Jadeite
Lately I’ve been loving jadeite, with its milky mint-colour transparency, pretty indentations, glossy surface and way of picking up sunlight just-so. It would look so pretty on my wide white windowsill: I think an antique market trip is in order.
[photos, clockwise L to R, via: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]
Oatmeal candy
Try as I may to convince myself otherwise, I’ll never be much of a baker. I’m impatient. Can’t follow a recipe to save my life. Hate measuring cups. Never have flour in the cupboards. Or eggs in the fridge. I think box mixes are kind of scary, and don’t like fussy things – mixers and fondants and whipping buttercream until my arms turn to jell-o.
I’m a cook at heart, who stirs and braises and chops and substitutes and judges cookbooks by their photos and stories, ’cause I know I’ll never actually follow a recipe as I find it.
That said, I do have a sweet tooth – and despite my love of mangoes and apple slices with almond butter – sometimes only butter and sugar do the trick. This recipe was born of that necessity and ingredients I always have kicking around: oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, unsweetened coconut, salt and butter. They get tossed together, spread on a cookie sheet and baked in a medium oven – and the result is magical. 10 minutes later, I have crunchy and sweet and buttery little pieces of candy, which hint at salted caramel and apple crumble topping. They’re at once incredibly complex and completely unfussy.
A couple pieces with Earl Grey tea make the perfect snack on a rainy afternoon or after-dinner sweet.
Oatmeal candy
(makes 10 small pieces)
The eight-minute bake is a very rough guide. Depending on your oven’s temperament, it could be slightly more or less. Just watch for edges that are slightly golden, and a toasty smell that pulls you toward the oven. If you have it, unsweetened coconut is a star ingredient in this candy. And don’t omit the salt!
Ingredients
1c quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2c brown sugar
3Tbsp unsalted butter, melted (or salted, just omit the pinch of salt)
heavy pinch of sea salt
cinnamon, to taste
coarse sea salt, to finish
optional: shredded unsweetened coconut, chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In bowl, combine all ingredients. The butter should just barely coat the dry ingredients so they stick together. Spread mixture about 1/4 inch thick on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, pat firmly into place. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for approx. 8 minutes, until just golden. Remove from oven and lift parchment off cookie sheet to a counter to cool. While still warm, score with a knife for even pieces. Alternatively, keep in one large piece and break off bites as needed.
Will keep, covered, for a few days in a cool cupboard.
Collide
“We were walking down the street, holding hands. There’s a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”
[photo via]
Banana-almond soup
When it’s cold, I eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast. But – even with Toronto’s cooler-than-usual summer – it’s a bit warm mid-July for bowls of steaming oats.
Lately, bowls of oats have been replaced with bowls of frozen goodness.
I love frozen concoctions. The thought of it makes me cringe a little now, but when I was little I adored that first summer Slurpee (though I hated the glowing fluorescent tongue that came along with it). Garden raspberries found their way to the freezer and then mashed up into a make-shift sorbet. Same with grapes, which became little self-contained spheres of icy granita.
Lately for breakfast, I tuck into a bowl of green soup, but nothing tops cold banana-almond soup. A couple frozen bananas get whizzed in the blender with some unsweetened almond milk, a couple ice cubes and a huge scoop of raw almond butter. The result is unlike anything else – smooth, sweet, creamy, with flecks of nutty almonds and thick enough to eat with a spoon. Like a bowl of slightly-melted banana ice cream. It’s so, so good. Sometimes I top it with sprouted cereal for crunch, but more often then not I dig into a bowl as-is.
Frozen banana-almond soup
(makes 1 serving)
I keep a dozen or so very ripe bananas sliced and in the freezer, ready for whenever I want to make something sweet and frozen. Letting bananas get very ripe (i.e. brown and spotted) before freezing makes all the difference. I use almond milk and butter in this recipe, but other milks and nut butters would work equally well. Popping the mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes gives it a firmer ice-cream texture. It also makes great popsicles.
Ingredients
2 sliced, frozen bananas
1c unsweetened almond milk (Almond Breeze is great and easy to find)
1 heaping tablespoon raw almond butter (MaraNatha is my favourite)
a few ice cubes
Whiz everything but the almond butter in blender until smooth. Add the butter and blend to combine. Serve in a bowl with a spoon, or as a smoothie. Sprinkle with sprouted cereal or granola, for optional crunch.
Up
This morning, I floated high in the clouds, up in the sky, watching the sun rise with a dear friend.
It was the most perfect morning.
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