Wonderful for a summer barbeque when you’re feeding lots of hungry mouths.
Recipe from Ptelea

1 head lettuce, washed
1 cup celery, diced
4 eggs, hard cooked and diced
1 – 300 g package frozen peas (not cooked) – I think I use about ¾ of a cup.
½ cup green or red pepper, diced
1 sweet onion, medium size, diced
8 slices bacon, fried and crumbled
2 cups mayonnaise
2 tbsp. sugar
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups croutons

Tear lettuce into small pieces and put in 9 x 12″ dish. Layer the rest in the order given. Add sugar to mayonnaise and mix well. Spread over top as frosting. Top with cheese. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Do not mix. Sprinkle with croutons just before serving. I also waited until just before serving to put the cheese on.

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From my family’s kitchen

1 chicken, cut into parts
Chicken stock (optional)
½ can of roux
2 large onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 lb. plain smoked sausage, sliced into coins
Cajun seasoning
Salt/pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder

Fill a large soup pot 1/3 full of water and/or chicken stock. Heat to boiling and add roux, stirring constantly for 5 – 10 min until all clumps of roux are completely dissolved. Stop stirring and allow the roux mixture to boil until it is frothing. Once this starts, let it continue for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add chopped sausages and vegetables, holding back a small handful of the green onions. Give it a stir and then season. Let it all come to a boil again, turn the fire down to medium and cook down for 30 minutes. Add chicken, return to boiling, turn fire to medium and cook for 45 minutes until chicken is cooked. As chicken is cooking, skim off any brown imperfections or excess oil and discard.

Keep fire on medium to low heat. Remove and cool chicken, then de-bone the meat and return it to the pot. Taste the gumbo and season again, if necessary. When seasoning is perfect, add in the reserved fresh green onions about ten minutes before serving. Serve over white rice in bowls.

Notes:
Be very sure to purchase plain smoked pork sausage without cheese or Italian herbs. Check the ingredients list if the name is ambiguous. Herbs will wreck the flavor of the gumbo.

A large soup pot means something 6 to 8 quarts in size.

Either homemade or canned chicken stock can be used, but the canned stock might be salty so I would not include salt in the first seasoning. I usually used a half and half combination of water and stock to start the gumbo.

I often used all dark meat to make this gumbo – chicken legs with the back attached – but it is traditionally prepared with the whole chicken. You choose according to your family’s taste. Any combination of parts equal to the weight of one chicken would work.

My dad’s rule of thumb for seasoning was one good sprinkle across the entire surface of the pot. So the first time the recipe says to season – give a good sprinkle of Cajun seasoning and a lighter sprinkle of the salt, pepper, garlic and onion powders as they are all contained in the Cajun seasoning. Once the chicken is cooked and the recipe says to season again, the gumbo usually needs salt and Cajun spice. Mine usually got a bit more of all the other seasonings as well, but it depends on what you give it the first time. It will be a learning process to get your taste buds adjusted to which seasoning is needed, but try to make it taste like mine and when unsure, give a pinch of one thing, let it cook for ten minutes and taste again to see if you got it right. If not, add a different one and repeat the cooking and tasting again. Too, remember that individuals can always add more hot sauce and Cajun seasoning to their own bowls. You do need a certain amount of spice to give the gumbo it’s proper flavor but there’s no need make it very spicy in the pot, especially if you’re serving children.

The brown “imperfections” I mention in the recipe looks like brown goop on the surface. Sometimes there is very little and sometimes there is a ton, but it should come out before serving. Regarding the oil, there should be only a thin layer so remove any more than that.

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As it appeared in the March 1975 Madonna House Restoration newspaper

by Catherine Doherty

I believe it might be timely for Easter recipes.

I am giving you the whole story of Easter cooking as it is recorded in our “Book of Customs.” We have quite a few customs accumulated in the 25 years of our apostolate. Amongst them festive foods.

Koolich – Russian Easter Bread
For a family of four to six

5 lbs. flour
10 eggs
1 qt. of milk (you might need a wee bit less or more)
1 to 2 lbs. of sugar (depending if you like your bread sweet, or not too sweet)
½ lbs. melted butter
1 cup raisins
½ cup of peel
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup blanched chopped almonds
2 packages fast rising yeast
1 tablespoon cardamom seed with icing sugar
2 tablespoon saffron liquid
(You can skip the cardamom and saffron if they are hard to obtain, though most of the big department stores have them)

Sift the flour twice, so that it will be light, and make sure the flour has been placed the night before in the kitchen – not far from the stove – as the flour has to be warm. It rises better! The milk must be heated, lukewarm. Test on your wrist. Hot milk will kill yeast; cold will retard its rising. Next prepare the yeast, following the exact directions on the exact envelope. Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with approximately ¼ lb. of sugar. The whites are left until last, but have to be beaten to “peaks.” Cardamon and saffron are the two spices that have to be prepared the night before. Cardamon is usually purchased in kernels or nuts. These must be heated on the top of the stove and then broken up. The little black seeds or kernels are then extracted and beaten with something heavy. Add a teaspoonful of icing sugar, until quite powdered. Sometimes you can buy them already hulled and ready to be beaten with sugar.

The saffron is placed in a cup and boiling water – about ½ cup – is poured over the delicate strands of that spice. It will produce a vivid, orange-yellow colour. This will penetrate the dough pleasantly and give it a lovely taste too.

When yolks are beaten, the flour sifted, the milk lukewarm, cardamom and saffron ready, the cook proceeds to work with same.

The flour is made ready by mixing into it all the dry ingredients – the remaining amount of sugar, raisins, peel, salt, cardamom, cinnamon and almonds.

Then the warm milk is taken, and into it is placed the saffron and the sugar-yoked beaten eggs and active yeast specially prepared. Now beaten whites of eggs are added.

Then the warm milk and its contents are slowly poured into the flour mixture. You might need a wee bit less or even more of milk – at this point it is hard to tell – it must not be too hard or soft, but easy to knead. When all the milk is put in, the kneading begins. The kneading proceeds until the dough easily falls off the hands of the cook and the utensil where it is kneaded.

As soon as this stage is reached, the dough is covered with a clean cloth and put near the stove to rise double its bulk.

While the Koolich is rising, prepare the tins to bake them in. Any kind of tins may be used, but it must be borne in mind that tow at least, representing Christ and the Church (if you are very ambitions and wish to increase the recipe, you can make 13 – Christ and the Apostles. These must be made higher than any others. For this, fruit juice tins could be used. The authentic size of a tin representing the Christ Bread should be 12” high and 6-8” wide.) The tin representing the Church should be 10” high and 5” wide. The rest of the Koolich can be baked in ordinary tins.

With the dough that is left over you can make the three letters P A X and use this as part of the center piece for the Easter table (Pax is Latin for Peace). The letters can be made by braiding the dough. Each letter is baked on a cookie sheet. All tins used for this bread are well greased.

Once the dough is in the tins, it is time to decorate them with blanched almonds that have been made ready. Before putting the breads in the oven, the top of them should be smeared either with melted butter or milk. That makes the baked laves shiny. The oven should be at 350 degrees, and the ordinary size tins should bake 1 hour. The tall ones should bake between 1 ¼ and 1 ½ hours, but it must be tested carefully to see if the dough is baked. You must be very watchful, as the tops of such reads burn easily. When the koolich breads are thoroughly baked, they are left to cool 24 hours. One can see immediately that baking time and preparation time begins Holy Thursday, so that by Holy Saturday everything is ready. When the 24 hours has elapsed, the top of the Koolich is further decorated with pink icing sugar, and white around the edges of the top. And dry icing sugar is sprinkled on them. The Christ Koolich and the Church Koolich are further decorated with an addition of a little cross on top, or a paper flower to make them stand out. They are then placed on the prettiest plates available, and are ready for serving.

Paska – represents the “Lamb of God”
For a family of four to six

2 lbs. of cottage cheese
½ lb. sugar
1/8 lb. of soft butter
3 eggs
1 cup raisins

Cottage cheese and sugar are well mixed first. Then the softened butter is added, and the mixture is beaten again. An electric beater can be used if available. The raisings and eggs are then added, and more mixing is done until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Flower pots with a hole of 1 ½ “ in diameter are washed with boiling water and lined with gauze. Enough gauze must be used to line the pot fully and leave a surplus of about 5” outside of the pot.

The mixture is then poured into the flower pots lined with gauze. An inch and a half must be left at the top of the pot. The extra sides of the gauze are folded over the mixture so that it is cover with gauze. Little flat pieces of wood are then placed on top of the gauze to serve as a foundation for stones, iron pieces or what is available to weigh down the mixture. These must not touch the sides of the form of the pot, or they will not do their job of pressing out the fluid of the Paska. The whole idea of weights is to get the water, and other liquid, out of the mixture so it will be a compact mass when served.

It is advisable to have the Paska done on Holy Thursday, so that the pressing or squeezing process can be done that night. I twill take all of that time to achieve the required results for Easter. Friday, around noon, a little more eight is added.

The ingenuity of the cook is required to see that the pots drain right. The post cannot stand on the floor, but must be placed on two pieces of wood with a big empty space between them, allowing the liquid to run off. Nothing may touch the hole from which that liquid comes out, or the Paska will be spoiled – being too liquidy or too mushy to stand up.

Before going to Mass, the weights are removed gently, the gauze opened, and the Paska, now hardened and having the shape of a flower pot, is put on a nice plate. A paper flower, or a cross, is put on top. It represents Christ the Lamb. Now it is ready for serving.

In Madonna House a special form, made of wood, has been prepared for the Paska. It consists of four sides slanted, with liturgical symbols carved into the inner sides (so that these will show on the completed Paska).

Eggs

Eggs, symbolizing Eternal Life, which Christ has given us by His death and Resurrection, are quite a wondrous part of the Easter meal. We hard-boil and dry them. And, when the eggs are completely dry, we polish them with a rag dipped slightly in butter. Then we place the eggs
on nice plates, lovely bowls or baskets. They add much to the decoration of the table.

It would be nice if you explained to the children the liturgical meaning of the bread as Christ and His Church, Paska, the Lamb of God, and the eggs, Eternal Life, which Christ gave through His death and Resurrection.

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Our St. Patrick’s Day Tradition!
Equally easy for single, religious and married alike.

2c vanilla ice cream
1 ¼ c milk
¼ t mint extract
8 drops green food coloring

Blend until smooth.

Make another batch because the first will be gone before you can blink.

Note:
I have no idea where I got this recipe, but I did go looking for it on purpose because Mecandes remembered very fondly these St. Patrick’s Day treats as he used to get them from McDonald’s. Does anyone know if they still serve these up?

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From The Irish Heritage Cookbook

4 tablespoons butter
2 cups shredded cabbage
1 1/2 pounds boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into 1″ pieces
1 pound leeks (white and pale green parts only), washed and chopped
5 cups homemade chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
salt and ground white pepper to taste
pinch of ground nutmeg
1 1/4 cups half and half
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley, or 1 tablespoon dried

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the cabbage, potatoes, and leeks, cover, and cook over medium heat until slightly tender, 10 to 12 minutes.

Add the stock or broth and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook until the vegetables are soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with the salt, pepper and nutmeg. Transfer to a blender or food processor in batches and prcess until smooth. (To make ahead, cover and refrigerate for up to 12 hours.)

Return the puree to the same saucepan over medium heat and whisk in the half-and-half. Heat through over medium heat. Ladle soup into bowls and sprinkle with the parsley.

Notes:
Probably I’ll serve this with shredded old cheddar cheese as Mecandes loves it over any sort of potato soup. If today wasn’t a Friday in Lent, I’d also sprinkle some bacon bits over the top with the parsley.

Tonight I’m also trying these recipes I found on allrecipes.com - Irrestible Irish Soda Bread and Gooey Brownies with Shortbread Crust.

In case you’re in the market for a cookbook, Mecandes got me this one just after we got married. A gift right after he bought me The Joy of Cooking… Irish food is that high on the agenda. No recipe I’ve tried from this book has failed. They’re all delicious. The ingredients can sometimes be a tad on the gourmet side – most of the recipes are from famous chefs, doing their interpretation of classic recipes – but substitution has worked for me. I do my best with what is available and it hasn’t diminished our enjoyment of the food. The spirit of your cooking and your love is, after all, what’s most important.

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