[ree]

Oooh. Checked out that recipe, Jen. Looks good. I always see those colorful squashes and wonder how to cook and eat them. So I'm wondering how many of you cooks out there have made homemade candies...? Particularly marzapan and chocolates. I always have excess almond meal (from making almond milk) so I wanted to give marzapan candies a try. I also want to try dipping them in chocolate. Anyway, any tips for that sort of thing are appreciated. (I want to make them for the nieces and nephews for Christmas.) I've been making a lot of fresh juices lately with my Champion juicer (vegetable and fruit) and have recently experimented with making fresh coconut juice/milk. Let me tell you folks, those "Survivorman" shows where the guy slices open a coconut with a small flick of the machete... Well, it's BULL. You practically need a 50 cal to get those sumbitches open. Those coconuts in the grocery store that are labeled "easy open" - that's a lie too. The first coconut I bought was one of those brown hairy things. I used a screwdriver as a chisel and hammered the thing open. It smelled like an industrial solvent, and was rotten, so I returned it to QFC. Then I bought a coconut that had the outside shell shaved off. It was a different type of coconut than the brown hairy thing. It was labeled "easy open" but I had to use the hammer and chisel on that thing to get it opened. What a freakin' mess. I got 1.5 cups coconut water and about 3/4 cup of soft gelatinous coconut flesh that easily scraped out. It had a different taste than the usual coconut, but it was good. (I blended the meat and water to make coconut milk, and sweetened it with a little maple syrup.) So I got suckered into another "easy open" coconut. It was labeled "easy open" but it was another brown hairy coconut. I struggled for over an HOUR to open that sucker and extract the meat. What a freakin' pain. The brown hairy ones taste more like a pina colada. And the meat was a bitch to get out. It wasn't gelatinous at all. It was very fiberous and the inner shell stuck to the meat, so after extracting the meat, I had to cut off the inner shell. Godalmighty, I spent the entire night with that damn coconut. I blended the meat and the water, and got a tremendous amount of pulp. I'll probably dry it and dip it in chocolate to make my own Mounds bars... If I can get my act together. If you are considering making your own fresh coconut juice, you might want to just BUY it. It's a lot of effort for a quart of juice, and it makes a big mess too. But the taste is divine.

[sarbar]

Ree, I make lots of candy every year My favorite currently is marshmallows (I cannot eat most commercial ones do to dyes added). Marzipan is sooo good!

[ree]

Any tips???? Especially for making the chocolates? How do you make the chocolates harden? I had a homemade marshmallow... It was outrageously delicious.

[sarbar]

You have to temper your chocolate - that is my 'secret' at least. Btw! Check out the Alton Brown candy episodes - his marshmallow recipe is a no-fail. He had some great other candy recipes as well.

[ree]

Temper your chocolates??? Like this??? C'mon Sarbar. Give it up. How do you temper chocolates? So the homemade marshmallow was on top of this hot chocolate that had a little fois gras in it. It was sooooooo delicious. The fois gras was just a hint of richness that you could barely taste, but wow.

[Mike E.]

[sarbar]

Recipe for tasty marshmallows! I have photos somewhere...I know I posted it on my old blog. Argh!

[jenjen]

Ok, the one and only time I made marshmallows I ended up with very tasty, sticky blobs all over the kitchen. The marshmallows were awesome, but I was finding those sticky blobs for months. At least gumdrops just stick up the pot and cookie sheet you use to make them.

[sarbar]

Jen, try his recipe! They work and not a ton of mess. Though you can't stop once you start - they set up fast. You do need a stand mixer though to make them though. As for tempering chocolate, you need to slowly melt it. Alton's idea of a heating pad works well!

[ree]

But what about the chocolates, Sarbar??? I don't want to make marshmallows... well maybe next year. (Edit - okay, I see melt it slowly!) Mike, I tried a hacksaw on the coconut. It didn't make a scratch. Pounding it with a hammer was useless too. The hammer just bounced off of it. I almost broke out the sledgehammer, but the screwdriver/chisel hammer combo seemed to work, if a bit time consuming. I wonder if the effort somehow made it taste better.

[sarbar]

These are beyond freaking good! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chocolate-truffles-recipe/index.html And no, they are NOT healthy nor low fat

[sarbar]

I keep my fudge recipes here. The Easiest Best Fudge Ever: 1 cup sugar 1/2 tsp salt 3 Tbsp unsalted butter 1/2 cup heavy cream (ie. whipping cream) 1 3/4 cup miniature marshmallows 1 1/2 cups of chips (use any flavor! Chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla, butterscotch, mint, etc) 1/2 tsp vanilla or whatever flavor extract you would like (almond, peppermint, etc.) Combine sugar, salt, butter, cream and marshmallows in a heavy medium saucepan. Set over medium heat, cook, stirring until butter and marshmallows are almost melted. That will take about 5-6 minutes. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Take off burner. Add chips and flavoring to pan. Start stirring and keep that going until all the chips are melted and it looks all nicely mixed. Pour into the pan. (line the pan with buttered parchment paper!) Let sit for 3 hours (or 1 in the fridge) before you take out of the pan. These cookies were sooooo good! Soft Peanut Butter Fat Bomb Cookies: 1 cup butter 1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy) 1 cup sugar 1 cup packed brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla 3 eggs 3 cups flour 2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt FILLING 1/2 cup peanut butter 3 cups icing sugar 1 tsp vanilla 2-6 Tbsp milk Use a mixer to cream together shortening, peanut butter and sugars. Add vanilla and eggs. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture. Shape into 1 inch or so balls and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375 F for about 8-12 minutes until golden. When you take them out, they will be a bit soft but leave them on the sheet for a couple minutes and they will continue to cook. Remove from the sheet and cool on wire racks. When cool, in a mixing bowl, beat filling ingredients until smooth with mixer. With the milk add in enough to get it for spreading. Spread on one half of cool cookies and top each with another cookie. Recipe made about 30 filled cookies (yes, my cookies tend to be bigger than the recipes call for). These cookies are fat bombs, no way to deny that. We ate them on our trip and enjoyed them very much in the cold weather. I wrapped each cookie up in plastic wrap and carried them in a freezer bag. The cookies are very moist and dense, so handled being smashed around.

[ree]

[sarbar]

Not sweet, but for a quick lunch this is one of my favorite dishes to whip up quickly for Kirk and I:

If there is one dish I love to stir fry up it has to be a form of pan fried noodles. Call it what you want, it comes under many names depending on what you sauce it up with and what kind of noodles you use as the base. Quick and you can use fresh, canned, frozen - whatever you have on hand. Chuka Soba is found in the Asian section of grocery stores. It is similar to ramen but is not deep fried. Look carefully and you can find versions that are not artificially colored. You can use thin spaghetti or ramen instead as well. The sauce ingredients I honestly feel that everyone should have in their cupboard at home. Rice vinegar and sesame oil are also found in the Asian section as well. I call for lower sodium soy sauce - you won’t miss all the salt! As for the dried vegetables? I keep quite a few on hand - they are great for when all you need is a Tablespoon or two. No waste, no running to the store for one item. Just rehydrate them for 15-30 minutes and proceed. Sarah’s Pan Fried Noodles Ingredients: 1 8-ounce package Chuka Soba noodles 1/4 cup diced dried carrots 2 Tbsp diced dried shallots 1 10-ounce can chicken, well drained 2 Tbsp canola or peanut oil Sauce ingredients: 3 Tbsp lower sodium soy sauce 2 Tbsp rice vinegar 1 tsp toasted sesame oil 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp diced dried garlic (or 4 cloves) 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes Directions: Cover the dried vegetables with boiling water and let steep till needed. Bring a pot of water to a boil (couple quarts), add in the Chuka Soba and bring back to a boil. Cook for 3 minutes, then drain. Meanwhile in a wok or large high sided pan, heat up the oil over medium high heat. Drain the vegetables well and dump in. Stir fry for a couple minutes till the shallots start smelling done and the first hint of brown is showing. Add in the chicken and break apart, while constantly stirring. Add in the noodles and keep stirring/shaking the pan. Don’t stop or you will get burnt noodles! Do this for a minute or two. Cut the heat and add in the sauce. Stir as fast as you can, tossing the noodles till well covered. Plate up and garnish with chives if desired. Serves 2-3. This is from my blog I keep for cooking at home

[sarbar]

One more quick lunch/dinner:

Pasta And Clams Ingredients: 6 ounces dry pasta (any shape) 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1/2 tsp dried Italian herb blend 1/4 tsp dried minced garlic 1/4 tsp diced dried lemon peel Lots of ground black pepper 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 1 6-ounce can minced clams Directions: Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add in the pasta and cook for time on package. Meanwhile, in a small non stick pan heat the oil over low heat with the herbs and spices floating in the oil. Keep an eye on it so the garlic doesn’t burn. When the aroma is smelling great and the oil is warmed add in the clams along with the clam juice. Turn off the heat and let sit till pasta is done. Drain the pasta, toss it with the sauce and add in most of the cheese. Stir/toss till well combined and the cheese is melting. Plate up and top with a bit more cheese and chives if desired. Serves 2. Permanent link.