Category Archives: All Saints

This Week’s Miscellany: Vol. 30 (All Souls Edition)

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Haley | 12 Comments

First things first! So happy to announce that dear friend and occasional Carrots contributor Katherine and her wonderful husband John welcomed a precious baby boy (their first) into the world on Halloween! He is just perfect and I’m itching to get to Boston to snuggle him. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

In the Liturgical Year: We have had the best time celebrating Hallowtide! We’ve never really celebrated Halloween with Benjamin before. He’s been entirely uninterested and last year I had a one week old baby who overshadowed Halloween with all her teensy sweetness. Darth Vadar got to go to a kids’ Halloween party in the park in my parents’ neighborhood followed by his first ever trick-or-treating. It was perfect.

On All Saints we went to Mass in the morning as a family and then got to have special breakfast at our favorite neighborhood restaurant with Daddy. Such a treat! That afternoon we celebrated with an amazing feast at a friend’s house.

This morning (All Souls) we went to pray at the Old City Cemetery with some little friends. We brought Gluten-Free Soul Cakes and they brought Hot Cocoa. We saw Civil War graves (Confederate and Union soldiers) as well as the grave of the first priest of our parish buried there 100 years ago. So cool! Definitely an outing that we should make an All Souls tradition!

Did your family do anything special during Hallowtide?

Pregnancy Update: Almost 12 weeks! The Zofran is still helping keep the morning sickness manageable and I’m so grateful. I’m also feeling less exhausted which is a huge blessing. And for those of you who shared your experiences nursing while pregnant, thank you so much! It was so helpful to hear your stories. Lucy was wanting to nurse ALL THE TIME over the weekend and it was wearing me out. But then I realized that she was cutting a tooth and so needed that extra comfort. After it cut she stopped asking for “nuh” as much and as of yesterday has almost entirely stopped asking for it and seems very dissatisfied when she does nurse (for literally 5 seconds). I tried putting her to bed last night without nursing. We just snuggled on the couch I usually nurse her on and she played with the crucifix on my necklace like she usually does while nursing. She relaxed and her eyes started to flutter so I put her in bed and she was out like a light. I’m so glad that weaning is her idea and that it’s not an emotional battle!

Links:

I was featured on Blogher this week!

What to do with babies while homeschooling: Simple Homeschool

Our fall chicken harvest (contains real life farm-to-table images): Simple Bites (I loved this one! Reminded me of our chicken doomsday a couple of years ago and all we have to look forward to when we harvest our meat birds in a few weeks…..ugh).

Declutter out of love for God: Kitchen Stewardship (I love the reflections Katie has inspired by the writing of St. Therese “Without love, everything is painful, everything is tiring, everything is burdensome. The Cross, taken up hesitantly, is crushing; taken smilingly, by free will, and with love, it will carry you much more than you carry it.”)

Why I Lost Faith in the Pro-Choice Movement: Jennifer Fulwiler

And prepare for awesomeness:

The Quotable Benjamin:

“Today’s All Souls Day so we can’t think about anybody who isn’t dead.”

“I should take my lunch box to the costume party because Darth Vadar probably had a lunch box. Or at least some kind of box he keeps his lunch in. Wait, does he ever eat lunch? If he does….HOW?!”

“Can wizard GIRLS grow beards?”

Instagram Worth Sharing (I’m carrotsformichaelmas on IG):

Lucy snuggle bug!

Happy All Souls, everyone! I hope you have a lovely weekend

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Posted in All Saints, All Souls, This Week's Miscellany

Tagged all saints, all souls, halloween, this week's miscellany

Soul Cakes! (Gluten-Free)

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Haley | 6 Comments

Making Soul Cakes during Hallowtide (All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day) has become a little tradition at our house. Now that we know that our three-year-old is severely allergic to gluten, we’re having to try some new recipes. I wanted to share this one with you just in time for All Souls tomorrow.

As a kind of early version of Trick-or-Treating, folks would go door-to-door and ask for Soul Cakes in exchange for saying prayers for the dead. I really love the way Hallowtide puts death in context. We remember our dead, we say prayers for the souls in Purgatory, we celebrate the lives of the saints, and we remember that Christ has ultimately conquered death. It’s power was broken by the power of the Cross. Especially in our culture that seeks to avoid the topic of death, I think observing Hallowtide is really important.

So, make yo’self some Soul Cakes and celebrate! This morning at Mass we sat behind some adorable children dressed up as St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. George. Someday I will be organized enough to make my kiddos fun saints costumes. Until then, baked goods will have to suffice.

I was inspired by this recipe. I used less sugar, tinkered with the spices, and used GF baking mix instead of all-purpose flour. They turned out delicious, although a bit crumbly (as GF stuff always does).

Gluten-Free Soul Cakes

Ingredients:

Raisins: 1/2 cup (plus some to decorate top)

Butter: (softened) 3/4 cup

Sugar: 2/3 cup

Eggs: 3 yolks

Gluten-Free Baking Mix: 1 3/4 cup

Nutmeg: 1/2 TSP

Cinnamon: 1 1/2 TSP

Cloves: 1/2 TSP

Milk: 1/2 cup

Preheat oven to 375. Grease muffin tin (I used butter). Cream the softened butter with the sugar. Add egg yolks and mix. Combine with GF baking mix, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, milk, and raisins. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way up with mixture. Add raisins on top in the shape of a cross. Bake for 15 minutes (longer if your muffin tin is for larger muffins, mine is for smallish ones). Check to see if your Soul Cakes are done by seeing if a knife comes out clean. And carefully remove them from muffin tin (I used a spoon to separate the edges from the muffin tin and only one of them ended up impossibly crumbly, so success!).

It’s such an easy recipe that my 3-year-old was able to help with everything except separating the egg yolks from the whites. And he LOVED adding the cross-shaped raisins on top. In fact, at this very minute he is in bed singing to himself: “Soul a’soul, a’soul cake. Please good missus a soul cake…”

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Posted in All Saints, All Souls, catholicism, Feasting, Food, Saints

Tagged all saints, all souls, gluten-free, hallowtide, recipe, soul cakes

Soul Cakes for All Souls!

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Haley | 1 Comment

Yesterday on All Saints Day we started out the day at Mass to celebrate and then went out for a special family breakfast at our favorite Midtown cafe. After Daddy had to go to work, Benjamin and I made Soul Cakes during one of Lucy’s naps.

We used a recipe from Catholic Cuisine. Unfortunately, the recipe wasn’t as good as the one Daniel used last year but, oh well, they were still tasty!

I can’t believe how big Benjamin is after looking at pictures from last year. Here’s a picture from last November:

And here’s a sweet one of him meeting his sister in the hospital:

Baby Lucy is doing great! When I get a minute to myself (hmm, yeah right!) I’ll do a post all about our little lady. She is such a love.

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Posted in All Saints, All Souls, Children, Feasting

Soul Cakes for All Saints’

Posted on November 2, 2010 by carrotsformichaelmas | 3 Comments

November 1st is All Saints’ Day when we honor and remember the faithful saints and martyrs through out the centuries, known and unknown. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ” (957). Also known as Hallowmas, All Saints’ Day marks the middle of Hallowtide comprised of All Hallows Eve, Hallowmas, and All Souls’ Day. Hallow is a derivative of the Old English word for holy or sacred (think “hallowed be thy name”) and “all Hallows” means “all saints.”

This year to celebrate this special day Daniel took off work and we brought this little guy to Mass.

We put some clothes on him and made him leave his pumpkin at home. Last week’s attempt to take him to Mass was disastrous. He was SO loud and SO squirmy and had to be removed several times before we gave up and took him out to the car whilst he sobbed and screamed, “G-g-g-g-go b-b-ba-back in-in-in-si-si-side!” So we weren’t expecting to be able to stay for the entire Mass yesterday but were pleasantly surprised when he did fantastic. He said nary a word and sat on our laps with a minimum of squirming. We did let him hold a plastic rosary so that his busy little hands had something to do and I think that helped. We were so happy to be able to worship as a family on All Saints’ and followed up the Mass with a big breakfast of bacon and eggs.

In the evening we had our friends Elizabeth and Daniel over for feasting. They brought a delicious salad to add to Daniel’s yummy concoctions: Pumpkin-Leek-Potato Soup, Beer Bread, and Soul Cakes.

Here’s a picture of the Daniels and our half-eaten feast. I forgot to take a picture until we were almost done.

The delicious soul cakes! Kind of like autumnal scones with nutmeg and raisins and a topping of powdered sugar. Benjamin kept calling them pancakes and cupcakes. This morning he wanted them for breakfast. “Soul cakes, yay!” he said. They are great and supposedly a traditional dish during Hallowtide when they were given out to the poor, probably the precursor to trick or treating.

A soul, a soul, a soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake, one for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who made us all…

So glad Elizabeth and Daniel shared our feast with us!