This weekend I traveled out to the Bay Area in California for my sister’s wedding. We have already been doing lots of work to get ready for the big day, and yesterday we spent a lot of time putting together wedding favors for the guests. My sister decided to make the favors to cut down on cost, and went with rosemary almonds.
I made rosemary almonds for my family as a part of their Christmas gifts. One problem I ran into, and never had a chance to remedy, was the rosemary and sea salt fell off of the almonds as soon as they came out of the oven. After a bit of discussion, and our fair share of “Ooh, ooh, what if…”-s, I think we came up with a pretty good solution.
We ground the rosemary up very fine in a coffee grinder, and then set the salt grinder on a very fine setting. We then cooked the rosemary and salt in some olive oil until it became fragrant, tossed the almonds in, and then baked them until they were crispy. The almonds are so delicious! The rosemary mixture sticks to them beautifully.
Rosemary Almonds (modified from various internet sources)
1 pound of raw almonds
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of finely ground fresh rosemary
Sea salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the olive oil and rosemary into a shallow pan, and put over low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until rosemary just begins to simmer, and remove from heat.
Add finely ground sea salt to the rosemary mixture. The amount you add depends on your taste, but we added enough to make the mixture fairly salty because we wanted each almond to have a bit of salt.
Mix the almonds and rosemary mixture together in a large bowl. Spread the almonds over a couple of baking sheets. The almonds should lie in an even layer.
Cook the almonds in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Be sure to check often, because nuts can burn easily. There is no need to stir the almonds while they are baking.
Remove the almonds from the oven and allow them to cool completely.
This recipe makes 48 dumplings-a large batch. If you halve the recipe, use the whole egg, and, if it’s more convenient for you, just use 2 boneless duck breast halves. If you have the patience to shape all of the dumplings, just freeze some of them; they will keep, tightly covered, for 2 weeks.
Ingredients
Dough:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups hot water
Filling:
2 boneless duck breasts and legs with skin, put through meat grinder fitted with medium blade
1 cup finely chopped savoy cabbage
3 tablespoons freshly chopped scallions
2 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons freshly chopped chives
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons chili paste
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sauce:
1 cup black vinegar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon chili paste
2 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons freshly chopped mint leaves
1 tablespoon freshly chopped Thai basil leaves
1/2 habanero pepper, minced
Peanut oil, for cooking
Cilantro leaves, for garnish
Lime wedges, for garnish
For the dough:
Whisk the flour with the salt and stir in the water until dough is shaggy. Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead briefly; dough should be soft and pliable but not too sticky. Rest, covered, while you make the filling and the sauce.
For the filling:
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix until thoroughly combined. To check for seasoning, fry a bit in some hot oil until just cooked through. Adjust the seasoning as necessary.
For the sauce:
Combine all but the last 2 ingredients in a bowl for dipping. Sprinkle the basil and habanero over the top.
To Assemble and Cook:
Flour your work surface lightly and roll the dough, or pieces of it, about 1/8-inch thick (too thin and the dough will tear as you fill the dumplings). Cut out circles with a 3-inch round cutter. Cover the dough with a side towel or piece of plastic wrap as you work.
Have a small bowl of water next to you. Place a scant tablespoon of filling in the middle of a dough circle, and press it so that it spreads slightly toward the side edges of the dough. Using your fingertip or a small pastry brush, wet the edge of the dough. Fold the dough up around the filling so that the filling sits on the work surface-that’s the bottom of your dumpling-and the seam is between your fingers. Pleat the dough that is facing you, about 6 times, pressing it against the back to seal-only the front of the dumpling should be pleated. The corners of the dumpling should curl slightly away from you, toward the unpleated side.
Heat a skillet, just large enough to accommodate the number of dumplings you want to cook over high heat. Add a thin coating of oil, heat, then add the dumplings in concentric circles. They should be touching. Cook until the bottoms are golden brown, 3 or 4 minutes (reduce the heat if they are browning too quickly). Add enough water to come about 1/4 of the way up the sides of the dumplings-it will spatter. Cover the skillet, adjust the heat so that the water is simmering, and cook for about 7 minutes. Uncover the skillet and, if there is water left, let it cook off. Check the dumpling bottoms-if they need to brown a bit more, let them, adding a bit more oil if necessary.
Serve the dumplings immediately, drizzled with some dipping sauce and garnished with cilantro and lime wedges.
Well the day started off fairly badly. I burnt the toast and ended up chucking Ariel liquid all over myself and the floor….it was just lucky the cats weren’t around. I was tempted to crawl back into bed and stay there but I didn’t.
I went on Facebook instead! I’m still quite hooked on Farmtown and some of the other games on there. I really like ‘culchie prezzies’ where you can ’send’ your facebook friends such delights as ‘A clatter of sphuds, a ’sup of tae, a whiff of manure, a hang sangwich or how about a kick up the hole’…..it doesn’t take much to make me smile So if you are my friend of facebook you know what to send me!….or if you are one of my ‘blogging or flickr friends’ and are on facebook then let me know and I will add you (if you want me too….and sure why wouldn’t you!)
Lucy took herself into the kitchen this afternoon and made some lovely goodies. So we now have chocolate chip cookies and Rocky Road cupcakes which are lovely…..and she even tidied up after herself so that was an added bonus.
If you read my blog last week you will see that I took Jono on the Viking Splash Tour in Dublin. I did a bit of video but was having terrible trouble with Windows movie maker (again) so Andy managed to sort the video up with another programme and it’s now up on youtube. Don’t watch it if you get travel sick though
Over the past few days I’ve been experimenting a lot in the kitchen. Most of this experimentation has been motivated by the fact that I have a lot of certain ingredients on hand and I want to find a good use for them. Of course, the rest of the experimentation is motivated by my desire to try new things and see how well my culinary (and pastry!) skills have been developed.
My most recent experiment was for barbecue sauce. I have made barbecue sauce before, but it was the kind of sauce that had mostly a sweet flavor with a heat that built up. So far, I really like that sauce and I do have to make it again. However, I decided to try to make a sauce that was still very thick and rich as well as very hot. When I tried this sauce, I basically broke out into a sweat, which I know is something a lot of people do enjoy. I unfortunately do not enjoy that and so I reached for a cup of milk right after tasting. As this is way to hot for me or my family, I think I’ll gift this creation to my boyfriend and his family as they seem to appreciate serious heat a lot more than I do. For those of you into this kind of thing, here’s the basic recipe for how I made my hot bbq sauce.
Ingredients:
1 shallot (minced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 jalapeno (minced, seeds and membranes removed)
2 serranos (minced, seeds and membranes removed)
3 chipotles en adobo (minced)
1/2 cup rum (dark)
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup
1, 14- oz can of tomato puree
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 T dry mustard
1 T liquid smoke
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T dry mustard
Tabasco (to taste)
salt & pepper to taste
cayenne pepper (to taste)
1 tsp canola oil
In about 1 tsp canola oil, saute the shallot, jalapeno and serrano until soft.
Add garlic and cook 1 minute.
Add chipotles en adobo and cook 1 more minute.
Add rum and scrape off any bits off the bottom of the pot. Cook until reduced by 3/4.
Add cider vinegar, tomato puree, ketchup, molasses, brown sugar.
Stir in Worcestershire sauce, mustard, cayenne, liquid smoke and Tabasco.
Cook down until thick. Use stick blender to remove any chunks and create a thick sauce.
Adjust seasoning with salt & pepper.
Homemade barbecue sauce is almost always delicious but this one was just way too hot for my taste! (Note: I tried this sauce the next day with some shredded beef and it was NOT as hot as I thought it was when I cooked it!)
My next experiment this week has been with pie lollipops. The first thing I did was to cook down my fillings until I had a very thick almost paste-like apperance. I added some more sugar and cornstarch so that my fruit would concentrate in flavor and texture. I brought some of the ones with the concentrated friut to class and many people enjoyed them! Chef also thought it would be a cute addition to the graduation grand buffet!
When I got back home, I decided to try a different dough since some were falling off the sticks and were just really doughy. I used a pate sucree instead of a pate brisee. I did like the pate brisee’s flakyness, however, the pate sucree added a nice sweetness and crunch. It was also a more structurally sound dough so that it did not have any problem adhering to the lollipop sitck and creating a nice lollipop. I still need to figure out a good moisture level for the filling and a good amount of filling for the lollipops to work best. For now though, I think I’m onto something with these and I’m going to also try pumpkin pie flavor and pecan pie flavor.
While making pie lollipops, I was also working on some blueberry ice cream. I know it sounds weird but I figured why not since I had about 2 lbs of blueberries at home and I had had my fill of blueberry muffins and blueberry tartlets!
Blueberry Ice Cream Ingredients
3 cups blueberries
4 fl. oz water
4 oz sugar
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 1 lemon + zest
pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
4 oz sugar
6 egg yolks
1 T vanilla extract
Equipment: Have an ice bath ready with a steel bowl on top. Also have a fine-mesh strainer and a ladle ready.
Add all of the first six ingredients to a pot and stir to combine. (Note: If you use a wooden spoon for this, it will end up dyed purple after!)
Simmer until you can no longer taste the acid of the lemon and the mixture is thick.
Then I prepared a creme anglaise. Combine heavy cream, milk and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil. Be sure to stir to ensure the sugar dissolves.
Add some of the boiling milk/cream mixture to the eggs, whisking vigorously to keep your eggs from scrambling.
Combine the eggs with the rest of the milk/cream mixture and continue to cook while stirring. You want to stir until you reach nappe or until the mixture coats the back of your spoon. (If you’re like me and you want a more accurate way to know it’s cooked, use a calibrated thermometer and cook until you reach 180F)
Strain over an ice bath. You want to stop the cooking right away and remove any egg clumps that may remain.
Once your creme anglaise and berry mixtures are cool, fold the berries into the creme anglaise. Then you can put this mixture in your ice cream maker and then you’ll have blueberry ice cream! Check out its cool purple color!
All these experiments were going on in my own home kitchen, but I also had to conduct an experiment while in class. A portion of the final course we have is called “market basket cooking” where we’re given a list of ingredients we’re required to use while cooking our food. So far, we’ve had to prepare 2 appetizers and we had to use spinach, grape tomatoes, slab bacon, scallops and shiitake mushroom in our dishes. As long as we used all those ingredients between the two dishes, we’d be fine. We were also allowed to use staple ingredients, like citrus fruit, rice, potatoes, onions, etc. We were evaluated on creativity, technique, flavor and presentation. And we were told to keep in mind that we’re preparing appetizers and not entrees, so we should keep an eye on our portion sizes.
For my first dish, I tried to do a spin on a traditional stuffed grapeleaf. I made some rice and added some cooked mushroom, grape tomato, and bacon. I then tried to roll the spinach leaves around the rice filling. And I served it with a lemon cream sauce. The chef thought the idea was good and that the flavors were good, however my presentation wasn’t as great. I should have blanched my spinach leaves to make them easier to roll. Other than that, it wasn’t bad.
For my second dish, I tried to dress up a traditional hash. I sauteed some bacon and then cooked potatoes, onions and carrot in the bacon fat. I then seared the scallops. When I plated the dish, I placed two blanched spinach leaves in the center of the plate and then a layer of the hash. I topped the hash with two seared scallops. Chef enjoyed this dish saying the flavors were really good and the presentation was nice. Unfortunately, my scallops were a tad on the rare side, but still not very undercooked.
After this exercise, I really feel much better about the upcoming practical exam which is run the same way as the market basket exercises. And after that exam, it’s just a few more classes to our grand buffet and the end of our formal culinary education!
A while back I was thinking about making prickly pear jam. Guess seeing the beautiful red fruit just inspired me. Many years ago, I tried to make prickly pear jelly, I ended up with syrup. It was good but too runny for toast.
I got lots of suggestions on why it didn’t work but had not attempted it since this summer. And this summer I went wild and decide to go for jam… with little bits of prickly pear fruit in it.:) This post is on the process we went through, the disaster we encountered and the final success.
The first step in anything with prickly pear fruit is to pick the fruit. By the way the fruit is called “tuna or tunas” in plural, well making jam with “TUNA” just sounds gross so I will call them pears of fruits. The word tuna makes me think of fish and who would want to eat fish jam?
The pears are covered with tiny stickers so you just don’t even want to think about touching them with your bear hands. We found two easy ways to get rid of the thorns.
Method one… the one that works the best but is a little more time consuming. Burn the thorns off the fruit as you pick it with a propane torch, making sure to also get the bottom of the fruit after it is picked. The bottoms of the fruit where it attaches to the cactus can have tons and tons of little thorns that look almost like fuzz…. it is NOT fuzz.
The second method is to pick all the fruits with tongs, toss them in a bucket and burn the thorns off over the gas stove. This method does not work quite as well because the fruits can pick up thorns from their neighbors in the bucket. But I will admit it is a lot cooler to be inside than standing in the sun burning thorns.
Close up of the thorns… and some neighbor thorns that have stuck themselves in to a fruit… the fuzz at the bottom of this fruit is actually a million tiny thorns. The little beige areas are all tiny thorns.
Here are the fruits after burning off the thorns. They are all juicy. This burning also helps the skin to come off easily… keep in mind “easy” is a relative term.:)
Once all the thorns are gone, cut off both ends of the fruit. Then you can make a slit along the fruit for peeling the skin (slit not shown)
Then you just peel off the thin layer of skin. If you go too deep you are going to lose all the meat of the fruit. The skin is rather thin. The fruits are more seeds than anything.
Then I cut the pealed fruits in half to pull off the meat. Most of the recipes I found said to “scrape out” the seeds… this is lame because it is a pain. It is way easier to just peel off the meat. See below.
The meat of the fruit peels right off the seeds. The seeds stay in a little glump. We tossed the seed blobs in a pan to extract juice from later. You don’t want to leave any seeds because the seeds are like rocks. They would most likely break your teeth it you tried to chew one. I have read that they can be ground into some type of flour, but I have no idea how to do that or what you would use it for.
This photo as gross as it looks is actually all the wonderful meat from the fruits. They taste a lot like a kiwi fruit. I ended up slicing up this fruit meat to add to the juice to make jelly into jam.
We took the seeds and skins, cooked them with a cup or two of water for a while to extract all the juice. One recipe I read said to smush it through a strainer. We just boiled it and strained it to get the juice. Seemed much eaiser to me. Above you see the sliced fruit with the juice extraced from the seeds and me… adding sugar.
You also add lemon juice, lemon rind and pectin. I will put the recipe we ended up with at the end.
Then you boil the heck out of the whole mess. This is where I went wrong in the past. I did not boil it long enough or hot enough for the jelly to jell. This is probably one of the most important parts and it took quite a long time.
Here is our finished jam… why is it upside down? I really have no idea, just something my mom said to do. We ended up putting it back the the hot water bath as the directions in the pectin package instructed us to do, right side up.
And there is the final result JAM!!!
We did have a mishap with the first batch we tried. We didn’t boil it long enough, ended up with syrup with fruit bits in it. I went on line and read it could be re-boiled and re-canned. I poured all the jars back in a pan and re-boiled it.. hey it started to jell. The disaster was when I pulled the old candy thermometer out… part of the glass was missing. Needless to say, that jam went in the trash and we started all over again. Picking all new pears, burning off the thorns… and on and on.
Ok so here is the recipe we ended up with if you are interested in makeing prickly pear jam at some point in your life.
Prickly Pear Jam
50 prickly pear fruits
4 maybe 5 cups of sugar
2 cups water (to boil seeds in)
Juice of 2 lemons and 1 grated lemon rind
1 (Net Wt. 1.75 OZ) package pectin
Burn thorns off pears. Cut ends off, peel skin off pears then peel the meat off leaving the seeds behind. Put seed blobs and skin if you want in a pan with 2 cups water simmer for about a half hour, then drain off the juice. Throw away the seeds and skin.
Put juice in really large pan with cut up prickly pear meat, lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar and pectin. Boil the heck out of it. 216°F for our altitude. As the syrup continues to boil, the drops will become heavier and will drop off the spoon two at a time. When the two drops form together and “sheet” off the spoon, the jellying point has been reached. (or you can put some in a cool spoon and see if it thickens as it cools)
Pour into prepared sterilized jelly jars and seal. Process as indicated on your pectin package (Have jars clean and hot. Pack product to within ¼-inch of top, and seal. Heat process for 6 minutes in boiling water bath canner (10 minutes for cold, unsterilized jars). Count time from when water returns to boil. )
Made 12 4oz jars plus 2 8oz jars.
I found this site quite helpful http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can7_jam_jelly.html
3-4 fillets of fresh or frozen fish
Handful of fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 red pepper, de-seeded and diced
1 medium tomato, finely chopped
Handful of fresh basil
Handful of fresh coriander
Fresh lime or lemon wedges for garnish
For Thai Curry sauce:
1 tsp regular chilli powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp brown sugar
2-3 kaffir lime leaves, fresh or frozen
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 fresh red chilli, minced, or 1-2 tsp chilli sauce
1/2 cup fresh coriander stems and leaves, finely chopped
1 can of coconut milk
4 green onions, properly sliced (including green stem)
1 thumb-size piece ginger, grated
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp fish sauce
Method:
Prepare the curry sauce and put all the curry sauce ingredients in a food processor, chopper, or blender. Process well to form a smooth curry sauce.
Now pour the sauce into a large frying pan and place over medium to high flame and bring it to a boil.
Add fish, mushrooms, and red pepper and stir well. Reduce heat to medium-high and cover and cook 6-8 minutes. After removing the cover stir well. Add the tomatoes and continue simmering and let it be covered for another 2-3 minutes.
Do a taste test and i you found it too sour for your taste, add a little more sugar. If too salty or sweet, add 1-2 tbsp fresh lime juice. Pour fish with curry sauce and vegetables onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with fresh basil and coriander leaves. Garnish with lime or lemon wedges and serve hot with rice. Enjoy this yummy ‘Thai Fish Curry‘ recipe…..
Hi! Gosh, I don’t know what is up with me today but I am feeling a million different things all at once… I’m energetic, sleepy, snacky, happy, anxious. I just don’t know what my deal is!
This morning I had an early class…it was a one time meeting type deal. It’s a course we have to take the semester before student teaching. Basically I will spend the entire semester compiling a huge binder full of artifacts from my years spent in the College of Education. My artifacts have to meet a certain set of standards. This binder is better known as the “Tier III Assessment Portfolio”. Thinking about it makes me very anxious, but it is definitely something I need to think about because I can not wait until the last minute to start this monster of a portfolio. My plan is to work on it bit by bit throughout the semester. Wish me luck!
After class my friend and I hit up our campus gym…loved it! I hadn’t been to our gym since way before Hurricane Katrina. The fitness center was beautiful on the inside with a lot of equipment and huge windows overlooking campus, but my treadmill was a bit old. There was not even a spot for me to put my iPod or my water bottle. But it really was no big deal, I dealt with it! I rarely workout with a friend and it was a nice change
Tonight my mom and I are going to a Southern Living party. I am so excited! My mom has been to a few, but I’ve never been to one. I am really looking forward to it. It will be something nice to do with her!
My mom has her eye on this (I love it, too!)…
The Royal Street Urn. I love the arrangement in the urn, as well. My mom is going to have it made. There are going to be so many pretty things to order tonight…it could be dangerous, haha!
The party is at my friends home and I am bringing a dip…Eight- Layer Mediterranean Dip to be exact. It’s another recipe from my Whole Foods iTouch app (love that app!), but you can also find it here. Doesn’t it look yummy?
I am making it later this afternoon and I can’t wait to try it tonight! I love every single ingredient that is going into it, especially the pita chips used to scoop it out!
Hey guys! Happy (thankful) Thursday Right now, I am thankful for my warm cup of French Market coffee that I am enjoying oh so much!
I am also thankful that I am able to cook dinner tonight for my family! A few months ago I started cooking dinner for my family once a week, usually something healthy and easy. I really enjoy cooking and I am so thankful that I have the chance to do so. It was not until a few months ago that I began to show interest in using the stove and oven, instead of only relying on the good old microwave. I guess I thought the microwave got the job done in half the time a stove or oven would. But, I am beginning to enjoy spending time preparing meals. There is so much love and effort behind a meal. And, I really love sitting down with my family to eat what I’ve prepared…at the dinner table, at the same time (like we used to every single night when Lizzy and I were growing up…before college and jobs and boys took place)! Family dinner is a rare occurrence and is usually reserved for Sundays, but I notice our family dinner beginning to take place more and more during the work week and it’s lovely.
So, anyway the menu for tonight is Grilled Tilapia with Smoked Paprika and Parmesan Polenta. It’s a Cooking Light recipe and sounds delicious, healthy, and simple. I can’t wait to get in the kitchen later! I mean look at what will be the result…
If you were to use this in a BLT sandwich and replaced the bacon with it, you would never know the difference! My kids are bacon lovers, but now they prefer this. It doesn’t look quite like bacon but it tastes the same.
by Elcowgirl
25 min | 5 min prep
SERVES 3 -4
1 lb firm tofu, cut into strips shaped like bacon
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons soya sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon oil, something neutral, not olive oil
Fry tofu strips on low heat until they are crispy on the outside. The best way to do this is to lay them in the pan in the oil and let them sit for at least 10 minutes, simmering. They should turn easily after that.
Turn them and give them another 10 minutes on the other side.
Mix the soya sauce with the liquid smoke first, then take the pan off the heat.
Pour the liquid smoke/soya sauce into the pan and stir the tofu so all sides are coated.
Sprinkle the yeast over all, stir some more, over the heat, until the liquid is gone and the tofu is covered with sticky yeast.
On Saturday, I will be jetting off to the exotic reaches of Connecticut to visit the lovely Zoelle at her fancy-shmancy private school. So I’ll leave y’all on a positive note!
Despite my constant gloom-and-doom writings, I actual have hobbies besides predicting the deaths of everyone around me. For starters, I love to cook.
Today, I made my nine year-old sister delicious, gooey macaroni and cheese, and the dish was such a rousing success that I’ll leave it to you guys to play with while I tour exotic New Haven!
EASY BAKED MAC N’ CHEESE
Tbs butter
Tbs flour
1/2 cup milk
Variety of shredded cheeses (I use mozzarella, sharp cheddar, asiago, and provolone, but you could use any combination of cheeses.) (Also, I put in way way too much cheese. This is not a bad thing. Cheese is awesome, and the gooier this dish is, the better.)
2 cups cooked pasta (I use campanelle because it’s pretty, but any sort of pasta will do, provided it isn’t a spaghetti-shape)
Diced tomato/bacon/anything else you want to add in there
Melt butter in a small saucepan and stir in the flour. Once they make a paste, add milk. Stir constantly until the mixture starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add cheeses. Stir. Add tomato/bacon/whatever. Stir.
Mix the sauce with the cooked pasta, then pour the mixture in a greased baking dish and bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.
Today, I have nothing! No random thoughts, nothing funny to say, no dumb ass things on the news, I have nothing! So I thought I would just post a recipe that I used for a dinner this weekend. Had about 30 guests and everyone seemed to like it so I thought I would post it. However, in the interest of keeping a few secrets, and making it simple and easy for any of you do not know how to cook or cook three different meals for your children at dinner time. I am using a premix base in the below recipe. Enjoy!
This serves about 7 people!
½ lbs of frozen mixed seafood should include baby octopus, oysters, crab, shrimp, and squid
In a separate pan boil 5 cups of water salt, butter, pepper, and lemon slices. When water is boiling add crawfish and boil until bright red (like Lobster). Serve Jambalaya in bowl topped with one crawfish and enjoy. Best served with beer.
****Warning Dave’s Insanity Sauce is very hot and it includes a warning label on every bottle. Do not use f you have heart or respiratory conditions and/or do not taste test even a drop of it. It can Burn your tongue. ONE DROP ONLY ABOUT THE SIZE OF PENCIL ERASER
Indian dishes are divided in fivesome parts like southern, eastern, north-eastern and western. Some are known for thick gravies with spices and some are rich in dairy products. In Amerindic matter you can find variety of breads much as naan, tawa roti, puri, Tandoori roti, bhaturey and many others. Traditional Amerindic matter is rich in non-vegetarian dishes and vegetarian both. You can also find stuffed items which are prepared with the fillings of peas, cheese, mushroom and some other products also. But the best part of Amerindic cuisine is pickles and sweets. In India every state is famous for its unequalled sweets.
Indian cooking includes spices much as black mustard seed, chilli, turmeric, pepper, cumin, ginger, fenugreek, garlic, asafoetida and coriander. In many parts grouping use mint leaf, coriander leaf, cardamom, rose petal, nutmeg, tejpatta, flavoring leaf and saffron to add savor in their food.
Indian cooking is very easy. If you are preparing authentic Amerindic matter especially non-vegetarian then one secret is the correct mix of spices. But if you prefer enjoying your matter in a restaurant then you can easily do it by surfing the internet. There are many websites where you can find all the info of Amerindic restaurant. You can read the reviews or check the ratings of the restaurant online.
“Cream” sauce that tastes good is not an easy thing to replicate in a vegan diet. I wanted to try the Vegan Planet version and see how it turned out.
Ingredients include onion, white wine, blanched almonds, silken tofu, mellow miso paste, soy milk, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, fettuccine, and parsley. The sauce was fairly easy to make, just blend it up in the food processor and required much less onion than the “Mac and Cheese.”
My girlfriend and I both give it rave reviews. The alfredo sauce tasted amazing and we plan to make it again in the near future.
* Add a sprig or two of your favourite herb to the tea as it’s infusing. (See previous post Ramblin’ about iced tea for cold-infusion method.) I like melissa/lemon balm, any type of mint especially pennyroyal, or rosemary. Roll the sprig gently between your fingers to crush the leaves and release the oil, then toss into the steeping container. Remove before serving, when you remove the tea.
* Stir in some cocoa powder and a touch of sweetener for a lovely and relatively low-calorie treat.
* Use lime juice rather than the usual lemon juice. Cut a lime into quarters, squeeze in a little of the juice, then drop it into the steeping container. If you’re feeling flush, pick up a couple of key limes and give them a try.
* Adding natural flavourings just before serving produces a tasty, refreshing, and also low-calorie beverage. Almond, rose, banana — whatever you like. Usually you won’t need sweetener, but add it if you prefer. Be cautious about how much you add, as these flavourings tend to be rather potent. Three or four drops in a quart should be enough. Find natural flavourings in the supermarket or natural foods stores. If you’re having the gang over and they can’t agree on flavours, serve the iced tea plain and put out two or three small bottles of flavourings so they can choose their favourites. No more than a drop into a tall glass, please!
* Get creative with ice. Freeze in advance cubes of any or all of these: lemonade, individual or mixed fruit juices, pureed fruits (berries work well), or another type of prepared tea that blends well with the one you’re serving. As the ice cubes melt, your iced tea will transform very pleasantly right in the glass.
For more iced tea suggestions, see Cooking with Tea and Tea Time Treats.
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In a medium size bowl, mix all ingredients. Add milk until it’s the desired consistency. I like a thicker pancake batter so my pancakes are nice and fluffy. Leftover batter can be stored in the fridge for future use, or you can make up all the batter and freeze the pancakes your family doesn’t eat.
