Winter patterns on glass with toothpaste. Fabulous and festive stencils for window decorations for the New Year

Everyone who, while living in a monastery, visited the monastery refectory, is surprised at how delicious the food is there, although the products are the simplest. To the question, what is the secret?

The monks themselves unanimously answer: “There are no secrets here, it’s just that when you cook and when you eat, you need to pray.” But still there are some general principles, which are observed in most monasteries, following the instructions of the holy fathers.

Firstly, you cannot eat your fill; food should not burden your stomach. You should leave the meal with a slight feeling of hunger, which, by the way, is absolutely correct, since according to all the laws of our nature, satiety occurs half an hour after eating.

Secondly, whenever possible, food should be plant-based and devoid of any spices. As it was explained to us in Solovetsky Monastery, “there is a fine line between satisfying the feeling of hunger and pleasing the whims of the flesh. A monk needs to learn to distinguish it well. It is no coincidence that gluttony or laryngeal insanity is the first tool of the devil with which he approaches the heart of a monk, suggesting that this is the only joy of all, what is left to him from the world."

To avoid such temptations, monks adhere to simple rules: Food should be simple, nutritious, healthy and contain essential vitamins. Food serves to satiate and maintain strength, nothing more.

Brest Nativity of the Virgin Monastery

Lenten brine cookies

1 glass of brine (preferably from canned tomatoes), 1 tsp. soda, three-quarters of a glass of vegetable oil, three-quarters of a glass of sugar, 1 packet (11 g) of vanilla sugar, flour.

Mix the brine vegetable oil and sugar, add vanilla sugar and flour. The dough should be dense enough so that it can be rolled out into a layer 1 cm thick. Cut out cookies with a cookie cutter and bake in a well-heated oven until golden brown.

Oatmeal jelly (lenten jellied meat)

500 g oatmeal, 3 crusts of rye (yeast) bread, salt, sugar - to taste.

Pour warm water over oatmeal until completely covered. Place the bread crusts in the pan and place in a warm place for a day, stirring occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth, add 0.5 liters of water, salt, sugar. Place over low heat, stirring constantly, bring to a boil, leave for 5 minutes after boiling. Remove from heat, pour into bowls, and let harden.

Lenten gingerbread

4 cups flour, 2 cups sugar. One glass of raisins, finely chopped walnuts, vegetable oil and dried fruit decoction, 25 g of ground cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of soda, salt to taste.

Grind sugar, salt and cinnamon thoroughly with vegetable oil. Add raisins minced through a meat grinder and chopped walnuts. Dilute with a decoction of dried fruits and add soda. Then gradually add flour, add vinegar and stir. Pour the dough into a greased and floured pan and place in the oven. Bake at 170ºC for 50-60 minutes.

***

Recipes for Lenten dishes:

Lenten recipes - Orthodox fasts and holidays
Life without oil (Lent recipes)- Victoria Sverdlova
Lenten recipes: breakfasts
Lenten recipes: salads and snacks- Boring Garden
Recipes for Lenten dishes: Lenten soups
Recipes for Lenten dishes: main courses- Nina Borisova, Maxim Syrnikov
Lenten recipes: baked goods and desserts- Nina Borisova
Lenten recipes: drinks during fasting- Maxim Syrnikov, Nina Borisova
- Alexey Reutovsky
The history of Russian cuisine: in Russia we are doomed to eat porridge- Maxim Syrnikov
Special dishes of Lent: crosses, larks, ladders, grouse- Maxim Syrnikov
Kolivo: Athonite recipe- Boring Garden
Fruit table- Pravoslavie.Ru
Recipes for the Nativity Fast: lentil soup, bread salad, green soup, squid stew, eggplant, avocado appetizer, solyanka with squid and cuba, couscous, kozinaki, toast with apples, etc. - Ekaterina Savostyanova
Recipes for the New Year- Ekaterina Savostyanova
Maslenitsa: 10 best recipes- Orthodoxy and peace
How I made the ancient Roman sauce garum(with photographs and comments) - culinary reconstruction - Maxim Stepanenko

***

Trinity-Sergius Lavra

Millet porridge with pumpkin

1 liter of water, 100 grams of pumpkin, a glass of millet.

Sort the millet and rinse. Grate the pumpkin, add water and cook for half an hour. After this, add millet, salt, sugar and cook until tender.

Celery salad

600 g celery root, 200 g each carrot and apple, 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Grate the root, add grated carrots, apple, sprinkle with lemon juice - so that the apple does not darken. Season with vegetable oil.

Trinity Seraphim-Diveevo Convent

Bishop's cutlets

Half a loaf of bread white bread, 3-4 onions, a glass of peeled walnuts (they replace meat and fish), two potatoes, a clove of garlic.

Pass all other ingredients through a meat grinder. Add garlic, salt, ground pepper.

There is no need to add oil to the minced meat, because... When frying, colettes absorb oil very well.

Do not skimp on breadcrumbs; they form a crust during frying, which prevents the cutlets from falling apart. Make the colettes small and thick so that you can turn them over later.

I think you can experiment: add a can of canned beans or mushrooms to the minced meat, or double the proportion of potatoes.

Pyukhtitsky Assumption Convent

Pea porridge

500 g peas, 2 - 4 onions, vegetable oil, salt to taste.

Place the peas in a large saucepan and wash thoroughly cold water and pour in 1.5 liters of water. Leave for 1 hour, then put on high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, carefully skim off foam and cook until tender, stirring frequently. Cooking time depends on the variety and quality of peas and can range from 45 minutes to 2-3 hours. The peas should boil down: turn into a homogeneous mass, like puree. Add salt to taste, add finely chopped onion fried in vegetable oil and arrange on plates, sprinkling fried onion rings on top. Pea porridge can be cooled in the form, then cut into pieces and served as a cold appetizer.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky stauropegial monastery

Lentils with beets

500 g green lentils, 1 large beetroot, vegetable oil, salt and spices to taste.

Wash the lentils, add cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Skim off the foam, reduce heat to low and simmer covered for 40 minutes, adding salt. Peel the raw beets and grate them on a coarse grater. Place the beets in the pan with the lentils and cook for 5 minutes. Add chopped garlic and spices - ground black pepper, turmeric, garam masala. Remove from heat and leave for 30-60 minutes. You can add vegetable oil. It turns out very tasty dish with a taste of borscht.

Tea in Solovetsky style

Mix in equal proportion three types of tea - black, green and red (hibiscus). Take a herbal mixture - mint, lemon balm, oregano, thyme, cloudberry, a little chamomile and mix in equal quantities. The herbal collection can amount to one-quarter to one-tenth of the tea.

It is better to first put the herbs in boiling water, wait 5 minutes, and then add the tea mixture. Wait 5 minutes again and strain through a colander. This tea can be stored and heated.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery

Valaam cabbage soup (with mushrooms)

A handful of dried mushrooms, 4 potatoes, 250-300 g white cabbage, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 Bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste.

Soak dried mushrooms in cool water in the evening. In the morning, strain the water through a fine sieve or cheesecloth into a separate container (do not pour it out, we will need it later). Wash the mushrooms, cut into slices and place in boiling salted water. Cook for 1 hour until done. Chop the onion into small cubes, cut the carrots into thin strips and fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. Add diced potatoes and thinly shredded cabbage to the pan. After 10 minutes, add the prepared carrots and onions and cook for another 15 minutes. The cabbage should not be overcooked, but remain slightly crispy. Shortly before it is ready, add a bay leaf to the soup and pour in the reserved mushroom infusion. Pour into bowls and season with black pepper to taste.

Potato salad

3-4 potatoes, 1 carrot, 200 g frozen green beans, 100 g frozen green peas, 10 olives, 1 onion, several sprigs of dill and parsley, salt to taste, unrefined sunflower oil.

Boil carrots and potatoes in their skins, cool, peel and cut into cubes. Steam green beans And green pea. Combine potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, sliced pitted olives and diced onion in a large bowl. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs - parsley and (or) dill and pour over sunflower oil. Add salt to taste and mix gently.

500 g buckwheat, 1 large carrot, 1 onion, 300 g frozen green beans, 2 tbsp. l. tomato puree (you can use crushed tomatoes in their own juice), 1 tbsp. l. flour, vegetable oil, chopped herbs, salt to taste.

Boil crumbly buckwheat porridge. While the porridge is cooking, prepare the vegetable part of the dish. To do this, finely chop the carrots, cut the onion into small cubes and fry in a deep frying pan on sunflower oil until golden brown. Boil green beans in a small amount of salted water for 5 minutes from the moment of boiling, drain the broth and transfer the beans to the frying pan with the rest of the vegetables. Pour flour into a small dry frying pan and lightly fry. Add vegetable oil, tomato puree and mix, not allowing lumps to form. Dilute with hot water until sour cream thickens, heat to a boil and pour into a frying pan with vegetables. Cook for a few minutes, add salt if necessary. Place buckwheat porridge and vegetables into plates, sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve immediately.

Alexey Reutovsky

Everyone who, while living in a monastery, visited the monastery refectory, is surprised at how delicious the food is there, although the products are very simple. To the question, what is the secret?

The monks themselves unanimously answer: “There are no secrets here, it’s just that when you cook and when you eat, you need to pray.” But still there are some general principles that are observed in most monasteries, following the instructions of the holy fathers.
Firstly, you cannot eat your fill; food should not burden your stomach. You should leave the meal with a slight feeling of hunger, which, by the way, is absolutely correct, since according to all the laws of our nature, satiety occurs half an hour after eating.

Secondly, whenever possible, food should be plant-based and devoid of any spices. As they explained to us at the Solovetsky Monastery, “there is a fine line between satisfying the feeling of hunger and pleasing the whims of the flesh. A monastic needs to learn to distinguish it well. It is no coincidence that gluttony or guttural rage is the first tool of the devil with which he approaches the heart of a monk, instilling in him that this is the only joy left to him from the world.”

To avoid such temptations, monks adhere to simple rules: food should be simple, nutritious, healthy and contain essential vitamins. Food serves to satiate and maintain strength, nothing more.

Brest Nativity of the Virgin Monastery

LENTEN BRINE COOKIES
1 glass of brine (preferably from canned tomatoes), 1 tsp. soda, three-quarters of a glass of vegetable oil, three-quarters of a glass of sugar, 1 sachet (11 g) vanilla sugar, flour

Mix brine, vegetable oil and sugar, add vanilla sugar and flour. The dough should be dense enough so that it can be rolled out into a layer 1 cm thick. Cut out cookies with a cookie cutter and bake in a well-heated oven until golden brown.

OATMEAL KISSEL (LEAN JELLY)
500 g oatmeal, 3 crusts of rye (yeast) bread, salt, sugar- taste.

Lenten mat
4 cups flour, 2 cups sugar. One glass of raisins, finely chopped walnuts, vegetable oil and dried fruit decoction, 25 g of ground cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of soda, salt to taste.

Trinity-Sergius Lavra

MILLET PORridge WITH PUMPKIN
1 liter of water, 100 grams of pumpkin, a glass of millet.

Sort the millet and rinse. Grate the pumpkin, add water and cook for half an hour. After this, add millet, salt, sugar and cook until tender.

CELERY SALAD
600 g celery root, 200 g each carrot and apple, 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Grate the root, add grated carrots, apple, sprinkle with lemon juice - so that the apple does not darken. Season with vegetable oil.

Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevsky convent

BISHOP'S CUTLETS
Half a loaf of white bread, 3-4 onions, a glass of peeled walnuts (they replace meat and fish), two potatoes, a clove of garlic.

Lightly soak the bread in water, pass all other ingredients through a meat grinder. Add garlic, salt, ground pepper and a little vegetable oil. If the minced meat is liquid, add breadcrumbs, roll in breadcrumbs and fry like regular cutlets.

Pyukhtitsky Assumption Convent

PEA PORRIDGE
500 g peas, 2-4 onions, vegetable oil, salt to taste.

Place the peas in a large saucepan, wash thoroughly in cold water and add 1.5 liters of water. Leave for 1 hour, then put on high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, carefully skim off foam and cook until tender, stirring frequently. Cooking time depends on the variety and quality of peas and can range from 45 minutes to 2-3 hours. The peas should boil down: turn into a homogeneous mass, like puree. Add salt to taste, add finely chopped onion fried in vegetable oil and arrange on plates, sprinkling fried onion rings on top. Pea porridge can be cooled in the form, then cut into pieces and served as a cold appetizer.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky stauropegial monastery

LENTIL WITH BEET
500 g green lentils, 1 large beetroot, vegetable oil, salt and spices to taste.

TEA IN SOLOVETSKY
Mix three types of tea in equal proportions - black, green and red (hibiscus). Take a herbal mixture - mint, lemon balm, oregano, thyme, cloudberry, a little chamomile and mix in equal quantities. The herbal collection can amount to one-quarter to one-tenth of the tea.
It is better to first put the herbs in boiling water, wait 5 minutes, and then add the tea mixture. Wait 5 minutes again and strain through a colander. This tea can be stored and heated.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery

VALAAM cabbage soup (with mushrooms)
A handful of dried mushrooms, 4 potatoes, 250-300 g of white cabbage, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste.

Boil carrots and potatoes in their skins, cool, peel and cut into cubes. Steam the green beans and green peas. Combine potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, sliced pitted olives and diced onion in a large bowl. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs- parsley and (or) dill and pour over sunflower oil. Add salt to taste and mix gently.

BUCKWHEAT PORRIDGE WITH VEGETABLES
500 g buckwheat, 1 large carrot, 1 onion, 300 g frozen green beans, 2 tbsp. l. tomato puree (you can use crushed tomatoes in their own juice), 1 tbsp. l. flour, vegetable oil, chopped herbs, salt to taste.

Cook crumbly buckwheat porridge. While the porridge is cooking, prepare the vegetable part of the dish. To do this, finely chop the carrots, cut the onions into small cubes and fry in a deep frying pan in sunflower oil until golden brown. Boil green beans in a small amount of salted water for 5 minutes from the moment of boiling, drain the broth and transfer the beans to the frying pan with the rest of the vegetables. Pour flour into a small dry frying pan and lightly fry. Add vegetable oil, tomato puree and mix, not allowing lumps to form. Dilute with hot water until sour cream thickens, heat to a boil and pour into a frying pan with vegetables. Cook for a few minutes, add salt if necessary. Place buckwheat porridge and vegetables into plates, sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve immediately.

“It is very important to learn Christian asceticism.
Asceticism is not life in a cave and constant fasting,
asceticism is the ability to regulate, among other things, your consumption of ideas and the state of your heart.
Asceticism is a person’s victory over lust, over passions, over instinct.”
© Patriarch Kirill
From the speech of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' live on the Ukrainian TV channel “Inter”

Nowadays, the Russian holy fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church, who are in monasticism (black clergy), are the main determining and guiding force for the modernization of the entire great democratic Russia and the pious transformation of the spirituality of the wise and heroic Russian people.

Group photo of the faithful Supreme Teachers and Russian Reformers before the banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace:

The monastic meal is a collective ritual. The monks ate twice a day: lunch and dinner, and on some days they ate only once (although this “once” could be quite long); for various reasons, it occasionally happened that meals were excluded altogether. The main thing was not the quantity of food, but the quality of the dishes: lean or fast, the role of the dish in rituals, and the time of meals.

Cold baked lean fish garnished with lean mayonnaise and chopped vegetables.

Sturgeon baked whole without skin
(before baking, carefully remove the skin from the fish from the base of the head to the tail).

Pike perch stuffed with mushrooms, avocado, potatoes (avocado and potatoes 1:1) and herbs and baked in the oven. The monks consider pike perch to be the leanest fish, because... it contains only 1.5% fat.
Adding fat-rich avocados, olives and nuts to the monastic diet allows you to compensate for the lack of fat in your diet. fast days, in which, according to the monastery charter, it is necessary to eat dishes without oil.

Presentation of the monastery's ceremonial dinner mid-19th V. allows us to compile a list of dishes that were served on November 27, 1850, the day of celebration of the memory of the founder of the monastery.

“The register of food on the holiday is holy. Jacob 1850 November 27th day
For a snack at the top
1. 3 kulebyaki with minced meat
2. 2 steamed pikes on two dishes
3. Jellied perch with minced meat on two dishes
4. Boiled crucian carp on two dishes
5. Fried bream on two dishes
In the brother's meal for lunch
1. Kulebyaka with porridge
2. Pressed caviar
3. Lightly salted beluga
4. Botvinya with salted fish
5. Cabbage soup with fried fish
6. Fish soup made from crucian carp and burbot
7. Pea sauce with fried fish
8. Fried cabbage
9. Dry bread with jam
10. Canpot made from apples
Snack for the white clergy
1. Caviar and white bread on 17 dishes
2. Cold golovizka with horseradish and cucumbers on 17 dishes"

Serving examples:

Setting the Lenten monastic table for dinner.
Slices of tomato with lean soy cheese, slices of lean fish sausage, fish and vegetable snacks, hot lean portioned dishes, various monastery drinks (kvass, fruit drink, freshly squeezed juices, mineral water), fruit plate, savory and sweet monastery pastries.

Monastic culinary recipes
St. Daniel's stauropegic monastery
How do lay people fundamentally differ from monks in nutrition - the former simply love to eat deliciously, the latter do the same, but with a deep, godly meaning and with lofty spiritual intentions. Of course, this great spiritual wisdom is little accessible to the understanding of ordinary lay people.

Accusing the atheistic Russian intelligentsia of his time, priest. Pavel Florensky said this about her attitude to food:
“The intellectual does not know how to eat, much less taste, he does not even know what it means to “eat”, what sacred food means: they do not “eat” the gift of God, they do not even eat food, but “gobble it up” chemical substances».

Many people probably do not clearly understand the importance of food in the life of a Christian.

Modest monastic lunch:

Cold snacks:
- curly vegetable slices,
- painted stuffed pike perch
- tender salmon of our own special salting
Hot appetizer:
- julienne of fresh forest mushrooms baked with béchamel sauce
Salad:
- vegetable with shrimp “Sea Freshness”
First course:
- fish solyanka “monastic style”
Second course:
- salmon steak with tartar sauce
Dessert:
- ice cream with fruit.
Beverages:
- signature monastery fruit drink
- kvass
And, of course, for lunch they serve:
- freshly baked bread, honey cakes, various savory and sweet pastries to choose from.

Serving examples:

Monastic Lenten snacks for the common monastic table.

Salmon from the monastery's own special salting.
For squeezing lemon juice, monastery chefs recommend wrapping it in gauze to prevent lemon seeds from getting in.

Lenten fish solyanka with salmon.

Lenten fish solyanka made from sturgeon with rasstegaychik stuffed with burbot liver.

Steamed salmon with lean mayonnaise, tinted with saffron.

Lenten pilaf of rice, tinted with saffron, with slices of fish and various seafood, which God sent the monastic brethren for lunch today.

Fruit bouquet for the common monastic table.

Monastic Lenten chocolate-nut log.
Chocolate-nut masses of three colors (from dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate) are prepared as indicated in the previous recipe “Monastery Lenten truffle sweets”. Then they are poured layer by layer into a mold, previously carefully covered with plastic film.
The widespread use of various nuts and chocolate in monastic food makes it possible to make monastic food tasty and quite complete.

Monastic Lenten truffle sweets.
Ingredients: 100 g dark dark chocolate, 1 teaspoon olive oil (on days when oil is prohibited, do not add olive oil, but the candies will be slightly harder), 100 g peeled nuts, 1 teaspoon good cognac or rum, a little grated nutmeg.
Crush the nuts in a mortar, heat the chocolate with the addition of olive oil, stirring, in a water bath to 40 degrees. C, add crushed nuts, grated nutmeg and cognac, stir; Take the warm mass with a teaspoon and place it in a plate with cocoa powder (to taste, you can add powdered sugar to the cocoa powder) and, rolling in the cocoa powder, form balls the size of a walnut.

Let us remember that in monasteries meat is not consumed very often, in some it is not consumed at all. Therefore, the “spell” “Crucian crucian carp, crucian carp, turn into a piglet” does not work.

On great and patronal holidays, the brothers are blessed with “consolation” - a glass of red wine - French or, at worst, Chilean. And, of course, dishes are being prepared for a special holiday menu.

breakfast menu His Holiness Patriarch Moscow and All Rus' Kirill on one of the days in April 2011.
Patriarchal food menus are carefully developed and balanced by nutritionists to maintain in the patriarch the proper energy necessary for the tireless conduct of his enormous spiritual, organizational and representative work.
In the patriarchal menus, all raw materials and ready-made dishes undergo the same testing as in the Kremlin kitchen. All the dishes on the patriarchal table are the fruit of long analysis, discussions and endless culinary tastings top class, sanitary doctors and nutritionists.
For Patriarch Kirill’s indispensable faith in God’s mercy and protection is a high spiritual matter, and the work of the patriarchal guard from the FSO and the corresponding doctors and laboratories is an everyday earthly matter.

Cold dishes:
Sturgeon caviar with buckwheat pancakes.
Caspian sturgeon, smoked, with galantine from grapes and sweet pepper.
Salmon stroganina with parmesan cheese and avocado mousse.

Snacks:
Pheasant roll.
Calf jelly.
Hare pate.
Blue Crab Pancake Cake.

Hot appetizers:
Fried hazel grouse.
Duck liver with rhubarb sauce fresh berries.

Hot fish dishes:
Rainbow trout poached in champagne.

Hot meat dishes:
Smoked duck strudel.
Roe deer back with lingonberry galantine.
Venison grilled on the grill.

Sweet foods:
White chocolate cake.
Fresh fruit with strawberry galantine.
Baskets with fresh berries in champagne jelly.

The monastic chef is happy to share his recipes for vegetable salad with shrimp and fish solyanka.

First of all, in order for everything to turn out tasty and pleasing to God, you need to start cooking by reading a prayer. Have you read it? Now let's get to work!

Serving examples:

Layered Lenten salad according to the monastery recipe.
Lay the salad in layers, each layer under lean mayonnaise, salt to taste.
1st layer - canned crab meat, finely chopped (or crab sticks),
2nd layer - boiled rice,
3rd layer - boiled or canned squid, finely chopped,
4th layer - finely chopped Chinese cabbage,
5th layer - steamed stellate sturgeon, finely chopped,
bth layer- boiled rice.
Garnish with lean mayonnaise, caviar, a leaf of greenery and serve to the monastic table.

Vinaigrette according to the monastery recipe.
The vinaigrette includes: baked whole in the oven, peeled and cut into cubes: potatoes, carrots, beets; canned green peas, onion, pickles, olive oil.
Sometimes monastery cooks prepare a vinaigrette with the addition of boiled beans and mushrooms (boiled or salted or pickled).
To taste, you can add finely chopped salted herring to the vinaigrette.

Lenten portioned dish of lobster boiled in vegetable kurt broth (dip a live lobster upside down into a boiling kurt broth of carrots, onions, herbs, salt and seasonings, boil the lobster for 40 minutes, then let it brew for 10 minutes under the lid) with a side dish of boiled rice, tinted with saffron, and vegetables with separately served in a cup a lean flour sauce made from sturgeon broth with the addition of onion, pureed through a sieve, simmered until translucent (do not allow browning) and spices; garnish with a slice of lemon.

There is still a lot of interesting information about products, dishes and those who eat these dishes.