Happy Birthday, Liz!

Please join us in wishing fierceCatolica a very happy birthday! God bless you always!

Handmade Rosaries by Allison

I'm posting again, this time while my daughters are... *gasp*... in the room with me and AWAKE! I just wanted to put in a little plug for my business...Rosaries by Allison.

I have been making rosaries since June of this year, and I seriously can't get enough of it! Every rosary is handcrafted with love and care and I absolutely LOVE designing them with clients!

I will be having some sales coming up next month and having some deals (think free shipping!) for Christmas! For now, please visit my Etsy Shop and check out what I have for sale!

Here are a few selections in the shop:

Amethyst, Purple Iris, and white Czech glass bead Rosary with gold plated reversible Mary/Jesus center

Blue Turquoise Czech glass bead and white Swarovski pearl rosary with silver plated crucifix and Our Lady of Guadalupe center

Blue Zircon Swarovski Crystal Bicone Bead Rosary with silver plated crucifix Mother Mary/Baby Jesus with Stars center

Brown 'Velvet' Swarovski Crystal Bicone and Copper Crystal Pearl Rosary with Gold Plated Our Lady of Guadalupe Center

Pancake Night!

This is my first post! In honor of pancake night at our house, I thought I'd post my absolute favorite pancake recipe! I got it from the TV show "The Chew." One of the viewers "won" with her Pumpkin Apple Pancake recipe, and I thought I'd try it, because I love pumpkin, apples, and pancakes!

MIA ROGERS' PUMPKIN APPLE PANCAKES

Ingredients:

1c flour

1 1/2t baking powder

1/2t cinnamon

1/4t nutmeg

1/8t ginger

1T butter, melted

1/2c pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/4c brown sugar

1/4t salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

1c buttermilk*

1/3c peeled, diced apple (I usually use 1 apple)

Caramelized Apple Topping:

1 apple, thinly sliced

1T butter

2T brown sugar

(I usually double this recipe, because I love it so much! And really, who wants a scant amount of this apply goodness on their pancakes?!)

*If you don't have buttermilk, put 1T of lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup and fill with milk until it reaches 1c. Whisk it to combine, then let it sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes, until it's curdled. Mix it up and voila! You have your buttermilk substitute!

Directions:

In a medium bowl, toss in your flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a smaller bowl, place your egg, melted butter, diced apple, pumpkin puree, and buttermilk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and let stand for about 5 minutes. At this point, you can now make your caramelized apple topping!

In a large-ish skillet, melt your butter (here's where I'd use 2T...okay maybe 3 or 4T of butter!) over medium-ish heat. Add your brown sugar and apples and stir until the apples are nice and soft, and slightly golden (8ish minutes). Oh, I can smell them already!

(This is my husband, being an awesome assistant, caramelizing the apples. Don't you love the action shot?!)

To cook your pancakes, scoop up 1/3c of the batter and plop it onto your preheated griddle. Cook on one side until it's bubbly, then flip and cook another 1 1/2ish minutes. When they are done, top with your delicious caramelized apples, some warm maple syrup, and maybe...just maybe...some brown sugar!

(Here is an unnecessary photo of the pancakes almost finished cooking.)

(The plated goodness.)

The recipe says it serves 4 people, but I can easily eat 4 of these delicious suckers myself! Enjoy, and happy Autumn!

Joining the Party

Hello!

I'm Liz. Allison and Jane were kind enough to invite me to blog with them here, and I'm so excited to join them!

Here is a picture of my face!

So! Some stuff about me:
- I currently live in San Antonio, TX. I moved here a little over a year ago, and so far, I love it! 
- I'm a cradle Catholic, and I just love being a member of the Church. I try to learn as much as I can about my faith; the nice thing about it is that there is so much to learn and think about, that if I spend my whole life at it, I'll probably have barely scratched the surface!
- I'm a big ol' bookwormy nerd. I like reading a little bit of everything, but my favorite genres are sci-fi and autobiographies. My favorite book series is J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy + "The Hobbit."  At the moment, I'm reading an anthology of travel writing, a small book of essays by St. Edith Stein, and Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation."
- Thrifting is almost a sport for me. My mom and I go to Goodwill nearly every weekend in search of deals. Just this past weekend, I found a Nine West messenger bag for $4! 
- I enjoy all types of arts and crafts. Some people are addicted to Facebook or Twitter; I'm addicted to Pinterest! I especially like embroidery and crochet.
- Social media: You can find me on Twitter and Pinterest as fierceCatolica . Come and take a peek inside my brain!

Magpie and the Dandelion

One of my absolute favorite bands (I lovelovelove them), The Avett Brothers, have a new album out today and I'm so very excited! It's called "Magpie and the Dandelion." (Go get it now!) Even though it's been streaming on NPR for about a week I haven't listened to it because I like to wait until album release days, when I finally get my copy (or if it doesn't come in the mail I finally listen to the streaming). I almost gave in yesterday but managed to hold out.

I honestly cannot tell you how much I love this band. The last few years I have been to a lot of great gigs but the best gig I have ever been to was the Avett Brothers, here at Bing Crosby Theater, on 20 July 2010. The perfect-sized venue. The perfect seats (floor, 3rd row, center). A enthusiastic crowd. And the band had as much, if not more, energy at the end of the encore as they did at the beginning of the evening. We were all on our feet dancing, listening, and singing the entire time. My sister hadn't listened to them at all before the show and even she was enthralled.

I have seen them two more times since that show, once at the Gorge Amphitheater in August 2012 and then this August at the Festival at Sandpoint when my cousin texted me that she had two free tickets to their show. My sister and I raced up to Sandpoint and arrived 15 minutes before their set. It was a little miracle, thank you, God.

It is a blessing that we will be seeing them again this Saturday, 5 minutes away from home. This week might as well be called "Avett Brothers Week" for me. I'm almost giddy with delight over the new album AND seeing them live again.

Obviously one can't really know "famous" people unless one knows them but from all I have seen and read the Avett Brothers are wonderful, good men who happen to be Christians. They always seem to be doing some charity thing. Bassist Bob Crawford's two year old daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer and hearing about how they have all reacted to this speaks to what sort of men they are. You only have to listen to the lyrics of their songs to know that. Most of the time they speak of the things we all deal with in life, relationships, mortality, expectations, the words we choose to use, love, hate, hope, everything, in such an intelligent and thought provoking manner. I find them to be a great blessing in my life.

The encore at that first gig was my favorite song, "Laundry Room." They have performed it at every show I have been to and this video almost conveys the enthusiasm and energy. How often do you hear a song these days which says "keep your clothes on"?

Happy listening!