Samhain Feast

All Hallows Eve actually began as a harvest festival, the Celtic Feast of the Dead, Féile na Marbh, several millennia ago in Ireland. Meals featured the fruits of the late harvest an no Hallows Eve dinner was complete without Colcannon and the fruity Barmbrack dessert cake that were fortune-telling tokens: a button for the bachelor, a coin for the rich man, a wooden matchstick for the pauper, and a thimble for the spinster. And whoever found the cake’s hidden gold ring would certainly marry within the coming year! Finally, in memory of the departed, crisp wafers called ‘Soul Cakes’ were kept by the door in easy reach of hungry guests – both mortal and immortal.

Soul Cakes

• 1 3⁄4 cups oatmeal

• 1⁄4 tsp baking powder

• 1⁄2 tsp salt

• 1 tbsp melted butter

• 8 tsp hot water

Preheat oven to 350F. Pulverize 1 cup oatmeal in a blender. In a small bowl, combine ground oats, baking powder, and salt. Stir in butter. Gradually add water to make a thick paste. Gather into a ball, place on a board lightly sprinkled with 1/4 cup oatmeal, and roll around until completely covered with flakes. Spread another 1/4 cup of oatmeal on the board and flatten the ball into an 8-inch circle 1/4 inch thick. Cut into wedges and transfer to a pan covered with another 1/4 cup oatmeal. Bake 15 minutes. When wedges are light brown, turn off heat, open the oven door, and let sit in the oven for about 5 minutes until firm and crisp. Makes 8 Soul Cakes. (Personal recipe)

Colcannon

• 4 large potatoes, boiled, drained, and mashed with milk

• 1 small head of cabbage, minced and sauteed until tender

• 1 stick butter, melted

Mix mashed potatoes with minced cooked cabbage. Mound in a serving bowl and make a deep depression in the center. Pour melted butter in the depression. Serve immediately. Serves 4. (Personal recipe)

Traditional Barm Brack

• 1 3/4 cups raisins

• 1 3/4 cups golden raisins

• 3 3/4 cup dark brown sugar

• 1 cup cold tea

• 4 ounces candied citrus peel, minced

• Grated rind of 1 orange

• 8 tbsp melted butter

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

• 4 cups flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• pinch of salt

• 5 fortune tokens, each wrapped in parchment paper (silver coin, non-plastic button, wooden matchstick, metal thimble, gold ring)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan; line with waxed paper. In a saucepan, heat raisins and sugar with tea, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Cool. Sift dry ingredients together; set aside. Add candied peel and grated rind to the raisin tea mixture. Stir in butter and eggs. Gradually add dry ingredients. Combine well. Pour into prepared pan and hide the parchment-wrapped fortune tokens deep in the batter. Bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until a cake tester can be withdrawn dry. Makes 1 cake.

Variation: Use up to 1/2 cup whiskey to replace some of the tea.

Feast of Morrigan

Mulled Cider

4-5 cups of cider, 3-4 cloves, 2 sticks of cinnamon.

In large saucepan heat cider but do not boil

Pumpkin Bread

2 cups of pumpkin 1 cup of melted butter

¾ cups of water 3 ⅔ cups flour,

2 ¼ cups sugar 1 ½ tsp. Salt

1 tsp nutmeg 2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda 1 cup walnuts 1 cup raisins

Blend pumpkin, butter, water, and eggs until mixed, add flour sugar, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking soda. Then add raisins and nuts. Grease and flour the loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Chicken Soup a la Cabot in Pumpkin Shells

3 qt chicken broth 2 cups of pumpkin puree 2 large onions(Chopped)

4 boned and skinned chicken breast or 6 thighs de-boned and cubed after cooked

2-4 celery sticks, 2 large carrots 2 pinches dried tarragon,

1 clove garlic ½ tsp of salt

Before you make soup, carve and empty small pumpkins for bowls and a large pumpkin for a serving bowl, place in the fridge while cooking soup. Add all ingredients except herbs and salt, slow simmer for 30 minutes. Then add herbs and salt and slow simmer for one hour or until chicken is tender

Roast Pork with Rosemary and Mint

Pork loin, 1 clove garlic Fresh Rosemary, Fresh mint.

Preheat the oven to 450. Make small slits over top of pork loin and insert garlic into slivers,rub with rosemary and mint. Place on a rack, fat side up, and put in the oven, reduce heat to 350 and cook uncovered. Cook for 35 minutes for every pound.

Oven roasted red potatoes and apples

Red potatoes Apples 2 tbsp shortening,

Parboil potatoes. Rub skins in shortening and place in a roasting pan alongside apples. Roast at 350 for 30 minutes