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First of all, a slightly belated happy new years to you all! I hope you had wonderful, safe, happy winter holidays. I spent the last few weeks mostly eating; I am pretty close to my upper limit for sweets but I managed to make room for one extra pastry post-Christmas.
If you aren't totally burnt out from eating holiday treats, you might want to try a galette des rois, or a king cake.
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I really like putting vegetables, fruit and other healthy stuff into foods that might otherwise be a little less nutritious. Zucchini bread, carrot muffins, black bean brownies, chickpea muffin, any sort of fruit or vegetable purée into unexpected places. I love how sneaky and tricky it makes me feel.
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My life is significantly better if I have prepared enough breakfast for a few days. I'm not so great at the morning portion of life and I tend to be running perpetually late. It is a great comfort during these moments to know that there is a tasty, healthy, portable breakfast waiting for me. It doesn't stop me from my usual morning flailing search for my keys and the other shoe to go with the one on my foot.
But it does slightly balm my nerves to have something to eat once I find everything.
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Always watch the sugar.
That voice that tells you, when you put sugar in a dry pan on high heat, "Just go into the other room for just a moment, just turn away for a minute, you won't forget about the sugar, just leave it for a second, it'll be fine." That voice is a liar. Maybe you don't hear that voice, maybe you are better at recognizing that the voice is wrong, maybe you stay with your sugar. I listened. And of course I didn't come right back, of course I forgot there was sugar in a pan over an open flame cranked up to eleven. I started grabbing recipes, assembling supplies, puttering. By the time I remembered the sugar, my apartment was full of smoke. Can't-see-across-the-room kind of smoke. And the sugar wasn't just burnt, it was on fire. Flame actually leaping out of the pan: a blackened, charred, disgusting sugar inferno.
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pecan toffee
I'm working on few recipes for food gifts that I can make and package for Christmas presents. This pecan toffee is definitely on the list. They are pretty quick and easy to make and very tasty. They store well, so you can make them a little in advance if you wish. Store them in the fridge or somewhere cool.
pecan toffee
pecan smoked salt toffee:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tbs water
1 cup pecan halves, toasted and chopped if you wish
1/2 tsp vanilla
a big pinch or two high quality smoked salt
Melt together water, butter and sugar over medium high heat. Stir constantly until mixture begins to turn golden. Watch the mixture closely; it can burn very quickly. Add pecans and vanilla and stir to combine.
If you want to make a sheet of toffee with pecans in it, pour
the mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet. If you want pecan praline style clusters like the above photo, empty the pan out onto a cooling rack with a parchment lined sheet underneath in. Separate the pecans into little clusters with a spatula. Either way, sprinkle the toffee with a big pinch of smoked salt before it cools.
Smash the toffee into bits, divide between small, airtight containers. Try not to eat it all before you give it away. Unless you want to.
Finely chop up the toffee to swirl through ice cream or sprinkle onto a cake
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lemons in salt
Preserved lemons are great to have around. They are very easy and inexpensive to make, but quite expensive to buy. Whenever I see them for sale a teeny jar costs $10-15. You will feel very smug when you have homemade preserved lemons and you see those fancy expensive ones in shops. They also make an excellent last minute host gift if you keep an extra jar or two in the fridge.
lemons
Preserved lemons add this wonderful salty, bright boost to all sorts of dishes. I like to puree them into salad dressing and hummus, mince them and rub onto fish or stick a whole preserved lemon inside a chicken I'm roasting. They are traditionally used in North African cooking, but they are very versatile and I find they work well with all sorts of different flavours, especially
feta, halloumi, mint, garlic and chilies.
I always use organic lemons when I am making preserved lemons; since you will be eating the rind of the lemons, I try to avoid waxed and sprayed lemons.
preserved lemons:
lots of organic, unsprayed lemons
a lot of non-iodized salt
lemon juice, either freshly squeezed or the highest quality bottled juice you can find
Thoroughly wash the lemons. Slice a lemon open lengthways. Stuff a generous amount of salt inside the lemon and place the lemon in a mason jar. Repeat with all lemons. When a jar is full, fill it up with salt and additional lemon juice. The amounts are not exact, but you want to use a lot of salt and make sure that the lemons are covered. You may have a lot of undissolved salt in the jar; that is fine. You can turn the jars upside down occasionally to mix the salt around. Put the jar in the fridge for 4-6 weeks. You will know the lemons are ready when they are soft and squishy and slightly translucent. Rinse them before you use them to reduce salt somewhat.
preserved lemons in mason jar
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