Category Archives: Uncategorized

Food, Uncategorized

‘homemade peanut brittle’

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Recently, relatively speaking, this peanut brittle recipe made the rounds on Facebook. I have never had any luck making peanut brittle, and Hex likes it, so since this one looks a little different, I will give it a try. I have a pound of peanuts on hand in the cabinet (well, 15.5 ounces). I am hoping I can get dinner on and clean the kitchen and supervise the boy who is working on math while working on it. Wish me luck!

So, everything is prepped. The buttered pans are in the oven that I heated to 200 to just take the chill out. In the past, cold pans have been an issue, chilling the syrup too soon. I did all this after starting the sugar because there is plenty of time waiting for it to come to temperature. Plenty of time.

This is my current candy thermometer. As you can see, it’s losing it’s numbers, but hey, it’s cheap. And I have used it for deep frying as well.
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The pot was a present from my mom. I <3 you mom.

Post adding peanuts:

Well, so far, so good. Not burned, not clumpy. After they cool, we’ll see how it is.

And success. Not only the best I have ever made, but a really good brittle. Hex is happy, which is good, because he deserves to be happy.
We agree, it needs to be more salty. So I will add probably 1/4 tsp of salt to that vanilla, water, soda blend at the end and try that out.
Certainly a keeper!

And if you have been scared of making candy, don’t be. People have been making candy long before we had all these tools to help. Just do it! 🙂 Even just to say you have.

crafts, Uncategorized

Colorful egg dish

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A few weeks ago, we went to a sort of estate sale. ‘Sort of’ because no one had died, they were just downsizing. One of the things we picked up was a deviled eggs plate- one of those plates with egg shaped hollows for eggs. We bought it for a friend who always makes deviled eggs for herself and her friends.

It’s a practical and cute dish, but when we handed it to her I could tell she was less than thrilled. This is a woman who dies her hair rainbow, after all. So I said, you can use nailpolish and color it!

And she did. And it looked awesome. And I looked at my plain egg dish and thought, ‘you came up with that idea, can’t you do it too?’ And thus, this post. 🙂

and her art page is here, so you can see for yourself why that was obviously too boring…

Above is my plate. 🙂 Here is my nailpolish collection.

So, first, to choose nice spring colors…

And here it is with one coat of each color I chose. Some of these polishes are definitely higher quality! I will let these dry and do another coat (or 10).

Ok, three coats, and looking, well, sloppy. Now to clean them up and add details.

So far I have learned that the cheapo LA Girl and Wet n Wild work great compared to some of my more expensive polishes. And I have learned that this stuff works wonders. The streaks stopped when I added two drops to the polishes. So don’t throw out clumpy polish! Give it new life, and throw it out because you don’t like it, not because it went bad. 😉

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So, I have been using my manicure tools to paint up the eggs. Done of them are better than others, but overall they are fun. I didn’t balance the colors well, so if you do this, I wish you better luck. I like the dots more than the stripes.

The larger dots were actually just the handle end of the paint brushes. 🙂

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It’s not easy to do the stripes. I need more practice, but the painters tape is so much more convenient than the tape designed for nails.

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And, finally, it’s done! I really hope it lasts. It took a while. 🙂

My son says it looks like it came off Pinterest. I will take that as a compliment.

And it’s not going to be mixing with food or stored with food or heated with food. And nai lpolish doesn’t come with warnings not to bite your nails anyway, so it’s pretty safe. IANAL, YMMV, etc.

 

 

 

Food, pulses, Uncategorized

Bean burgers

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Back to my plan of cooking through my clipped recipe file! I have been cooking, just not updating. So anyway, I remembered about the idea when looking through the old posts, and although a bit late today, I will jump right in. With tonight’s dinner, bean burgers.

These were printed off the internet, with no quantities to the ingredients. And I just changed what I did see to round it out more. They smell great, and I can’t wait to cook them and eat them! Trying to serve with polenta and a green salad and some sauteed cauliflower (it’s in the fridge).

Polenta is in the Instant Pot. I have been making a lot of polenta lately because I accidentally bought an extra package of cornmeal and am trying to eat through it. The Instant Pot makes polenta simple and hands off, so now I am making polenta all the time. 🙂

Here’s the recipe for the polenta, barley, and salt potatoes. 🙂

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I chopped up some celery, cauliflower and tomato to cook fast in some butter. The lemon and scallion is to finish it off the heat.

So tasty! I made these a few hours ago, and put them in the fridge as is. They held together well and flipped nicely. There is an egg in them so it’s not vegan. I bet aquafaba would work, but I went with the egg.

Oil is ready to cook in when it thinks out and shimmers. You want to leave space for the burgers to cook and not steam.

Those will go for 5min and then be flipped. Five more and then dressed on the plate.

That’s the spiced mayonnaise, and pickled cukes that go on top. It was a hit, although DH suggested the cucumber be chopped like a relish to make it easier to eat with the burgers. Or croquettes— coquettes are breaded and have a crispy outside nad a creamy inside. That’s way more what these are like than a ‘burger’.

And the recipe:

3 cloves garlic

1 cup cilantro leaves whir in processor (or chop?)

I used 3 cups of leftover beans from the Make Your Own Beans I posted earlier.

1 T soy sauce

1 T rice vinegar

1T dark sesame oil

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp siracha

pinch salt

whir together until mixed but still chunky. add

1 egg (or 3 T bean juice) and whir until mixed. You do NOT want a paste.

put into a bowl and mix in ~ 3/4 cups of bread crumbs (until it holds together) Let sit while making the condiments. Then make into patties (I made 7), and bread with a mix of

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

3 T sesame seeds

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne powder

Refrigerate several hours. Heat oil in a pan on medium heat, add burgers, and fry on each side about 5 minutes, turning once until golden brown.

Serve topped with a dollop of mayo and spoonful of relish.

Relish:
1/2 diced cucumber (1/2 a medium sized one) with seeds removed

1 T rice vinegar

1/2 tsp brown sugar

a bit of lemon zest

pinch salt

let sit to cure

Mayonnaise

1/3 cup mayonaise

3 T cilantro, minced

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/3 tsp siracha

mix well.

And for lunch today, a cold crumbled burger on green salad. Still good!