Black Bean Flour

I have decided to be a part of the Cold Spring Farmers Market this year and I am pretty excited about it!  I am going to be selling my breads and freshly milled flours.  There are so many different types of flours out there with many uses other than bread.  Some of them are, whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, oat flour, amaranth flour, brown rice flour, millet flour, black bean flour, white bean flour, green pea flour, and the list goes on and on.

Since I am going to be selling these products I figured I better taste them and know how to use them. Last night I milled some black bean flour and found a recipe on www.bobsredmill.com for a black bean flour dip.  This website has many recipes for using different types of flours and they have lots of gluten free recipes for those of you gluten free-ers.  This recipe is super easy and my kids loved it, like ate it by the spoonfuls-forget the chips!

This is what black been flour looks like. I thought it would be blacker than this but it turns black once you add water to it.

And here is the recipe from www.bobsredmill.com and a picture of the dip.  It looks a little gross but if you are a black bean and salsa type of person, I promise you will love it!  We ate this last night with burgers on the grill and it was a perfect spring evening dinner followed by a bonfire of course!

• 1/2 cup Salsa or Picante Sauce
• 2 cups 1/2 Hot Water
• 1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Chili Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Cumin
• 3/4 cup Black Bean Flour

Whisk 3/4 cup of Bob's Red Mill Black Bean Flour mixed with 1/4 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. chili powder and 1/2 tsp. salt into 2 1/2 cups of hot water. Stir 1 minute while cooking over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover saucepan and cook an additional 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup of your favorite salsa or picante sauce and allow mixture to cool. Let mixture cool for 15 minutes if serving as a dip. May be topped with grated lowfat cheese (if desired) and chopped green onions and cilantro.

Happy Friday!

Here is a quilt that I just finished today.  It is a twin sized quilt that someone requested that I make for her son along with one to coordinate for herself.  I think it turned out really great!  They both love elephants so I used a fabric with elephants on it (which by the way is incredibly difficult to find!).

I still have a few projects to work on, including baby quilts for each of the girls that I have been dreading hand stitching, so they have been sitting in a chest unfinished.  And I also need to quilt this little gem that is for our bedroom.  By the time I actually do it, I will probably hate the colors and start another one.....I want to do some really intricate stitching on this one, so I am still planning what I want the finished quilt to look like.

With the weather finally warming up, I am getting very excited for my garden and to be able to play outside with the kids.  Happy Friday everyone!

Spring is near...

So, as it turns out, I am not the best at blogging on a regular basis after all...there are just too many things to do and not enough hours in the day.  Once the weather warms up I am going to plant the greatest vegetable garden Cold Spring has ever seen! ;). I attempted this last year and was doing pretty good with it all until some starving cows decided to trample our 5 foot tall chain link fence and completely demolish the entire garden.  They ate EVERYTHING down to the dirt, no joke.  So, I have been dreaming of which tomatoes to plant and paging through my Azure catalogue dreaming of Spring.  In the mean time, Matthias cheers every time a snowflake falls from the sky...

I am still baking bread every Wednesday and quilting whenever I get a chance.  I just completed a queen size quilt for someone and am working on a coordinating twin sized quilt for her son.  I will post pictures of that soon.  Here are a couple of baby quilts I made for my nephews when they were born.

Soon enough I am sure I will be sharing pictures of my fabulous garden, but until then, Happy Spring!