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Bacon Jam (a.k.a. Oooh-Mommy! Jam)

January 17, 2011 by 105 Comments

You know food is going to make you happy when it smiles at you.  (Probably could’ve made a buck selling a smiling egg yolk on eBay, but honey?  There was no way I was walking away from this breakfast.  And even if I did, there were twelve people waiting to take over the job for me this morning.)

My love of bacon has been pretty well documented (proof of my bacon-obsession) but I can honestly tell you that today’s recipe, Bacon Jam,  is the my favorite way I’ve ever eaten it.

I’m just going to say right here -at the beginning- that this is one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written.  I’ve flogged my brain for hours, but the fact is, there aren’t enough superlatives to describe how core-shakingly good this bacon jam is. It is umami jam.  It is Ooo-Mommy jam.

Since every way I conceived to ‘splain this jam ends up sounded like a big, fat cliche in my brain (lip-smacking, mouth-watering, etc…) I thought a few anecdotes about the power of this Ooooh-Mommy, holy-cow, sweet-crappy-pappy-this-is-good jam might do the job.

  • While this jam was cooking, a neighbor (who we haven’t met in the three years we’ve lived here) came over to introduce himself.  He didn’t say as much, but I assume the smell drew him since he kept looking over at the stove where my pot of bacon jam bubbled away. He left as a friend.  He’ll be back. I’m sure of it.
  • I was chatting with my friend, Krysta, who lives on the opposite coast,  telling her how the scent of the cooking jam made me want to gnaw my own leg off at the ankle.  She realized she had the ingredients and decided to make it right then and there.  Within an hour she was drooling all over the place.  Ask her.  She’ll tell you.
  • When my beloved, The Evil Genius, tasted Bacon Jam for the first time, his eyes rolled back into his head and he said, “Ooooh- Mommy.”  While my husband is a food guy, those are reactions that he just doesn’t have. That equals spectacular food.
  • We had a grown-up slumber party last night (Okay, not just grown-ups.  Four adults and nine children. The kids were tucked in and it was party time, Foodie With Family style.  We were hard-core.  We broke out the Gilbert and Sullivan and sang along.  You haven’t played a drinking game until you have to take a sip every time someone in ‘Pirates of Penzance’ says ‘duty’!) This morning, breakfast was toasted slabs of fresh homemade bread smeared with bacon jam that we heated in a cast-iron frying pan next to sunny side up eggs.  Our friends and their kids have now moved into our house.

Speaking of these friends…  While we collectively munched our breakfasts, our dear Daytons, Pamela and Jon, helped us hash out just why a Bacon Jam topped piece of toast with a fried egg was superior to the traditional fare of bacon, eggs, and toast.  Jon observed that with Bacon Jam and fried egg on toast, you get the taste of bacon, egg, and toast in every bite. Because of his keen insight, he got double rations and the ability to choose the keyword the next time we all indulge in our Gilbert and Sullivan proclivities.

This post is special for one other reason.  The aforementioned Krysta  happens to have a pretty stylin’ food blog. You have read Evil Chef Mom, right? I really did tease her about the salty, sweet, meaty, maple-y, coffee-tinged dutch-oven-of-joy that I had just created, and she really did inventory her pantry and chill-chest and make her own batch.  We waxed rhapsodic over our new discovery.  And more than that, we decided that we both needed to post this at the very same time, because Bacon Jam turned us into giddy little teenage girls who buy and wear matching Johnny Depp* t-shirts. Hop on over to Evil Chef Mom and read Krysta’s reflections on the recipe.  She tried the recipe using Martha Stewart’s original instructions (using a slow-cooker.)

*Or somebody.  But probably Johnny Depp.  Because he could be the Bacon Jam of actors.  Or not.  But probably he is.

You can join the Bacon Jam Club, Krysta and I aren’t exclusive.  We want the whole world to know this joy.  Just be warned, once you try it, it’s like the mob. There’s no going back.

Bacon Jam (a.k.a. Oooh-Mommy Jam)

Scroll to the bottom for an easy-print version of this recipe!

Inspired by Martha Stewart and The Perfect Pantry

Yield: About 6 cups.  (You can easily halve this recipe.)

Ingredients:

  • 3 pounds bacon
  • 4 large yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 8 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of a knife or a pan and peeled
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 1/2 cups very strong brewed black coffee
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cut the bacon slices into one inch strips.  Add the bacon to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Cook the bacon, stirring frequently, until the bacon is browned.  Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate.  Drain all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings into a heat-proof jar with a tight-fitting lid.*

*Save the bacon drippings in the refrigerator.  That’s too much flavor to trash!

Place the Dutch oven back over the medium-high heat and add the onions and garlic.

Stir well and reduce heat to medium.  Continue to cook for about 8 minutes, or until the onions are mostly translucent.

Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, and drop heat again, this time to low.

Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil hard for 2 minutes.  After 2 minutes, stir the browned bacon into the onions and liquid.

Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally to make sure things aren’t sticking, adding 1/4 cup of water if it seems to be drying out. When the onions are meltingly soft and the liquid is thick and syrupy, remove the dutch oven from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

Transfer the contents of the Dutch oven to the work bowl of a food processor that has been fitted with a blade.  Fit the lid in place and pulse several times or until the Bacon Jam is a spreadable consistency.  Scrape into a jar (or jars) or a container with a tight fitting lid.

Store in the refrigerator for up to one month or the freezer for up to six months!

Can be served cold, room temperature or warmed.

I do believe that breakfast just doesn’t get much better than this…

5.0 from 17 reviews

Print
Bacon Jam
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 32
 

Salty, meaty, chewy, sweet, savoury, smoky, bacony goodness. Bacon is crisped and made into the ultimate breakfast spread with maple syrup, onions, coffee, brown sugar and pepper.
Ingredients
  • 3 pounds bacon
  • 4 large yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 8 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of a knife or a pan and peeled
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • ½ cup pure maple syrup
  • 1½ cups very strong brewed black coffee
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions
  1. Cut the bacon slices into one inch strips. Add the bacon to a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook the bacon, stirring frequently, until the bacon is browned. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate. Drain all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings into a heat-proof jar with a tight-fitting lid.*
  2. *Save the bacon drippings in the refrigerator. That’s too much flavor to trash!
  3. Place the Dutch oven back over the medium-high heat and add the onions and garlic. Stir well and reduce heat to medium. Continue to cook for about 8 minutes, or until the onions are mostly translucent. Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, and drop heat again, this time to low.
  4. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil hard for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, stir the browned bacon into the onions and liquid.
  5. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally to make sure things aren’t sticking, adding ¼ cup of water if it seems to be drying out. When the onions are meltingly soft and the liquid is thick and syrupy, remove the dutch oven from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
  6. Transfer the contents of the Dutch oven to the work bowl of a food processor that has been fitted with a blade. Fit the lid in place and pulse several times or until the Bacon Jam is a spreadable consistency. Scrape into a jar (or jars) or a container with a tight fitting lid. Store in the refrigerator for up to one month or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
  7. Can be served cold, room temperature or warmed.

Notes
The bacon jam could take up to 3 hours to reduce to a syrupy consistency. Just stick with it!

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Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Breakfast Foods, Camping Food, Charcuterie, Component Foods, Condiments, Eggs, Instructional, kid food, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Meat, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Side Dishes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Spicy Cocktail Nuts and a Giveaway! (Updated)

November 3, 2010 by 76 Comments

We have a winner!  Connie… You were picked by the random number generator.

“Connie

I am surprised you are out of the competition. Your recipes are so delicious and extremely helpful. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.”

Contact me for instructions on how to redeem your prize!  Congratulations!

Aw, nuts!

…Or so I said when I learned that my tenure in the Project Food Blog competition was done. After a brief spell of sitting on my bar stool at my counter indulging in self-pity, I came to three conclusions.

  1. I was truly proud of each and every entry I submitted to the competition because each one represented my approach and attitude toward food.
  2. I was kind of relieved. I had a pumpkin carving party to attend that night and that meant I could really have fun without worrying about a deadline.
  3. I have the most loyal, kind, sweet, and hilarious readers ever created. The emails and messages of support left on the Foodie With Family fan page were and are much appreciated.  And truth be told, you guys kind of choked me up a little bit.  Thank you for all your support for me both during and after the competition.  You are awesome.

Now, that being said, I thought the most appropriate way to say ‘thank you’ and express my opinion about being foisted from the competish was to make some nuts.  As in aw, nuts.  As in I’m nutty.  As in I’m nuts for you guys.  As in…  let’s just make these nuts already, eh?

Spicy, sweet, salty, and totally addictive, these nuts will become an instant necessity in your holiday food arsenal.  You will dream about these.  Years ago (and we won’t say how many because I might be having an aging crisis), a friend brought these to an event that I organized at the office*.  Let’s just say that these didn’t make it past my desk to the buffet table.  They stayed with me.  And my friend wasn’t allowed to pass the desk until he jotted down the recipe for me.  Because I’m just that kind of person.

*The aforementioned event -my brainchild- was “PigFest” wherein we spent each Friday in November bringing in dishes to pass with the express aim of expanding our stomachs to better hold the bounty that would be lain before us at upcoming holiday events.  Who ever said advertising people were impractical?

Let’s talk about these nuts for a moment.  You can serve them warm (kept that way in a little slow-cooker) or room temperature; either way has its advantages. You can change out the seasonings used to spice them up.  You can ratchet up or scale back on the heat.  You can swap out walnuts, cashews, peanuts, Brazil nuts or whatever floats your boat for the almonds. You can pour a bunch of the cooled nuts into a clean canning jar, wrap some ribbon or rafia around it and give it as a fabulous hostess gift.  But what you can’t do is skip making these.

Before we go any further, let me tell you about this giveaway.  Aside from the nuts, it is another way of saying thank you for being here!  The nice folks at CSN (and have you LOOKED at their sites?  They have over 200 of them!  It’s like my own personal candy store! That bar stool link above is to one of their sites.) have offered a $50 gift certificate just in time to stock up with the gear you need to turn out the best holiday meals you possibly can.  Thank you, CSN!  So the rules.  First, I’m tired of contest rules so we’ll keep it simple.

Da Rules

  1. Leave a comment.
  2. That’s it.  You’re entered.
  3. If you really need more rules, perhaps you should make them up and leave them in the comment area.
  4. I love you guys.
  5. Really.  Those are all the rules.
  6. Oh geez, you slave drivers.  Okay.  One more thing.  I’ll pick the winner at random on Saturday morning at an as-yet undetermined time.  Because I told you, tired of the rules.

Now, we cook.

Aw, nuts.

Spicy Cocktail Nuts

Scroll to the bottom for an easy-print version of this recipe!

Recipe by Emeril Lagasse

  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 teaspoon water
  • 4 cups raw almonds (…or raw walnuts, pecans, or peanuts)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons Emeril’s Essence, recipe follows (or whichever spice blend you prefer…)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together egg white and water until frothy. Add the nuts and toss to coat. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, Essence, cayenne, and salt. Add to the nuts and stir to coat evenly. Spread the nuts on the prepared pan and bake until dry, about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and stir to separate. Let cool on the baking sheet. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Essence (Emeril’s Creole Seasoning)

Recipe by Emeril Lagasse

  • 2- 1/2 tablespoons paprika
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano
  • 1 tablespoon dried thyme

Combine all ingredients thoroughly and store in an airtight jar or container. Yield: about 2/3 cup

Print
Spicy Cocktail Nuts and a Giveaway! (Updated)
Author: 
Recipe type: Snack, Appetizer, Hors d’oeuvres
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: Lots
 

Addictive. That’s the only word to describe these spicy, sweet, crunchy, roasty-toasty cocktail nuts. Make with almonds, cashews, peanuts, walnuts… You choose!
Ingredients
  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 teaspoon water
  • 4 cups raw almonds (…or raw walnuts, pecans, or peanuts)
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons Emeril’s Essence, recipe follows in notes (or whichever spice blend you prefer…)
  • ½ teaspoon cayenne
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together egg white and water until frothy. Add the nuts and toss to coat. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, Essence, cayenne, and salt. Add to the nuts and stir to coat evenly. Spread the nuts on the prepared pan and bake until dry, about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and stir to separate. Let cool on the baking sheet. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes
Essence (Emeril’s Creole Seasoning) Recipe by Emeril Lagasse * 2- ½ tablespoons paprika * 2 tablespoons salt * 2 tablespoons garlic powder * 1 tablespoon black pepper * 1 tablespoon onion powder * 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper * 1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano * 1 tablespoon dried thyme Combine all ingredients thoroughly and store in an airtight jar or container. Yield: about ⅔ cup

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Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Breakfast Foods, Gifts, Holiday Food, Instructional, kid food, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Non-food recipes, Party Food, Project Food Blog 2010, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce

August 24, 2010 by 14 Comments

…Does writing two posts in a row with a sweet and spicy theme say something about me?

In actuality, I do believe I can blame this one on you all, you sweet and spicy wildcats.  I did, after all, put it up for a vote on the Foodie With Family Facebook fan phage. (Yes, I know it should be page, but I got carried away with alliterative abandon.) The voting results were narrowly skewed in favor of this addictive Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce.  Never fear, my salsa fanatics! We’ll be back on the salsa train tomorrow.  In the meantime, if you’re looking for my first salsa recipe in my week long salsa recipe series, you’ll want to click on over to my Record-Eagle column. While you’re at it, have a gander at my Peaches and Cream Time Saver Muffin recipe.  You’ll be so glad you did!

I have a confession to make.  My husband and I have allowed all of our children to learn and adopt our own long-standing addiction.  We didn’t just let it happen, we encouraged it.  In fact, we bought the strong stuff for them.  I mean heavy-duty.  The dangerous stuff that reduces strong men to weeping babies.  The truth is that growing up in our family it was all but inevitable.

All five of our sons are hot sauce addicts.

I do mean they are fully addicted to hot sauce.  For Christmas last year, my ten-year-old and eight-year-old chucked aside their main gifts in order to crack open the miniature bottles of Frank’s Extra-Hot Sauce that we had tucked into their stockings.  Did they shake it on their eggs?  Drizzle it over their breakfast sausage?  Eat it straight on chips?  No.  Any of those would’ve been reasonable, but no.  My children shook the bottles straight into their mouths.  On purpose.  And then repeated it until each of them had consumed about two tablespoons of it straight from the bottle.  Then -and then, only- they ate a couple pieces of candy.  And then went back to the hot sauce.

My baby.  My little, sweet, cuddly four-year-old baby likes copious amounts of Sriracha on his turkey sandwiches, in his congee and on his tacos.  My twelve- and six-year olds profess not to like hot sauce as much as their brothers, but that’s only because they’re choosy.  They don’t like Frank’s, Tabasco or Sriracha, but they both like -nay, adore!- Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXXtra Reserve Sauce.  Dare I confess that we buy it by the gallon?

Considering that I do often share ‘spicy’ recipes here on Foodie With Family, and that I often get questions regarding just how hot a recipe I just offered actually is, I thought it was about time for me to create a heat-rating system; one that gives you a good idea of just how hot something actually is.  A system that was more specific and universally understandable than my usual, “Well, my four-year-old eats it…” because the truth is, my four-year-old stuffs his face full of wasabi peas, cries, knocks his head against my thigh waiting for the wasabi burn to die down then begs me for more.  And so, I present to you…

The Foodie With Family “Spicy Foods” Equivalency Rating System

  1. Eh, at least it has flavor.
  2. Not bad.  This would be good for small children and it’s pretty tasty stuff.
  3. I like it. It’s a good all-purpose kind of heat without being at all overwhelming.
  4. Tingly, definitely packs a little punch.
  5. Hot, but full of great flavor.
  6. Oooh, the roof of my mouth is sweating.  More please.
  7. My tongue is on fire and I like it.
  8. I’m sorry.  Did you ask me something?  I can’t hear you over the freight train running through my ears and I’m pretty sure my face has melted off of my head.
  9. Where did everyone go?  I think I’ve gone blind.

If I were to put this in terms of widely available and well-known foods, it might look a little like this…

  1. A little freshly ground black pepper.
  2. Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
  3. Tabasco Sauce
  4. A generous shake of crushed red pepper flakes on a piece of pizza.
  5. Melinda’s Original Habanero XXXXtra Reserve Sauce
  6. Sriracha
  7. A bite of a fresh, ripe habanero pepper.  If you eat enough you will most definitely experience the ‘hot sauce hangover’.*
  8. …Crazy off-brand hot sauces that hardly anyone recognizes because they hurt and they’re expensive.  Most people don’t pay for that honest to goodness pain.
  9. Dave’s Insanity Sauce.  There’s a reason some states require you to sign a health-waiver when you purchase this stuff. And for the record, this stuff is off-the-charts for us.  With two notable (and historical) exceptions, we do not eat this.**

*The Hot Sauce Hangover is a phrase coined by The Evil Genius to describe the phenomenon whereby the hot sauce makes its presence known  on you causing your posterior to hang over the toilet for roughly the same amount of time it took you to eat it in the first place.

**These exceptions are stories for another day and another cuppa tea.  I’ll just say the first occasion was a pride-fueled attempt to impress someone by putting  Dave’s Insanity Sauce on my burger like ketchup. The second event was my husband trying to eat it because he didn’t believe I could’ve possibly experienced that much pain from hot sauce when I recounted the story to him. I won that time.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s talk Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce.  I’m going to say that it falls somewhere between a four and a five in terms of heat and it gets full-marks on flavor.  If your heat-preferences run lower than ours, you can certainly reduce the crushed red pepper flakes called for in the recipe.  In terms of commercial comparisons, it is similar in flavor to Mae Ploy sauce but as with most homemade sauces, it’s just so much better.  There isn’t much that tastes better with lumpia, summer rolls or fried spring rolls, egg rolls or chicken balls.  Use to glaze or brush on grilled meats or whisk a little together with grated fresh ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil for the best dressing ever to adorn an Asian chicken salad. Just look at how gorgeous it is.  Don’t you want to drink a tall glass of it?

No?  I’m alone on this?  No one else wants a glass?  Alright, but seriously, make this.  It is one of the easiest canning projects you can try because it doesn’t require any exotic ingredients or specialty equipment aside from the canning jars themselves.  And believe me, it is worth the effort. For the sauce to reach its full flavor potential, it has to sit on the shelves at room temperature for at least three weeks.  This isn’t a moment where you can mix up the sauce and shove it in the back of the refrigerator.  It just won’t develop the same roundness and body. Veteran canners can skim through and get the information they need, but I’m going to talk this through step-by-step for the newbie canners out there.  You can do this! Yes, you CAN.  Oh man, I crack me up.

In order to complete the project, you need to be able to lay your hands on the following items:

  • Between nine and twelve half-pint (8 ounce) canning jars with new two-piece lids.  If you’re unfamiliar with two-piece lids, just buy a box of new canning jars from your local hardware store or Walmart.  They come -quite conveniently- with new two-piece lids!
  • A large stockpot or pasta pot with a tight fitting lid.
  • A rack that fits on the bottom of the pan to prevent jars from sitting directly on the pan’s surface. If you don’t have that, rings from ‘regular mouth’ canning jars can be placed facing downward sides touching to create a space between the bottom of the jars and the pan.
  • A waterproof oven mitt or canning tongs.
  • A ladle.
  • Paper towels or clean tea towels.
  • A timer or a clock.

For a printer-friendly, photo-free version of this recipe, click here!

Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce

Adapted from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Yield: About 9 half- pints as written

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup finely minced fresh garlic (Peel and mince your own garlic, please. Pre-minced garlic in jars just isn’t good enough for this recipe.)
  • 1 Tablespoon Kosher salt
  • 6 cups cider vinegar
  • 6 cups granulated white sugar
  • 3/4 cup (less if your heat tolerance is lower) crushed red pepper flakes

Prepare the jars and rings by washing on the hot cycle of your dishwasher.  Wash the lids in hot soapy water and rinse well.  Place in a bowl covered by two or three inches of very hot tap water.  Set aside.

Prepare your canner (or stockpot) by putting a rack in the bottom to hold the jars away from the base of the pan.  If you do not have a rack, use a fully opened vegetable steamer basket or extra rings from ‘regular-mouth’ or ‘narrow-mouth’ canning jars placed facing down with the sides touching.  Set aside.

Sprinkle salt over the minced garlic in a metal or glass bowl (don’t use plastic here unless you want a perma-garlic bowl!)  Stir together, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let it mellow at room temperature for an hour.  The salt will help pull some of the moisture from the garlic, so don’t skip this step!

In a saucepan, bring the vinegar to a rolling boil.  Add the sugar all at once and stir well until the sugar is dissolved.  Return to a full boil.  Lower heat just slightly so that it boils steadily but not really hard.  Boil steadily, uncovered,  for 10 minutes.  Remove the pan from the hot burner, stir in the garlic mixture and the crushed red pepper flakes.  Take care not to hold your face directly over the pan when adding in the pepper flakes as that can trigger some serious coughing and eye-watering, depending on the strength of the pepper flakes.

Ladle the hot sauce into the hot jars.  You want to leave 1/2″ of space between the top lip of the jar and the top level of the dipping sauce.  Use a ruler outside the jar to check whether you have the right amount of open space.  If you need to, use a spoon to remove some sauce or add sauce to maintain that 1/2″ of headspace.  Use a paper towel (or clean tea towel) dipped in pure cider vinegar to wipe the rims of the jars even if it doesn’t look like anything is on it.

Use your clean hands to grab a lid from the hot tap water.  Position it, rubber seal side down, directly over the center of the jar.  Place the metal ring over the jar and gently screw it into place until you meet resistance. When you meet resistance, tighten the jar until it is finger-tip tight.  (In other words, tighten until it is the tightness that you can achieve with your finger-tips, not with vice-grips.) The jars are going to be hot because you poured nearly boiling liquid into them.  I find it helpful to wear an oven mitt on the hand that is holding the jar steady.

When all of your jars are ready, set the prepared canner on your burner.  Position the jars (using an oven mitt to keep from burning your fingers or palms) over the rack (or steamer basket or upside-down canning lids) so that the jars are steady and in an upright position.  Cover the jars completely by at least one inch with hot tap water. Place a lid on your canner (or stockpot) and turn the heat on your burner to high.  When the water reaches a full, rolling boil (one that could not be stirred down), set your timer for 15 minutes.  When the 15 minutes have elapsed, remove the lid to your canner and shut off the heat.  Leave the jars in the hot water for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, transfer the jars (using a waterproof oven mitt or canning tongs) to a towel lined counter or a cooling rack with a towel under it. You should start to hear the “POP” of the lids as they form vacuums and seal.  This is a very good thing!  Leave your jars to rest, undisturbed, overnight.  In the morning, test the jars by pressing gently on the center of each lid.  If it does not give under gentle pressure or pop back up, your seal is good.  Remove the rings for storage*, wipe gently with a damp cloth or paper towel, label and store in a cool, dark place for 3 weeks prior to using.  Unopened, sealed jars of this sauce can be stored for a year.

*Storing your jars without the rings is a little bit of insurance.  When food spoils in a closed environment, the gasses produced by bacterial growth create upward pressure in the air pocket left by the headspace you so carefully measured in the jar.  If you remove the ring, any gasses produced by spoilage will push upward on the lid loosening the seal.  When you open a jar, if the seal is weak or there is no “schllllllooop” from a vacuum seal being broken, discard the contents immediately.  On the flip side, if you hear that lovely “schllllllllooop” and the lid is difficult to pry from the jar, you’ve done the job right!  You can eat your home-canned goodies, content in your foodstuffs’ safety.

Before opening a jar of Thai Sweet and Hot Garlic Dipping Sauce, be sure to give it a good shake.  There will be a natural settling of the product in storage and shaking is a simple way to distribute all that gorgeous garlic and pepper flake-age.

Filed Under: Canning, Component Foods, Condiments, Food Preservation, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Sweet and Spicy Chipotle Kettle Corn

August 22, 2010 by 6 Comments

A.) It’s rainy.

B.) It’s chilly.

C.) My husband was on a business trip this week meaning that I parented our five boys solo.

D.) My husband got in from that business trip at 1:30 a.m. this morning.

E.) I’ve been canning like a maniac for weeks on end.

F.) I have a hole in my heart that was created by my utter lack of time to watch my favorite movies lately.

G.) I spent all of yesterday at the Angelica Farmer’s Market with the kids (who were selling their Mortar Men and Room & Linen Sprays) on what turned out to be, according to the market’s coordinator “…the slowest day we’ve ever actually had at the Farmer’s Market.”

H.) I wanted to prove that I am still capable of writing a post that doesn’t involve putting food in jars. Although, you really could actually put this into jars.  Just a thought.

There.  This is what I like to think of as front-loading with my excuses reasons behind this post. And now that I’ve been all efficient, I can go straight to the good stuff; Sweet and Spicy Chipotle Kettle Corn. I never really cared much for kettle corn because of an unfortunate incident as an exchange student in France*. I found it an affront to the great and noble salted and buttered popcorn of my youth. I viewed it as an anemic impersonation of caramel corn; food of the gods. And last, but certainly not least, I really, really REALLY didn’t like how very many times I had seen it written ‘kettle korn’.**

*I had been in France for about three months when struck with an incredible craving for crunchy popcorn. I stopped in the first Supermarché I could find and gasped audibly when I found a bag of fluffy white popcorn on the shelf.  I grabbed. I paid. I tore it open. I stuffed a fistful in my mouth.  I spit it out into a garbage can.  I was not emotionally prepared for popcorn to be totally sweet. White Cheddar or Salted? Yes. Sickly sweet?  Not so much.  And so my prejudice against any sweet popcorn that wasn’t caramel corn was born.

**Korn with a ‘K’? No way. That rubs ever CDO** bone in my body the wrong way.

***CDO: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in alphabetical order. The way God intended.

But inspiration strikes at odd moments.  As The Evil Genius and his progeny sat on the couch watching the Little League World Series (El Salvador vs. Saudi Arabia) our eldest pined -pointedly- in my direction, “I sure could go for something sweet to munch.  Sigh.”  The Evil Genius mouthed the words “kettle corn” in my direction and accompanied it with his most charming world-domination smile.  Then they all started ululating.*

*Sorry for all the asides, but this one is one-hundred percent necessary. The guys saw a Saudi mother ululating when her son hit a home run. They’ve been ululating since.  It’s been two hours.  Send help. Now.

Since I was afraid they’d carry on ululating if I didn’t whip up a batch of kettle corn I hied me hence to the kitchen.  I planned on doing one batch of the dreaded kettle corn for them and one batch of my favorite; salted with nutritional yeast (don’t you DARE gag.  It’s delicious.  Even if it DOES contain something called ‘nutritional yeast’ which admittedly sounds like it would be served by a very serious health food adherent with no sense of humour whatsoever.) I made the kettle corn, poured it into a bowl and -in an act that I really can’t remember consciously deciding to perform- sprinkled a generous quantity of ground chipotle powder over the top. Um. Whoops?

No.  Not whoops.  Divine.  Sweet, smoky, spicy, salty and crisp; this stuff knocked off my socks. Color me converted. Well, to the Sweet and Spicy Chipotle Kettle Corn anyway. You can keep the other stuff. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I ended up making several more batches because it was eaten almost as fast as I could make it. The kids loved it.  The Evil Genius loved it.  I loved it. Score.

Now if you’ll pardon me.  I’m going to go grab my bowl and catch up on my movies.  Middle Earth, here I come!

For a printable version of this recipe minus the photos and rambling, click here!

Sweet and Spicy Chipotle Kettle Corn

Ingredients:

  • 3 Tablespoons canola oil
  • 1/4 cup of your favorite unpopped popcorn kernels (I love ladyfinger popcorn.  So small, so cute, so tasty!) + 3 extra kernels
  • 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
  • salt to taste (start around 1/4 teaspoon and work up from there.)
  • ground chipotle pepper powder to taste (start around 1/4 teaspoon and work up from there.)

Regular Pot Instructions:

In a large heavy-bottomed pan with a tight-fitting lid, heat the oil and the 3 extra kernels over medium high heat with the lid in place.  Shake the pan every 10 seconds.  When you hear the three kernels pop, act quickly (while wearing oven mitts.)  Dump in the 1/4 each of popcorn kernels and sugar.  Put the lid back on very quickly and start shaking in a circular motion. Listen to the popping of the kernels.  It should pick up in tempo until you can’t distinguish the popping of individual kernels.  Keep shaking the pan. After that it will gradually decrease. This is where you need to pay the most attention.  When the popping tapers off to the point where you hear a two to three second pause between pops, you need to pull the pan off the heat and empty it into a bowl very quickly.

Whirly Pop Instructions:

In a Whirly Pop pan, heat the oil and the 3 extra kernels over medium high heat with the lid in place.  Keep turning the Whirly Pop handle.  When you hear the three kernels pop, act quickly (while wearing oven mitts.)  Quickly open one side of the Whirly Pop and dump in the 1/4 each of popcorn kernels and sugar. Knock the lid back into place very quickly and start turning the handle. Listen to the popping of the kernels.  It should pick up in tempo until you can’t distinguish the popping of individual kernels.  Keep turning the handle. After that it will gradually decrease. This is where you need to pay the most attention.  When the popping tapers off to the point where you hear a two to three second pause between pops, you need to pull the pan off the heat and empty it into a bowl very quickly.

~~Now for the good stuff…

No matter which way you cook it, when you’ve emptied it into a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and chipotle powder to taste, toss and stir with a long wooden spoon.  You don’t want to stir by hand because that melted sugar seriously burns!  Let cool for a couple minutes and then dig in!  Kettle corn keeps well in a paper bag with the top folded down and crimped for a day or two at room temperature.


Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Camping Food, Desserts, Gifts, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Instructional, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling

July 28, 2010 by 17 Comments

I used to think I despised cherries.

This was some high-heresy for a girl raised awfully close to ‘The Cherry Capital of the World’.*  Why I thought cherries were gross I can attribute to two reasons: A) I didn’t like the whole spit-the-pit thing.  I was a tidy child. B) The only way to eat cherries sans pits, as far as I knew, was maraschino cherries and I still maintain that those are disgusting.

*Nothing like some trivia to de-cobweb the old gray matter. Does anyone out there know which area I mean?

I realized the error of my ways long after moving out of state*.  I was at a friend’s house when she insisted I try a beautiful red cherry she had picked earlier that day.  I was blown away by the intense, tart, sweet flavor.  And I didn’t even mind spitting the pit. My devotion was deep and instant. But DANG they were expensive. On sale, loss-leader sale even, I couldn’t find pre-picked cherries for anything less than $2.99 per pound.  I lived much too far from any cherry orchards to make it cost-effective to drive to one to pick my own. Then we moved again.

*I have a  major food regret from my childhood. I wish I hadn’t been such an anti-cherry and anti-morel mushroom picky-pants.  I had both overflowing in my backyard free for the taking.

I am now fortunate enough to live in Amish country where the bulk-food buying and canning mindsets of my ‘Dutch’ neighbors combine to provide me with ample and affordable supplies of pre-picked fruits and vegetables at prices that would make grocery store managers reach for the antacids. This year, I pitted sixty pounds of sweet black cherries and I’m still canning my way through thirty pounds of pre-pitted sour cherries. The black sweet cherries rang in at $0.70 per pound and the pre-pitted sour cherries came in at a slightly pricier (but still bargain-basement price of) $1.26 per pound.  You already know about the Rum-Soaked Preserved Cherries and the Boozy Cherry Molasses, and I’ve been promising my Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling recipe for an (indecently) awful long time.  How many of you are waiting out there languishing with a whipped ganache filled tart in hand just hanging on for a pie filling that doesn’t taste and look like glorified maraschino cherries and doesn’t plop out of a pull-tab can?  I am so sorry.  I blame my children.*

*Because I can. Yes, I can. A little laughter please? Can’t a girl get a little giggle for politico-culinary humour?

Why make your own instead of buying the cheap stuff? For the usual reasons; flavor and health. Store-bought canned pie filling can’t hold a candle to homemade in terms of flavor.  But just as compelling is the long list of nasty additives and artificial flavors present in the storebought stuff.  There are five -count ‘em- FIVE ingredients in homemade Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling, all of which are readily available and pronounceable.

Ah, Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling. What can’t you do? Sure, you can make a good old-fashioned cherry pie with it, but you can also top cheesecakes with it, layer it with brownies and whipped cream in a mean trifle, pour it on top of softened cream cheese to serve with graham crackers or make a deadly no-bake Black Forest Truffle Tart.  You want some of this on your pantry shelves. Seriously.

For a printer-friendly, photo-free version of this recipe, click here!

Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling: Printer Friendly Version

From The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (see here for book details!)

Yield: about 8 pint (500 mL) or 4 quart (1 L) jars

Ingredients:

  • 10 pounds frozen sweet black cherries, thawed in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
  • 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 cup ClearJel (Or Thermaflo or Permaflo)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice

Position a colander over a large bowl. Pour partially thawed cherries into the colander, cover lightly with plastic wrap and leave on the counter top, stirring occasionally, until you have collected 7 cups of juice in the bowl.  Set aside the juice and the cherries.

Prepare the canner, jars and lids. For more information, see our basic canning how-to’s.

In a large stainless steel or enameled stockpot, whisk together the sugar, ClearJel and cinnamon. When it is evenly combined, whisk in 4 cups of the cherry juice*.  Place stockpot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Continue boiling until thickened. Whisk in the lemon juice and return to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue stirring and allow the mixture to boil hard for 1 minute. Add the reserved cherries all at once, stir in gently, and continue stirring constantly while returning to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat.

*You can freeze or can the remaining juice or turn it into Boozy Cherry Molasses. The basic instructions remain the same, just add half as much sugar (by volume) and go forth with the directions from there.

Scoop the hot pie filling into the hot jars allowing 1-inch of headspace to remain between the pie filling and the rim of the jar.  Remove air bubbles from the filling by inserting a long, flexible spatula or chopstick into the jars. Wipe the jar rims and position the lids in place.  Screw the rings onto the jars to fingertip tight.

Place jars in a canner, cover with hot tap water by at least 1-inch, cover, and place covered canner over high-heat to bring the water to a boil.  Once the water is boiling hard, you can begin timing; both pints and quarts must be processed for 35 minutes.  After 35 minutes, turn off the heat, remove the lid and let the jars remain in the water for an additional 5 minutes.  Remove to a cooling rack or towel lined counter and allow to cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours before removing rings, wiping jars clean and labeling. Processed and sealed pie filling can be stored in a cool, dark place for a year or so.

~~~~

Before I leave you to whipping up your own batch of Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling I want to let you in on a dirty little secret. I have a treat that I allow myself that I refer to as Mommy’s Little Helper. It’s the thing that stands between sanity and selling my children to the nearest traveling circus and it is as simple as it is delicious. Just dip a spoon into your resident jar of Nutella (you DO have one, don’t you?) and top with a dollop of Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling.  Open mouth. Insert. Oh sure, you could  class it up a little and serve it on graham crackers or chocolate wafer cookies, but then it’s not so naughty -and therefore- not so much fun. Danger. It’s my middle name.

Filed Under: Canning, Component Foods, Desserts, Food Preservation, Instructional, kid food, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries and Boozy Cherry Molasses

June 28, 2010 by 18 Comments

Cherry season usually gets away from me.  It seems like I find out cherries are on about twelve hours before the end of the (what feels like a twenty four hour) season.  I usually manage to get one or two glorious pounds.  We dispatch of those quickly with a manic eating and pit spitting binge that ends not with the jars and jars of pie filling and preserved cherries that I wanted but with pink stained lips and teeth and hands.  Then I sigh, promise myself I’ll get the jump on it next year and wait semi-patiently for blueberry season where I compensate by picking about a hundred pounds of blueberries.*

*Would that I were joking.  I put up in the neighborhood of 100 hand-picked pounds of blueberries every year. We were talking cherries, though, weren’t we?

But not this year.  Oh no.  Not this year.  This year, thanks to my good friend Lisa, I heard about an almost unbelievable deal from one of our local Amish bulk stores.  They were putting together a group order of cherries; sweet dark cherries, freshly picked, for $0.95 per pound.  And what’s more, they would be getting sour cherries, already pitted, in a couple weeks time for $1.26 per pound. I ordered thirty pounds of sweet darks and thirty pounds of sours.  I didn’t just get a jump on it.  I bungeed. Off a cliff.

The results of my cherry preserving bender are nothing short of lip-smacking and I’ll be sharing all of the recipes over the next couple weeks.  Some of the recipes require fresh cherries, some require frozen and some can take advantage of fresh, frozen or canned cherries; I’ll start with the ones that use the fresh cherries first.  Aren’t I logical?

First up is a two-fer; Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries and Boozy Cherry Molasses.  Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries are exactly what they sound like.  They are cherries soaked in a rum-heavy sweetened syrup.  And they are heavenly.  These tipsy little beauties can be eaten straight from the jar, added to baked goods, used to garnish drinks (think Maraschino cherries, but delicious and all natural), or perched on top of a scoop of ice cream that has been drizzled with the happy side-product of their creation; Boozy Cherry Molasses (a jewel-toned rum and Kirsch fortified, thick, sweet, intensely cherry syrup boiled down after making Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries.) What do you do with the Cherry Molasses?  It’s a chameleon, I tell you.  Pour it over ice cream, brush it on grilled pork or venison, eat it from a spoon.

You have some decisions to make when you start with these; stems or no stems and pits or no pits.  I prefer to leave mine with stems and pits intact. I think it makes for a prettier finished product but I’m not all flash and no substance; leaving the pits intact imparts a gentle almond flavor and leaving the stems on gives each cherry a built-in handle for removal from the jar.  If you want to remove the stems and pits, go for it! I’ve included the different quantities needed for both versions.

For a printer-friendly, photo free version of this recipe, click away!

Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries

Adapted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (See here to learn more about the book.)

Yield: about 4 (8 ounce) jars.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 cups water
  • 6 1/2 cups cherries with pits and stems intact (5 cups of cherries if you remove stems but leave pits intact, 7 1/2 cups of unpitted cherries if you wish to pit and stem them before preserving)

Per Jar:

  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons Golden Rum

Prepare your jars and lids. If you wish to make the cherries shelf-stable, please also prepare your canner.

Place a stainless steel or non-reactive stock pot over medium-high heat; add the sugar and water to the pot and stir to dissolve the sugar.  Bring the syrup to a boil and add all of the cherries immediately.  Return to a boil while stirring constantly.  Reduce the heat and allow to remain at a gentle boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Using a slotted spoon and a wide-mouthed funnel, transfer the hot cherries from the hot syrup into the jars, leaving 1/2 of an inch of head space (the space between the rim of the jar and the food).  Add 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Golden Rum to each jar, then spoon or ladle the hot cherry syrup into the jar, maintaining the 1/2 of an inch of head space.

Insert a chopstick or skewer down the insides of the jar to remove air bubbles.  If necessary, add more cherry syrup to keep that 1/2 of an inch of head space.*  Wipe the rims of the jars, center the lids on the jars and screw down the rings until finger-tip tight.

*Hang on to that leftover hot syrup and leave it in the pan; that’s the most important part of the Boozy Cherry Molasses!  You can either make the Boozy Cherry Molasses right away, or pop the pan into the refrigerator to complete later.

You can either refrigerate the cherries in the syrup for up to a month or you can process them in a boiling water canner to make them shelf stable for a year.  I prefer to can them.

To process them, place the jars in a stockpot or canner, covering them by 1-2 inches of warm tap water.  Cover the pot and bring to a boil.  When the water is at a rolling boil (a boil that cannot be stirred down), begin timing and allow to process for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the lid to the pot, turn off the heat, wait 5 minutes and then lift the jars straight from the water and place them carefully on a cooling rack positioned over a towel.  Do not tilt the jars (it interferes with the natural formation of a vacuum which is one of the things that keeps the food safe and shelf-stable!)

Cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours.  As the jars cool, you will hear a popping sound.  That is the sound of the lids sealing.  That is what you want to hear.  Check the jars after 24 hours.  If any of them have not sealed, simply store in the refrigerator.  Wipe the jars clean and label them before storing in a cool, dry place (like a cupboard.)

Boozy Cherry Molasses

Yield: Between 1 1/2 and 2 (8 ounce) jars

Ingredients:

  • Remaining hot cherry syrup from making Rum-Soaked Preserved Cherries

Per Jar:

  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons Golden Rum
  • 1 teaspoon Kirsh (or other cherry liqueur)

Place the remaining cherry syrup back over the burner over medium-high heat and return to a boil.  Lower the heat to medium-low and maintain a gentle boil until syrup is reduced by half (or more, depending on how thick and concentrated you want the syrup.)  The syrup should fall slowly from the spoon when thickened and leave a clear trail when you draw your finger across a spoon that was dipped into it. But do be careful.  Hot sugary syrups are, well, HOT!  Be patient.  Wait  before testing! When the syrup is thickened to your liking remove from heat.

Prepare your jars and lids. If you wish to make the syrup shelf-stable, please also prepare your canner.

Add the Golden Rum and Kirsh to your jars and ladle the thickened syrup into the jars to within 1/2 an inch of the rims.  Wipe the rims, center the lids on the jars and screw the rings on until fingertip tight.  I usually process this in a boiling water bath along with the Rum Soaked Preserved Cherries, but if you opted to save the hot cherry syrup and complete the task later, boiling water processing is optional.  As with the preserved cherries, you can store the Boozy Cherry Molasses in the refrigerator or process them for one year’s worth of shelf stability.  If you opt to can them, the directions are as follows.

To process them, place the jars in a stockpot or canner, covering them by 1-2 inches of warm tap water.  Cover the pot and bring to a boil.  When the water is at a rolling boil (a boil that cannot be stirred down), begin timing and allow to process for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the lid to the pot, turn off the heat, wait 5 minutes and then lift the jars straight from the water and place them carefully on a cooling rack positioned over a towel.  Do not tilt the jars (it interferes with the natural formation of a vacuum which is one of the things that keeps the food safe and shelf-stable!)

Cool, undisturbed, for 24 hours.  As the jars cool, you will hear a popping sound.  That is the sound of the lids sealing.  That is what you want to hear.  Check the jars after 24 hours.  If any of them have not sealed, simply store in the refrigerator.  Wipe the jars clean and label them before storing in a cool, dry place (like a cupboard.)

Just look at this elixir poured over chocolate ice cream.

And ooh boy, how about doing this?

Go on.  You know you want some…

Oh.  I’m sorry.  You can’t taste it through the computer?  I guess you’ll just have to make some.  You’ll be happy you did.  Now pardon me, please.  I have to finish off this bowl of ice cream before it melts or I do.

Filed Under: Canning, Component Foods, Desserts, Food Preservation, Gifts, Instructional, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , ,

Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers and S’Mores Bars

June 16, 2010 by 7 Comments

Oftentimes, the ordinary things are the ones that bring the most pleasure; a cool breeze on a hot day, sitting quietly next to your kids on the couch, studying puffy white clouds in a cerulean sky, eating the first sun-warmed berry of the season or curling up to sleep at night between cool, clean sheets. And there are the blissful moments when simply ordinary is elevated just a bit; not so far that it’s ostentatious- only enough to gently nudge it into the realm of extraordinary.  Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers are one of those.

Most of us were raised with graham crackers as a staple of the snack table.  Brown, sweet and homey, graham crackers are an ordinary pleasure.  But dipped in chocolate, graham crackers glide into sublime territory. The transformation from plain Jane graham cracker to velvety chocolate-enrobed cookie is nothing less than magical. It goes from nursery food to party food.  If you lay a plate full of these out at the dessert table at a party I guarantee an empty, crumb-free plate within nanoseconds.

There are two real and present dangers with Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers.

  1. The danger of total paralysis in trying to decide just how much of that blasted cracker to cover with chocolate.  Do you carefully coat one side?  Dunk one end and leave a ‘chocolate-free zone’ for grasping with the thumb and forefinger? Drizzle melted chocolate artfully over the top?  Dip marshmallows in chocolate and stick to the graham crackers a la s’mores? Go all the way and submerge the entire cracker in chocolate?  It’s worse than deciding what to wear the first day of school!
  2. The danger of dunking an entire box of graham crackers in chocolate and eating it alone in the closet.

I combat the first threat this way.

In the name of all that is good and true, why would you only do it one way?  Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, it has been said. Go wild.

And I combat the second temptation by succumbing to it.  Minus the closet.  Now don’t worry;  I share with the kids.  But they’re smaller than I am and I eat faster than they do.  Score.  They’re little, though, so I’m sure they’re low in calories.  Besides, real graham crackers are made with whole grains.  That makes this healthy*.

*Shhhhhh.  I know most graham crackers are not made with whole grains today.  Don’t intrude on my delusions.

I know I could’ve simply melted chocolate and dunked the crackers, but I went one step further; I added coconut oil to my chocolate when I melted it.  I had a couple reasons for this seemingly heretical act.  I wanted to make the chocolate a little easier to bite into after it set up and I wanted the chocolate to melt on my fingers so I could lick it off.  It’s the little things in life…* 

*Feel free to omit the coconut oil from the recipe when making this.

Oh!  And lest I forget, do come back tomorrow.  You might want to try what I did with these later.  I’ll give you a hint.

For a photo-free, printer-friendly version of this recipe, click here!

Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers and S’mores Bars

Ingredients:

  • 2 sleeves of graham crackers, broken into quarters along the scored lines
  • 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate,  chips or (finely chopped) bars
  • 2 Tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil or unsalted butter
  • Optional: For s’mores bars, one large marshmallow per graham cracker piece

Place chocolate and coconut oil or butter into a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave on high heat for 1 minute.  Remove bowl and stir with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon.  Microwave in additional 10 second increments, stirring well after each time, until the chocolate and oil are completely melted, combined and smooth.

Line a cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper and set aside.  Here’s how you gild those lilies.

For half-covered crackers:

  • Use the thumb and forefinger to grab the end of a graham cracker piece.  Dunk the free end into the chocolate and use a spoon to bathe chocolate as far up the cookie as you would like to go.  Let the excess chocolate drip away and place on the parchment lined pan.

For drizzled crackers:

  • Carefully drop a cracker flat onto the surface of the melted chocolate.  Use two forks to lift the cracker from the chocolate and allow the excess chocolate to drip away.  Transfer to the parchment lined pan.  Use a spoon to drizzle more melted chocolate in patterns over the uncovered surface of the cracker.

For fully covered crackers:

  • Drop a cracker piece into the melted chocolate.  Use two forks to turn the cracker in the chocolate, making sure all surfaces are covered.  Use the forks to lift the cracker from the chocolate and allow the excess chocolate to drip away.  Transfer to the parchment lined pan.

For s’more bars:

  • Carefully drop a cracker flat onto the surface of the melted chocolate.  Use two forks to lift the cracker from the chocolate and allow the excess chocolate to drip away.  Transfer to the parchment lined pan.  Cut each marshmallow in half.  Kitchen shears are the quickest way to do this job.  Dunk the cut sides of the marshmallow into the chocolate, lift and let excess chocolate drip away.  Position the marshmallow halves chocolate side down on the cracker pieces.  Leave as is, or use a spoon to drizzle chocolate over the marshmallows and crackers.

Important!: Place pan in the freezer to set up the chocolate. Eat with child-like abandon!

Filed Under: Breakfast Foods, Cookies, Desserts, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Homemade Ghee (Clarified or Drawn Butter or Beurre Noisette)

June 3, 2010 by 13 Comments

Welcome to part III of the series of component dishes (Part I, Candied Jalapenos, can be read here! And Part II, Homemade Greek Yogurt and Cucumber Yogurt Salsa [Raita] can be read here!)  to make the transcendent ‘Second to Naanwich’ that still has me obsessed almost three weeks after eating it.  In the next post, I’ll share the recipe for the Tandoori Style Grilled Chicken and directions for putting together the you-know-what!

I promised myself I wouldn’t start this post with an excuse about why it’s taking me so ever-loving long to get these recipes to you. I pledged I wouldn’t tell you all that I’ve been hosting everybody and their uncle (well, everybody BUT the Uncle…), trying to finish up the year-end reports for the school district, keep the kids focused on the last few days of school, plan a trip to a theme park and catch up on my life-long enemy laundry.  I made a vow that I wouldn’t talk about the fact that I’ve spent more hours in the last two weeks outside putting in vegetable, herb and flower gardens than I have in the kitchen. And I pinky-swore that I would absolutely, positively not mention that a guy in the neighborhood (yes, three houses in five square miles counts as a neighborhood) kept us all awake until three in the morning all the way through Memorial Day weekend with a really lousy and very enthusiastic indefatigable live band*.  And I’m always good to my word, so I will not go there and we will instead jump straight to the food.   After all, that’s why we’re all here, right?

*I am writing my Congressman to ask that he propose legislation that if you are going to mike your band and turn the amps to eleven that you will be required to be good.  Anyone who has ever been forced to listen to the band who sounded like they had set up shop in my front yard would vote for it in a heartbeat.

Ghee (also known as ‘clarified’ or ‘drawn’ butter) is a staple in many world cuisines; Indian, French, English, Brazilian, and Iranian just to name a few.  It is -to use Wikipedia’s highly accurate and mega-scientific explanation- an anhydrous milkfat rendered from butter to separate the milk solids from the butterfat.  Hoo yeah!  In short, it’s pure butterfat.

Why not just use regular butter?

Ghee has gone through the process of removing the two things that tend to make butter go bad more quickly; milk solids and water.  By cooking it over low, slow temperatures, you evaporate the water and use density to separate the milk solids.  But that’s not the only amazing reason to make ghee.  Not only have you made the butter more shelf stable, you’ve raised the smoke point.  That means you can use it to cook at higher temperatures without scorching than you would be able to do with normal butter.  You get the butter flavor, it lasts more than five times as long as it would have and it is more versatile.  That’s a win/win/win situation.

As with many foods, you’ll get a better end result by starting out with a better ingredient.  If you can get your hands on cultured or European-style butter, you won’t regret it.  If you can’t, just use the best butter you can easily afford.  It’ll be delicious either way.

Let’s talk cost.  Have you ever bought or priced out a jar of ghee at the grocery store?  First of all, that preceding statement assumes you live in an area where they carry ghee in your grocery store.  In my little grocery store?  Not so much.  But if I were to head up to The Big City, I assure you that I wouldn’t pay the  $16.00 they want for a twenty eight ounce jar.  Not happening.  No way, no how.  I pay my Amish neighbor $2.00 per pound of cultured butter.  I’ll pause and let you rage at me for a moment.  Are we done?  Okay.  That means that I yield about twenty-four ounces of ghee for $4.00, if you want to add the cost of the fuel to cook it, we might generously push it toward the $5.00 range. So that’s somewhere in the range of one third of the cost of store-bought to make my own. I bet you don’t need two guesses to figure out what I do.

And don’t you let me catch you tossing out those milk solids that precipitated from the butterfat.  They turn a toasty gorgeous brown and have the flavor to match their appearance.  Spooned into a pot of fried rice, spread on a piece of fresh bread, or stirred into soup, you’ll be amazed at the depth of flavor they impart.  Plus, you can pat yourself (butter pun alert) on the back for being so frugal when so many people just tell you to discard that flavor powerhouse. You just saved even more money and provided yourself with a fan-flippin’-tastic ingredient that you cannot buy.

One warning, though.  You may want to have some snacks prepared to munch on while the ghee is cooking. This stuff smells just a little too good while it’s cooking.

For a printer-friendly, photo-free version of this recipe, click here!

Homemade Ghee

Yield: About 1 1/2 pints of Ghee plus 1/2 pint of crispy bits.

Ingredients:

  • 2 pounds of good quality butter (use Cultured or European Style if available)

Melt the butter slowly over low heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Stir occasionally.  When the butter is melted, it will begin to foam near the top.

Continue cooking over low heat.  After a couple of minutes, you will begin to hear snapping, popping and crackling.  This is the sound of the water separating from the fat and simmering to the top to evaporate away.  You need for this to happen.  This is what helps make the ghee so shelf-stable.

You will also start to see the milk solids separate out from the fat.

Continue cooking over low heat until the crackling sounds cease and the milk solids have mainly sunk to the bottom and taken on a toasty brown color. Another good indicator that your ghee is done is that it will smell like popcorn. There may still be a thin layer of foam near the top or it may have lost all of its foam.  Either way, if the crackling sounds have stopped and the milk solids are golden brown, it is time to remove the ghee or clarified/drawn butter from the heat.

An example of a batch with no foam at the top:

An example of a batch that had foam at the top:

And my beloved toasty milk solids:

Allow it to cool, uncovered for 30 minutes.

While it cools, set up your straining station.  Line a fine mesh sieve or colander positioned over a bowl or jar with paper towels, a clean tea towel or extra-fine cheesecloth.

After the ghee has cooled, carefully pour it into the straining apparatus.

When you are through straining, there should be the toasted milk solids left in the strainer.  Scrape these into a separate clean jar to save for spreading on toast or adding to recipes.  The toasted milk solids should be stored in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container.

The ghee can be stored at room temperature in a tightly covered jar for up to six months.  At room temperature, ghee is mainly solid and opaque.  It will look like this…

Filed Under: Canning, Component Foods, Food Preservation, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Rebecca, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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