The Witches' Kitchen

WELCOME TO THE WITCHES' KITCHEN
Here you will find herblore, recipes for food and drink, incenses, oils and other potations, and much information about other "Crafty" things. There are also several links to places where you may obtain ingredients for these recipes. The recipes follow the order of the Witches Year, beginning in Winter. Recipes for food are first, followed by drink recipes, then incenses and oils, followed by bath salts, potpourris and strewing herbs.

Foods for Winter

As the season turns, we look to foods and beverages that keep heat in the body..what my father called "belly food." Many of the foods we enjoy and consider characteristic of winter eating were native to the New World, and were unknown to the ancient Celtic and European peoples from whom we get the roots of our modern-day Craft. So our potatoes, and spaghetti sauce of tomatoes, and corn chowder, and soft beans, were unknown to our forbears in the Celtic lands. Here are several recipes that the ancestors might have known. It's difficult to make a mistake with any of them, and the proportions of ingredients are deliberately vague, since measurements were not standardized until the time of the Magna Carta, and even then only in England. But remember, in the words of an HP of my acquaintance, who is a fine chef.."It's not a recipe...it's a method!"

POTTAGE OF ROOTS

(This recipe is vegetarian. Substitution of margarine for butter, and apple juice, or soy or rice milk for cream, will make it vegan. However, I have never cooked with a non-dairy milk and cannot guarantee the success of the recipe.)

one head of cabbage
one half-pound of turnips
three large onions
one half-pound of carrots
a stick of butter ( one half cup )
a teaspoon of ground allspice
a teaspoon of whole cloves
two cloves of garlic crushed
a teaspoon of fresh mint
a quart of water
a pint of cream
salt and pepper to taste

Chop all vegetables rather coarsely. Saute the onion in a heavy saucepan in half of the butter, and add the garlic, allspice, cloves and mint. Simmer for five minutes, and add cabbage. Cover pan and turn heat very low. In a soup kettle, bring the water to boil, and add turnips and carrots. Lower heat, cover pan, and let cook just under a boil until both are fork-tender. Add the contents of the saucepan to the soup kettle, and simmer uncovered to reduce liquid until it barely covers the vegetables. At very low heat, add the other half stick of butter, the cream, and salt and pepper. Heat through at low heat, correct seasoning, and serve.

SAUSAGE ROLLS

(This makes no pretense of being other than a modern-day, hurry-up recipe. But it is filling, simple enough to cook with kids, and very good. To make it more authentically "old", use regular breakfast sausage, (precooked) and make your own biscuit or bread dough.)

Two tubes of refrigerator biscuits
a package of polish sausage
soft butter
hot mustard
dill pickle relish
sharp cheddar cheese
one onion, chopped very fine

Precook polish sausage by simmering in a saucepan until the sausages swell and brown. Prick to remove fat, drain and set aside. In the same pan, saute the chopped onion and the dill pickle relish in the fat from the sausages until the onion is transparent. To assemble sausage rolls, open tubes of refrigerator biscuits and roll out each biscuit to a rectangle. Spread mustard on biscuit. Split a polish sausage lengthwise and lay it on biscuit. Spread a spoonful of onion and pickle mixture in split, and top with a slice of sharp cheddar. Roll biscuit around sausage to completely cover, sealing all edges. Bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes, or until golden brown.

COUNTRY LEG OF PORK

(This one's authentic Northumbrian, although I draw the line at steaming it on a bed of "sweet hay". Very good, though, especially made with the beer and a glug of dark corn syrup or molasses in the sauce.)

two-to-three pound pork roast
whole cloves
three cups sliced onions
three cups sliced apples
three large baking potatoes, scrubbed and sliced thin
a stick of butter
two cups apple cider or dark beer
salt and pepper to taste

Cut as much fat as possible off outside of roast, and melt the fat in a large frying pan. Brown the roast on all sides in the melted fat, and stud with whole cloves. You will need a casserole or roasting pan large enough to hold the roast, with a tight lid. Butter the bottom of this dish, and layer the sliced potatoes, apples and onions, dotting each layer with butter, salt and pepper. Place the roast on the vegetables, pour the apple cider or beer over roast, and cover the dish. Pot-roast at 325 for one half-hour per pound of roast. This can also be made in the crock pot, but you will need about half the liquid. Put the veggies in the bottom of the pot as above, add the roast, and cook on high for three hours. Uncover, pour in liquid, reduce heat to low and let cook until the pork flakes with a fork ( about another 3 to 4 hours.)

IRISH SODA BREAD

one cup sweet ( unsalted) butter, softened
two cups bread flour
one teaspoon salt
one cup buttermilk or sour milk
one teaspoon soda
one half cup currants
two tablespoons caraway seeds, if you like them
one tablespoon sugar (optional)

Rub the butter into the flour until it flakes like pie dough. Set aside. Mix the salt and soda (and the sugar if you are using it) into the buttermilk until it foams up, and dump it all at once into a well in the center of the flour mix. Stir with your hands, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time if necessary, until it begins to stick together, and then knead in the currants and caraway seed ( you might want to flour your hands a bit.) It should become a roughish ball in the middle of the bowl. Smooth out the surface with a bit of butter on your fingers, flatten it slightly, and cut a cross about 1/8 inch deep into the top. Bake on a cooky sheet for about thirty minutes at 375 degrees.

BUTTER 'N EGGS
(This is the traditional peasant breakfast, if one had eggs. If not, one ate the NEXT recipe!)

Leeks or green onions, chopped
two eggs per person
one cup of coarsely shredded bread and one half cup milk per person
two "eggsworth" of melted butter per person ( about 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
salt and pepper ( you would have been RICH to eat either of these!)
cubed cheddar or cream cheese

Use an individual ovenproof baking dish for each person. Pour a third of the melted butter into the bottom of the dish and cover it with chopped green onions or leeks. Break the two eggs over this, and then put the shredded bread atop them ( try not to break the yolks.) Put the rest of the butter, the salt and pepper, and the cheese in the milk, and pour it over the top. Bake these until they are set, in a pan of water in a 325 degree oven ( like custard.) Four of them takes about thirty minutes.

IRISH PORRIDGE
(The authentic version of this is probably not to American tastes, as it contains leeks. So try it the first way, and then perhaps fall back on the second.)

two cups steel-cut oatmeal ( not instant or quick-cooking Quaker oats.)
1/2 cup chopped leeks
4 cups cold, lightly salted water
melted butter

This needs to be started the night before you want to eat it. Saute the leeks in about a teaspoon of butter until they are tender, and put them in the crock pot ( you need a large one.) Put in the oats and cover with the salt water. Stir thoroughly until all the oats are wet. LET THIS MIXTURE SIT for an hour, until the oats absorb most of the water. Proportions are approximate, depending on the consistency of your oats. When you begin to cook this there should be about one to two inches of water on the surface of the oats...adjust the proportions accordingly by adding water or removing some oats. Cover and put on low heat, and let cook without stirring all night. The oatmeal will be thick and very creamy, with a much richer flavor than American oatmeal. Serve with several spoonfuls of melted butter poured over the top.

For American palates, replace the leeks with 1/2 cup chopped raisins or apples. or both. Add honey or brown sugar to the melted butter you drizzle on the top. In Scotland one might dip each spoonful in a glass of milk before eating it.

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