Spiced Dark Chocolate Milk

A simple delicacy, dark chocolate hot cocoa is a staple in my life.  I can hardly imagine a day without it!


In the Microwave, heat 1/4 cup milk 30 seconds on high.  (I like whole milk, it helps my slow digestion.  A milk substite is also great, but heating times may vary depending on the type of milk you use.)

Add One Tbs baking cocoa powder while warm

Whisk with a fork


Add milk to fill the rest of the mug


Microwave again for 2 minutes 30 seconds on 80% power
If you want cold milk, you can skip this second heating.

Add 2 Tbs brown sugar (to taste) and spices


Here's a picture before the final stir with the fork.  It comes out super smooth and wonderful.


Spices can be:
Cinnamon (I usually combine with another)
Ginger
Cloves
Nutmeg (may cause drowsiness)
All Spice


You can also add marshmallows, but I don't because marshmallows make me fat.  Whipped cream would be yummy, too.


And yes, the mug is from my graduation year from College.  I opted for the mug rather than the $500 dollar ring.  Hehe, because I'm smart like that!


Enjoy!

Mowing vs. Hacking

I'm so much more ready to get cracking on my wonderful Yarrow Lawn as of today!  I used the brush hacking tool I brought home from grandpas on the tall plants I want to incorporate into the small lawn I'll be creating.  FUN!  How awesome is that?


The tarps look horrible and they've been sitting there for way too long.  Hate to admit it, but it's been a couple years.  The neighborhood side of the yard is finally getting beautiful, but Sharon says the front yard looks like Samford and Sons.  Is that right?  Apparently that was a junk yard in a TV show once.


So mowing is out, hacking is so IN, and I'm ready to really get rolling on my new yarrow lawn!

Yarrow is drought tolerant, native to western pa, flowers prettily, and has medicinal value for colds, flus, or anything that might be benefited by some extra sweating.  Soothing to the throat.  Grows to 20 inches.  I have it in many places in the garden because it's quite vigorous.  I'm slowly taking up the seed sets from around the place and placing them in the new lawn area instead!  


I had a lovely day, I hope you did too!

Garden Quiche - glutenless

OK, so it's time to bring out some of my favorites from my prior blog.  If I'm going to make this a even close to 50% a food blog, when all I'm thinking about is the garden, and the hardwood floor renovation project, then I need a little help from my past.  I created this recipe about 2 years ago.  This recipe is so fun, easy, and very forgiving!


My quiche has no crust and is just chock full of possibilities and options.  It's gluten free and any ingredient can be swapped except probably not the eggs.

Start by prepping the a pie pan as follows.  

Pour approximately 3 tablespoons olive oil into the bottom of a pie pan

Tilt the pan around until oil covers the bottom of the pan evenly at about .5 cm thickness

Take GF Rice Flour (or other GF flour that tolerates high heats) and sprinkle about 2tsp over the oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Next prep the pie filling as follows:

In a frying pan, heat up any combination of the following:

Ground meat

Thinly sliced meats

bacon

Fresh or Frozen vegetables

Fresh or Frozen fruits

Example:

for this I sauteed up 1/2 cups black currants, 1/2 cup onions and  from the freezer then put that in a bow and in the same pan then sauteed 5 half strips of bacon and 2 cups zucchini chunks.

In a small bowl, whisk together 

5 eggs

1/4 cup milk

Your favorite spice (I like to add about 1.5 tsp cumin)

Cut half inch or smaller cubes cheese, about 1/2 cup, set aside.

The amounts listed in the ingredients make just one quiche, in this example I had doubled the recipe.

Put the heated ingredients (meats and vegetables listed above) in the oiled pie pan.  Arrange them so they cover the bottom of the pie pan and are arranged at an even thickness.  It's best to put the meats in first, then the vegetables over top of that, the flavor of the meat is more savory that way.  Do not pile in the middle and spread, just spoon them in evenly to keep the oil and flour base in tact.   

Put the cubed cheese atop the vegetables and meat.

Pour the egg mixture over all this in the pie pan.

Put this in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Let cool, slice into pie slices and enjoy!  The eggs make it very seasonal for Oestara/Easter.  I really hope you enjoy this.  

A few other veggies and fruits I've used from the garden to make this are broccoli, snap peas, tomatoes, peppers, blueberries, fennel, turnip, radish, spinach, carrots and many others!  Have fun with it!

A Smile in Bloom

Would you like to make a difference in your neighborhood?  Do you have overcrowded daffodils?  Let's combine the two.  When you divide your daffodils, plant every last one of them!

Daffodils are so cheery in the spring!  I smile every time I see one growing wild in a wooded spot or an uncared for garden.


I plant them on every line in my garden to share spring cheer.  As these begin to divide, I do not plan to keep them to myself or let them over run my vegetable garden space.  It's not enough to just share the color with my neighbors.  As they produce I plan to plant them in Oakland wherever I see fit!  And I will plant them for anyone who'd like one.  


If only all bulbs reproduced as quickly as daffodils and snow drops do.  


Hope you've been enjoying the early spring color!

Flapjacks a-la glutenless

So this is kind of a food blog, right?  Well not yet, and I have to fix that!  So today we have corn pancakes!

I've scrubbed the dirt off my hands, left the daffodils and tulips to the rain, decided not to check on my new sump pump trench, or the clay pack, not participating in any of this scrambling up a ladder hogwash today, no floor sanding tonight, and I've postponed all existential pondering of soil ph, compost, forecast calculations, or alminac reviews.... because.....

IT'S TIME TO COOK!

I bring you the tried and true corn pancake.  MY tried and true corn pancake, to be exact.  My corn recipes are made only from those things you can get easily at the regular old neighborhood grocer-mart store.  They're cheap and they're easy.  Cheap glutenlessness is really my biggest goal in all this.

Yay corn!  I made these tonight and took lots of pictures so I can set this up like a tutorial.  Later I'll explain my "corn base" method, but for now we'll just plow right through.  Remember, I'm lucky.  If you have allergies to my other ingredients, these recipes are really forgiving.  Go ahead and try any of your usual substitutes.

Flapjacks a-la glutenless

EASY peasy lemon squeasy, nothing special needed.  One optional 'unusual' ingredient.  That's it!

  

No special tools necessary.  If you have a hand blender, great!  If not, the spoon is plenty effective.  Ugly counter top is also optional.

1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum powder helps a lot.  It costs about $10 for a little bag that will last you forever, keep in freezer.  If you don't have it, there's just one small adjustment below.

 

Make 1 serving grits to instructions on packaging, plus 4tsp butter.  Heat in large microwavable bowl.

If you have it - Add 1/2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum powder while this is hot, and stir well.  (The heat helps reconstitute the powder).

Add two eggs, and 1/4cup sugar and stir.  (Here I used brown sugar in the 1/4c size terracotta I keep in the sugar bowl to help prevent hardening and clumps).

 

Add 1cup corn flour (WATCH your ingredients and allergen statement!!  Many innocent looking corn flours are really a 50/50 wheat/corn mix!  Hodgson is readily available at stores and has been safe for me.  Many others are safe, too.  Use logic, if it's right next to a spilled bag of white or wheat flour, it's probably cross contaminated with wheat.  Just be careful, ok?)

Add approximately 1 to 1.5 cup milk.

You're looking to get this to a smooth thick liquidy consistency.  Corn flours have some variance in absorbency and porousness, so the amount of milk needed does change a bit.  This should end up looking just like regular batter from a box of pancake mix does.  If you don't have a mixer it can be a bit lumpy and that's nothing to worry about, it won't affect the taste or texture of the end product.

Heat skillet on low, add oil or butter.  Here I used oil, butter tastes much better, though.  A mix is also great.

Here's the batter poured into the pan, it shows the consistency a bit.  This was done with no mixer, so you can see the lumps a bit.  

If you used the Xanthan Gum, you can make nice big pancakes. The pan shown is huge, by the way.

If you did not use Xanthan Gum, keep your pancakes to 1/4cup portions or less (otherwise they are way too hard to flip.  Xanthan holds the whole deal together, gives it that elastic quality.  It's also a good source of fiber, it's a dried tree sap just like Maple syrup candies!)

This pancake is ready to flip - the other was just flipped, they looked the same on the bottom.

You're looking for the edges of the pancake to get firm, and the top of the cake to start to look firm.  Bubbles will stay open instead of closing back over.

The best thing to do is some DISHES, that way you're there in the kitchen and can smell them as they get ready and you won't forget them and burn them! 

Flip with a metal spatula.  The first batch is really hard to scrape free from the pan.  Don't be discouraged.  To avoid the sticky flip, let the oil heat very thoroughly before putting the batter on.

 

The other side cooks up about like this, and this recipe makes 9 cakes this size.

Oh, yum!  Nice bread texture.

 And remember I said to do dishes while you make the cakes?  Well, here's my accomplishment for the evening.

Happy easy pancakes everybody!!!!!