Celebrating Harvest Thanksgiving

Thank you for the world so sweet,

Thank you for the food we eat,

Thank you for the birds that sing,

Thank you God for everything.

We spent the whole of yesterday morning preparing a lovely harvest lunch for the three of us (and most of the afternoon clearing up!). K and B helped make some bread rolls the traditional way, using flour, water and yeast (rather than the usual cheating way of an "all-in-one" packet!), which turned out perfectly - fresh, warm and soft. K and I made a cheesecake using some of the blackberries we'd picked last weekend, together with some shop bought strawberries. We'd made a delicious cheesecake a few weeks ago, which we'd worked out to be a rather pricey dessert, and my friend T leant me a wonderful cheesecake book with lots of ideas which we'll certainly use soon. The recipe we used this time I'd found when clearing out some paperwork on Thursday afternoon. It's simple and a lot cheaper than the previous one, but certainly not as delicious! B and I made parsnip and carrot soup, again really simple to make and quick too. B did most of the chopping of the vegetables which he seems to enjoy.

Here's the recipe:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
2 large parsnips
3 large carrots
2 pints of vegetable stock
Black pepper for seasoning

Chop the onion and sweat it, covered, in the olive oil for about 10 minutes. Add the chopped (cubed) carrots and parsnips as well as the stock and season with black pepper. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Leave to cool for 15 minutes and then whizz it in a food processor or similar.

We set the table with our home cooked food and some candles for a really lovely lunch followed by a verse or two of "We plough the fields ..." and "All things bright and beautiful ..."!

With all the cooking and clearing, followed by horseriding, we didn't get a chance to do our Autumn paintings. K asked what Autumn Equinox meant - here's a website that's quite informative. She also wanted to know what Pagan meant, Wikipedia provided a good description. Came across this site that will give you a Pagan name - just a little fun! Mine is "Europa Autumn Edain"!