Yogurt and honey

In Yemen, we had yogurt and honey for breakfast.

I bought plain yogurt here in the States. I have never had much luck weaning my taste buds from all the sugar in commercial flavored yogurt. But in Yemen, the honey was so delightful and the yogurt fresh. So I decided to try again.

I made yogurt with honey and topped with honey roasted sunflower seeds. Imagine my excitement when I determined I had used too much honey.

Maybe I can ween those taste buds.

Peanut butter, honey and cashew

Today I made a rather funky sandwich that I anticipate will taste great with th Pacific Foods soup (carrot cashew ginger bisque) that I'm making for lunch.

I started out with graham crackers as the bread and smeared them with peanut butter. I topped the peanut butter with ground roasted, unsalted cashews and drizzled with local raw honey before putting a graham cracker lid on.

Summer Fruit Molasses Bites

I really need to learn to follow a recipe.

I wanted to make strawberry rhubarb muffins. I researched a few recipes online and had to work with a few substitutions since we don't have eggs or milk in the house.

I made something delicious and very dessert-like, and hearty, but because I decided to throw in some coconut flour... Well, I was concerned my dough would be too dry and as a consequence I made it too wet. Oops.

I put about one cup strawberries and two cups chopped rhubarb (and sprinkled some white sugar onto it) into the food processor and made it into something the consistency of jam, or maybe chutney. I set that aside.

Preheated the oven to 350 and smeared 30 muffin cups with a generous layer of room temperature coconut oil.

In a BIG bowl, I mixed the following dry ingredients:
- One cup unbleached white flour
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- about 1/2 cup coconut flour
- about 1/2 cup sourghum gluten free flour
- about 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon

In my kitchen aid mixer:
- 1/4 cup local raw honey* (Omit for true vegan cooking)
- 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
- 1/2 cup agave nectar
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup warm coconut oil

In a mixing cup, combine:
- one cup coconut milk
- 1.5 teaspoons strawberry basil balsamic vinegar
Stir and add to mixer when it appears "curdled"
(this is my substitute for buttermilk)

Combine dry to wet ingredients, add fruit.
Poor into muffin tins. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.

I think I baked these for an hour.

They have a crisp outer coating and are gooey in the middle like a brownie.

Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken

We're throwing a whole chicken in the crockpot, though we didn't take the guts out before we froze it. So, now, despite taking it out and putting it in the fridge yesterday, it was a wrestling match of man vs chicken to get the organs.

The sauce I'm starting with is the juice from one large can of pineapple chunks, some brown sugar and some low sodium soy sauce. I will throw the pineapple in and set the crock pot on low for about eight hours.

I also added some local raw honey.

Apple nut butter crêpes

Crêpes:
- 1 large tablespoon local raw honey
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons ground flax
- 1/4 cup sourgum flour
- 2 eggs

Cooked in a cast iron skillet in coconut oil.

Filling:
- chopped gala apples, skin still on
- tablespoon of quince jam
- teaspoon fresh ground cinnamon
- teaspoon local raw honey
- dollop coconut oil for the bottom of the saucepan

Cook until soft but still crisp.

Spread some nut butter on each crêpe before filling with apples.

My nut butter was homemade almond-cashew butter.

The nut butter quest

I have been on a quest to make the perfect homemade nut butter. This will take a while, but the results-- every batch-- has been delightful.

Once I master texture, I'm going to turn my attention to nut blends. But not yet...

Today I have reached true nut butter consistency. Not gritty but butter. But smooth!

I still think the secret -- as those who came before me say -- is patience with the food processor. Grind, scrape, grind scrape. Forever and a day.

So this is what I did for my latest:

I poured some water into approximately one cup of mixed raw nuts. That was what was left in the jar. I let them soak two hours and drained.

I tossed them in the food processor with one tablespoon room temperature coconut oil and one teaspoon local raw honey.

And I hit the magic button. Round and round she spins. When you stop seeing nuts flying around, you scrape. Repeat. Scrape. Repeat. At first the texture will be chopped nuts, then it will be chopped nuts that somehow stick together. Keep scraping and processing and eventually when the spinning starts, a ball forms and the ball gets bigger! Scrape, process, scrape, process.

And when your patience is completely spent, you give up and eat what you created.

Mixed nut butter

As anyone you read last night's entry will know, I found some mixed raw nuts on clearance at Target last night. I prefer to buy my nuts raw and unsalted so this seemed like a good deal.

The mix includes hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pistachios and almonds so I thought I could make a mixed nut butter.

I started with one cup nuts. Didn't roast them or soak them or anything. Just dumped them in the food processor. Added a generous dollop of local raw honey, about 2-3 tablespoons full, and about 1/4 cup warm coconut oil.

After the initial 5-7 minutes of grinding and scraping, I feared I wouldn't hit the creamy texture my family has been requesting. So I thought it would be a good idea to add about three tablespoons water.

Then I had nut soup.

I added another 1/4 cup and ground another 5-7 minutes until my patience ran out.

So it's chunky nut butter. Tastes fine, but not as perfectly scrumptious as the almond cashew butter last time. But I intentionally wanted something simpler and with less ingredients.

We'll see how it tastes when the family gets home.

Modified lemon poppyseed muffins

I don't even know what to call this crazy batter:

- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, in liquid form
- about 1/2 cup flax meal mixed with warm water
- 1 cup unsweetened soy milk
- 2 teaspoons lemon extract
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/3 cup local raw honey
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1 cup organic white flour
- 1/4 cup old fashioned oats
- 1/4 cup poppyseeds
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 pinches salt

Scooped into muffin tins.

Baking at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

Very delightful.

We tried them plain and with a smear of local raw honey, both were awesome but the honey overshadowed the lemon flavor.

Culinary experiment of the day

I have a favorite corn muffin recipe from a local vegan cooking teacher Eileen Bresslin.

Today, I swapped out a ridiculous combo of ingredients.

DRY INGREDIENTS
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- about 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 1.5 cups white corn meal
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- hearty pinch salt

WET INGREDIENTS
- 1 tablespoon flax meal that has rested in 4 tablespoons warm water
- about 1/8 cup coconut oil, in liquid form
- 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
- 1/4 cup local raw honey
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 1/2 cup soy milk
- 1.5 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine dry and wet ingredients in separate batches, then combine.

Stir vigorously to quickly get the lumps out of the coconut flour and get in the oven while still bubbling.

Bake 20 minutes.

I have no idea what will happen with this.

Update: a tad dry but yummy

Fruit canning

We went to Piazza Farm this weekend for produce, including the best New Jersey watermelon.

Today we made a light syrup of sugar and local honey to can mixed fruit.

Our yield was 3.5 pints. Our fruit included: three peaches (one very large), two plums, two red plums, two white nectarines, two nectarines and a pear.

Waiting impatiently for them to come out of the hot water bath.

Honey Cornbread

At one of my vegan cooking classes taught by Eileen Breslin, I got this recipe for cornbread:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/cornbread-and.html?m=1

And it's a family favorite.

What I like about vegan cooking is its minimalism. Unless you're talking about stuff like quinoa or seitan, it is usually stuff you have laying around the house.

A vegan doesn't panic if he runs out of milk and eggs during a snowstorm.

So in addition to the health benefits and animal rights, veganism offers simplicity in the kitchen. And I like that.

Today's cornbread might not be considered vegan by hardcore strict vegan standards because I used honey. The original recipe uses sugar, but I thought honey (from a local orchard) would help our immune systems. We're allergy sufferers in this house.

Today's recipe:
HONEY CORNBREAD
Preheat oven to 350. Batter must go into the oven immediately for best results.

Dry ingredients (mix separately from wet, then combine with dry, mix until moistened and bake 30-40 minutes)
- 1 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground sea salt

Wet ingredients
- 1/4 cup local honey
- 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup unsweetened Silk soymilk
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Honey Fried Bananas

I imagine if you'd like to make this vegan, swap the honey with agave nectar.

Coat bottom of frying pan with honey. Warm. Add sliced bananas. Sprinkle with lemon juice and cinnamon.

For one banana, use roughly 2 tablespoons honey and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

Honey Spiced Peaches

My mother-in-law brought some peaches yesterday. I decided to make Ball's honey spiced peaches and as usual I didn't read the directions correctly and made a mess out of the whole situation.

But I do have 2 pints of peaches.

And a quart that will become some sort of peach dessert or muffins today.

My mother-in-law said that instead of heating and peeling peaches, they thick peeled their peaches and used the fleshy peels for pie. I tried that.

Honey Spiced Peaches
Yields about 3 quarts

8 pounds small peaches
Fruit fresh
1 cup sugar
4 cups water
2 cups honey
3 sticks cinnamon (one for each jar)
1 1/2 teaspoons all spice
3/4 teaspoon whole cloves

Wash, drain & peel peaches. Leave peaches whole. Treat with fruit fresh. (I didn't leave mine whole. Didn't notice that until now. I also used lemon juice instead of fruit fresh.)

Combine sugar, water and honey in large saucepan. Cook until sugar dissolves.

Drain peaches. Cook peaches one layer at a time in syrup about 3 minutes each (missed this too).

Pack hot peaches into jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add one stick, 1/2 teaspoon all spice and 1/4 teaspoon cloves to each jar. Ladlehot syrup in, leaving proper headspace.

Cap and process 25 minutes in boiling water canner.

Super Plums

Today I bought about three pounds of various plums at the Easton Farmers Market. I had hoped to can some, and I did, but my first attempt had little girl not packing the fruit tight enough so I had to repack.

I cut three plus pounds of plums. The Ball recipe says to pack them whole, after pricking them. I wasn't sure I wanted to keep them whole.

HONEY SUGAR SYRUP
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup honey
- 5 1/2 cups water

Bring to a boil, stirring as needed.

I had planned a raw pack but after we didn't pack them tight enough the results ended up getting a hot pack.

I only ended up with one pint, so I froze some of the honey syrup and, once I drained and repacked the plums, I saved the plum honey syrup and froze that.

Honey Oat and Rye Herb Bread

It's a bread day! I started a basic French bread starter and have decided on a honey oat and a herb rye loaf. I divided the starter in two for the first rise and prepped two batches of add-in flour, one that's unbleached white flour and oats, another that is stoneground rye and a touch of brown sugar. I'll add blackstrap molasses to that loaf during the first knead.

I never make a loaf the same way twice, rather always adding a lil of this or that. Like this day:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-day-for-bread.html

Today's loaves came out fantastic! I rolled them thin and long (very French). The white bread came out boring, really, but the spinach-herb-rye bread was super enjoyable.

I've been trying for two days to find the basic recipe so I can try and chronicle my deviations (as if I remember now) and finally here it is (with an adorable photo of my daughter in her seersucker train engineer/baker hat): http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-bread.html

So, facing a 90 degree day after a heat wave of 100 degree days, I got out my bread bowls. In the first very large bowl, I mixed:

• 4 cups unbleached white flour
• about 2.5 teaspoons fresh ground salt.

In a smaller bowl I put:

• 2 cups stoneground rye flour

and set beside it:

• blackstrap molasses
• about one cup fresh spinach
• 1 heaping tablespoon parsley
• 1 tablespoon dill 
• 1/4 cup sorrel
• about 1 cup basil

In another smaller bowl, I mixed:

• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole oats

In the final large bowl, I mixed:

• 3 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons honey

From the flour/salt bowl, I added about 3 cups of the white flour to the liquid yeast mix. I worked it into a dough and let it sit until it tripled in size. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap. It's supposed to take three hours. Mine took about two.

This is what I'll refer to as my starter dough. After it rose, I took the dry ingredients from the rye bowl and poured them onto my lightly floured work surface. I added half the starter dough and mixed. I added the herbs and the molasses as I kneaded. Then I divided the kneaded lump into two pieces, oiled lightly and returned it to the rye flour bowl and another bowl. Covered with a towel to rise.

I repeated this with the rest of the starter and the white/oat flour. Knead. Divide. Oil. Cover. Leave to rise.

Let sit until doubled in size. About an hour.

Preheat oven to 450. Divide into loaves. Let rise 20 more minutes. Place a bowl of water in the oven. Bake baguettes for 15 minutes, remove bowl of water. Cook baguettes for ten minutes more, maybe less. *I often turn mine when I remove the water, helps the consistency of the crust.

Or I leave the water. Because it's hot and dangerous. Sometimes they cook quickly.

No cooking

Due to the recent heat wave, cooking has been kept to a minimum. Salad. Leftovers. Cheese platter.

This morning, I served Morningstar breakfast patties and watermelon as a precursor to breakfast, so child opted out of cream of wheat.

So, I got funky.

LAVENDER CREAM OF WHEAT

- 1 cup vanilla coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon honey
- about 1 teaspoon lavender
- 2 handfuls golden raisins
Heat. Add 4 tablespoons cream of wheat

Honey-glazed double grilled cheese

Nothing soothes my soul like a grilled cheese sandwich. I bought Archer Farm multigrain sandwich bread at Target last night with this purpose in mind.

Ingredients:
- 4 slices Archer Farm Multigrain sandwich bread
- 1 stick butter, room temperature
- about four ounces extra sharp cheddar
- about 3/4 cup six blend Italian shredded cheese (Market Pantry)
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon canola oil
- 2 tablespoons honey

Put your frying pan or skillet on extra low heat. Drop in the oil and grease pan with fingers or towel. Add one tablespoon butter. Add half the pepper evenly across the pan.

Butter one side of two slices of bread and place in skillet. Coat each slice with an even layer of about 1/4 of the shredded cheese. Cover the cheese with very thin slices of cheddar, covering all the bread. Add evenly the remaining shredded cheese.

Top with buttered slices of remaining bread. You, hopefully, will use less than half the butter. Sprinkle with remaining pepper.

Increase heat to medium and press sandwiches together with a turner. Flip once cheese has melted. Once almost desired brown color, drizzle honey onto the bread. Flip. Add honey to other side. Let first side cook for about a minute-- the honey will burn quickly.

Brown the other side and serve.

Peanut butter and honey

While my daughter was struggling to recover from her ear infections, I fed her some peanut butter and local raw honey sandwiches. She fell in love with peanut butter and honey, which we mix at a 50/50 ratio. Peanut butter and honey was a trick I learned from my college roommate. We've had several recent breakfasts of peanut butter and honey on Archer Farms breakfast bread-- like the blueberry streusel or apple fritter.

Peanut butter muffins

Yesterday I adapted this recipe for breakfast:

http://www.mrbreakfast.com/superdisplay.asp?recipeid=461#

First, I doubled the recipe. I replaced the sugar with honey, replaced the milk with 1 cup vanilla Silk, replaced about 1.5 cups of the flour with oats. I used 2 eggs and replaced the other eggs with applesauce.

Hot Grape Nuts

A long time ago, maybe it was college, I discovered a recipe for hot Grape Nuts. Heating them and adding honey makes them soft and sweet, though not soft enough for me to eat in present circumstances. I made a bowl for daughter and she seemed to enjoy them. The trick is to determine how soupy you like them.

As a base:
-about 1/4 cups Grape Nuts or generic Nutty Nuggets cereal
- one teaspoon local honey
- soy milk

Heat in microwave until toasty warm.