Countdown to Christmas

It's been a few days already... I was unable to post due to lack of connection at my place.

We had to cheat a little since I didn't have everything I needed to go ahead with the Advent Calendar project from 1st December. We put everything together on Saturday morning instead. Here is the calendar in the making: I bought an assortment of Canson strong paper and cut stars for each day until 24 December.

Then I wrapped items that I thought could be useful in any household in pieces of wax print and hung one under each star.

The idea is that every day, we'll remove the gift and hang a Christmas decoration instead. Since the gift for 1st December was a bucket, we'll fill it with every gift we remove from the wall. As soon as possible after 24 December, we'll wrap the bucket nicely and take it to a Catholic sisters' dispensary for them to decide who among the underprivileged young mothers they help could best benefit from our effort.

1 December was an empty bucket.

2 December was powdered milk.

3 December was corned beef.

4 December was tinned tomato.

Now that we've caught up with the actual calendar, I will post pictures of the bucket being filled every day too.

We are not of the same species

Remember my previous experiences with Moringa oleifera (leaf powder, brewed like tea) and Cyperus esculentus (a/k/a tigernut; vegetal milk + powdered almond-like residue)?

Since I like experimenting almost as much as eating, an idea crossed my mind: why not bake a cake that would be almost-but-not-quite a Matcha green tea almond cake?

Here we go then. Let's start with the ingredients:

175g (6oz) soft butter or margarine
125g (4 1/2 oz) sugar
3 eggs
250g (9 oz) self-raising flour
100g (3 1/2 oz) powdered almonds (I used half grounded tigernut, half grounded egusi (shelled squash pips) instead)
2 tsp Matcha green tea (I substituted Moringa leaf powder)
5cl milk (tigernut milk, of course)

Brew your tea in the hot (but not boiling-hot) milk. Mix all the ingredients in the order above, adding the tea+milk mixture last.
Bake in a pre-heated oven for 15 min at 180°C (356°F), then 40 min at 160°C (320°F).

Here is the result:

The kids found the colour so off-putting that they wouldn't taste it. Too bad for them, hurrah for me! One thing puzzles me though: they don't seem to believe we are of the same species. I mean, they don't really expect me to drop dead eating my concoctions but they won't believe that what agrees with me won't poison them either. Life with teenagers is so strange at times...