Hello Blog Friends!
Just a few days to go before we enter the season of Lent and, as you will see from this week’s photo gallery, things have turned aggressively spring-like around here (well indoors, anyway!).
This week has been a bit of a whirlwind since there has been plenty of CTM Office and Day Camps work to keep me occupied, along with the side project of Changing the Decorations layered on top of the usual round of meetings.
Although we have also have a few more snowfalls they have been nothing like the blizzards of the week before last and so shovelling has not gobbled up too many of the daylight hours.
Intentionally, I had not scheduled any extra visitors, although the coming week already has several “bookings”!
Early in the week my focus was to assemble the Lent/Easter edition of CTM’s newsletter, which was then sent on to Guylaine for final proofing. With that task out of the way, I did a deep dive into the EDP (Extended Day Program) Manual and am happy to report that some progress has been made on that front. We are STILL stalled on the draft of the “On Fire! 2025” Program Manual, as 2 chunks of content have not been submitted. I fear that, next month, the proofreading of that 80-90page document is likely to gobble up a lot of time in order to meet the April deadline for sharing the Resource Package with host communities. Happily the Acceptance Package has been sent out, providing host churches with some key documents to have in hand as they start planning for their camps.
Some progress has also been made on our project whereby a small group of youth from a Montreal Church will go to a community in the Eastern Townships region (about 90 minutes from the city) to assist a small church in hosting a Day Camp. A meeting of the key players is scheduled for later this coming week. This past Tuesday the priest from a church north of the city called to say his church is interested in hosting a Day Camp. This community has had day camps under 2 previous Incumbents but that was many years ago and so they have asked if we might be willing to lead some sort of information/training morning for their youth group. I plan to bring the matter to next Tuesday’s DC committee meeting to see how others feel about the idea. I rarely wish that I still had my trusty van, which allowed me to head off across the Diocese on “church visits” but this is one occasion when it might have come in very handy to have a vehicle at my disposal.
As mentioned above, the plan was originally NOT to bake today, but I have caved and, right now, have a batch of Hot Cross Buns, baking in the oven. These will make for an appropriate Lenten treat for some morning coffee visitors scheduled to join me next Friday morning.
Before this crazy week began, I did manage to squeeze in the sewing of some new corduroy overalls from fabric I was able to purchase with a gift card a kind friend had sent me at Christmas. As you can see, they fit in with the new seasonal décor! I also finished my first gnome for gifting next Christmas and cast on a new spring pullover to go with the overalls!
Since the timer is about to ring on the oven, we had better conclude this week’s post with a recipe.Thursday evening I tried Ma Po Potato, (a vegan riff on Ma Po Tofu, which also contains pork). It turned out to be pretty good and certainly warmed me up on a cold and stormy night.
Ma Po Potato
- 1 Tbsp. Olive oil
- 1 Tbsp. Chile Crisp
- 1 Tbsp. Miso
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- ½ onion, diced
- 1” piece ginger, grated
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 ¼lbs. potatoes cut into 1” pieces
- 1 tsp. raw cane sugar
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 2 tsps. tapioca starch, dissolved in 1Tbsp. water)
- 1Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
- 1 green onion, thinly sliced
- White rice, for serving
Heat the oil in a heavy Dutch oven and sauté the onion, garlic and carrots for 5 minutes. Add the ginger, potatoes, sugar and broth, bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are just tender. Stir in the tapioca starch mixture and allow to thicken. Remove from heat and add the sesame oil and green onion. Serve over white rice. Serves 3-4.