Here is a recipe that is sure to make some happy, especially when it gets cold outside. This recipe comes from a simple hot cocoa recipe with some additions.
Oma's Hot Cocoa
1 cup milk, preferably raw and grass-fed
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon Stevia or a few drops liquid Stevia
Dash each cinnamon, curry powder*, nutmeg, and pink salt*
1 drop peppermint essential oil (optional)
Place all ingredients except peppermint oil in pot. Stir really well (you could even blend the ingredients before putting them into a pot). Let the mixture heat up, but do not boil. Place drop of peppermint essential oil on bottom of a glass cup. Pour heated mixture into cup. Stir.
*Suggestions for adding curry powder and pink salt came from my friend, Patte.
Recently, I have joined the essential oil bandwagon, and have been watching webinars and videos on this subject. Essential oils can be very healthful. They work at a cellular level. But not only are they good for our health. They are also very good to use in our cooking.
I was watching a video recently, and they made a couple of different salts by adding essential oils to something called 'Earth Salt'. They also added essential oils to salad dressings made of oil and vinegar.
Here are some of the ways I use essential oils in cooking:
* Put a drop of spearmint oil in a pot of spaghetti sauce
* Put lemon on the bottom of the baking pan when baking fish.
* Use dill oil in sauces that cover the fish in the baking dish.
* Peppermint is good in hot cocoa. Use only 1 drop though. It is extremely potent!
* Oil of cumin is good in Mexican dishes.
If you do use essential oils in your cooking, keep in mind that they are very strong. One drop usually flavors the whole dish very well. But sometimes, a drop is even too strong. What you can do in that case is to use a toothpick, dip it into the essential oil, then put it into the food dish. Also, make sure you use the highest grade of oils available. The least expensive oils are usually not good quality. Plus, they might not be safe to put into food.
Although this is not a recipe that you cook, this recipe uses a couple of drops of three different essential oils. It is a faux recipe that tastes like Fresca, but does not have the bad ingredients in it.
Faux Fresca-Like Soda Drink
3/4 cup grapefruit juice
3/4 cup club soda
crushed ice
Liquid Stevia to taste, or sweetener of your choice
2 drops Zendocrine essential oil blend (helps with detoxing)
4 drops Slim and Sassy (helps support metabolism)
3 drops grapefruit essential oil
Fill a glass halfway with crushed ice (you can omit this part if you like your soda warm!). Place Stevia drops on ice, or whatever sweetener you will be using. Place drops of essential oils on ice. Add grapefruit juice and Club soda. Put a straw in it. Viola. Enjoy. Makes one glass.
Faux Fresca-Like Soda Drink
Interested in the oils? Send me an email and I will give you the info: awestruck@bellsouth.net
If you are interested in the stainless steel straws, here is where I got mine:
I'm always experimenting with food and find some of the food combinations fascinating. This week, I decided to make tacos. I wanted everything to be organic as well, so I went to Whole Foods and bought the shells and the seasoning packet. I already had grass-fed ground beef in, as well as homemade sour cream and lettuce from an organic vegetable co-op. We also had a lot of white rice left over from dinner the other night, although I doubt that the rice was organic. You can buy organic rice and that of course, would be preferable. I'm sure you could use brown rice for this recipe as well.
Here is what I did: First, I browned the ground beef. After the meat was browned I added the water and the taco seasoning mix to the meat. I let it simmer for a little while. The liquid did not thicken, so I took the meat out and put the leftover white rice in (I didn't measure. I just put in enough for three of us if we all wanted to have some). I let the rice reheat and soaked the taco flavored liquid in the pan in. Then I added some butter (I actually cut about 1/4 cup off. Maybe even more than that). Yummmmm.
Note: I am not ordinarily a fan of Spanish rice, but this tasted pretty good. I would imagine if you could make your own taco seasoning mix, and then add water, you could make your own version of it. I, personally, like the packets because of the orange color of the mix. I will try to recreate this recipe and put it into a recipe format so others can make it. If you do make it, let me know how it turns out. I can tweak the recipe where necessary.
Taco Seasoning Flavored Rice
2 cups leftover white rice
1/2 packet of taco seasoning mix
1/2 cup water
Butter, to taste (optional, only use grass-fed butter if possible)
Put the taco seasoning mix and water in a frying pan and heat up. Add leftover rice. Let the rice absorb the liquid and add more water if necessary. Turn rice often. Add butter, if using.
Note: I got my seasoning packet from Whole Foods. You can use any seasoning packet for this. Keep in mind that well known companies may have additives or preservatives in the seasoning.
I have to be honest. I love the strawberry Nestle Quik milk powder. I had it when I was very small and I gave it to my kids when they were small. We called it, 'Pink Milk'. Our daughter would wake up and her first words were 'pink milk'.
I am now opposed to using sugar, but it is almost inevitable. I don't know what kind of ingredients are in strawberry quik, but I know there is probably a lot of sugar in it.
This week I am reading a novel like book called, 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. In reading this book, an autistic boy is the narrator. Because of his condition, he becomes easily angered. He hates the colors yellow and brown. One of his favorite drinks is the strawberry shake. It sounds a little like strawberry Quik to me.
So, I figured out how to make my own strawberry Quik. I took a cup of raw milk and added a couple of strawberries. Then I blended it in the Vitamix. It looks just like strawberry Quik and tastes good too. Yum!
Homemade strawberry Quik can be made from 8 oz. milk, a handful of strawberries, and a couple of drops of Stevia blended in a food processor or blender.
Homemade strawberry Quik, without sugar and other additives.
I used to wonder how they made those barbecue potato chips and now I think I have a better idea of how they are flavored. One of the main ingredients is powdered tomato. I always had wondered how tomato powder was made, so I was doing searches for tomato recipes, I found out.
Here is what you do to make tomato powder; You take the skin off the tomatoes and dry them. Then you put the dried skins through a food processor or blender until ground fine. I take tomatoes and wash them off and place them in a slow cooker for about an hour, or until the skins begin to split open. Then I take the skin off and puree the rest. Instead of throwing the skin into the compost (although the compost bins can use them) I take them and dry them, they grind them into powder once they are dried.
Problem solved!
You can add them to taco seasoning or sprinkle on a salad. I would love to see what the different colored tomatoes would look like, when the skins are turned into tomato powder!
Did you know that the black krim tomato is very high in lycopene? Black krim tomato is a very dark tomato, like a deep purple one.
Tomatoes come in red, yellow, pink, black (purple), green, orange, cream colored, and striped. Many are very pretty and there are a lot of heirloom choices available today.
Some companies to order heirloom seeds from are; Baker's Creek (www.rareseeds.com) and Pinetree Seeds (www.superseeds.com). A good company I just recently found is Tradewinds Fruit (www.tradwindsfruit.com). They have lots of choices on both fruits and vegetables.
Go to the tomato sections of these companies and look at the wide variety of tomatoes. You would be surprised of all the variations.
When I was in high school, I took a class called, 'Home Ec' which taught us a variety of things that had to do with housekeeping. I zeroed in on the cooking classes and even took 'Gourmet Cooking' in my Senior year.
I was married at the age of 18, and although I learned a lot from Home Ec, there were a lot of things I did not know how to make. One night, I decided I wanted to make spaghetti sauce, so, I called my mom and asked her how to make spaghetti sauce. There was no Internet or even a good supply of books available with recipes, and even if there were, I certainly could not afford to buy any of them at that time!
My mom gave me her recipe. She told me how to make it, and I remembered everything that she said. Here is the basic recipe she gave me at that time. You can add things to it, or delete some things, although I think everything in this recipe is pretty basic and you would miss something important if you took away any of these ingredients:
Nana's Spaghetti Sauce
2 - 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
1 - 6 oz. can tomato paste
1 small onion
1 or 2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
Pork sausage (Optional. Either sausage links or loose sausage is fine).
1 pound Ground beef
Italian herbs of your choice*
Mushrooms (optional)
Salt (optional)
In a food processor, process the onion and the garlic. Heat the oil in a pan and add the onion and garlic. When onion is soft, turn heat down or off and add tomato paste. Stir well to combine. Add the 2 cans of tomato sauce, then, add 2 cans of water to the sauce mixture. Meanwhile, cook the ground beef and sausage. Add the herbs to the sauce mixture and when meat is browned, add the meat to the sauce mixture as well. Slice mushrooms up if using and saute them and add them to the sauce mixture. Cook on low heat for a couple of hours. Keep watch on pot occasionally to make sure mixture isn't evaporating. Add salt to taste, if desired.
*Note: Some herbs to use are: Basil, Oregano, Anise Seed, 1 Bay leaf, Parsley or any premixed Italian herb mixture. You can add mint as well.
Combine flour, egg, olive oil, and a little water (3 TBS.) in a mixer. Mix until the dough forms a ball and doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl. Add more water as necessary. Put the dough through an extruder or pasta machine. Cook finished pasta in boiling water, for 3-5 minutes or until done.
Bucatini pasta homemade with semolina flour, and Nana's Spaghetti Sauce
A couple of weeks ago, I made homemade brownies from a recipe on the box of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate. It tasted so good. But it had 2 strikes against it: 1. It contained sugar and 2. It contained flour (although organic).
The brownies never tasted better to me. I have cut way back on sugar consumption and my body seems to know when I am missing this lovely, terrible ingredient, unfortunately.
The flavor of the brownies was stuck in my memory, so I decided to make my own version of these brownies, but without using real sugar and white flour. Here is the original recipe: One Bowl Brownies
1
pkg. (4 oz.) BAKER'S Unsweetened Chocolate
3/4
cup butter or margarine
2
cups sugar
3
eggs
1
tsp. vanilla
1
cup flour
1
cup coarsely chopped PLANTERS Pecans
HEAT oven to 350°F.
LINE 13x9-inch pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides. Spray foil with cooking spray.
MICROWAVE chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and nuts; mix well. Pour into prepared pan.
BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool completely. Use foil handles to remove brownies from pan before cutting to serve.
So, here is my version of the recipe:
One Bowl Brownies Made Gluten-Free and Sugar-Free
2 squares Baker's unsweetened chocolate
3/4 stick butter
1 cup xylitol
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup Gluten free flour
handful of chopped walnuts
Let the butter and chocolate squares melt in a pot on low heat, until melted. Add xylitol and stir. Beat eggs and add. Stir in vanilla and add flour. Stir well. Add chopped nuts and pour mixture into 8X8" pan (I used a glass pan, buttered, lined with parchment paper, and buttered). Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool and cut up.
*note: I also put Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips (60% cacao) on top of brownies, and let them melt, then spread them around. There isn't too much sugar in these chips and they have a high level of cacao. The higher, the better).
Maybe, in the future, I will use almond flour, instead of gluten-free.
