Pretty Healthy Mocha Muffins

This morning, I made some mocha muffins to have for breakfasts/snacks/desserts over the next few days. I haven't made these in a while for some reason, but I used to make them fairly often and always at this time of year. The other day, I thought of them and decided to make them again. I love them just heated up a bit so the chocolate gets slightly melted. In the past, I've had these heated up with ice cream on top. I gave some to someone years ago who loved them cold.

These are yet another variation of the soaked oat muffins, the original of which is from The New Laurel's Kitchen Cookbook and is called Lynne's Muffins. It's a convenient method, adaptable in so many ways. Here's this version:
Mocha Muffins
Place 2 cups of jumbo oats (old-fashioned rolled oats in the US) in a container and cover with 1 1/2 cups of strong coffee (if you don't like/want coffee, you can just make these plain chocolate--in that case, replace the coffee with milk, soy milk, buttermilk or soured milk, or even chai). Cover the container and leave it for several hours or overnight (if using milk, refrigerate).

When ready to make the muffins, place the soaked oats and any liquid still in the container into a mixing bowl, then add:
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (or almond, if you prefer)
1 egg
1-2 tablespoons drinking chocolate (this is a mix of sugar and cocoa--I use this because I have it in the cupboard--you could use sugar and baking cocoa instead)

Stir into the oats, then blend in:
1 cup wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Finally, stir in some chocolate chips and nuts. I used 100 grams of small chocolate chunks, because that's what I found in the store. They're extra dark, but you could use whatever kind you want. I crushed up 100grams of walnuts (minus the few I threw into my porridge this morning) and added those. You could use other nuts, if you prefer.

Spoon batter into greased or lined muffin tins.

Bake at 180C in a fan oven/400F for about 20 minutes. I ended up with 14 muffins.

Yum!

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Never Mind

This morning, we were trying to order a Barnes and Noble gift card online to be sent directly to someone in the US. I'd looked up the details, saw that it could be used in-store and in the café, so I suggested this as a gift. Bill thought it was a good idea, so he proceeded to the order page and began going through the steps. Then he had to slam on the brakes at obstacle #1. There had to be a sender's address and that address had to include a state. Of course, we do not have a state. It might have been possible to pick one at random, but then the address wouldn't have matched the payment details. After some attempts to find a solution, he opted to start over and try again with an e-gift card that the recipient could print out. Once again, all seemed to be going smoothly, at least for a while. He chose Paypal as the payment method and there ran into the next issue. They wanted an address again, which was fine, except that in the drop-down menu where he had to pick a country, Ireland was absent. Again, there seemed to be no way around this. Never mind. You'd think that, in this day and age, it would be a fairly common practice for international purchases of this type and a large business like that would be set up to handle such transactions smoothly. I could see it if it was a small business, but not a large corporation like that. In any case, we abandoned the idea and took a walk down to an Post, where we did a Western Union transfer. It was easy and quick--less time was spent on that than trying to do the Barnes and Noble thing.

And, as a bonus, we got to enjoy this festive decoration instead of being aggravated.

I hope there are no annoying issues cropping up as you go about your day!

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Vintage Vintage, New Vintage, and How Mature Is It?

One of my staple foods is cheddar cheese. I use a couple of kinds, depending on what I'm doing with it. For eating with crackers, we like a sharp cheddar. When we lived in Oregon and Alaska, we loved Tillamook extra sharp in the black wrapper (I don't know if it's still in the same packaging at this point) and would buy the 2 pound block to keep in the fridge. Here, it's mature, not sharp, and it varies wildly. Extra mature is not sold in that many places. In Ballinrobe, we had a local Tesco where we could get it, but I've not seen it in a SuperValu, which is our local shop now. The shops in Moville didn't have it, but they sold a different brand of mature cheddar that was almost as good. When we had access to Aldi, we discovered that they had it, so we'd stock up whenever we were near an Aldi. At one point, a friend mentioned the vintage cheddar at Aldi, so we bought one of those to compare with the extra mature. Yum! We started buying the vintage cheddar.

Then we came back here, went to Aldi after not being in one for a while, and discovered that the vintage we were used to was no more, but they had another, larger package of vintage cheddar and no extra mature.

We bought that and were quite disappointed. The new vintage was nothing like the vintage vintage. It still had 5 for the strength level, but it wasn't even close--it wasn't crumbly or sharp. I still bought it, because I didn't dislike it, there wasn't anything better in the local shop, and it was useful to cook with. I wondered whether this new vintage was replacing the vintage vintage and the extra mature.

Then the Aldi in Donegal Town remodeled, started stocking some new products and changing others. When we went the first time after the remodel, they had both the vintage vintage and the new vintage, so I bought both. When we went the other day, they also had extra mature.

You can see from the picture that it's crumbly, and even though it gives a strength level of 4, it is stronger than the new vintage at 5. Both say they've been aged for 12 months. I skipped the new vintage and just bought extra mature and vintage vintage. I have no idea if all of these cheeses will remain in store in future. I guess I'll find out.

Another thing I hope they bring back is the bag of jumbo porridge oats. This was another item that I could only get at Aldi at times. Porridge is popular here and porridge oats are never in short supply, and they're great for, well, uh, porridge. I also use them in bread and pizza crust. But they're like quick-cooking oats in the US, so not good for toasting to make muesli or in the oat muffins I make. For those things, I need jumbo oats (like old-fashioned rolled oats in the US) and Aldi was where I got them. I always stocked up and when a friend would come to visit, he'd swing by and get some to bring me, so even when I wasn't near an Aldi, I had a supply. I was down to one bag, so put that on my list the other day. When I found the new oat location, I noticed that the price had come down by a fair bit. The bag looked the same, but I was suspicious, so read carefully. Sure enough, the small print that had said, 'jumbo oats' on the side was gone, and when I looked at the ingredients, it said 'oat flakes' instead of  'jumbo oats,' so I left them there. Fortunately, I was able to find some jumbo oats in our local SuperValu. I didn't really need them immediately, but there were only a few bags left, so I figured I'd better grab one. As we were paying, I noticed that the woman at the next till had a couple bags of her own. Hopefully, since they seem to be popular, they'll keep stocking them!

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Bargains for the Critters

We did what was probably the last Donegal Dash of 2018 today. Bill had some stuff to pick up at the library (one book will be read by both of us). The library will be closed after Thursday until after the new year and we certainly did not want to be messing around there on the Thursday before Christmas!

Another reason we went was to pick up some food and treats to donate as a solstice gift, on behalf of a friend, to Animals in Need. They have a charity shop near the Aldi, so we picked up some stuff in Aldi and walked over to drop it off. We discovered that all clothes and shoes were €1. First stop was the bookshelves (and boxes). I found a small vegetarian cookbook. Then I wandered over to look at the necklaces. I've gotten a few nice ones there in the past to deconstruct so I can use the beads and pendants for other projects. Today, I saw this one hanging there and snapped it up for the large circular bead. The other beads are nice, too, and will come in handy, although I'm not a huge fan of that colour.

Then on to the clothes. Bill spotted a cap with a fabric piece hanging down the back. I said I'd take it. It'll be perfect in spring and summer when I'm walking in the sun, since it's so lightweight. I found a jacket that's a little big, but I got it anyway, because it'll work perfectly over a bulky sweater. My only coat was a trench coat that's long--it came with me from Maine, where I found it in a charity shop. It's great--has a wool lining, which I have not put in since Ive been here. I don't need a winter coat, but sometimes can use a lightweight jacket in wind and rain. So now I have one. My last happy find was a man's suit jacket. I checked to see what it's made of and it's all wool, so for €1, I couldn't leave it there. I'll cut it up and use the fabric.

We handed over €4 for the lot and she put everything in a sturdy coated paper bag, complete with ribbon, that came from one of the shops on the Diamond. Wool stuff is a specialty of the shop and they sell wool suits. The suit jacket was on top and Bill commented that people will think I'm a tourist who went to Magees to buy some Christmas stuff and how wrong they would be. Indeed! I wouldn't shop at Magees, but getting some bargains and helping the critters? Yup, I'll do that!

When we were done there, we had time to pop into a shop and get a couple of scones (blueberry for Bill and raspberry chocolate chip for me) before Bill went to the library, got his stuff, and we got the bus for home. It's been a mix of 'good sunny spells' and clouds today. On the way home, I saw someone was taking advantage of a good sunny spell--their laundry was flapping in the breeze.

The birds are out today, too, and catching the wind.

I hope it's a pleasant day in your neck of the woods!

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Unexpected Gift While Grocery Shopping

Today we rode to Donegal Town with a friend and did one of our periodic 'big shops' where we stock up on various basic foodstuffs, especially heavier items. As we were at the till in Lidl, and the guy was about to start scanning, he waved his arm towards a spot behind me and said something that I could not quite catch. I was standing there, prepared to start hurling items into the trolley as soon as he'd scanned them--there is a tiny area where scanned items sit and we never bag things right there, but rather use the bagging shelf to do so after we've paid. It's easy to fall behind when moving things to the trolley once they've started scanning, so after the usual pleasantries--'I'm grand, and yourself?'--I focus on that. So when he said something that seemed to be about getting something for free because we'd be spending more than €30, I looked behind me and just saw what looked like an empty cardboard stand. The guy started scanning and I started throwing stuff into the trolley. When he was done, he repeated himself, more slowly this time, telling me to go to the stand and get a box of chocolates, which were free because we'd spent over €30. Somehow, the first time he said it, I heard everything except the part about chocolate. I am not sure how the heck that happened! Chocolate is usually not something that goes over my head!

I chose a box, the guy scanned it, and off we went.

The dark chocolate penguins are hard to see, but they're there. The square ones with the white reindeer are filled with marzipan, pear, and cinnamon, which I think sounds weird, but Bill says are really good, as are the dark chocolate raspberry creme ones with the pink sprinkles. I tried a white chocolate and hazelnut Rudy the Reindeer and a marzipan hazelnut filled milk chocolate Sam the Snowman. We each tried two and neither of us has tried the dark chocolate Paul Penguin with his hazelnut filling. Tomorrow is another day.

This was a nice little surprise, even if I did feel like a dork when I didn't understand the guy at first.

Hope there are some sweet surprises in your day, too!

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Superb Saturday Surprise!

The postman usually doesn't deliver mail on Saturday, but I think maybe during the festive season they add a Saturday parcel delivery. Today he came with a surprise.

I'd read about this book in a couple of different places and considered requesting it from the library, but decided it was one I'd like to own and keep. Unbeknownst to me, Bill looked it up at Kenny's Bookshop and ordered it.

I am so excited about this book! I expect I will enjoy reading it and learn a lot. Woo hoo!

I hope this day brings some happy surprises your way, too!

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Finding and Seeking

We went out to do a couple of errands this morning and decided to call into the charity shop while we were out. We walked in and I saw something that warranted further attention.

I counted skeins (14) and looked at the label for fibre content (100% wool). I'll take it! We had a look around in the book room and Bill found one to bring home. We went up to the counter to pay and the woman said she wasn't going to charge me €12 euro, because 'some balls are missing.' She asked if €10 euro would be OK. Since I was prepared to happily give her €12, I said that would be grand and put away one of the two euro coins I had in my hand.

Off we went into the mizzle. As we passed the small shop on Main St, I suggested we pop in for some eggs. We went in and stood there looking at the space where the eggs used to be. There was plenty of milk and butter, but no eggs. This is not a big shop--it's about the size of a postage stamp, but is a deli, off-licence (liquor store), and mini-grocery store all rolled into one. There were not that many places eggs could be. I wondered whether they'd decided to stop selling them, but we picked up a bunch of fruit that's on sale and went to the till, where I asked the guy if he had eggs. He said yes and showed me where they are now. They'd been removed from the refrigerator case and placed on a rack right behind where we'd just been standing! Duh! If we'd turned around, we would've seen them. Just goes to show how we get used to certain things. I'm used to walking in there and going straight for what I'm in there for.

It was always a bit weird that the eggs were in the refrigerator case, because they rarely are here. They're just on a shelf, which was another different thing to get used to at first. We were just so used to having them refrigerated. Egg production is different here, so egg washing of hen eggs for the retail market is prohibited. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland website says:
 '...washing may aid the transfer of harmful bacteria like Salmonella from the outside to the inside of the egg. The priority in egg production is to produce clean eggs at the point of collection, rather than trying to clean them afterwards. The cleanliness of the egg should be assured by good management and hygiene of the poultry house, and by minimising the delay between egg laying and egg collection.'
In the US, conditions are such that eggs need to be washed and chemically sanitized before being put up for sale, which strips a protective outer coating from the shell. Once the egg is washed, and the coating is gone, salmonella can enter through the shell, so after washing in the US, they sanitize and then refrigerate.

I hope you find what you're looking for today and have a happy surprise or two besides!

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