Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire....

Warning:this post contains nuts and references to nuts. Do not continue if you cannot handle references to your nuts. Yes I am 12 in my head sometimes......

This is the time of year when a woman's thoughts turn naturally to...nuts. No, get your mind out of the gutter. Chestnuts. Roasting chestnuts to be exact. Roasting chestnuts is an activity I remember doing with my parents as a small child. Mom would peel them for me since they were hot. As an adult, I still have trouble peeling them. My sister blames it on my fingernails. I blame it on the chestnuts!

I had always roasted the chestnuts in a frying pan. with a lid. Every so often you would have to open one to see if they were done. This was a major pain. Recently my sister told me about an easier way she had discovered on the intartubes. This method makes them MUCH easier to peel.

I will now share it with you.

Step 1. Cut an 'X' in the shell of your nut.(snerk) A small paring knife works fine. I prefer one with a slightly 'hooky' tip like this:

Step 2: dunk your nuts (giggle) in a bowlful of water. Turn on oven to 425F

Step 3:When the oven is preheated, fish your nuts out of the water (tee hee) and put em on a cookie sheet. I like to lay em cut side down.

Step 4: Set the timer to 20 minutes and walk away. I am afraid I did not take a picture of this step. Use your imagination

Step 5: When the oven timer tells you that 20 minutes has elapsed, take your nuts out of the oven. (snicker) They should look something like this:

Step 6: You need to peel your nuts while they are hot. (that's what she said) Do so. I find a cutting board is helpful. Sometimes if you give them a smart slap with the palm of your hand they peel easier. Sometimes they don't and you have to pry. This step is significantly easier because of the soak them in water trick.

Step 7: EAT!!

Husband Cooks!

I did finish the earflap hat. I have yet to take pictures. Sigh. So, in lieu of that, I offer you another distraction. How I get my husband to make dinner.

First you get the main ingredient ready (beans in this case) and the first batch of seasonings together.

Label as '1'Then you get the second batch of ingredients/seasonings readyLabel as '2'Then type up instructions like so:

Drain beans and dump in biggest pot.
Add 4 cups distilled water
Add contents of bowl labelled '1', stir
bring to a boil and then REDUCE HEAT to low, cover partially and simmer for 1 hour
take out bay leaves and throw out.
Add contents of bowls labelled '2'. (there are 4 of them-2 bowls and 2 measuring cups)
stir
Cover and bake in oven at 350 degrees. check regularly to see if they need water. Add if you think they are not wet enough/stir

And the last step is....(drumroll please).....make sure you (me) are going to be home before it is done!

Actual recipe for Baked beans I am using is here.

Recipe

I was musing over ideas for posts today while at work. I have no real knitting content to give you. I did want to give you something to amuse youselves with, though. While flipping through a recipe magazine/book from Weight Watchers that was kicking around the store, I found their 'recipe' for bruschetta. I use quotes because they played fast and loose with bruschetta. Their recipe involved low fat mayonnaise (ick) and cream cheese. Also low fat of course. Also ick. I have been making a kick ass bruchetta for years. It is low fat. It is good for you. It is also teh nom.

It is what I call a Classic Italian Recipe. Which basically means a pinch of this and a dollop of that. Feel free to change proportions etc to suit your taste. It is pretty much impossible to eff up.

Here it is:

chop up a couple of Roma (or plum, although any tomato will do in a pinch)
chop up a slice of sweet onion. Small slice.
chop up a clove of garlic (or however many you want)
chiffonade (had to use the fancy cooking word!) (or chop up) a few fresh basil leaves
dash of salt if you want
dash of red wine vinegar.

toss it all into a bowl and mix. Feel free to add more or less of the ingredients till it looks right to you.

Let it sit in the fridge for an hour or 2. Or overnight. (you might need to drain some water if you do,though.)

Toast some baguette rounds. Put a dollop of the mixture on it and enjoy.

I have used toasted bagels instead of baguette. Or use any bread you have lying around. It's all good.

It's healthy, low fat and tastes good. No need for substituting crappy ingredients for good ones.

Take that Weight Watchers!

Ciao

I Used It!

Remember the clarified butter I made the other day? Today I used it! To make this:

Popcorn! Movie theater flavour popcorn, to be precise. The secret seems to be to use coconut oil as the fat. The clarified butter was (what else?) topping. The result? Lovely, movie theater popcorn. Another trick the recipe called for was to grind the salt used to sprinkle on top. I used the Flavour Shaker thingie from Jamie Oliver that was a Christmas present. Sorry, but the flavour shaker might seem like a good idea. The reality is that the stupid thing doesn't stay closed very well. I had to use 2 hands to hold it shut. So, as the brits say, I binned it.

The popcorn was a success though! I will definitely be making this again!

ciao

Butter Up!

As I continue experiments in cooking, I found a recipe I want to try that requires clarified butter. So I made some!

First, you put unsalted butter in a pot and melt over low heat. Seems if you do this with salted butter, the amount of salt that gets into the clarified butter can vary rather wildly.

Then you strain the melted butter through a few layers of cheesecloth.

Then you let whatever might have gotten through the cheescloth settle and/or float to the top. The stuff that floats, you skim off.

If you look close you can see that the bottom of the measuring cup is slightly lighter yellow. that is the milk solids we are eliminating. I put that in the fridge and then when it was solid, scraped the clarified butter away from the solids.

I am leaving the jar open on the counter for a bit to let the water evapourate. Then you can store either in the fridge or keave on the counter. Apparently, clarified butter stays good at room temperature for a very long time. 2-3 months supposedly. Apparently it is the milk solids that go bad. At any rate, stay tuned for my next experiment.

ciao

Aftermath

Yesterday I showed you the food I whipped up in the kitchen. Today, a reason why I don't do that very often.


Before:

And after:

I had even been doing a little clean up as I went along. Otherwise it would have been worse.I also had a little mishap during the height of the cooking. The thingie fell off the fume hood.

That thing actually goes over this:

Yes, "thingie" is the technical term. For me anyway.

Ciao

Adventures In Cooking..or...My Attempt at a 3 Course Meal

The menu plan for tonight was as follows:

First course: Cream of Broccoli Soup

Second Course: Saltimbocca

Third course: Cake

I started out well. I chopped up the celery & onion and sauteed them.

Then I added the broccoli and let it soften.

I pureed it and added the thickened milk. Voila! Cream of broccoli soup.

It was pretty good. Next time more creamy and less broccoli, I think.

Next, the saltimbocca. I pinned the prosciutto to the veal scallop with a toothpick

I fast fried the veal in a dollop of olive oil with a bit of butter. Then I deglazed the pan with some wine and another bit of butter for the sauce. Finished saltimbocca!

( I took the picture after I ate a piece!) This too was good. This recipe needs no adjustment!

Last was the cake. I figured I needed an easy one, after all the fancy cooking. So I thought I'd try a dump cake for the first time.

For some reason, the cake mix on top did not absorb the liquid. So it was still very floury. not yummy. That was a dismal failure and got thrown out.

Ah well, 3 new recipes and only one was a failure. Overall, I'd say that's a pretty good score!

Experimental Experience

Yesterday I promised you a review of the Tortilla Pie.

It was pretty easy to put together. When it came out of the oven it looked like this:

So far so good. Next operation to occur was to remove the springform pan:

That went well also. I cut it up and put it onto plates (which I didn't take pictures of).

Now for the real test...how does it taste?

Honestly? A little bland. It had a spicy bite to it (how could it not with the jalapeno), but overall the flavour was very..bland. It was edible, so it wans't a complete flop, but it was missing something. I tried putting sour cream on it. I tried salsa. I tried both. Still bland. As I was eating it all I could think was,"This is missing something." But I am unable to think of what.

So, not a complete failure, but not a resounding success either. I don't think I'm going to be making it again. Oh well, onto the next experiment....falafels! Idea courtesy of Bezzie.

But not for a couple of days. I have to work tomorrow and then I'll have to do groceries to pick up the fixins.