The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,558 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—7,822 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Unprocessed Kitchen Merit Badge, I was upping the ante and earning Level III. That’s right. The sequel to end all sequels. The coup de grace. The ending of a delicious trilogy.
The advanced EXPERT Level.
Gosh, I gave myself chills. I haven’t been so excited since the shoe sale at the outlet mall.
And if I thought Levels One and Two were fun, I was in for a real treat with the final installment. A dinner party. Who gets a badge for a dinner party? Farmgirls, that’s who. You could say it rocks to be us.
But not just any dinner party, of course: an Unprocessed Dinner Party. And when I say, dinner, I of course mean, dessert.
Evidently, my friends have sweet teeth beyond compare. The point of this party (besides having a blast, naturally) was to introduce them to unprocessed foods, find out their weaknesses, and then help them brainstorm ways to make those unhealthy treats into wholesome foods.
Real foods.
No food-like ingredients here.
No unpronounceable ingredients. (Although I have a heck of a time pronouncing acai and/or quinoa).
No 37 lists of chemicals in one, single, solitary slice of bread, no siree.
No pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, preservatives, food colors, additives, or otherwise frightening additions.
Just, plain, amazing, mouth-watering food. The kind that makes you weak in the knees and breathless. The kind that fills your house with a salivating inducing aroma. The kind that …
Whew! Is it getting hot in here or is it just my dark chocolate lava cake heating up the kitchen? Let me just use my cocktail napkin to fan my face for a sec here. That’s better. Onto the list my pals and I came up with!
- S’mores (Can you imagine this delight with organic, fair-trade chocolate, a homemade cinnamon marshmallow, and perhaps a gingersnap cookie in place of the graham? Or a spicy version with chili-laced chocolate, a vanilla marshmallow, and a chocolate graham? Or maybe a peppermint marshmallow with a white chocolate square and a homemade Snickerdoodle cookie? The possibilities, folks, are endless.)
- Homemade coffee-house drinks and creamers! I thought this one deserved an exclamation point, because who doesn’t love to sip on a frothy, creamy mug of goodness? But a lot of that goodness is filled with unnecessary calories, corn syrup, and fake foods, not to mention a painful blow to your wallet. Better to make your own, and so we did. We slurped (uh, I mean sipped) on homemade Hot Cocoa, Butterscotch Coffees, Hazelnuts Mochas, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes.
- Popsicles! This is another one where the possibilities for flavors are practically endless. We came up with all sorts of varieties, but our favorites included: watermelon basil, green tea with honey, coconut and lime, peach and strawberry sangria, honeydew cucumber, and Greek yogurt. Mmmm.
- The above-mentioned Dark Chocolate Lava Cake with homemade ice cream.
- Homemade Twinkies. Yep.
- And finally, enough cookie and cake ideas for us to open our own bakery.
Have a hankering to make your unhealthy vice more organic and homemade friendly? Do tell. Share!
I completed the beginner level of this badge so maybe the challenge for me is to keep going upward!! I found it is harder than you think it will be because each direction you look, there are things that must be changed.