Cacao & Vanilla

Cacao a la mexicana - for four cups

Get
½ litre of milk
½ cup of dark, organic cacoa powder
2 tsp. of Rapadura (cane) sugar
½ teaspoons of cinnamon powder
1 pinch of salt
1 small vanilla bean
½ cups of whipped cream, optional

Do
Heat up the milk.
Add the the scraped out vanilla bean to the milk
Mix in a bowl all dry ingredients and add to the hot milk while quickly stirring it.
Allow to boil and than remove the chocolate from the stove. Now stir in (the cream and) the vanilla.

- Recipe in altered form via Vanilla Trade
- Thanks to the pre-Columbian Mayan cultivators who have " been managing their forests for millennia to cultivate cacao and to make chocolate, and we know they were also cultivating vanilla to use it as a chocolate spice.The Maya created these forest gardens by introducing different types of species of wild cacao and vanilla from the surrounding forests, which meant that species that had previously been geographically separated were then able to hybridize because they were in the same place. That's the scenario we present in our research paper for how Tahitian vanilla got started. It is an evolutionary product, but also a Maya artifact." Pesach Lubinsky, University of California, Tahitian Vanilla Originated In Maya Forest, via Science Daily 260808

Hot chocolate without sugar

Coriander pesto

get
1 large bunch of coriander
1 large piece of garlic
100g cashews
200g goats’ milk fetta cheese
10 tbsp olive oil

do
Pluck the leaves from the coriander. Wash and drain them. Chop very finely.
Press or grate the garlic into a bowl.
Finely grind the cashews with a hand grinder.
Roughly grate the fetta cheese into the bowl.
Add the coriander.
Mix.
Add the olive oil while mixing until a thick green paste forms.
Press down in the bowl and add the remaining olive oil on top to cover the paste.
Store cool covered with a plate.

Serve with noodles of your choice. Goes well with noodles and tomato sauce. Also goes well with potatoes.
Can also be made with parsley, basil, or a mixture of herbs. Macadamia nuts are a good alternative to cashews.

See
Macadamia Pesto

Image: 'Anacardium occidentale', from Koehler's 'Medicinal-Plants' (1887) via Wikipedia

Tomato sauce with noodles

Get
1.5 kg Tomatoes (e.g. Roma, fleshy)
lots of Garlic
4 Tbsp Olive oil
Pepper corns
Bay leaves
Noodles of your choice.



Do
Heat the olive oil in a large pan or flat, wide saucepan.
Press the garlic into it. Fry it just a little - do not brown or burn.
Put tomatoes in a large bowl. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes slowly, so they stand in the hot water for a few minutes. Then pour in cold water. This loosens the skins.
Peel them and remove any hard core.
Add to the hot garlic. Cover with a lid.

Cook at a very low heat all day, occasionally removing the lid for a while. Add the pepper and bay leaves after a couple of hours.
Most of the liquid should evaporate away leaving a thick 'sugo'.
Boil a large pot of water. Add noodles to fast boiling water and keep it boiling.
Cooking time depends on the noodles. Test them from time to time.
Pour off water when ready and add the noodles to the sauce. Serve immediately.

Goes well with Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano) either grated or sliced thinly. Also goes well with a pesto made of basil or coriander. And a green salad.

A variation on this sauce for non-vegetarians is the Italian style sauce which includes just one sardine in the initial stages with the garlic. (thanks Sabine of Zweitrad)

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