August Update

I normally post on Sundays or Mondays, but had a bit of a difficult weekend due to personal issues, so I'm posting on a Tuesday instead. :)

Time for August's update! You can read the previous monthly updates here:


Jan: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/january-update.html

Feb: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-update.html

March: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/march-update.html

April (+ Beltane Inspiration): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-update-beltane-inspiration.html

May: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-update.html

June: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-update.html

July (+ Lammas Inspiration):  https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/07/july-update-lammas-inpiration.html


August began with Lammas on the 1st. (Although some people celebrate on 31st July). You can see my post about it here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/08/lammas-2019.html

I had a couple of events this month, a get together with my belly dance group at Alcampo Lounge in Brighton and a Meetup event (brunch) at West Beach Bar and Kitchen, also in Brighton. It was really windy that weekend, especially on the seafront! Here are a couple of pics from Brighton:

Brighton seafront.

Lammas 2019

Last Thursday (1st August) it was Lammas, one of my favourite sabbats. (Some people celebrate on 31st July). My main activity for this sabbat is baking and in the July Update + Lammas Inspiration post I shared some baking ideas. I made my usual gingerbread and also had a go at making bread again this year! I don't often bake bread; the last time was Lammas 2017, although I did make a bread mix last year! The recipe I used this time is 90 Minute Man Bread from Don't Waste the Crumbs. You can find it here: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/90-minute-man-bread/

It's called "Man Bread" because it's so easy a man can make it! No offence intended, the recipe was actually developed by "Mr Crumbs", the husband of Tiffany who runs the site, lol. :) And it only takes 90 minutes to make as you can tell by the title! It's a healthy bread recipe because it has no refined sugar and uses coconut oil instead of butter. But you can use butter or olive oil instead of coconut oil. I used butter as I did with the chocolate oatmeal bars I made in June, since I haven't bought any more coconut oil yet. I also used plain flour (what's called all-purpose in America) instead of bread flour. 

The recipe uses active dry yeast but I used fast action dried yeast, which means you can just add it straight to the recipe and don't need to activate it (by dissolving it in a water as in the recipe) before using. You can read about the differences between active dry, instant and fast acting yeasts here: https://www.seriouseats.com/2018/03/all-about-dry-yeast-instant-active-dry-fast-acting-and-more.html

The bread was quite nice, I was pleased with how it turned out. Here's a picture: