Liminal Landscapes

Holidays at my house have a focus on food and making the day memorable. I love decorating the house, getting out my prized dinnerware to set the table, and cooking up something special. Here are a few of my favorite holiday recipes.

When the days are short and the nights are long and cold I take advantage of every dry, sunny hour to get chores done and make sure everyone is fed and happy.

Solstices are threshold days. This day has the shortest period of daylight and the longest night. It is a time to gather together, to feast and renew relationships, to strengthen the bonds of friendship and family ties. This is also the time to forgive, a time to abandon the things that did not serve, to make peace with the troubles of the past and to look ahead with hope, each of us aspiring to be better, as we pay homage to the cycle of life.

These are a few of my favorite cold weather recipes to instill feelings of comfort and cheer.

This recipe bakes up into a delicious pie/crumble that melts in your mouth.

Quince is an interesting fruit. As it becomes ripe the fruit exudes a wonderful floral scent. It's unappealing raw but once cooked, the flesh takes on a rosy color and develops a complex tangy-sweetness.

The holidays are a time of gathering together and rejoicing around a table decked out in festive dinnerware and holiday foods.

I love making homemade bread. The simple ingredients bake into a food that fills the house with a luscious, comforting aroma and makes both family members and guests feel special.

This time of year the blackberry shifts from being a mean thorny bramble into a generous giver of delicious sweet berries. It will still stab you if you aren't careful but the harvest is worth the risk of the thorns.

I love growing squash. Once you get a couple of plants started they will produce so abundantly it will quickly become difficult to use up the produce. Read on for some of my favorite way to use zucchini.

The flavors of lemon and blueberry meld together to create a delicious sweet in this loaf recipe.

I picked the last of our plums, and while I really love the plum cake recipe, (look for it in 2024 Llewellyn's Witches Digest) I wanted to make something different. Click here for an out of this world plum cheesecake recipe.

Potatoes are one of the easiest and most rewarding crops to grow for kitchen use. A new potatoes is brimming with flavor that is lost to the store variety.

The long cold spring we had this year affected many of our fruit crops here in the Pacific Northwest. Only about 5 percent of the blossoms on my apples, pear, and persimmon trees set fruit. Which makes it even more delightful that the raspberries came through with a bounty of berries.

are you longing for a fulfilling existence? Shake off that blasé attitude and reclaim you life.

Creative visualization is the act focusing on an image in the mind to manifest a desired outcome.

A year divided by solstices and equinoxes, light and darkness, the time of bounty and the time of want.

My new book is about to come out! It's being called a natural companion for Kitchen Witchery.

I was up at the farmhouse without a car and craving a chocolaty sweet, so I looked at the ingredients on hand and came up with this lovely loaf recipe.

This popular greek dish is a delicious combination of creamy spinach and feta filling and a flaky phyllo curst.

Beltane is an ancient spring festival celebration the fertility of nature.

I had my very first in-person signing today and the Portland Conference Center.

Einkorn is an ancient wheat. The flour is soft and silky and it has a wonderful flavor that gives baked goods an amazing crumb. I thought I found the perfect substitute to achieve an authentic wheat experience without triggering my autoimmune disease. I was wrong.

"If Candlemas day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight. If Candlemas day clouds and rain, Winter is gone, and will not come again."

- E. Holden

I came upon an old Julia Child cooking show and learned how to make fougasse!

Turnips, Rutabagas and Parsnips contain nutrients to maintain good health and magickal properties to banish negative energy, repel unwanted quests, and ward your home. While I most often simply chop them and drizzle with olive oil then roast in a 400 degree oven, occasionally I will make them into a fancier dish.

New Years and the solstices are threshold days. It is on these days that we can petition the gods to draw good luck through the threshold to infuse the new year. Cultures across the world have devised lucky recipes to draw prosperity and good health. In Germany millet porridge is the dish eaten on New Year’s Day for luck. In Japan the luck drawing dish is made of buckwheat noodles. In the US, sauerkraut, lentils, and black-eyed peas are considered lucky.

I love holiday baking. To preface any celebration I almost always spend the days before baking. This Yule's dessert menu will include Banana bread (p134 K.W.) Sweet Cranberry bread, Chocolate flourless cake, almond cake, and a cheese cake. (Recipes in post)

I am so excited to announce Backyard Garden Witchery will be publishing July 2022!

It's name depends upon where you grew up or where your relatives come from, but no matter what it's called, the holidays just wouldn't be complete without a side of dressing or stuffing.

This harvest celebration is one of my favorite holidays, as loved ones gather together to feast and honor the Earth and her bounty. Blessing to you all!

Halloween, halloween. Such a spooky time!

The 2021 Witchies Award Nominations have been announced and I am so thrilled that Kitchen Witchery was nominated for Outstanding Recipe/Formulary Book of the Year!

It has been a bountiful squash year. Not only has the garden produced a bounty of pumpkins, but also patty pan, yellow summer, and zucchini.

This year pumpkin was a bumper crop. I've given 8 away and made puree out of 3 and still there are 24 pumpkin out in my yard. It's time for me to find some new ways to cook them up.

Life got a bit more hectic when I adopted 3 orphaned squirrels.

Aug 1 - Cross-quarter day, Earth festival, Fire festival Lammas is the first of the three autumn harvest festivals in the season of ripening for now our backyard gardens burst with fruit.

"Many delightful recipes and thumbnail histories of ingredients’ spiritual usages (such as of the seven sacred grains of Europe) make this stand out from similar fare."

I am so excited to announce that my book Kitchen Witchery can now be preordered!

a broken oven plus a bowl of rising dough forces an unexpected experiment that produces amazing results!

Finding a food way to prepare chicken for a hubby with diet restrictions was a trial until I experimented with my air fryer.

This recipe mixes up into a creamy and decadently chocolate ice cream without the use of an ice cream machine. Milk adds mother-love, energy. The healing energy of olive oil complements a host of intentions from encouraging love and fertility to heightening beauty. While sugar and chocolate sweeten or encourage happiness and affection.

Spring came early this year allowing the vegetable and herb garden to be planted well before May.

For the practitioner of bath magick , or the process of using the energy of water to completely submerge the body and head to clear the body, mind, energy field, and spirit, the tub becomes a sacred place to reset, unwind, and revitalize.

The Bay tree holds a victorious energy that can be used to purify, increase vitality, encourage, psychic development, and even break curses.

Ostara marks the beginning of the growing period.

Are you longing for a more fulfilling existence? Then shake off that blasé attitude and reclaim your life.

Popovers, also known as Yorkshire pudding, are recognized across the world as a traditional British dish served with roast.

Imbolc, also known as Candlemas, is halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox making it a cross-quarter day on the wheel of the year calendar. Imbolc celebrates the return of life to the world. Now the daylight hours are noticeably growing longer.

These chocolaty seed balls are brimming with energy as they are made with some of the world's most amazing superfoods.

The roots of Natural Magick reach all the way back past even the oldest religions when life was tied to the land and the seasons, and interacting with the natural world was integrated into every part of life. To stay alive one had to pay attention to the natural world.

Many flirt with the idea of a faery encounter seeking out ways to meet one. If you are among their number you might try going to a wild place and seeking out the oldest tree. Sit with your back to its truck and open your mind.

After reading enthusiastic accounts of veggie burgers using pea protein I set out to try a few.

Magick is the art of accessing the hidden powers of the human mind and finding the links that echo through the Universe. For every spellcaster knows that there is a truth that is greater than he can see or comprehend, but that by acting on that which he can understand he may perhaps influence other things associated with it.

How to cook this winter favorite.

Celebration is part of the human experience. When we put energy into making something special it becomes memorable and strengthens the ties of our clan.

A no fuss garden plant with a bright tart flavor and energy for: Celebration, Clear Sight, Fidelity, Health, Inspiration, and Love.

New Year's Day holds the energy of the threshold making it a power time to renew and remake your life into the life you desire.

The Solstice marks the longest night of the year. Since the dawn of civilization December has been a month of celebration.