More attempts at candy

So happy I didn't attempt this before the holidays........I found this recipe HERE

I thought ............how hard can it be to make jelly drops? I got my ingredients together. 

4 SHEETS OR ENVELOPES OF GELATIN

2 CUPS SUGAR

1/2 CUP WATER

JUICE OF A LEMON

 ZEST OF AN ORANGE

2 DROPS YELLOW FOOD COLORING

Sheets of gelatin weren't available at my grocers so I got the envelopes. These had to be bloomed in 1/2 cup water Now this could have be my FIRST mistake. Was this an additional 1/2 cup water? Or was I to use the 1/2 cup in the recipe? After deciding to play it by ear and see if more liquid was needed as I went along I bloomed the gelatin and found it to look like a white hockey puck............pretty solid .

While that was going on I choose a bright orange to zest. This was for color so I found the prettiest one at the market.

Zested away ..............

Stopped for a healthy snack



brought my sugar and additional 1/2 cup water to a boil...added my gelatin and continued to cook an additional 15 minutes ....stirring constantly as suggested.When thickened I added the zest  and lemon juice,poured it into the parchment lined pan and waited for it to cool.Hers was a beautiful shade of yellow.........looking more like gold then the deep dark amber color I got...............where did I go wrong?

She mentioned several times her need for perfection in making these for giving and although I too feel that need...............

A good coating of 10x sugar and a pat on the back for going where I had never gone before quickly erased any self thrashing I might have attempted. So......not very pretty but, 

darn tasty and that's why I like being in the kitchen by myself ...........said the hobbit

Still looking in the pantry

Well it's still January so I'm poking around looking for new ways to be frugal and the pantry is my favorite place to make it happen.We will not talk about the yarn and fabric,tucked away in bins. January will be dedicated to "THE PANTRY"
I have a cookie recipe that calls for brittle and strange as it may seem, I can't always find SKOR brittle bars at my grocers.While lamenting my tale of woe to my daughter Sarah, she decided to find a recipe for me and within a very short time I received THIS recipe. I have no problem attempting most recipes but, candy??? This is out of my comfort zone.

The ingredients were simple enough
  2 sticks of butter
1 cup of sugar
5 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon vanilla
chocolate 
nuts                               I think the secret here is to make this in an iron skillet. She simple says to melt the butter sugar and water till the bubbles start coming up caramel color. So I did ......stirring constantly. Once it started to bubble I watched closely, trying to get just the right color of golden caramel. This took about 10 minutes. I wasn't sure that the chips were going to melt as she said, so, I put a little sample on parchment paper to see if it was for real.......touch of the doubting Thomas,

All looked fine so I proceeded to put my toffee on the parchment ........sprinkle with chopped pecans.I used about a cup. Seemed a bit heavy,,,,,,more like nut frosting than nut sprinkling.Then a
quick covering  with the chocolate chips, gently swirling in order to melt my chocolate in an even layer.

Of course this created a lovely tasting sampler on my spoon that I nibbled at while waiting for my masterpiece to harden. But, you know how it is......a watched pot never boils. It took about 1 hour to firm completely .......fortunately I have a marble slab that helped in the chilling process.

It was pretty easy to break into bit size pieces and I have to admit, this is a winner.

I think I'll be doing this again,but,for now I kind of like just looking at it on the shelf........said the hobbit.

quiet cooking

Now that the holidays are over ............my brain is starting to function at a more normal level. Time to do the little things that make our household slow and mellow.

Something we like to have on hand in the pantry are homemade croutons. I KNOW doesn't sound very exciting but,  SO better than store bought and easy peezy to make. These 2 little breads were just the right size to make a batch.I just slice and dice them .Although most recipes will tell you to remove the crust.......it seems like such a waste and my family has yet to complain.

In a large bowl I mix Extra Virgin Olive oil about 1/2 cup 2 teaspoons of a favorite herb. This time it was an Italian mix, a little kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Toss the breadcrumbs in this till somewhat covered trying to get all the oil worked in.After it looks like the bowl has no dressing left....

I place the breadcrumbs on a parchment covered cookie sheet and sprinkle with a handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. I'm sure you could  use cheddar or some other hard cheese of your choice.

Now preheat your oven to 395 degrees and bake for about 15 min . Toss them up a bit and back in the oven for about 10 min.If your bread is very dry to begin with you might need to watch the last few minutes a little closer to avoid getting too dark.

When cooled you will have a tasty crouton great for soup or salad or just to nibble on.They keep forever in a storage bag on the pantry shelf.An added benefit is your house will smell like you have been making some really intense cooking but, ..............we all know this will only take a few minutes from start to finish. Now get back to the couch and do a little  reading...........or take a nap.............said the hobbit

A party for two........sometimes it's a good idea.

I know the Holidays are meant to be spent with lots of family, music and hoopla......but,sometimes you need to make a little special time for your first mate.My husband and I have a number of anniversary under our belt, and let me tell you girl, it never hurts to make your partner in crime feel a little special.You know how it goes..........do unto others as you would have them do to you. So if you're needing a little special attention the quickest way to get it is to give it.

Something new in my culinary skills this year is a free form vegetable pie. I haven't quite found the perfect blend yet but,I think it had plenty of eye appeal and I'm fascinated with the concept. I know this isn't a new idea.........potato sandwiches were the rage in the 30's but it sometimes takes me awhile to catch on. This one had the fancy name of RED POTATO AND APPLE GALETTE  so how could I pass it up? Flour, 1 and 1/4 cup, butter,1 stick ,salt and pepper ,and ice water 5 to six Tablespoons were the ingredients for the pastry. I couldn't help but add a sprinkling of thyme to the mix.Chill in the fridge till ready to use.While waiting THINLY slice.

1 MED RED POTATO  wash don't peel
1 GRANNY SMITH APPLE  cored not peeled

Roll out your dough to a 12 inch circle. ( we like our crust thin and flaky so I have to say I had enough for 2 pies)
1/ 2 CUP CREME FRAICHE spread this on your  just rolled crust within 1 or 2 inches from the a
edge. then sprinkle
1/4 CUP GRATED PECORINO
and alternate the potatoes and apples, being as creative as you like or, just heap it in a mound and spread it evenly over the cheese.
Bake at 450 in the lower third of your oven for 20 -25 min.

While waiting for the masterpiece to be ready we helped ourselves to cheese and crackers and a little pumpkin bread. Bloody Mary's rounded out the meal and gave us the time we needed to breathe and plan our attack on the holiday to-do list.We clinked our glasses and patted each other on the back for handling yet another holiday frenzy. Everyone at the party had a great time and loved the galette. Sometimes you just have to treat each other like visiting royalty. I love a party for two...................said the Hobbit

It's almost here........Are you ready?

Are you cooking like  crazy right now........I know Christmas/comfort. It's a perfect match,isn't it? This should be such a fun time of year,but, somehow I make an almost impossible list than even Santa can't handle.While trying to decide what to make for the holidays I scan to see what my blogging friends are doing and by the time I've spent an hour or two oowing and ahhing over all their plans I'm just about ready to have a good cry.
Really....am I the only person out here who can't make 13 different cookies and 5 specialty candies for my family to enjoy?

But then I look out my window at the newly fallen snow and see my neighbors house looking like the perfect Christmas card, my heart melts and my blood pressure drops a few notches and I am reminded that I just have to be me.Although I love a good cookie I have to say that my true comfort food is ........

                                                                   
                                                                   SOUP........I think there is nothing more comforting than a hot bowl of soup.This week I made RED LENTIL WITH LEMON.When life gets a little stressful, this soup can really lift your spirits.There are many variations to this recipe,however I think this comes under the heading of "if it ain't broke,don't fix it" simplicity is an important thing to remember during the holidays.
Gather these ingredients:

4TBLS EVOO  
2 LARGE ONIONS CHOPPED
4 GARLIC CLOVES MINCED
2 TBLS TOMATO PASTE
2 TSP GROUND CUMIN
1/2 TSP KOSHER SALT
PINCH OF CAYENNE
2 QUARTS VEGGIE BROTH.........OR CHICKEN
2 CUPS RED LENTILS
2 LARGE CARROTS  PEELED AND DICED
JUICE OF 1 LEMON
1/3 CUP CHOPPED FRESH CILANTRO

Saute onions and garlic in Olive Oil till just tender
Stir in tomato paste,cumin,cayenne salt and pepper and continue to stir till  you have that wonderful aroma of onions and spice rising up from the pot.  Oh yeah ...... now you're cooking.Add your broth,lentils and diced carrots.Bring to a boil then slowly simmer till tender. 20 to 30 minutes.At this stage I use my emulsion blender to puree the soup.Stir in lemon juice and chopped cilantro and enjoy!! After consuming 1 or 2 bowls of this soup you should be ready to get back to your holiday list and probably check everything as "done"
Hmmm,have you thought of having it for breakfast?..........said the Hobbit

Marching on with my RESOLUTION !!

So many recipes marked for "must try" What was I thinking !!So this year I have resolved to go through the list and make or eliminate. Here we have a recipe that should go in the make if you plan on feeding an  army recipe...........Appears to be just the right size for a family of four however when I finished baking I could have passed it door to door and, still have leftovers.

I dutifully buttered my 9x9 pan............seems like a small cake. Then I was told to line the pan with parchment paper leaving a 2 inch overhang on all size. Seemed like a waste of butter but, when making a recipe for the first time I think it should be followed as close to the letter as possible.

Then I sifted  2 3/4 CUPS OF FLOUR      
                     2 3/4 TEASPOON BAKING POWDER
                     1 1/2 TEASPOON GROUND CINNAMON
                     1 TEASPOON FINE SALT
IN A BOWL BEAT
1 1/2  OF BUTTER
1 1/2 CUPS BROWN SUGAR
till fluffy add
3 EGGS 1 AT A TIME AND
1 1/2 TEASPOONS OF VANILLA

I actually beat my eggs and added them all at once.

Once the mix looked fluffy enough I added
THE FLOUR MIX
1 1/4 CUPS OF UNSWEETENED APPLESAUCE
Beginning and ended with the flour.

Then I put it all in my 9x9 pan and placed
2 CORED PEELED AND THINLY SLICED GRANNY SMITH APPLES ON THE TOP
Into the oven it went at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or till a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs on it. I found those instructions a bit over the edge but......it's a Martha recipe and she tends to be extremely precise with her details. I think she is an amazing women but, I won't be walking in her shoes anytime soon.As Popeye would say "I am who I am"
But wait it's not over yet.........

While cake is cooking boil down
1 1/4 CUP APPLE CIDER
1/4 CUP BROWN SUGAR
Till about 50% evaporated.
Leave cake in pan to cool and after about 20 minutes brush this glaze on the cake allowing it to seep into the cake I have to confess it may have been 45 min before I got back to the cake. It looked marvelous when completed......all shiny and screaming "IT'S FALL........LET'S CELEBRATE"  They say this has 9 servings but, really we probably had 3 slices to there 1. It was extremely dense and several of those servings were accompanied with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.  MMMMM

ALAS,no matter witch way you look at it, this recipe will not be repeated for everyday eating. Since everyone seems to be watching there diets so closely around here I thought that 525 CALORIES,17 g OF FAT,6 g OF PROTEIN 88 g OF CARBS AND 2 LONELY g OF FIBER  PER SERVING was something we could probably do without. That and the fact that it took most of the day to make however, in it's defense sharing with my community 

made a lot of people very happy.........................said the hobbit

Buttermilk biscuits.......a true comfort food.

Not all comfort foods are soups or stews or casseroles dripping in gravy. Buttermilk biscuits definitely fall in this category.It is the perfect addition to any meal and certainly brings back childhood memories of grandmothers house or wherever you were lucky enough to have these biscuits.My first run in with these biscuits happened just a few years ago. We had been visiting friends in South Carolina and on the way home stopped at a Waffle House for a final taste of the south. I know, the Waffle House .......really? Here in New England it is next to impossible to find these restaurants. Sunday morning at this restaurant was a ritual for our Carolina friends.Our friend "Cokes" as he was called had recently passed away and stopping here seem like the right thing to do.It was still quite early and I wasn't ready for the big breakfast that my husband eagerly ordered and the waitress suggested a biscuit with honey...............Oh My God. Why had I never had these before?? When I got home I looked up a recipe for them and they have been a staple ever since.Here's how we make them at home.

 Sift together 2 and 1/4 cups of flour
                    1 tablespoon of baking powder
                     1/2 teaspoon cayenne
stir in             1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
With a pastry blender cut in 1 stick of butter
toss in            1 cup of cheddar cheese
In a separate bowl mix 1 cup on buttermilk with 1 egg

Stir the wet into the dry.........you will have a sticky gooey ball of dough.
Drop it on a VERY well floured cloth or board add more flour to your dough so that you can roll it out to a heavy 1/4of an inch.If you can't roll it try flattening it with your palm.It took me a few tries before the dough didn't stick to the rolling pin. Cut into any size circle. I use the 2 1/4 in biscuit circle but feel free to use anything that serves the purpose. Glass, can , or by eye if you can.

                                              Once I have them all cut out.

                                                I stack them one on top of the other

                                             Bake them about 18 minutes at 395 degrees

Once they have cooled just a touch I split one open..............add a hint of extra butter, drizzle the whole thing with honey and think ,oh yeah........now this is southern comfort....................said the hobbit.

Discovering something new

I've been meaning to post about this for some time. On Mother's Day 2010 SARAH the youngest

made this hand scrub for me. It contained lemon and olive oil and was suppose to keep hands that are constantly in water smooth as silk. With all the cooking that I do, and still doing dishes by hand,it is sometimes difficult to keep my favorite tools (my hands) comfortable and moist.One day after finishing the dishes and creaming my hands I realized I had forgotten to soak a few items that had those nasty labels stuck to them. Well my hands had that cream all over them and I rubbed the price labels with my finger tip.

A perfectly useful scoop was sitting on my counter because I couldn't take the glue off.

Just a little of this magic rub and look what happened !!! Must have been a fluke right? So I dug out a plastic tcontainer top that was impossible to scrape the label from. Pretty nasty......... right? Believe me I tried everything .

A dollop of scrub on the tip of my finger and a gentle circular motion on the label and look how it turned out.

It looks like it was never used..............I repeated this process on so many labels that I had to become a believer. The gift was about 6 months old when I discovered its' secret talents. I don't know if aging had anything to do with it. If you'd like such a scrub I found the recipe HERE If you try this let me know how it works for you. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has such marvelous results..............said the hobbit

Eating from the pantry

One of my favorite ways to cook is to look in the pantry and see just what I can make without having to shop for ingredients. Having a passion for food, I often pick ingredients up with the intention of cooking something marvelous. Of course life gets busy and I forget my great ideas and, you guessed it, there is a whole lot of stuff in the pantry.We won't even talk about the yarn and fabric that have been picked up for the amazing knitting and crafting that I plan on doing. Once the holidays have passed it's time to get real and make use of those goodies so that I can get more.......dah! Last years trip to KING ARTHUR FLOUR I found the greatest deep dark chocolate cocoa..........of course I had to have it. And now the sad story of how it really was used. No unbelievable biscottis or over the edge brownies for me,no sirree!

A quick look in the freezer revealed 1 lonely patty of pie dough which I rolled out and baked.

From the pantry came 1/2 cup of white sugar

3 tablespoons of the cocoa

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/8teaspoon of salt

I wisked all the dry ingredients right in the pan then slowly added 2 3/4 cups of milk and continued to wisk till all was blended and started to thicken. They say stir occasionally but, every time I try that it burns to the bottom so.......I just stand there stirring for about 10 minutes really it's not that long.Then remove from the heat and stir in

2 tablespoons of butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Pour this into your pie shell and you've got a great dessert for the family.................much better than that little box of pudding.

Of course if you doubled your recipe like I did

You've got a little something for the cook............said the hobbit

What happened to the grapefruit peel

So I left you with the grapefruit peel. I couldn't let it go to waste.


So I cut it into thin slivers and boiled it to get rid of some of the bitterness.

They suggest doing this about 3 times but, I did it once. I had peeled the grapefruit with a potato peeler and had little to no pith (the white stuff) so I wasn't too concerned about bitterness. I used THIS recipe but cut it in half.

Then in for a boiling of sugar water and..............

a roll in the confectioners sugar. I can't tell you how great this was I mean really, we almost ate the whole batch. Fortunately I was able to tuck some in the fridge to use in some desserts I was making.

First I made Whoopee pies and crumbled some into the filling.Chocolate and candied citrus,pretty tasty treat,and in the Whoopee pies? Talk about kicking it up a notch.

Then time was starting to be a problem,so, I pulled out the ever reliable puff pastry and using THIS recipe. I know! It says strawberry turnover,but, really the turnover will never know also replaced cinnamon with a few slivered mint leaves, and for the final touch crumbled candied citrus in the cream cheese filling.

Huge triangles of cream cheese, raspberry goodness, a hint of mint, and those taste exciting citrus peels sprinkled throughout the berries. That's what I love about summer it truly stirs all the senses of a foodie. Wait till you see what's up next............................said the hobbit

What are we eating now?

SALADS..........that's the star of the table right now. As some of you may know I cook for a few people in my spare time. Of course it seems silly to not make a little extra so that my family gets to share in this yummy goodness. In the winter months I usual make 3 soups and the people on my list will order a quart if they want. The month of May is when this comes to an end ,however, this year I was asked if I could continue and maybe even offer a few salads. This week was the first for pasta salad and I chose to make PEANUTTY PASTA.

I'm sure a lot of you have made this out there. If not, this is a great way to use small amounts of veggies that shouldn't be allowed to go to waste. I cooked up my pasta, rinsed and let it cool. In a large skillet I sauteed in 2 tablespoons ofevoo, 2 minced cloves of garlic and 1 tablespoon of grated ginger, just till I could smell their aroma. Stop here and breathe in. To the pan add 1 cup broth veggie or chicken,1/2cup good peanut butter 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/4 cup white wine. Allow to simmer 5-7 minutes. Set aside to cool. In the same pan with a little extra oil I sauteed slivered sweet red pepper, mushrooms,and last pea pods.I grated a few carrots and cut a 3 scallions. These were not cooked. Mix the veggies with the pasta then pour as much of the sauce as you wish. This is fine served hot but, we love it cold.

Whatever you have for veggies is fine. Broccoli,sprouts,corn.it's all good. Put this in your fridge,for a quick snack,but, be ready to find an empty bowl.......................said the hobbit