-- 26 miles remain in our 2,015 in 2015 Challenge --
I am pleased to report I fulfilled my day's desire by actually sleeping past 7 a.m. this morning. Ta-Da!! I remember when 7 a.m. was beyond a dreaded time; how'd it become so common?! I savor those mornings I actually sleep past it ... even if it's like this morning when I saw the clock at 7:10 a.m. Every minute counts! And, those extra 10 minutes were fantastic!
I had a lot of thoughts of what I wanted to accomplish today. Here at the end of the day, I can't even remember what most of them were, and those I can remember, well, they didn't happen! It was fun and productive nonetheless. So, here I sit: Satisfied.
One of the things I hoped to do was try out a new recipe in the kitchen in the baking realm. It was a gray, rainy day, and it seemed to call for that. Um ... it didn't call loudly enough because I never got around to it BUT I seized an opportunity at dinner to try out a speedy side dish:
You know they already lured me in to their new cookbook with their new brownie recipe featuring okra. Well, with my beloved okra on hand (and making a fast comeback into my family), I wanted to give frying it a whirl using the THM Baking Blend! If you're interested, the baking blend is, what I would call, their answer to white flour -- but not in a 1:1 way. It's made from ingredients including oat flour, almond flour and flax; there are a handful of recipes for it on the Web, or it can be gotten off the THM site ... which is precisely where I have bought it and will continue to do so until I have enough time to focus and even consider making it myself. Even then ... The big deal about it is that it doesn't mess with nor otherwise spike sugar levels the way white flour does. Therefore, whenever possible: I'm in.
So, I did what you would expect to make this pile of awesome: I dipped my thawed okra (oh, yes, I used the frozen variety vs. cutting up my own ... if it's even sold fresh now? Sheesh, I seriously have no idea.) in some lightly beaten egg whites, and I rolled them around in a bowl of the Baking Blend. From there, my little okra friends went into a pot of hot coconut oil where they sat for 5 minutes before I flipped them for another 5. My oil only went half way up the pieces, so the flipping was required.
As soon as they were out of the oil, I put them in a pan lined with paper napkins, lightly salted it (very required) and stuck them in a 250 degree oven to keep them warm while I made all of the batches.
And, they were delicious. And, GONE.
I was pleasantly surprised by two particular things. First, I was totally happy with how well everything coated and stuck; whatever didn't stick is what I pulled off by accident in the transfer or cooking process. Second, and this was a big one for me, it didn't pop all over the place while cooking. Therefore, it wasn't a mess to clean up, and I didn't have to avoid kitchen artillery from the oil popping at me. Both of these issues make for a recipe that I will make again. Either existing usually means tossing that recipe out never to be seen again.
This is definitely going in our rotation. It was excellent!
Okra is pretty fiber-riffic, so it's probably best tomorrow has turned out to be a Rest Day, Just sayin'. It's going to be quite a week as everything is up in the air because I have jury duty! I already know I don't have to go tomorrow, but that also means moving something later in the week to tomorrow just in case, not to mention I ended up working today in case another day is monopolized. So, I'll be playing it by ear (my favorite ... not!!) and will check in with the week's progress as I can! Start your week off just right, and I'll see you as I can ...!
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