Our next binge and a mousse recipe

Hey Gals,

We are set for our next binge.We'll be celebrating Chinese New Year early at Sue's house Saturday, Oct. 19th.
For this binge, we are going to select any Chinese dish, and as Sue says, "start practicing with your chopsticks."

Them's your marching orders ladies.
Let me know what you'll be making and I'll post it here.

And now...for the best, healthy dessert on the planet:
Ann's Avocado Mousse:

Here's the mousse recipe to add to the blog in addition to the photos I sent tonight:
Avocado Mocha Mousse
3 avocados
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1/4 tsp sea salt I tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 heaping tbsp ground decaf espresso powder

Put flesh of avocados in high power blender (such as a Vitamix). Add all other ingredients. Blend until smooth. Chill until served.

Preserving the Summer

I have a proposal for our Winter Binge. My thought is that we preserve the harvest now (from our gardens or the farmers market) through pickling, canning, fermenting, freezing or drying. These ingredients will then be used in our Winter Meal together.

I suspect that amongst us there is a range of experience with food preservation. With this in mind, I would like to suggest a few resources.


Ball Canning Recipes. Ball has a website with a number of recipes for canning, freezing and dehydrating: Fresh Preserving. I also have one of their books that I would be happy to share. It give the basic information about preservation in addition to the recipes.
PickYourOwn.orgPickYourOwn.org. I love this website. The directions include step by step pictures. You can get easy instructions on you to can and freeze about any fruit or vegetable.
The Preservation Kitchen by Paul Virant. This local chef, interviewed by both Laura and Lori, has an award winning restaurant in Western Springs. His book's first half includes interesting and unusual preserving recipes. The second half has dinner recipes that incorporate the preserved foods. It's excellent. I have tried a number of the recipes and I give it a two thumbs up. The book is available at the library. Laura has suggested a road trip out to the restaurant together and I would love it!

I hope everyone is up for this. Please don't buy any equipment. Freezing takes nothing more than plastic bags. I have a dehydrator to lend. If someone would like to give canning a try, I also have a boiling water canner with wire rack, etc.

I plan to host the Winter Binge in January but we all will need to think about preserving the harvest now :)

Are we up for this?

Betsy

Our salad days plus more

Ladies,
Thank you all for coming Friday and bringing all that delicious food. You are all dishes. :)
As usual, there were NO disappointments. Everything was tasty, probably because it was made with tender love and care (except for my pie which I added a dash of sadness to).

The pictures I took are linked to the right. I'll add Annie's when she sends hers.
Speaking of.... I do hope your finger is on the mend, Ann!

Also, I really enjoyed meeting Christina and Karen and Kris has reported she really enjoyed meeting all of you.

Next up? Who would like to host in the fall?

AND: Stay tuned. Betsy is going to host in the winter but you'll need to think about it now: It's going to be cooking preserves and pickling. There won't be one specific book, but several options to choose from depending on your comfort level. Details to come soon.

Ciao for now,

Lori