Diet meals

Lean soups

It’s great if soups are common in your family diet. Most of them have very nice fasting options or are easily adapted to fasting. The main point of the lean soup technology is the timely laying of the components, so that by the end of cooking they are all ready at the same time, first harder, then more tender, for example, for borscht, beets and carrots are laid before potatoes and cabbage. Slightly toasted vegetables pleasantly improve the taste of the soup. Most lean vegetable soups get their best flavor and aroma by adding minced garlic cloves at the very end. Do not forget about other spices, herbs, bay leaf.

You can also use ready-made mixtures or cubes for broth

you just have to monitor their composition: are there any non-lean components added.

It is also possible to cook vegetables separately, grind all or part of the components in a puree soup, serve with croutons or crackers, or even, in an oriental way, with unleavened rice (here it makes sense to cook a soup with a very pronounced taste, spicy or salty).

Some of the simple Christians

Think that fasting should consist in abstaining from food and drink, and nothing more. Do not eat fish during fasting or do not eat oil and wine – this, in their opinion, exhausts the whole commandment about fasting. But is it? No. It is true that fasting should be bodily as well, but spiritual fasting must certainly be combined with bodily abstinence. This is what the Holy Church teaches. “By fasting,” she says, brethren, bodily, let us also fast spiritually.

What kind of spiritual fasting is this, and why is it necessary?

The Holy Fathers define it this way. “If you fast, show me of your deeds. What? Seeing a beggar, have mercy; make peace with the enemy; do not envy a person who is in happiness; do not look at a woman shining with beauty. Fast without hypocrisy; fast with your eyes, and your heart, and your ears, and your hands, and all your members … Keep your hands from appropriating what does not belong to you, your feet from going to games; keep your ears from hearing slander and falsehood, and let your mouth also fast, abstaining from condemnation.”

Such, brethren, is spiritual fasting.

We need it, because without it, bodily fasting loses all meaning. “What is the use, he says, of thinning the body by abstinence, when the spirit puffs up with pride? What praise shall we have for being pale from fasting when we turn pale from envy? What virtue is it not to drink wine, but to revel in anger and hatred?

“There is nothing, says the Prologue, if you do not eat meat or fish, but eat the flesh of the brethren by slander” . So, fasting bodily, we also fast spiritually, i.e. the outer actions of fasting are compatible with the inner ones.

Purifying the body by abstinence

Let us cleanse the mind from vain thoughts, and the heart from evil desires. Mortifying the body with fasting, let us also mortify the passions: anger, evil lust, greed for gain, and similar evils. Decorating the body with bodily fasting, let us decorate the soul with virtues: mercy, meekness, humility, reconciliation with enemies, almsgiving. This will be a true fast, and pleasing to God, and for us, therefore, saving. Amen.

1 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons honey, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon citric acid, 1/4 cup chopped nuts, 0.5 cup vegetable oil, 1.5-2 cups flour, a pinch of cinnamon or coriander, about 3-4 pears.

Mushroom cutlets.

Boil mushrooms in water and finely chop. Boil rice in water with salt and parsley, mix with mushrooms and add nutmeg. It is advisable to grind the mass (for example, in a blender). Form cutlets, sprinkle them lightly with flour or dip each in batter, fry in oil. Drizzle well with sauce when serving.