Honey Garlic Sauce

Well, due to an issue of burning out my frying pan, I never got to make those wontons last night.   It was pretty bad.

I did, however, make the honey garlic sauce I had planned to use and boy is it yummy!  I made sure there was enough left for when I can chisel out my frying pan.  Maybe this will give me incentive to finally de-rust and season my cast iron skillet.

Note to self, a frying steak can turn on you in an instant!  Good thing the steak was still delicious and barely burnt at all!  My pan on the other hand.....

The best thing about this sauce is it retains most of it's goodness since it is not heated to a nutrient killing cooking temperature.  I don't know if it would still be considered raw by some standards but in any case, it's far more delicious and nutritious than the jarred stuff at the store or what they serve in a Chinese restaurant!

Honey Garlic Sauce

1 cup of water or beef broth
1/2 cup of raw honey (or more to taste)
2 or more large cloves of garlic , finely minced or grated
1tbsp molasses
1tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup water
1 heaping tbsp arrowroot powder/flour (or more if a thicker sauce is desired)

Honey garlic sauce on my basmati rice, veggies and steak,mmm!

Combine water/broth and honey in a small saucepan.  Stir well to mix and add garlic, molasses and Worcestershire sauce.  Heat at a low temperature until warmed.  Mix the second measure of water and arrowroot powder in a cup and add to the saucepan.  Keep stirring while it heats on low until it reaches desired consistency.

Cook Notes: I used water but I think it would be far better using beef broth.  The local garlic I use is huge.  Two cloves is half the bulb and is very potent so definitely adjust to taste!

Part of Simple Lives Thursday!

Happy Halloween!

Now, for something different, here are the kids and I enjoying some homemade honey popcorn. Please excuse the picture; I took it with my webcam and it was night but at least you get to kind of see me and my cute kids :)

It was supposed to be popcorn balls but it cooled off too fast and was too hard to form into balls. The kids were bringing it to a party so we broke it up and put it in little baggies. It was still very yummy and I will probably make it to put in the kids lunches for a treat sometime. It was quick to make and I know the kids like it. I may also try it with vanilla some time.

Honey Popcorn (Balls)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons of butter

10 cups freshly popped popcorn (remove any unpopped kernals)

salt to taste

Bring the sugar, honey and butter to a boil. Pour over the popcorn with salt to taste (if you want a bit of salt, which I find makes it a bit tastier) and stir it around. When it is cool enough to handle (but not set!), butter your hands and form into balls. Place on parchment paper covered cookie sheets and wrap as desired when cooled. If you don't want balls, it would be best to spread on cookie sheets when coated and break up when hardened.

Unbaked Pirate Cookies

Imagine my surprise when I discovered these are not common everywhere! They are one of my absolute favorite all time cookies. Kraft Pirate cookies. Ours were only 99 cents a box, dangerous, especially when you read the ingredients . Hmmmm. Can we do better at home?
Well, the story behind my recipe is that one morning before school, Ethan wanted a Pirate cookie. I thought since his school is nut free, it would be a bad idea since he'd go to school smelling of peanut butter and he would have the oils on his hands. He wanted it after school. There was only one left. I completely forgot he wanted it and ate it. Yes. Bad Mommy :(. That was weeks ago and I still haven't heard the end of it.
So yesterday I told him I would make peanut butter cookies. When I was a kid, my mom made cookies called P-oaties but apparently nothing like that exists on the internet that I can find. It is basically an oatmeal peanut butter cookie, sometimes made with chocolate chips.

Then I got busy. I realized I had to pick up the kids at their bus stop in 10 minutes. I looked for an unbaked recipe. They all had cocoa so I just omitted that. I also changed the ingredients around a little bit. Here is what I came up with and I will tell you what I would change for next time.
Unbaked Pirate Cookies

2 heaping half cups of honey (probably close to a cup and a half...too much!! see below)
1/2 cup butter, cut in small pieces
1/2 cup milk

Bring these three items to a boil and let boil for 3 minutes. Stir in the following:

pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup of peanut butter
splash of vanilla (1tbsp)
4 cups oatmeal

Mix well until the peanut butter is melted and it is well combined. Pour into silicone muffin liners or drop on parchment paper if not soupy. Chill.

Ok, these are super, super sweet. I should have just used 1/2 cup of honey. The recipes all called for 2 cups of sugar so I thought I would try to get close. Bad idea, too sweet, and I like sweet. Because of all the liquid, these were liquidy. I only had 4 cups of my Speerville organic Newfound oats left. Otherwise I would of just added enough so they would be like the drop cookie they were supposed to be. Next time, I will use a lot less honey as this was the big problem. They are delicious though but so sweet that when I tried to have a drink of milk after, I actually spit it out because it tasted bad from all the sweet on my tongue (note: the milk is good as I had some earlier).

All in all, once I got over the overpowering sweetness, they did taste like a pirate cookie! They didn't get too hard. I was suggesting to everyone to eat with a spoon since they were so gooey. I bought two more bags of oatmeal today so I will probably give them another whirl. However, I will probably make them with cocoa and not peanut butter so the kids can take them to school.

Part of Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS

Orange Blossom Honey Cake with Fresh Blueberries — Zoe Bakes

Orange Blossom Honey Cake with Fresh Blueberries — Zoe Bakes

Yummm...I made this cake yesterday and it is very yummy! Actually, I made the cake to bring to a potluck today and a cupcake so I could taste it. It was very good! I never used mace before and it had a nice taste to it so I imagine I'll be using more of it. I did make a couple of changes; I used all whole wheat. It didn't even occur to me until after I made it. I also tried using half olive oil instead of butter since I only had half a cup out. Won't make that mistake again! It overpowered the honey but it was still good. I also used a 9x13 baking dish since my recent bundt cakes haven't turned out so well and I couldn't afford for this not to turn out. I ended up baking it at a lower temperature the second half.

The kids and I picked 14lbs of blueberries the other day and on our vacation, we picked up a gallon of honey even though we have 3/4 of a 7lbs bucket left. Yumminess! Plus these two things go very well together :)

I haven't said anything in my main family blog yet, but my Facebook friends already know this. The kids are going to public school in the fall. The reasons are many. It will be hard to afford lunch and snack foods (their school doesn't have a cafeteria) so I plan to be making a lot more by scratch.

I will be posting more recipes here so I don't lose them, both successes and failures. I also want to try harder to eat more local food. I will be working on alternative food preservation (other than canning) since a lot of my past canning efforts were ruined plus from what I have read, there is a lot of nutrition loss with canning due to the heat processing. I am looking forward to having more free time to do this.

I am bound and determined to at least get a quarter of an organically raised local beef (they're still $2.50 a pound but will probably go up soon since they have finally been certified organic. I am debating between a local side of pork or a local pastured side of pork (as in advertised as pastured), the difference in price being $100. Maybe I should try to contact the farmer of the one not claiming to be pastured to see how his pigs are raised. I once read of how some cities fix their garbage problems by getting pigs to eat it. Gross! I was pretty turned off by pork for a while after reading that.

So we will need to eat down our freezer to have room for this. I want to stop buying convenience foods, which take up a lot of room. One of the blessings of having the kids in school is I will have a lot of free time to do the cooking I have always wanted to do.

Aw, Honey, Honey

I was up early and thought I would write. We are in Dartmouth right now and I've been up for a while. We had an interesting day yesterday on our way up. It was raining buckets and often dark. We made a few stops. I got a couple of big bags of apples (one red delicious and the other crispin) and parsnips from Noggin's Corner. We got lost looking for honey. Mmmmm, yummy raw honey. I wanted to get our bucket filled since it was cheaper but the man there seemed kind of rushed to get lunch so we just bought a bucket off the table at Foote Family Farm. I guess the kids explored a little bit outside and saw the hives and other farm stuff but I didn't (otherwise I would of got some pictures). Since we felt like we were intruding, we kind of hurried along. The kids were so fascinated with the honey they wanted to play with it. Not the honey, but the bucket to pretend they had a honey store. While I was out, Ethan managed to accidentally pour out about 1.5 or so cups of honey. I wasn't too impressed by that.

In the city, we stopped at the Real Canadian Wholesalers on Connaught Street in Halifax. Wow, I can see why metro saints can build their storage on the cheap! There was so much stuff but we contained ourselves, lol! Dad's car has a much smaller trunk than ours. I could not believe milk was only $5.29! That's about $2+ cheaper than the price at Sobeys home (I never pay that price though). If we had a portable cooler with us, we would of been stocking up on a lot of stuff but it's probably a good thing we didn't. We did buy a 20kg bag of whole wheat flour and managed to only pay $7.50! (there was a tiny hole in the bag so half off). I also stocked up on coconut milk and some other things. I wanted to get more flour but the 20kg bags of regular Robin Hood weren't much cheaper than what we have home and as I mentioned, we have limited trunk space.

Last night Mark took the kids out for supper while I was at the temple. When I was done, I was starving and was craving veggies. I went to Sobeys and man the salads and fresh to go foods were awfully expensive. I went looking at the frozen foods and it took about three passes through the frozen dinners to find any that had even a minute amount of veggies. I ended up getting a General Tao Chicken entree and a small sweet potato to cook in the microwave. I really wanted asparagus but I didn't have anything to put it on to heat up (although I after thought I could of used the empty food tray).

Today, among other things, we are planning to go to the Halifax Farmer's Market. I have heard that is an awesome experience and can't wait. I know there is local spinach growing and I am regretting not getting some in the valley. I am craving greens! Must be spring, lol!

Giving Up On Wheat

I mean that in a number of ways but mainly in that I am giving up my make everything from home ground wheat. I love the notion of grinding all our wheat but I can see it's not feasible for me. If I want to make everything from scratch, I am not going to drive myself crazy doing it the most natural way possible. I woke up this morning and realized that it doesn't mean I love my family any less. If I weren't making everything myself even with store flour, they would be eating store bought, which isn't as healthy. Sure, I know flour doesn't have as many nutrients as it does when it is freshly ground and it is isn't as flavorful. It is one of those "Choose your battles" and I can't see myself grinding 200lbs of flour and having every loaf a chance. After 3 or 4 bad loaves of bread and one successful one with home ground, I'm going to go with what is almost always successful.

On a related note, we are possibly going for a weekend away next weekend (not the one coming up but April 9-11). I have been scouring places to find out what is in season in the valley. I found a place that has honey for $1.75 a pound! I'm getting a bucket, lol! I am also trying to find places that sell maple syrup. Last fall we got it at Forsythe's and it was about $12 a liter, cheap when you consider that at Sobeys it is $22 a liter. Real Maple Syrup goes a really long way too. I think we were using that liter from September to December and using it regularly. I want to get about a gallon, at least.

I checked and saw that many of the farm markets were either open or will be open. I know there isn't a ton that is in season now but I'll take what we can get :)

I am also going to be doing a meal plan Monday but I need to get my thoughts together on that first. We have used up more storage and there is some we have to toss so my freezer list has changed.