Coconut turmeric milk

This is a soothing evening beverage that seems to improve sleep, and also helps with inflammation. Most of all, it is super tasty! We started making it on doctor's suggestion, and we liked it so much that we continue making it. Recording it here so that we don't forget!

Ingredients for 2 cups:

• 1 cup low-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1 inch ginger root, slicet thinly
• 1-2 sticks cinnamon
• 1 star anise
• 5 cloves
• 1 TBS turmeric
• a good grinding of black pepper - boosts for turmeric absorbtion
• 2 TBS honey

Preparation:

• Bring all ingredients to boil
• Simmer for 8 minutes
• Strain, cool
• Add some more pepper if needed
• Drink while it is still hot

Millet porridge with peaches

Few things beat a good porridge. Oats are, of course, the default in the West, and rice porridge rules in the East. The chicken rice porridge I had on Singapore Airlines of all places opened a whole new perspective for me. I am yet to recreate that goodness.

Millet porridge, however, is quite common in Slovenia. In the US, we have no cooked it so much because it cooks forever in comparison to millet in Slovenia. We mill it quite a bit for baking, for example for super tasty gluten-free muffins, or for adding amazing texture to clafoutis. Porridge, however, has remained under utilized.

No more. The change came from a simple test when we soaked millet in water for a day or two before cooking, and it was suddenly done in no time. The next breakthrough was when Jasna found a recipe where they suggested cooking sliced peaches with the millet - it adds flavor, and no sugar is needed. Finally, I found a suggestion to use some coconut milk, and Jasna asked me to add some cardamom. The result was a porridge worthy of any table.

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 3/4 cup millet, soaked for 24h or more
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• Alternatively: 1.5 cups water and 1TBS coconut oil
• 1-2 peaches, cut into 3/4 inch chunks, approximately
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• seeds from 2 cardamom pods, ground with mortar and pestle
• pinch of salt

Procedure:

• Soak millet in water in the fridge for at least a day, two days works even better.
• Add all the ingredients to a pot, bring to boil and simmer until millet is cooked. It will take approximately 10 minutes. Add more water and cook some more if millet is too crunchy for your taste.
• Top with almond butter and shredded coconut, or with whatever tickles your imagination.

Master recipe for gluten-free muffins: millet, buckwheat, quinoa, sorghum, amarath

Our friend Rok offered a solution when we were looking for gluten-free bread-like recipes. It was his mom's buckwheat muffins. We tried them, and they were delicious!

Of course, I immediately glanced at our grain mill and flashed a big smile. It was game time!What variations of the recipe can one produce? It turned out that many variations worked well. This is intended to be a master recipe that one can use to exercise their own imagination.

We love the concept of savory bread-like muffins. We freeze them in muffin cups, and we defrost them one at a time: 44 seconds on high in our microwave seems to be a perfect time to get a hot fresh muffin!

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 2 TBS chia seeds soaked in 500ml = 17oz warm water
• 500g = 18oz gluten-free flour. Here are a few of the options that I have tried
• 500g buckwheat flour
• 300g buckwheat, 100g millet, 100g quinoa
• 200g buckwheat, 200g millet, 100g quinoa
• 200g buckwheat, 200g millet, 100g amarath
• 225g sorghum, 175g millet, 100g amarath
• Note: amarath is easiest to mill in a coffee grinder, the grain is super small
• 2TBS ground flax seeds. Grind them in a coffee grinder, NOT in the grain mill.
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 TBS vinegar
• 1/2 cup approximately sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup approximately hemp seeds

Procedure:

• Soak chia seeds in the warm water for at least 10 minutes until they swell. Stir or whisk a few times to avoid clumps
• While chia seeds are soaking, turn the oven to 400F.
• Put paper muffin cups in a muffin pan. This recipe yields 12 muffins.
• Mix the combination of flours you are using. I mill them fresh straight into a mixing bowl. First I weigh the grains in separate bowls, so that I can mill them one at a time. Milling one type of grain at a time is important because the mill may need a different setting for each type of grain.
• Add ground flax seed if you are using it.
• Sift baking powder and baking soda in the bowl with the flours, add the salt and mix thoroughly. 
• Add the seeds (or nuts if you choose to use them) and mix well.
• Add the liquids: soaked chia seeds with all the water, olive  oil, and vinegar.
• Mix well.
• Divide equally into the muffin cups.
• Bake at 400F for 35 minutes. Note - 30 mins may suffice in your oven, I suggest to experiment.
• Cool and eat.
• Freeze in a ziploc bag, defrost one at a time in a microwave. 44 seconds  on high in ours, yours will be different.

Note: 

We make a double recipe in a 24-muffin pan. The baking time in our oven is the same, 35 minutes. We freeze the muffins as soon as they cool down. 

Corn gazpacho

Recently we went to Napa to buy some beans at Rancho Gordo, and used that as an excuse for a mini trip. We were unlucky, Napa had some kind of a parade going on. It was packed, and parking was impossible to find. Our luck turned and we ended up having lunch in La Taberna, we walked in just as they were opening up. The choice of the restaurant was perfect, the melange of tapas we ordered was the best lunch we have had in a long time. Standing out was corn gazpatcho. Smooth, silky, sweet yet the flavors were balanced. It also looked really pretty, which makes it really unfortunate that I failed to take a picture.

I started looking for recipes for corn gazpacho and started to tinker. It didn't take too long before I had something that has been causing me to go to the farmers market to get fresh corn. Let me record the recipe so that I don't forget like I did with the tomato gazpacho I made a few years ago.

Ingredients:

• kernels from 3-4 ears of corn
• 2 medium size cucumbers washed and peeled if you want pure yellow color and less bitterness. 
• 1/2  sweet onion, chopped
• 1 large yellow pepper, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 2 medium yellow tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely
• 1 tsp miso paste - not too much, just to add a hint of umami
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp hot sauce, optional
• juice of 1/2 medium lemon
• 1-2 TBS rice vinger
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup water or kelp water

Preparation:

Blend all of the ingredients, and let stand in the fridge for a few hours or a day or two for the flavors to combine.

We prefer this gazpacho very smooth, so we blend it at the highest speed. At the same time, do not blend to long if you have a powerful blender like Vitamix so that the ingredients don't heat up too much. 

You can also leave gazpacho somewhat chunky. I prefer to introduce texture through garnish - some fresh corn kernels, green onion, pine nuts, diced ripe tomato, all of those have worked very nicely.