Action photo of my blender hard at work whirling some rice and lots of water.

Sometimes you just have to try something.  This time it was horchata.  I mean, I’ve tried drinking it. I wanted to make it!

I chose three different recipes.  I planned on trying them all, but Horchata, you must understand, takes forever to make and it doesn’t make itself.  So, let’s just say I thought very hard about the other two recipes and decided that one recipe for Horchata is enough.

This one seemed simple.  Simple is good.  Plus I could drink it the same day, and ya’ll know how impatient I am.  For future reference we’ll call it #1.

Here’s the second one.  This one has to soak for ever and ever, or maybe just over night, but who wants to wait?  Let’s call this one #2.

In my search for the perfect horchata recipe I found this page of cool, possibly accurate, historic horchata info.  There are also some recipes there.  Let’s call the rice one #3.

So, what is the perfect horchata recipe?  Well, for starters it has to use only ingredients that I already have on hand.

You’ve seen the price of gas, right?  I’m not making any unplanned trips to the store.

But also, it needs to be simple, easy, and well, it looks like quick is out the window on this deal.  The quick recipe has to soak for at least 3 hours.  The long ones take overnight.  (Guess which one I tried.)

Also, it must not be cooked.  Trust me.  I read it on the internet!

Oh and while we’re talking about it, here is my all time, hands down, favorite recipe video.  You might want to don a costume before you watch it.  Just sayin’.

Holy Horchata Batman!

I’m sure you guessed it by now, the 3 hour recipe was the one I tried.  Horchata, while it’s easy to make is just not as simple as making iced tea.  There is straining involved.  Which is a little more complicated than I had hoped for.

I’ve had Horchata in restaurants.  It’s dreamy delicious, sorta creamy, but not in a dairy kinda way, but it’s very refreshing.  It cuts right through the heat of whatever is on your plate, really cools off your palate.  I’ve read that it’s good for a hangover, but can’t imagine how.

Maybe the restaurant Horchata was made from scratch and maybe it was from some factory made powder, but I wanted homemade Horchata to taste like that.  Recipe #1 nearly did.  I’ll modify it a bit when I make it again, and I WILL make it again.  It was very yummy!  Too sweet, but that’s a quick fix.  And using cinnamon powder just doesn’t work for me.  It clumped unmercifully.  Next time I’ll bust up a cinnamon stick and add it to the soaking rice at the beginning.

Oh, one more thing.  There was a side effect.  It made me have to cook some sweet rice to go with supper yesterday.  Fair warning.

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…until you watch a video of a “professional” making some.  Then you run for the hills and try to pretend you think it’s got to be bad for you, a hoax, that’s what it is.  Somebody somewhere said to their mean brother, “Let’s brew the nastiest looking mushroom thingie in some tea, add sugar, let it rot for a whole month and then sell it for millions of bucks a bottle and see if we can get one over on the rich folks that shop at Whole Foods!”

Since I’m smart and all, I figured maybe we’d better just spend a few bucks on 3 bottles of the stuff first.  Don’t know if it’ll take much monetary investment to get set up for kombucha, but the time!  Who wants to wait 30 days babysitting some stinky jar of nastiness for nuthin’?

I bought the stuff, put it into the fridge, and promptly forgot it was there.  That’s just how I roll.  But John called me from work today to ask how I liked it.  I was shocked he even knew I had it.

Since we were all sitting around the b’fast table eating our Eggs with Martian Sauce (it was green enchilada sauce, but don’t tell the kids, I told them it was made from real martians…you know, kinda like Girl Scout cookies) (never mind) anyway I poured everybody a cup of nasty mushroomy weird soda.

Guess what?

Turns out it’s not too bad.

The kids decided it was like Hippie ginger-ale that smelled slightly like toes.  I’m just reporting what they said.  And Boone added that it was kinda like an Izze (which I love).  I instantly suspected that he was trying to snow me.  But I tried it anyway.

and Guess what?

I liked it too, except for the faint odor.  Sorta like sniffing an empty beer bottle the next morning from about 4 inches away.  Just faintly, kinda barely, like freshly washed toes.

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I can do this!  Chocolate Cream Frosty while on a diet?  Count me in!

I love Love LOVE Atkins.com!  Have you checked out some of the recipes they have there?    You can search by Phase or by Course, and a couple other options I haven’t yet explored.

Today, as I was checking out the dessert section I found the recipe for this yummy, wonderful bit o’ chocolate fabulousness!  But I don’t own any sugar-free chocolate syrup.  Matter of fact, if I even knew that such a thing existed I surely would have bought it already, but I never even imagined it.  So, I sat here and wondered a little, wondered about what store I oughtta call and see if they have this nifty, guilt free indulgence, and several thoughts struck me all at once.

• Hey!  I know how to make regular chocolate syrup.
• I have Splenda in the pantry and I KNOW you can cook with that!
• I can make sugar-free chocolate syrup!

I just substituted the Splenda for the sugar and made some delicious elixir.

Sugar-Free Chocolate Syrup

You’ll need:

• ¾ cup water
• 18 pkts Splenda  *see update at end!
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• dash salt
• ½ tsp vanilla

Combine the first four ingredients in a small/medium sauce pan.  Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for about five minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Pour into ½ pint jar.

Too easy!

Here, dip your finger in!  Give it a taste!  It’s marvelous!

Chocolate Cream Frosty a la Atkins

This recipe is doubled so you can let the kids have a tiny taste and not feel like you got gypped!

You’ll need:

• 6 large ice cubes
• 1 cup water
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• ¼ cup sugar-free chocolate syrup

Combine all ingredients in the blender and give it a good whirl until it’s rather frothy.

Here’s the good word!  According to Atkins.com this has only 2 gr. of carbs!

Enjoy!

Update:  Looks  like I better switch to Stevia for this and all my other sweet purposes.  Check out this info Mommaofmany turned me on to.  Can’t be eatin’  these harmful chemical soups or feedin’ ‘em to my kiddoes!

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Ever wonder to yourself, “Hey, Self, if it’s not dairy then just what IS it?”  Well, I checked.

It’s nuclear waste.

So, I decided not to feed it to my kids.  Wasn’t a very hard decision, except for that part where I still don’t have any mugs full of steaming cocoa for my bairns.  Drat!

Had to let that idea go.

Saturday I took Hank shopping at WalMart and even thought, “Hmm, maybe I should just buy a tea pot and let ‘em drink tea.”  Which they would do, and do it happily.  But, foiled again.  StuffMart ain’t got no stinkin’ tea pots! (Lion King nod)

Well, after the WallyWorld adventure Hank wanted to go to Half-Priced Books (love that place!) to buy some History books for cheap.  (Is this kid great or what?)

Now, lemme ask you, what’s the best place in Half-Priced Books?

The CLEARANCE section!

I hope I’m conveying the magnitude of my love for buying good books for really.REALLY.really cheap!

I smiled hard and tried not to embarrass my teenage shopping companion with hysterical giggling and maniacal squealing when I found this treasure tome.

Could one book be more ‘right up my street’?  Mrs. Tarr must be my Fairy-god-mother.

Can you read that clearance tag?

$2

Maybe Half-Priced Books is my Fairy-god-mother!

And here is my interpretation of Mrs. Tarr’s recipe for Hot Cocoa Mix.

In your big bowl mix:

• 1½ cups cocoa
• 2 cups sugar
• 4½ cups instant non-fat dry milk

Stir it well.  Pour the mix into two clean and bone dry quart jars.  Store them cool, dry and dark (in the pantry).

You’ll have a little left over.  Make a cup for your cutest kid and slip the rest into your coffee (you can thank me later).

Here’s how to make enough hot cocoa for 2 kids under age ten.  Older than tens can drink the whole batch alone.

Pour ½ cup boiling water into a pint jar.  Add ½ cup of the Hot Cocoa Mix.  Stir well.  Now add another ½ cup of boiling water, and ¼ – ½ cup of milk.  Stir and pour into mugs!

The milk can be warmed if your kids like their cocoa good and hot!  Mine don’t, so adding cold milk brings the temperature down to ‘drinkable’ with no waiting!

Now, go buy some SwissMiss or some-such, gather your children around and do a blind taste test and let me know which y’all like best.

I know which one my kids prefer!

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

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. . . that I just made up this morning because I had a jillion bananas gettin’ very spotty.

You’ll need:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 carrot, peeled and snapped in two (very satisfying, tactile experience!)
• 1 fresh pear, rinsed and quartered, I don’t even core it!
• 3 spotty bananas
• a handful of ice cubes
• a blender

Put all the ingredients into the blender and turn it on high until everything is all incorporated and blended smooth.  Pour into glasses and hand your happy kiddos a glass of deliciousness and a straw!

Notice, I didn’t add any sweetener.  The bananas were very sweet!  This was a very yummy start to our morning!

Here are your links to Real Food Wednesday & Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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Simple fact of nature.  I know y’all are all on board with me on that one, right?

Well, I’ve been having trouble getting the chocolate into my mouth while keeping the sugar (and artificial sweeteners) out of my mouth.  This is a dilemma!

Until!  I was reading on Facebook a while ago (See, Hubs?  Facebook has actual value!) anyway, I was reading what Kim said (while wearing her Frugal Hacks disguise) that her Frappuccino recipe was really yummy and just like the real (4bucks) thing.

I read the recipe and almost cried when I read the sugar part, almost, but not quite, because I already knew the good stuff (frappuccin0) had the bad stuff (sugar, aka vile poison) in it.

So, I got up from my computer thought about it  for a bit.  And it finally struck me.  Duh, don’t put sugar in it, put Agave Nectar instead.  Yes!  This will work!

You see, I have been suffering from the overbearing thought that, while I can bake with Agave Nectar, I don’t really know how.  I mean, it’s a liquid. Even less viscous than honey.  So I just don’t see any cake or cookies happenin’ for me anytime soon.

btw ~  If any of y’all know where I can find dessert recipes using Agave Nectar instead of sugar, GREAT! Shoot me a link!

So I RAN to the kitchen and got out all the ingredients for a MOCHA FRAPUCCINO and in no time had whizzed myself up TWO great big glasses of the lovely elixer!  One is in the freezer for this afternoon.

NOW it feels like the weekend!  Shoot, it feels like a PARTY!

Psst! Is it afternoon yet?

Here’s your link to Frugal Friday.

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