I went and saw Straight Outta Compton this past week. I’m not going to lie — I loved it! I honestly expected to like it, but I really liked it! I didn’t now much about N.W.A. and I didn’t know much about Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, or Eazy-E in general.
I thought they did a great job finding actors that looked a lot like the actual characters did when they were young. If you have seen the movie or previews then you know what I’m talking about but, holy cow O’Shea Jackson Jr. looks A LOT like Ice Cube. I know, I know…it is his son but still! I don’t look THAT much like my mom or dad. It was unreal.
Let’s talk food. Not millet or cashews – I’ll get to that shortly. Let’s talk sweet corn. I love sweet corn therefore I love August, because August is when sweet corn is at its prime! It is so fantastic right now. We eat Gaylon-Edson-Sweet-Corn. Donny’s dad plants two acres of sweet corn every year with Donny’s cousin Chris simply for family and people to enjoy.
We had some corn on Saturday then twice on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. My corn gnomes are going crazy right now….. piecing all the corn back together.
Last night we had our friends Matt & Tiffiny (and their three kids) over to put up a bunch of sweet corn to hold us over until next August. We picked 120 or so ears of corn, shucked it all, cut it off the cob, put it in Ziploc freezer bags, and froze it. No cooking and no blanching. You can cut it off the cob raw and then cook it when you are ready to eat it. Easy peasy.
We were done with the 120 ears but Donny wasn’t sure we had enough so he & Matt and their kiddos went to pick more. They came back with just shy of 80 ears and we did it all over again.
We put two cups of corn in each quart-size freezer bag and ended up with around 80 bags of corn! We kept about 30 of those bags which will leave us 2-3 per month on average. We have to watch it so we don’t run out too quickly and go through withdrawals! You think I’m kidding…. I’m not. If you don’t believe me then I’ll let you try a bag of ours to change your mind. But only one!
Now it is time to talk about these wonderful crunchy, nutty, sweet, salty delights called Cashew-Millet Clusters. They are so good and use very few ingredients. Cashews, millet, and organic brown rice syrup are the only necessary ingredients… the other three are just for added flavor.
Brown rice syrup is a sweetener that is super sticky. It is literally a sweetener made from brown rice. This article, Brown Rice Syrup: Good or Bad? by Kris Gunnars explains a little bit more about brown rice syrup.
Brown rice syrup is basically sugar, it’s just not high fructose corn syrup or added sugar. It is similar to honey or agave, so should be used in moderation. I used this brand.
I tried to make these clusters a couple times without using brown rice syrup. I tried agave first, but they didn’t stick together enough. I tried half agave, half brown rice syrup and they were better, but went soft once they were in an air-tight container. The final time I used 100% brown rice syrup and they turned out exactly how I wanted.
Oh well, I got the end result I wanted, right?!?
The millet in this recipe is uncooked which helps add extra crunch to the clusters. I used cinnamon and nutmeg to flavor this batch, but any spices on hand would work.
Just a heads up, I mentioned brown rice syrup is sticky and I’m not lying. Once you add the syrup to the dry ingredients you’ll really need to stir and mix it around so that it is evenly distributed. I found that mashing some of the lumps with the back of a spoon helped a lot.
I used a mini muffin pan to bake the clusters in so that they were fairly uniform. I also have enough mini muffin pans to bake all 30 clusters at one time so if you need to bake them in batches then the timing will be different.
You could bake the clusters on a flat baking sheet. They don’t need to be perfectly round, so just drop a teaspoon or two of the mixture on the sheet. These will spread out a little bit when they are heated up, so space them out a little bit on the baking sheet.
- 3/4 c raw cashews, roughly chopped
- 1/4 c pearl millet, uncooked
- 2 Tbsp organic brown rice syrup
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp salt
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a mini-muffin pan(s) with non-stick cooking spray.
- Combine the cashews, millet, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a small bowl. Stir until the spices are evenly distributed.
- Add the brown rice syrup to the bowl. Stir until evenly distributed.
- Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin tins or 1-2 tsp per cluster.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Allow pans to cool on a wire baking rack. Store in an air-tight container.
- If you do not have a mini muffin pan then use a flat baking sheet. The clusters will spread out a little bit, so space accordingly on the baking sheet.
