Lenten Meal Recipes

March 9th is Ash Wednesday and it marks the beginning of Lent, a period of 40 days of prayer and penance, which reaches its climax and goal in the solemn celebrations of Jesus’ death and resurrection in Holy Week. One of the traditional Lenten observances is fasting. During Lent Catholics are asked to abstain from meat and from eating between meals on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and to abstain from eating meat on the Fridays of Lent. For those of you that follow the Catholic tradition, following this post you will find a few meatless recipes.

Cheese Crisp


3 (or more) medium flour tortillas

1/2 pound Oaxaca cheese, shredded

1/2 pound Monterey jack cheese, shredded

1/3 pound anejo cheese, grated

1/2 pound Poblano peppers, roasted, peeled, sliced

1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped

Oil (for frying)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roast Poblanos and remove skins and seeds. Slice into thin decorative slices.
In large fry pan fry tortilla in oil until golden brown. Drain well on paper towels. Place on baking sheet. When tortilla has cooled and hardened, cover with a thin layer of Oaxaca cheese and a thin layer of jack cheese. Crumble anejo on top and sprinkle with cilantro. Arrange pepper slices on top. Bake for 5 minutes or just until cheese has melted. Remove from oven and use pizza cutter to slice into individual portions. Serve immediately.
 

Avocado Tacos (Flautas)

3 avocados

Salt, to taste

1/4 cup onion, minced

1 cup sour cream

6 to 8 ounces farmer cheese, crumbled

Juice of 1 lemon

1 clove garlic, pressed

12 corn tortillas

1 onion, chopped



Peel and mash the avocados, then stir in lemon juice, salt, garlic and minced onions.

Fry tortillas in hot oil to heat through and lightly crisp. Spread a tablespoon of avocado filling in a slightly off-center line across the tortilla and roll. Serve with a dollop of sour cream on each and sprinkle with chopped onions and crumbled cheese.

Serve with taco sauce.

Serves 5 to 6.

Bean Cakes




1 recipe Boiled Pinto Beans, well drained

1 medium white onion, minced

2 serrano chiles, stemmed and minced

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup peanut oil

1 cup fresh tomato salsa

1 cup Crema

Mash the beans to a textured purée with a food processor or potato masher. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the onion, chiles, cumin and salt. Using 1/4 cup of the bean mixture, make 3 x 1/2-inch patties.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large heavy skillet. Put as many patties in the skillet as will fit in a single uncrowded layer and fry over fairly high heat until golden and toasted, about 1 minute per side. Transfer to a platter. Fry remaining patties.

Sprinkle each patty with salsa, then drizzle Crema over. Serve immediately.



Tortilla Quiche



1 (12-inch) flour tortilla

1 1/2 cups grated Monterey jack cheese

1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

2 roasted green chiles, skins and seeds removed,

chopped, or 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chiles

3 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cumin



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place tortilla in bottom of a lightly greased 10-inch pie plate. Sprinkle Jack cheese and half of Cheddar cheese over tortilla. Sprinkle chiles over cheese.

Beat eggs, sour cream, salt and cumin. Pour over chiles and top with the remaining Cheddar cheese. Bake for 45 minutes.

Let sit 10 minutes before cutting. Makes 6 servings.

Meatless Shepherd's Pie


1 1/2 cups hot water

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2-3 cups of mashed potatoes

3 cups frozen vegetables, any variety, thawed and drained

1 can (11 ounces) condensed Cheddar cheese or cream of mushroom soup

1 can (4 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained

1 can (2.8 ounces) French-fried onions

In a large bowl, place vegetables, the soup and sliced mushroom and then mix together. Pour the mixture into an ungreased 1 1/2 quart casserole dish and sprinkle with half of the onions. Spread your mashed potatoes over the onions and veggie mixture.

Bake uncovered 25 minutes; sprinkle with remaining onions. Bake 3 to 5 minutes longer or until mixture is hot and onions are brown.

Wild Rice-Pecan Patties



2 cups cooked wild rice

1 cup soft bread crumbs (1 1/2 slices)

1/3 cup chopped pecans

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

2 eggs

1 jar (2 1/2 ounces) mushroom pieces and stems, drained and finely chopped

1 jar (2 ounces) diced pimientos

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil

Mix all ingredients except oil.

Heat oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Scoop wild rice mixture by 1/3 cupfuls into skillet; flatten to 1/2 inch. Cook about 6 minutes, turning once, until light brown. Remove patties from skillet. Cover and keep warm while cooking remaining patties.

Enjoy!

Support Recall Of The GOP 8 in Wisconsin.

Recall efforts are happening across Wisconsin to remove both Governor Scott Walker and some of the state's senators, including a Democrat who has left the state.

Click Here To Show Your Support!

Over the last 2 years, Republicans have been talking about how the liberals are taking away all your freedoms.  What Gov. Walker and his cohorts are doing is the Republican solution to the economy. Give tax breaks to the rich, run up a deficit and lay off workers who have made salary concessions. The GOP ram a conservative agenda down the throats of anything considered liberal. Fire people in jobs considered liberal strongholds.

Anyone with an ounce of knowledge about this country's labor history already knows that unions have done alot for the working people of this country.  If not for unions, we would all be making slave wages.  Without collective barganing, it is "take it or leave it!"  Unions gave us weekends off, 40 hour work weeks, overtine for working holidays and overtime, sick days and vacation days.

I support Wisconsin union workers and democracy in action and what's a more amazing sight to see, is how inconvenient all of this is for the GOP.

UPDATE: Justice For Brisenia Flores

UPDATE: 02/22/2011
Woman in Arizona sentenced to death for double-murder
Published February 23, 2011

A jury in Tucson on Tuesday sentenced Shawna Forde, a former member of the Minutemen, to death for her participation in the 2009 deaths of a Spanish man and his 9-year-old daughter in their Arizona home.

After four hours of deliberation over two days, the jury handed down a death sentence against Forde, 43, for the deaths of 29-year-old Raul Flores and his daughter Brisenia in Arivaca, a town about 10 miles north of the Mexican border.

Last week, the same jury found the anti-immigrant activist guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

The prosecution argued that Forde recruited two men to rob Flores because they suspected he was a drug trafficker and she needed money to finance her Minuteman American Defense organization.

The only survivor of the attack was Gina Gonzalez, the wife and mother of the victims, who said that she had saved her own life because she played dead during the attack.

Forde's accomplices were identified as Jason Bush, 36, and Albert Gaxiola, 44, who will go on trial on March 15 and June 1, respectively.

With the handing down of the sentence, Forde becomes the third woman on death row in the Florence prison in Arizona.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/02/23/woman-arizona-sentenced-death-double-murder/






UPDATE: 02/14/2011
Shawna Forde convicted of murder in Arizona
By Scott North, Herald Writer


The self-styled leader of a border-watch group that was founded in Everett has been convicted of charges that she planned a deadly raid that ended the lives of an Arizona man and his young daughter.

Thank you Jesus!




Murder is fundamentally wrong and there is universal acceptance of that fact. Killing of children is unthinkable and there should be no debate how murderers of children  should be punished.   Click Here or on the photo below and do your part to demand justice for Brisenia.

So here's the story.

'Please don't shoot me:' Girl, nine, begged for her life before she and her father were shot dead by 'anti-immigrant vigilantes'.  On May 30, 2009, a group of armed men and women killed 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father in Arivaca, AZ. The vigilantes were Minutemen, members of a "civilian defense corps" that polices the US-Mexico border for undocumented immigrants. When Jason Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Gaxiola, 42, allegedly busted down the front door of the Flores home and murdered Raul Junior Flores and his daughter and seriously injured Flores' wife, the armed gang was supposedly looking for drugs and cash to fund their anti-immigrant organization.

Shawna Forde is a suspect who formed and was the self styled Executive Director of the anti-immigration group, Minutemen Civil Defense Corps even though she exhibited "unstable" behavior, later formed a splinter group (Minutemen American Defense or M.A.D.) to pursue her political goals. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik alleged Forde to have planned and ordered the murders of Flores.

Jason Eugene "Gunny" Bush, is M.A.D.'s National Director of Operations. Bush was shot in the leg during the same time frame as the attack. Bush confessed to being the gunman who killed Brisenia and Raul Flores during a May 30 raid on an Arivaca, Ariz. family’s home.

Albert Robert Gaxiola, according to Brisena’s mom , Gonzalez said Gaxiola and Flores had an on-going dispute that had originated in 2008 over marijuana belonging to Gaxiola that had been stored at Flores's residence. Forde and this group suspected Flores was in the drug trade and they needed money to fund their anti-immigrant organization. The head of the Tucson office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Anthony Coulson told the Arizona Daily Star, "Raul Flores was a drug-trafficker." So I suppose that gives a hate group to attempt to assassinate a whole family? Today, the DEA declines to comment on Mr. Flores. Why?

American Voices To The GOP: "Stop The Mocking And Show Us The Jobs!"

It’s time to stop the double talk.  The Republicans/Tea Party either show your cards or fold’em.  GOP efforts to reduce Social Security, Medicare, or other entitlement programs will be met with an angry electorate in 2012.  Their careers will be short lived and I’ll do my best to contribute to their demise.  The GOP/Tea Party people talk about what is wrong with any and every proposal but have nothing of their own to show, "because it has not yet been drafted." This is typical GOP rhetoric and anti anything Obama. The party of 'NO' is alive and well. -Cihuapilli

GOP mocks Obama budget, House weighs spending cuts


By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Alan Fram, Associated Press

1 hr 45 mins ago

.WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's $3.7 trillion budget for 2012 was quickly dismissed Tuesday by House Republicans for taking a pass on tackling historically huge federal deficits.

Obama told a news conference, meanwhile, that the budget he sent Congress will help meet his goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term and said he hoped to find common ground with Republicans. He also defended his decision to avoid overhauls in entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, saying the two parties need to work together to find compromise.

"There's going to be a lot of ups and downs in the coming months as we get to that solution," the president said. "I'm confident that we can get this done."

House Republicans, though, were eager to launch a weeklong debate on their own package of deep cuts in domestic spending for the current fiscal year.

White House budget director Jacob Lew kicked off the administration's defense of its proposed 2012 budget on Capitol Hill with an appearance before the House Budget Committee. Rep. Mike Simpson spoke for most of the Republicans on the panel in saying he doesn't view the proposal — which mostly ignores the recommendations of Obama's fiscal commission — as a serious one.

"In our nation's most pressing fiscal challenges, the president has abdicated his leadership role," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "When his own commission put forward a set of fundamental entitlement and tax reforms ... he ignored them."

Lew countered that the Obama plan is a "tough budget" filled with cuts to programs the president himself supports.

Eager to please their conservative tea party supporters, Republicans are championing $61 billion in cuts to hundreds of programs for the remaining seven months of this federal fiscal year under a bill the House planned to debate Tuesday. AmeriCorps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be completely erased, while deep cuts would be carved from programs for feeding poor women and children, training people for jobs and cleaning the Great Lakes.

Reductions of that magnitude this late in a fiscal year would have a jarring impact on many programs. The GOP-run House planned to approve the measure Thursday.

The proposed reductions have "showdown" written all over them. Republicans included them in a must-pass bill financing the government, which otherwise runs out of money on March 4. The Democratic-controlled Senate and Obama himself are sure to turn them down.

"We have consistently said it's not our intention to shut down this government," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Monday of one possibility should there be an impasse. "That's political talk and we ought to get that off the table and we ought to go about the real business of trying to cut spending."

Lew downplayed the possibility of a government shutdown.

"If we all work together in a bipartisan way to look for the things we can agree on and take some of the things that we can't agree on off to the side, we can accomplish a great deal," Lew said.

Obama unveiled his fiscal blueprint a day earlier, a plan that mixes tax increases on the wealthy and some businesses, a five-year freeze on most domestic programs, and boosts for elementary schools, clean energy and airport security. The outline is a first step in what is likely to be a bitter partisan fight as Congress translates it into a parade of tax and spending bills.

Despite its savings, Obama's budget projects a record $1.65 trillion deficit this year, falling to $1.1 trillion next year and easing thereafter. Even so, it stands to generate a mammoth $7.2 trillion sea of red ink over the next 10 years, a number that would be even larger had the president not claimed over $1 trillion in 10-year savings by winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Glaringly missing from the president's budget was a substantial reshaping of Social Security, Medicare and other massive, automatically paid benefit programs that bipartisan members of his deficit-reduction commission had recommended last year. That leaves the nation under a black fiscal cloud as its aging population, prolonged lifespans and ever costlier medical procedures leave the government with enormous I.O.U.'s.

Most Republicans have also shied away from calling for savings from so-called entitlement programs, but that's not stopped them from criticizing Obama's failure to do so. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, has called for such reductions, but would not predict Monday whether they would be included in the 2012 spending plan his panel plans to write this spring.

"The president punted on the budget, he punted on the deficit," Ryan told reporters. "That's not leadership, that's an abdication of leadership."

Overall, Obama's budget claims $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction from tax increases and spending cuts over the next decade while protecting some — but not all — programs that Democrats cherish.

By 2021, Obama projects that $844 billion out of the $5.7 trillion federal budget would go toward paying interest on the government's debt. Such interest payments would exceed the size of the entire federal budget in 1983.

Federal budgets often burrow into the minutest details of the bureaucracy, and Obama's was no exception.

The State Department said it expected to save $5.3 million over the next three years by painting the roofs of its embassies and other offices in a heat-reflecting, energy-saving white color. And the U.S. Agency for International Development projected hundreds of thousands in savings by reducing the font size in its documents to reduce paper usage.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j8ChgTzvvDVp7QwWIP33gc3Y123Q?docId=965508997bb9416cb3bf5612bf73574d

GOP Leaders Content To Let Misinformation Fester Among Their Constituent's.

Regarding the birth issue Boehner should have had stern words about idiots that can't educate themselves with the body of information that is out there.  There is no issue and since encouraging ignorance helps the GOP, the GOP is content to let misinformation fester among their constituent’s.  Republican Leaders, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell are weasels.  They are reflective of our weak kneed and severely undereducated position in the world today.  You call yourselves leaders, well start leading this country in the right direction.  I can't believe how the focus group in this video actually got on national tv, for the whole world to see and foolishly stated they still believe Obama is a Muslim. 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Eric Cantor Against Health Care For Americans

Republicans are in charge in the House. That means they have a responsibility to act like grown-ups. PPACA is on the books... not funding would leave it on the books but cause massive disruption in the health care sector, and massive uncertainty going forward. It's just plain irresponsible. If this makes it past conference committee, Republicans will have proven themselves unfit to govern.


The GOP had their repeal bill... repeal died in the Senate. Move on with life. If anything, modifying or replacing the individual mandate in some responsible way is a reasonable approach. Believe me, Democrats aren't married to the individual mandate. If there's a better way to get everyone in, bring it forward and make the case.



Republican Cantor Says U.S. House to Bar Funding for Obama Health-Care Law
By James Rowley - Feb 9, 2011

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said a spending measure needed to continue financing government operations this fiscal year will also prohibit money to implement the health-care law.

Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said yesterday the spending measure will include a provision that would “preclude any funds to be used for” the overhaul of the U.S. health-care system that was enacted last year.

Congress must pass legislation to continue financing the government by March 4, when a temporary funding measure expires, or risk a shutdown of offices and services. The House will begin debating the measure next week.

As part of the legislation, House Republicans also are proposing $35 billion in spending cuts for the 2011 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The House, in one of its first actions since Republicans took control following November’s elections, voted last month to repeal the health-care law. That measure is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, so House Republicans are pursuing other ways to stymie implementation of the law, which fully takes effect in 2014.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Cantor, told reporters that Representative Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican, would offer the amendment to barring funds for the health-care law. Rehberg has announced plans to run against Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, in 2012.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-09/republican-cantor-says-u-s-house-to-bar-funding-for-obama-health-care-law.html

GOP Eric Cantor Against Jobs And Progress For Our Nation

I totally support high-speed rail development. It is an embarrassment that this nation has fallen so far below the rest of the world in a transportation industry we dominated for most of the past 2 centuries.  What happened to "Jobs, Jobs & Jobs"?  It's apparant now that the GOP are in charge, Americans finding work so they can keep theit homes and put food on the table, just isn't important to them anymore. 


Eric Cantor Before.

"If there is one thing that I think all of us here on both sides of the political aisle from all parts of the region agree with, it's that we need to do all we can to promote jobs here in the Richmond area," said then House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, shortly after the stimulus bill passed in 2009.

He was talking about a high-speed rail stimulus project that he claimed would bring scores of thousands jobs to the region.

"The estimates of job creation are 85,000 to 160-some thousand jobs for the commonwealth, most of that in this area," he said.

Eric Cantor Now

Cantor: Repeal That Job-Creating Infrastructure Project In My District (full article)

GOP Attack On Rape Victims

Women in the United States, especially those who vote for the GOP, should be appalled at even the thought of a  legislative bill that would redefine rape in these cases to only include "forcible rape," a definition that rules out a woman being drugged, children who are victims of statutory rape, and many date rape scenarios.  

What form of rape happens that isn't violent? Isn't rape by definition violent? This makes no sense whatsoever and really just punishing women because some offender can't control himself nor seek the help he needs to get that ridiculous urge under control. I bet they aren't offering any post of additional counseling for after a rape has occurred or legal assistance or making the family of the rapist foot the medical coverage. Nope women if you're getting raped fight the guy this was its forced and the Republicans in congress will then help you.

By the way, did the GOP solve our unemployment woes and no one told me?  Apparantly, this is more pressing than employing American workers and solving the economy crisis.

Dem calls GOP rape-redefining bill ‘a violent act against women’
By Sahil Kapur
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 -- 8:23 am



WASHINGTON – Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Monday tore into House Republicans for proposing legislation that would limit access to abortion coverage for some rape victims.

The Florida Democrat, a rising star in her party and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, is a leading voice on women's issues. And she didn't mince her words in an interview with Raw Story, fiercely denouncing GOP colleagues over H.R. 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."

"It is absolutely outrageous," Wasserman Schultz said in an exclusive interview late Monday afternoon. "I consider the proposal of this bill a violent act against women."

The broad anti-abortion measure would restrict federally-assisted abortion coverage to cases of "forcible rape," excluding in that definition instances where women are drugged and raped, where women say "no" but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, and various cases of date rape. It also excludes instances of statutory rape in which minors are impregnated by adults. The victim in all cases would be denied abortion coverage under Medicaid and forbidden from seeking health care tax benefits.

Introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the bill boasts 173 mainly Republican co-sponsors and has been designated a top priority by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

"It really is -- to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself," Wasserman Schultz said.

"Rape is when a woman is forced to have sex against her will, and that is whether she is conscious, unconscious, mentally stable, not mentally stable," the four-term congresswoman added.

The measure would also raise costs for businesses who want to offer employees insurance plans with abortion coverage, by eliminating health care tax deductions and benefits that have long been a part of federal law.

Spokespersons for Boehner and Smith did not return requests for comment.

Dead on arrival in the Senate?

Wasserman Schultz dismissed the effort as a nonstarter in the Democratic-led Senate and a guaranteed veto by President Barack Obama, but conceded that it may pass the GOP-controlled House. She called it "yet another example" of how the "extreme right-wing fringe of Republican Party has complete control over their agenda."

Democrats have long held a strong voter advantage nationally among women -- President Obama won the female vote by 13 points. But exit polls from the November midterm elections saw that margin narrow considerably, with women evenly split between the two parties in House races.

"To have H.R. 3, the Republicans' third most important priority, say that rape cannot be an exception to federal funding for abortion...sends an incredibly strong message to women," Wasserman Schultz said, describing it as the GOP's "opening curtain" on women's issues.

The pro-abortion-rights group NARAL lashed out at the measure's backers, calling it "unbelievably cruel and heartless toward survivors of rape and incest."

"We are seeing more and more anti-choice lawmakers who are willing to deny survivors of rape and incest access to abortion care," NARAL president Nancy Keenan told Raw Story. "If they can't block access altogether, they will work around the edges. Rep. Smith's 'Stupak on Steroids' bill is an example of this piecemeal strategy because it seeks to make the narrow exceptions for public funding of abortion care for rape and incest survivors even more restrictive."

Wasserman Schultz also said the bill contradicted the GOP's core political philosophy.

"Even though Republicans say they want government out of our lives, this is the most intrusive governmental act that we've probably seen to date in the personal lives of women," she said.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/wasserman-schultz-gop-rape-violent-women/