Catholic Feast Days
by Alexandra Greeley
Published by Sophia Institute Press
We love a good liturgical recipe in our house. In fact, I use feast days to help me meal plan and enjoy our own family traditions. For example, every Good Friday we have crown of thorns bread and sweet potato stew. For St. Lucy Day we make traditional St. Lucy saffron bread. It is a rhythm that my family looks forward to, and it helps give my brain a break from thinking about what I should make. It also gives us wonderful memories and traditions. If you would like to incorporate some fun and meaningful dishes throughout the liturgical year, then you will love Alexandra Greeley’s new book: Catholic Feast Days.
The Format of this Book
If you are familiar with Alexandra Greeley’s Cooking with the Saints book, this book is set up exactly the same. The recipes are organized by liturgical season starting with Advent. Then, Christmas, Ordinary Time between Christmas and Lent, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Ordinary Time between Pentecost and Advent follow after. There are recipes for feast days, fasting days (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday), Solemnities, and most other major Holy days. There are recipes for a complete feast of many dishes for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. These major feasts include grocery lists for easy shopping.
Each recipe has a short explanation and history. Each saint feast day has a short story about the saint as well as information about the recipe. Recipes are relatively beginner friendly with ingredients that are readily available in most grocery stores. Gorgeous, full color pictures of each dish or treat also accompany each recipe.
Recipes in this Book
I was happy to see what I consider to be “staple” Catholic liturgical recipes in this book along with new feasts and saints for us to learn about and recipes to try.
The recipes that I am most excited about cooking this year are:
- Three-Cheese Chicken Alfredo Bake for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
- St. Lucia Buns
- St. Nicholas Baklava Satchels
- Fig-Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese for Palm Sunday
- Divine Mercy Shortcakes
- Pentecost Cake
- Pierogis for St. Maximillian Kolbe
- Naan Flatbread for St. Teresa of Calcutta
- Michaelmas Pie
Solemnity of St. Joseph: Recipe Review
Our family has a huge devotion to St. Joseph, and we always enjoy putting together an altar of goodies for his Solemnity on March 19. Recently, our favorite local bakery closed which meant we could no longer rely on them for their delicious St. Joseph pastries for our altar. I was happy to find a recipe for this pastry in Catholic Feast Days, and the final result was a huge success! In the book, it’s called “Zeppole di San Giuseppe.” They were actually super easy to make (no harder than a batch of cookies, IMO), and they were delicious and loved by all.
I made the puff pastry and custard the day before the Solemnity in less than an hour plus cooling time which required no work on my part. I just left everything to cool on the counter while I went about my day. I kept the pastries fresh in a plastic storage bag, and the custard kept well in the fridge.
I finished them a little differently from the recipe. I made them how our beloved bakery used to make them. I also did not have piping tools, so this eliminated the need for those. This is what I did:
Step 1: Cut the pastry puffs in half like a sandwich.
Step 2: Spoon equal amounts of custard into each one and slightly spread.
Step 3: Put the pastry back together like a sandwich.
That’s it!
In the future, I may top the pastry with whipped cream and a cherry, but my family loved them just like this.
Who Would Enjoy this Book
Anyone who loves to cook liturgical recipes or wants to learn would love this book. It’s great for families as well. It would be a lovely gift for any Catholic cooks in your life.
You can find Catholic Feast Days at Sophia Institute Press.
It is also available on the Saintifi app as an ebook.
