H is for Homemade

My new real food blog, The Converted Kitchen is now up and running so this will be my last post dealing with real food on this blog. Please head over there and follow me if you are interested in the real food life style or would just like to watch how I do learning to cook from scratch.

This week I started with my first homemade sourdough thanks to some help with Kitchen Stewardship.

We purchased some organic whole wheat flour from from my local whole food country market. It was quite expensive ($7 for lbs), but luckily I found I cheaper one at my health food store for next time. The health food store's flour is also freshly milled and kept refrigerated until it is purchased.

I already had two Ball Mason jar's that I used for collecting water samples at work last summer. I love Ball mason jars, because they have the rings around them so you can use them with the ring and leave out the lid for fermenting and then just insert the rest of the lid for storage.

I filled one of the jars with tap water and let it sit overnight because I have city water so I needed to let the chlorine evaporate.

The next morning I added a half a cup of water and a half a cup of flour, stirred and covered it with a coffee filter and ring. It was so easy. Then I put it in the oven with the light turned on. I just hope I remember to take it out every time before I cook anything!

That night I took it out and emptied the icky dark water off the top and fed it. Well actually the kids did. I love to get the kids involved in preparing healthy food. It makes them more excited about eating it.

I continued feeding a few more times and was so existed when I started seeing bubbles. Yes, I know, bubbles are not to be that existing when you are an adult, but I just could not hold the pride in. I was practically giddy!

At this point I am feeding it a couple of tablespoons a day. Part of me just wants to jump right in a start baking bread, but all of the advice says to give it time to mature before making anything that needs to rise, so instead I will make something simple first. Maybe pancakes. I am not sure yet, but what ever it is, I will eat it proudly knowing that I am taking a step towards becoming more self sufficient and improving the health of my family.

I am writing this post as part of ABC Wednesday.

Making Blessed Water With The Kids

Now on our third day of non-stop snow I was starting to feel a little bit depressed being cooped up in the house. The roads are covered so the only people going anywhere have snow mobiles or some seriously heavy duty plow trucks.

This morning I looked out the window and saw the glistening snow in a whole new light. It was so beautiful and gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time with my children who haven't been to school in days.

I recalled a post from Sitara Haye on making blessed water from snow and decided to call an unscheduled witch class for the kids. We made blessed water to protect us from bad dreams. This is how we did it.

First we washed our hands with salt and water to cleanse us of negative energy and then we washed our glass bowl and a jar the same way.

I tried to open a window to scoop the snow up but the snow was to high so I opened the door and drew a pentagram in the snow and I scooped up the top layer and brought the bowl back to the children.

Each of them thanked the goddess for the magical gift of snow and then pressed one star anise and one white sage leaf into the snow while asking for protection from bad dreams.

We set the snow in my son's bedroom near a window to melt. That is the stage we are in right now.

Once it is melted I will strain it into our jar and sprinkle it around their beds.

That was simple and the kids got involved. I love it.

Blessed Be

Witch School

I figured it was about time that my wee witches started to learn more about our religion. They already know the basics, but they want to start attending some rituals with me so I think it is time for them to learn a little bit more.

I started witch school today with Matthew age 7, Ashley age 6, and Sarah Belle age 3. Sarah won't be attending rituals any time soon and probably won't understand much of what I am telling her, but just being exposed to it should help her later on.

We talked about Imbolic and why we celebrate, and the goddess Brigid and what her qualities are. Then I started to teach them how to call the quarters. This will take them some time to memorize, but they have all the time they need. After that we read a chapter in a pagan children's book, and finished up with a short guided meditation.

All of the children enjoyed it, and I'm not surprised. They all love school and have been so eager to learn more about Wicca since I started practicing openly. I think that tomorrow's lesson will be about the sun and the moon. They should enjoy that.

Blessed Be