Monday, March 29, 2010

Those Smoked Gouda Potatoes

I've read about 'em more than once over on Delena's blog, the recipe for 'em comes from Mrs. Thetimman... enough already, I'm gonna make 'em! As a side dish to our Easter dinner, the main dish of which will be a spiral-sliced honey-glazed ham, I will serve the now-famous Smoked Gouda Potatoes:

Smoked Gouda Scalloped Potatoes

2 lbs Russet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4 or 1/8-inch thin
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 lb smoked Gouda cheese, shredded
7 oz can diced green chiles
salt
white pepper (I'll use black)
1 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In 13x9-inch pan, layer half the potatoes, parmesan, gouda and chiles. Salt and pepper to taste. Then add remaining potatoes, chiles, parmesan, and gouda. (Be sure to cover chiles with cheese to "hide" them.) Add additional salt and pepper, to taste. Pour cream around sides of the pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, uncovered. Cover with foil. Bake an additional 40 minutes, or until potatoes reach desired tenderness.

Yields up to 10 servings.

* * *

Don't they just look delicious?? I can't wait. My mouth is watering for our Easter Sunday feast!

But we still have the most important last days of Lent to go through first. I'm just getting excited......

God bless you all!

Easter TLM at St. Elizabeth of Hungary

For readers who may be interested, the Traditional Latin Mass will be celebrated as usual at 1:30 pm at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Church on Easter Sunday, April 4. This Mass was inadvertently left off the schedule of Masses for Easter in the Saint Elizabeth's Sunday bulletin.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Spring Training

I grew up in a baseball family. The youngest of four siblings and the only girl, my childhood/teen spring and summer days were spent at the ballpark watching my brothers play and my dad manage Little League ball. I was bound to either love or hate the sport.

My dad (RIP) was a great Little League manager. He won far more games and seasons in his lifetime than he lost, and even took his 1978 All-Star Team to a state championship. What a year that was. The memories are still so clear in my mind of the team's winning ways, rooting them on, enjoying the pizza parties afterward. I still keep in touch with a couple of the players; in fact, the catcher and the slugger from that team helped bear my dad to his final resting place last September.

My dad was undoubtedly the biggest Red Sox fan there ever was. He fell in love with the team as a 12-year old boy in 1946 when Ted Williams was in his prime, and he followed them the rest of his life, whether they had a winning or losing season. Dad was not a boisterous fan; no, when Dad watched a game he would sit way back in his chair, hands resting, folded almost up on his chest, taking in every pitch and play. He didn't cheer loudly, but if the manager made a decision he disagreed with, well, he'd voice his opinion on that!

In 2000, Dad had the great privilege of going to Fenway Park in Boston to see the Red Sox play, courtesy of a very good friend of his. It was certainly the trip of a lifetime for him. Then in 2004, Dad finally got to celebrate Boston winning the World Series. Unfortunately it was at the expense of St. Louis! But Cardinals fan that I am, I couldn't help being thrilled for Dad. And to this day, I am a Red Sox fan too, for Dad's sake.

One thing my dad wished he could do was go watch his team play in Spring Training. He never got to do that. But this Spring, my dear husband is taking me and the boys to Jupiter, FL, to watch the Cards in Spring Training. I think I'm almost as excited as my dad would have been! We'll see three games, all of them in seats close enough to catch a foul-ball or two. It should be a wonderful trip with yet more baseball memories to talk about in years to come. Dad would be so happy for us.

I was bound to love or hate baseball. Well, I love it. I love that I live in a baseball town and that I can listen to Mike Shannon call the Cardinals games on the radio almost everyday from April through (hopefully!) October. And I love my dad for giving me baseball. Thanks Dad, this Spring Training is for you!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

International Society of Scholastics

I very recently came across a website for the International Society of Scholastics, a group that offers online education courses, many of which look very interesting. In perusing their site I took particular note of the fact that Monsignor Michael Schmitz, Vicar General of the Institute of Christ the King, serves on their Board of Advisors.

Today I am going to check out their 'crash course' entitled "What is Education? A Guide for Homeschool Parents", a brief description of which follows:

"This Crash Course is intended for homeschooling families, but is valuable for anyone in the educational field. We’ll discuss the nature of teaching and education, paying close attention to how the human mind develops from sense knowledge to intellectual knowledge. We’ll talk about reasoning and natural discovery; the artistic cooperation of a parent in the child’s continuing perfection; the basic disciplines and the order for learning them based on the intellect’s natural development process; the trivium and quadrivium; ‘great books’ education; the metaphysical goal of natural knowledge and its ordering toward Theology; the moral effects of a sound education."

A schedule of upcoming Saturday Crash Course offerings is listed here.