Hiatus

This blog is on hiatus for a while.  I hope to be back new and improved in the future… just not sure when yet.

Five for Five

Here’s how it works:

The first five people to leave a comment on this post will get something from me.
But in return, you have to do the same thing on your blog and make something for five other people. The details are as follows, and if you want to play, copy the following onto your blog and leave me a post:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. Whatcha get is whatcha get.
2. What I create will be just for you, with love.

3. It’ll be done this year (2010).

4. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. Or it may be monstrous and annoying. Heck, I might bake something for you and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!

5. I reserve the right to do something strange.

6. In return, all you need to do is post this text on your blog and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to your blog post.

7. Send your mailing address – after I contact you.

Thanks to Sarah at Handmade Homeschool for doing this!

***I did this on facebook last year and I’ve ALMOST finished distributing my creations.  Those of you on the receiving end of that giveaway are more than welcome to sign up for this one too!  Perhaps I should say ESPECIALLY those of you who are still waiting ***

Best Black Bean Soup EVER!

I love soup.  I love black beans.  I hate cold weather.  So I made black bean soup tonight.

We can’t get black beans here in Ankara.  But I brought a 2kg bag of them with me when we last returned from Canada.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring all the ingredients in rebar’s black bean soup recipe with me.  Jalapeno peppers, also unavailable here, just don’t last long.  Nor does fresh coriander (cilantro, to my North American friends.)  Limes… only irregularly, unreliably in stock in these parts.  The list of what I lacked goes on.  So I had to deviate a fair bit from the rebar recipe.  There were a heap of ingredients I couldn’t do.

My changes led to a pretty fantastic soup.  (I bet the original is fantastic too; those rebar women know what they are doing.  Buy their cookbook.)  Even EcoKid, our resident fussy eater, didn’t balk at the soup at all.  AT ALL.  It’s usually one heck of a fight to get soup into her, let me tell ya!

Without further ado:

3 cups of dried black beans, put on the soak 24 hours in advance

lots of vegetable stock or water or a combination of the two

2 tbsp coriander seeds

2 tbsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp oregano

1 big ol’ onion, diced

8 cloves of garlic, minced

3 moderately spicy peppers (I used sivri biber,) chopped

6 fresh tomatoes, diced

1 1/2 tsp salt (omit if you are using commercial vegetable stock)

black pepper to taste

several heaping tbsp apricot chutney

small bunch of flat-leaf parsley (anyone else dislike the spiny stuff?)

several dollops of yogurt

brazilian onion salsa

salsa verde

juice of 1 lemon

In advance:

Soak those black beans the day before you intend to cook the soup.  They soak up water like you wouldn’t believe (unless, of course, you’re accustomed to soaking black beans.  then you’d believe it.) so check them regularly.

Make your salsa today too.  They’re best one day after you’ve made them– still fresh, but the flavours have had a chance to blend.

Hopefully you’ve made your chutney like, months ago.  Otherwise you’d better raid your neighbour’s cellar.  (If you’re in a real pinch, you could buy some.  We’ve just sampled some mango chutney from Trader Joe’s, courtesy of some lovely friends, and it is DELISH.)

On the day of soup cooking:

Roast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and oregano dry, in a frying pan.  When they become fragrant and the seeds brown a bit, dump them into a mortar and have a blast smashing them with the pestle.  Take time to inhale deeply.  The fragrance is divine!

Drain the beans and dump them in a big (I mean BIG) soup pot. Throw in the diced onion, minced garlic, chopped peppers, and the spices you’ve just delighted in pummeling.

Add approximately 4 litres of vegetable stock or water or combination of the two.  Add a bit more liquid if you want the soup thinner, a bit less if you want it thicker.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and allow the soup to simmer for an hour.

Add salt, chopped tomatoes, chutney, and grind pepper over the pot til you feel like there’s enough pepper in place.  Or til your wrist gets sore from grinding.  Hopefully the former happens first.

Allow the soup to continue to simmer for 20 mins.

Blend with an immersion/hand blender til the soup is smooth.  Squeeze your lemon into the soup, taking care not to let the seeds fall in.  Squeeze every last drop out of the lemon.  It’s a great stress reliever.  Stir.

Taste and add more salt if necessary. Stir again.

Ladle into individual bowls.  Add dollops of yogurt, salsa verde, brazilian onion salsa, and sprinkle generously with parsley.

Enjoy.

charity: water auction

We’re back from Disney!  We had a fantabulous time!  I’ll try to get some photos of our adventures up here soon for you all to enjoy.  In the meantime, I’d like to share with you some information about my friend Jenny’s fundraising efforts.

You’ll recall that the Drake family decided to fundraise for charity: water.  Their biggest of their little boys wanted to do it and they leapt into the venture as a family.

1 in 8 people does not have access to clean drinking water.

They’ve done the most incredible job ever.  Having set a goal of raising $5000 (USD) for charity: water in three months they’ve already surpassed that goal… three times over!!!  Yes, over $15 000 they’ve raised.  And the three month fundraising period is not yet over.

Right now, Jenny is hosting an auction on her blog to raise more. She’s contributed some fantastic productions of her own along with gift donations from friends and family.  There’s some amazing stuff available.  I’ve bid on one thing already and think I might need to bid on a few more things.  And every last penny raised goes to building wells in communities who need access to clean drinking water.

There’s a necklace in the auction that I made… I hope you like it!  No preview here;  I really want you to have a look at her awesome auction!

So go now!  Get thee over there!

See Ya Later, Alligators!

We’re off to Disneyland Paris for 8 days!  It’s EcoDad’s first time at a Disney.  As an anti-capitalist about to visit a shrine to capitalist excess, I’m not going to confess just how many times I’ve been to various Disney theme parks…

We’ll see you when we get back!

(PS.  We’ve hired attack dogs to guard our humble abode, so don’t go getting any ideas.)

Zing! Zang! Zow! Crackers!

This is just a quick post, no photos, so I can share (and recall) the fantastic cracker recipe I came up with today.  It’s got some kick and it is SO TASTY.  I accosted EcoDad as he arrived home from work and demanded he eat one on the spot.  That’s how good they are.  And he, who usually recoils from requests made the moment he walks in, raved about them and didn’t fuss at all about my forcing him to eat before he’d even removed his outdoor gear.

Without further ado:

Zing! Zang! Zow Crackers!

1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-free Pancake Mix  (oh yes, I did!)

1/4 cup chick pea/ garbanzo bean flour

1/4 coarsely milled flax

1 tsp coriander seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp celery seeds

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp sea salt, and a sprinkle later

1 tsp olive oil

4-5 tbsps water

Mix dry ingredients.  Add oil, then water, adding the latter very slowly.  When the dough will form into a ball, stop adding water.

Roll flat and thin with a rolling pin.  Cut into squares.

The dough IS a bit crumbly and a little difficult to work with but persevere.   The end result is SO worth it.

Once the cut pieces are on your cookie sheet for baking, sprinkle lightly with sea salt.

Bake 8 mins, watching closely.  If they start to brown, pull them out!

Enjoy!

Splendiferous Gluten-free Crackers!

Yesterday afternoon I made a horrible discovery.  The rice cakes we’ve been giving EcoBabe in bountiful supply have more than just rice in them.  They also have corn.  But I knew that.  What I didn’t know, what caught my eye as I was reaching into the cupboard for something else entirely but just happened to glimpse the rice cake packet in doing so, is that the little cakes, advertised as rice-corn cakes also have WHEAT and OATS in them.  In fact, there’s more wheat then there is rice!  EGADS!!!

This, right on the heels of my bemoaning the fact that EcoBabe has been regressing of late, that his shrieking and squealing have resumed, and that he’s withdrawing socially.

I admit that it was entirely my fault.  You have no idea how high my guilt levels soared yesterday upon noting the gluten content of the snacks I’ve been eagerly feeding my little boy.  I should have read the ingredient list ages ago.  I should have read it back when EcoBabe first began his GFCF diet.  I assumed that rice cakes advertised as such would be nothing more than rice… and corn which is also named in the product description.  I can assure that I will never, ever make assumptions like that again.  Just because rice cakes are rice cakes in Canada does not mean they are in Turkey.  And really, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT.

But I won’t continue along this path.  You don’t need to know about the bruises I have given myself from bashing my head into the wall repeatedly.  I’ll skip from last night to this morning.

This morning, I tapped away at my keyboard, calling upon my old friend Google to help me find some snack recipe alternatives for EcoBabe now that our previous snackerage source had turned sour.  We’re leaving for Paris on Wednesday night and want a good supply of food for him with us in case we have trouble finding things for him there.  And we’d planned to take rice cakes…

So I found a recipe for sesame crackers that looked easy enough.  (They’re the second recipe in.)  I didn’t have all the ingredients so I made a few changes.  I had to skip the nutritional yeast and substitute baking soda for baking powder but they turned out wonderfully all the same.  Crisp, flavourful, and cute: cute because EcoKid helped me cut them in the shape of Christmas cats.  (Yes, a cookie cutter in the shape of a cat should NEVER be confused for a paltry everyday cat; no, no! in fact, as EcoKid informed me, cats are ALWAYS Christmas cats by default.  Especially so in the world of cookies cutters, apparently.)

The crackers turned out so well that I wanted to make more.  However, I had used up all my sesame seeds in the first batch.  So I went hunting in my cupboards for substitutes.  The first thing I found was… baking powder.  Oops.  So round two got baking powder.  Not finding a hidden back up supply of sesame seeds, I decided to do a whole new flavour combo.

Behold my Gluten Free Indian Spice Crackers:

EcoBabe loves them.  I love them.  EcoDad loves them.  Even our fussiest eater, EcoKid, loves them.  You can be sure that both these and the sesame crackers will become a regular feature in our household snacking patterns.

The recipe, should you wish to try for yourselves:

Gluten-Free Indian Spice Crackers

1/2 cup chick pea/ garbanzo bean flour  (they’re the same thing, y’all!)

1/2 cup almond meal/flour

1/2 tsp salt  (salt lovers might want a bit more than this– we’re low sodium types for the most part)

1/2 tsp celery seeds

1/2 tsp ground roasted cumin

1/2 tsp coriander seeds

1/2 tsp dried coriander/cilantro flakes

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp olive oil

6 tbsp water

Mix dry ingredients together.  Add oil.  Add water slowly, stopping when dough will form into a ball.  DO NOT ADD TOO MUCH WATER!  Too much water will make your crackers too wet to roll, cut, and enjoy.  That would be a very sad state of affairs.  So don’t be getting water happy.  (Don’t ask me how I know this.  You can torture me and I will not reveal the source of my knowledge.)

Roll out the dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin.  Make it nice and thin.  Cut with cookie cutters or use a knife to cut into squares.

Bake at 175c/350F for 15 mins.  But watch closely.  These puppies go from delightfully crisp to soot in 0.5 seconds.

Allow them to cool and then enjoy them with hummus or peanut butter or salsa… or whatever tickles your fancy!

And EcoBabe?  Just one day off of the offensive, glutenous rice cakes and he’s calmer, more interactive, and more responsive.  Ahhhhh.

Educational Cookies

EcoKid and I hauled one of our hunks of cookie dough out of the freezer yesterday.  Today, while EcoBabe was napping, we baked them up.  Not without incident, of course.  This is us we’re talking about.

The dough was a crumbly mess.  I eventually added some water to it to bring its consistency back to something roller-pin-able.  I swore a lot first.

But, once the dough was dough and not playground sand, things sailed along more or less smoothly.

We made dinosaur cookies.  We made animal cookies.  We made ALPHABET cookies.

Aren’t they adorable?  I’m in love with the cookie cutters that produced these cookies.  I’m in love with the cookies.  EcoKid spent ages assembling her name, sounding out her name, and informing me of the sounds made by various letters.

We also decided that we’re baking up a massive batch of these for a little boy we know who happens to be fascinated with letters… for his birthday in a couple of months time.

I hope your Sunday was as much fun as ours!!!

*** Edit:  Cookie cutter info.  These cookies were made with Faringdon Tinplate Alphabet Cookies Cutters.  I got them through Amazon in the UK several years ago.  I am not sure if they have a North American supplier.  And they are, in fact, pretty easy to use despite the teeny weeny cookies they produce!  Occasionally a letter wants to stick inside the cutter; to combat that, I keep a chopstick nearby which fits neatly inside the cutter from the top and, with a gentle poke, I pop the offending dough, shape intact, out the bottom of the cutter.  (We also know from experience that they don’t work very well with homemade playdough…)

Daddy Loves Doodle!

A fun little video of EcoBabe’s post-bath game.  This one is mostly for the grandparents, aunts and uncles visiting for kiddie updates.  I dunno, the rest of you might enjoy it too.