Holy Thursday

According to the Roman Catholic tradition, after Holy Thursday mass, Lent is over. Now, normally this is because mass is right before sundown and passover begins. :-) However, we had mass at work at 11 am. :-) It was great since the hall we used was right above the cafeteria. Right after mass, I ran down the stairs and bought tater tots and chicken nuggets. I hadn't had either in a very long time. It wasn't great (cafeteria food) but it was nice not to get a salad for once.

I didn't get a cake because I knew I had this waiting for me at home:



Chocolate covered strawberries!!!!! Yummy!

Oh and:



Mini cake pops!

A few weeks ago, Amazon had a "local" deal- spend $15, get $30 worth of chocolate covered strawberries. Honestly, I forgot about it until I got an email reminding I had to use it before April 8th. I figured that a good way to celebrate the end of the medieval diet would be with my favorite food, chocolate covered strawberries.

Since then, I've been eating a lot of fun stuff - to the point I made myself sick on Sunday. Easter weekend was a blast - really, one of the best Easters I've ever had. I did have to buy my own Easter candy -which is sad- but it's super yummy. Vegan chocolate covered marshmallow chicks are freakin delicious. To the point even the carnivores in my family loved them. I can't eat normal marshmallows since they are made with corn syrup. Vegan candy tends not to include corn (it's not "natural" unlike cane sugars) so I eat a lot of it. I'm allergic to corn (it's not super serious but it's annoying enough to avoid it).

I really did like the medieval lent diet. I learned a lot and it helped to make me very excited about Easter. It was NOT easy but it was manageable. I'm not sure I'll try it again -although I like the idea of eating seafood all late winter/early spring long - I enjoy potatoes too much. :-) I might try just doing the fish thing next year and not actually go with pre-17th C recipes.

Some things that helped me get through this were my friends and family of course. :-) It was wonderful that they were all very understanding during this season. I know it wasn't easy on any of you either. ;-) But also hot chocolate and salads, believe it or not. I think not having sweets restricted other than the pre-17th Century rules was VERY useful. I could have sugar and I could have apple fritters. If I wanted chocolate, hot chocolate was always available. I think the salad helped so much because it had a)salt and b) was something very familiar in taste and look. It never took long to prepare either.

This was definitely a different take on Lent for me this year and I'm glad I did it and I'm glad it's over. I'm just disappointed that I might have a milk allergy. Grr... Luckily, it's not serious and I'm just going to have to be aware of it for my own cooking. I'm not going to worry when I go out - I'll just take allergy pills.

Last Lenten Dinner

I decided to try trout and saw this recipe:

This is an excerpt from Libre del Coch
(Spain, 1520 - Robin Carroll-Mann, trans.)
The original source can be found at Mark S. Harris' Florilegium

183. Trout in crust or roasted or boiled. The trout must be scaled, and if you wish to make it in crust, cast in pepper and a little ginger. And if you wish to cook it in some other manner, such as roasted or boiled, cause water to boil in a casserole, and cast in the trout. And when it is almost half cooked, cast in a little salt so that it should have good flavor. And then cast a half glass of vinegar into the casserole, because the vinegar will make it firm, so that it shouldn't break; and eat it with pepper, and with a little broth of the pot or of the casserole itself.

And if they want to eat it roasted, it must be eaten with orange juice and water and salt and a little oil, and all the good herbs; and prepare the plate of the roast trout. And cast this juice on top of everything. And know that the best morsel of it is the snout.

I really liked the idea of broiling it in OJ, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and a seeing how it would come out. I did a half and half of OJ and water with a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. The good herbs were cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The recipe was good but the fish, itself, wasn't. I think I just had it in the freezer too long. I'd love to try it again some day with fresh trout.

I also had rice and carrots which was great.

By Tuesday evening, I was so excited for Lent be over, I was like a kid before Christmas. Easter really ended up being joyful which, sort of, is the point of the entire Lenten season - to prepare for Easter and realize the joyful occasion it is supposed to be. Plus, I learned that, yes, I have yet another food allergy. Grr...

More posts to come!

Monday and Tuesday

Monday was some minor snacking on my now amazing collection of walnuts, pretzels, raisins, and crystallized ginger at my work desk. I think I'll keep up having all of these as part of a snack collection because they are a)good, b)last a heck of a lot longer than a candy bar, c) good for you, and d)cheap.

I also had a salad I brought from home. It was just green stuffs (spinach and the purple lettuce I like), carrots, and sliced almond. I also brought my own salad dressing which was nothing more than olive oil and red wine vinegar with salt and pepper.

For dinner, I cooked up my rice in almond milk. It took 20 minutes and was exactly what I needed. This means that there was probably something wrong with the rice Mom got on Friday. :-) She threw it out because we weren't sure. I added a bit too much cinnamon but it was still tasty.

Today I was in too a rush to make lunch so I've been snaking on the amazing collection which is fine. I also had a peach tea and a lot of water.

I'm not sure about dinner tonight. I have a LOT of sewing that needs to get done so I'm thinking something simple like toast and jam with a salad. This means stopping by the grocery store since I ran out of salad. Hmmm...