Green beans, crackers and healthy hot chocolate
Good morning!
After Sunday's glorious weather I was ready to commit to summer. And then I got an email from Adrienne about snow this weekend (!) along with a healthy blender hot chocolate recipe. Perhaps a spoonful of hot chocolate makes the cold weather go down? In any case, scroll down for the recipe.
In other news
I am full on into that #sourdoughlife. I'm hooked on these super easy crumpets – I still don't have English muffin rings (they are surprisingly hard to come by), so I'm going to try a big skillet version today – and I've been making crackers, too. (They go especially well with David Lebovitz's vegan "faux gras", which I made with hazelnuts though I think next time I'll try sunflower seeds.) I will be baking this Sourdough English Muffin Bread this afternoon. And last week I made my first-ever sourdough "boule", which leaned much more into pancake territory, the slices resembling pieces of biscotti.
It tasted good, though, especially dipped into big bowls of vegetarian borscht. I made the one in Please to the Table, and it's packed with produce: not just beets, cabbage, potatoes and onions but also carrots, celery, pepper and even apple. This one is somewhat similar.
And on the side of less work, this simple recipe for green beans is shockingly good. (It is, though, making me nostalgic for the green beans at Le Swan, which were part of my last restaurant meal back in early March.) It's going to be a summer staple, I think, especially if I manage to grow beans.
Hot chocolate
Thanks to Adrienne for sending this along! She says you don't even need to soak the cashews, so this is instant gratification whenever you need it. (Optional for those who like extra work is straining through cheesecloth.) In her words:
Just came across this recipe and given that it's supposed to snow this weekend I thought I'd pass it on for anyone who likes to cozy up to a fire with a good book and...well, you know...
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 pitted medjool dates
- 2 tbsp unsweetened, raw cacao powder
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
Put everything in a high-speed blender like a Vitamix or Ninja and blend it on high for 1 full minute. If you only have a regular blender, you may want to wait to try this one. It comes out pretty thick because of the nuts but it would be downright chewy if you don't have a heavy-duty blender.
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