Hello Blog Friends,
Another week has whizzed by with so many virtual plates to juggle! Spring is officially here and I have witnessed my favourite harbingers of the season as several flocks of geese have flown over my head while Thomason and I were out on our morning walks. I also saw my first robin (see rather poor photo above) on the front lawn amidst the remnants of the latest snow 😊.
The week began with the CTM Board meeting last Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately one member forgot about the meeting and another one was late joining us as her dogs had escaped from her property and she was out in her car hunting for them, happily they did return safely home, so she was able to participate for part of the meeting.
Of course a meeting on Sunday means I need to type up minutes on Monday and by Tuesday I was able to have them reviewed by our President after which I circulated them to the members. That morning I also sent a message off to a number of overseas Alumni in the hopes that we can garner a few host locations in the UK, so far no responses, but we’ll wait and see 😊.
Tuesday afternoon I had a FaceTime meeting with friend (and committee member 😊) Jillian who brought good news of not one but TWO potential Day Camp host churches, one in Montreal and one in Ontario. Yay Jillian!!!
Wednesday a priest from this Diocese purchased TWO copies of Come Together!! I sent links for the e-book to the addresses provided and then got back to other tasks. I had come to the conclusion that I needed to create a PowerPoint for the first session of the Lenten Program for Team Alums, set to take place this afternoon and so spent a few hours pulling that together. Having already promised to publish a special Wednesday Words post about Season Three of the Day Camps Cook-Along, it seemed that most of Wednesday passed in a blur, as I was hunkered down at my keyboard for many hours.
By Thursday things were falling into place so I spent quite a while formatting and editing some more of the older blog posts. I am currently working through the summer of 2013. Day Camps was having quite a tough year as we were very short of host communities and I was extremely worried that finances would preclude the program taking place in 2014. Ha! …”plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. Here we are 9 years later not knowing what the future holds 😊.
Yesterday I sent a final reminder out to all the Alums who have signed up for the Lenten Study Program and ran a test on Google Meet. I’m afraid my presentation may be a bit “clunky” as I have to toggle between several tabs and windows but I hope the friendly audience will bear with me. Ah, life online!
I planned to do my baking early today, as I have done for the few Saturdays. The Lenten Program starts at 2pm so right after breakfast and walking Thomason I preheated the oven for the GF sourdough loaf. While it was baking I prepared a pan of granola, a casserole Haloumi Bake and a tray of fluffy sugar cookies. The latter is an experiment to see if the recipe works for my Easter gift baskets, I will prepare the icing for them tomorrow and decide if they make the cut 😊.
In between all the CTM tasks I have managed to finish varnishing the rest of the 18 Pysanky for Easter gifts. There are several families to whom I also like to give some Easter treats, this year I’m hoping to include the fluffy sugar cookies and have decided to make some deep “plates” out of corrugated board covered with fabric in which to present them. Hopefully this project will work out. I have completed one sample and am quite pleased with the result, but I need to make 6 more and also varnish them, all of which will take quite a while.
So now it is almost time to log on to Google Meet and begin our Lenten program but before I go let’s finish off with a recipe.
I like to experiment with making various types of vegetarian burgers and last week tried some ones made with black beans. They are very tasty, especially when served in a homemade bun 😊
Black Bean Burgers
- 1 ½ onions,coarsely chopped
- ½ lb. Cremini mushrooms
- 3 ½oz. whole wheat bread, torn into ½” pieces (about 2 ½ cups)
- 2 cups cooked black beans, roughly mashed with a fork
- 1 tsp. ground coriander
- salt & black pepper
- Olive oil, as needed
- 1 cup Cheddar, grated
- 4 large burger buns
Place the pieces of bread in a food processor and pulse to make fine crumbs, transfer to a bowl. Add the onion pieces and mushrooms and pulse until finally chopped but not mushy, then add to the bowl with the breadcrumbs. Mix in the black beans, coriander and salt & pepper to taste. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat oven to 400ºF. With wet hands, form the bean mixture into 4 patties, placing them on the baking tray. Drizzle each with some olive oil and dust with a little extra ground coriander. Roast the burgers for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle evenly with the grated cheese. Toast buns then assemble the burgers, adding various toppings such as sliced avocado, salsa, hot sauce & extra chopped onion. Serves 4