste) (use corn starch or rice flour)
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 1/2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups beef stock, hot
1 bay leaf
1 whole clove
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 small whole onions, peeled
2 carrots, cut in strips
1 pound boiling potatoes
2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Cut off the top of the pumpkin, and set it aside for a lid. Scoop out all the seeds. (They can be dried, roasted on a baking sheet, and eaten as a snack.) Salt the inside of the pumpkin, replace the top, and wrap it securely in oiled aluminum foil. Bake about 2 1/2 hours.

2. While the pumpkin is baking, chop together the bacon, celery, and carrot. Put two tablespoons of the butter (or margarine) and all the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over moderate heat. When oil mixture is hot, add the bacon-vegetable mixture, and cook until lightly browned.

3. Roll the beef cubes in seasoned flour. Add them to the pan, and cook over medium-high heat, turning to brown on all sides.

4. Add the wine. Cook over high heat until the alcohol evaporates.

5. Dissolve the tomato paste in 1 cup of the hot beef stock. Add the bay leaf, clove, and pepper. Pour the liquid over the meat, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for two hours, or until the meat is tender. Add more hot stock as needed.

6. About 30 minutes before the beef is done, add the 6 small onions and the carrot strips to the pan.

7. Peel the potatoes and, in another saucepan, cook them in lightly salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain well, and push them through a food mill into a larger saucepan.

I’ve been eyeing this recipe for years and I hope I can make it come together this year!

May your hallowed days be faith and family focused, and don’t forget to pray and sacrifice for the Poor Souls!

Dorset Apple Cake

I do hope the apple harvest will still be as bountiful after November 4th. Our family is trying to abstain from sweets for the election. In the meantime, I’ve got a few apple cake recipes that have to wait. I have a Favorite Apple Cake and my mouth is watering reading Kathryn’s plans to bake Dorset Apple Cake.

Her version is British measurement and ingredients. I have difficulty “translating” British recipes, as everything that gives the substitutes contradicts each other.

Thankfully, I found an American version from one of my old cookbooks, From An English Oven: Cakes, Buns and Breads of County Tradition by Dorothy Gladys Spicer, and thought I would share it here:

Dorset Apple Cake

One of the most famous of all English tea cakes is Dorset apple cake (also called pudding), which comes from the county where simple domestic cooking is thought to have been practiced longer than in any other part of the country. The older object found at Maiden Castle, during archaeological excavations, was a primitive oven. This discovery connect the ancient art of cooking with England’s earliest civilization.

Dorset apple cake must be eaten fresh and hot from the oven. Serve it with plenty of sugar and butter, with whipped cream, or foamy egg sauce. Make the cake in a large square, greased tin, and seve in generous squares for tea. This is how to make the famous delicacy:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 pound cooking apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Milk to mix

Sigt together the flour, baking powder and salt. Rub the butter into the flour mixture until it is the consistency of coarse meal. Peel, core and chop the apples, mixing them with the sugar. Stir the apples and sugar into the first mixutre (adding a little cinnamon and nutmeg, if desired). Add the egg, which has been well beaten, and enough milk to make a fairly stiff batter.

Bake 3/4 to 1 hour in moderate oven (350 degrees F.).

Some other versions from British food blogs are from Baking for Britain and WaitRose. The latter has a sugar topping which always sounds nice to add.

I’m not sure exactly how to “dredge” the cake in sugar after it’s done baking. Roll it in the sugar? Or just cover the top really well? I’ve only dredged before frying. Must mean something else in British cooking, as I came across the term in several places.

And the Winner Is…

Thanks for visiting and leaving such wonderful comments for my Cookbook Give Away!

The winner is Christine, number 17 commenter, who left her favorite fall recipe: Pork Stew with Apricots at Epicurious.com!

I wish I had more to give away! I plan on compiling all the wonderful ideas for the upcoming feast of Hallowe’en, All Saints, and All Souls. This is one of my favorite times of the Liturgical Year!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cookbook Giveaway

I’m slowly moving my food posts from my blogspirit blog to this blog. And since I posted an outside link for Catholic Cuisine, I thought I’d celebrate the (re)launching of my food blog by giving away a cookbook. (Although I’m not promising lots of posts here, as I do a lot of posting at Catholic Cuisine for food ideas.)

I found an extra copy of The Festive Food of Ireland by Darina Allen, the copyright is 1992. My other copy I bought in Ireland when I visited around on my 30th birthday. The book is delightful with a flavor of true Irish recipes, traditions, and luscious photographs and illustrations. The festive days covered are:

St. Bridget’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Easter
May Day
The Stations
Hay Making
Lughnasa
Threshing
Michaelmas
Hallowe’en
St. Martin’s Eve
Christmas
St. Stephen’s Day
The Twelfth Day of Christmas

It’s a slim but packed cookbook, delightful if you enjoy reading cookbooks, especially about Irish cooking. I wanted to send this book out before Hallowe’en and St. Martin’s Day as the Irish traditions are many for these days.

Leave a comment and share what foods (besides Halloween candy) you like to eat or make (or plan to) for Hallowe’en, All Saints All Souls, and/or Martinmas (November 11).

We’ll have a drawing of the winner on Saturday evening, October 18 (the feast of St. Luke) and announce the winner Sunday morning.

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Bountiful Harvests

It seems for so many fall is the favorite season of the year. The change of season to autumn brings harvest time, and connected with harvest are so many activities. And all these remind us how God bestows these blessings.

Even the little one loves the fall views.

Some highlights:

Our vegetable garden is giving its last tomatoes, and will soon be pulled up to let the soil rest until next planting. I was surprised to see how many ripe tomatoes we still have (here in Northern Virginia we haven’t had our first frost). I’ve shared in the past some of our Favorite Tomato Recipes. Since the temperature is cooler it inspires me to want to cook more heavier foods — sauces, soups, stews, slow-cooked meals. So with the remaining tomato harvest we’re going to have Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce. I’m using this recipe and Elizabeth’s recipe as guides, but I’m a tweaker, so I know I won’t follow one way strictly.

My bounty of ripe tomatoes on my counter remind me of the warm summer days! I’m happy to be able to freeze some sauce for later. And while I’m smelling the aroma of the tomatoes baking, I’ll be sure to whisper a prayer for Elizabeth, who is on strict bedrest and can’t enjoy the fall outings.

Apple picking is something our family has not tried yet. Virginia is a wonderful apple region. We normally stop at Virginia Farm Markets to enjoy the bounty of local ripe apples. And I’m going to make this cake with our fresh apples. In all our married life, I haven’t made it for him, and it is to die for!

Apple Cake

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 cups sifted flour (sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2-1 cup raisins, optional
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups peeled, cored, sliced apples
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and grease and flour a Bundt or tube pan.

Beat oil and sugar together while assembling remaining ingredients. Add the eggs and beat until mixture is creamy. Mix in vanilla extract.

Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon and soda. Gradually stir into batter.

Add all the remaining ingredients (nuts and raisins); stir to blend.

Pour mixture into a greased and floured tube or Bundt pan. Bake 50-75 minutes, until toothpick comes clean.

And of course, pumpkins play a large role in this time. Apples, pumpkins, leaf changes all tie in together. Yesterday our family had an outing towards the Shenandoah Mountains to see the fall foliage and pick pumpkins. We always enjoy our visits to Sky Meadows State Park and we also visited nearby Hollins Farms. We prefer simple pumpkin patches without all the bells and whistles and high cost of admission.

The excitement doesn’t end, as we are doing Nature Study, trips to Pennsylvania (more beautiful foliage), football games, and more stops to get fresh apples.

The fall also brings about the new school year, a new focus on family prayer life and family together time. It is so beautiful that the outside can help us look on the inside and renew and refresh us.

Thanks be to God for all his blessings!