Dinner on Friday

[rpp]

How many here abstain from meat on Friday?

I actually look forward to Fridays. I have yogurt and fruit for breakfast and a salad for lunch. For dinner, I usually end up making cheese/spinach ravioli topped with a basil, rosemary, thyme and Parmesan cheese mixed with olive oil.

The rest of the week I do not eat so healthy.

 

[bluerose]

Whoever said “real men don’t eat quiche” have never met my husband and 14-year-old son!

For dinner tonight, I made two quiches–spinach, mushroom and cheese and broccoli, mushroom and cheese. I have 2/3 of one quiche left! So much for leftovers for breakfast!

Other times I make the usual “Friday fare”–tuna casserole or grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. Sometimes spaghetti with shrimp. Pinto beans with corn bread (my son’s favorite comfort food, next to meatloaf.) Or traditional Mexican faves–chiles rellenos or cheese enchiladas.

And sometimes all you want is a bowl of buttered noodles or a bowl of cereal.

 

[Cat]

We usually go out to Friday night fish fry at Cracker Barrell–mmm!

But not tonight. My husband is on call and has to stay close to his computer, so we ate leftover meatloaf and then I went out and brought home Butterfinger blizzards.

Needless to say, we aren’t thin.

 

[dulcissima]

I eat fairly healthy the rest of the week, but more simply and sparsely on Fridays. Coffee for breakfast, a bean burrito for lunch, and homemade lentil soup and grilled cheese sandwich for dinner tonight.

 

[Chronister4673]

We’ve done meatless Fridays for most of the last 3 years for a general penance. We do many different things on Friday. For breakfast this morning, the kids had smoothies. The boys had a packed lunch of PB&J at their camp and my dsd and I had tuna salad. Dinner tonight was fish fillets. We do tomato soup and grilled cheese. Beans and rice, cheese and tomato omelettes, cheese pizza, salads, shrimp, meatless pastas, etc… I try to keep it different for variety’s sake. If someone’s birthday happens to fall on a Friday, we don’t abstain in celebration of them, or if it’s a feast day we intend to celebrate. The obvious exception being St. Patrick’s day due to it falling during Lent.

 

[mizznicole]

We’re pretty much meatless on Friday. When I was pregnant I didn’t adhere to it as much. But I love fish anyhow so it’s not really a sacrifice…maybe I should add something.

 

[Joannm]

I have gone back to meatless Friday’s over the past year. I grew up with it but once they changed the rules, so to speak, I never gave it much thought (except in Lent). A few years ago I drastically cut down on eating red meat. I hardly ever have it. I found it easy to make meatless meals. While I still eat poultry and pork, I do like meatless meals. Anyway I started to consciously avoid meat on Fridays. Since I don’t have kids at home anymore it pretty easy.

 

[Fergal]

Let us not forget that the reason for the abstinence is as an act of penance. There should be a penitential side to the abstinence. To skip the meat but look forward to something else does not seem to me to be penetential . We don’t just skip the meat for the sake of skipping the meat!!

Now if you were to go without sugar in your tea / coffee all day Friday or to put a small stone in your shoe for an hour then I would say your act was penetential!!

I quote from thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?SectionID=15&subsectionID=15&articleID=1431

•Abstinence is a form of penance.
Penance expresses sorrow and contrition for our wrongdoing, indicates our intension to turn away from sin and turn back to God, and makes reparation for our sins. It helps to cancel the debt and pay the penalties incurred by our transgressions.

• Abstinence is a form of asceticism, the practice of self-denial to grow in holiness. Jesus asks his disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross (Matthew 16:24).

• Abstinence is a sober way to practice simplicity and austerity, to deny the cravings of our bodies to honor Jesus who practiced the ultimate form of self-denial when he gave his body for us on the cross.

Thus, to give up flesh meat on Fridays, only to feast on lobster tail or Alaskan king crab, is to defeat the ascetical purpose of abstinence. Less is more!

There are countless options for simple Friday meatless dinners: pancakes, waffles, soup and rolls, chipped tuna on toast, macaroni and cheese, fried egg sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese pizza and, of course, fish.

 

[puzzleannie]

since I was raised in the no-meat Friday Church like many of my generation we never changed. We will eat meat on Friday if it is served at someones home or at an event, or try a little. We don’t do it rigidly or even religiously more out of habit and the fact that we eat very little meat in any case for health reasons, and do eat quite a bit of fish. My usual way of preparing fish is poached in milk or broth, served with spinach, sweet potato, new green peas, salad. We are pretty boring actually when it comes to food. Since I have to follow a diabetic diet in any case, I don’t have to look around for penance related to food, simply make mindfulness about eating, especially thanksgiving, part of my spirituality according to the ancient monastic way.