St. Joseph's Table Preparation II

Spent today baking for the St. Joseph's Table next Saturday.  Friday after work shopped for the baking items.  Funnily enough, Whole Foods was completely out of bread flour--not in bags, not in bulk foods.  They must have underestimated the number of people wishing to bake bread from scratch this weekend.
The Sicilians began St. Joseph's Table in the middle ages to honor St. Joseph whom they believe interceded on their behalf.  They were having a terrible drought and no crops would grow, but they prayed and vowed if rain came to help their crops they would give a feast in celebration to honor God and St. Joseph.  Rains came, so they gave thanks by helping the poor with items from the harvest.
Followed the same game plan as last Sunday, however today took half as long.  Began by making Lemon Cookies.

While the Lemon Cookies cooled, mixed the dough for Calabrian Easter Bread.  Easter Bread was set aside to rise, and then mixed the dough for St. Joseph's Table Bread.  By then the Easter Bread was ready to form and bake.  Today the green colored raw eggs were put into a basket shape.

As the Easter Bread baked, iced the Lemon Cookies.  As last Sunday; red, white and green; the color of the Italian flag.  Except the icing was darker, so it reminded me of the Mexican flag colors instead.  

The Lemon Cookies with icing dried, the Calabrian Easter Bread cooled, then the SJT Bread was formed, went for a second rising and then baked.  This time the shapes were a pineapple for hospitality, a fish for lent/disciples, and a Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Could not decide what shape to make the last loaf, and so settled on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Think it came out well, and taught me that the bread can really be put into any shape one wishes.

Pineapple

raw fish

baked fish

Sacred Heart of Jesus in St. Joseph's Table Bread

On Friday the fourth of March made chicken noodle soup for charity.  To cover the next few days of soup, on Tuesday the eighth of March shopped for, and cut up four zip-lock bags worth of vegetables.  On Wednesday the ninth of March made vegetable rice soup for coworkers and a church group for Ash Wednesday.  On Friday repeated the process for Lenten soup supper with Stations of the Cross.  It will be a while before feel like making soup again, so we had croque madame sandwiches for dinner tonight with CSA broccoli (still good from two weeks ago!)