Sabbat Catch Up 2023: Mabon, Samhain, Yule, Imbolc

Hello, It's been a while since I've posted about any of the sabbats and the food I have made for them. In part due to not being very consistent with blogging, in part due to not being very aware of the passage of time or having a lot of energy. Anyway, here is a bit of a catch up.

Mabon aka Autumn Equinox (20th March, 2023)

I bought a bunch of stuff for snacking throughout the week, to live my best autumn snacking life. The Fix and Fogg Pumpkin Pie Butter was a gift from a friend who brought it back from New Zealand with me, and it is so incredible! Absolutely delicious. Fantastic on apple slices. I also had some apple cinnamon jam, which was very sweet. Some pumpkin bread, pink lady apples, and some cashew mushroom cheese for fun. I made a lot of different and excellent snacks with these.



Vegan Tagine with Butternut Squash from Lazy Cat Kitchen: I also made an actual dinner, sticking with the autumn theme. This tagine with butternut squash was full of flavour, though I of course left out the chili flakes. I served it over some buttered cous cous. I hardly ever eat cous cous, but it is always delightful when I do.
Rating: :)



Samhain (30th April - 1st May 2023)

Halloween gets a lot of its pagan roots from Samhain, which is also consider the beginning of the new year in the sabbat cycle. I kept things seasonal and also kept it colour themed with black and orange for fun.

Roasted Red Onion & Butternut Squash Salad from Cook Share Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: This is a lovely salad, which I served warm. It was meant to be served with black quinoa, but I used black rice instead. It has a bunch of different ingredients to give a lovely flavour, though I left out the figs because I don't like them and it really didn't need it. The salad is a mix of cooked savoy cabbage and the rice, the roasted vegetables, and is topped with a creamy sunflower seed dressing.
Rating: :)



Yule aka Winter Solstice (22nd June 2023)

This was in the lead up to my PhD being due, and I had zero energy for anything. But my mum happened to make a Japanese Curry that night, and what a perfect way to celebrate the longest night of the year. A steaming bowl of Japanese Curry and rice was just right. We use the S&B Mild Japanese Curry paste, which is so good and has zero heat in it.



Imbolc (1st August 2023)

Confession, I totally missed this date. Imbolc is meant to celebrate the midpoint of winter. I had nothing planned because I didn't even realise it was happening. But when I looked back I realised that I did make something kind of appropriate for it. Red is a traditional colour for Imbolc, and I just so happened to make a kidney bean and red wine slow cooker stew! I used a Masterfoods recipe base for it (substituting kidney beans for the dead animals it called for), and it also had mushrooms and carrots in it. Served over some spinach and brown rice, this was very yummy and I would absolutely make it again.





We are two days away from Beltane, so let's see if I manage anything for that. Hope everyone is hanging in there, the year seems to be going so quickly.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Beautiful Boo doing a tiny blep.

Lammas 2023

We have had a sweltering summer, and the start of February was an extremely humid heatwave. Disgusting. Lammas, while being a harvest festival, is also a celebration of the height of summer, and acknowledgement of cooler times coming. I don't much feel like celebrating the fact that it is so hot, and cooler days are still a long way off in Brisbane, but I still made a nice dinner.

Lammas (1st Feb 2023)

Lammas is meant to be a harvest festival, and grains, corn, and bread are center along with seasonal berries. Not pictured are the berries I have been eating for breakfast. I have been eating a lot of blueberries at this time, as well as raspberries when I can find non-Driscoll ones. Blackberries are also a traditional fruit of this sabbat, but I couldn't find any fresh one's that are not Driscolls. If you want to know why I do not buy Driscolls, there is a global boycott (see more information here.

BBQ Seitan Salad from Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips: Being as hot as it was, I decided to just make a nice BBQ salad. I used Meet chick'n style strips for the seitan, and pan-fried them then glazed them in BBQ sauce. These sit on a delicious base of baby cos, tomato, cucumber, and radishes. I left out the capsicum and green onions, and added some celery. The salad is topped with vegan bacon bits and a Country Buttermilk Ranch Dressing. The dressing is based on vegan sour cream, is super easy to make, and tastes fantastic.
Rating: Salad overall :), Dressing :)







Pantry Corn Bread from More Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: Bringing in the Lammas with corn bread! This has two options, either using a box of cornbread mix or making your own, I went with the latter because I don't even know if there are any vegan cornbread mixes. I halved the recipe and baked it in a 5 x 9 inch pan. The recipe uses tinned creamed corn as most of the liquid, which was fun. Taste wise this was good, though it had a very crumbly texture.
Rating: :)



And all served together!



I had assorted thoughts about making a dessert. But it was hot and I was tired, so I did not.

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Please enjoy this photo of some kittens my friend is hand raising.

December Dates: Mum's Birthday and Litha 2022

A little catch up December post before we head in to Christmas.

Mum's Birthday:

In a shocking break in tradition, Mum picked something other than the usual Deconstructed Banh Mi Salad, and instead asked for a different salad! Several years ago, Mum and I had a stopover in Hawaii on our way home from Seattle, and we had lunch a the California Pizza Kitchen. Mum had a BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad that she loved, and she had since bought the CPK cookbooks. So I veganised the BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad for her! I used this for my chicken, and left the oil out of the marinade as this roast chicken was already very oily.



The salad has a lot of non-vegan ingredients, but thanks to the world we live in it was easy to veganise! For the garden herb ranch dressing I used vegan mayo, homemade buttermilk made from oat milk and lemon juice, Made With Plants sour cream, and vegan worcestershire sauce. Everything else in the dressing was herbs or spices. The salad itself has baby gem lettuce (rather than a mix of cos and iceberg), fresh basil, celery for crunch as I couldn't find jicama, chopped Sheese mozzarella, black beans, corn, coriander, and tomatoes. I scaled the recipe way down, as it was asking for huge amounts of ingredients! Even a halved recipe of the dressing had lots of leftovers! The salad is topped off with crushed tortilla chips (rather than homemade deep fried tortilla strips, which the recipe included), the chicken, and BBQ sauce as well as dressing.



Normally I would make a cake, but this time I was a terrible child and I bought one because I just didn't have enough time or energy. Woolworths has a Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Mud Cake. It is huge, a 1kg slab of cake.



You could defnitely tell it was store bough, as it had an overly sweet icing and the cake itself was a bit dry. But I enjoyed the leftovers with the icing scraped off and some chocolate ice cream. Next year I will definitely make one.



Litha aka Summer Solstive (21st of December, 2022)

The summer solstice has finally come! Which means at last the days can start getting shorter. Too much sunshine for too many hours. Bring me the dark, please. I had a super lowkey litha, I literally just made the salad I will talk about below and I ate a lot of lovely summer fruits - cherries, peaches, plums, and apricots are all in season. So good! I had planned on making more, but again I just was out of time and energy. So I am not stressing about it and will just show you my dinner!

Charred Zucchini and Sweetcorn with Basil Caesarish-Sauce from Tenderheart by Hetty McKinnon: Tenderheart was one of my birthday presents! And I am just realising I don't think I have posted about my birthday yet. I will eventually. I hardly ever get cookbooks anymore, but this one was a must get and it is gorgeous! I picked this salad for Litha because zucchini and corn are definitely summer produce! And while made on the grill,charring is grill-adjacent. The zucchini is first sliced and charred in a hot pan, before being drizzled in a tiny bit of red wine vinegar. I used frozen corn kernels, which are also charred in the hot pan. Then they are combined with fresh herbs and a lovely dressing. The caesar-ish dressing is based on tahini and has capers, basil, and more in it. You will notice that my dressing looks very soupy, which is because I am a doofus and accidentally put in double the amount of water required so then had to add in more of everything else. I served this with some fresh (from the bakery, not from me) olive sourdough slices.
Rating: :)



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Gizmo made a very fetching Santa Claws. This Christmas is going to be hard for myself and so many of my friends who have lost their furry loved ones recently. If you are grieving, leave space for that and be gentle with yourself.

Beltane 2022

While the 31st of October is known as Halloween throughout the world, it gets its origins from the pagan festival of Samhain. This is a sabbat that is very much seasonal and meant to be celebrated in Autumn. So here in Australia, we are celebrating Beltane!

Beltane (31st October - 1st November, 2022)

Beltane is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and is a celebration life and fertility. As often happens, I was working on the night itself. I made my special Beltane dinner the following day.

Red Pesto Risotto with Asparagus from Cook Share Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: This fit the Beltane theme for because it has asparagus. Which... ahem... has certain associations. The pesto itself is incredible, with a mix of sundried and cherry tomatoes, almond, and basil. It doesn't go super red though. It makes more than the recipe calls for to add into the risotto, but I added extra into it and also had some left over to make a great sandwich with later. The asparagus were meant to be blanched, shaved into thin strips, and fried but that was a bit in the too much basket for me and I just roasted them. Served with an extra dollop of pesto on top as well.
Rating: :)



Mixed Berry Cobbler from One Pot Three Ways by Rachel Ama: I stuck with the red theme (representing the element of fire... though green is also a Beltane colour) and made this lovely Mixed Berry Cobbler. First you make the base recipe, which is Stewed Berries. I used a frozen mix from Woolworths called Rube Red Mix (strawberries, cherries, and redcurrents).



One recipe of this made about two cups, and one cup is required for the cobbler. It was unusual in that you mix up a batter, then add that to melted butter in the hot baking pan (butter is also a Beltane food), and finally dollops the stewed berries on top. Normally when I make cobblers you put the topping on top! But when it came out of the oven, the berries were at the bottom! It was really nice, though did have quite a strong butter flavour.
Rating: :)



Mixed Berry Chia Jam from One Pot Three Ways by Rachel Ama: Bonus recipe! As mentioned above, the cobbler used half of the stewed berries. Leaving me the other half to make one of the other two ways to use it in the book. I went with the very easy chia jam, which I had never made before. Just simmer the stewed berries, add a little bit more maple syrup, and then stir in some chia seeds and water, let sit. I was a bit worried when I made it because it just seemed like there were SO MANY chia seeds. But they really did absorb all the flavour wonderfully. Also, it had a good texture, not like chia pudding which is weird. I enjoyed this on crumpets, on top of yoghurt and granola, and I even mixed the last bit of it in to some overnight oats that ended up with a great flavour.
Rating: :)





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Here is a fun action shot of Boo with her Jackolantern toy. Getting photos of her was hard, because she often just wanted to smooch and play with it!

Ostara 2022

In Australia, Spring officially starts on the 1st of September, even though the equinox takes place later in the month. Ostara is the sabbat that celebrates this equinox, and the return of Spring. Easter has folded in a lot of traditions from the original pagan celebrations. Of course, here in Australia Easter happens in March or April, and has nothing to do with the seasons. Eggs are a common food theme, given the celebration of new life. Seems wrong to be celebrating new life by using a product created by the horrific destruction of chicken lives. Thankfully there are many wonderful ways to celebrate with food that don't hurt animals. Hurrah!

Ostara aka Spring Equinox (23rd September, 2021)

I kept up an eggy theme, and also went with another classic spring food - carrots!

Eggless Tofu-Olive Salad from Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips: Tofu makes the best egg salad! Bianca's version includes chopped green olives, which I really enoyed. I had plain green olives, the pimento stuffed ones (as suggested) would have been even better. I think if using plain green olives, increase the amount so you get lots of those great briny punches throughout. I left out the raw onion, and I used some white pepper instead of black pepper. This was great on a sandwich, but also scooped onto crackers. Or off a spoon.
Rating: :)



Carrot Cake Ice Cream from Vegan Desserts by Hannah Kaminsky: Instead of coconut milk, I used my good friend Flora Professional Plant Cream as the base of this ice cream. I also couldn't get 100% carrot juice, so I used some Ginger Ninja juice, which is mostly carrot but also has some apple and ginger in it. As well as the carrot cake ice cream, it has a cream cheese ripple through it. Though mine didn't really ripple. I need to work on my stirring technique! This makes a HEAP of ice cream. It says it makes one generous quart, heavy on the generous. I have a 1L ice cream tub for homemade ice cream, and there was still quite a bit of extra I had to put in another container.
Rating: :)



Tomato Macaroni Soup and Scrambled Egg from To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon: I was under the weather, so this soup sounded like a perfect way to honor the sabbat and also give myself some comfort. I made a half recipe of this and got two serves. For the scrambled Egg I used some Orgran Vegg, though it had a bit of a funky bitter after taste, I need to work on my seasonings for this particular brand of Vegg. It is a powder that you mix up, like the old FYH Veggs. My soup was quite thick, and very hearty. I did find it a little bland, but a splash of soy sauce to serve took care of that.
Rating: :)



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I like to post this for my Ostara posts. It is my sweet little carrot Sahara, hugging her sweet little carrot toy! They are both pirates.

Imbolc 2022

I have so much to catch up on from the last couple of months! So let's start with Imbolc, one of the sabbats in the Wheel of the Year. Imbolc celebrates the midpoint of winter, though in Brisbane it is not such a big deal. Though this year we did actually have a few months of cold (by Brisbane standards) winter! It is also a celebration in parts of the Celtic goddess Brigid. I celebrated with food, as usual, though the symbolic food itself was sort of spread out over a couple of weeks just due to work and life. Traditional food for Imbolc includes dairy (or non-dairy in our case!), breads, seeds, dried fruit, winter vegetables, and the colour red.

Imbolc (1st August, 2020)

I started my morning of Imbolc with a breakfast of vanilla yoghurt, granola, and fruit. I used golden kiwi fruit and frozen blackberries, as blackberries are particularly associated with this sabbat.



The granola I used was this Rise beetroot granola I had bought on sale somewhere. It fit nicely with the theme being quite red! The granola itself was just ok. It was more like a muesli. I like my granolas to have crunchy clusters... isn't that what granola is? I ended up using the rest of it to make overnight oats with.



One Pot Mac and Cheese from the Delightful Vegans Blog: I was working late on the actual day, so I just had something frozen and reheated for dinner. The next time I was able to cook I made this easy cheesy pasta. This has a cashew based cheesy sauce, and is full of whatever vegetables you wish. I used the recommended cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and spinach (but I added extra spinach), as well as adding some peas. The recipe says don't bother draining the pasta, but I did (reserving a bit of pasta water) and I think that was definitely the right choice or it would have been so soupy and dilute. I just added a bit of pasta water back in to help the sauce loosen up with the pasta and veggies for a nice coating. I didn't use the option grated cheese, but I did add extra nutritional yeast.
Rating: :)



I also bought some of this blackberry jam to enjoy in different ways. I made some excellent almond butter and blackberry jam sandwiches. Or I used it to top ice cream.



PB & J Banana Muffins from Epic Vegan Quick & Easy by Dustin Harder: One of the things I also made with that jam was these muffins! I used GF flour because I was making them for someone who is GF, so the texture definitely relfected that flour choice, but the flavour was great. The recipe saus to use 1/4 cup of batter to get 12 muffins, but I only got 10. Obviously I used blackberry jam to top them! They were also topped with crushed peanuts, though I left that off a couple for my dad's personal preferences.
Rating: :)



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All these new kitties, but what about Boo? Boo has had a bit of a rough time over the last month. She was quite unwell a few weeks ago with her calcium spiking up again, so we have changed up her medications and are also waiting on some additional test rests. She is mostly back to her normal self, thankfully.

Yule 2022

Here we are in winter in Australia, and actually having a period of reasonable chill here in Brisbane! So while my northern hemisphere friends are sweating through what seems like an atrocious summer, we are in our cold times. And June is the time for the sabbat celebration of Yule, the shortest day of the year. You can see my other posts about celebrating different sabbats though food here.

Yule aka Winter Solstice (21st of June, 2022)

You can easily serve a lot of what people would consider Christmas-themed food during Yule, as aspects of it have been co-opted into traditions of Christmas, but I like to celebrate with really good, hearty comfort food.

Winter Stew from One Pot: Three Ways by Rachel Ama: One of my newer books, that you will be hearing more from. But I knew I wanted to make this wonderful winter stew for Yule from the moment I saw it. A stew of carrots, shallots, mushrooms (I used shiitake as I couldn't get oyster mushrooms), tomatoes, and sweet potato with red wine and herbs. A quick prep on the stove, and then a nice long bake in the over!



Mashed Potatoes & Long-Stem Broccoli: The premise of this book is you make the base recipe, and then there are three different ways you can use it. I went with this classic winter comfort combo of serving it with mashed potatoes (made with butter, nutritional yeast, and seasoning), and sauteed broccolini. It was everything wonderful and comforting in a bowl.
Rating: :)



Rich Winter Ragu with Pasta: Slipping this in here, even though I made it a couple of days later. This is simply leftover stew simmered and served with pasta. The recipe calls for pappardelle, I used fettucini. I also added some chopped facon and peas to it. This was such a great way to make a quick meal after leftovers.
Rating: :)



Spiced Cider from Cafe Flora Cookbook: Bringing us back to Yule dinner proper, I made this wonderful warmed cider. Cloudy apple juice is simmered with whole spices, then allowed to sit for several hours for the flavours to meld. After straining, you can serve it hot or cold. I went with hot, given it was a cold night!
Rating: :)



Tamarind Apple Crisp from To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon: Apple crumble is a perfect winter dessert, and add in some tamarind? Delightful! I made a half recipe of this for three serves. The apple filling has a hefty dose of tamarind paste added, which brings some lovely sour tang to the rest of the sweet, and it is topped with a lovely oat crisp topping. I served it warm with the very last bit of my So Delicious Cashew Vanilla Ice Cream.
Rating: :)





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Boo continues to enjoy the sunroom on these colder days.

Samhain 2022

Hi Friends! Long time not post, I know. I've had a few things going on. One, I have been having a big push for my PhD to get another paper published. Two, I have a really injured shoulder that makes everything very painful, and typing on a computer makes it worse. So today is just going to be a short and sweet post. I also have really been struggling to find much cooking motivation lately, in part due to my shoulder, so I have been relying more on easy convenience-style foods or delivery. I still make things here and there, but I am looking for things that are much simpler to make. I'm sure my cooking mojo will come back one day, for the moment I am taking it easy on myself. How have you all been?

Samhain (31st April-1st May 2022)

In the meantime, the wheel of the year just keeps on turning! Samhain is the new year on the wheel of the year calendar, and is the time when the veil between the world is thinnest. It is a time for honouring loved ones that have passed on. I lit a candle for my girls. Previous years, I have eaten in silence, but this year I ate in front of the TV because I was just so tired and sore and needed some distraction from my shoulder.

Pumpkin Ravioli: Pumpkin is a traditional Samhain food. In the northern hemisphere, samhain coincides with (and provided inspiration for) Halloween, so pumkins are everywhere! I was almost going to not have any pumpkin, because my shoulder does not want to chop or mash or anything hard at the moment, but Woolworths came through with these vegan pumpkin ravioli. I served them with a jar of stir-through pasta sauce, baby spinach, and FYH parmesan. The tomato sauce was a bit overpowering for the lovely pumpkin flavour, but it was the path of least effort. I would definitely eat these ravioli again!





Plum & Almond Cake from Cook Share Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: I have been wanting to make this cake while plums were still at their best, and I saw some other plum desserts listed in Samhaim menus, so this was the time! The cake also includes a recipe for an Earl Grey pine nut cream, but I didn't make that. Just the cake! You can see the recipe went a little awry, with the cake burning a bit. The recipe calls for the cake to be baked at 210dC for one hour, with baking paper covering the top for the final 15 minutes. This is too much! While the very edges of the cake were black and crispy, thankfully the rest was fine and it was a great cake.
Rating: :) (not including burnt bits)





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Abby would like you to know that she's doing great!

Mabon 2022

This year seems to be flying by, and here in the southern hemisphere we recently passed the autumn equinox, which is known as Mabon in the wheel of the year if you follow the sabbats. My recovery is also flying by, I can't believe it is almost five weeks since the surgery! I have been getting myself back into life by setting an alarm every morning, doing some arm exercises (seeing as I still can't do anything that engages my core), doing little drives, things like that. Also cooking a bit more!

Mabon aka Autumn Equinox (21st of March, 2022)

Although it is autumn, it is definitely still warm in Australia. With that in mind, I often make an Autumn-inspired salad! Though it looks like last year it was cool enough to make some chilli! But the start of this week was quite warm still, though we have at least had some cooler mornings. I also didn't make this on actual Mabon, as our grocery deliver was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day. But the intent was still there for when I finally did get to make it!

Minted Couscous with Spinach, Butternut Squash, and Currants from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli: I made a half recipe of this, which made two big serves. I love pearl couscous! I hardly ever use it, but when I do I always fall in love all over again. The couscous is cooked in vegetable stock, which gives the salad a lot of flavour. It doesn't have a dressing as such, just the flavour of all the ingredients, but it works well! The butternut is roasted, which is always a winner. The recipe actually calls for rocket (arugula), but I used baby spinach instead as I am not a fan. I also added some peas for fun, and served it with some Field Roast Apple Sage sausage, which seemed autumny.
Rating: :)



And normally I would also make some sort of dessert... but I didn't. I am still getting back into the swing of things after surgery, so I took it easy on myself. However I had extra butternut pumpkin, so a couple of days later I made another recipe that also seemed very autumnal. So I'll share that here as well.

Curried Lentil, Squash, and Apple Stew from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli: This is a slow simmering stew, that takes a bit of time but most of it is hands off and it is very easy. I was worried initially that it might be too sweet, but the flavours combined to make a wonderful savoury base with the sweet pumpkin and apple in it. I only had 1/3 of a cup of lentils, rather than the full 1/2 cup. I soaked them overnight to make sure they cooked well. I did need to add a bit of extra water when I added the pumpkin and apple. I only used 1tsp of mild curry power, which was perfect. It was a rainy night when I made this, which was just right.
Rating: :D



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Abby and Boo! Chilling near each other in the sun room! Amazing! It isn't always so chill. Boo still chases Abby sometimes, and then gets upset when Abby stands her ground. Such a naughty little sister! But it is nice that they can also spend time in the same vicinity as each other sometimes.