Heather's Chocolate Caramel Matzo

My friend Heather brought these deliciously addicting dessert to the office when she had just started working at our museum...right away I knew I would be friends with her!

Ingredients:
4 to 6 sheets matzo or 40 saltine crackers or crackers of your choice
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into a few large pieces
1 cup packed light brown sugar
A big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semi-or bitter chocolate chips
Extra sea salt for sprinkling
1 cup toasted chopped almonds, pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie/baking sheet completely with foil, then line the base of the foil with parchment paper, cut to fit. (I thought about skipping the parchment paper, but I'm so glad I didn't. If you don't, the toffee mixture you pour over the crackers would stick to the foil and that would be no good! So yes, definitely use parchment paper.)

Line the baking sheet with matzo or crackers, covering all parts. In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and stir it over medium heat until it begins to boil. Once it has begun boiling, let it bubble for three more minutes, stirring it well. It will thicken a bit as it cooks. Remove from the heat and add the salt and vanilla, and then quickly pout it over the matzo or crackers. You'll want to spread it quickly, as it will begin to set as soon as it is poured.

Bake the caramel-covered crackers for 8-15 minutes, watching carefully as it will bubble and the corners might darken too quickly and/or burn. You can reduce the heat if you see this happening. I made two pans of this, and the pan on the bottom got burned...but actually tasting the two I liked the burned taste! That's just me...but do make sure it doesn't burn to the point of BLACK caramel. I had bits of that too and that is just a waste of good butter and sugar.

Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand five minutes, and then spread them evenly across the caramel. An offset spatula works great here. If you're using them, sprinkle the chocolate with toasted chopped nuts. Wait 10 minutes for it to cool completely or stick it in the fridge. Sprinkle sea salt over them.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Jennifer's Bacon Cheddar Bread with Parmesan Crust

My friend Jennifer made this bread at last year's Pork-Off competition, and after I ate it, I begged her for the recipe. One year later, I finally got around to making it! She gave me the recipe handwritten on the most adorable recipe card, and now I am going to digitize it for her.

Ingredients:

3 oz Parmesan, grated on large holes of box grater
5 slices of bacon cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 medium onion, minced
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon table salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 oz Gruyere, extra-sharp cheddar, or mild Asiago cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 5 x 9 inch loaf pan with cooking spray then sprinkle 1/2 cup Parmesan evenly in bottom of pan.

Fry bacon over medium heat until crisp, 8 minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towel and pour off all but 2 tablespoons bacon fat from skillet. Add onion to skillet and cook until softened, 3 minutes. Set aside.

In large bowl whisk flour, baking powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Using rubber spatula, mix in cheese cubes, breaking up clumps until cheese is coated with flour. Add bacon and onion, and stir.

In a medium bowl whisk together milk, egg, and sour cream. Using rubber spatula, gently fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX. Scrape batter into prepared loaf pan: level surface. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan evenly over surface.

Bake until deep golden brown and toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean, 45-50 minutes. You can broil on high for 3-4 minutes if you want the top to be extra crispy! Cool in pan 5 minutes on wire rack. Invert loaf from pan and continue to cool until warm, about 45 minutes.

Zucchini and Squash Fritteres

These are so good and easy to make. Use a large grater to grate one squash and one zucchini. Coat lightly in flour. Add one egg (or egg white if you want to be healthy) and mix it all up. Add salt and pepper, and any spice you wish to taste. Heat up olive oil and pan fry, about 3-4 minutes each side until golden crispy. Thanks to Nicole for this recipe!

Brunch Before The Paint Fumes Got To Us

Today was the big DIY day of painting my bathroom, so Lala came to my rescue. Before we started painting though, I made brunch for us. She had gotten me The Joy of Cooking a few weeks ago so I thought I'd try one of the recipes for breakfast muffins. I must say I am impressed with myself for having TWO DIY projects in one day. Though the paint job is a lot less impressive than the muffins. More on that later.

I made scrambled eggs with onions, shitake mushrooms, and pancetta -- too easy of a recipe to post here so I won't go through how to scramble an egg.

Orange Walnut Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/2 cup walnut pieces (The walnut pieces didn't make it into the muffins today because I was in too much of a rush to remember that I actually bought them. Ah, my wonderful, organized DIY skills strike again!)

2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and walnut) in a bowl. Whisk to combine well.

In a separate mixing bowl, mix all the wet ingredients (eggs, sour cream, brown sugar, butter, orange zest, and vanilla). Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix.

Spoon batter into lined muffin tins. Fill about 2/3 up. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick test comes out clean.

I made a glaze with 1/2 cup fresh orange juice and 1/2 cup brown sugar for the muffins. The glaze was quite watery so next time I think I might cook it down on the stove a little while the muffins are baking.

So we ate, painted, felt really good about ourselves, then felt really light headed and tired from breathing in the paint fumes. We left the house in a hurry.

Oh, so, the color I picked, incidentally, has a food name: pernod. According to "the internets," pernod is an apertif, a successor of absinthe, with a delicate licorice scent. The internets also said that pernod is often added to vegetable dishes and fish to give it a sophiscated, herbal taste. Sounds good, no?

It looks like this:
Depending on your monitor, this is meant to be a very pale yellow, sort of like the color of hollandaise sauce. A delicate yellow reminiscent of lemonade.

So why does my bathroom now look like an ill egg yolk explosion?!

I am hoping it is just the lighting. During the day the color actually looked mild and light, the way I intended it to be. But tonight, the lighting in my bathroom is doing some voodoo magic that makes the paint look really scary.

I think I'll eat another muffin now.

Pancakes for Dinner

...or, linner! My favorite meal, somewhere between lunch and dinner, is a perfect time for pancakes. Below is a great recipe by Nigella. It doesn't have the weird baking soda taste, and you can disregard the salt (I've never tried it without the salt but I think it should be OK.)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 1/3 cups milk
butter for frying

Nigella writes: "The easiest way to make these is to put all the ingredients into a blender and blitz. But if you do mix up the batter by hand in a bowl, make a well in the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar, beat in the eggs, melted butter, and milk, and transfer to a pitcher: it's much easier to pour the batter into the pan that to spoon it. I like to leave the batter for 20 minutes before using it; you may then want to add more milk to the mixture if you're frying in the blini pan, so that it runs right to the edges. When you cook the pancakes, all you need to remember is that when the upper side of the pancake is blistering and bubbling it's time to cook the second side, and this needs only about 1 minute, if that. 1 get 11 blini-sized pancakes out of this, maybe 16 silver-dollar sized ones on the griddle."

Try adding bananas and/or walnuts like the picture on the left!
Serve with sausage meat, which you can also buy salt free from the grocery store. Just add some AlsoSalt and you're home free!

Let me know how it turns out.

Love,
Amy