Plant the seeds: Chocolate Chip PB Cookies

You have two options. Scroll down for the recipe or read on. I love to write. It's part of this blog but if you've got a cookie munch pang, then get baking and come back to read while you get your cookie monster on.

I've had two beautiful invitations to friends' weddings in the last two weeks and it's been glorious. I considered why I was so happy for them. Genuinely. It's not that I've been waiting for this wedding phase of my life where everyone I know gets married; if anything I've been dreading it and all the gifts and customs that can go along with them and how some couples who had been so unique and individualistic suddenly becoming part of the pack, wanting the same version of everyone else's wedding. So why was I so happy for them? Because the beautiful people that are getting married to their beautiful partners are happy and they are using their wedding day not to display how much money they can spend or prove their happiness or their love but simply because they want to share that love and joy. Had these couples stayed together forever and never married, I would still be delighted for them but there's something about having a celebratory occasion that strengthens and stretches that joy out and makes me feel lucky to know them.

Listening to them announce their special day has triggered thoughts in me about what I'm doing with myself. 'Be where you are' is a mantra I held close to my heart last year and it paid dividends. I embraced where I was and the place that that meant to the best of my ability. It didn't always work. I had moments of wondering what the hell I was doing in Dublin but for the vast majority of 2014, I was thankful for that mantra and how it kept me grounded and settled in the choices I had made that year.

2015 is a new year. If you've read the last few posts, you'll know that I recently moved house into a little cottage close to the city center and the sea. It's cozy. It has a beautiful kitchen, sky lights, a garden full of wild garlic, and high ceilings. Arriving in the door the last three weeks, I've felt like I'm home but there's still been a nagging, unsettling feeling, an unsettling question: 'What am I doing?'. I know we all have this feeling, sometimes sporadically, other times everyday. When I try to answer the question, there's a duality in my answers. I'm settling for a year in a cottage, I'm working in a job I love, I'm trying to set up a sustainable home in the city center, I'm saving for some travelling next year, I'm learning, I'm figuring things out, I'm taking baby steps. One part of me knows that city living is temporary, that I'll have my place in the country by the sea with a garden and a man by my side and a community around me. The other recognizes that this is an awesome time in my life to be in the city, full of creatives my age with the potential to get involved in all the projects going on in Dublin. One side yearns for warm waters and simple living, adventures and travel and worries that Dublin will turn into forever. The other longs for a place to rest my head that's familiar, a community around me who knows me well, a garden that's mine that's not going anywhere until I'm ready to leave.

It's difficult to keep calm and the 2014 mantra of 'be where you are' seems outdated. It was perfect for last year as I built my life back up, made the foundations, the basics of my life solid and stable. When I think calmly about how I feel, I don't want to give all that up and I realize that I don't have to, that there are adventures to be found on my doorstep, once I open my eyes. I had spent January planning my move and February settling in. Today, sick with the flu and with plenty of time to think, I stopped the cyclical, sinking thinking and got a piece of paper and a pen out and wrote down the ideas in my mind and the image I have for 2015. I surprised myself. I'm not trekking in Peru or surfing in New Zealand. I won't get a tan for another few months and I won't be picking tropical fruit from a tree next to a surf camp but I do have a mantra for 2015 and I do have the image and the outlines for a pretty epic year carved out.

2014 was a year of sitting in the dirt pile that had been my life and based on my awesome friend Kane's advice, I composted that shit. Metaphorically, the foundation work of my life is sorted. I have a base like that of healthy soil. Friends, family, work, living situation, health. My little community is here, my support system. 2015 is the year to start planting seeds of what I want to grow in my life, getting my hands in the dirt, visualizing a  thriving and beautiful garden and taking steps to make that happen.

I wrote a list that grew and evolved and I'm getting excited. I may not be where I thought I would at this point in my life but that's the best part of life, once you learn to embrace it: change and its constant evolution. As I wrote my list, I inevitably got hungry but as I'm flu-ridden, thoughts of sugar laden cookies, as appealing as that sounded, weren't going to cut it. I made these in no time and while they baked and filled the kitchen with warmth, I made my list for 2015 and my mantra: Plant the seeds.

Here's just some of the ideas on my list:
1. Connect land, sea, garden, community and photography
2. Forage in the city, grow in the city, recycle in the city
3. Be part of a community
4. Collect seaweed, wild herbs, wild flowers
5. Learn, preserve, grow, share
6. Host a permablitz
7. Start something in the community
8. Bees in the city
9. Develop sustainable and growing series for Busylittlefoodie
10. Travel to friends, with friends
11. Go on a surf road trip
12. Help, share, love, laugh, grow, learn
13. Follow the moon, tides and seasons
14. Embrace change
15. Go with the flow
16. Watch the sunsets, breathe the air, sing
17. Trust my gut and take the big steps
18. Dream big, start small, spread out

What's your idea for 2015? What's important for you?

RECIPE
These cookies will surprise you. When I first attempted to make them, they blew my mind. When you eat them, it's like munching into raw cookie dough and crunchy choc chip cookies at the same time. Easy to make and bake and ready in no time. They are gonna be your new go to. Secret ingredient? Chickpeas. You read that right, chickpeas. Don't knock it till you've tried it. A little warning though. I made a batch of twelve and there are now four left. An hour after I made them. Just saying.

Ingredients: Makes 12
1 can chickpeas
6 Tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 heaped Tablespoons crunchy peanut butter (the real stuff)
1/3 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup chopped dark chocolate

Method:
Preheat oven to 190 C. In a blender, add the drained chickpeas, maple syrup and cinnamon and blitz on high until you have a creamy paste. Place mix into the bowl and stir through the peanut butter, coconut and dark chocolate. Grease a baking tray or line with grease proof paper. Take tablespoon sized amounts of the mix and roll into a ball then flatten into a cookie with the palm of your hand. This mix makes approx 12 cookies, depending on the size. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Leave to cool for 10 minutes until they harden a little. Great to eat warm or cold. Store in airtight container for up to a week but don't bet on them lasting that long

Girl time, memories, birthdays: Dark chocolate snaps

I'm very lucky. I've met a whole cast of fun, intelligent, creative, loving, unique individuals in my life so far. Friends made in hostels in the middle of nowhere in Australia, in cafes sharing mutually distasteful stories of strange customers, at  beaches and bus stops, airports, small one-horse towns and swarming cities. Each friend has been unique onto themselves, to who I was at the time and the place we were both in.

Dee and Eibhlin are two such friends. We met in a small town in Tipperary in August three years ago. It was on a permaculture course that changed my life in many beautiful ways. One particularly beautiful part of that ten day intensive course was meeting them. I arrived on my own, determined to finally do that permaculture course that I had promised myself I would complete for over four years. I was broke, confused about my life direction and utterly determined to do this course and point my life in the direction I wanted. I remember turning up, pulling into the carpark opposite the hostel and then having a mini freakout in my head. How was it I was capable of travelling solo across the world for ten months but couldn't gather up enough courage to go into a hostel in Tipperary on my own? I checked in and went to put my bags in my room. There, lying on the bottom bunk resting after a train journey was Eibhlin, my little pixie herbal remedy genius. Talking to her was so easy. Then this smiley girl arrived into the dorm with a bright yellow cardigan and wooly socks and jeans. The three of us started talking and I was instantly absorbed. There was something completely familiar about them. It was only when other people from the course filtered into the room and asked why the three of us had decided to come together and how we knew each other that we had to explain we had only just met.

Within an hour of meeting, everyone on the course had made the presumption that we had been lifelong friends and we had to correct them, even though correcting them felt wrong to me. It did feel like we'd always known each other. Some people mistook me and Dee for sisters. Dee and Eibhlin are like the extra sisters I never had. They have a sense of wonder about nature and music that only children still possess: wide eyed wonder with even wider smiles. They are my pixies and two of the kindest, strongest, honest, most beautiful women I have ever met.

Yesterday was Dee's birthday and it brought back the memory of her birthday while we were on the course three years ago. I had to go home just before the end of the course and returned a day later. All through the course, me and Dee had cooked up big meals for the rest of the group and so we were always in the kitchen. When I got back from my quick trip back home, I had to think of something easy and gluten free to make as a birthday treat that would also feed the other 25+ people on the course. Rice crispie buns. Winner. Keeping her out of the kitchen was tricky. Hiding a tower of rice crispie buns at the back of the fridge was even more difficult. Days before we would start a relationship, John kept guard and kept me company while I stealthily stacked one chocolate covered snack on top of the other. Then Alan got everyone in the living room to close their eyes and relax through a meditation (since we were all a little stressed with our end of course projects). Meanwhile, Eibhlin convinced everyone in her beautifully calm way to get involved as a distraction. I remember the loving sense of everyone working together to make the surprise work so that Dee knew how much we all cared. A little community all working together because we all love Dee so much. It was a success.

I'm not going to tell you how to make rice crispie buns. I have something so much more refined. Dark chocolate is for fancy women who are as awesome as Dee is. There is no greater combination than that of dark chocolate and toasted almonds, unless of course you also add sea salt and candied ginger. If the rice crispie buns were a child-like wonder version of a chocolate-laced birthday treat, these dark chocolate snaps are the food loving, heart warming, grown up version of deliciousness.

The recipe can be adapted with a variety of toppings. At Christmas, I usually get very creative with goji berries, hazelnuts, himalayan salt and mint essence. These birthday treats called for toasty, warming versions of the chocolate snaps. One, because I know Dee loves the combination of toasty, smoky almonds and sea salt and secondly, summer seems to have finished here. Rainjackets and September drizzle call for fireside flavors.

Here goes...

Ingredients:
300 grams dark chocolate (75% cocoa or more)
10-15 whole almonds
6 (ish) pieces of candied ginger root
pinch good quality sea salt

Method:
Break chocolate into small pieces into a metal bowl and place bowl over a pot with 2 or 3 inches of boiling water. You don't want the bottom of the bowl to touch the water; it's the heat of the steam that melts the chocolate. This should only take 3/4 minutes. Make sure not to stir. Just let it melt of it's own accord.
While this is happening, get a baking tray and place a sheet of non-stick parchment paper on it, ready and waiting. Chop the almonds into halves and the ginger into thin slices.
Once chocolate is melted, using a tablespoon, spoon 1-2 spoonfuls onto the parchment paper, making chocolate disks. You can smooth them down with the back of the spoon. Arrange five or so pieces of ginger on half the disks and the almonds on the other half of the batch. Sprinkle sea salt onto the almond ones.
Place baking sheet onto shelf in the fridge (make sure it's level or they will drip out of shape)
Leave overnight if you can. Wrap up in a little box and gift them as the thoughtful present they are.

Happy birthday Dee, you amazing, beautiful soul sister. Happy un-birthday Eibhlin. You are every bit as awesome. Big love to you ladies. You both truly rock my world.

Thanks to Ben Bear from the Big Blue house for the photo from the street feast X

Cozy hot chocolate and cozy soil

Winter hue over the back garden

When I was a kid, I used to squat in the back garden, dig up soil and eat it. There is photographic evidence to prove it. Even in a suburban housing estate garden in a pretty dress, I was mucking up in the garden, getting delicious soil under my nails, smelling the chalky earthiness of the soil and delighting in the flowers and colours all around me.

That photo I'm talking about was taken when I was about two years old. Nearing twenty eight, I spent the day in the cold, in jeans and a pink hoodie , mucking about in the soil again. Icy cold hands, clay dipped nails and very probably smudges of winter soil across my face as I tried to keep my hair out of my eyes.

When I was a little girl, it was all about digging up the soil, making room, digging holes, moving muck from one tidy pile to another tidy pile, wheelbarrows and shovels. Things have changed. I have a lot more respect for the earth this time round. Ever since I was introduced to the no-dig idea and that worms are our friends, my outlook on soil, growing and weeding has been completely transformed.

No-dig is as straightforward as it sounds. The best of the soil is in the top layer. The better the soil, the better your veggies, fruits and herbs so it makes complete sense (to this adult version of the little girl) to look after it. Simply put, start following these steps and your garden will transform.
- Don't dig, let the worms do it for you.
- Worms are your friend, not foe. I'm going to write about them more on the blog but take some in
   your hand and realise they're not gross, they are the best little garden workers in the world
- Give your soil a rest-crop rotation and blankets in winter (more about this now)

Very happy, mulched raised beds

It's the strangest thing when you are used to maintaining a manicured lawn or seeing bare earth fields/raised beds in winter but covering over your soil in the winter months or when they are not being used as much in between crops is the best way to keep great soil. It literally, locks the nutrients into the soil and makes a cozy little space for your worms to do their hard work, breaking down the soil.

Sage, still growing

I spent two hours hoeing the weeds that had accumulated (due to neglect on my end) and collecting leaves that had gathered around the garden and outside the front of the house and simply layering it over the soil.

The leaves, dampened with the rain and with the help of the worms, turn into nutrient, carbon rich superfood or the top layer of your soil, making it easier to work with in spring and highly nutritious for your plants.

Best part? When Spring comes-NO WEEDING! The blanket of leaves acts as a barrier, stopping weeds from growing. It also protects the soil and roots from frost. An hour and a half of your life makes your whole year of planting and growing easier.

My little helper, even in winter

Now for the food.
What could be better after being out in the cold than hot chocolate?
I'm not talking about the sugar fuelled brown much you get in the supermarket. I'm talking delicious thick, cinnamon infused dark chocolate.

My sister and her boyfriend came over to say hello and were looking a bit fed up with the stormy weather we've had lately so I made this beauty:

 

Ingredients:
1 cup of milk (regular/almond/rice) per person
1 large bar dark 70% + chocolate (100 grams or 150 grams if you're looking for your chocolate fix)
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp. honey (or other sweetener such as acacia)

Optional marshmallows (they went for these straight away "because if you can't do it at Christmas when can you?")

Method:
Measure 1 cup of milk per person (I made 3 portions) and pour into saucepan with cinnamon stick
Grate the bar of chocolate into the milk and stir with whisk
Bring to a simmer and when  milk is heated through, add honey
Allow to bubble slightly so the milk froths
Put your marshmallows into hand warming mugs and pour hot chocolate over
Sip/Gulp/Devour your hot chocolate but make sure to enjoy every drop, right down to your toes.

Have a look out the window and look at your handy work.

 

Just in case you thought nothing grows in winter... :)