Gone a Little Nutty: Honey-Sesame-Covered Cashews

 This past Christmas, The Bat received a 1-lb bag of delightful Trader Joe's cashew treats as a gift, from one of our extended family members. Within 48 hours of her having opened them, they had vanished. I got none of them. The Bat got some of them. Pop liked them. A. Lot.

Knowing how difficult it is to purchase said items locally (the nearest Trader Joe's is, IIRC, roughly 190 miles from our front door), I did a little research, and found a couple of recipes I could combine to make my own version. They're fairly simple, and not too sweet.

You'll need a 2-quart saucepan, a 1-gallon zipper bag, non-stick parchment or foil, and a jelly roll pan (sided sheet pan) at least 9x14 inches. You'll also need both the stovetop and the oven, plus a cooling rack.

The ingredients list is also simple.

Honey-Sesame-Covered Cashews

ingredients:

3/4 cup sesame seeds without hulls

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

pinch salt

2 cups unsalted cashews

1 Tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

directions:

Preheat oven to 250º F

Combine sesame seeds, sugar, and salt in zipper bag, shake well. Fold opening down to make a wide, stable opening. Set aside.

Line your jelly roll pan with non-stick parchment or nonstick foil. Spread your cashews out on it, and place on center rack of warm oven.

On medium-high heat, melt butter and honey together, and bring to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Moving quickly, remove cashews from oven, add to honey/butter mix in pan, stir until completely covered. Pour hot-ish mixture into bag of sesame seeds. Seal bag and shake gently but well, aiming for maximum coverage.

Pour contents back onto lined jelly roll pan, spreading it out so very few – if any – pieces are touching. Return to oven, bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Allow to cool completely, in pan on rack, before handling them. 

Store in an airtight container.* 

*I'm led to believe these will last for several weeks in a decent container, but my evidence indicates they evaporate into thin air fairly swiftly.

Gitchi gitchi ya ya Mixed Citrus and Honey Marmalade

There was this sale, you see…

One of the local stores had lemons, limes, and other citrus fruits marked at a price I could by no means resist. And, yet, there is no way on God's green earth that I could eat a baker's dozen of lemons, three pounds of key limes, three pounds of Clementines, or two pounds of standard limes.

At least, not as they were.

So I started experimenting with putting them by. Some of the processes will take a month or more to establish whether or not they were successful (I'm pickling some key limes, for the fun of it, with a little sliced chili pepper and a mess of salt, and tomorrow I start in on another option for limes). But today, I made marmalade.

Yes, marmalade.

Not your typical marmalade, either.  I used some wild honey and mixed my fruits until I had an entertaining blend of flavors and colors. I suppose, if you wanted to, you could do this with one single variety of citrus fruit (maybe Meyer lemons). But I went with what I had and what I had a craving for.

And it wasn't until I was completely finished with the process of canning the stuff and sitting down to supper that the LaBelle song bubbled up from deeeeep inside me.




Still, I have to say, Patti LaBelle notwithstanding, the day was a success.


I made jellied citrus. So. There.

It may even become Christmas prezzies, if I'm in a really good mood, come winter.

But the recipe went something like this:



Mixed Citrus and Honey Marmalade

Ingredients:

8 cups citrus fruits (my blend was 6 cups thin-skinned lemons, 1 cup tangerines, 1 cup key limes). This amounts to, roughly, 14 lemons, 4 "cuties" tangerines, and 10 key limes, but that will vary according to the size of your fruits. You're likely to need a little more than 3 lbs of whatever fruit you choose.
2 cups strong honey something like wild honey or sorghum honey.  I went wild.
1 1/2 cups water
4 cups sugar
2 packets liquid pectin (do not use powder!!!!!)

jelly jars to contain approximately 20 cups

Directions:

Carefully wash fruit (with a vegetable wash, not soap. If you don't have veggie wash, rinse carefully, allow to soak for a few hours or overnight, drain away water, rinse, and allow them to soak as you prepare everything else.

Give your jars a hot bath and soak the flat lids in simmering water until you need them. I have a good dishwasher with hot-bath setting, so I prepped the jars in that, and put the lids in a small saucepan, separated, covered with simmering water.

Trim away stem ends and slice lemons* into small sections, approximately 1 centimeter wide and very thin (but not paper-thin). I found the easiest way to do this was to cut the lemon in half lengthwise (cutting through from blossom to stem end), then cut each half into 4 equal lengthwise wedges, and finally slice crosswise into small, thin bits. You will want a very sharp knife to do this well.

When all your lemons have been cut, combine them with honey, sugar, and water in a large (at least 5 quart), nonreactive saucepan. Stir well, bring to boil, immediately reduce heat and simmer very low for 30 minutes (overheating amplifies the bitterness of the skins).

Prepare work surface for hawtness of a traditional kind while this is simmering. If you are a little sloppy, the way I am, put out a large jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with walls) on a flat surface near the stove. Have ready your ladle, funnel, lid rings, and tongs (for fishing out lid flats from hot bath and for fishing jars out of hot bath, if necessary).

Add in liquid pectin, bring to low boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat immediately. Working quickly, ladle into jars, putting lids & rings on each one as you go, and turning upside-down to help them seal. When they are sufficiently cooled, turn them right-side-up and wash any stickiness away before labeling them. (You will know they are sealed if you press the center of the lid and it doesn't "pop" or otherwise make a noise.)

Enjoy a jar or two at a later date, or, if you must, share with loved ones, but when I make jellies, I always make sure one jar "accidentally" fails to seal, so I can have it for dessert that evening. This can be accomplished by re-using a flat lid, or by using a jar & lid from some store-bought preserved food (I don't recommend using one which used to hold peppers, though, unless you really want that added flavor in your first bite of this marmalade).


*For the sake of brevity, I am calling all citrus "lemons" at this point. If you're using others, go ahead and pretend I've included the rest of them in the description.

Sweet Bird of Pizza!

I've been playing around with my pizzas, lately, since I developed a little problem processing tomatoes & now rather dislike red pizza sauces.  The past few 'zas have been pesto-based, topped with crumbled ricotta & mozzarella, with mixtures of chicken and a few vegetables (onions, mushrooms, sweet peppers, whatever is in the crisper drawer).  Tonight, I went wild and left the pesto in the fridge.  Instead, I made a sweet-and-zesty version, using mascarpone cheese blended with honey and fresh ground ginger spread on a plain whole wheat thin crust, topped with sautéed chicken in honey-whisky-and smoky tabasco, with onions, peppers, and pineapple.  This time, I used quite a few preserved or previously-prepared ingredients, but I think next time I try this, I will use all fresh.  Except, I really like using Mama Mary's thin & crispy crusts (available at, of all places, the local Mart of Wals, for half the price of the other brands' crusts).

Anyway, if you want to try my pizza topping, here's the stuff:


Sweet Bird of Pizza!  
(or, if it weren't for the chicken, this could pass for dessert....)




Ingredients:


1 pre-cooked 12-inch pizza crust of your preferred variety
olive oil
4 oz.  mascarpone cheese
1 1/2 Tbs. fresh ground ginger
2 tsp. honey
8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
1 Tbs. butter
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 lb. white chicken meat, cut into 1/2-inch or smaller cubes*
1/4 cup (or slightly more) honey-infused whisky
a few shakes (to your taste) smoked tabasco sauce (I used about a dozen)
salt & pepper to taste
sliced or chopped: onions, fresh sweet peppers,  hot peppers (remove & discard the seeds)
finely-cut or shredded pineapple (fresh is better, but, if you use canned, be sure to drain it well)

Directions:

Preheat oven according to instructions for crust (usually, for a crispy crust, you'll need a fairly hot oven, around 425º F.).    Place crust on a cookie sheet or pizza pan, brush lightly with olive oil.

In a small bowl, mix mascarpone, ginger, and honey until completely blended.  Set aside.

Using a medium frying pan or wok at high temperature, stir-fry mushrooms in butter until some of the mushrooms develop a golden-brown, crisp edge.  Remove from heat, put in separate bowl.  Return the pan to heat,  add in chicken, salt & pepper, stir until most of the pink is gone from the meat.  Add in honey-whisky and tabasco, simmer, stirring, until liquid is cooked away and meat is lightly golden-brown.

Spread mascarpone mix on pizza crust, sprinkle lightly with mozzarella, then top with all other ingredients, distributed evenly and arranged to please your eye.

Bake on cookie sheet or pizza pan for 7-10 minutes (I do not recommend the extra-crispy method of baking right on the oven rack, because the mascarpone cheese will melt quickly and may run off the pizza onto the bottom of the oven).  When the mozzarella and onions have begun to lightly brown, remove from oven, allow to cool about 3-5 minutes before serving.




*I find the easiest way to prepare chicken for the purpose is to take a completely frozen chicken breast and allow it to thaw an hour or so at room temp -- or in the nuke for about a minute at full power -- just enough to make it less of a brick, but still frozen fairly solid.  Take out a good, heavy-duty knife and cut while still frozen.  Allow those wee chunks to thaw the rest of the way in the refrigerator, or stir-fry while still a little frozen.  If you're using a brined chicken breast, you'll want to drain the ensuing liquid from the pan before you add the whisky/tabasco.