Pickled onions

Pickled onions are now another of our new favorite condiments. These are quick and easy to make and they taste great on just about everything. I like to keep have a jar on hand. I have made other versions before, but this one is the best yet. As usual, a recipe from Food and Wine.

onions, vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, bay, pepper, and mustard

mix vinegar with spices

add sugar and cook over low heat

until sugar is completely dissolved

thinly slice your onions

add to cooled mixture

let marinate at least three days

Eat on everything!

Bunny milk

Every Easter the easter bunny brings my kids lots of chocolate and every Easter they never eat more than a few bites of each (ie the ears), so we have come up with creative ways for using that chocolate. We make chocolate covered strawberries and bunny milk. Strawberries are not quite in season yet so we will save the good chocolate for those, but in the mean time, we made hot cocoa with our big bunnies.

add bunnies to pan, if solid - chop them first

add a small amount of milk (coconut) to the bunnies

keep on a low heat

stir until chocolate is melted

then add more milk (coconut) to taste and up the volume

serve to eager children

Mmm chocolate!

Cornbread pudding

I have been slowly using up all the frozen food I put up last summer and we are almost there. We have a few bags of roasted chiles which are fine, since those aren't in season until August, then frozen blueberries, but we eat those all the time, a bag of squash which I have been throwing cubes of in things here and there, and finally a big bag of grilled corn. It was time to finish the corn so I decided on a mash-up of cornbread and corn pudding since I am not a fan of either, but my husband is. It turned out really well and the leftovers fried up nicely for breakfasts.

corn, cornmeal, flour, milk (coconut), onion, eggs, sugar, and salt

soak the cornmeal (ours is coarse) in part water part milk for a good hour or two

then add some sugar

and a dash of salt

chop up some onion

stir into soaked cornmeal with the whole corn kernels

beat eggs (if you don't want eggs, just skip, it won't puff up though)

add to mix with enough flour to make a cake batter consistency

cook in medium hot oven until it browns on top

let cool at least 15 minutes

serve slices with veggie smeat and spinach

I might actually make this again since it was so yummy.