Light, Fire, and Abundance: Harness the Power of Food and Mindful Cooking to Nourish the Body and Soul: Includes 120 Recipes and a Guide to Ingredients and Wellness Infusions
304
Light, Fire, and Abundance: Harness the Power of Food and Mindful Cooking to Nourish the Body and Soul: Includes 120 Recipes and a Guide to Ingredients and Wellness Infusions
304Hardcover
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Overview
Crafted with intention and the right ingredients, food infuses our lives with love, creativity, joy, peace, and abundance. But making magic in the kitchen, preparing meals that meet our needs and those of our loved ones, requires a little know-how. In Light, Fire, and Abundance, Misty Bell Stiers, the celebrated author of Witch, Please: Finding Magic in Modern Times, opens her grimoire and reveals her 120 most powerful (and mouthwatering!) recipes, ones lovingly developed by her and her family members, along with guidance on the benefits of a wide range of ingredients and the sacred rituals she relies on.
In this extraordinary volume you’ll find:
-120 recipes for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, sides, desserts, sauces, and condiments (Create sugar lemon waffles to revitalize, butter crust fish to support concentration, sesame noodles to encourage connection, garlic shrimp for protection, pumpkin muffins to ward off spite, and much more) - Tips for staying present while cooking and crafting meals with intention - Instructions for tweaking recipes to meet emotional, physical, and spiritual needs - A guide to ingredients and their benefits based off ancient practices and recent evidence - An understanding of how food connects us and how to impart love through a thoughtful meal (including those made in a time crunch!) - An action plan to create your own magical grimoire safeguarding meaningful recipes - Gorgeous color photos and hand-drawn illustrations throughout - A foreword by celebrated kitchen witch Dawn Aurora Hunt
This stunning book has been crafted with love for readers of all faiths looking to embrace the power of food and the natural properties of plants and herbs. Inside you’ll find both everyday meals and ones for special occasions, as well as an inspirational guide to support wellness, fun in the kitchen, and a bounty of memories.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781954641204 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Apollo Publishers |
| Publication date: | 11/28/2023 |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 1,063,833 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Dawn Aurora Hunt is the founder and owner of Cucina Aurora Kitchen Witchery, based in Salem, NH. She is the author of A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Recipes for Love & Romance and runs the popular YouTube channel and podcast series called “Conversational Witchcraft.”
Read an Excerpt
Finding the Magic That Rests at Your Table
Finding your magic in the kitchen, like anywhere else, is about being present. It’s about being enough in the moment to make intentional choices about what your heart and soul need, or what you want to provide for those around you. It’s about love—loving yourself and those whom you choose to make your world by making something with your hands that comes from your heart.
Food provides comfort. It nourishes us: not just our bodies, but our beings. The smells from certain meals can transport us across miles to those we love, transport us to another time, break the barriers of this world and the next, bringing us close to those we have lost. Certain tastes can ignite our senses, warming us from the inside out, bringing light and fire and abundance. We can find comfort, too, in the perfect cup of tea, a slice of warm bread—even in the time we take to knead the dough or steep the leaves.
Cooking is a special kind of alchemy. A way to take disparate ingredients and, through an act of intention, combine them to create something that wasn’t there before. Something new and uniquely ours. Not just something to consume, but something to experience. Not just a meal, but an act of love, filled with your own special kind of magic.
You don’t need to be a witch to impart that magic. In fact, most people already have their own traditions, rituals, or magic kitchen practices.
The salt thrown over the shoulder.
The “bit of spice” for luck.
The recipe for when someone has a cold, or something to celebrate.
The special dessert that gets made every holiday.
Sometimes it’s the ingredients, sometimes when it’s made. Always it’s in the how and who of the dish. A specific beloved ingredient, a special bowl or dish, a mother’s touch, an uncle’s spices, a friend’s thoughtfulness.
These meals and recipes grow special because they began and with an intention, a presence of mind and a generosity of spirit that follows them over time.
And that is where the magic of the kitchen resides. In the ability to be intentional in what you’re making, consciously choosing the result of your endeavor. Comfort? Hope? Encouragement? Love? That intent lives realized in a million different ways, in every decision you make as you prepare your food.
Is every meal an exercise in the divine? Every Mac and Cheese a call to a greater power? Not hardly. I myself spend a great deal of time desperately trying to get a meal in front of my kids that has some semblance of nutrition, will be something everyone will eat at least some of, and can be completely prepared and served in that wisp of time between the end of my workday and the beginning of their bedtime.
To say I’m always intentional would be a gross overstatement.
However there are small rituals that can helps us slow our rush of days and recognize this act of making a meal for what it is—a unique daily opportunity to be present. To give to ourselves and those we care for—if only for a moment a way to let go of what we did earlier in the day and to release what may be to come and just live in the now. A way to feed our bodies and acknowledge our souls—in the midst of something we have to do any way.
Whether opening a can of chicken and stars or lovingly crafting a homemade masterpiece, we have the opportunity to take a moment to appreciate where we are, what it means that we have this food in front of us, this opportunity to nourish. An opportunity to take a breath and give thanks, share love, choose how this meal could evolve into a moment.
Even if it is just a moment piled on the couch watching a cartoon and slurping star-shaped noodles in spaghetti-like sauce out of a can.
Kitchen Ritual
Kitchen witches find their greatest peace and comfort in the rituals of preparing food and channel their intentions in that way. Often, kitchen witches are also healers, drawing upon the natural properties of plants and herbs to help ameliorate physical and psychological ailments.
Meals are opportunities to create with intent, to infuse meaning into every dish, every gathering. Ingredients are specifically chosen, meals carefully planned. Sigils (symbols that invoke certain kinds of power such as hearts and clover, stars and moons) are stirred into soups, traced out with a spoon in pancake batter, carved into the top of a loaf of bread.
The meaning and rituals that live in all our kitchens are sacred acts for the kitchen witch. But she doesn’t hold that honor alone: when we make a meal for someone we love, create a dish to comfort to encourage—those acts are sacred, too. Creating something with our hands to help nourish the heart and soul is a gift, a treasure of the utmost filled with magic, no matter what spiritual path you may follow.
That particular gift is recognizing and acknowledging the wonder in this world, and then being able to harness that wonder and create some enchantment ourselves. It is not just being in tune with the energy around us, but trusting the energy inside our own hearts; listening to our intuition, to the whispering of our souls and finding a way to share that with the outside world.
This kind of magic is nothing otherworldly. It is often simply doing what needs to be done. It’s being able to relieve a bit of the pain of someone who is hurting, to carry a bit of burden when we have the strength to spare—and sometimes even when we don’t. It is noticing someone who feels lost, and truly making him or her feel seen, holding the hand of one who might need to borrow some courage, or baking bread for someone who needs to feel loved.
This kind of witchery isn’t conjuring, it’s connecting; it’s not about a third eye, or second sight. Rather, it is taking the time to see what is truly around you and choosing to make it better, lovelier, kinder by offering up a gift only you can give. It is a token woven with time, effort, and intention. It is not just invoking, it is involving; deciding to truly be a force in the world we inhabit, to be an active part of the wondrous cycle that moves us all. To make the choice to create in hopes of balancing, banishing, or brightening.
Finding your magic is so much more than performing spells and practicing concoctions to bring love or luck or money. It’s about being the wealth and love needed, for yourself and those around you. It’s about making your own luck by seizing opportunities and recognizing moments of synchronicity.
It is so much more than the dull, expected definition of what is magical—it is empowering yourself to join in a greater force to become truly mystical and learning that even the smallest of offerings can create the most memorable and life changing moments that will carry on long after the dishes are cleared.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Dawn Aurora Hunt Introduction Finding the Magic That Rests at Your Table Kitchen Ritual Ingredients and Intentions Cooking When It Counts Sunny Side Up: Breakfast Fluffy Pancakes Simply Sunday Waffles Savory Waffles Sugared Lemon Waffles Dutch Baby Samaire’s Strawberry Scones Crepes Monkey Milk Breakfast Biscuit Balls Homemade Baking Mix -Quick Drop Biscuits -Easy Pancakes Savory Breakfast Bake Baked Blueberry French Toast Leek Frittata Traditional Biscuits Cheddar Biscuits Black Pepper Biscuits with Ham Revel & Relish: Main Dishes Butter Crust Fish Crispy Chicken Baked Ranch Chicken Sesame Noodles Spicy Chili Noodles Peanut Noodles Wylie’s Beef Stew Curried Beef Chicken Corn Chowder Chicken Carnitas Spicy Lasagna White Lasagna Vegetable Lasagna White Chili Traditional Chili Cincinnati Chili Empanadas -Empanada Crust -Apple Chicken -Fajita Black Bean -Potato Chorizo Turkey Lentil Sloppy Joes BBQ Shrimp Lemon Garlic Shrimp Pancetta Scallops Aunt Judy’s Shrimp Étouffée -Creole Seasoning Springtime Asparagus Risotto Summer Corn Risotto Creamy Garlic Risotto Butternut Squash Risotto Spicy Turkey Enchiladas Cauliflower Poblano Enchiladas Creamy Chicken Enchiladas Black Bean Burgers Only Small Actors: Salads, Snacks, and Sides Cheesy Corn Casserole Macaroni and Cheese Pear Arugula Salad Kale Apple Salad Broccoli Salad Corn Tomato Salad Dill Potato Salad Artichoke Parmesan Stuffing Cranberry Sauce Cheddar Mashed Potatoes Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes Cheesy Grits Vie Bien Aimee: Baked Goods Homemade Herb Loaf Focaccia Bread -Carrot Feta Focaccia -Potato Pancetta Rosemary Focaccia -Zucchini Leek Focaccia Roasted Garlic Brioche Rolls Zambrano Rolls Sausage Pesto Rolls Parker Rolls Pizza -Classic -White Pizza -Hot Honey Pizza -Sausage and Pepper -BBQ Chicken Cinnamon Rolls -Cherry Lemon -S’Mores -Pecan Pie -Orange Spice -Rolls Sweet Treats Banana Breads -Samaire and Daddy’s Golden Banana Bread -Cinnamon Banana Bread -Classic Banana Bread Pumpkin Muffins Orange Fluff Strawberry Cream Cake Dark-Side Monster Cake Cookies Red Velvet Cookies Rainbow Cookies Peanut Butter Cookies Chocolate Pudding Cake Ooey Gooey Cake Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Cake Fairy Berries Ho Ho Cake Elderberry Honey Cream Pie Key Lime Pie Strawberry Jelly Roll Cake Hot Chocolate Yule Cake Pumpkin Jelly Roll with Maple Cream Citrus-cello Awesome Sauce: Sauces and Condiments Hot Honey -Traditional -Shishito -Serrano -Holland -Ancho/ Poblano -Habanero Simple Marinara Spicy Arrabbiata Sauce Pesto -Spinach Walnut Pesto -Basil Pine Nut Pesto -Kale Pumpkin Seed Pesto Salsa Verde Pecorino Pepper Sauce Bolognese Sauce Chipotle Mayo BBQ Sauce Honey Mustard Gingered Ketchup Cilantro Purée Simple Salad DressingGlossary of Recipes and Ingredients
Glossary of Intentions