I recently made pizza for the local council of the Knights of Columbus (for which I am chaplain) and made two discoveries:
1) Italian Beef Pizza with sautéed veggies is also REALLY good using Cajun Beef and a couple dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce.
2) Velouté sauce, lightly cooked chopped asparagus, and diced lemon pepper chicken (left over from monk supper) topped with baby Swiss makes a great combo, too.
Tonight I gave a talk on Monastic Herb Gardens to the Ottawa Garden Club, which reminded me that I forgot to post about an exciting new project: an herb guild from the Chicago suburbs is coming to make an overnight Herb Retreat with me in June. Our high school has two buildings for our boarding students that aren't used in the summer and they are perfect for this sort of thing. They are going to arrive on a Saturday monring, get a tour of the abbey gardens and grounds, eat a light lunch on the patio of the west garden by the koi pond, and then have some time for prayer, reflection, journaling, walks or naps. In the late afternoon we'll have a pizza dough making session and create some herbal sauces for our pizza supper, and after eating join the monks for evening prayer. Sunday morning we'll do a lectio divina exercise (after a multigrain sourdough waffle breakfast accompanied by scrambled eggs with an herb sauce and a fruit medley), attend conventual Mass, and finish off with a lunch of spring salad greens, homemade Italian Wedding Soup and crusty bread. The main benefit for the retreatants, of course, is being away from the city on 800 acres of beautiful grounds and woods. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this first one goes, because I suspect I could book several for the summer.
1) Italian Beef Pizza with sautéed veggies is also REALLY good using Cajun Beef and a couple dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce.
2) Velouté sauce, lightly cooked chopped asparagus, and diced lemon pepper chicken (left over from monk supper) topped with baby Swiss makes a great combo, too.
Tonight I gave a talk on Monastic Herb Gardens to the Ottawa Garden Club, which reminded me that I forgot to post about an exciting new project: an herb guild from the Chicago suburbs is coming to make an overnight Herb Retreat with me in June. Our high school has two buildings for our boarding students that aren't used in the summer and they are perfect for this sort of thing. They are going to arrive on a Saturday monring, get a tour of the abbey gardens and grounds, eat a light lunch on the patio of the west garden by the koi pond, and then have some time for prayer, reflection, journaling, walks or naps. In the late afternoon we'll have a pizza dough making session and create some herbal sauces for our pizza supper, and after eating join the monks for evening prayer. Sunday morning we'll do a lectio divina exercise (after a multigrain sourdough waffle breakfast accompanied by scrambled eggs with an herb sauce and a fruit medley), attend conventual Mass, and finish off with a lunch of spring salad greens, homemade Italian Wedding Soup and crusty bread. The main benefit for the retreatants, of course, is being away from the city on 800 acres of beautiful grounds and woods. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this first one goes, because I suspect I could book several for the summer.
RSS Feed