Chocolate Black Bean "Cookies"

For anyone that’s talked to me at least once in the last three months, you’ll know that ‘cleansing’ has become a part of my daily routine.  What this means is that I’m continually striving to rid my diet of preservatives by eating whole foods and trying my best to eliminate wheat, dairy and refined sugars.

On one hand I feel amazing.  My body has a sense of clarity and lightness that I’m adamant on maintaining.  On the other hand, sometimes I just want to eat a cookie.  Maybe a scoop of ice cream.  Definitely a poutine.

 

The goal of all of this is to eventually move away from strict periods of cleansing, with a start and end date, to a sustainable routine for everyday life.  Where eating a cookie, some ice cream, and maybe even a poutine is okay … every once in a while.

I’ve found that the best way to survive is to find healthy and clean alternatives to the things I crave the most.  Now the important thing to remember is that rarely will these things every really substitute for what I’m missing.  But they can help curb the craving.  A kale chip will never give me the same satisfaction as a potato chip, but I’ll get the salt and the crunch, and often that’s all I’ll need to keep me from running to the 24-hour convince store across the street for a bag of crunchy cheetos at 11pm. 

Cheetos aside, my most prevalent craving is for sweets, namely baked goods.  So, when I’d heard someone mention black bean cookies my interest was peaked.  Being Asian, and subsequently living in Korea (home of the black bean filled waffle fish, for lack of a better description), I am familiar with the idea of beans as sweets.

Taking to the interweb, I quickly found a simple recipe that I could make some minor substitutions to make the ‘cookies’ gluten and dairy free.  For sugar, I opted out of white sugar or honey, and went with some coconut palm sugar that I left over in my pantry.

Again, this is not a tollhouse double fudge chocolate chip cookie.  Mrs. Fields won’t likely be adding this recipe to their portfolio anytime soon. But, that’s not what I was going for.  I wanted something chocolaty that bears a standard resemblance to a cookie and in this case, it’s enough.

Recipe below (adapted from A Couple Cooks)

Ingredients:

· 1½ cups canned black beans (drained)

·  2 tablespoons olive oil – I used coconut oil

·  2 tablespoons peanut/almond butter

·  2 tablespoons almond milk

·  ½ cup honey – I used coconut palm sugar

·  5 tablespoons cocoa powder

·  3 tablespoons whole wheat flour – I used coconut flour

·  1 teaspoon baking powder

·  ¾ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1.   Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2.   Rinse the beans and drain them; save out 48 beans for decoration (3 per cookie – or omit this step if desired). In the bowl of a food processor, add the remainder of the black beans, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 2 tablespoons milk, and ½ cup honey. Blend until smooth.

3.   Add 5 tablespoons cocoa powder, 3 tablespoons flour,1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon baking powder and ¾ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt to the bean mixture and blend until smooth and the batter resembles a thick mousse.

4.   Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spoon 16 evenly distributed dollops of batter. Bake for around 10 minutes (the cookies should still be a little soft when you remove them from the oven). Place the saved black beans on top. Set aside a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Where does the time go?

It’s been months. Months of trudging away day-to-day, months of nine to five, months of going through the motions of surviving the winter. As grey day begets grey day, we dust the snow from our shoulders and patiently look past the clouds to warmer times.

Well it’s now late-March and sitting in my bed, sipping tea, I feel sunshine streaming through my bedroom window and the promise of spring is quickly becoming a reality despite the frosty bite in the air.

Spring is the time to be productive, so I tell myself. In the winter we need to rest (so I tell myself). However, despite my break in blog posting I haven’t taken a full break in making beautiful things to blog about. So, now that I’m feeling hopeful again I will attempt to play catch up over the next few weeks until it really is spring and the winter gloom has lifted leaving us with the itch to start spinning creativity once again. 

Candle Making 101

A few weeks ago this conversation took place:

P: Hey Jenn, you wanna make homemade candles with me sometime?

J. What kind of candles? 
P. Never mind, your heart isn't in it.

J.  I would make soy candles.  Do you know how to make them?

P. No, do you?

J. No.  What kind of invitation is this?

P. What do you mean? I have to know how to make them before i extend the invite?
J. Yes.
P. Not fair of you to assume.
J. Okay, I apologize.
P. Forgiveness granted.

Which resulted in 12 home made soy candles in my kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, three weeks later.  For those of you that might want to pursue a similar undertaking, fear not.  A quick google search, a trip to Michael's (make sure you check for coupons), a mail order from Etsy and a stop at the Dollar Store will yield all you need to be your very own candle making virtuoso.  

The Supply List:

Soy flakes:
For the wax flakes, we went with the 4 lbs bag from Michaels (purchased with a 50% off coupon, whoop whoop).  According to the interweb, 1 lbs of wax flakes will produce up to 16oz of candle.  We figured we would do a combination of 4 and 8oz. candles, conditional on the size of containers we would decide to use.

Wicks:
I bought these at Michael's too.  If possible, purchase tabbed wicks (with the metal disks on the end) so that you can hot glue gun the wicks to the bottom of your candle containers.  Unfortunately my 50% off coupon was only valid for one item, so I had to buy these at full price (12 wick for $5).  You win some, you loose some.

Scented oils:
After realizing that I have no idea where one would buy these in person, I took to my go-to-girl Etsy, and ordered five 1oz. bottles from Indigo Fragrances.  Fireplace, eucalyptus and balsam & cedar for P, and vanilla wood and a simulation of Clinique's happy for myself.  

Containers:
Most people are super boring and use votive holders.  For myself, I had an image of dozens of small mason jar candles stacked on top of each other, waiting to be cute.  The other perfect option that I was too lazy to pursue, was colourful and gilded Moroccan tea glasses.  Maybe next time.  For the most part we went the mason jar route, P dared to be more creative and filled gorgeous green glass container.  

After that, we pretty much followed these step-by-step instructions, taking as many liberties as we could get away with along the way.  Instead of a double boiler we settled for a metal bowl over a pot, we used chop sticks to hold our wicks up, and because of my poor math skills, I don't think we put enough scented oil in our candles to make them truly 'aromatic'.  But, I thought it would be better for the scent to be subtle than overwhelming.  We'll know better for next time....  Those Moroccan tea glass candles are going to smell great.  

However, all in all I'm happy with how the candles turned out.  They are exactly as functional and aesthetic as I hoped they would be. In fact, I'm burning one right now and feeling quite proud of my Saturday afternoon's work.

 

Maybe the second time I've used this food scale.  Also, it wouldn't even hold a full pound of wax without overflowing, so it was mainly for show

The first time I've used this candy thermometer, purchased specifically for this project.  Next time it will be in pot of fudge

Taking the Cake

Recently while away on vacation, I was able to do a lot of the things I love to do.  No sewing on this trip, but plenty of eating, swimming, surfing, hiking, and near the end, even a little bit of baking...

For a while, my cousin Monica had been sitting on a recipe for a ridiculously indulgent cupcake.  Not just a regular cupcake, but a dark-chocolatey, salted-caramely, sweet and crunchy explosion of a cupcake.  A cupcake to build reputations on (in fact, Kir Jensen, of The Sugar Cube, DID earn her good name in the baked sweets business with this heavenly treat).  With me visiting to help her in the kitchen and a birthday beach picnic for her husband on the agenda, the occasion was perfect for the massive undertaking.

If you're so inclined to try them yourself (recipe here), you'll find that there are four components to the finished product: the cupcake, coffee syrup, sexy bittersweet ganache, and a salted caramel sauce.  Each painstakingly produced to create a perfect medley of salty-sweet, cakey goodness.

Though making the cupcakes took an entire morning, I quite enjoyed the assembly line construction of each little cake.  First, bake the cupcake.  Then glaze with coffee syrup.  After making the caramel, place into a squeeze bottle so that you can inject the cupcake centers.  Enough already, you say!  No, not quite.  We still need to dip each cupcake top into the sexy bittersweet ganache before carefully crowning with ruffle chips and drizzling with the extra caramel!  Swoon.  Melt.  Fall all over yourself getting in line for these goodies!

However, I have to say, my favourite part of all of it had to do with the coffee syrup: (From recipe) While the cupcakes are still hot, brush the tops with coffee syrup. You’ll use most but not all of it. Just discard the rest or use it in a cocktail. ... which we did.  And it was almost as delicious as the cupcakes themselves.  I wish I'd taken a picture.

Inspired by how well these desserts turned out, I decided to apply the same process to some birthday cupcakes I made this weekend for a good friend's party.  For moral support and good company I recruited Kelly's help, and we started the task all over again.



Photos courtesy of Kelly of Done Well 
 
Taking Ina's no fail, always delicious lemon yogurt cake recipe, I found a cup cake variation and applied the same process as above.  After baking the cakes, we glazed them with a lemon and sugar syrup and dipped in a white chocolate ganache (which, as a side note, needs a LOT more whisking and folding).  All in all, they were no highway to heaven, but were well received and cute to boot!

Not yours...

This beauty is done now.  I think it's my favourite so far.  I really love it.  More than I should.  It doesn't belong to me.  Soon I will have to say good-bye.  My only comfort, its reception into the loving arms of another.

 

Ruffled

 Little boy blue is expecting a baby sister.  What to make, what to make for this little summer bundle?  Not to long ago, my constant Pinterest browsing awarded me with a tutorial for a ruffled baby blanket that I decided was exactly what this eagerly awaited babe needed.

First though, fabric.  My fabric stash is immense.  Seriously, it's amazing.  However, with mainly fat quarters to work with, a project like this that requires long strips of fabric meant a stop at the Workroom!

Oh, wait.  I spend my summers in the middle of nowhere.  Make that the Rosseau Craft Room.  Though this little village shop has an enviable collection of flannels, it's printed cottons sway closer to the grandmother persuasion.  Pressed for time and options, I went with a colour combo that has never been a favourite, with the hope that I could supplement in something more modern from my own stash.  As luck would have it I had some left overs from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern, Orange Dahlia collection that ended up working perfectly to tie everything together.  On a side note, the Midwest Modern fabrics have lasted me through so many projects that I'll be so sad when it's all gone.

So, now we have a pretty baby blanket for a soon-to-arrive baby sister.  Something light for a summer baby.  Pink and black with a checkered ruffle and a polka-dot flannel backing.  The 'ruffles' in the original project didn't quite work out so well for me this time around, so hopefully baby will be satisfied with my simplified version.  If she gets a baby sister, maybe I'll try again.

 

Feast in the East pt. 2: An Indoor Picnic

This week, Sarah and I hosted our third 'Feast in the East' dinner. The original idea was to really celebrate the season and east-end living with a summer picnic in beautiful Withrow park. As sunny day after sunny day passed us by, we planned out our menu and mused over an evening to nosh and loll in the park with friends.

But as Tuesday night approached, the weather network sunshine icon we had taken for granted for months on end turned to grey clouds, which turned to rain, which turned into lightning bolts... Ugh.

Refusing the give up the picnic dream, we decided to recreate our outdoor fantasy, indoors.  We rolled out the wool point blanket, and set out a quilt clad table, topped with cold salads (caprese and quinoa), fresh fruit (rainbow skewered), breads (olive, rosemary sourdough and whole wheat baguette), and a charcuterie board (smoked salami, brie, and something delicious and European I picked out at the cheese market).  We displayed our finest mason jar glasses for sparkling water and white wine, courtesy of our guests, and served dessert (angle food cake, layered with vanilla icing and Ontario peaches) in small jam jars, just to be cute.  All in all, an improvised success.