Blue Moon Ceremony, Feast and Nut Butter

Today has been a very busy day! I have not stopped much, but have gotten lots done and eaten more than my fill! I am absolutely stuffed with foods... let me tell you how it went in the kitchen!

I have been up since early this morning, because a certain child decided to get up around 6am, so since I was awake, it was the perfect time to just jump in and get things done for the day. 

We don't eat meat very often, actually we have spent more than a few years as very strict vegans, however, during the last couple of years have introduced a very limited amount of lamb, duck, goose and fish into our diets. Especially if they are our own.

Everyone had decided lamb was in order for today, so I had a leg of lamb ready to go into the oven this morning. I didn't do anything special with it - just lots of baby shallots, garlic, salt, pepper and dried sage from my herb garden.

This was slow cooked all morning while I prepared mixed root vegetables, fragrant rice with spices, fresh grated salad of beetroot, apple, carrot, cucumber, red onion with a balsamic vinegar, honey mustard dressing. 

I served our dinner with herbed bread and gravy made from the lamb. It was lovely! Then for our dessert we had a mini buffet of salted nuts, mango slices, date squares, flapjacks and dandelion coffee - which we took outside because the day was so nice. 

Throughout all of this cooking and eating, I found the time (finally!) to open my new toy - a Kenwood Chef mixer, blender, food processor. I had been waiting all week to use it because it was bought for primarily one thing.

The very last item (I think?) on our list of shop bought factory made foods that has to go is nut butter. However, we love this stuff and have been eating it for many years. My favourite would be hazelnut butter while the kids love tahini and sunflower seed butter. 

With this type of food on the way out, I needed to be able to make my own. After much research we decided on the Kenwood - hoping it would be able to grind the nuts enough to make a paste or a butter. I was willing to go with it, even if it was a bit rough.

Tonight, I roasted 2 cups of almonds on 180 degrees C for about 10 minutes or so. Then poured one cup at a time into the blender. Even though the machine comes with a food processor, it is completely plastic which is never a good idea around foods. 

Almonds in the blender 

As an aside, these food processors contain BPA plastic, which are some of the worst offenders when it comes to leaching chemicals into the food. Oily foods such as nuts, are not a good idea in plastic, nor is it wise to use with heated foods. 

I did look for a stainless steel food processor, however they were only available in a high end commercial type (it was lovely!) but way too much and too big for our needs at the moment. 

After reading so many comments from people who make their own nut butters using various types of machines, I knew to keep running the blender until the nuts started to clump together from the nut oils in the almonds. 

After about 6-8 minutes, it did just as it should and formed a nice nut butter. The smell is heavenly, everyone had a little taste - it was given a pass and we are now in business where nut butters are concerned. 

Voila Almond butter! 

I am quite excited by this machine and can't wait to see if it can be as useful as it appears. Perhaps, my entire kitchen experience is about to change! LOL

Oh, and we had a very nice Blue Moon ceremony outside - just as we were about to close our circle, a great flock of young crows (ravens?) flew overhead, it was all we could hear for a few minutes until they had passed over. 

I had chills down my back, it was beautiful,

Enjoy your Blue Moon!

April

Blue Moon Ceremony - me and my children 

Getting Ready for a Feast!

It feels as if I have hardly been in the kitchen at all - yet I have been cooking, baking and making foods (mostly treats) since early this morning. I am trying to fit in something special for everyone, and still have a list to work from! LOL

Today I made more date squares, because they were such a hit and are so tasty with a cup of dandelion or barley coffee. This time around I made them a little differently but putting more spices into both the date mixture as well as with the crust. 

I added into the chopped dates a teaspoon of cinnamon, lemon juice, water and some date syrup - this all cooked up into a paste and was then sandwiched between each layer of the oat butter crust. I also added some allspice into the crust mixture to give it more of a flavour.

It smells lovely with that warm, cozy scent only found from toasted oats! I can't wait to try them tomorrow.

Then I made some Hazelnut honey halva (due to popular demand), this was one of the treats we used to buy and I have not ever attempted to make it myself before now. I found a recipe from an old Middle Eastern book and mostly followed that.

It can be a bit tricky with temperatures and getting the mixtures right - once it is all into the pan to set, it then needs to cool and crystalize for 36 hours. Right now we are at this stage, and I will let you know how this one turns out. 

My real adventure today was toasting the hazelnuts. Of course, the halva recipe mentioned hot roasted nuts as being best, but with the skins off. Apparently the best way to remove skins from hazelnuts is to gently roast them for about 10 minutes then to rub off the skins in a coarse kitchen towel. 

Hazelnuts - removing the skins

It worked! The skins came off the nuts, for the most part and I was able to crush them a little before adding to the halva mixture. Fingers are crossed on this one...

Next I was still feeling adventurous, so I decided to make some flapjacks mainly for the children, but we love them as well. I like a recipe I can add or change ingredients for, and this one is ideal. Today I put seeds (sesame, sunflower) walnuts, sultanas, chopped apricots and coconut into the oat mixture and it turned out ok.

I was aiming for more of a chewy flapjack, however it was a bit crumbly and could have been left in the oven for another few minutes. They are quite tasty though, with the crumbly bit not too bad and no one really even noticed but me!

Near the end of the day, I decided to make something savory (mostly for myself) to offset all of these sweet treats. Of course, one of my favourite snacks is a Rosemary goat's cheese muffin, so now we have a batch of these as well. 

Flapjacks, date squares, goat's cheese muffins - looking forward to the party! 

All in all, today was a busy day gearing up for our feast, tomorrow will bring even more tasty bites for our Blue Moon party, now I have to decide which ones.....

Have a happy Blue Moon!

April

Looks blue to me!