Beltane 2021

Hello friends! I haven't posted for a bit, because I have just been so busy with work and other things. I am so tired. But here is a fun little post about the food I ate to celebrate Beltane this year! Halloween only seasonally works in the Northern Hemisphere, given its pagan roots. While Halloween as a fun thing is gaining more and more popularity in Australia, I reserve the 31st to celebrate Beltane, the spring festival.

Beltane (31st October - 1st November, 2021)

Beltane is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and is a celebration life and fertility. Normally by this time of year in Brisbane it is hot hot hot. But strangely, we had a relatively cool and cloudy day that day, which was lovely. We opened up the house to let the fresh breeze blow through.

I started my Beltane with breakfast. Some rye sourdough English muffins spread with Nuttelex and drizzled with agave, served with some fresh strawberries and some oat milk. Also my daily multivitamin and morning neurofen. Chronic pain is no joke friends. For Beltane, butter and honey are both traditional foods, but we don't need to exploit animals to get the same delicious flavours. Oats are also traditional, and my homage to that was with my glass of oat milk. I know some vegans think it is pitiful to drink a glass of non-dairy milk, but I don't care. I like my oatmilk, and I love a serve of plant-based calcium in of a morning!



Pasta Primavera from Everyday Vegan Eats by Zsu Dever: The last few years I realised I have made some sort of pasta dish for Beltane. Why break with tradition now. Pasta loaded up with wonderful spring vegetables! I changed it up a bit, and used carrots, broccoli (florets and stems), asparagus, baby spinach, and baby peas, and I used 200g of linguine. The sauce is cashew based, and easy to make quickly in the blender. The sauce was a little on the bland side though. Next time I think I'd use some non-dairy milk in place of the water, and bump up the seasonings. But nothing a little nooch couldn't fix!
Rating: :)



For dessert, I tried out a beautiful Rosewater and Strawberry Cheesecake, from the blog Like A Vegan. The recipe called for Soyatoo Whipping Cream, but I used some of the new Made With Plants Thickened Cream that you can get from Woolworths. I had some of it in my fridge already, and to get Soyatoo would have involved a special trip to the other side of town. The Made With Plants cream is sold in the fridge section with the tofu, and does not have coconut in it, hurrah.



Maybe it was because of the difference in cream setting abilities, but my cheesecake didn't quite set. This is a no-bake cheesecake, which makes it great for an easy dessert on a warm day. I whipped the cream cheese (Tofutti, of course, the best) and the thickened cream with some hand beaters, and while it thickened up a bit, it wasn't as much as you would get from a whipping cream I don't think. But that didn't matter, because the flavour was beautiful! I love rose and I love strawberry and I love pink, so this was a perfect dessert. I ended up popping the cheesecake in the freezer for a couple of hours before serving, to firm up so I could cut it nicely. This was so delicious!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Of course, as an athiest witch with two black cats, I didn't completely leave Halloween unobserved. We watched Practical Magic (which I hadn't seen in so long! It is so silly, but kind of great.). And the cats, well, they just were themselves. As a black cat called Boo, we designated it her particular day. She didn't care.