Shrove Tuesday Fun and Foods

Fat Tuesday, the other name for Shrove Tuesday, is more like it with all the sweets that are baked or fried for this occasion before the Lenten Season starts.  Traditionally, Shrove Tuesday is when you gorge yourself with everything and do everything that you need to be forgiven for during Lent.

Let's go to the most famous of the parties, Mardi Gras.  In New Orleans they start out by celebrating usually for the whole weekend before Ash Wednesday.  The streets are lined with party goers who display costumes and the traditional beads of purple, green and gold and eat King Cake.  The entire celebration is themed around these colors.

The biggest parade is on Shrove Tuesday which ends Mardi Gras literally.  As soon as the parade has ended, the police come out and usher everyone off the streets so that the public works department can clean up the multitude of trash that has been dumped on the streets.

In New Orleans they have a French cake doughnut that is called a Beignet.

Another tradition for Shrove Tuesday is the Polish custom of making and eating Paczki.  This is a donut without a hole and can be either filled with custard or fruit fillings and is similar to a jelly donut.  When I was married into a Polish family, they made their Paczki (pronounced:  poonch key) with one special pastry having a cherry in the middle of it.  Whoever got that pastry was considered the lucky one for that year.

Another tradition that I've recently learned is the Pennsylvania Dutch make a pastry called Fastnacht.  It is very similar to the Paczki in appearance.  This donut is fried and sprinkled with confectioners sugar.

The tradition that I never knew about was the tradition of eating pancakes on Fat Tuesday.  The fancier you make the pancake the better.  The more toppings you put on such as strawberries or cherries the better.  I think you need to top the whole stack off with whipped cream but that is just my interpretation of the pancake stack.

However, you choose to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, it is traditionally with sinful foods and partying.

Braciole (Stuffed Steak)

Individual Stuffed Breakfast Steaks (Braciole)

This week I lucked out and got a great buy on a whole round steak cut very thin.  As soon as I saw it I knew I was going to make braciole for dinner that night.  I'm not partial to round steak but I couldn't pass it up.  Normally when I make braciole these days I have it using thin cut breakfast steaks which are normally thin cut sirloin steaks.  I have found cuts of meat in one of our local supermarkets that are labeled for braciole.

Mixing Bread Stuffing

I prefer bread stuffing in my braciole even though my Italian mother-in-law usually made a meat stuffing for her braciole.  If you are being lazy and have boxed stuffing on the shelf, you can make the stuffing using the boxed mix and save what is left over after you stuff the steak as a side dish.  This gives you more stuffing, which is right up my alley.

Spreading Stuffing on Steaks

Once the stuffing is made lay out your steaks and line it with the stuffing mixture.

Wrapped Stuffed Steaks in Pan

Roll your steak into a log or in the case of the above where I used breakfast steaks into individual logs and then place them into a baking dish.  I have found that using skewers designed for grilling is a great way to keep the braciole rolled right during baking.

I normally bake my braciole in my oven at 350 deg. until the steak is browned and cooked through.  My mother-in-law used her cast-iron skillet and simmered them on top of the stove.  She had to keep a watchful eye on them and turned them as needed.


Braciole is not just a beef recipe.  If you can get the right cut of meat from the butcher, you can also do this recipe using pork.  Another form would be to beat chicken breast until they are thin and roll those up with stuffing.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Although my son is not as fond of spaghetti as I am, I like to serve this with a side of spaghetti and meat sauce.  If you pour some of the meat sauce over the braciole it add additional flavor to your meal.

Braciole with a side of Spaghetti

This whole recipe only takes about 15 minutes to prepare and another 30-45 minutes to cook.

To My Valentine

For so many years I took for granted the wonderful things that my valentine did for me.  Not that I wasn't just as attentive to him and didn't do things just for him that I knew he would like.  But, he was a true romantic and did things just because instead of when it was expected for those days like Valentine's Days.

After he retired, he started a part time job driving for a florist.  Not one holiday passed that I didn't get something special.  At Christmas, it was the latest Thomas Kincaid arrangement with such things as a glass Madonna or small nativity embedded among the flowers.

It didn't need to be a special day.  There were those ordinary days when nothing was going on and there was no birthday or anniversary.  He would come home and behind his back he would be carrying long stem roses, my favorite flower because I am devoted to St. Therese, the little flower.  Sometimes they were red for true love, sometimes they were yellow, but mostly they were a mixture of pinks, whites and reds that were perfect for any occasion.

He was a gem and one that I dearly loved for many reasons.  When we would go out for the evening to the Club, he would sit and listen to the music and sing the romantic songs to me with his gravely voice.  It didn't matter that he was off pitch because his eyes told the story that I was his true love.

I no longer have those wonderful events that he made out of ordinary days to look forward to.  What I have are my memories of the most wonderfully romantic man in the universe, my Bear.  He was the Bear part of bearnmom, which was the original logon we shared when we started enjoying the wild and wonderful world of the internet.  That is because we shared our happiness, our sadness, our everything with each other.  Happy Valentine's Day, Bear.  You still hold the best part of what is my romantic heart.

Making Decorated Cookies for Valentine's Day

Cookie Cutter Cookies

Cookies are good at any time of year and the basic Butter or Sugar Cutout Cookies can be so much fun for the holidays.

Cookie Decorating Kits

For Valentine's Day there is the heart cut out. These cookies shown here are sold in the store ready for decorating with our cookie decorator icing which iss easy enough to make and use.

The icing recipe is not hard to make and it can be so much fun to use to make your cookies special.

After you mix your icing you divide it into separate bowls and add your food coloring.  Then put each color into a bottle to use on your cookies.

The next step is to outline each cookie with a single line of your icing around each cookie and let it dry.

Outline with icing

Finally you take your bottle of color you are using for the cookie and squeeze it into the middle and smooth it out.

Fill in Icing

Once the icing is set on the cookie you can decorate away with strings of different colors.

If you don't want to make your own icing you can still make your own designs because there are products out there that do the same thing as your royal icing.

However you choose to make these cookies, the thing to remember is that your a making a memory for the children for whom you make these cookies.

HAPPY BAKING AND DECORATING FOR VALENTINE'S DAY.