Loving Leftovers...and Spanish Rice (quick, what do these things have in common?)

This week’s Gospel readings have been taken from Mark. They will culminate with the very memorable story of the loaves and fishes on Saturday. This great public miracle of Christ’s marks a dramatic moment on many levels, and is an episode that has been extensively commented on by a host of intelligent and thoughtful people. I would like to focus on an aspect of this miracle that I imagine is near (in practice if not in spirit) to many mothers’ hearts: leftovers. The Gospel tells us of the multitude of people who were following Christ and who had no food to eat. We learn of the scant amount of food that the apostles had at their disposal. Yet, Jesus transforms the meager portions into an abundant supply—so much that there were twelve baskets of food left over after everyone had eaten. It’s a beautiful reminder of the way in which the Lord transforms our inadequate supply of X (you name it, whatever it is!) into something overflowing with abundance. In fact, this excessiveness marks one of Jesus’ consistent characteristics: he doesn’t merely fulfill needs, he outdoes Himself. He doesn’t just cure people, He forgives sins; he doesn’t just make some wine for a party; He makes excellent wine; He doesn’t just redeem us; He gives Himself totally to us. And when He makes food, there is a lot left over. I’m guessing that a many people had a lovely snack later that day…or perhaps a delicious breakfast of bread and fish?

We tend to think of leftovers as something “lesser” on many levels. But leftovers are, first and foremost, a sign of abundance. Leftovers are a sign that more was given than was necessary: the food exceeded the need. This can also be a sign of affection and concern, as we tend to recognize in the U.S. around Thanksgiving, when our entire nation seems to plan on leftover turkey in order to turn it into soup, sandwiches, and casseroles the next day.

I’d like to reconsider leftovers in this light. In my family, my husband is actively *upset* if there aren’t any. He takes food to work, and he’s not a big sandwich person, so he counts on extra food for his next day’s lunch. Plus, there are children still at home who will eat up extra food from the evening’s meal for their lunch if he doesn’t take it. Having more than you need can be a really good thing—as long as you like the food! (which can be the tricky part). I’d like to give a specific suggestion on this front: cultivating dinner choices that either a) are tasty as leftovers or b) can be incorporated easily into some other meal. In the first category, I’d say that things with sauce do much better—perhaps part of the reason I always wish there were more left over when I order Thai food. In the second category, I’d suggest simple things that can be reintroduced (pleasantly!) into quesadillas, casseroles, or other hodge-podge dinners. I would also like to offer a recipe: for paella. This may sound counter-intuitive: paella is a delicious meal, generally thought of as high maintenance; which it can be. But it is also a very flexible meal, which can include a number of ingredients and allows for a pretty wide variety of cooking methods, as long as you like saffron rice. The recipe that follows is based on the recipe for “Easy Lobster Paella” from the Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten). If I offend any purists, I apologize. But I’ll also note that giving a recipe for any traditional food sparks controversy—no one ever agrees on the “right way”…and I first learned to loosen up my attitude about paella from a Spanish priest friend who came over to our place and made paella with me.

Easy (non-lobster) Paella
[editorialized with my ‘user comments’ in brackets]
Ingredients:
¼ cup good olive oil
1 ½ cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions) [add more or less according to taste]
[I add a tomato or two which I chop and cook with the onions; you can a bit of tomato sauce for a bit of tomato flavor]
2 red bell peppers, cored and sliced into ½ strips [I leave this out for my kids, but it’s better and more authentic with them; roasted peppers can also be added at the end if you like]
2 tablespoons minced garlic (4-6 cloves) [again, you can modify according to preference]
2 cups white basmati rice [any rice will do, actually, which may surprise many people. I have actually never made paella with basmati rice, though I have used both Arborio and long grain and even a combination of both and been happy with the results]
5 cups good chicken stock, preferable homemade [superior chicken stock will make for superior taste, but any broth/stock will do—including bouillon. The Hispanic aisle of supermarkets even has a bouillon flavor with saffron already added in if you want to try that. I would recommend adding a cup or so of clam juice and/or seafood broth or bouillon to enhance the seafood aspect, especially if you’re leaving out the Pernod. White wine is a nice addition to this mix. So 4 cups chicken stock +1 cup clam juice/ seafood broth+ ½ cup wine is a good mix…slightly more than the 5 cups called for]
½ teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes [I leave these out; my family doesn’t like spicy and I don’t think of Spanish paella as spicy at all…but to each his own!]
1 tablespoon kosher salt [or any salt]
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup Pernod
1 ½ lbs. cooked lobster meat [I do between 1 and 1.5 lbs. shrimp; the frozen kind, defrosted, since they are easy to have on hand and my family loves them, though you could modify the seafood]
1 lb. kielbasa, sliced ¼- ½ inch thick [or any other cooked sausage. Or skip the sausage if you don’t like it or don’t have it]
½ pound leftover chicken or other meat, cut into bite sized pieces [warning: do not use something very ‘saucy’ or something with a strong flavor: leftover roast chicken is great, but you don’t want anything that will assert its own flavor instead of becoming one with the paella—no chicken parmesan! You can also fry up some chicken thighs or other chicken pieces and add them towards the end if you like]
1 (10 oz. package) frozen peas [I also sometimes include green beans]
1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley [or you can omit]
2 lemons, cut into wedges [again, to taste]

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Heat the oil in a large ovenproof Dutch oven [or something else big, that has a lid and can go on the stove and in the oven]. Add the onions and cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the bell peppers [and tomatoes, if including] and cook over medium heat for 5 more minutes. Lower the heat, add the garlic and cook for one minute longer. Stir in the rice, chicken stock, saffron, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and place it in the oven. After 15 minutes, stir the rice gently with a wooden spoon [I generally add the chicken or any other ‘leftover meat’, and return it to the oven to bake uncovered for 10 to 15 more minutes, until the rice is fully cooked.
Transfer the paella back to the stove top and add the Pernod [if using]. Cook the paella over medium heat for 1 minute, until the Pernod is absorbed by the rice. Turn off the heat and add the lobster [raw shrimp], kielbasa, and peas and stir gently. Cover the paella, and allow it to steam for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with the parsley, garnish with lemon wedges, and serve hot. [If you like some of your rice crispy, you can turn the heat up to 425 or so on your oven and finish it there for 5-10 minutes].

Our Daily Bread: Simple Scones

At times, the art of homemaking calls for culinary creativity. One morning, I was hoping to make breakfast just a little more special for my family only to discover that we were low on flour & sugar and had no chocolate chips or any special baking additive in the house!

The result? I came across a scone recipe and adjusted it to fit the ingredients I had in the pantry. I love scones, almost as much as my father does, and have been in search for the perfect recipe for quite some time. While this recipe will certainly not satisfy the scone purist, it does come in handy for a quick, simple and delicious way to add just a little bit of special to any ordinary breakfast.

Apricot Scones
1 cup flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup chopped, dried apricots
¼ cup melted butter
¼ cup milk

1. Mix dry ingredients. Add chopped apricots and, using a wooden spoon, stir to coat.
2. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined.
3. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 15-20 minutes.
This recipe will make 9 small scones.



We just enjoyed our delicious afternoon treats with a cup of milk in honor of St. Scholastica whose feast day we celebrate tomorrow. Thanks for this full week of snow days, St. Scholastica. We are enjoying the family time!

Remembering St. Scholastica

I have a special devotion to St. Scholastica and always remember her on her feast day—February 10.

Hers is an interesting and charming story, told by no less than Pope St. Gregory the Great in his Dialogues. St. Scholastica, a 6th century abbess, was the sister of St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism. The brother and sister were very close (perhaps twins). They generally met once a year at a house near his monastery at Monte Cassino. On one occasion, they spent the day together. At the end of supper, she asked him to delay his return to his monastery until the next day so that they could continue praising God together. He said he couldn’t stay. She then prayed fervently to God to make her brother stay—and suddenly there was a great storm with thunder and lighting. He couldn’t leave. He said to Scholastica: "God forgive you, sister, what have you done?" She replied: "I asked a favor of you and you refused it. I asked it of God and he has granted it." So they spent that night speaking of the joys of heaven, and he left the next day. It was their last visit together on this earth. She died three days later—and Benedict, in his cell, saw her soul ascend to heaven in the form of a dove.

What shall we eat and drink to honor this great saint--and the holy Benedict? We cannot be sure just what Scholastica served her brother that last evening they ate together—but we can be quite sure that it included some simple monastic bread--and probably a glass of wine or two. (Wine is food, and was part of the monastic diet.)

The recipe for Monastery Bread is in A Continual Feast, on pp. 246-8. (Ann Vitz has been having some fun with it lately.)
And, like the nuns at St. Emma’s convent, let’s add that little bit of sugar for some extra sweetness.

Why my devotion to St. Scholastica? Some years ago, I was involved in an unpleasant quarrel. A peaceful resolution to it was offered to me and, despite some reluctance on my part (original sin, no doubt), I thought: "I should make peace on the feast of St. Scholastica."
I’ve always been glad I did.
I try to remember to thank her each year on her feastday for her heavenly inspiration.

The Battle between Carnival and Lent—it’s on!

We are now fully launched into the season of Carnival. The word "Carnival" means--somewhat surprisingly, perhaps--"the putting away of flesh"; so this is the great mad party before the flesh is put away. Carnival will rise to its climax on February 16—Mardi Gras, meaning "Fat Tuesday"; in English, it's Shrove Tuesday. Carnival will then give way to Lent, with its many austerities; the flesh is indeed to be put away for a time.

In the past, this season was sometimes thought of as a great struggle between the pleasures of the flesh—out of control, and gone somewhat berserk—and Lenten mortification and self-denial. In his famous--and darkly comic--painting titled "The Battle between Carnival and Lent," the great 16th century Flemish painter Peter Brueghel showed the dramatic conflict between the two seasons—the two spirits: love of the flesh vs. self-mortification and charity. Some people are drinking beer, eating waffles, dancing and kissing, many of them masked or wearing party hats--now, that’s Carnival! Others (on the right) are coming out of church, giving charity to beggars, and doing other works of mercy: that’s Lent.

Down toward the bottom, you can see Carnival--shown as a hugely fat man riding a big beer barrel, with a pig’s head on his lance--getting ready to joust with Lent, represented as a skinny old woman dressed in gray mourning, sitting in an uncomfortable prayer chair; her lance is a flat baker’s paddle with two herring lying on it. See the pretzels sitting on her cart? Pretzels--thin ropes of bread in the form of praying arms--were Lenten food.

Here are Carnival and Lent in more detail.





She may not look very tough, but Lent is about to win--for a season!

V-Day: A Feast for All Kinds of Lovers...

Valentine’s Day planning is already well underway at my daughters’ school (complete with shoe boxes to collect cards in), and so I figured it’s probably on others’ minds as well; hearts and candy have already become ubiquitous…V-Day provokes very strong reactions in many people…I know a lot of people who really despise it. I don’t always know their personal reasons, but I can think of some: a) they were burned by a former lover and it brings back bad memories; b) they are opposed to sentimentality and clichéd greeting cards; c) they are allergic to chocolate and don’t like roses d) they are bitter at the restaurant industry’s capitalizing (so soon after New Year’s) on a golden opportunity to guilt people into spending money on below-average food and service or e) they just hate the color red. This being said, I have always really enjoyed Valentine’s Day—despite the fact that until the year I met my husband (in my late 20’s) I had never really been dating anyone for Valentine’s Day. For me, Valentine’s Day was a celebration of love of all kinds—mostly the love my parents had for me, accompanied by cute cards and chocolate. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered the dark underbelly of Valentine’s Day, and the way our images of love can sometimes put a stranglehold on true love. I became aware that many couples break up before Valentine’s Day; Valentine’s Day seems to place such a set of romantic expectations on people that if they don’t feel up to the appropriate level of enthusiasm, someone often decides it’s time to throw in the towel. There is something perverse in this to my mind---not that all couples should be together—but I have certainly seen cases where an artificial (and Hollywood-created) myth of the Perfect Relationship threatens to nip the bud of what could be the real thing.

Valentine’s Day (in addition to Cyril and Methodius) is, of course, the feast day of St. Valentine—a 3rd century priest who was martyred during the persecutions of Emperor Claudius the Goth. His connection to a romantic love-fest is not immediately obvious. My mother mentions in A Continual Feast that the most likely reason for the association of Valentine’s Day with lovers is that birds were believed to mate on February 14th, and so lovers followed suit, asking the martyr to bless them in their choice of mate. Valentine’s Day seems like a natural day to extend and expand our celebration of love: first, by recognizing love in all its depth and forms; including corny love poetry, but not limiting it to that. It also makes sense to recognize (as medieval lovers did) our need for assistance in choosing our mates, and finding our vocations. Valentine’s Day, a celebration of lovers on the feast day of a priest and martyr, is a perfect moment to reflect on vocations in general, and celebrate not just earthly love, but the divine source of that earthly love. It’s an opportunity to remind ourselves, and our families, that our love for even those nearest to us is rooted in a love beyond ourselves, a love which comes to us, first and foremost, as a gift.

On a practical level, we may want to integrate this awareness of our vocation as a gift into our celebration of the day. Telling stories of how you met your spouse, and also recalling how other important people have entered our lives as gifts might be one great way: the birth of children is always a great event that we recognize as a gift (particularly evident to me right now since my baby son was born just a month ago!). I know my children love hearing stories about themselves, and when they were born. Why not retell those events, recognizing the graciousness of their arrival in our lives? We might also want to read some Lives of the Saints that feature intense or dramatic vocations: both to the married life and to the priesthood. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, and Saint Francis of Assisi are a couple of examples that might be worth considering, as is the amazing life of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. During this Year of the Priest, too, it would be beautiful to celebrate all vocations on Valentine's Day…Why not invite a priest for dinner? (For one thing, they’re less likely to have other plans!)

The feast of Saint Blaise--over a thousand years of veneration

Today, February 3, is the feast of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr. To him we go for protection against diseases of the throat; throats are blessed in church today.

Catholic Cuisine--a lovely and useful blog--has a charming recipe for this feast, as it does for many other saints' days. Go visit at http://catholiccuisine.blogspot.com/

This is a very ancient feast! A dear Croatian friend writes me:

"In Dubrovnik there is a large celebration today as St Blaise (=Sveti Vlaho in local tradition) is being commemorated for the 1038th time! Not even 50 years of tough Communism could break that age-long festive tradition and loyalty!"

Let's hear it for Saint Blaise, and for all the other saints whose great stories and commemorations have contributed so richly and powerfully to the history--indeed the very identity--of Europe and the West.

Our Daily Bread: Basic White Bread

I have been meaning to bake my bread all day long! Only now, with the children in bed, was I finally able to fill my loaf pans. I can not help but look back on the many contradictions of my day with a sense of gratitude. I am aware that I will never be called for acts of heroism to fill the nightly news. Rather, my peace talks will be saved for toddlers and my big budget plans for a monthly grocery list. My acts of heroism will remain hidden to most eyes. And yet, it is through those daily contradictions that my path to heaven lies.

Today I made 2 loaves of Basic Bread from A Continual Feast, found on page 62. After my yeast bread baking debut with Monastery Bread I found this a great next recipe to tackle. It follows a very similar method with only two added ingredients (scalded milk and butter). The results have just come out of my oven, and they are fabulous!















The smell of fresh baked bread is intoxicating…and the falling snow outside holds the hope of a snow day for tomorrow. This day of contradictions has turned into quite a lovely evening!