PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

A friend of mine came up with this delicious and nutritious smoothie so her beloved husband could get all the things in one smoothie. He loves it, and so do we!

1 banana

If the witch-hunters are to be believed (!), when we're not eating babies at our Sabbats, we're busy relishing food that's half-rotten and stinks instead.

Just goes to show that even witch-hunters can get something right every now and then.

Even the part about the babies.

Boss Warlock's Really Stinky Half-Moon Baby Turnip Kimchi

1 lb. baby turnips

4½ teaspoons salt

2-3 teaspoons crushed red pepper

10-12 minced scallions

10-12 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon sugar

Hey, I live in the frozen North. We eat lots of cabbage up here. You could even call it a way of life.

I like cabbage; in some form or other, I eat it almost every day. Like most vegetables, it can be good—even quite good—if you know how to prepare it properly.

But if you'd told me that cabbage could be delicious, one of the best things that you've ever eaten, well...quite frankly, I'm not sure that I would have believed you.

O ye doubters and cabbage-deniers: prepare ye to believe.

Roasted Cabbage Wedges

“Do you not feel that somehow everything would be alright if you could just have a little bit of cabbage?”

(Jane Smiley, The Greenlanders)

I love it when old friends surprise you.

It's Spring in good earnest here in Lake Country. I'm already picking chives and sorrel, but it's going to be a while before we'll be seeing much in the way of new vegetables from the garden. So for the time being, we stick with those reliable old friends that have got us through the Winter, for just a little longer.

Well, cabbage is the witchiest of vegetables, anyway: potentially nasty and always surprising, with those undeniable grace notes of sulfur. What's not to love?

Here in the North Country, we eat lots of cabbage—it grows when nothing else will—and it's always good to meet that beloved old shape-shifter in a new and unexpected preparation.

Cabbage schnitzel are schnitzel only by courtesy—think potato pancakes made with cabbage instead of potato—but they're light, elegantly simple, and absolutely delicious.

Old Warlock's Cabbage Schnitzel

Aside from a pact with the Horned One, the secret to good health, long life, and eternal youth is to eat lots and lots of fresh vegetables: hence my decades-long Evil Plot to Get the Pagan Community Eating More Fresh Vegetables.

Not that it's been hard, you understand. Everybody likes good vegetables. In modern paganism's Potluck Culture, the bowl is always empty by the time I bring it home.

I first discovered Purple Pickle years ago while living in the Middle East. Every pickle-seller down at the souk would always have huge, eye-grabbing jars of pickled cabbage and cauliflower that glowed a radioactive neon-purple color.

Gods, I'd think. I don't know what they put in there to make it that color, but I don't think that it's something I want to eat.

More the fool, me. The dye, of course, is all perfectly natural.

Oh, and as for that pact with the Horned: let me recommend it.

Vegetables aside, it sure has worked for me.

Old Warlock's Purple Pickle

An apple a day has many health benefits and tastes good too! As I write this, I can smell the applesauce cooking in my slow cooker. Made from unpeeled, cut apples, and simmered a while with half cider and half water, to cover, my applesauce needs no further seasoning or sweetening. Once cooked, I put it through my trusty food mill—I picked mine up at a yard sale, however they are available both in stores and on the internet. The money you save on canned or otherwise processed applesauce will soon pay for the food mill and your applesauce will be more nutritious.

This is a good recipe for big, horsey, late-season asparagus, served either chilled or at air temperature: just the thing for a Midsummer picnic.

Sesame Asparagus in a Tamari Reduction

1 bunch asparagus

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

¼ cup tamari

¼ cup rice vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt