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.

I'll be the first to admit that my Halloween entry for @portersposse is a bit of a failure. The odds were stacked against me this year. To start, my oven was fully out of commission, and a lot of my energy was focused on getting it replaced (new oven was finally installed about a week ago!). Additionally, during September I was either out of the country or dealing with family stuff. Although I was finally home by the time October rolled around, I had to play catch-up on about a month's worth of stuff, including getting the oven fixed. With all that going on, I dropped the ball a bit on my Samhain festivities. Yes, fun was still had, ancestors were still honored, and the Cailleach was still welcomed, but in a more subdued way then usual. I like to think all involved understand.

All that said, I did find the time to whip up something out of Porter's for our dumb supper table, although I don't think it turned out quite the way the author intended. The drawback of cooking older recipes out of a cookbook without pictures is that it can be hard to determine whether you end result came out right. At any rate, I decided to try my hand at the recipe for crowdie, partly because I didn't need an oven to make it and partly because it allowed me to use the honey that was blessed back around Midsummer. The crowdie also seemed like a relatively straightforward recipe, which I think was my undoing. Although it seems simple, there is a balancing of texture that I just don't think I got right. According to this recipe, crowdie is largely dependent on thickened cream absorbing into oatmeal. Unfortunately, not only did I not thicken my cream enough, I used steel cut oats which just didn't absorb quite the way they were meant to. Even after over-nighting in the fridge, the mixture was still soupy. It tasted well enough, but the overall mouth feel was a bit difficult to overcome.

I don't have a finished photo of the crowdie because I wasn't super enthused with the outcome. But!! Isn't this part of what cooking through a cookbook is all about? Not just the success, but the failures, and most importantly the lessons learned. I would like to try my hand at this recipe in the future, incorporating all the things I learned the first time around. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the next Porter's challenge (especially with my new oven!).

The wassail recipe from Porter's Seasonal Celebrations is hands down the best mulled cider recipe I've ever had. Pairs well with sugar cookies and snow days.

Hagging Out - December 2022/Porter's Possee Yuletide Edition

A little late with this one, but I had a lot of stuff to share! This Yuletide was both quiet and busy. It was the first Yule/Christmas season my partner and I spent in the house we bought in January 2022, which meant that we were also coming up on our first anniversary of living in the house and living with each other. So you might say a bit of celebration was in order.

The morning of the winter solstice, I rose early to watch the sunrise, as I have done for many solstices past. At the moment of sunrise, my red flametending candle was lit to represent the reborn sun. It sat on Brighid’s altar for the rest of the day so that the Mother could care for her babe. We also decorated the Christmas tree the day of the solstice (mostly because we had been too busy to do it earlier, although I don’t hate it as a tradition going forward).

The following day it snowed! Not as much as expected, but still. It also kicked off the two-week saga of our heater not working (this has been resolved thank goodness). Thankfully we were pretty warm that day, but there were several days when we had no heat all. Fortunately our house is well-insulated, we were provisioned with many blankets and wool sweaters, and I had already stocked up on everything we needed to make the wassail from Porter's Seasonal Celebrations. It goes wonderfully with sugar cookies.

Christmas Day our heater was out, but fortunately I did spend a good chunk of the day in the kitchen preparing our evening feast. From Porter's Seasonal Celebrations, I made the chestnut log cake and the Christmas ham which was glazed with the honey I blessed back at Midsummer. Along with those dishes we had mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole, glazed carrots, and homemade rolls. Both Porter's recipes were an absolute hit! The frosting on the chestnut log is possibly the best chocolate frosting I've ever made, and I will be using it again for other cakes. The only part of the recipe I struggled with was the chestnut puree that's meant to be incorporated into the filling for the cake. None of the grocery stores I went to carry it (unsurprising) so I made my own using chestnuts from the local co-op and a recipe I found online. I'm not at all convinced that I did it right and though it tasted well enough, there is absolutely room for improvement. But other than that, the cake was outstanding! The ham was similarly delicious, and likely to become a repeat. That honey glaze absolutely hits. Plus, the leftovers lasted for days.

My father sent us a package of Christmas crackers which were joyously opened and provided us with paper crowns to wear for the rest of the evening. All in all, a very good Yuletide season!

Thanks to @graveyarddirt and @portersposse for hosting!