Lent is one of the main events of the Orthodox year. Believers prepare for the celebration of Easter, purifying the soul, mind and body. What you can eat during this period and what you can cook during fasting, you will learn from the article.
How to eat in a post?
In order not to break the fast and prepare a dish that is allowed on a particular day of abstinence, you need to know which foods are allowed and which are forbidden to eat. Lent is considered the most stringent among the rest. Particularly difficult to comply with are the first and last weeks.
On the very first day you need to completely refrain from eating. Cold, vegetable-free meals during Lent are permitted from Tuesday to Friday. Such days are called dry-eating.
On Saturday and Sunday, the fasting is the least strict. So, in the first week of fasting these days it is allowed to eat hot dishes seasoned with vegetable oil.
In the remaining 5 weeks of Lent, you should eat this way: dry eating should be observed on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and hot food can be eaten on Tuesday and Thursday, on weekends it is allowed to season food with vegetable oil, it is permissible to sip a little red wine. You can also cook holiday dishes in fasting, but they also should not contain prohibited foods.
On Lazarev Saturday, you can put fish caviar on the table. And the next day, Palm Sunday, and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the use of fish dishes is allowed. But here it should be noted that if the above holidays fall on the calendar for Holy Week, then during this period the use of any food of animal origin is prohibited. On Good Friday it is recommended to refrain from food, and on the day before Easter, dry eating is allowed. Dishes prepared in fasting should not only not contain prohibited foods, but also be charged with positive energy and pure thoughts of the cook.
Fasting Dishes: Cooking at Home
During fasting, they are prepared only from products of plant origin. Prohibited animal foods: meat, dairy products, butter, eggs and all derivatives. You can not eat fast foods, snacks, carbonated drinks and the like. Food should be of natural vegetable origin. Dishes should not be too spicy, sharp or sweet. Such food is also an excess on the table.
From the point of view of dietetics, it can be noted that fasting dishes during fasting not only do not harm health. On the contrary, they cleanse the body of deposits and toxins, strengthen vitamins and minerals. Proper observance of fasting does not harm health due to the fact that the absence of animal food and all the necessary substances is compensated by plant components. Thus, the lack of animal protein is replaced by vegetable protein due to the use of beans, peas, wheat, nuts and mushrooms. Apples, bananas and buckwheat will cover iron deficiency. Dried fruits with honey will support the immune system. Often the main dishes during fasting are prepared on the basis of various cereals. The latter carry useful carbohydrates that will saturate the body. All kinds of vegetables and fruits will give energy and make up for the lack of nutrients, trace elements and vitamins.
From the allowed products you can cook a wide variety of simple but tasty dishes: soups, salads, snacks, main hot and cold dishes and even pies. We offer you simple, but extraordinary recipes for meals during fasting.
Italian Bean Soup
Nourishing, rich and unusual in taste, the soup will become a decoration of a lean table. To prepare it you will need:
- canned beans - 200 g;
- green beans (can be frozen) - 300 g;
- 1 onion head;
- clove of garlic;
- half a liter of tomato juice;
- eggless noodles (you can cook it yourself from flour and water) - 250 g;
- greens (dill, parsley, young green onions) to taste.
Cooking method
- Cook the string beans until cooked. Throw her in a colander.
- Chop onion and garlic finely. Stew in water in a deep soup pot. On days when vegetable oil is allowed, you can fry.
- Pour tomato juice into onions with garlic. Sweat for 15 minutes with the lid closed.
- In a separate pan, boil the noodles in salted water.
- In the languishing tomato juice with onions and garlic, add the rest of the ingredients: green and canned beans, noodles. Salt to taste and boil for 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle soup with fresh herbs before serving.
Vegetable salad with avocado
What dishes to cook in fasting on dry days? Try making an unusual avocado salad. This fruit is high in calories. Therefore, the proposed salad will not only enrich with vitamins, but also saturate the body of a fasting person.
To cook it, you will need these products:
- tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
- avocado - 1 pc.;
- middle head of onion;
- cucumber - 2 pcs.;
- radish - 200 g;
- lemon juice;
- salt.
Making a salad is very simple. To do this, cut all the vegetables and avocado into cubes. Finely chop the onion and soak for 5-10 minutes in lemon juice. Then mix all the ingredients, salt. You can also fill with lemon juice or, on permitted days, with olive oil.
Ratatouille
From vegetables, you can also prepare delicious dishes in fasting. Recipes of vegetable salads, stews and stewed vegetables surprise with a variety of flavors. We suggest you try the original Italian vegetable dish Ratatouille. In a classic recipe, all vegetables are deep-fried before baking. We slightly modified the cooking technology and got no less tasty and even more healthy dish.
To prepare "Ratatouille" you will need these products:
- red bell pepper - 1 pc.;
- 1 head garlic;
- 1 onion;
- zucchini - 2 pcs.;
- blue ones - 2 pcs.;
- tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
- half a liter of tomato juice;
- sea salt;
- fresh greens.
How to cook Ratatouille
- Peel the eggplant, cut into circles up to 1 cm wide and soak them in cold water for half an hour.
- Peel the tomatoes by dousing them with boiling water.
- Peel the zucchini peel.
- To prepare the sauce, finely chopped onions and sweet peppers with several cloves of garlic, simmer in half a glass of tomato juice until the vegetables are ready. Salt. Grind the mixture in a blender until a thick sauce is formed.
- Put food parchment in a baking dish, pour sauce about 1 cm thick on top.
- Spread the vegetables, alternating eggplant, zucchini, tomato so that the vegetables end-to-end fill the form, as in the photo below.
- Now prepare the dressing. To do this, in a mortar you need to knead the greens, sea salt and a few cloves of garlic. On permitted days, you can add olive oil. Lubricate the vegetables with the finished dressing.
- Put the form in the oven and bake at a temperature of 180 degrees for an hour and a half - until the vegetables are ready.
Dumplings with sauerkraut
What dish to cook in fasting, surprising households and even guests? Make dumplings! Few people know that such a traditional dish can be lean and at the same time no less tasty than the original. Only the filling will have to be replaced with a vegetable one. For dumplings with sauerkraut, you need such products:
- flour - 500 g;
- glass of water;
- sunflower oil - 100 g;
- sauerkraut - 500 g;
- salt to taste.
Cooking such a dish during fasting will not take much time. First you need to cook the dough. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make it without vegetable oil - the dough will crumble. Therefore, such dumplings can please loved ones only on certain days of Lent.
In order to prepare the dough, you need to mix flour, water, sunflower oil and add salt to taste. Send cool mixed dough for an hour. Then roll out the “sausages” from the dough. Cut them into pieces, roll circles. Then you need to squeeze sauerkraut from excess juice. Place the filling in the middle of each circle from the dough and stick in the form of dumplings. It remains only to cook the product in salted boiling water for 5-7 minutes. Lenten dumplings with sauerkraut are ready!
Pilaf with dried fruits
What dishes to cook in the post on the main? Indeed, in Russian cuisine it is customary to consider meat treats as the main table decorations. You can offer to cook vegetable stew, cereals with mushrooms in pots, saute, on certain days, the highlight of the diet will be fish. We offer you a recipe for an unusual and satisfying pilaf. To prepare it, you need the following ingredients:
- rice (it is better to choose long-grain varieties) - 1.5 cups;
- a pair of large onions;
- carrots - 750 g;
- sun-dried dates - 150 g;
- dried apricots - 350 g;
- ginger root;
- lemon juice - 4 tbsp. l .;
- ground zira;
- ground coriander;
- ground cinnamon;
- vegetable broth - 3 glasses;
- liquid honey - 2 tbsp. l .;
- sprig of mint;
- salt.
How to cook pilaf
- Rinse the rice and soak it in cold water for half an hour.
- Peel the vegetables.
- Cut the carrots into large pieces, onions into rings.
- Finely chop the ginger.
- Fry chopped vegetables in a saucepan. Add all the spices and salt.
- Dried and washed dates with dried apricots in a separate pot with honey and lemon juice for 3-5 minutes.
- Add the honey mixture to the sauté pan with sauteed vegetables.
- Fold the rice in a colander. Then pour into a saucepan, smooth the surface and fill with vegetable broth. Cover, reduce heat and simmer without stirring while the lid is closed until rice is cooked (about 20 minutes).
- Remove from heat. Release steam by opening the lid. Put a sprig of mint on top and close the lid. Let the dish brew for another 10-15 minutes. Fragrant pilaf is ready!
Honey gingerbread cookies
You can even cook sweet foods for fasting. Cooking home lean honey gingerbread cookies. They can pamper household members on any day of fasting. They will become a worthy decoration of the festive table. However, do not forget that sweet foods cannot be consumed in excess during Lent.
To prepare them you will need:
- a glass of sugar;
- 500 g of liquid honey;
- a pinch of soda;
- 7 glasses of flour;
- 1 tsp lemon juice;
- 4 cups chilled purified water.
How to cook
- Mix water, honey and sugar in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Melt until sugar is completely dissolved. Then remove from heat. Let the mixture cool.
- Knead the dough by mixing honey with flour and slaked soda with lemon juice. Put the dough in the refrigerator for half an hour.
- Roll out the dough 2 cm wide. Squeeze the molds.
- Bake gingerbread cookies on a baking sheet at a temperature of 220 degrees 20 minutes.
- You can decorate baked goods with powdered sugar or jam.
Recipes of meals during the post can be created independently, slightly modifying the classic and replacing the necessary products. Thus, original fasting dishes are obtained, which the hostess can safely serve to the festive table.
Fruit cake
What to cook holiday meals in fasting? Of course the real cake! To prepare a delicious biscuit-fruit cake, you will need such products:
- flour - 3 cups;
- one and a half glasses of fruit juice to taste;
- sugar - 400 g;
- zest from 2 oranges;
- sunflower oil - 4 tbsp. l .;
- 2 sachets of baking powder;
- vanillin - 2 packs;
- salt to taste.
For the cream, you need to prepare the following ingredients:
- sugar - 5 tbsp. l .;
- any juice - 2 glasses;
- semolina (groats) - 3 tbsp. l
Soaking cakes requires 2 large tablespoons of sugar and 500 g of juice.
Cooking cake
- Knead the dough with the ingredients needed for the cake. Divide it in half and bake 2 biscuit cakes at a temperature of 200 degrees for 20 minutes.
- Send one cake to the refrigerator. Leave the other on the table with a napkin.
- Prepare the impregnation by mixing the juice with sugar. Soak her sponge cake. Then also let it cool in the refrigerator.
- Make a cream. To do this, mix the juice with sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then gradually introduce semolina and cook like regular porridge until cooked.
- Cool the cream and beat thoroughly with a blender.
- Remove the cakes from the cold. Lay them on top of each other and coat with cream on all sides.
- Optionally, top can be decorated with nuts, coconut or fruit slices.
Conclusion
Even from a seemingly meager list of products, you can cook unusually tasty dishes in fasting. The recipes offered by us, if desired, can be improved independently, with a little imagination.