Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Toffee

In preparation for this season's Christmas parties, I've taken to making toffee.  The first time it didn't turn out well (I had the heat too high, and the butter separated), but the next two times have gone great.  Here's how it works:

Ingredients:
4 sticks (2 cups) butter
2 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
12 oz quality chocolate (we used Ghiradelli semi-sweet)
1 cup chopped nuts (almonds, pecans or walnuts - they all taste pretty similar)

How to put it together:
Put the butter into a large saucepan on medium (NOT medium-high) heat.
After it starts to melt a bit, add the sugar and salt, stirring until the butter is melted.
Once the butter melts, you'll want to almost leave it alone.  The butter will start to foam. Only stir if you see clumps of sugar, or dark spots.  It will look like this at first:





















While this is cooking, run the nuts through a food processor, then run the chocolate through a food processor.
Keep cooking the butter/sugar until it looks about like this:





















Pull it off the heat, and pour this toffee part onto a jelly roll pan lined with aluminum foil, parchment paper or a silpat.
Sprinkle the chocolate over the top, and after it melts for a minute, smooth it out with a spatula.
Sprinkle the nuts over the top, and use a spatula to press them down into the chocolate.
Let this harden, crack it up and you're good to go.  The final result will look something like this:


Monday, December 13, 2010

Homemade Marshmallows

Hey Team-

This is a recipe that I've been wanting to try for a long while, and finally decided to do it.  The recipe that I used was attributed to Thomas Keller, but I cannot confirm this.  Here's how it works:

Ingredients:
3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Confectioners' sugar

Instructions:
Pour the 1/2 cup cold water into your stand mixer, add the gelatin.  Let this sit for 20 minutes.  It will turn to ugly jello.
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water.  Bring to a full boil and boil for 60 seconds.
Transfer the mixture to your mixer, add the salt, and beat on high (I actually started out on medium for the first 3-4 minutes until the mixture firmed up, to prevent splattering).  In the last minute, add the vanilla.
While that is in the mixer, lightly but thoroughly oil the inside of a 9x9 pan (I actually used a pie pan), and a plastic spatula
Scoop, prod, or otherwise cajole the now very sticky mixture into the pan, and do your best to spread it out evenly (though the peaks and valleys do provide some character)
Let the marshmallow block rest for 12 hours.
Remove the marshmallow block and cover it in confectioner's sugar.  Use scissors or a pizza cutter to cut them into whatever shapes you desire, and cover any newly exposed edges in sugar.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Sloppy Joe's with White Bread

Hey Readers (which mostly likely means just my mom)!

Last night we made sloppy joe's.  We didn't have any bread around to serve them on.  I made the trip to the store and came home with 20 pieces of store brand white bread for only $1!  This is 4x less than we normally spend on a loaf of Health Nut bread.  Around our house growing up we always ate white bread.  Stephanie didn't.  Needless to say, she was shocked.  At any rate, I need to enjoy this loaf of white bread while it lasts, because it may be our last for a while.

Sloppy Joe's (adapted from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sloppy-Joes-II/Detail.aspx)
1 - 1.5 lbs lean ground beef
.25-.75 cups chopped onion (we used yellow)
.25-.75 cups chopped green pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp yellow mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
.75 cups ketchup

Brown the meat, onion, pepper and garlic.  Pour off the liquid.  Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for fifteen minutes.  Serve on WHITE BREAD!

*One modification to the recipe I saw suggested that once you drain the liquid, you can add everything to a crock pot for 3-4 hours.  That would probably be really good.