Imbolc 2020

Imbolc (1st August, 2020)

Last Saturday was Imbolc, the sabbat celebrating the midpoint of winter and the returning of warmth. In Brisbane, it is more like the 2/3 point of winter timewise (our winter starts on the 1st of June), and often can be the start of the warmth as in Brisbane things start warming up in August. Imbolc is also the celebration of the goddess Brigid, a figure that I have always been interested in. So I always feel extra special for this sabbat. I was working on the Saturday, so I had my food celebration on Sunday. I took a leaf out of Bianca's book and had a whole day of themed food!

Traditional food for Imbolc includes dairy (or non-dairy in our case!), breads, seeds, dried fruit, winter vegetables, and the colour red. I started off my day with a slice of delicious thick cut Wildbreads Fruit Loaf, toasted and spread with peanut butter. I served a persimmon on the side, which when cut does kind of look like the sun!



For lunch I heated up some soup from a new brand of vegan soups I found (more on them specifically in a later midweek munchies post). I went with the Pumpkin, Turmeric, and Ginger flavour as that seemed most appropriate the the day! I served it with some sliced vegan challah (again, more on that in a later post) spread with some Nuttelex. And some cucumber, which has nothing to do with anything but I just like to have some veggies. I dolloped a little vegan sour cream into the soup.



Macaroni and Cheese with Warm Salsa from Cafe Flora Cookbook: This book will be popping up in a recipe round-up once we get to cookbooks starting with the letter C. But for now, I decided to make this recipe for my Imbolc dinner. It was a vegetarian recipe, but easily veganised by using soy cream and vegan cheddar cheese. The sauce is made by simmering the soy cream until thickened, and then melting a bunch of cheese (I used FYH shreds) into it. It was fine, but to be honest I prefer a noochy cashew based sauce. The warm tomato salsa gave a lovely red burst to the dish, and is really just some simmered onion, celery, and diced tomatoes with a few other things to make a warm sauce. It was a nice flavour addition to the cheese sauce. I left out capsicum in the sauce, and I made a half batch of the mac and cheese, which gave three serves.
Rating: :)



Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake from Taste For Life: My plans to make a lovely blackberry crumble were scuppered as for that week only there were no frozen blackberries to be found. Of course they are back now. Perhaps everyone was making an Imbolc dessert? Blackberries are sacred to Brigid. But another popular theme for Imbolc desserts was lemon and poppy seed, so I made this lovely cake. It is full of zingy lemon flavour, and loads of seeds (though I didn't quite have the full 1/4 cup). I halved the glaze on top, which was also lovely and bright and no too sweet thanks to lemon zest and lemon juice. The recipe calls for melted coconut oil, I just used canola oil. This was a lovely moist loaf!
Rating: :)

I ended my day trying out a Lunar Latte. Not particularly Imbolc related, except that it was a nice milky drink. I used a thick soy milk to make it. It has all sorts of things in it that are meant to calm you and help you sleep, tastes nice, and is a pretty purple colour. I did feel calm and sleepy after it, and got to sleep fairly easily that night. Though I woke up a lot to pee or adjust my position due to pain or let Dim Sim in or out of the covers.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I just love watching her snooze.