Romaine Lettuce and Moringa Salad

Ingredients: Romaine lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, celery, chives, garlic greens, cucumber and Moringa leaves.

 

Beets and Moringa Salad

It has been a while since we ate moringa in our house. Now, as they are so vibrantly fresh, putting them in a salad, would be the perfect eating option.

 

Ingredients: 4 cups of boiled beets, chopped; 1 green apple, chopped; chives and garlic (to taste, I put about 3 tbsp), 1 green pepper, chopped, a large handful of fresh moringa leaves; other possible ingredients: celery, cabbage. Toss them together and add your own favorite dressing! 

Delicious Liver

For dinner we will have today liver! Yum!  This is the fastest recipe one can make, even after a long day at work.

In a stainless steel pan, add ¼ cup grass-fed organic butter. Turn the heat to medium-high and wait until butter melted. then turn heat down. Add several 1 inch size pieces of grass-fed beef liver and 3-4 chopped garlic cloves. Salt to taste and cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes maximum, by making sure both sides are done. Serve with salad. Enjoy!

Note: if you do not plain liver like this, one can try to make liver pate:
In a frying pan brown 2 chopped onions in 1 cup butter and when done cooking add 1 egg and mix it well for another 2 minutes. Pour the onion-egg mixture in a food processor, add the liver as cooked above, 3 - 4 garlic cloves, spices (thyme, coriander, pepper, salt to taste) and combine well until smooth.

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) will peel your carrots nicely!!!

"Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound.

 

It has so many used, from chemical pulping (making paper), to dissolving amphoteric metals and compounds, or from cleaning agent to tissue digestion

(a process involved placing a carcass into a sealed chamber, then adding a mixture of sodium hydroxide and water. This eventually turns the body into a liquid with coffee-like appearance, and the only solid that remains are bone hulls, which could be crushed between one's fingertip; is frequently used in the process of decomposing roadkill dumped in landfills by animal disposal contractors)"

 

Have you known that this very same chemical can be used for food processing? This is the interesting part!!!

"Food uses of sodium hydroxide include washing or chemical peeling of fruits and vegetables, chocolate and cocoa processing, caramel coloring production, poultry scalding, soft drink processing, and thickening ice cream. Olives are often soaked in sodium hydroxide for softening;

Pretzels and German lye rolls are glazed with a sodium hydroxide solution before baking to make them crisp. Owing to the difficulty in obtaining food grade sodium hydroxide in small quantities for home use, sodium carbonate is often used in place of sodium hydroxide.

 

Specific foods processed with sodium hydroxide include:

The Scandinavian delicacy known as lutefisk (from lutfisk, "lye fish").

Hominy is dried maize (corn) kernels reconstituted by soaking in lye-water. These expand considerably in size and may be further processed by frying to make corn nuts or by drying and grinding to make grits. Nixtamal is similar, but uses calcium hydroxide instead of sodium hydroxide.

Sodium hydroxide is also the chemical that causes gelling of egg whites in the production of Century eggs.

German pretzels are poached in a boiling sodium carbonate solution or cold sodium hydroxide solution before baking, which contributes to their unique crust.

Lye-water is an essential ingredient in the crust of the traditional baked Chinese moon cakes.

Most yellow coloured Chinese noodles are made with lye-water but are commonly mistaken for containing egg.

Some methods of preparing olives involve subjecting them to a lye-based brine.

The Filipino dessert (kakanin) called kutsinta uses a bit of lye water to help give the rice flour batter a jelly like consistency. A similar process is also used in the kakanin known as pitsi-pitsi or pichi-pichi except that the mixture uses grated cassava instead of rice flour."

 

This all being said, how would like your carrots?  Washed and peeled with sodium hydroxide or chlorine?

Hristos A Inviat! Christ is Risen!

Adevarat A Inviat!

Indeed He has!

At the begining of the Resurection Liturgy we hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjM7bm88AlE
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgPobfwemJo

Paschal Troparion 'Christ is risen" in different languages:
The Troparion is probably the most known and beautiful Orthodox Christian hymn. It is sung at the Feast of Feasts - the Holy Pascha (Easter) that's the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vofvMRYCg_c

 

Lenten Breakfast (gluten-free)

Broccoli and lettuce

Homemade Spinach Quinoa Pancakes (gluten-free)

Homemade Oven Roasted Onions and Potatoes (sweet and regular) with rosemary

Cup of Tea of choice and Fresh Fruit

Behold Thy Bridegroom

“Behold, the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching; and again unworthy is he whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, lest thou be overcome with sleep, lest thou be given up to death, and be shut out from the Kingdom. But rather rouse thyself and cry: Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, our God, through the Theotokos have mercy on us.”

Here you may hear the hymn:

 in Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybpc5dCKYPU
in Romanian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZQ2p1ZPjQ4

 

"Holy Week: An Explanation

Great Lent and Holy Week are two separate fasts, and two separate celebrations.  Great Lent ends on Friday of the fifth week (the day before Lazarus Saturday).  Holy Week begins immediately thereafter. Let's explore the meaning of each of the solemn days of Passion Week.

Lazarus Saturday:  Lazarus Saturday is the day which begins Holy Week.  It commemorates the raising of our Lord's friend Lazarus, who had been in the tomb four days.  This act confirmed the universal resurrection from the dead that all of us will experience at our Lord's Second Coming.  This miracle led many to faith, but it also led to the chief priest's and Pharisees' decision to kill Jesus (John 11:47-57).

 

Palm Sunday (The Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem):  Our Lord enters Jerusalem and is proclaimed king - but in an earthly sense, as many people of His time were seeking a political Messiah.  Our Lord is King, of course, but of a different type - the eternal King prophesied by Zechariah the Prophet.  We use palms on this day to show that we too accept Jesus as the true King and Messiah of the Jews, Who we are willing to follow - even to the cross.

 

Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday:  The first thing that must be said about these services, and most of the other services of Holy Week, is that they are "sung" in anticipation.  Each service is rotated ahead twelve hours.  The evening service, therefore, is actually the service of the next morning, while the morning services of Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday are actually the services of the coming evening.

Understanding that, let's turn to the Services of Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (celebrated Palm Sunday , Monday and Tuesday evening).  The services of these days are known as the Bridegroom or Nymphios Orthros Services.  At the first service of Palm Sunday evening, the priest carries the icon of Christ the Bridegroom in procession, and we sing the "Hymn of the Bridegroom."  We behold Christ as the Bridegroom of the Church, bearing the marks of His suffering, yet preparing a marriage Feast for us in God's Kingdom.

Each of these Bridegroom Orthros services has a particular theme.  On Holy Monday, the Blessed Joseph, the son of Jacob the Patriarch, is commemorated.  Joseph is often seen as a Type of Christ.  Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, and sold into slavery by them.  In the same way, our Lord was rejected, betrayed by His own, and sold into the slavery of death.  The Gospel reading for the day is about the barren fig tree, which Christ cursed and withered because it bore no fruit.  The fig tree is a parable of those who have heard God's word, but who fail to bear the fruit of obedience.  Originally the withering of the fig tree was a testimony against those Jews who rejected God's word and His Messiah.  However, it is also a warning to all people, in all times, of the importance of not only hearing the God's word, but putting it into action. 

The Parable of the Ten Virgins is read on Holy Tuesday.  It tells the story of the five virgins who filled their lamps in preparation for receiving the bridegroom while the other five allowed their lamps to go out, and hence were shut out of the marriage feast.  This parable is a warning that we must always be prepared to receive our Lord when He comes again.  The theme of the day is reinforced by the expostelarion hymn we sing:  "I see Thy Bridal Chamber adorned, O my Savior, but have no wedding garment that I may enter.  O Giver of Light, enlighten the vesture of my soul, and save me."  The theme of Holy Wednesday is repentance and forgiveness.  We remember the sinful woman who anointed our Lord in anticipation of His death.  Her repentance and love of Christ is the theme of the wonderful "Hymn of Kassiane" which is chanted on this night, reminding us one more time, before "it is too late," that we too may be forgiven if  we repent." 

http://www.antiochian.org/1175027131
and more: http://lent.goarch.org/bridegroom_services/learn/

 

Holy Week

By the Grace of God today we heard a talk by Mr. Constantine Zalalas. We were reminded about the true and hard road we are to take to go along with Our Lord, The Christ to Jerusalem this Holy Week! He is caring His own cross and we are to do so too. He is being crucified for us and so we are to crucify our passions for His sake! There is no Resurrection without Crucifixion! There is no Heaven without Humility!

 

“Dear fellow Christian,
    In today's perilous times, (2 Tim.3: 1) the enemies of Orthodox Christianity are not only numerous but within the very walls of the church; the weeds of neo-idolatry, syncretism, secularism, and pan-heresy are blooming and de-Christianizing the confused members of the Orthodox church of Christ. Today more than ever we need to abide by Saint Paul's deception-proof recipe found in the second letter to the Thessalonians, Stand fast and hold on to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. (2:15) The Lord gives the same instruction to the bishop of Thyateira and accordingly to all the sincere members of his body, Hold on what you have until I come back (Rev. 2:25). The true gospel of Christ, the fullness of Christianity and its ability to heal today's heavily burdened man remain in the bosom of Traditional Orthodoxy, the ark of salvation.”

 

Wonderful talks by By Constantine Zalalas: http://saintnicodemos.org/