Eggs and Pure Prayer

On the Wednesday following the Sunday of the Pharisee and Publican, your breakfast might look something like this:

Have I ever told you how much I love my cast iron griddle?  It has a "grill line" side too.

And your spiritual reflections might be fed by something like this:

Three Characteristics of Christian Prayer
(a meditation on the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, by Fr. Patrick Reardon)

Good Point

"If you're becoming Orthodox and you're becoming a jerk, you're not doing it right."  Fr. William Christ, Orthodoxy in the Home Online Conference

Dn. Andrew and I enjoyed listening to Illumination Learning's Orthodoxy in the Home Online Conference this evening, and we're looking forward to tomorrow's speakers.

I hope Illumination Learning will make the DVD available to purchase later on because it's going to be a fantastic resource!

Did you have a favorite point this evening?

Registration Complete! ***Additional thought...

Are you?  I'm getting excited for this!

Leave me a comment if you are attending!

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Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity to kick off my planned Orthodox Home series of posts?  Or even, possibly, some real-time blogging?  We'll see what I can manage with a home full of kids and all.

L'Oven

I love finding me a new, good blog.  It's almost like finding a new friend.  Or maybe like stalking a new friend, but whatever.  Something clicks.

Allow me to introduce to any of you who are unfamiliar, Oven Love!

I have to admit that I stumbled upon this particular blog when I searched for a recipe for Homemade Spaghetti O's.  I don't even remember having this much as a child, really.  And I didn't like tomato sauce that much, so why would I have had it?

Regardless, recently, my brother recently moved in with us and brought a few bags of dry goods with him.  One little box contained Creamette "rings."  I actually sort of laughed.  Who buys rings?  What do you do with them?  But then I thought of Spaghetti O's.  So I added them to Beef and Slaw Soup.  And then I needed more.

I'm working on my Lenten Menu (can it be so close?), and one of the lunches I had down from last year was Quick Mac and Cheese (which is a genius recipe of my own creation), but unfortunately, my middle child has decided since then that she doesn't like cheese.  Well, she didn't really like cheese then either, but I don't think she realized that "Macaroniandcheese" had cheese in it.  Too bad.

Answer, Spaghetti O's!  (I hope.)

Here is the recipe that looks so simple and promising:


Oven Love's Homemade Spaghetti O's
(Caveat: above recipe has dairy, so may not fit your Lenten needs.)

That is one in a series of homemade convience foods:
Oven Love's Pre-Made Our Way Series

Here's a list of her upcoming posts for the year:
Oven Love's The Great Food Adventure 2011

And finally, some truly hunger-inducing photos and recipes:
Oven Love's Superbowl Friendly Recipes

Prepare to be hungry!  And inspired!

Winter Sunshine

Perusing one of my favorite blogs, Like Mother Like Daughter, and I just read this:

So much of how we live the spiritual side of our lives as mothers and wives has to do with how we live the feeding and clothing side. Since that's inescapable, I long ago decided to embrace it.

That is one of the reasons I love her blog.  Down to earth, traditional Christian, practical, and so sweet!  The post that quote is from is something like preparing for Easter or something (which, crazily enough, isn't as far away as it seems!) but that little paragraph leaped out at me.

It's a good day here.  Sunshine is streaming through the windows, the kids all slept in this morning, so I could take a shower and blow dry my hair, and the house looks so clean and spacious after removing the Christmas decorations.  Plus, I just started a seasonally appropriate decorating project that I'll share with you when I've finished it.  It's great to have a project to work on when you don't feel like reading and learning something any more.  Use your hands!  I now have a craft cabinet, a craft bag (alas, full of unfinished Christmas ornament presents that are slowly being finished—should I mail them out super late, or send them along next year?), and a basket full of my aforementioned project in progress.

There's a sneak peak into my project.  Can you guess what it is?  There's another hint in the top photo.  Look above the TV.

All these physical things contribute to my good mood.  The clean house, the ongoing project, the sunshine.  I can't just think myself into a good frame of mind.  I can't ignore these physical things and their impact on my soul—which is I think what Dear Aunty Leila was saying with those two little sentences quoted above.

Anyway, it is now 10AM and time for some small amount of school here.  Some letter practice, a math activity (butterfly mosaics? board games? Cuisinaire rods?). We read about Saint Simeon from Christina's True Heros, by Maria Khoury during breakfast this morning.  Maybe we'll get some kind of project or activity in this afternoon, but it doesn't usually happen.  I do want to continue working on our Creation Book from The Garden of the Theotokos curriculum.  We'll finish it eventually.

Hope you are all staying warm and cozy in spite of this:

A photo of our street from the recent Thundersnowpocalypse on Wednesday morning.

Happy Feast of the Presentation!

Baked Oatmeal

I first discovered this dish at Covenant Point Bible Camp.  I still remember one of the counselors declaring that it would sit in your stomach for hours.  (I think in a good way!)  I can't remember if it was at a summer camp or one of their winter weekends, but it seems made for Winter.   I seem to recall a generous layer of some kind of brown sugar topping on their version.  Maybe I'll try to recreate that some day.  That would probably involve using a little less sweetener in the Baked Oatmeal itself.

This recipe serves about four hungry adults and at least two kids five or under.  :)

Preheat oven to 350º. Grease an 8x8 pyrex dish.

Mix dry ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 to 1 c. brown sugar (I use 1/2c.)*
2tsp. baking powder
1tsp. cinnamon
1tsp. salt

Mix wet ingredients:
1c. applesauce
1tsp. vanilla
2 eggs (or 2 eggs worth egg replacer)
1/2c. rice milk (or milk)
*We were out of brown sug today, so I subbed 1/2c. honey + 1/4c. maple syrup, mixed with the wet ingredients. It was a little too sweet, but the flavor was great!

Combine thoroughly and pour into prepared pan. Bake 20 to 30 minutes. A tester poked in the middle will not come out completely clean, but cook it until it is as solid (or as browned) as you like.  (Probably any more than 30 minutes is too much, though.)

Optional: You can also stir into the batter 1/2 to 1c. blueberries/cranberries/nuts/raisins/etc., but my kids like everything plain these days. Sigh.

Eat warm with milk poured over it and with other toppings of choice. :)
 
(With various substitutions, this can be Lenten!  I originally googled this hoping for a vegan version.  This was my favorite because it used a lot of oats and has a good flavor.  It doesn't rise as high with the egg replacer, but it is quite good that way.)

(This is my reworking of a this recipe.)