A use for all that butter you just made...

Hey, this stuff is called CHRISTMAS CRACK.    Make it.  You will see why it is called that (Well, I don't know about the "Christmas" part...  I would make it year round.)

1   12.8 oz. box of Rice Chex cereal
1   12 oz. box of Golden Grahams cereal
1   7 oz. bag shredded coconut
1   4 oz. bag slivered almonds (notice mine are pecans instead)
1 1/2 cups butter  (yes that is 3... I said 3) sticks of butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups corn syrup

Combine cereals, coconut and nuts in a VERY LARGE bowl.  (Next time I will use a dish pan)  Stir to combine.

In a large saucepan cook butter, sugar, and corn syrup to the "soft ball" stage.  In case your mother did not teach you how to determine soft ball stage (and I don't remember that I did), this stage can be determined by dropping a spoonful of hot syrup into a bowl of very cold water. In the water, use your fingers to gather the cooled syrup into a ball. If it has reached soft-ball stage, the syrup easily forms a ball while in the cold water, but flattens once removed from the water.  Or just use a candy thermometer, and wait until the mercury is up to the soft ball line at about 234 degrees.

Remove from heat and pour onto the cereal mixture, tossing until everything is evenly coated.  Spread out on two cookie sheets to cool.  The recipe says to stir it around occasionally to keep it from "clumping," but we found it was easier to eat if we just grabbed a clump. 

Now I dare you to stay out of it long enough to need to know that it should be stored in an airtight container.  Experiment with different nuts and cereals......

Hey... You Should Make Some Butter

Now you are asking, "Why on EARTH would I make butter?"

4 reasons:
1.  Because it it FUN
2.  Because it is EASY
3.  Because it is WAYYY healthier than say....MARGARINE...   (plus it tastes a WHOLE lot better in your recipes)
and 4.  Because I said, "Hey, you should make some butter."

You need 2 things:

cheesecloth  (or any loosely woven clean cloth)
Mixer  (Use your Kitchen Aid with the wire whip)
     I suppose if you do not have a mixer with a wire whip, you can do it by hand with a whisk or with a butter churn, but that makes it work instead of the "EASY" I mentioned above.

Ingredients:  Oh wait--- there is ONLY ONE ingredient!!

Heavy cream  (How ever much you want.  You can usually plan on about half as much butter as the amount of cream you start with, depending on the fat content of the cream.)

Directions:

Whip the cream.

When you get whipped cream, DON'T STOP, just keep whipping it another 5 minutes or so.  At some point, you will hear the tell tale splashing noise indicating that it has separated.  Stop and drain the liquid. (That is the whey. You can save it and use it for recipes that call for whey, but I don't have any of those, so I just drain it off and dump it.) 


Gather up the solid parts into a cheesecloth.  Twist the top of the cloth and give it a mighty squeeze.  Squeeze  out as much liquid as you can.  Rinse under running water and squeeze again.  Rinse until the water runs clear.  If it is not rinsed well, it will spoil faster.

Look.  You have butter!!




  Now go make some cookies... or mold it into pretty blocks of butter for your next dinner party.  Or just leave it in a blob and spread it on your toast.

Beans & Chard

So, another "use-what's-in-the-fridge" night...I took a couple cans of beans (one black, one white). Drained and rinsed them. Put them in a pot with two little cups of leftover green salsa from Moe's (about 3 T), juice of one lemon (or 3 T. Real Lemon), some freshly ground sea salt and white pepper, and about 3/4 cup water.

While that was heating to a boil, I chopped up some very wilted Swiss chard that had been in my refrigerator since I got back from Africa.

When the pot was boiling, I tossed it in and cooked it until the stems were tender (about 5-10 min).

Since it has so few calories, it is fair to serve with some freshly grated parmesan and some chunks of homemade bread toasted with butter and garlic......(trust me, this was really good).

Fried Green tomatoes

Our school has a ranch run by the Special Education students as part of their Life Skills program.  They sell vegetables from it all summer, and usually have a pumpkin patch for the elementary students.  They grew lots of tomatoes this year, and many are still green.  Because it is time to shut the heat off in the greenhouse, the guy who runs the ranch gave me a bucket and told me to go out and pick what I want.  I did.  I now have a bunch of green tomatoes, and having never eaten "fried green tomatoes" I decided to give them a try.

Here is the recipe I used:  (I looked at about 10 recipes, and most of them were basically the same)

Fried green tomatoes

4 to 6 green tomatoes, cut into 1/4" slices  (some recipes say as thick as 1/2 inch)  I tried both.
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup milk
flour for dusting
Panko bread crumbs (or just make cracker crumbs in your food processor so they are really fine)
salt and pepper

In shallow dishes (I used paper plates--- easy cleanup) set up a dipping station: 
1.  flour
2.  eggs with milk mixed in
3.   Panko or cracker crumbs with salt and pepper mixed in

Heat about 1/2" oil in a large frying pan (cast iron is best) to about 375 degrees   (OK.  I did not take the temperature.  Throw in a cracker crumb and when it starts to sizzle, it is probably hot enough)

Coat both sides of each tomato slice with flour, then egg, then crumbs.  Carefully put into hot oil and cook about 3 minutes on each side until lightly browned.  (If it cooks too fast, turn the heat down, and vice versa)  Carefuly lift out of oil and drain on paper towels  (I did this on a paper plate also, stacking them with paper towels between)

If you are doing a bunch of them, you can put each batch into a 200 degree oven to keep them warm while you finish the rest.

Now here is the kicker...  I did not like them.  They are tart like a green apple (which I do not like either)  If you like green apples, you will probably like these.  I think I will let some ripen, and do this with red tomatoes and see how that works.  The problem I see with that is that as they ripen, they lose their stability, so maybe they won't hold together in the oil.  We will see.

Speaking of letting them ripen.....  Before, when we had green tomatoes, we took the entire vine with the tomatoes on it and hung them over the rafters in the cellar.  I do not have the vines this time, so I am going to try something (so they don't all ripen at once).  When I was a kid, we took the green apples off the tree and wrapped them in magazine pages or newspaper and put them in the dark in the cellar.  They ripened a few at a time, and we had apples all winter.  I am going to try that with the tomatoes.  I have read somewhere that it will work, so why not give it a try?  I will let you know what happens.

It is getting colder....

You need to make soup and crackers. 

Crock Pot Potato soup--- the Cheaters way....

Ingredients:
1 bag of frozen country style  hash browns
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 box chicken stock
 1/2 cup dried onion (or cut some fresh ones if you like)
1 pkg. (8 oz) cream cheese
Salt and pepper
                   
Directions:
Put the potatoes, stock, soup, and onion in a crockpot.  Salt and pepper to taste (I always use fresh ground pepper and sea salt).

 Cook on low for 5-6 hours.  Go do something else (like make the crackers below)

 Set out the cream cheese to soften and add it 30 minutes before serving.  Stir it in well and let cook the last 30 minutes.  Check salt and pepper levels and adjust. 
Curl up with a blanket in front of the fireplace and enjoy with the Dilly Ranch Crackers below.







 Dilly Ranch Crackers











Ingredients:
1 pkg. oyster crackers
3 T. Ranch dressing powder (or use a 1 oz. package of Ranch Dressing Mix)
1 (scant) teaspoon dill weed (or to taste.  This is a pretty strong dill flavor.)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 c. canola oil (or use vegetable oil--  I like the flavor of the canola)
Salt if you want it.  I did not.




Preheat oven to 275 degrees. 
In a large mixing bowl, combine dry Ranch, dill weed, garlic powder, salt if you want it, and oil.  Mix well.  Toss  crackers in and coat well.  Spread onto cookie sheet in one layer.

Bake for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.  Cool.  Store in Zip lock baggie when completely cool.

"Play with your food, Wednesday!"

OK.  We have been playing with the rice krispies......  Bob's creation:

Mine:

Here is how it happened:

I cannot give you exact measurements, because I just guessed.  I buttered a round cake pan (I used one that the bottom comes out of, so it was easier to remove the RK treats when they were set, but a regular pan will work if you butter it really well. 

Start with yellow.  (Ok.  I started with orange---- don't ask me why---????---  anyway, that is why Bob had a blob of orange to play with.  I already had a nice orange ring around the outside of the pan before she said, "Mom, yellow goes on the bottom."  oops.)

Anyway, don't do that.  Melt a small blob of butter with some miniature marshmallows.  Add yellow food coloring to the desired shade, then mix in some rice krispies.  Make a ring around the outside of the pan, patting it in really well.  If you wet your hands, the marshmallow stuff won't stick to you.

Next do the orange.  You need a bigger amount of orange, but don't double the amount as I thought I should.  You need it about twice as wide as the yellow, but you are working in a smaller area, duh.  (Oh well, that gave Bob more for her creation.)  Press that into a ring pushing it hard against the yellow so they will bond.  Leave a hole in the center for the white.

Make just a really small amount of white--- (We are talking  a half teaspoon of butter and 1/4 cup marshmallows here)   unless you want to share some with whoever is helping you lick the pan, or just a bunch for yourself.   Smash the white into the center hole.  Pat really well.

Let set for an hour or so.  Dump out of the pan and cut into wedges.  I cut mine straight across in half, fourths, and finally eight.

Wrap in celophane and tie with a ribbon.  Send to Christopher.  No, seriously, if you make these, send one to Christopher.  He cannot get enough candy corns!!!!!  (I love you, Christopher!  Watch for some in the mail next week.)

Redneck Bacon Turtle Burgers

This is for you Dennis.......

I saw this somewhere (probably Pinterest) and thought of you.  So here is supper:

Start by making a hamburger patty.  (Mine of course has chopped onion, Alpine Touch, and sea salt mixed into the hamburger)   Top with a slice of cheese (this will hold the shell on)

Cut 2 hot dogs in half.  Shove into the 4 corners of the patty.  (Yeah yeah, I know the patty is round.... there are no corners.... Punt.)   Cut another hotdog into 3rds.  This will make 2 heads and 2 tails.  Shove head into place, Cut center section of this hotdog on a 45 degree angle to make the tail and shove it... yeah.  there.

Make a shell of woven bacon... wrap tightly around the turtle with the ends under his belly.  OK.  Now here I must say that I laid the bacon out basketweave style on my cutting board and put the turtle cheese side down onto it, then wrapped the bacon tightly around.  When I turned him over, I had to shape him a little because his back was flat, but that is not hard.  It was easier than trying to do it right side up.

Cut slits in his feet.  You can get all artistic and carve him a face with eyes and a mouth slit, but I think the end of the hotdog looks good enough for me....

 The instructions say to now place them gently onto the grill and cover with an aluminum foil dome.  Only turn them once while grilling.  However, if it is winter out like it is here today, and you are not interested in cooking outside, you can place them on a pan, covered loosely with a foil dome  (The instructions say to put them directly on the oven rack, but I DON'T THINK SO!  Not in my oven.  Bake them for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.


OK here they are all cooked up. (sorry about the graphic gutted turtle picture)  Their feet split really cute.  A carved face might have turned out cool.   I  do think if you like crispy bacon, you should take the foil off the last 10 minutes.  I hate bacon, so I took the BACON off mine.   It was really too much for me to eat a whole one even without the bacon, but you men might be fine with it.

Well, it was an experiment......  I think hamburger patties and (ick) hot dogs on the barbecue would be fine without all the work to make it look like a turtle, but this would be fun if you have kids. (or adults who act like kids like we have)