Suffering With Joy

Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival

October 2, 2011

Welcome to Sunday Snippets, a meme originating at This That and the Other Thing.  Please join us over there for links to other Catholic bloggers’ posts for the week.

This week I had a bit of an Asian flavor at my blog with:

All That Remains - info on an upcoming film being made about Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai whose cause for sainthood is moving forward in the diocese of Nagasaki.  Nagai’s story is great so if you like stories about saints you’re going to want to see the trailer.

Moon Over a Ruined Castle is a bit about Japanese composer Rentaro Taki and his famous composition.  I embedded a YouTube video of this played on kotos.

Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup is my simple recipe for a Chinese flavored favorite fall meal.

We leave east Asia and visit St. Teresa of Avila in Spain and St. Francis de Sales in France at Sabbath Moments – Spiritual Progress.

Finally, I wrote about Repeat Offenders – we sinners, of course, and why God allows us to fall.

God bless all my readers.  Thanks for stopping by.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: Dr. Takashi Nagai, recipes, Saints

Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup

September 29, 2011

OK, don’t go ewwww! at the idea of cabbage in anything.  My husband only used to eat cabbage under the guise of sauerkraut, but this recipe converted him and your family might like it, too.

Fall and winter are good times to haul out those soup recipes that warm the innards.  I found a recipe for hot and sour cabbage soup on the internet and changed it quite a bit to suit my gluten free needs and the tastes of my husband.  It was a great success so I’m sharing it here.

This recipe doesn’t qualify for meatless Fridays, but all you have to do is leave out the ground pork and use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and you’ll be good to go. If you’re good at the technique of adding eggs to soup Chinese style, it will be a perfect Friday feast.

Ingredients for 6 servings

• 60 oz. of chicken broth
• 1 lb. cooked and crumbled ground pork
• 1 small head of green cabbage, cored and shredded
• 2 large stems of bok choy, chopped
• 8 oz. of sliced, fresh mushrooms
• a couple of green onions chopped
• ½ tsp. minced garlic
• 1/3 cu. apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
• 1 ½ tsp. sesame oil
• ¼ cu. gluten free soy sauce
• 1/3 tsp. cayenne pepper
• either 1 tsp. ground fresh ginger root or ½ tsp. ground ginger (you can put in a dash of Chinese five spice if you like, also, which I do)
• If you want the soup to have more bite, add an ounce or two of Szechwan sauce or a few shakes of Tabasco sauce.

My personal tips for making this soup

Because of my various neurological issues, I bought a good sized Salad Shooter which makes shredding the cabbage really easy.  Busy moms or arthritis and fibromyalgia patients, if you have to do a lot a shredding or slicing, this kitchen helper is great for keeping your hands and arms from wearing out or getting sore.

To keep the amount of fat down, I cook the pork sausage and drain off the fat before adding it to the broth.  I like to simmer the soup after bringing it to a boil long enough to make the cabbage fairly transparent.  This could take a couple of hours.

Leftovers?  Yum.  Economical? Yes.  Ground pork costs less than ground beef in our area, and cabbage is also inexpensive.  I use organic chicken broth and cut it with 2 cups of distilled water to bring the cost down, too.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: fibromyalgia, recipes, wellness

The Asparagus Bean Surprise II

June 22, 2010

Today's harvest of asparagus beans

Today is very hot in southwest Missouri.  In fact, we are having August weather in June and I sure hope we get a cool front soon.  The tomato plants are blossoming, but then, because of the heat, the blossoms are drying out and not setting fruit.  The fruit that has set, however, is doing well.  The zucchini is producing very well, though, and I chopped and froze a bunch of it today to use in soup.

Another vegetable, my experiment for this year, is producing like crazy.  This photo is the “mess” – as they say in the Ozarks – of asparagus beans (Chinese long beans) I harvested today after coming home from my pool therapy exercise session.  They are at least 18″ long as advertised.  If you want to know more about these beans, look at my post, The Asparagus Bean Surprise.

An Asparagus Bean Recipe

Being one to throw things together, I cut the beans  into manageable bites and tossed them in Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a glass baking dish.  Then I threw in some sun-dried tomatoes and sprinkled a little garlic powder over the whole.  With the oven at 325° I roasted them for 50 minutes, took them out, sprinkled a little sea salt on top and sampled the result.  They taste really good and my husband liked them so much he, as he said it, “put a real dent in them.”

The flavor is mild, somewhat like asparagus and green beans combined, but with a hint of something else I can’t figure out.  Those sun-dried tomatoes added a little sweetness to the dish.  Next time I’m going to fix them with mushrooms, a little olive oil and a dash of red wine and see how they turn out.  It’ll be great if the bean vines produce all summer.  I’ll have another veggie to freeze for winter.

Thank you, Lord for the great asparagus bean surprise and good food for the table.

Tags: recipes, wellness