New Lent

We made soup stock.  When we had our beef butchered, we asked for soup bones, and we have lots of them.  Making stock was easy — just throw those bones with attached meat into a pot, slice some onions in half, add a bunch of water, and let it simmer all day.  This batch yielded four half-gallons of dark brown fluid and enough solids left over to feed the chickens well tomorrow.

Today is Ash Wednesday and meat abstinence takes on a new tenor for us.  We will fast from meat and sugar, as is tradition.  But I think we will also make dinner exclusively from food God has given us from this land.  Eggs, cheese, milk, and veggies.  Lent is an time to focus on the compassion and mercy of God and that is no more tangible than in the food God has given us.

With Christina giving so much milk and cream, it adds up quickly.  We are suddenly overrun with cream.  When I mentioned that we have too much cream, the girls offered to drink it with cookies at snack.  Chuckling, we agreed.  They drank a half gallon of cream and said it was wonderful.  My husband helped them out.

I started another batch of ice cream.  It will go through the ice cream maker today and then harden in the freezer tonight.  Maybe I'll make a cherry pie tomorrow to melt it on.