Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Simple toasted pumpkin seeds, soaked in salt water for a few hours and drained and dried overnight, tossed in melted butter and salt, baked for about 40 minutes, then sprinkled some sugar on them, giving them that salty-sweet "kettle"-like taste to them. The kids said these were the best seeds I've made so far!

Caramel Apples

Daring Bakers - Oct. 2009 - French Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

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Macaroons are something new to me, I've seen them at stores but are always coconut so I never bought them. Turns out coconut macaroons are a US thing, in Europe they are almond based. So glad, since I'm not a fan of coconut. ^_^

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The ingredients were only almond flour, powdered sugar, regular sugar, and egg whites. They were fairly simple to make. My only problem was that they stuck to the non-stick liner so the bottoms tore a little. Fortunately, I only had one liner so I used parchment for the other sheet, sprayed a little baking spray on it and they glided right off. The cookies taste like butter/sugar cookies with a chewy texture. I sandwiched them with some chocolate ganache, they look like little hamburgers!

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Not all of the batter fit on my two sheets so the last batch went straight into the 375*F oven because I didn't have time to bring it back down to 200, then back up to 375. These cookies, in my opinion, came out looking nicer. They don't have their "feet" but look smooth and nice.

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Check out the recipe and the creations of the rest of the Daring Bakers here.

Roasted Peppers

Tried roasting my own peppers instead of buying those little cans. Used a stove top grill and roasted some Anaheim peppers. I'm not too familiar with peppers (except the usual bell) so I was surprised that these weren't spicy at all (aren't all Mexican peppers supposed to be hot?) The ingredients on the can simply state: green peppers. That doesn't help too much! I'll just have to keep trying different varieties...unless anyone out there knows???

Hot & Sour Soup

One of the best things about chilly weather is having a good bowl of soup. I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com, pretty much kept the seasonings for the broth but changed the veggies since I didn't have them. I kept it pretty simple, the broth with some sliced bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms, and eggs . It was a tad too peppery but was still very tasty.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup & Achiote Chicken

It's that time again for slow cooker cooking. I love how you can just throw everything in the crockpot in the morning and dinner is done. Oh, and the great smell throughout the house all day is wonderful too. ^_^

Made some Chicken Tortilla soup from Allrecipes.com to go with my chicken cooked in Achiote paste.

I was watching a Rick Bayless show and he was in the Yucatan going through a market with all the different kinds of pastes they use in cooking. One of which was Achiote paste, so when I found it in a Mexican market I grabbed it hoping to try something new. The recipe on the box was quite simple, chicken, potatoes, onions, achiote paste, oil, and water. Put them all into a pot and cook for 50 minutes. The sauce looks like it would be strong in taste, but rather the opposite. It was light in flavor and different. I wasn't sure if the kids'll like it but they ate it all so that was good.

Nametake

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Nametake is Japanese seasoned enoki mushrooms. They're delicious but rather costly. Found a recipe on cookpad.com (a Japanese recipe site) that was very simple, just four ingredients: enoki mushrooms, soy sauce, mirin (cooking sweet sake), and rice vinegar. If possible, I prefer using mirin instead of sugar so I look that in recipes. Overall, it was very easy to make, however it was a little too soy-saucy. Next time I'll decrease the soy sauce amount or try "lite" soy sauce. It turned out a little runnier than the store-bought kind so I might add a little corn starch next time. But given the simplicity and cost to make this, I'll definitely try this one again when I eat these up!

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Original Recipe:

2 sm. pkgs of enoki mushrooms

5T soy sauce

5T mirin

1T rice vinegar

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Put enoki, soy sauce, and mirin in pan, bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vinegar. Pour into sterile containers, let cool, and store in refrigerator.

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I usually eat these on top of rice, but I've seen them in salads as well as mixed with spaghetti pasta, even on top of hiyya-yakko (chilled tofu.)