Recipe: Wild Garlic Pesto

For those that missed my Instagram Reel earlier in the week, here’s the recipe I used for Wild Garlic Pesto: 

WILD GARLIC PESTO

Ingredients:
150g Wild garlic

Zest of half lemon 

Juice of half lemon 

2 x Garlic cloves 

150ml Rapeseed oil 

50g Parmesan cheese 

50g Pine nuts

Glass jar with lid

Method:
Rinse and pat dry the wild garlic.
Roughly chop the wild garlic.
Prepare the other ingredients - mince the garlic cloves, zest and juice the lemon, measure out the oil, grate the cheese.
Add the ingredients to the food processor, including the lemon juice and oil.
Spoon into the jar and label and date.
Stir the pesto through cooked pasta.

The pesto will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. Please don’t pull out the bulbs - take one leaf from each plant. 

NEXT - Recipe: Apple Cake
NEXT - Wild Garlic Magick: 7 Bear-Related Correspondences
NEXT - Honouring Nature: The Forager's Code

NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Major Oak

Recipe: Beltane Carrot Cake

Each Sabbat I like to cook something special or seasonal. For Beltane I made a Carrot Cake. It actually took me all day to make this, as I kept getting distracted, but I got there in the end, and it was well worth it.

I’m going to give you the original recipe, but obviously you can swap certain ingredients out to cater for Gluten-free or vegan diets.

BELTANE CARROT CAKE

Ingredients:
235ml oil
100g natural yoghurt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 orange zested
265g self-raising flour
335g muscavado sugar
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
265g grated carrot
100g raisins
100g walnuts roughly chopped
100g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
100g full fat cream cheese

Method:
1. Line two 20cm cake tins. Heat the oven.
2. Whisk the oil, eggs, yoghurt, vanilla, and zest together in a jug.
3. Mix the flour, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a bowl.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl.
5. Add in the carrots, raisins, and half the nuts.
6. Split into two tins and bake.
7. When the cakes have cooled and are ready to ice - beat the sugar and butter together. Work the cream cheese into the mixture but by bit. Ice the cake and sprinkle on the nuts. 

NEXT - Recipe: Wren's Autumn Apple Cake
NEXT - Pagan Holidays: Beltane
NEXT - Review: Witchology Magazine (Spring 2022)

Natural Remedies: Lavender Oil

On Beltane Eve I completed the first step in making Lavender Salve. I’ve shared the recipe for Lavender Salve before, but I didn’t go into much detail in making the oil. This is really easy, with only a few steps to follow.

Step 1 - add your plant or herb (eg. Dandelion or Lavender) to a canning jar, halfway. It’s really important that your ingredients are bone dry, therefore no moisture in the jar, as this can lead to mould.

Step 2 - cover with carrier oil, cap, and leave in a place out of direct sunlight for at least 10 days, but up to 4-6 weeks if you can. You can use any type of oil, but olive oil is safe on the skin and great for infusing.

Step 3 - strain into a clear jar using a strainer or cheesecloth. In a cool, dark, place your oil should keep for up to a year, but you may wish to use it immediately if part of a recipe for body products or cosmetics.

You can repeat the process if you want to make the oil stronger; simply strain and add to a new batch of dried plants. You can add a few drops of Vitamin E oil at the end of infusing to extend the shelf life. 

NEXT - Natural Remedies: Lavender Salve
NEXT - Chamomile Magick: 9 Protective Correspondences
NEXT - Natural Remedies: 15 Ways to Use Dried Lavender

Pagan Holidays: Beltane

Happy Beltane everyone! And a very Happy Anniversary to my husband. Four years ago today we were handfasted at Avebury Stone Circle by Druid, beside rock, under a huge sky.

Beltane, opposite Samhain on the Wheel of the Year, honours life.

It is the peak of Spring and Summer is close by, or has just started if your local Hawthorn has flowered!

Just as you might expect to connect with spirits at Samhain, the Faeries are close by at Beltane. The veil is thin once more, and earth energies are at their strongest. It is a time of joy, abundance, fertility, and celebration. Of growth, creativity, and expansion.

Today I raise my cup to you - all of you - and wish you a very merry, beautiful, and abundant Beltane. And to those in the Southern Hemisphere, have a wonderful Samhain also. Blessed be. 

NEXT - Personal Magick: My Beltane Handfasting 
NEXT - Personal Magick: Our Handfasting Besom 
NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: Midland Hawthorn

Personal Magick: My Beltane Handfasting

This photograph of my handfasting at Beltane 2016 is one of my favourite pictures. It’s a good depiction of who we are, both individually and as a couple. We are both witches - the other person is who we have chosen to be with, this is how we live our lives, this is how we worship, this is how we observe and celebrate the milestones in our life.

It made perfect sense to be handfasted at Beltane; as we celebrated the union of the Goddess and Green Man, the coming together of male and female energies, we also came together as Man and Wife. We were lucky to be handfasted at our beloved Avebury Stone Circle by the Archdruid and Keeper of the Stones, Terry Dobney, who also happens to be our dear friend. Here he is offering us the apple in our ceremony.

Beltane is a special time when the veil is thin again. It is a time of celebration, of merriment, of festivity, of joy, of abundance, of fertility, of making love in the fields, enjoying your sexuality and sensuality openly, and of embracing your masculinity or femininity. It’s a time to recognise and remember that our connection to nature is absolutely vital.

Samhain is the beginning of Winter; and opposite on the Wheel, Beltane is the beginning of Summer - the days are longer, the Sun is warm, the land is blooming. And so are we.

What is your favourite festival and why? Have you ever been to a handfasting? What are you doing for Beltane? 

NEXT - Beltane Preparations: Preparing for Summer
NEXT - Personal Magick: Our Handfasting Besom
NEXT - Dear Terry: Until We Meet Again
NEXT - Fabulous Folklore: The Ring Stone at Avebury

Beltane Preparations: Preparing for Summer

The days leading up to Beltane are my favourite. As you can see from the colour of my stone walls, the Sun is now warm again; the balance has been tipped, the days now longer than the nights.

I now have energy to spare! The warmth of the Sun does wonders for me, and I usually spend this special time making preparations. We usually go away for Beltane, back home to Hampshire to celebrate with friends, but due to Coronavirus, this year will be different.

My preparations usually involve Spring cleaning, potting-up Summer bedding plants, sorting and tidying our home, visiting the local Sheela-na-Gig, and getting ready to travel down South.

This year we will have a local walk, a foraged meal, and a fire at home.

Beltane Preparations & Celebrations:

Decorate your altar
Make a flower crown
Dance the Maypole
Visit sacred wells and springs
Find wild spaces to connect with the Fae
Hang ribbons in trees
Spend time with hawthorn

NEXT - Pagan Holidays: Beltane 
NEXT - Autumn Equinox Blessings! 
NEXT - Recipe: Beltane Carrot Cake