Spiced Nuts

Over the last few years I’ve tried to make holiday gifts for anyone I’d like to give a small gift to (coworkers etc). Some years have been more successful than others to be sure. I’ve decided that it works out best when I pick one thing to make for everyone. This year I decided on a food gift. I wanted something foolproof. After a thumbing through my cookbooks and thinking about it for a while, I decided on Spiced Nuts. In one of my cookbooks I had found the index card that I had scribbled the recipe on after tasting the ones that someone else made years before. Since then, I make them each year around the holidays as a treat for us to have at home. They are pretty easy to make and are delicious, and much much better than anything similar that you could buy. Obviously, this gift does not work for people with nut allergies or for vegans (egg whites are involved).

Spiced Nuts

I am going to start taking more about the costs of ingredients. I think people might be interested, and it will be useful for me to think about. Here is what I bought for this project:

$65.08 for 8.39 lbs of nuts
pecans $18.35 (2.45 lbs @ 7.49/lb)
cashew pieces $16.01 (3.82 @4.19/lb
almonds $30.72 (2.12 @14.49/lb)

$2 worth of spices, (cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, coriander)also purchased in bulk. This is an educated guess, since I purchased quantities larger than I needed for this recipe for other uses, but it definitely wasn’t more than this.

$6 worth of sweetners ( I used regular sugar for some batches, date sugar for others, as some people would rather not eat sugar.)

$2.69 worth of eggs ( I used the better part of a dozen egg whites. I was able to use most of the yolks for other baking, but I’m just counting it here as a dozen.)

$9.75 (9.29 +tax) for 1 doz. quart canning jars

$10 on ribbons etc (mostly from the dollar store but I did decorate a few with some beautiful high end ribbon, but frankly the curly ribbon dollar store stuff came together better)

$95.52 was the total, which actually does seem like a lot for some nuts. But, this breaks down to $7.96 per gift (one gift=one jar), plus an entire Saturday afternoon to make (my free time = priceless). This works with my budget and my rhetoric.

I made 12 quart jars full. This was enough for what I needed, plus a couple extra just in case, that we will be only too happy to eat at home, if I don’t give them away.

Recipes abound for this stuff. I had my original recipe on my index card, which appears to be Martha Stewart’s recipe. A handful of recipes pop up on Epicurious. Turns out Alton Brown had the same idea (and there are plenty of recipes from the FoodTV crew.) The Splendid Table has another take. Seems like most of the usual recipe sites pop up in the results when you Google it. I landed on a version similar to my index card, with a few pointer’s from a sidebar in Cook’s Country (subscription needed) from December 2007.

I went with an egg white version rather than a butter version. I find the whole butter method a bit greasy after these things sit around (oh but for eating while still warm, it is divine.) I went with the oven method, because it would be easier to make a lot. I chose a combo of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and coriander for the flavors. I picked my three favorite nuts pecans, almonds and cashews to blend together, although just pecans would also be a good choice.

Fresh nuts are essential to this recipe. I cannot emphasize this enough. The best nuts around here come from the bulk bins at local health food stores. The turn around of product is high and the quality control good. An added bonus is that you can by exactly what you will use in a relatively short amount of time (a few months max, refrigerated if possible). Nuts are oily and therefore will go rancid quickly in your cabinet (or on a shelf in the market), it’s a fact of life. They may not have spoiled enough to make you sick, but they will not taste as they should.

The same is true for the spices. I bought mine in bulk at the same time as the nuts. They were so fresh that their aroma filled the car on the way home. That said, the quantity of spice in the recipe is very important. You want enough so that the flavor comes through nicely, but not so much that it’s like eating potpourri. 8 teaspoons total was a good amount for each two pounds of nuts. The flavor was a bit strong fresh out of the oven, but mellowed a bit after the nuts cooled.

As far as technique is concerned a couple of key things stood out. First, draining the nuts for a few minutes after tossing them with the egg white and before tossing them with the sugar and spice made a big difference in the final result (not draining meant some of the nuts were surrounded by a thin crusty collar of baked egg white). Second, lining the baking sheets with parchment paper was absolutely essential–other wise the nuts would stick, even to a nonstick pan. The parchment also made it possible to use the same pans for each batch of the whole 8+ pounds (I only own three baking sheets–if I’d had to clean and dry them each time, I’d still be making the nuts instead of writing about it.) Third, a fairly cool oven toasts the nuts nicely, without there being danger of going from toasted to burnt in an instant as is the case with a hot oven. 300 degrees was just right, and I used an oven thermometer to check that 300 on the dial meant 300 in the oven (a slight adjustment was necessary).

After the nuts had cooled completely, I filled the jars. During the baking time of a couple of the batches, I had cut out circles of wrapping paper, using the lid of the canning jar as a guide. I had wanted the wide mouth jars for this, but all that the store had left was the narrow mouth style.

Decorative lid

I had picked out different, fancier paper with visions of using the wide mouth jars. The pattern did not work with the narrow mouth jars, so I used a different paper that I had on hand.

I finished the decorating with various ribbons. Pictured here is the classic “curly ribbon”.

Fits with the festive mood

So even if you don’t make them as gifts, it’s a good make ahead party snack, or just something nice to have anytime.

Recipe here.

Kasha with Mushrooms and Onions

Kasha is buckwheat that has been hulled and roasted (NOT to be confused with Kashi which does have buckwheat in it, but also has wheat in it). It’s a tasty grain that cooks up quickly. It’s good on it’s own, but cooking it with herbs, onions etc make it even better.

Caramelized onions add flavor to kasha and most anything else

The traditional way to cook kasha is to mix the grains with egg before cooking. This helps the grains cook up separately. You can skip the egg if you want, it will still taste good, but it will be a bit mushy.

Kasha mixed with egg-you can see how the egg coats the grains

Kasha with Mushrooms and Onions

Makes 6-8 servings and can easily be halved

2 large onions (yellow, red or white or a mix), cut in half and sliced into thin half moons

10 oz of mushrooms (crimini are better than white button) washed and sliced

2 cups kasha

2 eggs

4 cups of water or stock

olive oil

salt and pepper

Beat the eggs slightly in a bowl. Stir in the kasha until thoroughly combined. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet on med high. Add the onions and cook stirring occasionally until caramelized about 15 minutes. Remove the onions with a slotted spoon to a bowl and set aside. Add another tablespoon of oil to the skillet and then add the mushrooms. Cook stirring occasionally until brown, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and remove mushrooms with slotted spoon and put in the bowl with the onions. Keep the skillet on the medium heat. Put the kasha and egg mixture into the skillet. Cook stirring constantly about three minutes until the egg looks dry and the kasha smells toasty. Stir in the 4 cups of water or stock, breaking up any clumps. Cook stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes until all of the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the onions and mushrooms and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot or warm.

Finished kasha with mushrooms and onions

More photos here. I like to eat this with Roasted Roots and Squash, pictured above.

Roasted Roots and Squash

There are a lot of recipes of this kind out there. I’ve been roasting these vegetables together and alone for ages. I’ve been particularly inspired by two recipes. First by Ina Garten’s idea to take leftover roasted veggies and make a tasty pureed soup (I don’t remember which cookbook of hers that I saw that in, I don’t own it). Second, The Splendid Table offers a great variation from Sally Schneider’s A New Way to Cook.

Roots and Squash Ready for Roasting

This is another one of those recipes that is more of a concept. You can use all, some, or one of the vegetables listed here, or come up with your own mix. The combination below is the one I’ve settled on as my favorite, but I’ll work with whatever I have on hand. I find the combination of very sweet carrots, sweet potato and squash plays nicely against the relatively sharp taste of rutabaga and the nutty taste of parsnips. The subtle differences in texture also work well.

A lot of people moan and groan when you mention rutabagas (or turnips) and parsnips. I think that like many vegetables, these have not always been cooked to their best advantage in the North American kitchen. All I remember of these as a child is waterlogged mush that had been boiled almost past recognition. Roasting concentrates their flavors and gives them an appealing texture.

Roasted Roots and Squash

Makes 6ish servings depending on what else you’re having and how hungry everyone is.

2 small or 1 large sweet potato

3 large carrots

4 medium pasrnips

1/2 a large rutabaga

1 small butternut squash

2tbs olive oil

salt and pepper

minced parsley (optional)

Heat oven to 425 F.

Peel each vegetable (seed the squash) and cut into cubes about 1/2 inch cubes. Lay the cubes in a single layer on two rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast 10 minutes and shake the pan or stir with a spatula and roast another 10 minutes until tender. Don’t over cook or the carrots, squash and sweet potatoes will get very mushy and the rutabagas and parsnips will get all leathery and chewy. Adjust seasonings and sprinkle with parsley before serving. These still taste good even when they have cooled to room temperature.

A large batch is a good thing---leftovers taste good and also make a tasty pureed soup.

The finished roasted veggies (with Kasha)

The Kasha recipe is here.

Buckwheat and Yogurt Pancakes

This is one of the few times where I will actually include a recipe, because it’s my own. I haven’t mentioned this before, but everything I cook is gluten free by default. It has to be, because my husband cannot tolerate gluten. It’s not just a dietary preference, it makes him quite sick. It’s not worth the extra effort for me to cook separately,(and risk contamination) so other than the occasional bowl of oatmeal or bagel for myself, I don’t prepare any food with gluten (that’s wheat, rye, barley, oats and anything even possibly derived from them). If you want to know more about the trouble some people have with gluten in their diet, the Celiac Disease Foundation is a good place to start. If you are looking for recipes, (esp. for breads) I suggest the Gluten Free Gourmet series by the late Bette Hagman. There a lot of people blogging about it, too, but I have to admit I haven’t looked too closely at what they are doing.

If you are new to cooking gluten free, pancakes are a good start to making something you might be craving when traditional mixes and recipes are off limits. They are not too fussy to make and are very satisfying. It’s too much for me personally to try to make pancakes on a workday, but I make them for weekend brunch or even for dinner. Give it a try, it might even encourage you to look into making your own pizza crusts, bread, etc.

Nowadays, you can find in most stores at least a few gluten free baking products, and often pancake mix is there on the shelf with the rest of the stuff. If you are going gluten free for the long hall, you should consider making your own stuff. It will taste better and it will be less expensive.

Buckwheat has been cultivated for food by people for thousands of years. It is not related to wheat. However if you buy products with buckwheat in them, such as pancake mix or noodles, be sure to read the label carefully if you are trying to avoid wheat. Often buckwheat is mixed with regular wheat to make these products. It has a sort of earthy flavor which is a bit strong to use on it’s own for most palates.

Buckwheat and Yogurt Pancakes (Printer Friendly PDF)

Feeds 2-4 depending on how hungry everyone is

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup buttermilk powder
(if you don’t have or can’t find buttermilk powder you could use milk powder, or leave it out and substutute a ¼ cup more rice flour; use if if you can, it adds a nice tang to the pancakes)

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 cup plain yogurt (lowfat or whole milk, either work just fine)

1 tbs vegetable oil

2 tbs maple syrup or honey (or use sugar and add to dry ingredients)

1/2 cup of milk, soymilk, nutmilk, apple juice, or liquid of your choice, plus a little extra if needed

extra vegetable oil for pan or griddle

Start by lightly oiling your cooking surface and heating it on medium. By the time you get the pancake batter ready, it will be hot enough. Naturally, if it starts to smoke, you can turn the heat down a bit. Starting with an adequately hot pan or griddle is one of the main secrets to pancake success. If you are going to cook up the whole batch before serving, turn your oven on to 200° F and put in something oven proof to hold your cooked pancakes, a plate, a pan, a covered dish, what have you.

Whisk together dry ingredients (the flours, the baking powder, the buttermilk powder and the salt) in a small bowl (if you don’t have a whisk,use a fork). Beat the eggs, yogurt, vegetable oil, and maple syrup/honey together in a separate larger bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients into the egg mixture alternately with the milk (or whatever liquid you are using). The batter is pretty thin and liquidy. You can see what I mean in this unbelievably bad quality video, but it’ll give you the idea.

Use a small measuring scoop or a large spoon to pour out portions of batter onto your hot cooking surface. Two tablespoons per pancake is about right (you can eyeball it, don’t worry). Unless you have a restaurant style flat top grill in your kitchen, you’ll probably only want to do two or three at a time, so you have enough room to flip your pancakes. Cook until the edges look dry, the surface isn’t as shiny, and lots of little holes cover the surface (see bad video below), somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes. Flip the pancakes (a spatula is the best tool) and cook the other side for another 2 minutes or so. Serve your pancakes right away, or keep them warm on that plate you put in the oven earlier while you cook the rest.

Use a paper towel with some veg. oil on it and carefully put a little more oil on your cooking surface before each new round of pancakes. Stir your batter a bit before you spoon it out, as it has a tendency to settle.

You can top these any number of ways, be creative. The traditional topping is of course butter and maple syrup (please spring for the real stuff, esp. if you live in New England). If your syrup is in the fridge, leave it out on the counter while you make the pancakes so it’s not ice cold when you pour it on. Cooked fruit is also nice. You can put some frozen berries in a pan with a little water and some sweetner, bring to a boil and cook them on medium until saucy, which takes the same amount of time as it takes to cook up your batches of pancake. You’re already standing there at the stove so why not?

Buckwheat Yogurt Pancakes with Blueberries

Grit-Style Chilaquile Casserole

This is another winner from The Grit Cookbook. I think of it as a kind of southwestern/Mexican lasagna. At the center of it all is one of the core recipes from this cookbook (referred to as “fundamentals”) Grit Pintos. These are dried pinto beans cooked with cumin, onion and bay leaf until tender. These are miles and miles above anything you’re going to get out of a can and well worth the minimal effort it takes to make them. They are super tasty all on their own, and keep well so making a big batch is no burden.

The delicious Grit Pintos

The casserole starts with a layer of torn tortillas covering the bottom of the pan. The original recipe specifies flour tortillas, but I think corn are much better. Slightly stale is good, because then they don’t get soggy. My required preferred store bought corn tortillas are Maria and Ricardo’s. I have not encountered any other brand in my local stores that is any good.

The next layer is grated cheese. I like a mix of sharp cheddar and monterey jack. Next, the pintos, well drained. Sometimes I like to top the pintos with a scant layer of spinach that has been cooked and squeezed dry. After that, a mix of chopped onions, zucchini, yellow squash, garlic and seasoning. This mixed is sauted until the whole thing is starting to caramelize before being added to the chilaquile. The caramelization builds flavor and just as important, cooks off any excessive liquid that the vegetables would shed while the chilaquile bakes that would make the whole thing soggy. (Hence also the importance of well drained beans and squeezed dry spinach.)

The squash and onion layer

Finely minced jalapeños top the veggies along with a light layer of the cheese. More torn tortillas go on top. Then a lightly beaten mixture of eggs, buttermilk and prepared mustard is poured over the top (sometimes you have to move the tortillas around a bit to get the liquid to flow down into the rest of the layers. A good quality buttermilk and eggs make a huge difference here. Locally I favor the buttermilk from Mapleline Farm. It’s really thick but still pourable and very flavorful.

Tangent: I’m comforted by the fact that Mapleline delivers, and by the range of products. If I didn’t have a car or something else kept me from making regular trips to the store, I could get yogurt, (or milk to make my own yogurt), granola, bread, butter, cheese, coffee ( and it’s the coffee I like to buy Pierce Brothers) and seltzer. If I could manage to get to Clementine’s, the  fruit and vegetable shop on the other side of the hill from where I am sitting right now, I’d never need go to the supermarket or the coop again. Hmmm…

Anyhoo, another light layer of cheese goes over the buttermilk mixture, and I like to sprinkle on some more minced jalapeños. Then the whole thing is baked up until slightly browned and bubbly. The buttermilk/egg mixture makes a light sort of custard effect throughout the structure. It’s good as is, or topped with a little salsa.

The finished chilaquile

I would have taken a picture of the inside but I was too busy eating.

Thanksgiving Feast 2008

I’ve been thinking about restarting this blog for a while. It seems only fitting to make the first post on a holiday centered around food.

This year, it was just the two of us for Thanksgiving dinner, so I decided to keep the meal fairly simple. I enjoy cooking, however I was looking forward to a relaxing few days off, and I didn’t want to spend all of my time in the kitchen. I also wanted to keep the leftovers to a minimum. I like leftovers, but not days and days of them.

We don’t eat dessert very often, so the Thanksgiving pies are something we really look forward to, and definetly made the cut. Another perennial favorite is oyster casserole, which is very rich, so I made that the main course. I wanted two vegetable sides that were relatively simply and not at all rich. We love roasted sweet potatoes so that was a natural departure from the more complex sweet potato casserole. I decided on skillet green beans with orange, maple and pecan. I also usually make another old favorite cumberland cranberry sauce from my battered copy of the Vegetarian Epicure.

Unfortunately none of the pictures came out well enough to be worth posting.

Since their classic recipe has been our favorite for years, I tried the revised pumpkin pie recipe in the current (Nov/Dec 2008) issue of Cook’s Illustrated. It was a bit lighter on the spices and replacing dried ground ginger with grated fresh was definetly an improvement. Maple syrup was added as a sweetner, something I had sometimes used as I appreciate the flavor of dark maple syrup in baked goods. It also incorporated sweet potato with the pumpkin. I have to say I like sweet potato pie as much as I like pumpkin pie, but I’d rather keep those two flavors separate. For future pies I think I’ll incorporate the fresh ginger and maple syrup in the classic recipe.

Instead of apple pie, I decided to make apple crisp, which I usually make a couple of times each fall. I used the three varieties of heirloom cooking apples that I have been enjoying in crisps this fall: calville blanc d’ Hiver, Black Gilliflower (a.k.a. Sheep’s Nose) and Belle du Boskoop. Each has a different level of sweetness and acidity and different texture when cooked. These heirloom varieties also have a floral quality missing from the modern varieties. I keep the seasoning of the filling simple, cinnamon, dark maple syrup, lemon zest and juice. As usual, I baked extra sharp cheddar cheese in the crumb topping. It was a success.

My husband is an idea man. On our way back home from a late morning stroll, he suggested having dessert first. So we had our pies (made the day before Thanksgiving) at lunchtime and ate the rest of the meal for dinner. We’re going to do this every year! We had a chance to enjoy our pie on an empty stomach and still have our fill at dinner.

For the roasted sweet potatoes, I again turned to the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Their excellent technique made this simple and delicious dish the best roasted sweet potatoes I’ve ever had. This is how I will be cooking them from now on.

For the green beans I improvised from a few different recipes combining orange juice and zest with maple pecans in a skillet. This would have come out better with younger and more tender green beans. In the future, I am going to stick with roasting any green beans that do not come fresh from the garden.

I have been making baked oyster casserole for years. Oysters, a little cream, bread crumbs and a little butter on top. It’s good, but I thought it could be better. I looked around on my usual recipe sources on the internet for ideas. I settled on Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Oyster Casserole on Epicurious. I left out the mushrooms (that just seemed odd to me) and replaced the bell pepper with celery and the scallion with shallots. It was delicious, the creamy sauce wasn’t too heavy and really allowed the briny taste of the oysters to shine through. I had planned for the cumberland cranberry sauce to complement the creamy casserole, but I forgot to serve it! I’ll have to come up with another dish to serve it with this weekend.

And there you have it, a mix of old tried and true favorites and some new ideas made for a great meal.