Not a recipe! Anthony's gray hat

 

Bulky yarn size nine circular knitting needles

Cast on 64 stitches on 16 inch circular needles. Knit one purl one for two inches. knit for an additional 61/2 inches for a total of 8 1/2 inches. begin decrease. knit two together through front loops, knit 6 repeat across row for a total of 8 less stitches per row. knit two rows. knit two together through front loops, knit 5, repeat. knit two rows. keep decreasing in the same way, but only one row in between decrease rows. Change to double pointed needles when you need to.

Chana Masala

 Here is my recipe for Chana Masala, which was a big hit on Christmas this year.

Ingredient List:

1 1/2 medium yellow onions diced smallish
2 T coconut oil
pinch of baking soda
2 tsp cumin seeds
salt and black pepper
4 garlic cloves
1 inch of ginger root, grated
1 T. lemon zest
3 tiny thai chili peppers chopped fine

one can tomato paste, with 12 oz water
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garam masala
2 cans chick peas, rinsed
cilantro to taste

Cooking Method

Saute onions in oil, sprinkling in baking soda.  I used the large stainless steel saute pan. The baking soda helps the onions break down totally, so they will blend in and become saucy. Add cumin seeds. Cook til they turn golden brown, then add a bit of water, and continue cooking, and adding little bits of water until the whole mixture becomes brown.

Muddle together garlic, lemon zest (I didn't do this, but I hear its good for the garlic) ginger and peppers. You can choose how many peppers depending on your spice level preference. Add to pan, along with remaining ingredients. Cook, stirring to blend, and then let stew for at least 30 minutes for flavors to soak into the chick peas. Yum!

Apricot Scones

 This morning I taught Anthony how to make scones. They came out great, and I made so many modifications on the recipe that I found online, I knew I had to record just what amounts of each ingredient we used.

Apricot Scones

Preheat oven to 425  Cut a piece of parchment to fit a cookie baking pan

2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup COLD butter (one stick) cut into 1/2 tsp size cubes

1 egg

about 1/2 cup half and half

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped into raisin sized bits (other dried fruits could be substituted)

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt in bowl of food processor and pulse a few times. 

Add butter and pulse about 12 times, until butter is in small chunks. 

Being careful not to touch the blades of the food processor, smash larger chunks of butter between your thumb and forefinger. 

Add apricots, egg and half and half and pulse until roughly combined into a dough.

Pour mixture onto baking pan and gently mold into one 9 inch disc shape, using the large blob to add the stray dry bits onto the larger body of dough. 

Slice into 12 triangles like you are cutting a birthday cake, and flatten them a bit as you spread them around on the baking pan.

Bake in center of oven for 12 minutes or until you can see a golden color develop on the scones.

Chocolate Chip Scone variation-

Follow above recipe, with the following changes. Reduce sugar to 5 T, substitute 1 cup semi sweet chocolate morsels for apricots. Anthony made these today, and we used less than 1/2 cup half and half. The mixture was so dry that it was hard to get all the crumbs back together to form the disc, but the resulting scones were incredibly delicious!

Browned butter chocolate chip cookies

 Ingredients:

one cup of butter- starting weight 236 gr after browning 189 gr

2 cups of flour (I am considering adding more flour)

2 TBS cornstarch

1 t baking soda

1/4 t baking powder

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

2 t vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups of chocolate- can by chips or chopped bars of dark, semi sweet, or milk chocolate

Procedure:cook two sticks of butter on medium heat for about 5-8 minutes, watching closely for the butter to foam and the milk solids to start to brown. Remove from heat and pour into dish to refrigerate until solid.
Browning the butter adds flavor to the cookies, and reduces the amount of liquid in the recipe. If you need to add more liquid, add a tablespoon or two of milk.
Cream butter with sugars, add eggs one at a time and add vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, cornstarch, backing soda, baking powder. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix briefly to combine. Add chocolate of your choice. Scoop by the ice cream scoop of your choice and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. 

Bake at 350 degrees on an ungreased cookie sheet. No need for parchment. 15 minutes for smaller cookies, 18 minutes for larger cookies.

Cucumber Coconut Lemon Ginger Smoothie

 Did your garden produce too many cucumbers? Is this summer so hot you need a cool, refreshing drink? Or, like me, did you miss dinner to go to Yoga class and now you rather drink your dinner? Maybe all of the above? Yup!

Peel or don't peel one large cucumber. Squeeze one half of a lemon into your blender. Add chopped cucumber and one inch of piece of peeled ginger root. Blend.  Too strong.

Add 6 ice cubes and blend again. Better, but I'd like it sweeter and I know that there is about one tablespoon of cream of coconut left from some cocktails, so I added that and .... perfect! Just what I wanted. 

If I didn't have the coconut I was going to add a handful of green grapes or frozen pineapple.

Keto peanut butter cups

 We've all been doing a high fat diet, keto, in fact, to try and lose weight. Keto is crazy and not very vegetarian, but this recipe doesn't contain meat, so I'll record it here for posterity. Or as long as we keep reading the blog.  

PS: its really good!

ingredients:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

4 T ghee

2 T swerve confectioner's sweetener

1/4 cup Lily's sugar free chocolate chips

2 T cocoa powder

Melt peanut butter and 2 T ghee in microwave for 30 seconds, stir until smooth. 

Add 1 T sweetener.

spoon into candy molds. I use a silicone mini ice cube tray and chill for 15 minutes.

meanwhile, melt chocolate with remaining ghee, stir and add sweetener and cocoa powder until its chocolatey enough for your taste. I added another smidge of peanut butter, too.

spoon chocolate mixture carefully on top of peanut butter mixture, and refrigerate overnight. 

pop out of trays and store in fridge.

 Easy and Elegant Cheese "Soufflé"

This recipe is from Frances Moore Lappe's 1970 era book "Diet for a Small Planet," a book that influenced and guided millions how to eat a balanced vegetarian diet. This is a dinner that is perfect to cook when you have bread, milk and cheese, but not much else in your fridge. It's satisfying, savory, and easy to throw together. There are numerous ways to change it up, different cheeses, seasonings, and maybe a vegetable or two. Send me a comment if you find a different way that you think is even better than the original recipe.

Layer in an oiled 9 x 11 baking dish: 4-6 slices of bread and 3 cups of grated cheese.

Pour over that 2 cups of milk. You may add 1/2 cup of wine if you have some handy.

Mix separately and pour over 3 eggs beaten, 1/2 t salt, 1/2 t thyme, a splash or two of Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 t dry mustard, 1/2 t black pepper. NOTE: Worcestershire sauce is not vegetarian, as it contains some little fishy bits, anchovies! There are vegetarian substitutions available if you so desire. (See recipe for vegan chex mix)

Let sit for 30 minutes and bake in a pan of water at 350 degrees.