Pampered Chicken Salad

A little Kitchen Witchery today. I have been making an effort to get myself back on track, in every area of my life. My Path has suffered from our time in The Vardo, simply because I like to have altars everywhere, and I don't really have one here at all. So, I have been working on prayers and blessings to use and keep my mind in a spiritual place.

I was thinking of this as I made lunch today, and realized that I was not utilizing my best tool for Everyday Magick. I need to get back into Kitchen Witchery. I feed my family, and I should use that opportunity to feed our souls.

So, I took a moment and thought Magickally about how I wanted to make the dish. What do I need right now, in this moment, and how can I use this food to put that intention into the Universe?

Here is the end result. I skewed this toward loving and pampering myself and my family. I am not one for measuring, I just tend to throw things in the mix, so adjust your amounts as you see fit

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded (or about 2-3 cups of chicken) 

3 small avacado, diced (Avacado represents luxury, beauty, and love)

1 green onion, diced (onion for protection and healing)

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes (to center and bring love into your heart)

1/2-3/4 cup mayo or plain yogurt

1/4 cup mustard (for protection and to help love be fertile)

salt and pepper to taste. (The chicken I used was seasoned, so I did not add any)

Mix together (I took it a step further here and used a blue spoon, and then served it on blue dishes for peace and calm)

Let sit in the fridge for an hour to let the mixture meld, then serve.

It was super yummy, and made me feel awesome that I took the first steps back toward one of my favorite Magickal practices!

Processing Pumpkins

We got exactly one pumpkin out of the two patches we planted, thanks to the squash bugs. We were pretty on top of it until our trip to Kansas, and they took those four days to complete the destruction. Our buddy Stubby saved the day by bringing over two sugar pie pumpkins from his garden. I processed them this morning and they are in the freezer, waiting to become yummy pumpkin pie next month!

 Cut each pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. I kept about one half of one pumpkin worth of seeds for next year...and will hopefully not lose those pumpkins to squash bugs too.

 I roasted them for 45 minutes, cut sides down, at 400 degrees. This made the flesh soft enough that it fell right out of the skins, and got a little nice caramelization on the bottoms.

 I threw it all in the food processor, added two tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice, one for each pumpkin, and pureed it all up.

 The Hubs helped me bag it up, and it's all ready for me on Thanksgiving!

Crock-Pot Pulled Pork

Here is our recipe for easy, Pulled Pork Barbecue in the crock pot. It's not very exact, but I tend to be a "that looks about right" kind of cook! Crock pots are very forgiving, anyway...

One pork roast

1/2-1 cup orange juice

(amount depends on the size of the roast) 

2 big pinches of salt

4 big pinches black pepper

1/2-1 cup barbecue sauce

(again, depends on size of roast)

Place roast in crock pot, pour juice over then salt and pepper

cook on low heat 6-8 hrs

pull meat apart with forks, pour in sauce and serve

I made this Saturday because we had a BIG honey-do day, and dinner tends to sneak up on me when we get busy. I served it on home-baked bread I made and fried red-skin potatoes. Yum! This leaves enough for 3 big, hungry adults plus leftovers with a medium sized roast.
H.W.

Minty Peas

I said last year we should plant more peas...but forgot and still only planted four. I just cleaned out the peas in our box and we got about one cup of peas. Not to be discouraged, the girls and I shelled them and cooked them up for the Hubs, who loves peas and has been known to open a can of them and eat them directly out, cold. So our measly little cup 'o peas became Minty Peas with Onions!

Here is the recipe for a normal amount of peas.

2 cups fresh or frozen peas

2 Tbl butter

1/2 medium onion, diced

1/2 tsp mint

(if using frozen peas, thaw or blanch first)

melt butter in a saucepan over low heat, toss in onions and peas

saute over low heat until onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes

toss in mint and cook an additional minute, serve.

These are a big hit at our place, the Hubs only got about half of them before the girls jacked them, and they have become an official Thanksgiving side dish.

In other news, I finally pulled the radishes which had bolted like mutants. Again, a meager harvest, but I am still feeling out what we will actually EAT out of the garden with what I would like to grow.

The lettuce is still grooving along, but the spinach bolted and will probably be pulled up this week. I need to get going on what to plant in the new empty spots!

H.W.

Strawberry Banana Bread

We get up reletivelyearly around the Hippie household. Unfortunately "awake" is not the same as "alert" and although my girls are starving the instant they wake up, I am not in a cooking mood till closer to 9am. One answer, when we just cannot face another bowl of cereal, is muffins and quick breads. Our strawberry plants are starting to fruit, and so I wanted to find a strawberry-banana bread recipe before the berries started to pile up. We like this one, from Cooks.com and so when we start to get more than a few berries at a time I can bake it up and freeze the loaves. I used canned, whole strawberries this time, and it turned out very flavorful and not too sweet, although I might try adding nuts next time.

H,W,

STRAWBERRY - BANANA BREAD

1 c. fresh strawberries 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour 2 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. nutmeg 1/4 c. sweet butter 1/4 c. plus 2 tbsp. sugar 2 eggs 2 very ripe bananas, mashed Toss strawberries with 2 tablespoons flour and set aside. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg in small bowl. Cream butter slowly adding sugar, beating at medium speed; add eggs, beating well. Add flour mixture and bananas. Mix until dry ingredients are moist. Gently fold in strawberries. Spoon batter into loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Yay yogurt!

I just had a yummy breakfast! What was it...I'm glad you asked. I had a big old bowl of home-made yogurt I made in the slow cooker yesterday! I have wanted to make my own yogurt for years, but am too cheap to buy a yogurt maker and every recipie I found to make it without one seemed so complicated it scared me off. I found a recipie on A Year of Slow Cooking over the weekend and tried it out yesterday. It took all day, but there is very little you actually have to do, it just has to hang out in the crock pot a lot, so it worked out great! I was so excited to taste it this morning, I had some with strawberries and the last of my local honey I bought at New Day Meadery...need to stop in and buy more. The yogurt was good and very mild, If it is left to sit longer before refrigerating, it will be more sour if you like that. I had read that it comes out thin, so I added a packet of gelatin to the mix, and it seemed to be normal yogurt consistancy. I am going to try to strain some with a coffee filter in a colander to make thick, Greek-style yogurt. The recipie in on the slow cooker blog here, I reccomend it if you like yogurt...easy, cheap and yummy!