Space Jam©

Space Jam©: Left to right: Rhubarb,
Citrus (mixture of lemon and orange)
and Strawberry, plus T&G Powder

I've been making some dried fruit powder, and making Space Jam© out of it.

• Dehydrate fresh fruit until it's really dry and crisp.

• grind it to powder. 

I store the powder in the freezer but i mix some in shaker spice jars.

1:1 mixture of fruit powder and sugar free powdered sweetener. 

Serving: spread peanut butter on a cracker, shake Space Jam© on top to taste. It's pretty darned good, but none of the carbs or calories of sugar. 

I took this mixture on a family campout, and my niece decided this needed to be called Space Jam©. So it's Space Jam© now. 

Also: roast tomatoes with fresh garlic. Dehydrate completely. Grind to powder for T&G (Tomato & Garlic) powder. Still working on the best application for this one. 

NB: Rhubarb, Lemons, Tomatoes and Garlic from my own garden. Strawberries from Spooners. Oranges from the produce department.

NB: Apricot Space Jam© is not worth the effort. Needs a fruit with some zing. Going to try Raspberry and Blackberry soon. 

Peanut Butter & Rhubarb Cookies

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana, about ½ cup mashed
¾ cup old fashioned oats
¼ cup creamy peanut butter
¼ cup rhubarb, fresh, diced
3 TBSP mini chocolate chips

 
Double Batch:
2 ripe bananas, about1 cup mashed
1½ cup old fashioned oats
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup rhubarb, fresh, diced
⅓ cup mini chocolate chips

 
Instructions:
• In a large bowl, mash the banana and add oats. Combine with spatula, and stir in peanut butter. Mix everything until all ingredients combined.
 

• Fold in chips and rhubarb pieces. Alternative: use a stand mixer or electric mixer on medium speed, but be careful not to over-mix.
 

• Scoop about a tablespoon of cookie dough on to baking sheet lined with silicon or parchment. The batter will be fairly wet. Once you arrange the cookie dough on a baking sheet, gently shape each cookie into more uniform and rounded shapes with your fingers.
 

• Bake for 12-14 minutes at 350 F. WARNING: These over-bake quickly.
 

• Let the cookies cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them onto wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy warm or at room temperature.

Blackberry Pie

We were given some fresh blackberries. And I like pie. So I made pie. We really enjoyed it. 

Ingredients:

3½ cups (to maybe 4 cups) fresh blackberries

½ cup white sugar, more or less, to taste, divided

½ cup (maybe a little less) all-purpose flour

1 (9 inch) double crust ready-to-use pie crust

2 tablespoons milk

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 425F (220C)

• Load one pie crust onto pie plate. 

• Save out a TBSP of sugar. Combine the rest of the sugar with the flour and the berries. 

• Put the second pie crust on top. Find a fancy way (or at least an efficient way) to seal the edges. 

• Brush the top of the pie with the milk and sprinkle the reserved TBSP of sugar on top. (This would be a good place for fancy large-crystal sugar, wouldn't it?). 

• Cut 3 or 4 modest size vent holes. Be creative with them if you feel like it. 

• Bake 20 minutes at 425F. Reduce to 375F (190C)  until filling is bubbly and crust is golden brown, an additional 25 to 30 minutes. 

• Bring it out and let it cool on a wire rack or such for at least half an hour. 

• Serving suggestion: serve with vanilla ice cream of some sort. 

• In a day or two, it should look like this:

Comment: We really loved this pie. This recipe is absolutely a keeper.

 

Atholl Brose Oatmeal Cookies

When you make Atholl Brose, you’ll have leftover whiskey-soaked oats. This is something worthwhile you can make with them.  These are really quite good.

 

Ingredients:

½ cup oats, soaked in whiskey, now ¾ cup in volume

3 TBSP salted butter, softened

¼ cup brown sugar, packed

2 TBSP granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 egg yolk, large

¼ tsp vanilla extract (bourbon vanilla is best)

⅓ cup all purpose flour

¼ tsp cinnamon

healthy pinch of salt

Instructions:

• Pre-heat oven to 325°F (160°C).

• Mix butter and both sugars until well blended.

• Add egg yolk & vanilla. Mix well.

• Add whiskey-soaked oats. Mix it together well.

• Ideally, mix all dry ingredients together separately & add to these wet ingredients. (But I just mixed them all in, and mixed really well.)

• Spoon scoops onto a silicon baking mat on a baking sheet, or use parchment. Space about 2 inches. I got 8 medium sized cookies from this recipe.

• Bake for 6 – 8 minutes. Watch carefully; these will want to spread out a lot.

• Cool on the silicon mat for a few minutes and then on a cooling rack.

Suggestion: Serve with Athol Brose. Or vanilla ice cream.

Atholl Brose

Ingredients:

½ cups oatmeal (steel cut preferred, but not necessary)

¾ cup filtered water

¾ cup decent Scotch whiskey (I used Trader Joe's Single Malt Highland house brand, but a competent blended whiskey is just fine for this.)

1 TBSP honey

¼ cup double cream (The cream is optional.)

Instructions:

• Soak the oatmeal in the water for 24 hours.

• Add the Scotch. Soak for 36 additional hours.

• Strain the oats from the Scotch. (Use the oats for cookies.)

• Add (warmed) honey & cream

• Whisked until well mixed.

• Chill & serve.

Because of the cream, store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Dairy-free Peach & Scotch Bonnet Pepper Ice Cream

Combining a little bit of heat with sweetness and vanilla.

Equipment

1 Ice Cream Maker
1 Blender or immersion blender

Ingredients
4 large egg yolks
⅔ cups cane sugar
1 can coconut milk
1 can coconut cream
¼ teaspoon salt
1 TBSP bourbon vanilla flavoring
2TBSP + 1 oz brandy (We used Courvoisier)
1½ pounds of sliced fresh peaches (We started with 2 pounds of frozen fresh peaches, and ate about half a pound in preparation.)

Instructions
Prep your ice cream maker so that it is ready to make ice cream.

Prepare Scotch Bonnet pepper:
• Mince very, very fine.
• Soak in brandy in 2 TBSP brandy for a few days.
NB: I started with a dehydrated Scotch Bonnet pepper. I chopped it fine & rehydrated in brandy, marinating it for a week, mincing it finer after rehydrating. Next time: consider grinding dried pepper to powder & marinating the powder.)

Prepare peaches:
• If frozen, thaw.
• Stew gently in a medium saucepan over a low heat until softened.
• Divide in half. Blend half to pretty small texture. Stir in 1oz brandy.
• Cut the other half of the peaches into small pieces. (Recommended: keep stewing these until they begin to get soft.)

Prepare Custard:

• Combine egg yolks, coconut milk, sugar, and salt in a blender and process until smooth.
• Pour mixture into a medium sauce pan, and heat over medium low just until steamy. You should see little bubbles forming around the edge of the pan. Do not boil.
• Strain peppers from brandy. Stir in the finely minced, marinated pepper, reserving brandy.
• Continue to cook the coconut milk mixture until it has thickened to the consistency of a thin custard that will coat the back of a spoon. This will take longer than you expect.
• Remove the mixture from the heat and whisk in the vanilla extract, brandy from peppers & blended peaches.
• Re-blend again until smooth.

Refrigerate the mixture for 2-4 hours, or until the custard mixture is very cold.

Churn Ice Cream:
Pour cooled mixture into ice cream maker and churn until partly/largely frozen. This should take about 30-40 minutes.
When you’ve finished churning, the ice cream will have the consistency of soft serve ice cream. Pour into freezer-safe container. Make some openings in the soft ice cream and pour stewed peach pieces in to make ripples of peaches.
For soft-serve style ice cream, serve immediately. For a harder scoopable ice cream, place in the freezer for 2-3 hours.
Take out and place on the counter for 10 minutes to soften for serving.

This is actually pretty good.

Basic Banana Bread

 
INGREDIENTS

2 large eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
2 TBSP stevia powder (or more sugar)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted
1 TBSP buttermilk powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 medium bananas, very ripe
1¼ - 1½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup shredded coconut or coconut flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ - ¾ cup chopped nuts (I use cashews)
¼ tsp salt (optional if using salted butter)
Cooking spray or parchment paper.

INSTRUCTIONS
• Heat the oven to 350°F. Arrange a rack so top of pans will be in the center of the [toaster] oven.

• Melt the butter in the microwave. (Word to the wise: do not over-melt! Messy!)

• Crack eggs into mixer bowl. Mix on medium for a minute or two. Add sugar, stevia and vanilla and continue mixing until smooth.

• Add the over-ripe bananas piece by piece. Mix aggressively for a while. 

• Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Keep mixing. Add a TBSP or two of milk only if the batter needs thinning.

• Add the chopped nuts & mix them in. 

• Spray the insides of two 8x4 (medium sized) bread pans with oil, then coat the oil with flour. Or line them with parchment paper. (Parchment is preferred.)

• Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

• Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Bake until the top of the cake is caramelized dark and a toothpick or knife poked into the middle comes out clean. Baking time will vary — start checking around 30 minutes.

• Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
 
• Remove from pan and cool another 10 minutes on cooling rack.

• Enjoy with friends.

 

NoBake Peanut Butter & Coconut Cookies Freezer Cookies.

Ingredients

1⅓ cups creamy peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 TBSP cocoa powder unsweetened

2 cups coconut flakes unsweetened

2 TBSP butter (or margarine) melted

Instructions

Prepare a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick silicone baking mat.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter, vanilla extract, melted butted, coconut flake and cocoa powder and stir until well combined.

(If you like your cookies a little sweeter, feel free to add 1 or 2 teaspoons stevia or other artificial sweetener).

Scoop batter onto your prepared baking sheet. Use the back of the spoon to gently shape each scoop into into a 3" cookie.

Option: sprinkle a little stevia or erythritol on top.

Place in freezer for 30 minutes to set.

Store in an airtight container in the freezer.