Pinterest, Pickles, Oat Milk, Jamaica and French Bread

30 September, 2017

Confession: I am crazy about Pinterest. Years ago when I first heard about it, I was extremely skeptical, thinking it was just another social media site. However, a few months ago a co-worker showed me how it works, and now I use it to save everything. It's like bookmarks and a search engine, with pictures. Great web tool and I don't have to be "social" at all.

So this week I tried a few recipes I found there...

Sriracha Fridge Pickles
Spicy and sweet and tangy, what's not to like about this? I added a few cloves for extra flavor. The chard stems in the original recipe were too stringy textured for me, even though it was baby chard from the garden. so I ended up tossing them and reusing the brine with carrots instead.

Oat Milk
This is something I've been meaning to try, but making soymilk was such an ordeal (soak, drain, rinse, blend, strain, cook) that it took me a while to want to try plant based milk again. Oat milk was so quick and easy! Just blend and strain and it's done. Tasted good plain and also with vanilla and sweetener added. Compare the cost of plant based milks at the store with the cost of a cup of oats, and it's an obvious win.

For straining plant based milks, cheesecloth is hard to work with and not easily reused; I highly recommend investing in a nut milk bag. I use Ellie's Best Nut Milk Bag, it is strong enough to can handle the pressure of  squeezing it quite hard to get the liquid out (as I found out when making the soymilk!).

Agua de Jamaica / Hibiscus Punch
Whenever I eat at a Mexican restaurant, I always want this sweet, tart drink. I've seen the dried flowers in the local Mexican markets and finally bought some to try to make my own. Here's how it looked on the stove.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it's cost effective, as the resulting liquid is concentrated enough to make several pitchers. Shown here is one pitcher made up, plus 2 jars of concentrate left over.

And finally, time to sit down and drink an iced beverage! (Yes, that's the same pitcher I used for the oat milk, but that was 2 days ago and it's all gone now.)

Homemade French Bread
There's probably nothing French about it at all, but it is delicious, I just made it today for the second time in a week. The full recipe made 2 giant loaves, which took a long time to eat. Bread is really best when fresh from the oven, so this time I halved the recipe and it made 2 normal loaves. Next time I want to try freezing some of the dough.

Before baking:

The finished product:

Today's bread incorporated the leftover pulp from making the oat milk, now time to taste test it!