a home in the making

6.30.2010

{create} almond butter

See that below? The chocolat-y goodness in the picture? Absolute bliss.

That is chocolate almond butter. Homemade. It's so good, so easy, and you can control the ingredients. The latter is a huge priority in our home right now.

Chocolate Almond Butter
Ingredients:

Almonds (raw or roasted. whatever your preference. I use raw.)
Chocolate bar (again whatever your preference. the chocolate above was 90% dark.)
Sweetener, optional

{Quantity is completely up to you. For this recipe, I used about 2 cups of raw almonds, 1.5 oz of super dark chocolate and a touch of stevia.}

Method:

Pour almonds in your food processor.
Let process, scraping down the sides as necessary. Friends, be patient here. This will take awhile. This batch took about 15 minutes. First the almonds will form a meal, then will start to form the butter. Keep processing until you reach desired consistency.
While almonds are processing, melt chocolate in the microwave, or in a double-boiler on the stove.
Once almond butter is at the right consistency, add in your melted chocolate and sweetener, if using.
Process until completely combined.
Transfer to air tight container and pop in the fridge.

We use almond butter on pancakes, in smoothies and ~~sometimes~~ by the spoonful for a quick snack. The great part about this recipe is it's flexibility. Add in whatever you're in the mood for: coconut, cinnamon, honey, cocoa powder, snickers, etc. I used a chocolate bar, because that's what we had on hand.

Enjoy! :)

6.28.2010

garden, year 2

I'm back with year two of my garden adventures. Last year was my first year growing ~~food~~, well, anything really. So I was excited this spring to branch out a little and get a little wild and crazy with the garden. Well, wild and crazy for me. And then the rains came. And didn't stop for about 3 months. Oy. Naturally, my little garden freaked. It was drowning! But I'm happy to report that the sun has come out finally, and we had our first harvest:

Spinach (oh yum), green onions and two of the cutest strawberries ever. Oh and they were delicious as well.

Source of the strawberries.

The wild and craziness this year was experimentation with seeds. I know not all the crazy, for experienced gardeners, but this novice has never grown from seeds and was little nervous. My neighbor is a great gardener and talked me into it -- and has patiently answered all my questions. Such as, how do I know when to pull up my carrots? Or beets? I tried to pull up an onion the other day. Not so much ready yet.

We have rogue cats and squirrels in our neighborhood that delight in ~~torturing me~~ digging up anything I plant. So up went a little fence to protect my seeds. It worked like a charm! Above, carrots and onions (from seed!).

Beets. Are they're leaves gorg? And, round 2 of cilantro. We lost round 1 in the great spring flood.

Swiss chard. Yum. This one I started way later than the other seeds, so it's a bit smaller. I'm itching to start harvesting! {Please disregard the pesky weed poking his head through. He's been properly disposed of.}

Tomatoes! We had some major tomato problems last year. After a lot of research, I found a few ways to change up my soil. Crossing my fingers it works and I have healthier tomatoes this year.