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/2014/04/amazing-no-churn-ice-cream-6-flavors.html

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! :)

Hove Park in Spring

It's time for the next instalment in the Hove Park photo project. Well, it's actually the last instalment because I've done posts for all the seasons now. I might continue to post pictures for each season though. :)


Here are a couple of pictures I took of the daffodils in March:

And a couple more from April:

Visit the rest of the posts here:

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Beltane

It was Beltane at the beginning of the month. It's the festival of the fire god Bel and the second most important sabbat after Samhain. It's usually celebrated either on 30th April or 1st May and marks the beginning of the summer season. Beltane comes roughly between Oestara (the Spring Equinox) and Litha (Midsummer/the Summer Solstice) and is the second half of the Celtic/Wiccan year. Like Samhain, it's a day when the veil between the worlds (this world and the spirit world) are thin but it's more of a "trickster" time of year!

Some May Day traditions originated from the festival of Flora, a Roman goddess of flowers, spring and fertility. Beltane is also associated with Walpurgis Night, a festival celebrated in some European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. For people in the southern hemisphere Beltane falls on 31st October/1st November.

It's also a fertility festival, since this is the time of year when the Goddess and God get married. Traditionally, single men and women would go into the woods on May Day (1st May) with a partner and have sex. Other ways of celebrating including lighting fires and dancing round the Maypole. A May Queen and King would be chosen to rule together.

You can still see remnants of the old traditions in the celebration of May Day nowadays, with dancing round the Maypole, the May Queen and Morris Dancers. May Day isn't an actual holiday (unless it's a Monday, since the first Monday in May is a Bank Holiday) but there are often May fairs. I remember when I was at first school we went to a May Day event but I didn't actually get to dance round the Maypole because I was one of the May Queen's attendants!

The colour of Beltane is green (single people would wear green on the day). This is also a popular season for handfastings (Wiccan/pagan marriages).

I like to celebrate the sabbats by having/making food and drink. I made a chicken salad sandwich (with tomato and lettuce) and had it with some chicken fillets, carrots, potato salad, coleslaw and salsa dip. I also had a sparkling elderflower drink.

Sandwich and other food

Elderflower drink

For more on Beltane visit these links:

https://wiccaliving.com/wiccan-calendar-beltane/

https://hubpages.com/holidays/mayday (Formerly Squidoo)

Easter Biscuits

Hope everyone had a great Easter! :) I celebrated on Easter Sunday (20th April) by making some biscuits and I got 3 eggs, Quality Street, Cadbury Buttons and Hello Kitty, lol. In my post  on Oestara I mentioned that I wanted to make something for Easter and was thinking of a cake but then I've had quite a lot of cakes lately, so I thought I might make something else for a change, like biscuits.  In the end I went for the biscuits and they were nice. :)

I based them on a recipe from The Co-Op magazine. I can't find the exact recipe online but it was similar to this one: http://www.co-operativefood.co.uk/food-and-drink/recipes/Easter-biscuits-recipe/

Update 15/4/19: That page is now gone but you can find a similar recipe here: https://www.centralengland.coop/food/recipes/desserts/easter-biscuits

The biscuits were bunny shaped but I just used round cutters, lol. Then I decorated some of them with icing that I made up and the others with left over buttercream frosting from Moshi Monster cakes that my mum used to make a trifle. I also put sugar strands on top of some and more of the red, green and white sprinkles I used for the vanilla roll cake at Christmas on the rest, varying the combinations. I used the recipe on the back of the icing sugar packet for the normal icing (white in the pic).

They were a bit thicker than other biscuits I've had but I liked them. :) I've got a few biscuit/cookie recipes saved on my Pinterest board, so I plan to make more in the future. I pin way too many recipes though and there's not enough time to make them all! lol.

Oestara

It was Oestara recently and I celebrated by making some fairy cakes. Oestara (also spelt Ostara) is one of the sabbats, it's the Spring Equinox and happens around 21st March in the northern hemisphere. (In the southern hemisphere it's reversed, so they have their Autumnal Equinox around this time).

It was a precursor to the Christian festival of Easter, its name comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ostara (also known as Eostar/Eostre/Oestara). She is the goddess of the dawn and fertility and her symbols are the egg and the hare (both of which are associated with the modern Easter). The Spring Equinox is when the days and nights are of equal length, and from then on the days continue to get lighter and the nights shorter until Litha (Midsummer/ the Summer Solstice) which is around 21st June, when the days gradually get shorter again. (If you live in the southern hemisphere, just reverse it). :) The Persephone and Demeter Greek myth is also related to this time of year.

Now spring is coming and the world is waking up again. You can see the signs with the flowers coming out, trees blossoming and lambs being born.


Oestara was on the 20th this year. I made the fairy cakes (like cupcakes) and put Cadbury Mini Eggs on top!

Sorry the pic is sideways! lol

It's just a basic fairy cake recipe that I got from my mum. :) Here's the recipe: