Christmas Salted Caramels

Christmas Salted Caramels

2 cups whipping cream

1 cup half and half

1 ½ cup white sugar

1 ½ cup brown sugar

1 cup corn syrup

1 cup butter

2 tsp vanilla or rum extract (I used vanilla but will try a batch with rum extract)

1 tbsp. coarse salt

Combine everything except extract and salt. Bring to a boil and cook until hard ball stage or 250 F on a candy thermometer. The length of time depends on the pot size and level of heat. The first time I made it, it took almost three hours and the second time two hours. I was worried that after all the time it took to form into a hard ball stage that it would not turn out. I stirred the pot every 3 to 4 minutes for hours. One of the tests to determine if it is at the hard ball stage is to drop a bit of caramel into cold water. If the tail of the caramel tear drop stays upright in the water, it is ready.

When it finally reaches the hard ball stage, remove from heat and stir in the extract. Then pour into a greased 9 inch by 9 inch pan lined with wax paper that overlaps the sides. Sprinkle coarse salt on top. Cool completely. Using the edges of the wax paper, flip out of the pan onto a cutting board.  Cut into small cubes with a large long sharp knife. Store between layers of wax paper in a dry place for up to a week. Can be frozen.

This is a delicious. The density is perfect – firm and chewy. It reminded me of the Mackintosh candy bars I used to buy as a special treat as a child. The current caramel bars are thin and brittle. The contrast of sweet and salt is just right and reflects a new post modern food trend. This recipe is definitely a keeper and will become a Christmas tradition. Gluten free.

It is also perfect for giving away as small gifts given the caramels are so decadent.

 Raspberry Jam that a Six Year Old Can Make

6 cups of raspberries
6 cups of sugar

Mix and bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Test the thickness of the jam by dripping some from a spoon. When thick drops fall off the spoon, it is ready. Fill small  sterilized one half cup canning jars and then process for 10 minutes in a canner. Cool. Apply labels. Ensure the six year old labels the jam with her neat and interesting six year old printing style.

Soft Goat Cheese doused in Herb and Garlic Olive Oil

I read this recipe, promptly forgot the ingredients and started to improvise. Recently I found the recipe and was startled how much I had drifted away from the original into my own creation. Unfortunately every time I make the dish, it is always delicious, never to replicated because it is different each time. So here are the basics. 

Place slices  or leave as a round of 8 oz.  creamy goat cheese on a nice platter. You might want to   surround the cheese with slices of English cucumber. There is something pleasing on the palette when you have the softness of the cheese against the crunch of the cucumber. I like the colour as well - green and white speckled with brown bits.

Heat ¼ cup olive oil on low heat. Add a dash of any seeds that appeal to you. The key word is seeds. So I shake into the olive oil:

Pepper corns – black or mixed

Coriander

Fennel

Mustard seeds

Then add 3 to 4 bay leaves. Simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Add 2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced. Brown. Watch at this point because the garlic browns quickly. When the garlic is a golden brown, pour the oil over the goat cheese slices.  Surround the cheese with slices of cucumber. Serve with crusty long thin baguettes cut into rounds. The combination of cheese and cucumber on crusty bread is so good that the last time I served it; we decided that this should just be the main course. We literally licked the plate clean. The conversation was equally as good.

The original recipe has one bay leaf (a small one), ¼ tsp of seeds (fennel, peppercorns and coriander) and 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves.  I can see why I was attracted to this recipe. The next time I make it, I will  include  fresh rosemary to see how the flavours change.  

Bacon Maple Popcorn

One of the easiest, creative and simplest appetizer is popcorn. However you can really change the perceptions of plain popcorn by this recipe.

In a pan, place

2 tablespoons smoked bacon fat

1 tablespoon maple syrup

Bring to a boil. Whisk. Cool for 5 minutes. Pour over 4, 6 or 8 cups popped corn. Toss well.  Sprinkle with Himalayan salt. The fewer cups of popped corn used,  the greater  intensity of flavor. I used 8 cups of popcorn. The flavor was subtle, slightly sweet but not cloying because the bacon fat cut the sweet of the syrup. The bacon flavor in turn was muted. Overall the flavor was nicely balanced and very different from the usual buttered and salted popcorn. Great for entertaining.

Eggs Poached in Tomatoe and Fennel Sauce or Eggs in Purgatory

Brunch can be a very creative meal and not just dominated with the usual menu of pancakes or waffles. This recipe was in the September 2015 Canadian Living magazine.  It is one of those dishes that just catches your eyes as you flip through a magazine.    I have made it with more than 4 eggs, sprinkled it with cheese and will explore trying to make it with a base of celery root rather than fennel.  I do like the fennel because it adds another interesting flavour.

2 tsp oil

2 green onions, sliced. Separate green and white parts

1 bulb of fennel, finely chopped

1/2 cup water

2 cups of Blue Menu vegetarian tomatoe sauce

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1/2 tsp sugar

4 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet heat oil over medium heat, add fennel and water. Cook till soft and water has evaporated. Note - you could just use water and skip the oil. Add white parts of the onion and cook till fragrant, about one minute.

Stir tomatoe sauce, vinegar and sugar together  and pour over the fennel. Make four indents and place an egg in each indent. Partially cover and simmer until the eggs are cooked. Sprinkle with green onion tops.  Grind pepper and salt on top. Place the entire pan on the table so the guests can see the contrasts of red, white and green. Serve with toast.

Chili Canned Carrots

It was one of those restaurants in the center of the city that was more bar than meals. So we each had a glass of wine and appetizers. One of the most unusual appetizers were the pickled chili carrots. It was a wonderful combination - tart pickle with the right bit of kick. The red wine and pickles were holding hands in our mouths.

 The only draw back to most pickles is the high salt content. I recall reading about a person with heart disease who was admitted to Emergency because he had eaten a dill pickle. There is a great deal of salt in just one pickle.

I wanted low salt pickles and did even better. I found a recipe with no salt and  modified it - the final product was delicious and a rival to the pickled carrots we had in the restaurant.

Pickled Carrots

Peel one pound of carrots. Cut into three inch sticks to fit into a small glass jar. The sticks should be uniform and about one third of an inch wide. Boil the  sticks for 10 minutes.  Drain.The carrots should be firm but not mushy.

Make the brine by bringing to a boil: 3/4 cup vinegar, 3/4 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon dried red chili flakes.

Pack the carrots into hot sterilized jars. Pour the brine on top. Seal. Process for 15 minutes. Cool. Tighten the lids once more. Label. Share.
These are ideal Christmas presents.

Polish Dill Pickel Soup

One of my colleagues at work shared this recipe with me because she had heard I liked to cook. Thank goodness she did! This soup is a winner. I had three people over for lunch. Since I did not know what their reaction would be, I served them small portions and then placed the soup bowl in the middle of the table for them to help themselves to more soup if they liked it. And like it they did. Garnish each bowl with a large dollop of plain yogurt and fresh finely snipped dill. One of the guests said it tasted just like dill potato chips.

6 cups  chicken stock  I used Better than Bouillon but home made would be best

4 large dill pickles to equal one cup, shredded

1/2 cup dill pickle juice

4 cups thinly sliced potatoes

2 tablespoons  flour

1 cup milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons soft butter

Garnish: chopped fresh dill, yogurt, salt and pepper


In a large saucepan  combine stock, pickles, pickle liquid  and potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook covered, over low heat until potatoes start to get soft. Combine flour and milk, add to broth, bring to a boil and remove from heat. Combine egg and butter and stir into broth. Return pot to the stove and heat through without boiling. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with yogurt and fresh snipped dill.

The original recipe said that it serves 10 but for my luncheon, it was more like 6.

Muffins

I have this amazing apple tree in my back yard. It yields large juicy eating apples and of course I also use them for pies, apple sauce and muffins. This year, 2012, the production is over the top. When a recipe calls for apples, I always add more than than the amount recorded. Here is a very healthy muffin recipe that I created.

 1/4 cup oil,
1/2 cup apple sauce,
 1/2 cup liquid honey,
 3 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla,
 2 cups whole wheat flour,
1 teaspoon baking powder,
 1 teaspoon baking soda,
 4 cups diced apples (not peeled).

 Combine the wet ingredients. Whisk. Sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet and dry. Stir in the apples. Drop into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. The muffins will mound nicely. After they were baked, I glazed them with a bit of honey and a few chopped walnuts.

I love large muffins and these are large, moist and apple y!

Pancotta

Driving from Saskatoon to Edmonton on a hot dry summer day, I stopped at my friend's home for lunch. She served a lime pancotta that was divine - cool, refreshing, a little tart and just right. We were sitting on her dark turquoise painted deck and a mountain ash tree is part of the deck. Aside from giving us shade it is the best deck decoration I have ever seen. The lime pancotta recipe she used came from Whitewater Cooks and of course I scribbled it down and all the tweaks she had made. Eventually I gave up not being able to read my scratches on the tiny sticki note I found at the bottom of my knap sack, knowing that I would be able to google the dessert. For the rest of the summer I experimented with this desert. I added lime and other times orange or lemon, some times orange and lime (I liked the green and orange contrast). I tried substituting half and half for the whipping cream and when people would ask for the recipe, I had a hard time remembering which version I used. So here is a version that is basic, conservative and the ultimate in texture and taste. The night before measure 2 cups of plain yogurt into a cheese cloth lined strainer. In the morning warm 1/4 cup whipping cream, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 2/3 cup white sugar. Sprinkle 2 tsp of gelatin over this mixture and allow to dissolve. Whisk in 2 1/4 cups of whipping cream and the 2 cups of drained yogurt. Pour into a clear glass bowl and allow to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle with grated lemon peel. Watch the faces of those eating the dessert. They will slow down and will try to extend the pleasure of the experience.

Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread

My girl friend sent me a marvelous picture of a round crust-cracked loaf of bread and said she was experimenting with different ingredients. She told me to google 'bread that a four year old can make'. So I googled and found a web site by Steamy Kitchen and she had pictures of her four year old making the bread. It was true; a four year can make the bread. Harold McGee, quoted on E Curry blog site explained that it works because the bread is allowed to rise over many hours which is the same as kneading it for minutes. He states, "the gluten molecules [go] into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff.” Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York invented the recipe and Mark Bittman published the recipe in 2006. Here is the recipe for my first experiment. Sift 1 and 1/2 cups white flour with 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Add 2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp instant yeast, 1 tbsp honey and 1 and 1/2 cups of warm water. Cover. Let rise in a warm place for 12 to 20 hours. I let my bread rise for 15 hours. Put on floured tea towel and cover and let rise for 2 hours. Heat a covered ungreased pot in a 450 degree oven for 30 minutes. Drop dough into the pot. Cover. Bake at at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. The result? The loaf looked great. The top was nicely browned and slightly cracked. The insides were chewy but a little too dense for my liking. As I was slicing the bread I thought it would be a killer sandwich because the bread was so firm. The picture shows a side view and you can see a few air bubbles. However, I am going to try to make this bread again because the other posts commented on the wetness of the bread dough and my dough was not wet and according to McGee I should have had wet dough to let the molecules slide around. My dough was not sticky and extremely easy to manage. In fact I questioned if I had put in sufficient water. For my next experiment, I am going to make the loaf entirely with white flour. Can't wait.

Pasta Alfredo

Sometimes it is just good to have comfort food and a main course you can trust and whip up with ease. I got the idea for this recipe from my son who made it when we were camped at Yoho one year. It is calorie dense - so great when you are hiking up mountains but also great when the weather is -25ish, which it has been for the past few days. Start by making a cream sauce. Melt one tablespoon butter and add one table spoon flour. Stir until a paste forms and add 2 cups of milk (I have added 10 per cent cream but it really does not need the cream). Stir in 1/4 cup home made pesto, 4 oz of cream cheese, 8 oz of creamy goat cheese, 1/4 cup dried tomatoes and freshly ground pepper and salt to suit your taste. That is it! Easy peasy. I serve the sauce over penne because I love the way the sauce finds its way into the tubes and when you bite down on the penne, the sauce squishes out all over your mouth. Yum. Serve with a plain green tossed salad because you do not want competition for flavours and No Knead hot bread. Dessert - something laced with chocolate - of course.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A husband and wife team are at my home laying a new floor. It will take them three to four days. I decided that I would bake them chocolate chip cookies and serve them coffee or tea. When I was growing up, any one who worked for us would have a hearty noon meal including pie and cake for dessert. Now workers bring their own lunch and eat it while sitting in their truck. In fact, one worker told me that some home owners wouldn't even let him use the toilet. I believe that the workers in your home should be made to feel welcome and if not nourished with a meal at least treated well. Every one has a chocolate chip cookie recipe. When I scan the recipes I see the same ingredients: butter, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and of course chocolate chips. However the secret of a great cookie that holds together and yet melts in your mouth is under baking the cookie but just by a minute. You have to put together a number of variables: quality of your cookie sheets, the real heat in your oven, the size of the cookies and the baking time. For this recipe bake the cookies from 8 to 10 minutes. On my dark cookie sheet I bake the cookies for 8 minutes and on the light one, nine minutes. Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe 2/3 cup butter 3/4 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 3/4 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 2 cups large chocolate chips or chunks Beat the butter and slowly add the sugars. Add the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture with a wooden spoon. Stir in the chocolate chips. Using two teaspoons, drop small amounts of batter onto the cookie sheets. My drops are the size of two halves of a walnut and I get 12 cookies per sheet. Bake at 350 degree from 8 to 10 minutes. You will know the cookies are baked because there will be a light brown ring around the outer edges. They will be slightly puffed but will collapse when you remove them from the oven. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes to give the cookies a chance to harden and then place on a rack to cool completely. Now try restraining yourself to just two cookies as you eat melted chocolate mixed with buttery cookie. Not so for the husband and wife team, they could eat as many as they wanted as they burnt through calories laying floor.

Crispy Pork Fingers

I saw this food idea on television and know it will be great. I can imagine crunching through the crispy exterior and then meeting the warm smooth interior. I can not wait to try it. For the coating, if you do not like the idea of eating potatoe chips, skip them and use panko or bread crumbs. Take 1 tenderloin and cut into fingers. Dip them in flour, then beaten eggs and finally crushed potatoe chips. Bake at 500 for 6 min and turn and bake another 6 min. Use your judgement - if the fingers are thin decrease your baking time. Serve with a dipping sauce. Here is a simple one: combine 1 cup yogurt with 2 tbsp honey and 1/4 cup grainy mustard. The Crispy Pork Fingers could be served on top of a spring green salad or part of an appetizer tray. They would be ideal when serving drinks at your house after work for a Thank Goodness it is Friday celebration.

Roasted Grape and Goat Cheese

Summer is always the time for salads. My sister-in-love clipped this recipe from a newspaper in Victoria and sent it to me as a birthday present. She also sent two t towels coloured with fruit and vegetable themes on bright green backgrounds.Fabulous gift! I made this recipe as the salad course for two friends so three of us shared a salad for four. It was more substantial than I imagined and next time I would serve it as a main course and just add grilled fish, chicken or pork. The flavours worked together: sweet, salty, nutty. I like baking the seedless red grapes in oil and vinegar. The sweet juices of the grapes mingled with the acid of the vinegar and the baking caramelized the entire mixture. The recipe is definitely a keeper. 2 cups red seedless grapes, halved 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp black pepper pinch of salt Combine the above ingredients and bake in a 400 F for 30 minutes until the juices are released and the grapes shrivel. If the grapes are very large, bake longer. Cool. On four plates, divide 8 cups of Mesclun, 4 kiwi fruit peeled and cut into circles, 4 oz good quality crumbled goat cheese and 1/4 cup coarsley chopped toasted walnuts. Spoon grapes and juice mixture on top. The presenation is impressive. The grape mixture would be idea on a soft ripe cheese and served with dipping crackers.

Thick Spicey Tomatoe Ham Vegetable Soup

How many words can be used to describe x country skiing at the Black Foot? I am tired of high praise words like heaven, paradise, nirvana, amazing etc. With deep snow, groomed tracks, boreal forest studded with balls of snow and even the occasional moose, friends to x county ski with, I keep thinking 'life does not get better than this'. Why would I vacation in Arizona or Hawaii or Vitoria BC when I have this paradise (chose a word) 45 minutes from my home?

Recently I had the opportunity to spend 4 hours x country skiing and when I came home, I had this soup/stew. Basically I began the soup with 1 tbsp of oil and slowly sauteed 1 chopped large onion in the oil, added 4 stalks of celery, 5 minced cloves of garlic and then 8 cups of chopped vegetables and water to cover. The ones I had in the fridge that day, included: carrots, squash, turnip, one half shredded cabbage, green and red peppers, 3 potatoes and one minced jalapeno pepper with just a few seeds. For protein I added 2 cups of preboiled chick peas (prepare in advance using the over night soaking method or bring to a boil and then cover and let sit for an hour then freeze in 1 or 2 cups packages) and two cups of cubed baked ham. For flavour, everything was tied together with a can of spaghetti sauce, Hunt's Thick and Rich, spicy red peppers and chilies. The pot of soup was brought to a boil, and then simmered about 30 minutes. After tasting the soup, I did not add any other seasoning. To serve the soup, I cushioned a tablespoon of pesto (see my November, 2010 post) in a dollop of yogurt. Soul satisfying soup, thick crusty peasant bread, sore muscles - heaven. One more thing, be sure to share and give some away. That too is heaven.

Cherpumple

If you have over twenty-five people for a pot luck you need big food items like a turkey or full ham, lots of sour cream baked hash browns or cabbage slaw. When I saw the recipe for Cherpumple credited to Charles Phoenix the American authour and pop-cultural humorist, I knew I just had to make it for our annual Christmas party. You take prebaked pies, cherry and apple in my case, and enclose them in cake batter and that's it. It was simply delicious. When I explained how to make the recipe, listeners would say, "you mean you put a baked pie into the batter?" Foreign thought.Charles Phoenix coined the word Cherpumple because he used a CHERry pie, in PUMpkin cake batter and an apPLE pie. You could use a blueberry pie, raisin pie or any other filled pie. I choose to go with the original. I had two concerns: first I did not have a 9 inch layer baking pan and secondly, I hoped I would be able to find the 8 inch pies at SuperStore. I never buy these pies and did not know if they would be available. My neighbour and friend had the 9 inch pans (believe me you have to have the pan this size) and SuperStore had the pies.

First make the cake batter.

21/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 8 inch baked apple pie
1 8 inch baked cherry pie

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the 9 inch cake pans. Sift together the dry ingredients. Set aside. Beat the butter, slowly add the sugar (his recipe called for 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar but I decreased it to 1 cup). Add the eggs one at a time. In another bowl, mix the milk, pumpkin and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients. Spread one quarter of the batter into a cake pan. Invert one of the pies onto the batter. Remove the foil pie plate. Spread another quarter of the batter on top of the pie. Cover the pie completely. Repeat this with the second cake pan. Bake for 40 minutes. Cool.

Frost with Truffle Cream Cheese Frosting
1/4 cup butter
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
3 cups of icing sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla.
1 cup white chocolate melted in 1/2 cup whipping cream, chilled

Beat the butter, vanilla and cream cheese together till fluffy. Slowly add the icing sugar and drips of cream. Just to add flavour and because I already had melted white chocolate (about 1 cup)in 1/2 cup of whipping cream left over from a batch of truffles I had made, I added this mixture to the icing. Now we are talking about being out-of-this-world. I do not know what I liked best - the cake or the icing.
Everyone had a piece of the cake and thought it was terrific. It is terrific because it is an 'out-side-of-the-box' type thinking cake. Innovative and over the top.

Almond Macaroons

I am always looking for recipes that are gluten free and of course macaroons are a very safe cookie given they have no flour of any kind. I made them yesterday but had another sweeter than cookie dough experience, because I made them with my two year old grand daughter. She stood on the large dining room chair and insisted that she also wear her apron since I was wearing mine. Her apron is brightly coloured,looks like the front of a Ukrainian doll and was hand sewn by a baba in the Ukraine. "Dolly apron, please", she insisted. We then washed our hands. We were ready. First 2 large egg whites were whipped till frothy in the mix master. She slowly poured in one cup of sugar. Most of it landed in the mixing bowl. When this was blended, she stirred the batter while we took turns mixing in 1 and 1/2 cups of ground almonds. She kept moving the mixing spoon to her left and then to her right hand because she is not sure yet which is her dominant hand. Meanwhile I lightly oiled the cookie sheet. When the batter was mixed (she allowed me to do some final stirs), I dropped the batter on to the cookie sheet with a tsp spoon and she found the right whole almond for each cookie and pressed it firmly into the center. Ten minutes in a 400 degree oven produced a wonderful cookie, crisp around the edges and soft in the center. We each ate two cookies and put the rest in a cookie tin. There is a saying that food flavoured with a mother's love is like no other food and I would have to add that food flavoured by an eager two year old is a memory maker of outstanding flavour.

Pepper Pound Cake

Sarah, whose mother is East Indian, made this cake for a lunch we were having this past summer. Why mention the nationality? The cake is Maya Kaimal's recipe who wrote Curried Flavors. She published this recipe in Food & Wine in 1999. So I think Sarah has an in on Indian food. At the lunch we were discussing Sticky Ideas by Heath and it may have been this topic, or the people, not sure, but what stuck with me was the flavour of this cake. I loved it. So I made it. However, my cake was dry compared to Sarah's. Sarah's cake had a fine crumb, was moist and had a buttery texture. It coated your mouth like good chocolate can. Sarah said she had inverted the hot cake and half fell out so essentially it was a disaster. Heads up for me, instead of calling Sarah, I called the Blue Flame Kitchen and a delightful but young helper tried to help me. Every question I asked her, she would run to some one (something?) else to find the answer. We concluded that my eggs may not have been large enough, that perhaps I put in too much flour and/or over baked it. I know you are suppose to scoop up the flour with a measuring cup and then level it with a knife but some times I am a bit hasty. We had another lunch this week, this time we discussed A Whole New Mind by Pink. Sarah again brought the Pepper Pound Cake and the recipe. Again I was struck by the flavour and the texture of this cake. The recipe is worth trying.

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3 cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
21/2 cups sugar (I used 2 cups of sugar)
5 large eggs, separated
2 tbsp honey
1/1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
finely grated zest of one lemon
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 10 inch bundt pan. Sift the flour with the baking powder into a medium sized bowl. In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, then honey, pepper, ginger, salt and lemon zest. Mix the dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk. Beat the egg whites in a glass or stainless steel bowl until firm. Fold into the cake mixture one third at a time. Scrape batter into the bundt pan. Bake for one hour and 10 minutes (note do not over bake). Cool the cake for 20 minutes and then unmold onto a rack. This cake is best if it is eaten the day it is baked.

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I hope that your cake will be as good as Sarah's. It is well worth the effort. For presentational effect, serve in a puddle of strawberries or raspberries or unadorned on nice plates. I would post a picture, but it is all gone.

Cashew Hummus

This past summer I discovered a great cook book, A Year in Lucy's Kitchen by Lucy Waverman. Since my library is over flowing with cook books, I signed it out from the library. It was not a random choice, I had read a review of it under the banner of cookbooks you will want for Christmas. I marked each appealing recipe with a sticky note. Usually I will not find more than five recipes per book that look interesting, novel or repeatable. However, with this book when I was finished reading it, looked like a yellow sticky forest. I showed the book to one of my friends who said I should return the book to the library with the stickies in tact to see if others would recognize superior recipes. We had a great laugh. I returned the book sans the sticky notes and went and bought my own copy. What I realized was, it is worth buying cook books by great cooks. So many cookbooks are written because they can be, to raise a profile of a restaurant, bring attention to an issue like healthy eating or ethnic flavours, or to raise funds for an organization. The question is, how many cookbooks are actually written by exceptional cooks. I think Lucy Waverman is one of those cooks. This particular cookbook also has a value added feature. There are wine pairings and menu suggestions. After having attended Jennifer Cockrall-King's Food and Wine Writing class in Penticton, I have a new respect for wine pairings. It truly makes a difference. For this dish the wine pairing is fino sherry.

Please note, this is not the original recipe. I decreased the oil from 3/4 to 1/2 cup and balanced the consistency with the chickpea water and made a few other tweaks. Play with the flavours. You can increase the cumin, decrease the garlic or add less salt but when you do make these changes and the result is very good, record the change.

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>1 cup dried chick peas soaked over night and drained. This was the first time I did this and the flavour was superior to using canned chick peas, I wondered why it had taken me so long to adopt this method. In fact I made 8 cups of chick peas in my slow cooker and froze the ones I did not need.
2 cups of water
1/2 tsp dried red chillies
1 bay leaf
2 spring of thyme. I grew thyme in my garden and have a use sip lock bag in my freezer
1 cup unsalted cashews
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp chopped garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
salt for flavour

Bring to boil the chick peas, bay leaf, red pepper chillies and thyme in the water and then simmer for 40 minutes. Drain chick peas saving the cooking water, combine with the rest of thee ingredients and puree in the food processor. Add the chick pea cooking water to thin the hummus to the desired consistency. Serve with a variety of crackers. This is a gluten free dip and so I tend to use gluten free crackers. I love the flavour of the cumin with the cashews. Usually when I think of hummus, I taste oil, lemon and garlic in my mouth. A great combination but this one is a definite rival!