It turns out that if you sit next to your daughter on the couch and watch I, Zombie with her, she will assemble boxes for you. You may want to close your eyes during the gory / gross bits, if you’re me. 
Even a Bad Batch is GREAT
Don’t worry, I let Anand have some milk toffee….AFTER I finished taking the photo.
Me: How is it?
Anand: What do you mean? It’s milk toffee!
Me: Right, but it could be a bad batch.
Anand: Even a bad batch of milk toffee would still be GREAT.
All right then.
Taunting You Forever
I think I may have ruined the pot I usually make milk toffee in, using it for candle making — I’m having a hard time getting all the bits of candle spatter completely off, so it may be a dedicated candle pot now. Which is okay, but I had to make milk toffee, and I was a little worried that my 6 qt. all-Clad, which has notably lower sides, would not contain it. The results could have been bad.
Thankfully, it JUST fits. The first photo shows the level of liquid at start; the second shows it when it’s boiling up (and you do need to watch it then, so you can turn down the heat — might have been a disaster otherwise).
Then as it cooks down, the level drops, and by the time it reaches soft ball stage and you’ve added cashews, vanilla, and butter, it’s nice and low again. Whew! High drama in the kitchen…
Anand just came into my office and pathetically asked, “Are you EVER going to cut the milk toffee???” No, baby, I’m just going to leave the tray of it on the counter and taunt you forever….
(For Valentine’s sale, link here.)
Under the Tea Towel
What’s under the tea towel? Passionfruit, lime, and honey marshmallows. Kavi and I are agreed that we actually like straight passionfruit better, but this is nice for a change, and honey has some nutrients that are good for you, I think?
Had fun with new style of packaging for marshmallows. So cute. I’m probably still going to pack flat for ones that are going in small boxes, because they won’t fit if packaged this way. But this would be very charming in a shop display, wouldn’t it? Maybe in a year or two, we’ll have ramped up enough to try to sell in local places like Carnivore Oak Park and The Daly Bagel? It’s going to be a process, though.
Link to our Valentine’s sale here.
Getting Better at Edible Paper
I’m getting better at using the edible paper, I think — if you brush on a thin layer of icing gel to both the iced cookie and the back of the paper, it adheres pretty well without curling, esp. if you turn it upside down to dry. The edible paper doesn’t actually taste like anything, so in some sense, it’s sort of silly — my kids weren’t actually impressed with it. But fun to experiment with, and a nice decorating change. The COOKIES still taste good, anyway.
This was a ‘pick 3’ order (out of 15 options), $18 + shipping; she went for chocolate dipped crystallized ginger, chocolate dipped apricots, and a rose-vanilla cookie. I added in a few little chocolates as lagniappe — one dragonfruit and one made with the new ‘gold’ chocolate from Callebaut, which is sort of buttery/caramelly. Yum.
Kavi has now ranked her plain chocolates, and she thinks they are, best to least: ruby chocolate, gold chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, and dark chocolate. I told her she’d likely enjoy dark chocolate more as she got older and her taste buds shifted, but she looked very dubious.
I think for the summer Patreon treat boxes, I might do a bees & honey theme, and use the gold chocolate in a honeycomb mold…but now I’m getting ahead of myself. First Valentine’s, then spring, the Mother’s Day, and THEN summer…
Ordering link here — if you want them shipped in time for Valentine’s Day, please order by Sunday. No guarantees after that!
Golden and Spicy
What do these gilded dark chocolate & cayenne roses say? That my love for you is both golden and spicy…
(For our Valentine’s Day sale, link here…)
Upcoming Pre-Order Sale
Good morning, folks! BIG pre-order sale this weekend! Maybe you’re vegan or vegetarian yourself, maybe you have a vegan friend or relative, or maybe you’re just looking to incorporate more plant-based meals into your diet. This deal is for you!
I’ve started working on the recipes for Vegan Serendib again (pineapple curry & pineapple pickle this weekend, I think), and am hoping to have the full set of recipes done by the end of February.
We’ll shift into high gear with production at that point, which means it’d be super-helpful to collect funds in advance to pay our cover artist Jeremy John Parker & our editor, Stephanie Bailey
So I’m planning to run a Kickstarter for Vegan Serendib starting on February 1st! Kickstarter is great for improving visibility of fundraising.
That said, Kickstarter does take a percentage, so if you’re planning to buy the book, and you’re in a position to pre-order directly from us, that is even better. I was thinking about what I can offer in exchange, to sweeten the deal a bit, and I came up with something pretty spectacular, I think.
Vegan Serendib will have about 40 new recipes added to the vegan recipes already in Feast (which is quite a few).
If you pre-order Vegan Serendib (any edition, $25 – $40) before the Kickstarter launches on 2/1, I will send you a copy of our Vegan Serendib sampler ebook AND a digital copy of Feast.
The digital edition of Feast retails for $25, so that is a VERY SWEET DEAL. (If you are vegan and wouldn’t use Feast yourself, you are free to pass it on to a non-vegan friend.) It’s essentially 2 books for the price of 1, PLUS the Vegan Serendib sampler. (If you’d like the Marshmallow sampler cookbook instead, just ask, though the marshmallows are not vegan, alas.)
Ordering link here! Please like / comments / share to increase visibility! Thanks!
Late Night Candy-Making
A little late night candy-making for our Valentine’s sale. Dried fruit dipped in chocolate is about as easy as candy-making gets, I think. And also healthy-ish? Also pictured, our trademark dragonfruit chocolates. Kavi gets excited when she sees I’ve made more — they’re her favorite.
Link here…
Sri Lankan Curried Squash Soup
(makes 1 qt. soup, 15 minutes if you have curried squash on hand)
Let’s say you made a big batch of curried squash, and you eat it for a meal or two, and you still have a fair bit left, and you feel like a change. That’s the perfect time to turn your curry into soup! This also freezes well, if you’d like to make a big batch for a rainy day.
1/2 batch of Sri Lankan curried squash (recipe here).
2 c. vegetable broth
roasted cashews, sultanas, and pepitas for topping, optional
1. Combine curried squash and vegetable broth in a pot and simmer 10-15 minutes, until well blended. Taste and adjust seasonings; you may want a little more salt, pepper, or lime.
2. You can just serve it as is, homestyle, but a nice option is to blend the soup to smoothness (an immersion stick blender makes it easy; be careful if transferring hot soup into a blender).
3. Serve hot, topped with roasted cashews, sultanas, and pepitas (pumpkin seeds).
Sri Lankan Curried Roast Squash with Cashews
(1 hr, serves 6-8)
If you’re going to be roasting squash, you can quickly knock up a lovely curry sauce while the squash is cooking. This is a long list of spices, but the process is very simple — just sauté onions with seasonings, add some tang and coconut milk, and you’re basically done. Cashews add protein (and deliciousness), helping to make this a complete meal.
You can use any squash, but I think the combo of butternut and acorn is particularly delicious.
1 butternut squash
1 acorn squash
1/4 c. vegetable oil (to drizzle)
2 t. salt
2 t. pepper
2 t. jaggery or brown sugar
2 t. Sri Lankan curry powder
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 red onions, chopped fine
1-3 green chilies, seeded and chopped
1 T ginger, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 t. black or brown mustard seed
1 t. cumin seed
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
1 stalk curry leaves (about a dozen leaves)
1 c. cashew halves
1 t. tamarind paste
1 c. coconut milk
a little more curry powder and salt, to taste
lime juice, to taste
1/2 – 1 c. sultanas, optional
chopped cilantro or other greens to garnish, optional
1. Prep squash with first four seasonings and set squash to roasting, per previous recipe.
2. Sauté onions in oil on medium-high heat, stirring. Add in chilies, ginger, garlic, mustard seed, cumin seed, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, curry leaves, and cashews; sauté until golden.
NOTE: If you’re not strictly vegan, it would be culturally appropriate to add 1-2 t. dried Maldive fish or something similar with the sautéing onions, which will bump up the umami component; if you do that, you may want to reduce salt.
3. Add tamarind paste and coconut milk, stir until well combined. Taste and adjust seasonings — you may want to add a little more curry powder, salt, and/or lime juice. If you want a more liquid sauce, add water and stir to blend well; if you want it thicker, let simmer to desired thickness.
4. When you’re happy with the curry sauce, add cut up roasted squash (if the squash isn’t ready yet, just turn off the heat on the sauce until it is). Roast squash should be somewhat sweet already, but I like adding in some sultanas for added pops of sweetness in the curry, to balance the tang and the spice.
Serve hot with rice or bread. Lovely with sambols and pickles.
