Chocolate Covered Walnuts.

/ Jacobhouse / By

7/14/2020

(Above: Chocolate covered walnuts. Ingredients: 1 cup walnuts, 1 cup powdered cocoa, .375 cups butter, ~.5 cups coconut cream, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 cup coconut sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.)

Active Summary: Today began with calisthenics, a beef pasture check, and a few chores around the Jacobhouse. This was ensued by my writing for about three hours. Near the end of that time, I placed a couple potatoes in the oven for lunch, and at about 11:45 AM, I decided to cut a watermelon. The midday meal followed soon after and consisted of baked potatoes, salt & pepper spiced beef crumbles sautéed on the outdoor burner, a large salad, and watermelon.

  • I had not seen the office spider in a while, but he/she appeared last night and seems to have grown to double its prior size.
  • A variety of chickens roosting on a log directly west of Jacobhouse. Apparently they were not put away in their coop the prior evening.

(6:44 PM Update:) This afternoon’s first activities consisted of more writing, a few online tasks (e.g. attempting and failing to sign up for COVID cattle relief), and a brief rest in the Jacobhouse highbed. I next ventured outdoors where I tended to a Master Blend customer and helped with various cattle-related activities, including: salting / toting feed, checking the beef pasture with & without Padre, helping capture some beef cows for embryo transfer, and checking the barn for ailing creatures. We did have to IV one calf this afternoon, but it is my hope that the others will be able to go without.

A Common Five-lined Skink.
This one is a juvenile – something that can be discerned by its neon blue tail.

On returning to Jacobhouse, I took a shower and found that I had enough time to attempt a cooking experiment. In this experiment I made my own chocolate using cocoa powder, butter, milk (coconut milk), powdered sugar, and coconut sugar. Melting the chocolate consisted of first combining chocolate powder and butter in a glass bowl and constantly stirring while it – the bowl – was positioned over a pot of simmering water. A delicious-smelling paste formed* whereupon I added the ‘milk’ and sugar. As the mixture continued to heat, it smoothened up quite nicely until it was the proper consistency for coating a cup’s worth of toasted walnuts.

Final Note: This evening’s dinner will likely include leftover salad, watermelon, and chocolate-covered walnuts. It is quite the combination, but I foresee that it will be refreshing and light on the stomach.

*Tasted pretty awful seeing as it was just salted butter combined with bitter chocolate powder.