Feast Day: St. Francis of Assisi

Today is the celebration of St. Francis of Assisi, known throughout the world as the man of great charity toward all God's creation. St. Francis, who lived a wild youth, had an amazing conversion experience which led to his founding the Friars Minor, popularly known as the Franciscans.

Francis begged God to allow him to suffer as Jesus had on the Cross. While on retreat at a mountain-top monastery near Assisi, on September 17 1224, St. Francis got his request: the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ.

We were blessed to visit this mountain monastery in the Tuscany back in 2000. We were in the middle of our Jubilee Year Pilgrimage and thought we'd stay at LaVerna for a few days, using it as our base for visiting Siena, Assisi and other towns around the area. When we arrived at Chiusi della Verna, we felt such peace ... we ended up staying on the mountain for four days (only coming down one day to do laundry in the town below the fortress-like monastery). What a blessing to pray and walk the path of Francis and other Franciscans who continue to pray and work and love in Francis' shadow!

Below is a painting by Ghirlondhiao (1449-1494) that shows the mountain of LaVerna ... where Francis and others came to pray and retreat from the world ... the place of such unbelievable peace even today ... a place we couldn't leave ...

St. Francis had a great devotion and faith in God and everlasting life.  Reportedly, as he lay dying, he was heard to pray ... "bring my soul out of prison".

St. Francis, you who bore the wounds of Christ without complaint, pray for us in our trials and tribulations ... help us to offer these to God.

St. Francis, pray for us!

A lovely St. Francis quote ... and one I use at the bottom of my By Hand, With Heart letterhead ... says:

He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

But, he who works with his hands, his head, and his heart, is an artist

 

Feast Day: St. Teresa of Avila

Now, this is a cool saint ... she's one of only three women Doctors of the Church ... yep, that's how profound are her writings.  Dh studied her extensively in grad school and still loves reading about her.  I never studied her but everytime I read a quote, I think "yes, exactly!"  For instance the quote I attached the above icon ...

With the Lord by our side, there is nothing we cannot do.  Separated from Him, we will collapse ...

 

Cool, eh?

Today we learned about St. Teresa (1515-1582, Avila, Spain)  ... and her many gifts to the Church, not least of which would be the reform of the Carmelite order in Spain.  She was one tough woman who didn't take lightly anything that would lead souls away from truly loving God.  We also colored the page Waltzing Matilda so graciously posted for all while we talked about visiting Avila back in 2000 for our Jubilee Year pilgrimage.  It was hot (July in Spain!) and dry and dusty and trains were delayed ... and yet, Avila was cool, clean, and gorgeous! 

I wanted to find a fun recipe to try for this feast.  The yemas -- candied egg yolks -- just didn't sound like anything my family would like and yet that was the only sweet that was associated with St. Teresa!  I decided to do an online search of Spanish recipes and found a great-sounding recipe for polvorones, traditional special-day cookies (often made for Christmas) ... I tweaked the recipe just a tad and must have done the right thing because dh and ALL three of the kids ate almost the whole plate after dinner!  They loved them and dh said it was probably the best cookie I've made!

So, yemas step aside and let's do polvorones for St. Teresa of Avila!  Here's the recipe I made:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 3/4 cup almonds (raw)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 egg yolk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preparation:

This polvorones or Spanish almond cookie recipe makes approximately 16 (2-inch round) cookies.  We made heart-shaped as I still can't find my biscuit cutters!

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure and pour flour out onto a cookie sheet. Place in oven and "toast" the flour. Occasionally move the flour around on the sheet, so that it toasts evenly. Leave in oven for about 8 minutes. Remove and set aside.  At the same time, place raw almonds in a glass pie pan and toast till fragrant (about 8 mins). Remove and place almonds into a food processor. Process almonds until they are finely ground.
Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees.

Cream butter, egg yolk, sugar and cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour and finely ground almonds and continue mixing. The dough will be very crumbly!

Place a sheet of waxed paper on a cutting board or other flat work surface. Press the dough together to form  ball. Then press the dough onto the waxed paper. Carefully flatten it down to about 3/4-1 inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out the cookies and a spatula to move cookies to cookie sheet for baking.

Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet for 30-45 minutes at 250 degrees. Turn off heat and leave cookie sheet in oven, allowing cookies to cool completely before removing them.

 

That's it ... for "the best cookies I've ever made!"  I think next time I'll try using powdered sugar in lieu of the granulated as I think that will make them even more melt-in-the-mouth!

 

Blessings and hope you had a wonderful St. Teresa Day!