Something different

Although Lent is supposed to be a time of simple eating, we’ve been eating well. I've baked more bread and muffins and tried new recipes: Last night it was chicken and pasta with a peanut sauce from our favorite easy cookbook, Southern Living Kids Cookbook, adapted for what we had on hand. The sauce is mostly soy sauce (1/2 c), a little sesame oil (2 or 3 tsp), and peanut butter (about ½ c) whisked together (I eyeballed the quantity because I was doubling the chicken and pasta). Then add shredded carrots and chopped peanuts. The recipe called for red pepper and green onion, neither of which I had, so I used finely chopped yellow onion and edamame. I loved it, and 4 out of 6 kids gave it a thumbs up.

The same response was merited by “Papa with Chakalaka” a recipe from the CRS rice bowl. For the papa you were supposed to make corn meal and round it into balls, but I was out of cornmeal, so I made grits to serve under the chakalaka, which is basically a sweet/spicy bean mix: You sauté onion and bell pepper in oil, add a diced chili pepper (I just used chili powder and a few pepper flakes) 2 tomatoes (I used a can of diced tomatoes), a grated carrot and a large can of baked beans, to which you add a hearty dose of curry powder and simmer for 15 minutes (or 45 like me because your son has a friend over, so you decide to make macaroni and cheese as a back up.)

My other experiment was with beef barley soup. I had some leftover chuck roast and cabbage after cooking for the priests at our parish. (Various volunteers cook for them on Saturdays. I tried to make an Irish meal, since 3 of 6 are Irish: roast, bubble and squeak, green beans, and Irish soda bread, which I could eat like cake. The Notre Dame coffee shop used to sell this dense, sweet hunk of soda bread, and I was so addicted to it that I wrote the food service and asked for the recipe. I was surprised when they sent it to me, but mine is never quite so dense as theirs because I can’t bring myself to bake with lard.) Anyway, in the soup the fat off the chuck roast soaked into the barley and the cabbage soaked in the flavor, too, so the end result was stewlike. Hearty and filling, but the cabbage and barley seemed to add a little Lenten spirit. And again, 4 out of 6 kids approved. The other 2 would be happy to exist on mac and cheese and peanut butter for the rest of their lives.