#so this is us taking our fourth iced coffee with brown sugar and almond milk of the week

[beebeedibapbeediboop]

This is so far from what I usually do lmaoo but this is a gift for my bf who asked for us together with him as a golden retriever and me as a cat

[reviewsforyouse]

Horchata for Seven

Guys: Sorry this isn’t music. But I just needed to share this for fear of people thinking I fell off the face of the earth. I kind of have fallen off the face of the Earth, and I love it.

Here’s a horchata recipe I made!

I was petrified that after five hours of prep, my attempt at recreating this heavenly drink (that's probably as close as we're gonna get to unicorn milk) would fail. But I'm told there's variations of horchata, a beverage born in Valencia in the 13th century, depending on the place. I got my recipe from

https://www.mylatinatable.com/authentic-horchata-recipe/

but since I was missing so many ingredients, I thought I'd share my own spinoff.

If we were in the film Saw, and one of the questions you had to answer to ensure both of our lives was what my favourite cuisine was, and you answered with anything other than Mexican, we'd both die. I first tried horchata from a food-stall at a farmer's market in America. Living in England, Mexican food isn't as common, so it's rare that I get to enjoy it unless I'm making it myself (luckily, it is on the rise; we're finally seeing the light.)

This week, in my latest segment of, 'What Queer New Hobby can I take up over Quarantine?' I busied myself with an all-natural beetroot and coffee tie-dying regime (a traumatic and somewhat disappointing ordeal not worthy of a blogpost) and this. I'm sharing the one which worked, so you all think my life's perfect. Isn't that what the internet is about? (Kidding, I'll likely share the tie-dye trick later, maybe on attempt two though.)

So here's what you need:

Fine mesh strainer (I used a Muslin cloth)

A large bowl

Some form of blender is ideal

Ingredients:

1 cup White rice (I used what brown rice I found in the cupboard)

Cinnamon stick

1/2 cup Chopped almonds

1 1/2 cup rice or almond milk (I used oat, sorry, I don't play by the rules.)

1 1/3 cups sugar (I used 2/3. Sugar is scary.)

1 T vanilla extract

1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk (I had none, so I simply... did not add any)

1 litre water

Ice

The Recipe:

The good news: The prep for this is really simple. The bad news: you're going to have to be patient. Good thing patience is a virtue.

Place your rice, cinnamon stick and almonds in a bowl of water to soak for at least five hours. Ideally you want to leave it overnight, but no one is that organised... right?!

After soaking, drain your water out using a fine mesh container. You keep the rice, cinnamon and almond mix, not the dirty water.

Add your evaporated milk and blend well until rice is soft. I'm not sure how vital the evaporated milk is, mine tasted damned good without it. Also, for me, the cinnamon stick was still pretty hard, and I didn't want tiny little cinnamon bark strips in my horchata. The Mayans and Aztecs called this the drink of the gods, for god's sake, I can't be having no bits in my drink. So, I drained the mixture again after blending.

Finally, your rice/almond/oat milk, along with your sugar and vanilla extract. Blend together with a litre of water, and you're done! Serve in a large cup (as told by a Mexican blogger) with ice!

(For the drinkers in the room, you can juice it up by adding rum to make it all the more fun, but I'm not contributing to anyone's lockdown drinking problem, so you didn't hear that from me.)

Next time, I'm making the coconut version. I just need an excuse to drink another seven cup's worth. Fourth of July anyone?