Most of the Convent Sisters love to cook and even those who may not, learn to, so that everyone can help prepare meals. All are encouraged to be creative, which makes for a great deal of variety in our menu. As a result, we can actually go around the world in a week without ever leaving home.
Thursday evening has been established as Italian night. Many sisters love Asian and Thai cooking. Mexican is a long-time favorite, and Sisters who have spent time in Germany, Korea, and India all like to have a chance to relive their experiences there through cooking dishes native to each country…..thus the great diversity of our meals. We never simply have “the same old thing.”
But one day a week we choose to have only very plain food. Basically bread, cheese, fruit, and a simple soup. This has led to baking many different kinds of bread and one of our favorites has become this beautiful Portuguese sweet bread.
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Rating: 3.71
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Portuguese Sweet Bread
SERVINGS5loaves
|
COOK TIME45-60minutes |
PREP TIME |
READY IN1-3hours |
Ingredients
Instructions
- Dissolve yeast in warm water, (not hot).
- Add warm milk and 1 Tablespoon sugar.
- Whisk together and set aside to proof yeast.
- In a separate bowl, add eggs, sugar, and lemon juice. Beat well and then add melted butter.
- Add yeast mixture, the remaining flour and salt.
- Mix well and let rest for 10 to 20 minutes.
- Continue mixing until dough begins to pull away from bowl or knead with greased hands until dough pulls away from your hands. This takes a while and the dough is sticky unlike bread dough.
- Place in greased bowl and cover to let rise to double, about 1 to 3 hours. Punch down, turn over, and let rise to double a second time.
- Carefully break away about 2/3 pound of dough at a time, rolling dough into a nice loaf shape and place into greased loaf pans. This should make about 5 to 7 nice loafs.
- Let rise until double in the pans for a third rising.
- Make two to three 1/4-inch slits on the top of each loaf and then brush tops with 1 beaten egg mixed with water
- Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes and then reduce heat to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit for another 25 to 30 minutes.
- Remove loaves from the oven and lay them on their side on a rack for a couple of minutes before removing from the pan.
It is so amazing to me how the humble little garbanzo bean has grown in popularity over recent years and so firmly established itself in our American diet. Because it is so rich in protein and fat free it is a healthy source of nourishment. Recent tests have now verified that adding garbanzos to one’s diet reduces, in many people, craving for other less wholesome foods. These little chickpeas, as some people prefer to call them, are a fantastic snack roasted in a little olive oil and sprinkled with onion salt or other favorite seasonings.
But our favorite way of having them at the convent is in the form of homemade hummus with pita pockets – when sisters see this on the lunch menu a cheer sounds throughout. Everyone goes away from the meal happy- including the kitchen crew because it is such an easy meal to prepare to eat and to clean up.
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Basic Plain Homemade Hummusv
SERVINGS
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COOK TIME |
PREP TIME |
READY IN |
Ingredients
Instructions
- Puree in food processor to desired taste and consistency.
What’s cool, fun, beautiful to look at, satisfying, refreshing, easy to eat, pleasing to young and old alike, simple to make, nutritious and delicious?
A smoothie of course! They have definitely established themselves in our normal everyday diet. No longer unusual as they originally were.
Recently a group of friends wanted to do a little something more than just give a gift to someone on their 60th birthday. This “someone”, having many friends and well wishes had already received a number of invitations to lunch, dinner, tea and coffee hours. What would be an appropriate way to enhance the giving of their gift? Aha! A “smoothie break”. Just right. Perfect in every way.
They knew their birthday girl loved fresh fruit so they arranged a beautiful basketful as a center piece. Then they blended up a tray full of assorted smoothies. For hers, they combined strawberries, bananas, mangoes and peaches, all her favorites. It was a tremendous success! She loved everything about it and made it very clear that it pleased her as much, if not more, than some of her more elaborate expressions of care. What a rewarding experience for all.
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Summer Smoothie
SERVINGS3cups
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COOK TIME |
PREP TIME |
READY IN |
Ingredients
Instructions
- Add ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.
- You will have to turn the blender on and off intermittently and stir to help the blending process.
- For variety: You can add any amount of yogurt, ice cream, mint, orange zest, honey or mint in any combination that you desire.
- Also fruit can be fresh if you prefer.
There is nothing like a hot fresh baked pie to warm the heart on a cold snowy winter night. So let’s have one for tonight’s dinner dessert and let’s make it simple and easy as possible. I can remember my mother often quickly and effortlessly mixing up a fruit pie just before dinner and serving it straight out of the oven as soon as we finished the main course. I seldom remember her making double crust pies with care crimped edges. More often than not, her pies were “open faced.” I always assumed she did them this way to save time, and perhaps that was her reason. However, years later I realized she was making a crostata even though she never called it that. I loved seeing the beautiful syrupy fruit bubbling up in the center of the perfectly golden crust. Now a days crostatas are popular. So tonight, let’s make the family happy with an easy to make old-world Peach Crostata.
Peach Crostata
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Votes: 2
Rating: 4.5
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Peach Crostata
SERVINGS
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COOK TIME52 - 63mins. |
PREP TIME |
READY IN |
Ingredients
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- On a lightly floured surface, place one pie crust on top of the other and roll the stack into one 16 inch circle.
- Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Spread 1/4 cup of the preserves on the crust, leaving a 2 inch border.
- In a large bowl, toss the peaches, flour, lemon juice and 3 Tablespoons of the sugar.
- Transfer to the crust, leaving the border clear.
- Fold the edges of the crust over the fruit mixture.
- Brush the egg on the crust and sprinkle with the remaining teaspoon of sugar.
- Bake until the crust is golden brown and the fruit is tender, 50 to 60 minutes.
- In a small saucepan, heat the remaining 2 Tablespoons of preserves and 1 Tablespoon of water over medium heat until liquid, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Brush on the fruit.
- Serve warm.
I’m often amazed at the speed with which different foods become popular once they are introduced to the public. Growing up we always had homemade Greek yogurt available in our refrigerator for snacks, desserts, or general cooking. (This was before it was sold commercially). A cup of fine demitasse and a little dish of yogurt topped with a spoonful of homemade peach or cherry preserves was a typical dessert at our house. Often we had crumbled Feta cheese in our scrambled eggs for breakfast, and almost daily sprinkled it on our salad. None of my friends had it at their homes. Back then it literally was “foreign” to them. Today it’s very common. You can seldom make your way through a homemaker’s magazine without finding Feta cheese sprinkled somewhere on something! Here is a dish using both Feta cheese and yogurt that was once considered out of the ordinary and is now a familiar favorite of many. This is Spanakopita, Greek spinach pie… a healthy, flavorful, easy to make meatless meal.
Spanakopita (spinach pie)
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Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)
SERVINGS15servings
|
COOK TIME25 - 30mins. |
PREP TIME |
READY IN |
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Wash spinach, cut off stems, dry and chop.
- Brown scallions in 1/2 cup olive oil until tender.
- Combine spinach, mint, parsley, cheese, yogurt, lemon peel, lemon juice and add beaten eggs.
- Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well.
- Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan and begin by layering one phyllo sheet, brush with butter/olive oil mixture.
- Continue for 10 layers then spread with the spinach mixture.
- Top with remaining sheets each brushed with the butter/olive oil mixture.
- Score the top into diamonds.
- Bake 25-30 minutes until golden on top.
