Desert Spirituality, but with toppings…

Peperonata (Stock photo, not mine)

Fast(ing) Food department: During the Fast, it’s good not only to keep the letter but to simplify and reduce our diet a bit.
 A typical meal for the Desert Fathers might be a bowl of lentils, with salt if they had some. I’m not ready for that, but it’s true that a simple bowl of rice and/or legumes makes a fine Lenten meal once we’ve bowed to our carnal nature and added some flavor.
 I’ve been making a habit of keeping some of this peperonata around. it’s really tasty and can be used as a topping on rice, beans or pasta.

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• Heat up some oil in a big skillet.
• Add 1 onion, chopped, and 3 bell peppers, chopped. Add salt, maybe 1 teaspoon. You can use green peppers, but the whole thing is much nicer to look at if you use red and yellow peppers. If you want to make it spicier, add black pepper, a big pinch of red pepper flakes, and/or a squirt of Sriracha sauce. Simmer over medium heat, stirring often, until the onion and peppers are softened.
• Add 1 (14.5 ounce) can of diced tomatoes. Throw in some of your favorite herbs, whatever they are.  Simmer, stirring from time to time, until a lot of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is thick. Toward the end of cooking, stir in 2 or 3 chopped garlic cloves. (Garlic keeps its flavor much better if you don’t cook it for long.)

This is simplified from Martha Rose Shulman’s The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking.

Do not call God just

Do not hate the sinner, for we are all laden with guilt. If for the sake of God you are moved to oppose him, weep over him. Why do you hate him? Hate his sins and pray for him, that you may imitate Christ Who was not wroth with sinners, but interceded for them. Do you not see how He wept over Jerusalem? …
 Why, O man, do you hate the sinner? Could it be because he is not so righteous as you? But where is your righteousness when you have no love?…
 Be a herald of God’s goodness, for God rules over you, unworthy though you are. Although your debt to Him is so very great, He is not seen exacting payment from you; and from the small works you do, He bestows great rewards on you.
 Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you.

– Saint Isaac of Syria, Ascetical Homily #51

An anniversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the end of NATO’s bombing of Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999. (It was also the end of NATO’s status as an organization dedicated to the defense of its member nations, none of whom were threatened.) The bombing continued around the clock for 78 days beginning March 24.

I won’t go into the military, political or humanitarian arguments for this campaign, but wanted to note one thing.

In spite of the combined appeals of virtually every Orthodox hierarch in the world, NATO refused to suspend its bombing of Serbia for one day on Pascha of that year, so that the Orthodox people of Serbia might have one day to worship Christ’s holy Resurrection in peace.

God notices these things, though they may not seem significant by the world’s measures. When we look at political events, we don’t often think of God’s blessing nations, or of His withdrawing His blessing from them.

But if you think that things have not been going well for our country in the years since 1999, this might be something to remember.

Kolyva

The Lenten season includes several “Soul Saturdays,” marked by special services for the departed. It’s customary to bring a platter of Kolyva, made from boiled whole wheat kernels, which the priest blesses and which is then shared out among those present. The grains of wheat bring to mind Christ’s words “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” [Jn 12:24, ESV].

This year I decided to try my hand at Kolyva, and it came out pretty well, so I share the recipe here. There’s a wide range of national and family variants of the basic concept, ranging from stark piles of boiled wheat to elaborate cake-like confections. I hope this is a middle-of-the-road version.

Whole wheat kernels aren’t usually sold in grocery stores. I ordered a five-pound bag of Palouse Brand wheat through Amazon, and was happy with it.

This is smaller than many recipes: it nicely filled a 1 1/2 – quart oval casserole.

Kolyva
Boiling the wheat is the only cooking in the recipe; the rest is just assembly.

Put 2 cups whole wheat kernels in a saucepan with 4–6 cups of water and about 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until some of the kernels begin to split open; then simmer a while longer, until the kernels are soft, not chewy. This will probably take more than an hour. I’m told you can speed up the process by soaking the wheat overnight before cooking it.

Drain the wheat. Put it in a large mixing bowl and stir in:

• 2 Tbsp sesame seeds
• 6 oz. finely-chopped nuts (I used cashews & pecans)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup honey

In other recipes, I’ve seen cocoa powder, star anise, etc. listed as ingredients; suit yourself.

Arrange the mixture in a casserole or cake pan, or mound it neatly on a platter.

Sprinkle the kolyva with enough powdered sugar that it looks white. Decorate with raisins and nuts. It’s customary to include a Cross design in the decoration. Though I’ve seen things like chocolate chips (dairy-free?) and Jordan almonds on Kolyva, I had hoped to avoid using any candy. In one photo of a large, beautiful Greek kolyva I saw a red cross made out of some small red fruit, maybe red currants. I was determined to have a red cross too, but couldn’t find any small red fruits that would work, so I ended up using the bright red cinnamon candies often sold as “Red Hots.” The result looked very nice, but my plan to avoid candy was defeated. Maybe you can do better.

In our church, a lit candle is put in the center of the Kolyva during the memorial service, so you may want to leave a space for a candle in your design.

Serving: Kolyva doesn’t hold together well; it’s usually spooned out into small dishes or cups and eaten with a spoon.

Spicy Potatoes and Peas

Recently we found ourselves with a lot of potatoes in the house, so let’s enjoy them, shall we?
This is a generalization of an Arthur Schwartz recipe, from his What to Cook: When You Think There’s Nothing in the House to Eat, which I’ve praised before and am happy to praise again.

The general idea is this:
• In a pot, make a spicy tomato sauce;
• Cook some sliced potatoes in the sauce;
• Add some frozen peas at the end, cook them just enough.

Here are the details for this very simple, tasty meal:

In a decent-sized saucepan, heat several tablespoons of oil. Add:
• 1 Tablespoon chopped ginger;
• 1 onion, finely chopped;
• 2 Tablespoons curry powder;
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or a generous squirt of Sriracha sauce;
• A couple of cloves of garlic, finely chopped.

If you’re in a really big hurry, the onion and garlic could be skipped.

Let this sizzle at medium heat until the onion is transparent. Or, turn the heat down and cook it very gently unti the onion is nice and brown.

Make a tomato sauce, in one of several ways:
• Add a couple of Tablespoons of tomato paste and maybe 1 1/2 cups of water, mix well; OR
• Add a large can of tomatoes and simmer until it’s broken down into a sauce-like consistency; OR
• Add about 1 1/2 cups of bottled spaghetti sauce.

Let the sauce simmer gently.
While it’s simmering, cut up about 4 medium-sized potatoes into sticks, about the shape of fat french fries.

Throw the potatoes into the sauce, put a lid on the pot, and simmer gently for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.

Add about 2 cups of frozen peas, or one whole 10-ounce package. Cover and return to a simmer. Cook just until the peas are tender, no more than a minute.

Serve! If you have it, you can top with fresh chopped parsley or mint. If you’ve done this right, it won’t be one big pot of (tasty!) mush, but a pretty bowl of potato sticks and bright green peas in a red tomato sauce. Mmmmmm…

Are potatoes evil? Some “experts” say that potatoes, along with white rice and white flour, are harmful because they have a high glycemic index. (They can’t say that potatoes are highly processed, can they?) I’m not so sure about this glycemic index business. The people of southeast Asia subsist on white rice (bad, supposedly) with various toppings, and you’d have to travel far to find a fat or diabetic person in some Burmese village. So, for now, we follow the age-old advice to eat sparingly or inexpensive, close-to-the-earth foods — such as potatoes.

Little-known fact: Celery is a vegetable

We tend to think of celery as little more than a source of crunchiness in salads, but it is in fact a vegetable.

Today I was looking through the refrigerator and found that, like many refrigerators, it had a half-used, wilted bunch of celery lurking in the bottom of the crisper.

Since something had to be done with it, I chopped the celery up along with an onion, put the mixture in a skillet along with a few spoonfuls of canned tomato, added some soy sauce and pepper. I kept the skillet hot until the onions were transparent and everything was sizzling nicely, then turned the heat to low, covered the skillet and went away for about 20 minutes. When I came back the mixture was nicely cooked. The vegetables had given off quite a lot of juice, so I turned the heat up again and stirred them, uncovered, until the liquid had mostly cooked away. Then I served the mixture over rice. Very tasty!

And there, in narrative form, is a recipe for Hot Celery Lunch.

Another Lent

I notice that there haven’t been any posts here since near the end of last year’s Great Fast. But here we are again, so it’s time to post again.

During Lent, my family and I aim for meals that are austere without being unappealing, so many of the “recipes” posted here are hardly recipes at all — just thoughts about combining ingredients into simple and (I hope) fairly tasty meals. Simplicity is important not only because it’s an expression of the Lenten spirit, but because the many church services often leave us with less time to cook.

I’ve tried to make this blog look a bit austere too, almost the antithesis of a Food Blog: no statements that recipes are To Die For, and especially none of the food photography that some people call “food porn.” Many modern cookbooks are essentially photo albums with some recipes around the edges, and I try not to follow their example.

May we all have a blessed and fruitful 2013 Lenten Season.

A fruitful Lent to all

If a man takes refuge from the tempest in this harbor,
will he not be saved?
If in his agony he kneels before this house of healing,
will he not be cured?
O Maker of all and Physician of the sick,
before I perish utterly,
save me, O Lord.

— Penitential sticheron for Lenten Sunday Vespers, Tone 4

A Lenten Challenge

This was first written with my own parish in mind, but I post it here with the thought that it might apply more widely.

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A Lenten Challenge
¶ During the Great Fast, the Church invites us to struggle harder and to pray more fervently for our salvation and spiritual growth. As part of its invitation, the Church offers us a wealth of services every week of the Fast to help us draw closer to our Lord. As anyone who attends these services can tell you, not all of us take advantage of them: attendance is often quite poor.
¶ May I offer a challenge for this Lenten season? Come to at least one Lenten service every week of the Great Fast. (The Sunday Divine Liturgy isn’t really a Lenten service and doesn’t count!). Many, but not nearly all, of our faithful already do more than this. God will surely bless them for their faithfulness.
¶ Anyone who can get to church has the ability to meet this very modest challenge. Do we tell ourselves that we’re “too busy” to fit in even one weekday service? Perhaps we have filled our lives with other activities, but in doing so we have said about each activity: “This is more important than church.” This is a delusion.
¶ Here is a bonus challenge:

Weapon of peace

The Kontakion to the Cross hails it as “Weapon of peace and unconquerable standard of victory.” These seemingly paradoxical words came to my mind as I read this remarkable story by Archimandrite Ambrose Pogodin from the current Orthodox Life (January-February 2013). ¶ Even though the story is long for a blog post, I give it here in full with the kind permission of the publisher, Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY. Do your soul a favor and subscribe to this edifying journal. (Subscribe here. $22 annually in the US.)

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One of my parishioners told me the story of his cross. Here it is in his own words.
  I was born in the USSR. My father was the chairman of a kolhoz and my mother was a schoolteacher. My father was a Communist Party member, while my mother was a leader in the komsomol. I was raised in the spirit of materialism. My grandmother was the only religious one. When no one was at home, as we huddled together on the stove, she taught me to pray; and, to tell the truth, what she told me was much closer to my heart and understanding than that which I heard from my parents. My grandmother — who, as I later found out, baptized me without my parents’ knowledge — died when I was still quite young. Yet those few prayers that she had taught me remained etched in my memory for a long time, as among the few beautiful things that I chanced to experience in my younger years. Yes, perhaps these were the only beautiful things in my life.