Imbolc 2021

Imbolc (1st August, 2021) Imbolc is one of my favourite Sabbats. Within the seasons, it celebrates the mid point between winter and spring. Now, I am not so keen for spring to come back here these days, because spring basically equals summer which equals hot. But this is also a celebration associated with the goddess Bridig, who I have always felt an affinity with. Foods special to Imbolc include (non)dairy, seeds, breads, winter vegetables, blackberries, and red food. It fell on a Sunday this year, and even though I was working a few hours in the morning, I was still able to work in a themed day of food.

I started with some Weetbix porridge (the laziest of all porridges, just cover some weetbix with milk and zap in the microwave and it will go hot and mushy). I topped with with some almond butter, blackberries, kiwi fruit, and pepitas.



For lunch I had a grilled tomato and cheese sandwich with wholegrain mustard, on pumpkin five seed bread. I served it with some vegan aioli and fresh cucumber slices.



Gingery Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Tamarind Cilantro Sauce from Cafe Flora Cookbook: I made this for dinner. The original recipe in the book had some 'ocean cakes' served with it, but instead I used some BBQ tofu. The masked sweet potatoes have pickled sushi ginger mashed into them! Yum! I would increase the amount next time though because the flavour wasn't gingery enough for me. The tamarind sauce was quite tart, so I mixed a bit of extra brown sugar into it. It went well with the sweetness of the mash. Served over some baby spinach.
Rating: Sweet Potatoes :), Sauce :)



Lemon and Blackberry Self-Saucing Pudding from Vegan With Bite by Shannon Martinez: This was a lovely dessert! I love self saucing puddings, and I think lemon is my favourite variety of those. This also has blackberries (I used frozen) mixed into the batter. And it has some basil in the sauce for a fun bright flavour. I served it with some vanilla ice cream. Leftovers were also very nice eaten cold out of the fridge the next day when I got home from work and needed a snack.
Rating: :)