Litha 2025

The Saturday before last it was Litha aka Midsummer/the Summer Solstice (21st June). (Or Sunday 20th depending on your timezone). My usual celebration for this sabbat is making salad and lemonade.

This year I made tomato and onion salad again and "Hello Kitty lemonade" (the recipe is from a Hello Kitty book). I most often use a salad recipe from The Kitchen Witch book by Soraya, but I've lost the book at the moment! I basically remember the recipe anyway, but I also based it on this Italian tomato and onion salad one from This Italian Kitchen: https://thisitaliankitchen.com/italian-tomato-onion-salad/

I came across the recipe a couple of years ago and linked to it in past posts (including last year's Salads for Litha/Summer + Extra Ideas! post. It was the first time I'd made it though.

The salad was quite nice. It's pretty similar to The Kitchen Witch one, except for a couple of things. It uses red onion but I've sometimes made my Litha salad with red onion anyway, which makes it a bit like kachumbari which I like to make for Beltane. Also it requires balsamic vinegar but I didn't have that, so I used lemon juice instead (I think my normal recipe has lemon juice in). And if I don't have olive oil (which I didn't this time) I use vegetable oil instead.

I had it for lunch with a Fitzgeralds bake at home sourdough baguette, sea salt and vinegar crisps, gucamole, chicken fillets and roasted garlic and aioli potato salad. Also the lemonade. Here are a couple of pics:

 

Food

Happy Samhain/Hallowe'en!

I normally post on Sundays or Mondays, but I wasn't able to get this finished yesterday, so I'm posting today instead. :) 

 

Samhain (my favourite sabbat apart from Lammas) is coming up! This year it's on a Monday (31st October). I also celebrate Hallowe'en, which is thought to have originated from Samhain customs. In the past I've written several posts with ideas for celebrating and last year I did a round-up post linking to them all. During 2022 I've been writing posts sharing some links and ideas for the sabbats, rather than an in-depth post, so here is Samhain's. :)

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere Beltane is almost here! You might like my Happy Beltane! post: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2022/04/happy-beltane.html

 

Samhain is the 3rd and final harvest festival on the Wheel of the Year, coming after Lammas in late July/early August and Madron/Mabon aka the Autumn Equinox in September. It marks the end of summer and the start of the winter season. Madron is the official start of autumn, but I think in the past summer and winter were seen as the bigger seasonal shifts. It is also thought to be one of the times of year (along with Beltane) when the veil between the worlds is thin. It is a cross-quarter sabbat and a fire festival, and takes places on 31st October, although some people may celebrate from 31st Oct to 1st November (sundown to sundown).

Litha 2015

Last weekend I celebrated Litha/the Summer Solstice (Sunday 21st June) by making lemonade and having it with some ice cream with crushed Digestive biscuits on top.

The lemonade is what I refer to as "Hello Kitty lemonade" since the recipe is from a Hello Kitty book! lol. I also had ice cream with crumbled biscuits last year (click the Litha link above for details). This year I had Mackie's and Cornish ice cream and also some chocolate sauce. It was nice. :)

Here's a pic:

Wishing everyone a happy summer! :)

Beltane 2015

I celebrated Beltane on Friday (1st May). You can celebrate on either 30th April or 1st May. Last year I had salad for lunch and an elderflower drink. See last year's post here: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2014/05/beltane.html

This year I made an elderflower and lemon drink using an old recipe from the Co-op magazine. It's basically just elderflower drink (I used Belvoir's Elderflower Cordial) mixed with fizzy/sparkling water and lemon juice. I did like it but originally I made it too weak. It tasted better when I added more cordial.

I also made my own guacamole using a recipe from my new book The Kitchen Witch by Soraya. I'd never made it before. It's not complicated to make and it tasted quite nice. Green is a colour associated with Beltane, so guacamole fits in with that! I had it with chicken drumsticks, potato salad, coleslaw, shop bought dips (salsa, guacamole and onion and garlic), tomato and a few crisps.

Here's a picture of the salad. You can see the home made guacamole to the left of the plate. It's paler than the shop one.

Chocolate Drinks

Last month I made a couple of chocolate drinks using recipes from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. I made a chocolate milkshake and hot chocolate. I thought now was a good time to post about them both, since the weather has still been warm but it's getting colder at night, so you might feel like both kinds of drinks. :)

I made the chocolate milkshake first but I was disappointed with it, so I decided to make the hot chocolate a few days later, lol. I'll still include both on here though.


First here is the chocolate milkshake:

Chocolate Milk Shake (Power Drink for 1)


Ingredients

A few chunks good dark chocolate
250ml/9fl oz cold milk
2 scoops best chocolate ice cream or 1 choc and 1 vanilla


I don't have the recipe to link to but here's a similar recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/143456/chocolate-chocolate-milkshake/ (Updated link as of Sept '25)

And another one with melted chocolate in: https://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/09/askinosie-chocolate-malt-milkshake.html

The problem with this was that because you're just putting hot melted chocolate straight into milk, it goes hard straight away. So I ended up with hard bits of chocolate instead of it blending in properly! (That's a bit of chocolate on the top in the picture). I don't know if I was doing it wrong or what, lol. (My mum didn't know how to stop it doing that either). Maybe it works better if you have an actual blender but I don't, so I just mixed it in a bowl. Maybe it was because I didn't mix it in quick enough by hand? Never mind! You also can do this with drinking chocolate and I expect that works much better.

I used Tesco Plain Chocolate and I think both chocolate and vanilla ice cream.



And here's the hot chocolate:

Hot Chocolate Treat for 2


Ingredients

110g/4oz 70% cocoa solids chocolate
425ml/15fl oz any milk


This recipe isn't online here but here's a link to a similar one that involves melting chocolate: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/308/Hot-Chocolate


The hot chocolate came out a lot better because it was melted chocolate going into hot milk. I used some chocolate I had left.


Hope you enjoy them if you make them and that if you make the milkshake it comes out better for you! :)

Lammas

On Friday (1st August) I celebrated Lammas/ Lughnasadh (pronounced something like Loo-nass-a) which is another of the Wiccan/pagan sabbats. Lammas takes place around 1st August and is about marking and celebrating the first of the harvest. In the old days, this is the time when villagers would harvest their crops and then celebrate.

Lammas/Lughnasadh is the festival of the Celtic Sun God Lugh (pronounced Loo), who died and was resurrected (which sounds similar to Jesus). A central theme is sacrifice and people would make a Corn King out of corn and then slay him. If you prefer not to do that, a gingerbread man can also represent the Corn King! Also the Goddess has taken on her Mother aspect now and is pregnant with the next Sun God.

Lammas is also known as Loaf-mass and many people make a loaf to celebrate. The colours of Lammas are gold, yellow and orange (for the God) and red (for the Mother/Goddess).

I made a loaf when I first started celebrating the sabbats in 2010 but I haven't for the past few years. I didn't this year but may have another go next Lammas. I've made Cornish pasties before and I made one again this year for my lunch. I've also made gingerbread the past couple of years and decided to do it this year as well. Cider is a popular drink now. I have had it at Lammas before but didn't this time.

Here's my Cornish pasty:

Update 20/7/20: This is actually a Cornish style pasty since I'm not from Cornwall! :)

The recipe is from The Real Witches' Kitchen book by Kate West.


Cornish-Style Pasties

12oz finely cut steak
4oz peeled diced potato
1 finely chopped onion
Pinch salt
Black pepper
12oz shortcrust pastry

That's all I can copy out of the recipe but here are some links to more pasty recipes:

https://www.goodto.com/recipes/hairy-bikers-the-people-s-cornish-pasty

https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-cornish-pasty-recipe-435042 (Link updated, formerly BritishFood.About.com)


These recipes are for making the pastry as well but I used ready made (Jus' Roll). I also had carrot in mine and used salt and paprika.

Litha

Yesterday (21st June) was Litha, otherwise known as Midsummer, which is another of the sabbats. It's the Summer Solstice, the time of the longest day and shortest night, and takes place around 21st June each year in the northern hemisphere. (In the southern hemisphere it's reversed and yesterday was their Yule/Midwinter). :)

From now on the days will get shorter and the nights longer (although it won't be really noticeable for a few weeks yet) until Yule/the Winter Solstice (around 21st December) which is the shortest day of the year. After that the days will gradually get longer until we get to Litha again. (If you live in the southern hemisphere, it's the other way around, Yule is around 21st June and Litha around 21st December). :) 

Despite being called "Midsummer" which makes you think it's the middle of the season, Litha is seen as the first official day of summer. (Although Beltane marked the beginning of summer season). The Goddess is pregnant with the God after conceiving at Beltane. The Sun God is at the height of his power now. At Yule he will be born again. The colours for Litha are yellow, gold, blue and green.

As I mentioned in my Yule post, a Wiccan belief is that each half of the year is ruled over by the Holly King or the Oak King. Since Yule, the Oak King has ruled over the lighter half of the year and now he does battle again with the Holly King and loses. The Holly King now rules over the darkening year until Yule when they do battle again.

It's traditional for people to rise early to greet the sun at Litha and Stonehenge is very popular at this time of year! Also some Wiccans re-enact the battle between the Oak and Holly Kings. This is also a good season for picnics.

I had salad to celebrate Litha, tomato, chopped up carrot sticks, cucumber and lettuce with some potato salad, coleslaw, chicken and hard boiled egg. Then afterwards I had some ice cream with crumbled up digestive biscuits (as suggested in The Real Witches' Kitchen book). The ice cream was a "No Churn" one that I made a few weeks ago. I'm planning to do a post on ice cream in the future. Here's a link to the site where I found the recipe (I made the Funfetti Cake Batter one): https://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/amazing-no-churn-ice-cream-6-flavors/ 

I had some cloudy lemonade to drink. I thought afterwards it would have been good to make some lemonade myself, especially because I don't like the Tesco cloudy lemonade so much these days. I don't think it used to be no added sugar. Maybe next year I'll make some Hello Kitty lemonade which I've made in the past. :)

Salad

Nutella and Peanut Butter Flapjacks

A couple of weeks ago I felt like baking something so I made some flapjacks. They're based on Sam Stern's recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Flapjacks but I put Nutella in with the peanut butter and didn't put milk chocolate on the top. They came out quite nice although they got a bit burnt when cooking!

Before they were cut

The recipe was from Sam's Student Cookbook. Here's a link to a recipe for Jammy Flapjacks on his site which includes the chocolate peanut butter version: http://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/jammy-flapjacks/

So if you want to make them with Nutella, just put it in with the main mix. :) (Think I put about a tablespoon in). I won't make the jam ones because I don't like jam but I know a lot of people do, lol. Hope you like whatever version you choose to make! :)

Imbolg

It was Imbolg (also known as Imbolc and Candlemas) yesterday. It's a Wiccan/pagan sabbat that is celebrated around 2nd February and is also the feast of Bride (or Brighid, pronounced Breed) the Irish Fire Goddess. Imbolg is about 6 weeks after Yule and 6 weeks before the Spring Equinox (Oestara), and is the time when spring is starting to come again. It's still winter, but moving into spring and a time when the Goddess is changing from Crone to Maiden.

I made some pancakes as suggested in The Real Witches' Kitchen book (last year I made pancakes and jelly) and had some Tesco Cloudy Lemonade. (Sparkling drinks like champagne, lemonade and mineral water are a good choice). You can also make your own lemonade, it's fun to make but this time I bought it, lol.

I used this recipe for the pancakes (found it on Pinterest): https://www.inspiredtaste.net/24593/essential-pancake-recipe/

They're American style pancakes (thicker). I liked them but they were a bit too salty for me. Afterwards I realised that I probably got the amount of salt wrong because the recipe used kosher salt and I used table salt! Never mind, lol.

Pancakes

Here are a couple of links about Imbolg:

http://www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk/the_wheel_of_the_year/imbolc.asp

http://www.earthwitchery.com/imbolg.html

Potato and Onion Soup

I sometimes make potato and onion soup for lunch. I started making it about a year ago and while I did have it in the summer too, I thought it was appropriate to post the recipe now because soup is nice to have in autumn and winter. :) I made it for lunch today. It's good if you don't have much money because there are only a couple of main ingredients (potatoes and onion). I don't have bacon on it that often, although I did today. It's also quite healthy (minus the bacon!).

This recipe is called Skint Potato & Onion Soup and it's from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook. He doesn't have that exact recipe online, so I've written it out here. He does have a similar recipe though, for Potato, Onion & Herb Soup, which you can see here: https://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/potato-onion-herb-soup/

Skint Potato & Onion Soup
(with Optional Crumbled Bacon)


Ingredients

450g/1lb floury potatoes 
110g/4oz onions
50g/20z butter
850ml/1 1/2 pints water, mixed with 1/2 tsp Marigold veg stock
or own veggie/chicken stock or water
Few sprigs fresh parsley
3 tbsps milk
Salt and black pepper
2 rashers grilled streaky back bacon (optional)


This is similar to Sam's recipe for Potato, Onion & Herb Soup (minus the herbs), which you can find here: https://www.samstern.co.uk/recipe/potato-onion-herb-soup/

I use Chicken gravy granules or Oxo for the stock. I don't use that much milk because I don't like it too milky, so just pour in a bit. (I think that's why mine is darker than the one in the book picture). If you don't have a handblender (I don't have one anymore), you can mash or sieve it. I use a potato masher. I don't tend to use parsley.


Hope you like the recipe if you try it. :) I'll have to have a go at making the potato, onion and herb one as well.

Check out more recipes I've made here: https://uk.pinterest.com/moonsparkle84/recipes-ive-made/

Birdies Perch Malteser Slice

I recently made a recipe called Birdies Perch Malteser slice for my belly dance group BD4U's event. I made it before; almost a year ago (didn't know it had been so long!). I decided to post the recipe on here.

The Malteser slice is a Malteser/cake slice with Maltesers, golden syrup, digestive biscuits and milk chocolate in and white chocolate on the top. It's a recipe from Sam Stern's Student Cookbook and he got it from a teashop he goes to in Yorkshire called Birdies Perch.

                                                     Pic from first time I made it


Update 26/5/14- I realised that I shouldn't have copied the whole recipe because of copyright laws, so I'm going to change what I wrote. I came across this article about sharing recipes: http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/how-to-share-a-recipe/
                    

Update 21/3/16: This is a type of cake that's known as a "fridge cake" or tray bake in the UK and I've found similar recipes online which I thought I'd link to here (since I can't post the recipe in full and it's harder to read in the picture in Sam's book):

http://www.atypicalenglishhome.com/2012/10/malteser-tray-bake.html?m=1

 http://kitchenmonsters.co.uk/2013/05/15/no-bake-malteser-tray-bake/


Here is the recipe:

Birdies Perch Malteser Slice


Ingredients

100g/3 1/2oz margarine/butter
100g/3 1/2oz golden syrup
150g/5oz milk chocolate
225g/8oz digestive biscuits
175g/6oz  bag Maltesers

Topping

2x 150g/5oz bars white chocolate
Grating of milk chocolate



I found a link to the recipe page in the book (Page 259). It's small but you can still read it: http://www.samstern.co.uk/book/student-cookbook/?inside



Note: You bash the Maltesers bag 3 times but I bashed them a bit extra to crumble them up more.


There you go! Hope you like it, if you make it. :)

If you want to try more Sam Stern recipes, visit his site: www.samstern.co.uk