#portersposse

[pagan-stitches]

Choctaw persimmon pudding for the @portersposse Indigenous Peoples’ Harvest Celebration food challenge.

[portersposse]

Porters Posse: Ostara/Spring Equinox/Passover/Easter Seasonal/ Cooking Challenge

Thinking about taking part? Reply to this entry - or send me a DM - and I’ll add you to the Ostara/Spring Equinox/Easter Posse list.

WHO: Anyone of any practice, or no practice at all, who enjoys seasonal celebrations, cooking, and feasting!  No restrictions, if you can pick up a spoon and stir you are invited!

WHAT: Your challenge is simple: choose at least one recipe from the Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook’s chapter on Easter to incorporate into your seasonal celebration and share with us photos and a write up.  I hope you will use as many seasonal and local ingredients as possible and look forward to hearing about your experience with those ingredients and locales.

Southern Hemisphere friends!  Please participate.  If the chapters on Easter don’t suit your seasonal celebration needs, please participate by choosing a recipe(s) from the harvest or Michaelmas sections.

While the recipe(s) from Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook should be the star of your entry Id also love to hear about other traditional favorites that you used in your celebration and any special non-cookery traditions!

Dietary restrictions?  You are welcome to adapt the recipes to meet your needs! This is ultimately about you and your celebration!

(Haven’t been able to snag your copy yet?  Click on this link to borrow it from archive.org   Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook)

WHERE: In the convenience of your kitchen! Though I’d also love to hear about those farmer’s markets, ditches and orchards!  Be sure to tag your post @portersposse!

WHEN: I’m opening up a broad window for Ostara/Spring Equinox/Easter. This challenge will take place between March 19th and April 13th.  Send me your entries between April 14th and 15th.  Remember to tag them @portersposse so Ican share them with the whole posse!

WHY: To celebrate the season in a way that includes everyone, and to quote @graveyarddirt ‘s Hagging Out “because it’s occasionally nice to be social in the comfort of your own home without actually having people over.”

HOW: By yourself or with family and friends! Just be sure to include at least one recipe from Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook by Richard, Earl of Bradford and Carol Wilson.  

Don’t get hung up on Easter being a religious holiday—I’m looking at it as a cultural date that has its roots in the past.  This is a HUGE seasonal cusp!

_________________________

Don’t forget to leave me a message here or DM me @portersposse so we can add you to the Posse!

Your friend,

@pagan-stitches / @goadthings

__________________________

A special invitation to friends who have participated in the past:

@aircea

@ birchwood-path

@graveyarddirt @msgraveyarddirt

@hechizoh

@henbane-and-honeysuckle

@hrusewif

@inbacchaegloriam

 @profetizamos

@satsekhem

@tuiliel

@woolandcoffee

If I’ve left anyone out, please forgive--I’m on 3 hours of sleep! 

________________________________

Spring posse to date: @hechizoh @hrusewif, @lupinelace @lurelurk, @msgraveyarddirt, @pagan-stitches, @satsekhem, and @woolandcoffee

Let me know if I left you out!

[brightgnosis]

Sometimes I'm really glad that I don't celebrate the standard Wheel of the Year, because it means I get to miss all the most common (and completely ahistorical) bickering and bullshit that comes around every year like clockwork; I can just Blacklist it and move on with my life, content in the fact that it's not my Monkey and I don't have to care about it.

Other times it's kind of isolating because I have no one to share in the joy of Adam's resurrection with, or to crown symbolically for Chava's ascension to the Throne, or dance around a Pine Tree with. I just have my Husband who acts as my silent Chauffeur and Sentinel. And while I love him to pieces and he humors my longwinded rambling, it's really just not the same, ha.

I think it's a big part of why I cling to @msgraveyarddirt / @graveyarddirt's Hagging Out events (and @portersposse, when it was still going) so much, honestly. Because even if I do bork the standard, it still gives me at least some sense of being a part of something greater in an almost holiday or holiday-adjacent sort of sense within the Pagan and Witchcraft Sphere, which I don't really have or get otherwise.

[woolandcoffee]

I am late in putting together my post for @portersposse Ostara/Spring Equinox/Passover/Easter Seasonal/ Cooking Challenge, but things have been a bit hectic so better late than never!

Ostara was several weeks before Easter this year (something that I wish all the crunchy health food stores putting out "Ostara" incense days before Easter despite Ostara lining up with the Spring Equinox would realize), so I got to start celebrating spring ahead of some others this year. My Ostara ritual involved blessing and planting the barley seeds that will serve as the body of the Sacrificial God-King. This is a newer tradition to me, and the first year I'm growing barley myself. It's already been quite an experience!

My partner and I celebrated the arrival of spring with the Asparagus Flan in the Easter section of Porter's Seasonal Celebrations. Now personally, I would call this a tart, not a flan, but it was good just the same. Asparagus is just coming into season here, which made this a truly perfect dish for celebrating Ostara. All the textures in the dish - crumbly pie crust, creamy egg, roasted asparagus - mixed together beautifully. I've already made a mental note to make this again next year. When I do, something I'm going to try to be more purposeful on is the placement of the asparagus in the tart filling. I tried to arrange them in a pattern that would look nice and make cutting easier, but gave up pretty quickly. Next time, I think I'll practice laying out my asparagus in the pie pan before cooking them so that I can pre-cut them to the size they need to be to fit neatly. But otherwise, this was delicious and a lovely treat to share with friends.

[satsekhem]

Porters Posse Seasonal Cooking Challenge - Spring 2023

AKA Sunset Prayers and Feasts for All the Gods 2023.

The fear of trying something new is real. I'm that neurodivergent who will only consume 'safe' foods. That's why some of my in-laws' favorite family sides or meals have never touched thus palate. The smell or look of it makes my brain weep and so, it remains untested. But that's also why I don't participate often in this thing.

However, I felt it a call to try it out and after some dithering over Springtime recipes, I chose something that appeared easy. Mostly because I had most of the ingredients on hand.

Can anyone truly hate baked eggs? The answer is yes.

I decided to do this last weekend during the Sunset Prayers and Feasts for All the Gods. It would be dinner for me and dinner for them. So, I went out to grab the one ingredient I didn't have to hand and got going on it around 5pm.

It jiggled after I had set everything up. There weren't any instructions on mixing it all together. These eggs were going to basically be whole, not scrambled as I had originally thought they'd be. And since I doubled the recipe (four eggs in such a large dish???) that was eight unscrambled eggs sitting as sentinels amid the cheese, breadcrumbs, and heavy cream.

The finished product looked soupy. I pulled it out and the jiggling from before somehow seemd to have intensified in the 17.5 minutes the dish was in the oven. I thought about mixing it all together but when I tried, it was next to impossible because I clearly did not butter the pan nearly as well as I had thought.

I took one bite before the gods and wow. It was better than I had thought. Definitely a breakfast casserole kind of thing. The child found the whole thing distasteful and although they tried a bite, the face she made as she chewed and swallowed it down was enough to cement that this was something between my gods and I.

So, @portersposse I was there and I was definitely square, but I was the only one who liked it.

[aircea]

@portersposse

Alas, I did not have much time this year, but I made some apple cider in my slow cooker. Since I can't drink it all at once I filled a few glasses, will freeze those. Easier that way to just take one out if I want some.

[profetizamos]

i turn out about 12 kinds of cookies every advent, but I'm terrible about taking photos! it's been snowing heavily all day today, and i thought to make snickerdoodles. fortunately, for once i remembered to take photos for the @portersposse cookie swap! it's not the most creative or elegant recipe, but they are very wintery. I'm not a chewy cookie person, so these are crisp with a buttery, melt-in-your-mouth texture. This recipe is my mother's.

Baby Snickerdoodles - makes ~5 dozen small cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar, plus 3 Tbsp

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375°. Cream butter and 1 1/3 cup sugar in a large bowl, then mix in eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet until a homogeneous dough has formed. In a small bowl, whisk together the 3 Tbsp sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to taste (I use about 1/4 tsp). Roll dough into 1 inch balls with your hands and roll each one in the cinnamon sugar mixture until coated. Place on greased cookie sheets 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

(deceptively, these are quarter sheets instead of half sheets. these cookies are small!)

[henbane-and-honeysuckle]

Michaelmas Celebrations

This year has been a year of firsts, including my first celebration of Michaelmas. Here in Nebraska, the weather was still always off from shifting when both Michaelmas and Old Michaelmas happened so I celebrated it more as an ancestral holiday than a seasonal one. As such, I drew on my Scottish ancestry to try my hand a making a Strùthan Mhìcheil. I paired it with the blackberry butter recipe from Porter's Seasonal Cookbook.

Every part of this celebration was a little wonky but I'm just proud of myself for doing it at all. I had a super busy Michaelmas weekend so I ended up celebrating on Old Michaelmas and I didn't have as many apples as the blackberry butter recipe called for. I also didn't want to make as much jam as the recipe called for so I improvised and ended up making a recipe loosely based on the one in the book - same ingredients, different proportions. Tasted delicious though!

The bannock turned out tastier than I expected but I waited too long to put the caudle on and couldn't cook it as much as needed without the rest of the bread burning. Also learned what sour milk is as an ingredient - not quite buttermilk since it still has the fat in it. Made my own with lemon juice and milk but didn't let it sit long enough so my bread, which relied on the reaction between the acid and the baking soda to give it the rise, didn't rise as much as I would have liked.

The offering bannock made from the extra meal left over from rolling out the main strùthan rose beautifully though. I offered it as a burned offering to the Devil and to the Good Folk for blessings and good health in the next year.

I ended up using the rest of the jam to make Sriracha berry chicken wings, it was no goose, but it was delicious.

Exhausting but very satisfying. Thank you @portersposse for putting on this event!

[tuiliel]

Submission for the Indigenous Peoples' Harvest Celebration Cooking Challenge

Challenge by @portersposse !

So for this challenge, I made a wild rice dish similar to one my grandmother used to make. I'll be honest, I have no idea where she got her recipe - she might've equally found it in a native magazine or made it up herself!

Wild rice grows in the Great Lakes region, in a lot of lakes and other bodies of water, and is traditionally harvested by using a paddle to smack the grains into a canoe. Here's a photo of my auntie doing just that, a few years back:

My grandmother's recipe bakes wild rice in a medium sized pumpkin, and she usually added in onions and mushrooms and celery and venison, swimming in some kind of broth, which eventually gets absorbed by the rice.

Here's my wild rice, freshly rinsed. I think this is some of the stuff my aunt harvested last year!

I cooked mine on a stovetop instead this year, and sautéed the onions and celery and mushrooms separately before adding them. I used vegetable bouillon instead of broth, and didn't add any meat. I was making it to be a side dish and wanted it to be vegan and gluten free to accommodate other people's dietary requirements.

Celery and European onions aren't traditional indigenous ingredients, though there are North American alliums I could have used instead, if I'd gone to source them ahead of time! While ramps are best known for their spring greens, their bulbs have a lovely onion-garlic flavor, and I've also used the bulbs from onion grass before to good effect.

I also used store-bought brown cremini mushrooms. I'm not a good enough mushroomer to really be sure what I'm harvesting a lot of the time, so I don't go out myself, and I usually get wild mushrooms from friends or the farmer's market instead. If I'd had the time to request help from a friend or to source them some other way (since the farmer's market by my house is done for the year), I think I would've liked either a Chicken of the Woods or some other mushroom with a savory, meaty taste.

Wild rice generally requires 3-4 times as much liquid as rice, and can take quite a long time to cook on a simmer. Most other rice I cook in my instant pot, but I haven't figured out how to get wild rice to turn out that way, and rather than experiment with the texture further, I've given up on it for now. Online guidelines for instant pot cooking have been pretty on point for basically everything else, but I struck out twice for wild rice. That might partly be because the stuff you can usually buy in the store is a much shorter grain that the stuff my aunt and uncle get off the lake on the rez in Canada (Nigigoonsemenecanning First Nation).

Here's a picture of it finished and in a serving dish!

Yum!!!

[petitepointplace]

My Mother-in-Law’s Peanut Butter Bars

So I don’t really have an exact recipe.  We usually just buy a couple of boxes of graham crackers, a couple packages of almond bark, and a jar or two of smooth peanut butter and make a huge amount of these.

Break the graham crackers into their smallest size, slather peanut butter in the middle.

Melt the bark in either a double boiler or an actual pot meant for melting candy.

Dip the graham cracker/ peanut butter cookies in the the chocolate and cool on waxed paper.

For some reason these are my husbands favorite Christmas treat and the rest of his family is pretty insane about them too.

Here’s a similar recipe that I found online: https://spicysouthernkitchen.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-grahams/

@portersposse​

[pagan-stitches]

A mincemeat Christmas pudding for the @portersposse Christmas/Solstice food challenge. This recipe was SO super simple. It suggested cream or custard as an accompaniment so I went with custard from Porters English Cookery Bible’s recipe for Summer Berry Custard Tart.

It certainly tastes of the season!

[portersposse]

Porters Posse: Holiday Cookie Swap

 WHO: Everyone and anyone

WHAT:  Share with us your favorite winter holiday cookie recipes!  This can be as easy or as complex an entry as you would like to make.  Reblog an old (original to you) cookie post and tag it @portersposse, or make a new post using old pictures, or make a new post baking everything from scratch and taking new pics.  It’s up to you how complex you want to go.  Just make sure you tag us @portersposse so we know to share it!

If you’re in the Southern hemisphere and have a cookie you like to bake for Summer Solstice we’d love to hear about that too!

WHERE: In the convenience of your kitchen!--or your old tumblr feed.

WHEN: The whole month of December.  We’ll be reblogging and commenting as soon as we see the tag!

WHY: To be social and grow our recipe boxes in a super chilled out way!

HOW:  Reliving old memories or making new ones.  Share an old cookie post, or make a new one.  Keep it as simple or make it as complex as you’d like!

Your friends,

@graveyarddirt / @msgraveyarddirt and @pagan-stitches / @goadthings

PS. We’ll be doing a Christmas challenge from Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook later this month so keep an eye out for that invitation!

[portersposse]

Porters Posse: Christmas/Yule/Winter Solstice Seasonal Cooking Challenge

Thinking about taking part? Reply to this entry - or send us a DM - and we’ll add you to the Christmas/Yule/Winter Solstice Posse list.

WHO: Anyone of any practice, or no practice at all, who enjoys seasonal celebrations, cooking, and feasting!  No restrictions, if you can pick up a spoon and stir you are invited!

WHAT: Your challenge is simple: choose at least one recipe from the Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook’s chapters on Christmas, New Year’s, or Twelfth Night to incorporate into your seasonal celebration and share with us photos and a write up.  We hope you will use as many seasonal and local ingredients as possible and look forward to hearing about your experience with those ingredients and locales.

Southern Hemisphere friends!  We want you to participate.  If the chapters on Christmastide don’t suit your seasonal celebration needs, please participate by choosing a recipe(s) from anywhere in the Summer section.

While the recipe(s) from Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook should be the star of your entry we’d also love to hear about other traditional favorites that you used in your celebration and any special non-cookery traditions!

Dietary restrictions?  We welcome you to adapt the recipes to meet your needs! This is ultimately about you and your celebration!

(Haven’t been able to snag your copy yet?  Click on this link to borrow it from archive.org  Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook)

WHERE: In the convenience of your kitchen! Though we’d also love to hear about those farmer’s markets, ditches and orchards!  Be sure to tag your post @portersposse​!

WHEN: We are opening up a broad window for Christmas/Yule/Winter Solstice.  This challenge will take place between December 17th and January 8th.  Send us your entries between January 9th and 11th.  Remember to tag them @portersposse​ so we can share them with the whole posse!

WHY: To celebrate the season in a way that includes everyone, and to quote Hagging Out “because it’s occasionally nice to be social in the comfort of your own home without actually having people over.”

HOW: By yourself or with family and friends! Just be sure to include at least one recipe from Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook by Richard, Earl of Bradford and Carol Wilson.  

Don’t get hung up on Christmas being a religious holiday—we are looking at it as a cultural date that has its roots in the past.  This is a HUGE seasonal cusp!

AND DON’T FORGET

For the whole month of December we are hosting a cookie swap!

_________________________

Don’t forget to leave us a message here or DM us @portersposse​ so we can add you to the Posse!

Your friends,

@graveyarddirt​ / @msgraveyarddirt​ and @pagan-stitches​ / @goadthings

[portersposse]

Porters Posse: Indigenous Peoples’ Harvest Celebration Cooking Challenge

Thinking about taking part? Reply to this entry - or send us a DM - and we’ll add you to the Indigenous Peoples’ Harvest Celebration Posse list.

WHO: Anyone of any practice, or no practice at all, who enjoys seasonal celebrations, cooking, and feasting!  No restrictions, if you can pick up a spoon and stir you are invited!

WHAT: Your challenge is simple: if you live in a region that was colonized by Europeans learn about the indigenous food tradition and cook something based on the indigenous cuisine and share with us photos and a write up.  Don’t live in an area that was colonized?–use this as an opportunity to learn about the parts of the world that were and chose a region to focus on.  We hope you will use as many seasonal and local ingredients as possible and look forward to hearing about your experience with those ingredients and locales.

We are not requiring that the ingredients be 100% indigenous, but that the recipe is indigenous in spirit.

Dietary restrictions?  We welcome you to adapt the recipes to meet your needs This is ultimately about you and your celebration!

Southern Hemisphere friends we invite you to choose a spring recipe to participate!

 WHERE: In the convenience of your kitchen! Though we’d also love to hear about those farmer’s markets, ditches and orchards!  Be sure to tag your post @portersposse!

WHEN: This challenge will take place between November 19th and 27th with the dates of November 28th through 30th open for submissions.  We will not be doing a Thanksgiving challenge, so if you do celebrate Thanksgiving we encourage you to incorporate an indigenous dish into your Thanksgiving meal.

Remember to tag your submission @portersposse so we can share it with the whole posse!

WHY: To celebrate the season in a way that includes everyone, and to quote Hagging Out “because it’s occasionally nice to be social in the comfort of your own home without actually having people over.”

HOW: By yourself or with family and friends!  

_________________________

Don’t forget to leave us a message here or DM us @portersposse so we can add you to the Posse!

Your friends,

@graveyarddirt / @msgraveyarddirt and @pagan-stitches / @goadthings

__________________________

Indigenous Peoples’ Harvest Celebration Posse to date: @graveyarddirt and @pagan-stitches

[portersposse]

Porters Posse: Halloween Seasonal Cooking Challenge

Thinking about taking part? Reply to this entry - or send us a DM - and we’ll add you to the Halloween Posse list.

 WHO: Anyone of any practice, or no practice at all, who enjoys seasonal celebrations, cooking, and feasting!  No restrictions, if you can pick up a spoon and stir you are invited!

WHAT: Your challenge is simple: choose at least one recipe from the Porter’s Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook chapters on Halloween or Thanksgiving to incorporate into your seasonal celebration (follow the link to borrow the book on archive.org) and share with us photos and a write up.  We hope you will use as many seasonal and local ingredients as possible and look forward to hearing about your experience with those ingredients and locales.

If you are looking for more recipes to extend your feast we also recommend Porters English Cookery Bible: Ancient and Modern, which is also available to borrow on archive.org.

Southern Hemisphere friends!  We want you to participate.  If the chapters on Halloween and Thanksgiving don’t suit your seasonal celebration needs, please participate by choosing a recipe(s) from the chapter on May Day (or if that doesn’t suit, anywhere in the spring section, you know best what is in season in your region).

While the recipe(s) from Porters Seasonal Celebration Cookbook should be the star of your entry we’d also love to hear about other traditional favorites that you used in your celebration.

Dietary restrictions?  We welcome you to adapt the recipes to meet your needs This is ultimately about you and your celebration!

We also welcome you to tell us about any seasonal crafts or rituals you incorporated into your celebration.

WHERE: In the convenience of your kitchen! Though we’d also love to hear about those farmer’s markets, ditches and orchards!  Be sure to tag your post @portersposse​!

WHEN: We are opening up a broad window for Halloween.  This challenge will take place between Mischief Night (Sunday, October 30th) and the weekend following Martinmas (Old Halloween, November 11th). So join us between October 30th and November 13th for the celebration and send us your entries between November 14th and 16th.  Remember to tag them @portersposse​ so we can share them with the whole posse!

WHY: To celebrate the season in a way that includes everyone, and to quote Hagging Out “because it’s occasionally nice to be social in the comfort of your own home without actually having people over.”

HOW: By yourself or with family and friends! Just be sure to include at least one recipe from Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookbook by Richard, Earl of Bradford and Carol Wilson.  

_________________________

Don’t forget to leave us a message here or DM us @portersposse​ so we can add you to the Posse!

Your friends,

@graveyarddirt​ / @msgraveyarddirt​ and @pagan-stitches​ / @goadthings

PS. You may have noticed a second challenge on the calendar--an official invitation to that side challenge will publish after Halloween.

[pagan-stitches]

Hagging Out: Hallowtide

“ . . . this month your challenge is to share your Hallowtide preparations, traditions, customs and/or rituals.”

For me the most important part of Hallowtide is the remembrance of the dead.  Two years ago I made the altar cloth in the above picture especially for one day of the year, Dušičky (November 2nd).  Some call this the Czech Halloween, but it is much more akin to  Día de los Muertos, a day for remembering and celebrating the lives of those who are gone.

The Western Slav part of my ancestry has always spoken to me and Dušičky is one of the most important days on my ritual calendar, along with the drowning of Morena in the spring.  So it’s no wonder that I spent an entire season during covid embroidering an altar cloth for this one day of the year.

The majority of the cloth is composed of Slavic grave markers with the names of the various branches of my family.  As I do not live near any of my family graveyards, this clothe serves as an ancestral one, gathering all my family lines together in one place.

In addition to remembering the dead at my altar on Dušičky, the weekend before Hallowtide I visited the graves of friends and family in three different cemeteries in three different towns in two different counties.

And on Halloween day I made offerings to my ancestors in a ritual in the woods.

Of course, Hallowtide is also about food and I’ll be doing an in depth post about all the food I cooked for the  @portersposse Halloween cooking challenge.  But I will mention here the incredible Fresh Ginger Gingerbread that I made as I used it for offerings on both Halloween and Dušičky.  You can visit @portersposse for a link to the cookbook and information on that challenge, which is still going    through Old Halloween weekend (November 13th is the final day).

I also made a few Halloween decorations from a book I found while doing research for @portersposse​

Thank you @msgraveyarddirt​ for asking me to guest host #haggingout this month!  It’s one of my favorite months of the year and this really kept me busy and having fun!

Oh yeah--and I carved this guy: