Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas Lunch

For the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas we had a special star lunch today!

St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of students, so I think it's quite fitting for any family with kiddos to celebrate this day! You could easily pack this meal up for a fun sack lunch (maybe replace the strawberries with starfruit?) or serve it at home if you homeschool like us!

P.S. The star is St. Thomas Aquinas' symbol because of the Divine guidance he was given to write his many works, including the Summa.

For grain and protein, we had toasted whole wheat english muffins with peanut butter.

For fruit and dairy/more protein I cut strawberries in half length wise, set them up like a star and filled the middle with Greek yogurt for dipping.

And for more dairy I cut stars out of provolone and cheddar cheese slices.

Finally, for dessert I made star jam tarts. They have no nutritional value. Just mix 1 c. of softened butter with 1/3 c. of sugar, then add 1 3/4 c. of flour and a pinch of salt. Roll them out like sugar cookies (use lots of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the counter or rolling pin), put a small spoonful of jam onto the middle of a star base, and top the star base with a picture frame star. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Don't forget to finish your meal with the Litany of St. Thomas Aquinas!

While I made lunch Pal entertained Peanut with the star cookie cutter that was too big for the english muffins, tarts, and cheese.

They are already best buds.

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa

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St. Paul Lunch

For the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul today I put together a special lunch for the kids using St. Paul symbols. It was easy, quick, and very kid friendly. Maybe this is what I had for lunch as well, so maybe it's also adult friendly.

Here is what you'll need to put on your shopping list.

"Wait, what is the ice cream for?" you ask. It's for the stormy sea dessert! Let's start there.

St. Paul made many voyages to spread the gospel. On one such trip there was a massive storm that left him shipwrecked. To remind us of this Pauline adventure we mixed Sprite, blue food coloring, and vanilla ice cream to create a stormy sea.

Because St. Paul was a Roman citizen he was not crucified, but rather beheaded with a sword. For this reason the sword is St. Paul's symbol. To incorporate this symbol into our lunch we made hotdog swords with pretzel stick blades. The kids loved being able to dip these into ketchup and eat them in one bite.

As I already mentioned, St. Paul made many voyages, so we made apple and cheese ships for the many boats he traveled on.

Finally, St. Paul is the author of many of the books of the New Testament. In the past the Scriptures were written on and read from scrolls. To remind us of St. Paul's writings we had Fruit by the Foot scrolls.

St. Paul, pray for us!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa

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Hot Chocolate Cones

Last week I was in charge of the craft for our Little Flowers Girls' Club meeting (think Catholic Girl Scouts). In the club the girls learn about a virtue and a saint at each meeting. This month was orderliness and St. Zita, who was a servant.

With Christmas around the corner I wanted to do something that could be a gift, and since St. Zita often worked in the kitchen, we made an edible one! The girls were given the instructions which they needed to follow in order (orderliness, check) for the craft to turn out right.

Introducing...

Hot Chocolate Cones.

We made a bunch of these and are giving them out this week to Bean's various extra-curricular teachers. They are simple enough that she was almost able to make them entirely on her own, which made her very proud. BTW, I didn't invent them, familyfun.go.com did, maybe. But, they don't have pictures and I like pictures when doing a project, so I took some for you.

Here is what you will need:

• Hot Chocolate mix (I bought the individual packets because they were on sale)
• Marshmallows
• Chocolate chips
• Cone bags (Hobby Lobby has them)
• Clear rubberbands (we used the little clear hairbands)
• Scissors
• Items for tags (ribbon, glue, hole punch, card stock, directions)

Step 1: Empty 4 packets of cocoa mix into a cone bag

Step 2: Trim the bag down, rubberband it shut and put it into another cone bag.

Step 3: Layer in 1/4 c. chocolate chips and 3/4 c. marshmallows.

Step 4: Rubberband and trim again.

Looking good!

Step 5: Add a tag!

Here are the directions off the tag so you can copy and paste:

Heat 5 cups of milk and chocolate chips over medium heat until the chocolate chips have melted. Reduce heat to low and stir in the cocoa mix until the drink is smooth. Serve with marshmallows. Makes 4-6 servings.

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Feast of St. Anne and Joachim

Yesterday was...

my feast day! 

Yes, my name is Lisa, you have not lost your mind. But, Ann is my middle name, as well as a namesake of my Grandma, Mom, Aunt, Sister and Kevin's Grandma. St. Anne is the Grandma of Jesus and the patron saint of housewives, giving me so many reasons to love her!

To celebrate we began the day with donuts. I tried to get a picture of Bean eating her donut and she said "Mom, I think we have enough pictures of us eating donuts" and turned her head away.

Um, I guess it's true. We eat a lot of donuts on feast days in the Cotter house. Point taken.

The rest of the day we did some decorating, including the poster you see at the top of the page. You can download the picture of St. Anne from Waltzing Matilda. 

St. Anne is traditionally shown wearing a red dress and green mantle: red for Divine Love and green for immortality. So, we had a red and green dinner consisting of green spinach with red crasins, red sauce pasta, green beans (fresh from our garden!) and sangria. 

And the best part...

dessert pizza. So good, so so good. I called on the doughboy for the sugar cookie crust and used cream cheese frosting, easy.

For prayers to honor the day you can pray the Chaplet of St. Anne. I think that's how you know a saint is really cool, if they have their own chaplet.

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Stained Glass Cookies

I've had the pictures for this post for a while, but was unsure of when to post it. So I thought now is as good of time as any.

Stained glass cookies could be used on a number of occasions. The circle with the cross reminds me of a host, so it would be great for a Eucharistic feast day or a first communion party or the cross with the heart could be used for the Feast of the Exhalation of the Cross or the "T" with a blue in the heart could be for Theotokos (A Marion title in Greek meaning God-bearer). The "J"s are for Jesus.

I'm sure people far more creative than I could create a heart with blue and red rays for Divine Mercy, or a heart with a crown for the Sacred Heart of Jesus... really the possibilities are endless. So, next time you need a creative religious treat, come up with something fabulous and then send it to me, sound good?

Here's how you make them!

Ingredients:

• 2 c. flour
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 stick of soft butter
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 t. vanilla
• Jolly Ranchers (4 candies of 3 different colors)

Let's start with the fun part... the smashing of the Jolly Ranchers!

Step 1: Place 4 candies of the same color in a plastic bag.

Step 2: Pound them. We did this in the basement because it was nap-time.

Success. Now is a good time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Let's move on to the dough.

Step 3: Cream the butter and the sugar together.

(I love my Kitchen Aid Mixer!)

Step 2: Add the egg and vanilla.

Step 3: Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together.

Step 4: Then mix it in with the wet ingredients.

Step 5: Roll our the dough to a standard 1/4 inch thickness.

Step 6: Using cookies cutters, cut out various shapes with shapes inside of them. We also used a knife for smaller shapes, like the heart in the cross. Place your cookies on a baking sheet LINED WITH PARCHMENT PAPER... just wanted to make sure you knew that this is important.

Step 7: Fill your inner shape with a layer of crushed up candies. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 6-10 minutes. Once the candies are melted, the cookies are ready, thus the huge span of cooking time. DO NOT LET THE CANDIES START TO BUBBLE!!!... just wanted to make sure you knew that this is REALLY important. If they start to bubble they will taste like burnt sugar, not good.

Step 8: Let them cool and enjoy!

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Good Friday

It has been a wonderful, reflective Good Friday in the Cotter home.

For breakfast we had the hot cross buns I made yesterday. We kept the frosting off of them for now, but what we didn't eat this morning will be frosted for Easter brunch.

Here's Bean enjoying one. In front of her is the back of the Last Supper craft she made yesterday. The disciples have been eating with us ever since.

We also started on another of Catholic Icing's Easter printables, a resurrection scene. We will use it
throughout these next few days to act out the stories of our Lord's death and resurrection. When we prayed the stations at noon today (using our stations box) the kids put Jesus on the cross...

and then after we came home from the passion service we took him down and laid Him in the tomb...

I bet you can guess what will happen on Easter Sunday!

After the passion service, in keeping with the tradition of many churches, we shrouded the images of Jesus in our home with purple cloth. This serves to remind us that we have entered into a solemn time as we await the resurrection of our Lord. The kids love this tradition of going on a "Jesus hunt". We will uncover all of the images on Easter morning with great joy!

We also made our traditional chocolate crown of thorns. The challenge is to not lick any chocolate off your fingers! On Easter we will fill the crown with eggs and turn it into a nest, symbolizing new life, and then thoroughly enjoy the treat. It's just pretzel sticks and chocolate almond bark, 2 squares does the trick.

Finally, today begins the Divine Mercy Novena. This is a particularly special year to take part in this devotion as Pope John Paul II will become a Blessed on Divine Mercy Sunday (the Sunday after Easter), which he officially instituted!

Unlike other novenas this one is not said for a personal intention, but for the intention of others. The prayer and novena intentions were given to St. Faustina from Jesus himself. He said to her "On each day of the novena you will bring to My heart a different group of souls and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy ... On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My passion, for the graces for these souls." You can find the prayers and intentions here at EWTN.

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Holy Thursday Unleavened Bread

Today on Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, we commemorate the Last Supper where Jesus institutes the Eucharist by giving us His body and blood in the forms of bread and wine.

While we don't celebrate a full Seder or Passover Meal at the Cotter home, we will be having unleavened bread and grape juice at dinner to remind us of this sacred gift. (When we were first married, we went out on Holy Thursday with some friends to a middle eastern restaurant to eat lamb which was pretty cool).

This recipe would not be a recipe you could use for communion bread because it has a few more ingredients than wheat flour and water, but for our purposes as a Last Supper reminder it works great.

Here is what you will need:

• 1 c. flour
• 1/3 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 5 T. butter 
• 4-5 T. milk

Step 1: Mix all of the dry ingredients.

Step 2: Cut in the butter with a pastry blender.

Step 3: Mix in the milk, until the dough is moist. You will need to use your hands towards the end.

Step 4: Roll dough onto a flour surface to 1/4 inch thickness.

Step 5: Bake in over at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Doesn't it look nice on my tray accented with grapes? Very fitting!

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