Collection: Recipes

This traditional Brazilian dish uses canned hearts of palm, which is convenient if you don’t want to harvest the inner core of a palm tree stem yourself. The flash of red from the tomatoes and red onions makes it especially appropriate for the day!

What to do with all that lovely stock you just made? Turn it into a simple and infinitely customizable soup. For a quick dinner option, I use two 10-12 ounce packages of frozen seasoned vegetables, and a 1 pound bag of frozen meatballs. It’s also great with fresh or leftover veggies and leftover chicken or other meat. Leftover rice, pasta, or mashed potatoes can be mixed in. Use fish, shrimp, shellfish, or a mix of canned beans for a meat-free soup for Friday Soup & Stations.

This is really just stock or bone broth, but my kids like to call it “trash can soup” because the stock is made entirely from things we would have otherwise thrown away. It’s free. It’s an authentically “whole” way to eat. It’s a natural way to reduce food waste. It was a usual practice for our ancestors. Most importantly, it’s tasty and nourishing and straightforward to make.

Panettone is a light and fluffy fruitcake traditionally served throughout Italy (and the world) at Christmastime. But in Milan, it’s also served on the feast of Saint Blaise. So if you missed it on Christmas, here’s your second chance! This overnight starter version helps keep the panettone fresher for longer.

St. Thomas Aquinas’s “dumb ox” nickname is the inspiration for this fun feast day dinner! I love it when I get to serve a saint story-themed meal to my children, the idea of which will be shocking and horrifying to them, but that is actually a totally normal dinner that they’ll like eating. Oxtail soup is perfect. An ox is just a bull with a job (and some surgical modifications), so oxtail is just a cow’s tail, which, once it’s skinned and whatnot, is just a piece of beef with some bones in it. Ethnic grocery stores often have them in stock, but any store’s butcher counter should be able to get some for you. In a pinch, you can make mock oxtail soup with a combination of beef stew meat and marrow bones.

In honor of Saint Jude and his tongue of fire, we’re making fire-roasted veggies, but . . . in the oven.

There is a tradition that basil grew up around the foot of the cross, where Jesus’ blood and Mary’s tears hit the ground. St. Helen is said to have found the True Cross hidden beneath an overgrowth of basil. So for dinner on the feast of the Holy Cross, I like to make a basil-heavy meal.

This recipe can be prepared with a rotisserie chicken, or any other cooked chicken. Canned or from-scratch biscuits can be substituted for Bisquick biscuits.

A fun food/activity for the Transfiguration is making toad-in-the-hole. (This is the American egg-in-toast version, not the English sausages-in-batter version.)

Fresh, homemade corn tortillas are WORLDS away from their crumbly store-bought counterparts. And they're a fun activity to do with kids.

Celebrate the birthday of the Church with a festive cake! We recommend a white cake with red frosting or fruit on top. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can add twelve candles for the apostles and seven strawberry hearts for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Consider adding the twelve fruits of the Spirit somewhere, too, using fruit or frosting!

The symbols of Pentecost are wind, fire, and a dove! Although a dove isn’t specifically mentioned in Acts, it recalls the imagery at Jesus’ baptism: “After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened [for him], and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove [and] coming upon him” (Matthew 3:16 RSCVE).

Because St. Joseph worked with his hands, we like to highlight finger foods on his feast day! Get the whole family involved with making these easy appetizer skewers and then enjoy the delicious fruit of your labors at dinner time!

The traditional dinner for Michaelmas is goose. But, nine years after I first blogged about being unable to interest my family in the idea of goose, or even procure one if I could, I still . . . haven’t. We have continued to enjoy the compromise of cornish game hens!

In his Confessions, St. Augustine shares a story from his youth where he and his friends steal pears from a neighbor and then proceed to feed them to the neighborhood pigs, not having been hungry for pears themselves. This pear crisp is a great reminder of how time, good friends, and a whole lotta prayers from mom can help even the most grievous sinner taste the sweet glory of heaven.

St. Anthony died at the age of thirty-five after becoming sick with ergotism, the result of long-term exposure to grains (in his case rye) contaminated with a fungus. The condition is sometimes called “St. Anthony’s Fire.” He was canonized less than a year later. As ergotism has been eradicated in the developed world, I like to boldly serve grilled pastrami and provolone sandwiches, on Italian rye bread, for the day.

Authentic Mexican street tacos are simple, delicious, and easy to make at home.

St. Luke’s symbol as an evangelist is a winged ox or cow, which is the inspiration for this fun feast day dinner!

This feast was established in 1955 to remind everyone that the dignity of work is a very Christian tradition, rooted in the Garden of Eden, despite what Communists were trying to tell everyone at the time. Today is a great day to tackle a hands-on project, like these time intensive donut holes! As you knead–or “work”–the dough, remember to pray for laborers and for the conversion of communist nations.

One of the best parts of my high school career was eating at the home of a friend who came from an Italian-American family. Every meal his mom cooked was amazing, but the most fun were the days when they would invite big groups of kids for what we called Pasta Alla Tavola or “Pasta on the Table.” Mrs. Vitale would dump pots of pasta with butter and parmesan cheese in the middle of the “table.” Then we would all eat it . . . with our hands. It was the BEST. It’s perfect for the feast of St. Joseph. As a carpenter, Joseph worked with his hands. In honor of his day, we eat with our hands! It’s not much of a “recipe,” per se, but here it is . . .

The seafaring Portuguese have a love for shellfish and seafood, and are especially known for mussel recipes like this one. Mussels in the shell make for a FAST, fun, and memorable family meal my kids love. A crusty loaf of bread is lovely to sop up the tasty broth. Serve with a salad and some dancing sun cupcakes for dessert.