Finding the Time
Many of us are very busy, and may feel we don't have the time to prepare meals this way.   We offer these recipe ideas and reflections as a way of helping us pray Lent at a deeper level, bringing together a bit of sacrifice with a religious experience of preparing and enjoying meals that are "different."

Different - Simple - Healthy - in Solidarity
These meals are often quite different from what we may now be eating.  This "change of our pattern" can be a great help to freeing us to keep before our minds and hearts that God is inviting us to a "change of hearts."  These meals are very simple, very humble.  They are simple to prepare and non-fancy.  They help us choose to simplify our lives, so that we might un-clutter them on many levels.  These meals may be healthier than we are now eating.  Besides the health benefits, this can help us act out our choice to live healthier, physically and spiritually.  These meals are intended to give us some small experience of choosing to eat in some solidarity with those who have so much less than us.  We must never forget that many people on this earth are without food, are malnourished or under nourished.  These small attempts at altering our diet can give us an explicit opportunity to choose to be "with" our sisters and brothers who may "hunger and thirst for justice."

Making this work with a family
Some of us may wonder if this kind of food is "too different" for our family, or might "turn them off."  That is why we offer so much reflection about what this can mean.  It is an opportunity for us to not only have meat-less or simpler meals, but to do some wonderful, prayerful reflection as we prepare the food.  Then, we can help our family to not only understand the meaning of the food, but to enter into the experience of sharing it together - as a religious experience, as part of our choice to be healthy and holy persons, and as a symbol of our desire to get to know the experience of the poor, that we might stand with them in their struggle and in their faith.

Fridays and more
Most of these recipes are meat-less, and could be used on the Fridays of Lent, when we abstain from meat.  However, they can be used on any day, or as many days as we choose.  For example, we may want to have an Abstinence day together as a family.  It may turn out that a particular Friday doesn't work out for that.  We can choose to have an additional day together for our family meal.  We may want to make Saturday a special day in which we do some of this preparation together.  The more creative we are, the more intentional we are, the more we exercise our desires and the more we allow God to work in us.
 
 

Preparations

Soups

Stews

Pastas

Fish

Special Meals