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!

"Whatever our souls are made of . . ."

There are many reasons I love autumn and one is that every October I re-read one of my favorite books, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I first read it as a sophomore in high school, and immediately loved it, but didn't begin reading it annually until a couple of years later.

There's something about the change in weather in October, the moodiness of it, the leaves dying and turning colors & the starkness of bare tree branches, the rain & mist & chill, the mercurial nature of the month, which so suits WH that I couldn't possibly read it any other time of the year.

At the high school many of the sophomores still read it, usually in the spring, and it remains one of my favorite books to discuss with them. It seems people tend to have strong reactions to it: love it or hate it, there is no in between. Even students who have graduated often ask if it is time for my reading. I look forward to it with great anticipation every year.

 The difficult decision is which edition of Wuthering Heights to read. I confess: I cannot help buying copies of  it or Pride and Prejudice, two of my three favorite books. If I visit a new bookstore I always look for them on the shelves (what sort of reputable bookstore doesn't carry the Brontes or Austen?). When I travel and find bookstores, such as my favorite in Portland, Powell's, I always spend time visiting the Jane Austen section and the Bronte shelves, and usually purchase a new (to me, at least) copy of one or both. The first time I ever visited Powell's was when I was in Portland for a Bobby Long folk concert and to commemorate my trip I bought WH with this cover (pictured in my photo above) because it so perfectly represented the trip. I often tuck gig tickets, receipts, parking passes, and the like into the books so when I open them I find little pieces of memories. As I only go on these trips a couple of times I really only purchase a couple of copies a year, usually second hand or old, interesting versions. Who knows how many I have?

My favorite is probably the one I bought used as my "lake copy" many years ago, which you can see in my photo. I carried it around in my purse and then my school bag for ages resulting in the cover becoming more tattered than it had been when I got it. A couple of years ago it fell off entirely but I am reluctant to tape it back on and instead carefully hold it or place it in whatever bag I'm using when reading it. I have never written in this one but every time I pick it up I am reminded of conversations I have had about it, places and times I have read it, trips I have taken it on, and how much I love re-reading beloved books. (For an excellent post on this sort of thing, which could have come from my own heart, visit here.)

I have yet to see a film adaptation which properly cast or conveyed the story, unfortunately, though some have got a few of the actors right or parts of the story right. (The only actor I can think of who could be Heathcliff so perfectly is Richard Armitage.) And while I love Kate Bush's song "Wuthering Heights," (my favorite version is Pat Benatar's) what has most exquisitely captured the essence of this novel is "The Enemy," a song written and performed by one of my absolute favorite bands, Mumford and Sons, for the 2011 film. I'm listening to it on repeat as I write this.

 It gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes.

Now, I must be off to light a woodfire-scented candle (in the absence of a fire place), make a pot of hot Yorkshire Harrogate tea, and read more Wuthering Heights.

Do you have any books you always read at a certain time of year?

Cheers! xx

Back to Baking!

Happy Autumn!! Obviously we are celebrating by not posting anything. We are awesome this way. :)

Autumn is my favorite time of year, something Allison & I have in common, so I thought I would actually try to post something related to it. I love baking, especially for other people, but tend not to do much of it in the heat of summer. This August the heating element in the oven went out & even though I didn't plan to bake much I felt slightly panicked at the thought that I couldn't if I wanted to. ;) Fortunately my dad put a new heating element in & the weather has turned cooler so it's time to make delicious autumn-inspired foods!

To christen the new heating element I decided to make some Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread. It sounds like a weird combination but they work well together.

The recipe I use is from an old Taste of Home magazine but I've made a few additions of my own over time. I like it spicy. :)

Here's the recipe with my additions in bold:

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Bread (adapted from Taste of Home):

• 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon plus a little more
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves  
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 2/3 cup peanut butter
• Chocolate chips!

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves in a large bowl. Put the peanut butter (I prefer extra chunky!) in a slightly smaller bowl and microwave for 30 seconds to a minute so it is easier to combine with the other ingredients. Once it is easily stirred add in the pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Stir the pumpkin-peanut butter mixture into the dry ingredients just until everything is combined. I like to add chocolate chips at this step. As many as you'd like! Don't overstir.

The Taste of Home recipe calls for two 9x5-in. loaf pans. I've also used smaller pans and made mini-loaves. Just make sure you grease them. I use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute the batter. When the pans are full I like to sprinkle a line of cinnamon down the length of the batter before swirling it with a knife or fork. It makes it look pretty! You can also sprinkle some sugar on top to give it an extra something. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes. My oven tends to be hot (and the new element is very hot) so I check around 45 minutes, especially if making small loaves. Use the toothpick method to see if it's ready. Cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before carefully removing from pan. Let cool before wrapping carefully. 

This freezes well & makes a great gift! You can add cinnamon chips, white chocolate chips, cranberries, nuts, etc. Happy eating!