Writer With A Farm

For the love of growing, eating, creating and doing

● Featured Article

  • The Introduction

    Good Day all! My name is Ayana and I’m glad you’ve stumbled upon my blog today. As this is my first post, I want to tell you a little about myself I hope that it inspires you to go after the life you want.

                    I fell in love with writing accidently. I had been given a pad of construction paper and began drawing pictures.  As time went on, I started writing words within my pictures which turn into writing poems to go along with them. Soon my pad was filled more with poems than pictures.

      In high school, thought watching the show Charmed I thought my calling was to be a baker and went to a trade school for baking. While learning to bake, I was also in a poetry club and I started writing a screen play and several books. Life got in the way and I never got around to finishing them.

                    I went to college for English with a minor in creative writing, after realizing I really passionate about writing. I started working on finishing on of the books I started in college. During this time I lost 70 lbs and discovered a passion for nutrition and thought about writing a cook book. I also got introduced to Open Mic and started writing more poetry.

    Post college I applied for a writing job and actually got it but went with a different opportunity that ended up being a sales job. To this day I kick myself for not taking that writing job. I, again, started working on finishing the books I started and started going to open mics on a regular basis. I Eventually got the courage to start performing.  I started to dream of performing at big open mic competitions.

    I started my first professional job and getting caught up in getting out of debt and building a career, writing, again, took a back seat. During this time, I also discovered my love of growing things and had a new dream of eventually being a writer with a farm.  I started working more hours and bought 6 acres in which to build a farm. I met my husband, got married, became a mom and focused a lot on building my gardens and growing my own food but I wasn’t writing. I didn’t have time; it wasn’t a priority. Recently I stopped and evaluated my life.  I am making progress at getting out of debt, I am building my gardens and getting chickens, I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful and sweet baby girl and I was taking steps with building my homestead. The only thing missing was writing. My goal in life was to be a writer with a farm and the only thing missing was me taking the steps to be a writer.  So here I am.

    This blog is me achieving my dreams. This blog will encompass all of my favorite things: coffee, gardening, baking, nutrition, homesteading, poetry and short stories. I hope you join me on this journey of building the life I’ve always dreamed of and I hope following me inspires you to do the same.

  • Fun with Cocao

    I woke up the other day with a deep craving for chocolate. A few weeks ago I made chocolate from a bar of cocao my best friend got me from Peru and I really wanted some more. When I finally got to it, it was early Sunday morning. I had just deep cleaned my kitchen the day before and decided making chocolate was the best way to break in my newly cleaned kitchen.  The last time I made chocolate bars I used milk, oil and sugar. It came out good but still needed a little work. Being the experimenter that I am, I wondered what it would taste like if I made chocolate with or without those ingredients.

    I made chocolate three different ways. First I made unsweetened milk chocolate using just 4 ounces of melted cocao and 3 ounces of heavy cream.

    Secondly I added 1.5 ounces of raw sugar to the remaining 11 ounces of melted cocao. I used half of that to make sweetened dark chocolate, adding in almonds and sunflower seeds as my palate seemed fit.

    The last time I made chocolate I used 2 ounces of sugar for 11 ounces of cocao. My plan is to decrease the sugar some of every time I make it and see how low I can get it and still thoroughly enjoy the chocolate.

    Lastly I added oil (peanut oil poured out of a jar of natural peanut butter) to see how the chocolate would taste with fat but no milk.

    That afternoon, my daughters and I went over a friend’s house for a playdate and I brought my chocolate so we could have a chocolate tasting. It was so much fun!

    It was such a fun and interesting experiment. I loved the texture of the unsweetened milk chocolate but it felt like it was missing something. It was a bit bitter like darker than black coffee. It was interesting to have something feel so smooth but also have just a dark bitter. The next time I try it I think I will add some spices. Maybe a pinch of salt or cinnamon or maybe even ground ginger. My favorite was the sweetened dark chocolate with almonds.

    The cocao that had sugar and peanut oil was my least favorite. I think the peanut oil didn’t do it justice. When I made chocolate a few weeks ago I did a mixture of olive and avocado oil and really enjoyed that.

    The recommendation is to use cocoa butter as it tends to stay solid at room temperature. I saw this happen in real time on Sunday . As we sat on my friend’s porch watching the kids play with playdough the cocao with just sugar got softer but did not melt. The cocao with just cream took a while to melt and the cocao that had the oil melted quickly. While it’s recommended, I never do it because I don’t like single use ingredients in my kitchen.   Every time I get a piece of chocolate, if I don’t eat it fast enough I end up with chocolate all over my fingers. I don’t mind that though as anyone who knows me knows I’m a little messy haha.

    The cocao I used

    I still have some raw chocolate in my fridge that was sent to us from Jamaica. In a couple weeks I’m going to make some chocolate bars with that and see how it turns out. I might even try my hand at making chocolate chips so when I’m in the mood for cookies I have some homemade chocolate chips!  We shall see how that turns out haha.

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