Recipe : Horchata

Have you ever had Horchata (pronounced - or-chata)? 

I recommend you try it.  I had never had it, ever, in my life.

Until now.

I enjoy watching cooking shows on PBS Saturday Mornings (when I am not out and about doing anything else), and there is was Mexico One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless show on.  (I see now it is on the Live Well Network) 

At any rate, I saw an episode a long time ago, where Rick talked about how fabulous Mexican Horchata is.  It goes great with a spicy carnitas burrito he said.  I was like whatever dude, you are a crazy nut berger.  Basically what it was that he had described, was a sweetened almond/rice milk. 

A few weeks later I ended up seeing a post on the America's Test Kitchen Feed, and was like.. well, what do we have here?  Sounds simple enough!

And it was.

So, basically what you do, is you take slivered almonds, rice, vanilla, cinnamon and water and combine them.  Let them soak 12-24 hours, pulse it in a blender until smooth-ish, and then strain it, mix it with some evaporated milk and sugar. 

And WHAM-O!  Throw it in a glass over ice, maybe an extra sprinkle of cinnamon, and you have a delicious glass of Horchata!

 

It was quite sweet with the amount of sugar they said to add, they noted you could add 2 less tablespoons if you do not like yours quite as sweet, but I am thinking like maybe cut the sugar in half, and it might be more adequate. 

I may have had it in the morning while I sat outside eating cinnamon-sugar toast.

DIY Horchata (Adapted from America's Test Kitchen)

Makes about 5 cups

1 1/3 cups Slivered Almonds

1 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/3 cup Long Grain Rice

4 1/2 cups Water

1 cup Evaporated Milk

1/4 cup Granulated Sugar

Take the first 4 ingredients and put them in a blender, and put the lid on. Shake it around a little.  Let it sit for about 16 hours - up to 24.  (Please note I did mine for 24 hours, and it was about 70 degrees out - if it is warmer, you might want to shorten the time.)

Line your strainer with some cheese cloth, put it over a large bowl and set aside. 

 

After your almond rice mixture has set out long enough, turn on the blender, and blend that stuff up!  (You could probably use a Cuisinart, but I am not that fancy.) Blend the mixture until relatively smooth.  It took me almost a minute or so.

 

Then pour the mix into the cheesecloth strainer set up you have going, let it strain itself out.  Once it has pretty much done it's work, take up the edges of the cheesecloth, and twist the cloth in a pouch to squeeze as much as the almond rice goodness out as you can.  Then toss the pulp packet out.

 

Stir your almond/rice water mixture, evaporated milk and sugar together in a pitcher/bowl until the sugar is dissolved.  (you can add more sugar if you would like, or leave out a sugar bowl when serving it for individual tastes.)

 

Then chill it for about 2 hours, and enjoy! 

 

You can store leftover Horchata in a jar with a tight fitting lid for up to 3 days in the fridge.

I will admit, I am pretty impatient, and I automatically put it in a glass over ice, tossed a little more cinnamon on it, and loved it up.

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Weekend Update : RELAXING!

I had a fantastic weekend, I hope you did too!

Here's the rundown:

Saturday I woke up, got my food ready for the Stamp Out Hunger food drive.  It was super easy, they give you an empty bag a few days in advance, you fill it with good dated non perishables, and then set it out on the day selected, and the postal workers pick it up! 

How easy!  Anyways, so I did that, and then went to the gym, hung out on the Dreadmill for a bit, came home, showered, grabbed the hubster and went to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market to pick up some plants for our garden.  I ended up putting them in the window sill until later this week, because it is supposed to freeze tonight(and then warm up to 90!).

While we were there we saw this guy that we had met a couple years ago giving away sample tastes of Mean Green at our local Cub Foods.  We ended up buying 2 bottles.  He has you try it on a piece of french bread, and I swear, I would be just fine the Mean Green like that.

While we were at the Farmer's Market it was frozen raining on us for a brief moment.  Where they would have been rain drops, except that they froze, and never thawed by the time they landed on Earth.

After that we came home, unloaded our stuff, I tried to take a nap, the Hubster went and got a haircut, called me up, and we headed to Menards to pick up some stuff to add to the soil since ours gets so dry and crumbly.  We also ended up picking up a cheap table and chair set for our deck, since I really like to eat outside, it is basically a necessity.

After Menards we went out to eat at the Lone Spur Bar and Grill, where I had a Coronarita!  I at first only ordered a water, however the Hubster was upset that I wasn't drinking.  (what a weirdo)

The drink was only $10. But think about it.  It's a margarita, and a 12 oz. beer.  The Hubster's 2 beers were $12 or something.

Then we napped.  Well, I basically went to bed for the night, he napped, and watched NASCAR. Gross.  Glad I slept through that.

Sunday we woke up, and I scooted over to Caribou for their BOGO offer for Mother's Day.  When I got back the Hubster was washing dishes. He sat down with me to finish watching CBS Sunday Morning, and then we started moving around. 

We finished up the dishes, then moved outside to the deck to take care of the climbing vines from last year's Morning Glory's, 4 o'clocks and Moon Flowers.  And to set up our new deck set.  We grilled Corn on the cob (in it's husk) from the Market, potatoes and chicken.  

It was a particularly lovely day! 

How was your weekend?!

Dinner : Spaghetti and Garlic Knots!

Yesterday I came across this blog post for Garlic Knots by Baking in my Bathing Suit.  It was snowing outside (I know... in May. How gross!).  And I really needed some comfort food. (Comfort food - see pasta, white bread, carbs.)


Everyone at work seems to be bringing salads right now.

I had my salad packed and ready to go for lunch, and it wasn't seemingly all that appealing.  But I ate it anyways.  Since I was so good about eating 'right' for lunch, I decided I should be able to splurge for dinner, at least a little bit.

And her Garlic Knots looked DELICIOUS! (plus I hate vampires).  Well, maybe I do not hate vampires.  But I do not feel like meeting any, any time soon.

Ready for the oven!

Let's just say that I perhaps am quite inept at making knots with dough. I can tie my shoes with relative ease - but those are tied in bows!

Right out of the oven, last brushing of garlic butter mixture.

Don't they look tasty?  They smelled wonderful too!  I had to hold myself back from trying one straight out of the oven, trying not to burn my tongue (which always happens with pizza!).


Heading to the table!

They made it to the plate (mostly).  Not going to lie, there were a few casualties.  But they were devoured with care and consideration (you know, so that I did not burn my tongue!).

This morning I woke up to a text from the hubster's brother, thankfully none of our snow that fell stuck around.  In Southern Minnesota however, the story is quite different.  A total of 10" fell. So glad we are heading down tonight for a 'Wild Ladies Night Out'. (I know, on a Thursday??)

Please note, I do not drink Coors

I am the odd duck out every time I go down there (if the girls are not drinking wine anyways).  I am currently dabbling with some Smartini in the Pomegranate flavor.  1.5 oz has 34 calories.  I fill a glass with ice, top it with Sprite Zero, and a splash or two or the Smartini. It is pretty tasty, but it's only 25 proof.  (not nearly as tasty as my Cherry Rum at 42 proof - or Bacardi Torched Cherry-no idea on proof. Did you check out how I make the Torched Cherry Lemonade? Basically lemonade with a splash of Torched Cherry, splash of grenadine, and a cherry, oh summer, how I wish you would come soon..)

Do you have any low calorie favorites to share?

Cold Brewed Coffee!

I have a new obsession.  I will admit it.  It is borderline cRaZy.  But, I am okay with it, because it also saves me a couple of greenbacks a week.  Okay.  Honestly, about $20 a week.  Which is uber ridiculous.  I know.

Please note, both are not mine! One is the Boyfriend's.

See, I drink what I would call 'fake' coffee drinks.  I go to the Caribou, or Starbucks and order a mocha of some sort, lately it's been over ice. At Caribou it's a White Northern Lite Mocha - no whip.  Or at Starbucks I get a Mocha Frappuccino.  I generally will go to Caribou though, not sure why, maybe because it is sweeter. 

But my problem comes in, that I will stop 3-4 times a week. In my city, I pay $4.70 a pop.  And that is too much to be wasting a week; I would rather buy shoes or something more fun, and lasts longer.

So I was floating around trying to find a way to make something as enjoyable at home.  I found this blog, but there are tons out there with a recipe.  And they all pretty much follow the recipe published in the New York Times.

People say cold brewed is better for you, as it it is less acidic.  I say okay...?  Whatever that means.  The coffee does taste better than the made in a coffee maker, and cooled coffee.  There is a different flavor in it.  I am serious!

My dad quit drinking coffee because he wasn't enjoying the flavor any more.  I didn't know that, and brought him some when I went to the Patriot Ride (post can be found here).  He was quite surprised that it was Folger's cold brewed coffee, as Folger's was his brand he drank, and he said his didn't taste like this.. :)

I like Snapguide.  It's an app for my nifty iPhone.  It hasn't really caught on I don't think.  They have a little fine tuning to do, but I hope it does catch on.  You can make step by step guides in a SNAP! :)

You can see the guide that I created here if you would like, but it is pretty basic.

You will need a large container, preferably with a cover. A strainer, a coffee filter or two, a large bowl for the strainer to sit in, filtered water and your favorite blend coffee of course!



Basically everything you need!

The recipe:

1 cup of coffee, ground

4 1/2 cups of filtered water

Put them together in a container, stir them up to make sure all of the grounds are wet, set it on the counter for 8-12 hours.  I do this while I sleep, and in the morning, I set up the strainer, put a coffee filter in it, and strain it. 

AND Boom! Coffee is ready to enjoy.  But not straight - are you nuts?! This is a highly concentrated mixture!!



Mix it half and half with water-milk, cream what have you, and enjoy with ice.  The NYTimes says you can heat it/add hot water to it, but I am currently not interested in trying it that way.  I fill the cup about half way with ice, dump the coffee mixture in about 3/4 full, put some milk, and about 1/16 cup of Italian Sweet Cream Coffee mate.



Hello lovely!

I am not going to lie, it is kind of nice to come home in the morning after a 'run', grab a shower, get ready for work, dump this together and head off to work.  I will literally head to bed looking forward to the morning, because I know I will be enjoying this!

Hope you try it - SOON!