Samhain Recipes

Chocolate de Mexicanos | Granny McCoy's Pumpkin Pie | Colcannon | Wassail

Chocolate de Mexicanos

• 4 1/4 cups milk
• 4 ounces semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1 shot tequila

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. With a hand-held mixer or traditional molonillo (a wooden beater resembling a honey dipper), beat the mixture until it stops boiling and becomes slightly frothy. Stir in tequila. Serve immediately in mugs garnished with cinnamon sticks.

Serves 4

Granny McCoy's Pumpkin Pie

• 3 cups cooked pumpkin (canned is fine)
• 1 1/4 cups evaporated milk
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 heaping teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 scant teaspoon salt
• 1/4 rounded teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 rounded teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 well-beaten eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and pour into two deep, unbaked pie shells. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until a knife comes out of the center clean.

Makes two nine-inch pies

Colcannon

• 4 cups mashed potatoes
• 2 1/2 cups cabbage, cooked and chopped fine
• 1/2 cup butter (avoid corn oil margarines as they will not add the needed body and flavor)
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk or cream
• 3/4 cup onion, chopped fine and sauteed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Saute onions. Boil the potatoes and mash them (do not use artificial potato flakes). In a large pan place all of the ingredients except the cabbage and cook over low heat while blending them together. Turn the heat to medium and add the chopped cabbage. The mixture will take on a pale green cast. Keep stirring occasionally until the mixture is warm enough to eat. Lastly, drop in a thimble, button, ring, and coin.* Stir well and serve.

*It was an old Irish tradition to hide these in it: a ring for a bride, a button for a bachelor, a thimble for a spinster, and a coin for wealth, or any other item which local custom decreed in keeping with the idea of the New Year as a time for divination. If you make colcannon with these little objects inside, please excercise caution against choking.

Serves 8

Wassail

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 6 baked apples, cut into small pieces
• 5 egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons allspice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 8 whole cloves
• 1 quart ale
• 1 cup cooking sherry
• 1 cup Irish whiskey

Bring water and cream to a slow boil and remove from heat. Beat the egg whites well. Thoroughly mix in all the remaining ingredients except the alcohol. Allow this mixture to cool slightly -- enough so the heat from it will not crack your punch bowl. If you have a non-glass container for your wassail, you can skip the cooling process. Blend in the alcohol just before serving, and be sure to offer the traditional toast to the old apple tree before drinking.

Makes one large punch bowl

SOURCE: The Wiccan Garden, as taken from The Sabbats: A New Approach to Living the Old Ways by Edain McCoy and Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham