Food & Recipes

Today is our Holy Father’s last day as Pope. There is so much coverage, from television to people writing, tweeting and talking about it, I can’t even process it. I did my part for the Twitter storm #ThanksPontifex, though others were much more eloquent in 140 characters or less.

When my teen came down for school this morning, holding her BXVI sweatshirt from Catholic Girl Apparel to wear at play practice after school, she expressed a little wistfulness that she probably couldn’t wear it after today. So I knew we had to make this event in the life of the Church our family’s experience too. And fortunately, a lot of resources are out there for families, kids or just interested adults, to learn more about this process and the Holy Father.

160b16-f-H-Girly_s — I think she can still keep wearing it, but maybe that’s just me?

One thing I remember vividly from when Blessed John Paul II died and Benedict XVI was elected was how much television (EWTN, mostly) we watched at that time.

We had a French teenager named Aude living with us at the time. It was interesting to have someone from Europe with us at that time, and seeing the Church as a truly universal Church. One of Aude’s French friends shared with us this great mix song, “Habemus Papem (Benedictus Mix).” I still sometimes play it on runs if I want to go a little faster. It’s catchy:

We didn’t do a lot of schoolwork those days, but looking back I’m enormously grateful we spent a lot of time praying for JPII, praying for the conclave, and just exploring it through watching television (and in smaller way, checking out websites, but the Internet is much bigger and better now). I also worked on a scrapbook of that time, and looking through it these days brings me back to those days.

When Cardinal Ratzinger was announced as the new Holy Father, I remember Aude was sitting with the girls on a little red IKEA kids couch we had at the time, and the three of them were so excited that the couch fell over backwards. I don’t have a photo of that in my scrapbook, but it’s in my memory. Here are some pages from the scrapbook.

Now that my kids are all readers and writers and do-ers, so what are we doing to mark this historic transition for the Church? I won’t be doing a physical scrapbook this time, though perhaps I will find some digital ways to remember, like here.

Here are some ideas we are picking and choosing from:

Meg of Held by His Pierced Hands had a super-fun round-up of ways to “teach the conclave.” So far, we’ve laughed at the “conclave” photo and those of us home right now have “adopted” a cardinal.

After visiting the very simple Adopt a Cardinal website, our random pairing gave us Sean Brady of Ireland, Jean-Claude Turcotte of Canada, and Luis Antonio Tagle. If you do the Adopt-a-Cardinal at your house, will you share in the comments who you received?

The brand-new “Electing the Pope” website by Dorian Speed (and a great group of contributors) is also interesting to explore, though I must say we haven’t spent much time there yet. I’m sure it will be a great resource for it when the conclave starts in a few days.

I tweeted just after BXVI announced his retirement: “Looking for another intention to pray for this Lent? @pontifex resigning and the election of a new Pope is a good start.”

I want to continue to have that spirit this Lent, to pray and sacrifice both for Benedict XVI in retirement, the college of cardinals as they select a new pope, and for the new pope himself. My goal is also for the kids in our house to remember these days, not just prayer but the fun of exploring and learning about it.

Are you doing anything special to mark this important day and this time in the life of our Church?

All month long, I’ve been promising to myself make the fusion fajitas that Father Leo Patalinghug beat Food TV Chef Bobby Flay on the “Throwdown” show. We have watched the episode plenty of times at our house, especially after Father Leo appeared at our parish in May. What an exciting time we had meeting him in person.

The fusion fajitas appear in Father Leo’s new edition of Grace Before Meals, his cookbook that encourages families to eat and talk together. Here’s my review from The Catholic Post of Father Leo’s book Grace Before Meals.

The fajitas are thinly sliced flank steak along with sautéed onions & peppers, and served with “Holy Guacamole” and “Screamin’ Sour Cream” dip, and tortillas.

But it’s been a busy month, and I kept making “the usuals.” Finally, last week I bought the ingredients (many perishable) so I would be sure to make them. Flank steak was the hardest to obtain; I finally had to settle for skirt steak from a local specialty grocery store, Lindy’s, in a nearby town. The helpful staff assured me it would substitute nicely.

So finally, last Wednesday I decided was “the day.”

I assembled the ingredients on the kitchen table. I thought that would be easier than taking things out one by one, and also I am prone to sometimes famously forget a critical ingredient when I cook (oops! That hummus doesn’t have any lemon juice! Not so great, trust me).

Next, I mixed up the marinade for the steak and poured it over the steak, reserving some of the marinade to cook the onions & peppers in.

My youngest helped “tenderize” the meat with a fork. He is saying here, a direct and favorite quote from Father Leo from the “Throwdown” episode, “I don’t want to make it too holy–that’s God’s job.”

Now the steak gets to sit in the marinade while I make the rest of the items. I was surprised at how much brown sugar (1 cup) was in the marinade, but I don’t often marinade so what would I know?

Next, onto the “Holy Guacamole.” I started by juicing one lime:

Next, I chopped up two avocados (I’m not sure if I’m spelling the word right, but adding an “e” triggered spellcheck), and immediately poured the lime juice over them to prevent browning:

Next, finely chopped red onion:

Now, some parsley, cilantro and salt is added to the mix and it is all smashed together.

Now it’s time to make the Screaming Sour Cream: basically sour cream mixed with hot sauce, garlic and a few other ingredients. Here it is before mixing:

Now, the reason I am a book blogger and not a food blogger should be evident by the fact that I lost steam around here and needed to get “dinner on the table,” and so did not take photos of lighting the charcoal for the grill, grilling the steak and letting it rest, sautéing the vegetables (though the chopped ones are visible in the last photo), etc., etc.

But I did finish the fusion fajitas, and we did have them for dinner. They were very yummy:

Not everyone tried all of the fajitas as prepared, as I might have predicted. The skirt steak was a big hit, as were some of the other items. I filled out the table with refried beans (popular at our house scooped up with tortilla chips), a couple of cheese quesadillas, and some tortilla chips. Everyone ate well and we had a relatively placid dinner and fun talking about Father Leo.

What I have to confess here is that I ended up making the “fusion fajitas” was towards the end of a day I felt convinced I am a failure as a wife and mother. Ever have a day like that? Last Wednesday was one of those for me. Everyone, just everyone, in our house, yelled and was in tears for goodly portions of that day. The only reason my husband escaped this fate is he had the great good fortune to go to work, but since he still was available via phone and email he did learn about our exploits at various points.

It was one of those truly horrible days that instead of loving the lifestyle of educating our children at home and being with my children all.the.time, I start researching boarding schools in New Zealand. That is my big, laughing joke when chatting about homeschooling, “Yes, I love it, except on days when I want to send my children to a boarding school in New Zealand!” And yet, there are days when that is not a joke.

Anyway, I wish I could say that making the fusion fajitas and eating them together as a family made everything terrific for the ending of that day, but it didn’t exactly do that.

However, it did make it a little bit better. I didn’t feel quite so much of a complete failure because I tried a new recipe, had fun taking photos of it (until I ran out of time and needed to get dinner finished), and had more of a fun story to tell my husband at the table than a re-hash of the horrible day.

Maybe that’s what family meals together are supposed to do: make things a little better, make us connect just a little bit more so we don’t despair about the inevitable bad days and bickering that goes on in families.

I think I might try to try one new complete meal recipe, along the lines of Father Leo’s Fusion Fajitas, once a month or so. But next time, I’m going to do it on a good day.

Do you have any full-meal recipes I should try? Or, better yet, any good New Zealand boarding schools to recommend?

Celebrating @Pontifex and the Conclave at our House

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