Flapjacks! Pancakes! Griddlecakes!

I know this is a cooking blog but this week was quite a week for me on a personal level and I thought I'd share! I got engaged this weekend! I already knew I'd be spending the rest of my life with him but I'm very happy to have made it official! I can't wait for this new chapter and journey to begin! Now that I have that out of the way my birthday was this week too! So, for that I made one of my favourite dinners ever... BREAKFAST! Or brinner as the ladies (if you know you know) would call it.

I'm not going to go through the whole thing but I am going to give you a pancake recipe. I used to be a master of pancakes with pancake mix but I've been trying to do much more from scratch than I used to. I still haven't quite mastered the pancake but these were still delicious. I'll have to have my little sister as a guest writer to try to figure out what we do differently!

Of course this is another one of those recipes that you can add your own spin to with fruit, chocolate and spices. The only thing I did extra was add cinnamon because I can't get enough!

FLAP JACKS

Ingredients:
1 cup AP Flour
2tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
optional, a sprinkling

1 cup milk
1 lrg egg
2 tbsp oil, (or butter, melted)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:





Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another.







Get your pan pre-heating to a medium heat and grease with a little oil. This part is super important because if your pan isn't hot you will end up with under-cooked or burned pancakes!

** pro tip ** have an oven proof container/ sheet pan for your done pancakes and keep them in the oven (turned off) to keep them warm.

You'll know your pan is hot enough if you can sprinkle some water on it and it sizzles away quickly.






Once your pan is hot enough whisk your ingredients together just until moist. A few small lumps is okay. If you need to thicken or thin you batter add a little flour or water (very small amounts until you are happy)






Using a measuring cup or ladle spoon equal amounts of batter onto the pan. Aim for about a 1/4 to a 1/3 cup for size.

Cooking pancakes is a waiting and watching game. You will see bubbles begin to form across the top of the pancake then you will see a little bit of smoke coming off the edges. When you see that smoke it's time to flip! No you are looking for the pancake to rise. When it stops rising wait about 45 second longer and it will be ready. You can double check this by flipping it and poking it. If it feels squishy you didn't wait long enough. You're looking for soft. Almost every batch the first pancake will be a dud, this is something we know to be true and its nothing to feel bad about if it happens to you. It usually means you need to adjust your temperature. If you followed my steps above and you burned it, turn your temperature down; if it took an inordinate amount of time and still has that squishy feeling turn it up. Eventually you will learn how your specific stove and pans work together and there will be less duds going forward.

** pro tip ** keep your bowl of batter as far away from the stove as you can to avoid heating the batter. I had a very small kitchen growing up and I remember having to adjust the batter with water as I went because the heat would thicken it while I cooked the first pancakes.

If your pan is large enough and you feel comfortable watching multiple pancakes, go for it!

And so there you have it! Flapjacks (or pancakes if yours turned out better than mine!)

 
On to the metaphysical!

There are only a few ingredients here that hold any meaning or purpose for me. Eggs (mainly for protection,) Cinnamon (mainly for its boosting power this time around,) and Vanilla. Obviously every ingredient holds it's own power and correspondences they just weren't the focus for me with this recipe.

I want to home in on Vanilla because we've talked about cinnamon about a million times already and eggs certainly aren't the star of the show in this recipe (although they definitely lend their power to my intentions in this case.) On a personal level vanilla gives me very down-to-earth, happy home vibes. When I think about the smell of vanilla I am reminded of the sweet smell of shortbread cookies baking in my Nana's oven. While I use vanilla year round it always reminds me of the holidays and family gatherings.

Traditionally vanilla is associated with love and mental clarity/power, (as well as the usual shopping list of correspondences you can find below.) As far as the love aspect goes it is much more on the physical side of things, not quite lust but more seduction. It's subtle. The mental clarity aspect, I believe, comes from its calming, soothing effect. By allowing your mind to calm it becomes clearer and more ready to lend itslef to a more complex and spiritual task.

Vanilla: Venus, feminine, water, calming, consoling, soothing, vitalizes energy, promotes a happy and healthy environment, attracts good fortune, enhances mental stimulation, used in spells to enhance physical energy.

All in all this recipe was really about bringing good vibes into my home. With the aroma of cinnamon and vanilla wafting through the house it definitely brought about a certain calm and loving atmosphere.

What is your go to ingredient or recipe that makes you think of home?

Short and Gritty
Ingredients:
1 cup AP Flour
2tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
optional, a sprinkling

1 cup milk
1 lrg egg
2 tbsp oil, (or butter, melted)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. mix wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls
2. heat skillet and lightly grease
3. when skillet is hot mix dry into wet just until moist
4. sccoop batter into skillet in 1/4 cup amounts
5. watch for slight smoke at edges, flip
6. watch for it to stop rising, wait 45 seconds, done

Colour Magic: Kitchen Witchery Basics Part 4

So now that we understand correspondences and intuition and all that jazz let's get into some more specific stuff. I’m going to start doing ingredient spotlights soon but I thought I would start with something that can be applied across the board, colour magic.

This often applies to other parts of your magic workings like candle colour or ink colour but it can just as easily be applied to kitchen witchery in my opinion. Whether it’s the colour of your ingredients or you add a little food colouring to your icing you can intentionally choose colours that match your goals. Use these correspondences the way you would any other. If you dont want to add them to your dish you can even just burn a candle the corresponding colour with the intention of fusing with your cooking.

I think it’s important to remind you that correspondences can be personalized just like you may associate a specific taste or scent with love or cleansing; you may associate colours differently than the traditional meanings as well. So take some time to yourself and think about what colours mean to you. What emotions do they evoke? Is there a specific memory tied to them? Do they remind you of a planet or deity? How do you think society or the witchy community view them? When you're done you can look below and see the traditional meanings as well as my own personal associations. See what you know to be intuitively right and also see what your personal gnosis** is.

** Unverified personal gnosis (often abbreviated UPG) is the phenomenological concept that an individual`s spiritual insights (or gnosis) may be valid for them without being generalizable to the experience of others. It is primarily a neologism used in polytheistic reconstructionism, to differentiate it from ancient sources of spiritual practices. (from: https://www.encyclo.co.uk/)

Colour Correspondences
The first line will be my personal associations and the second will be the generally agreed upon traditions.

Red:
- Passion (negative or positive, anger or desire/lust,) Mars and Mercury, Fire, blood and heart, Root chakra (therefore grounding,) ancestors
- courage, passion, love, sex, fast action

Orange:
-Creativity, focused energy, gentle cleansing, sacral chakra (therefore sexual health and fertility,)
-Ambition, concentration, intellectual pursuits, success, legal issues

Yellow:
-Happiness, gentle energy, refreshing, lightness, the Sun, Jupiter, solar chakra (therefore self identity)
-Attractiveness, clarity, happiness, travel

Green:
-Physical health, prosperity, abundance, growth, Green witch, Venus, Jupiter, Earth, heart chakra (therefore relationships, especially familial and platonic)
-Growth, fertility, harmony, health, prosperity, wealth

Blue:
-Calm, centering, meditation, Sea witch, Pluto, Water, mental/emotional health, throat chakra (therefore self expression)
-Dream work, healing, intuition, loyalty, peace, spirituality

Purple:
-Spiritual health and connection, other planes, manifesting, Hedge witch, Uranus, third eye and crown chakras (therefore divination, sight and spiritual connection/your higher self)
-Higher self, communing with higher beings, meditation, psychic ability and development

Pink:
-Love, self love, intimacy, fertility, acceptance, memory, the brain
-Beauty, compassion, femininity, partnerships, romance, innocent love

Brown:
-Grounding, homelife, strength, slow and steady, Cottage witch, Saturn, Earth
-Abundance, family, friends, grounding, pets, stability

Black:
-Protection, banish, afterlife, divination (specifically scrying,) New Moon, ends and beginnings/cycles (think Death card/ Wheel of Fortune)
-Absorbing energy, banishing, breaking habits and hexes etc, protection, self defense
Grey:
-Balance, Grey witch,
-“Invisibility,” passing unnoticed or blending in, shielding, loneliness, neutralizing energy, wisdom

White:
-Cleansing, all purpose (blank slate,) charging, Full Moon
-All purpose, cleansing, purification, truth, reflecting energy

As an extra slice of fun, I’ll be starting a series of soups that I’ve had rolling around in my head for YEARS! It was originally going to be part of a recipe book but I never pursued that idea. It’s going to be soups based on the colours of the rainbow! Now that it is getting colder I feel like it's the perfect time to start. So stick around for that in the coming few months!

Let me know in the comments how your personal associations compare to mine and the traditions!

Autumn: Pumpkin Loaf

I am a HUGE fan of loaves. I love afternoon tea with a slice or two of a sweet bread. Cookies are great but for some reason loaf just hits different. Not to mention all the variety! First of the loaf itself but then also with additives like fruit and nuts, spreads and glazes! I went seasonal with today's loaf but stay tuned for more as we get into the colder months and I consume even more tea than I already do!

PUMKPIN LOAF

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup (if you like it sweet the original calls for 1 1/2)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup oil
1/3 cup water (1/2 cup if you want to add raisins or other dry ingredients)

1/2 cup walnuts

Optional:toasted pumpkin seeds, raisins, craisins, pecans etc.

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350.

**pro tip** this is important because once the baking soda and baking powder get wet they begin to react and you want to be able to get it in the oven quick.

Whisk together all you dry ingredients (expect nuts or fruits) in one bowl.

Whisk all your wet ingredients in a second bowl.








Add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix well.

Gently fold in any bits and bobs (nuts or dried fruit of you choice), for me it's walnuts but feel free to get creative.







Pour into a greased 9x5 pan ( I think mine is actually a little smaller than that but it worked just fine) and pop into your preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes or until cooked through (an inserted toothpick comes out clean.)

** pro tip ** while writing this I realized it would also be a good idea to top the loaf with some toasted pumpkin seeds so try that out and let me know how it goes!

Allow it to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before transferring it to a cooling rack to cool completely.

 
 
Brew a cup of tea, slice yourself off a generous slice and enjoy your hard work.

Pumpkins are very magical especially around this time of year. Just because Samhain is over doesn't mean we have to stop using pumpkins in our magic. It's the dark half of the year and pumpkins are all about the mysterious, the unknown, the dark, and all kinds of magic. This time of year they mostly lend to us extra power toward protection and divination but of course have other ways they can be used (and used all year long especially if you have dried seeds from your pumpkin carvings!)

With a thin veil and the extra power of spirit it makes it easier for us to access the other side but that also means it's easier for the other side to access ours. Pumpkins allow us the perfect balance of protection and divination/ astral travel boost.

In addition to pumpkins in this recipe we have walnuts, cloves, nutmeg and out good pal cinnamon. We’ve seen these spices before so I won't dwell on them too long but you know they lend themselves to both protection and divination as well.

Now how exactly do you use this recipe to harness the energies of protection and clairvoyance? Add your intentions the way you would any other time but in addition to that as the smell of baked pumpkin fills your kitchen and the rest of your home visualize it pushing out any unwanted, low vibration, or evil entities. Once your house is filled (and once the loaf is safely out of the oven) focus on the scent as you meditate and home those abilities into whatever divination you do afterwards (or during) whether it be throwing runes, pulling cards or speaking with your guides/ancestors.

Full Correspondence List:

Walnuts: Zeus, Jupiter and Thor. Earth. Protection and prosperity. (there are a lot more correspondences to the wood than to the fruit)

Pumpkin: Lunar deities. Hekate and Oshun. Attract high vibrations, positive, protection, charms, divination, Fae work, glamors, spirit work, visions, warding, astral travel, mind opening, home, happiness, harmony, luck
Fruit- Protection divination banishing prosperity
Seeds- fertility, abundance, wealth, love, prosperity, good luck

Cinnamon: spirituality, success, healing, adds energy, protection, prosperity, good luck, love, happiness, money, enhance the male libido

Nutmeg: wealth, luck, love, divination, money drawing, health, fidelity, clairvoyance, encourage visions

Cloves: Protection, clarity, banishing evil, love, stopping gossip, money, clairvoyance, keep good friends close, good luck, prosperity exorcism, purification

Short and Gritty

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup (if you like it sweet the original calls for 1 1/2)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup oil
1/3 cup water (1/2 cup if you want to add raisins or other dry ingredients)

1/2 cup walnuts

Optional:toasted pumpkin seeds.

Directions:

1.Preheat your oven to 350.
2.Whisk together all you dry ingredients (expect nuts or fruits) in one bowl.
3.Whisk all your wet ingredients in a second bowl.
4.Add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix well.
5.Gently fold in walnuts
6.Pour into a greased 9x5 pan and pop into your preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes or until cooked through (an inserted toothpick comes out clean.)
7.Allow it to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before transferring it to a cooling rack to cool completely.

DOUGH!: "Thanks, it has Pockets"

For all those out there that regularly wear women's clothing we know the struggle with pockets; or rather lack thereof. So what we don't get in our clothes we ca make up for in out food! Who doesn't love a great pizza pocket/ calzone deal?

I made pizza flavoured pockets this time around but I have a few other favourites that I like to use as filling. Check out my suggestions below the recipe to get those creative juices flowing!

This recipe starts with our trusty dough recipe. If you haven't seen this before check it out here. Or if you only need a refresher you'll find the Short and Gritty version just below. A single batch can make between 3 and 5 pockets depending on how big you go. In the recipe below I used a half batch and got two good sized pockets. They could have been accompanied by something light like a salad but were filling on their own. So use that as a guide for how many people you are feeding.

Dough Review

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt

2 1/2 tsp Yeast
1 1/2 tsp Sugar

2 tbsp Oil
1 cup Warm water

Directions:

1. Mix first two ingredients.
2a. If you're using active cry yeast include the next two ingredients.
2b. If you're using traditional yeast mix last four ingredients together and let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Add wet to dry, mix in the bowl until it comes together into a ball.
4. Turn out onto floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes adding small amounts of flour when it becomes too sticky.
5. Place in greased loaf pan and cover with a clean tea towel. Allow to rise for 40 minutes and then begin preheating your oven to 350.

POCKETS

Ingredients:

1/2 batch Dough
~1/4 cup pizza sauce
    or crushed tomatoes with 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp basil, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper
~ 1 1/2 cup of your favourite pizza toppings
    I used- mushrooms, olives, pepperoni, green pepper, red onion and garlic
1/2 cup shredded cheese of your choice, mozzarella always recommended
1 egg

Directions:

Start by making your dough. separate into equal sized balls the number of pockets you wish to make. Allow to proof for 40 minutes to an hour.




Preheat your oven to 360. On a lightly floured surface roll your dough balls out flat with a rolling pin to an 1/8 inch thickness. Cover in sauce leaving room at the edge to close them up later.











Now it's toppings time. You're going to place all your toppings on only half of your dough circle. I like to put half of my cheese down now and half after the rest of the toppings are placed. It helps keep the ingredients together inside the pocket.












After you've piled your toppings high. Fold the empty half over and use a fork to seal the edge closed.










Transfer them to a lightly greased baking sheet. Beat your egg and brush it over your pockets. While with most other recipes I say you can take or leave the wash I think it's particularly important for the pockets. I've tried it both ways and I am never satisfied without it.

Bake for 22 minutes or until golden brown.


And there you have it; your very own pocket!

While the ingredients you see here are very "traditional" pizza/calzone toppings we all know pizzerias have branched out into some pretty creative things so there is nothing stopping us from trying something new!

Pulled Chicken BBQ
    Chicken (pulled and tossed in BBQ sauce), red onion, and green pepper

Chicken Alfredo
    Chicken chunks, Alfredo sauce and Parmesan

Southwest
    Chipotle sauce, ranch, ground beef, corn, green onion and tomato.
    
I wan tot know what your favourite pizza toppings and pocket fillings are! tell me in the comments below or tag me in a picture on Instagram!

As for the metaphysical I think the best advice I can give you is how to put intention into the pockets since everyone's favourites are different. As you place each item state your intention or the energy you want from that ingredient and then as you press the edges together restate and/or visualize your intentions and what you plan to manifest. The heat of the oven will then release your intentions into the universe.

Short and Gritty

Ingredients:

1/2 batch Dough
~1/4 cup pizza sauce
    or crushed tomatoes with 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp basil, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper
~ 1 1/2 cup of your favourite pizza toppings
    I used- mushrooms, olives, pepperoni, green pepper, red onion and garlic
1/2 cup shredded cheese of your choice, mozzarella always recommended
1 egg

Directions:

1. dough baby, let proof separated into ball shapes
2. lightly flour surface, turn out and flatten with a rolling pin
3. sauce it. pile your toppings on one half
4. fold and seal with a  fork
5. egg wash it and bake at 350 for 20 minutes