Winter Solstice, Calendula, Oat Cakes and Corn Chips

This weekend, yesterday morning in fact, was the Winter Solstice. So good to know that the days will be getting longer now and spring will be here in no time. In celebration, I dug over a new area of the garden in preparation for planting Calendula there soon. It is in a lovely sunny spot and will form a nice little patch of flowers for the bees (when I get them), as well as providing blossoms for ointments and salads.

I've been using oats a lot lately in my cooking and my sister gave me a recipe for Aberdeen Oat Cakes, which I will share with you:
Place 250g fine oatmeal in a heat proof bowl, add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt. Melt 50g butter in another pot or heat proof container and make up to 300ml with boiling water. Stir boiling water and butter into the oatmeal to form a stiff mix. Leave until cool, then roll out, cut into squares and bake in a moderate oven (180C) until crisp. Lovely!

Having had success with the oat cakes, I thought I would apply the same principle to corn meal to make Corn Chips. I mixed corn meal 50/50 with polenta (to get the equivalent of freshly ground whole corn type meal). I used oil instead of butter and needed to make the water/oil mix up to 350ml. The dough was rolled out really thinly and it worked! The only problem with these corn chips is that they went soggy after a couple of days in a container, but a little while back in the oven refreshed them. However, I would recommend eating these on the day they are made - I think they were better then.

love and light
naturewitch