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| From the Formica Top: Mabon Dinner |
| Monday, October 01, 2007 |
From the Formica Top #2
What's been going on around my kitchen lately
Mabon Dinner
 Last Sunday, September 23, I hosted a Mabon Supper to celebrate, in my pagan way, the first day of fall. I ended up with 12 dinner guests. I cooked for two days, which may sound like complaining, but is really the exact opposite. I couldn't wait to get through my work week to start cooking! I chopped, boiled, roasted and baked--and loved every second of it.
The whole idea about Mabon is that we are celebrating the bounty of the harvest (yes, I know that traditionally people celebrate this in November as Thanksgiving, but there is so much great produce right now!). I decided, in my attempt to eat local, that I would make as much of my meal from local foods as possible and share them with my friends, so that they would be introduced to a lot of the foods out there. Doing dinner this way both honored the Eat Local Challenge and the spirit of the holiday, which was to appreciate the earth's generosity, most importantly, the local earth's bounty.
I wanted organic, local chicken, but that didn't come through in time (but I will be going to Cedar Meadow Farm this Sunday to pick some up, so keep your eyes peeled for that post), so I went with roasters from the grocery store. Many of the dishes contained mostly local ingredients (I couldn't track down butter and didn't have the time to make stock--that would have added another day to the two-day marathon). Here is my menu, and a glimpse of the decorating scheme:
 Mabon Supper Menu
Appetizers
Spinach Artichoke Dip - See my recipe
Warm Olives - An Alice Waters recipe, taken from Becky's blog, who took it from the New York Times
Deviled Eggs - Prepared by my neighbor, Fran, from local eggs
Pleasant Cow Cheese - From Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm
Dinner
Butternut Squash Soup - See my recipe
Roasted Chicken - See my recipe
Good Bread Stuffing - See my recipe
String Bean Bake - See my recipe
Salad - With ingredients from the local farmers market, including a delicious mix of greens from Starlight Gardens, sweet and tart Sun Gold tomatoes from Northfordy Farm, red onion and yellow peppers
Dessert
Oreo Pie - Janeen made this after a minor disaster with her pumpkin pie (no eggnog and lots of stress)
Goodie Bags
I couldn't send my guests home empty-handed, so they each received:
Pumpkin Whoopie Pie - A fall twist on the standard whoopie pie, from Rachael Ray Magazine's October 2007 issue, these are amazingly moist (and who doesn't love cream cheese filling?); see the recipe
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies - I used the Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe as a base, then added 12 oz of white chocolate chips and 1 cup of Macadamia nuts instead of the chocolate chips and walnuts
Sample Size Voda Soap - I purchased sample packs ($5 for 5 little bars of assorted soaps) from Debbie of Voda Soap at the farmers market and added one to each bag
I added some red wine to the mix and we had a fantastic time. I was so pleased that even my non-Pagan friends had a great time, everyone loved the food (even Janeen's 14-month-old daughter!) and we ushered in this season all together. Some photos (none of food, I know, but it was dark by dinner; we were too hungry to do it, too):
 
Centerpiece for one of two tables; the "Happy Fall" pumpkin Janeen painted for the occasion
 
Dinner guests Evelyn and Anjanine; the vegetarian: Jesse (looking crazy)
For more photos, check out my Mabon Supper Photo Album
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posted by Rose @ 6:38 AM  |
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