Homemade Chocolate Syrup - the REAL stuff!

This chocolate syrup is great! It tastes and feels just like Hershey's Artificially Flavored Chocolate Syrup, except better, because it's REAL.

There is NO chocolate in Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, but there *is* a lot of high fructose corn syrup. Two reasons to avoid the stuff (and I used to drink it by the bottle - I was a kid then!).

One reason to like bottled chocolate syrup - the handy bottle! So save it for this recipe!

Now I'm not saying this recipe is healthy by any means, but at least there is real chocolate and a sugar source you can trust. You KNOW what this sugar will do to your body. I am experimenting with other natural sweeteners (honey, molasses), but we still prefer white sugar the best.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients & Instructions:

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup water

Mix those two things in a pan and heat over medium to dissolve.

2 cups pure white cane sugar

Stir in the sugar and boil for 3 minutes. This step is *critical* - use a timer! The full three minutes thickens it up and makes it syrup, not chocolate-sugar water ;)

1/8 tsp salt (we use sea salt)

1/4 tsp vanilla (we use pure organic vanilla extract with bourbon, which boils out)

Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla. Stir it in thoroughly.

Allow to cool (this is the hardest part - looking at all that chocolate goodness, just sitting there!). It will thicken as it cools.

Use a funnel to pour it into a storage bottle.
Place some ice cream or milk into that saucepan and don't let the remaining chocolate go to waste (I hear-tell that a finger works just as well!)

;)

Favorite Chicken Soup

We make this when we can - great basic recipe!

Favorite Basic Chicken Soup

1 soup chicken

Chicken Feet (as many as possible because they "add strength")

3 1/2 quarts water

2 onions

1 tbsp salt

2 carrots

3 stalks celery

1 parsley root

2 sprigs dill

3 sprigs parsley

Clean the chicken and feet thoroughly. Combine in a deep pot with water and oinions. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for 90 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients.

Cover and cook over low heat for 1 hour, or until chicken is tender.

Makes about 2 - 2 1/2 quarts of soup. The chicken can be strained out and used in other dishes for more frugal menus.

Cranberry Sauce - MMMMMMM!!!!!!

High fructose corn syrup - BLECK!!!!

After several months of almost no high fructose corn syrup, I am feeling the physical improvement in so many ways. I eat healthier, I have less cravings, I can stop eating when I know I am full.... But this post is not about HFCS.

It's about my favorite food: CRANBERRY SAUCE!

And my success in making a homemade version without two forms of corn syrup.

See - in our house, we eat (or ate) the stuff straight out of the can. Skip the bowl! This is good stuff!

Alas, that habit couldn't continue.

Without Further Ado:

Jellied Cranberry Sauce
Not for canning

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup water
12 oz fresh or frozen whole cranberries

Tools:
Medium saucepan
Wire mesh strainer
Medium mixing bowl
Wooden spoon

1) Boil the sugar and the water.
2) Add the cranberries and return to a boil.
3) Reduce the heat, boiling gently for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
4) Remove from heat.
5) Place the strainer over the bowl. Strain the sauce by mashing berries with the back of a spoon against the strainer, frequently scraping the outside of the strainer until no pulp is left.
(Do as you like with the pulp - it's just as yummy by itself or mixed with other fruit, etc)
6) Stir the contents of the bowl.
7) Pour into mold or serving container of choice (we leave ours in the bowl!).
8 ) Chill for about 4 hours before serving.
9) Enjoy within 2-3 days.
10) Leave a comment about how it turned out!

Canning version

Begin as above with a bigger batch in a larger pot; bring it to a full boil (no simmering). Fill your jars leaving 1/4"-1/2' head space. Process in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Definitely let me know how it turns out!

Land of Oz Series

No - I'm not talking about the movie(s). I am talking about the *books*!

According to Wikipedia, there are 40 or so books attributed to the Wizard of Oz Club - a group of writers who added to the original 14 of L Frank Baum.

We have read the first 7 in our household, and I am currently on the hunt for the Volume 2 of the "Oz Chronicles" - a 3-volume set with the 14 original Oz stories (7 each in the first 2 volumes) and other stories by the same author. For the time being, we are really only interested in the original stories - off-shoots don't really do it for me and children can make their own judgments when they are older. We have a few of the first 7 in paperback as well, with illustrations. Our hardcover collection volumes have no illustrations, save the map within the covers, and my 6 year old LOVES them! Why? Because it is a beautiful hard bound, leather-look, gold-trim volume - with gold trim on the pages. How much more special is that???

But I digress. There are many lovely maps of the Land of Oz and I include the one below because it is the color version of that map which is displayed within our beautiful dark green volume 1.

See all the color? Each area of Oz has its own color and the inhabitants within each area are alike in some ways yet as diverse as paper is from china - you can find their respective towns on the map above ;)

We like to keep things faith-based - but frankly, some things are just too much fun! And knowing that others have taken off with the series will only encourage us to use our God-give imaginations to work things out for ourselves - don't we all wish there was a special place we could go? Just to get away from the grayness of life for a while?

There IS a place - that place is heaven. In the meantime, we have Oz ;)

Continuing from "Little Archaeologist"

Dinosaurs and dragons



I finally found a source of information I can 99% trust and agree with (I always hold back that last 1% in everything but God - because only God is Perfect ;) )

Please visit the following article for some interesting insight into evolution.

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Dinosaurs and dragons

Read this brief article that revisits the time in 1991 when Britain commissioned postage stamps to commemorate Sir Richard Owen’s discovery of these “terrible lizards” in 1841. Owen coined the word dinosaur at that time, so, of course, being a modern word we would not expect to see it being used in the Bible. But, we believe that these creatures are mentioned in the Scriptures.

For a good introductory overview on this subject see Dinosaurs and dragons: stamping on the legends.