Christmas Candy

Over the past few years, it has become tradition for my wife and I to bake cookies and make candy for Christmas. We tend to make three types of cookies, plus toffee and send it off to the various members of our families. The cookies vary, but the toffee tends to remain the same. My family in particular is fond of it, and I enjoy making it. It's very science-y.



The mise en place. This candy is awesome, because it's really just a few simple things converted by science into pure deliciousness. It's basically just a cup of sugar and a cup of butter, with a little water and corn syrup added to prevent bad crystalization. The almonds will come in at the end.

Note that we've gone with the double Skinny Elvis/Fat Elvis CD here, but you could probably get by with one of the single albums without loosing too much flavor.


Here the butter has just melted. Not much is going on yet, and at this point it seems that the ingredients are not going to come together. The sugar lies lifeless on the bottom, while the melted butter hangs out. This is soon to change though.


The candy has started to boil and has combined. It's still very light in color, and smells very much like sweetened melted butter.

This is the begining of the confectionary magma stage, so watch those splashes.


As the candy cooks it darkens and begins to smell more and more of caramel.


And here it is just before it hits it's temperature. You have to work pretty quickly at this point. Since the temperature determines the hardness of the candy you don't want to overshoot, and you need to stir pretty much constantly to avoid scorching the sugar.


Once you hit temperature, you pour the molten candy over half of the toasted almonds, which have been coarsely chopped. It's pretty hard to get it to spread evenly, but I've found that not pouring it all in the center helps. I sort of pour in an S curve around the pan, going back to spots that aren't getting filled by the spreading candy.

Note that the candy cooking pot cleans much easier if you fill it with boiling water. I usually do it at this point, but it can actually happen at any point. The hardened mess will disolve pretty easily.


What kind of candy doesn't have any chocolate? Not this kind, that's for sure. Once the candy has set, but not cooled all the way, you sprinkle chocolate chips on the surface and let the residual heat melt them.

Once that is spread, you sprinkle with some remaining almonds which have been finely chopped. I used the food processor for almond chopping for the first time this year, and while it was easier, my topping was practically ground. I'll need to practice a bit more with that, I think.


The finished product. Once it has chilled to solidify, you break it into pieces and enjoy the result. It has a rich, toffee flavor with a lot of toasted nuttiness. Since the breaking up of the candy happens on a second day (or much later on the same day) I completely neglected to get photos of the pieces of candy. Still, it basically looks like this only with jagged edges. Also, the only folks who actually read this have seen it in person, so...yeah.

Hope you all had a good christmas, and have a great new year.

CSA Week 10

Ah, blogs. They all last to about post 10 and then disappear. I have had these pictures sitting around (along with some from when I made chicken broth) just waiting for me to get inspired enough to put them online. Finally, a day off has given me the gumption to at least post the CSA and a bit of a wrap up.

The last share got used, with the exception of the peppers, which we managed to completely forget about. The potatoes went into a few different dishes including our favorite side dish Sweet Potato Samosas, which we had with a roast for thanksgiving. The celery got eaten raw and put into stock. The only real bust of the share was the spaghetti squash. We tried a recipe where it was roasted, then tossed with some herbs and butter. It...was not good. I think the squash itself was undercooked, despite us having put it in for way longer than suggested. This fella may get share boxed next year.

And now, on to share 10!

More Apples.

Carrots including one luridly large one, proudly displayed on top of the pile.

Potatoes are something that we like, but never really keep around. We have definitely had a lot more of them on the side than usual during this process.

Lettuce

Parsnips smell an aweful lot like carrots when you peel them. We made mashed potatoes and root vegetables with them, and it was pretty good. The parsnips added a nice sweetness to the potatoes.

One enormous Butternut squash. Going straight into the risotto. We love that stuff.

Cabbage

Broccoli

Brusellini are the greens from a brussel sprout plant. Despite our best intentions, we ended up dumpstering this one.

Radish Sprouts are quite delicious on salads.

Overall, I think the CSA was a good experience. We tried new veggies, mostly kept up, and had a lot of fun with it. So much so that we are considering a full share next year. And a fruit share. We were a bit let down by how little fruit we got this time around, so we're looking at another area CSA that has a separate fruit share. I know, having followed Sheri's experience with her full share and fruit share that us considering one is madness, and yet...we are. We may become accidental vegitarians yet.

Nah.

CSA Week 9

This past two weeks has been a bit odd, with the Film Fest taking our time and me traveling a bit for work. Still, we've done a pretty good job with the share. The squash and pumpkins are still sitting in our pantry, but we've used the Radicchio, roasted the cauliflower (which was startlingly delicious,) and even made a potato and celeriac cake which was quite good. The pears went into an oddly dry but still good crisp.

Spaghetti Squash will get added to the squash stash in our pantry.

Celery is another thing that's always in season, I guess. This is pretty leafy with a lot of slender stems, but I think it'll still work. I plan on trying my hand at making stock this weekend, so I can use a lot of the leafiness for that.

Cubannelle Peppers

Sweet Potatoes will probably end up in a ravioli recipe we have.

Two small heads of Broccoli which we'll steam.


Sunflower Sprouts again.

Carrots again. Some more. Some also destined for stock.

Yellow Onions

French Breakfast Radishes

Acorn Squash

Apples which we'll use for apple cake. We have a few leftover pears from last week too, so we'll probably toss those in.

CSA Week 8

The last few weeks were pretty good for the CSA. We roasted the beets with some salt and pepper. I found them quite tasty, but Mary would have prefered them with some more, non-beet stuff mixed in. The Frisee got used a bit in salad, though we've been doing other vegetables so we didn't manage to use it all.

I had every intention of making Kohlrabi with Honey Butter sauce -- How can anything with Honey Butter sauce be bad -- but we managed to have the head of kohlrabi go soft before we got around to doing it. Oh well, there's always next year.




Butternut Squash and Delicata Squash will likely get prepared in similar ways. Roasted, probably.

Wee Bee Little Pumpkins are too cute to eat! I lie, we're eating em -- Eff cute. We're thinking pumpkin muffins made from real pumpkin rather than the can. Weird!

Radicchio is another of Mary's nemesis, again for it's bitterness. It's actually quite nice mixed in with salads, since it's not the dominant flavor there.

Another vegetable we have dreaded is Cauliflower. Mary and cauliflower have a dark history, but she's managed to find a recipe for roasting it that will at least allow us to get through the small head we have.

A few different varieties of Hot Peppers which will likely get used in pasta sauce and or chopped and mixed into corn muffins for a side to Chili.

A Shallot and a few of what appears to be Oddly Shaped Red Onions.

Mushrooms

Lucious Dessert Pears

Parsley is apparently always in season.

Celeriac The only time I have ever seen this used was once on Iron Chef. If Dr. Hatori can't beat Morimoto with it, what chance do I have? Mary foud a recipe for a potato and celeriac cake that sounds pretty good, so we'll probably do that. We already used the celerey part in the cavity of a roasted chicken.

CSA Week 7

We didn't do anything too terribly fascinating with most of last week's share, though we did manage to use most of it. The apples and rhubarb went into a crisp (different one from last time, but still quite good) which actually got crispy. Having an oven that keeps it's temp has been making a huge difference.

We also managed to use all the peppers, in various places. We made a chiliquile (I am sure that's spelled wrong) recipe with one of the anaheim peppers and a tomato sauce with the other one. The banana peppers were quite mild and we chopped them onto salads and our NFL opening night nachos. Best tradition ever.

Everything else was fairly standard. Still grilling our potatoes, even though the oven is an option. This time around it was the celery that went unused. Who the heck uses that much celery?

Three little heads of Garlic Beets again. I am hell bent on actually trying these this time. Last time they went all squishy before we could do anything with em. The current plan is to roast them. Plums which are also quite small. They are an odd variety, with softer flesh but less juicy. Very hard to explain texture. Green and Red Peppers Greens like Frisee are Mary's nemeses. She doesn't care for the bitterness of them, and so I was surprised that when I offered to have it left in the trade box, she invoked the "no tossing out without trying" rule. Even yet still more potatoes Onions More Celerey. I need to figure out how to make this stuff last, because we really don't use much. We tend to buy stalks from salad bars when we need it in recipes. I guess we could snack on it, but I never think of that. Kohlrabi which is Sheri's nemesis. The one vegetable my almost vegetarian friend can't find a way to like. What chance do we stand? As of yet, we have no idea what we're doing with this sucker.

CSA Week 6

We have a working oven and range again! To celebrate, we used almost all of our CSA share (for some reason the beans keep getting forgotten.) We made baba-ganouj with the eggplant which was good, but a bit lemony. We got the recipe from cooking light, and they sometimes overdo the lemon to bring flavor to lower fat dishes. In the future I will look for a higher fat version, or just up the tahini and lower the lemon juice. The carrots and leek went into a tasty vegetable soup and we had the peppers in salads and stuffed with a jasmine rice stuffing.

Man it is nice to do something other than grill. Maybe one day we'll have a kitchen sink again and won't have to clean veggies in the bathroom.

On to this week's share!

More Potatoes We don't usually keep a lot around, but we've managed to keep up with the last three potato deliveries pretty well. These'll likely end up grilled -- though more options are now available, the grilled potatoes are good enough to do even with the stove installed.

Carrots I have never seen white carrots before, but we got a mix of orange (aka carrot colored) and white. We'll see if the taste differs.

Bottle Onions

Summer Apples Is fall really this close?
Basil

Heirloom Tomatoes

Celery This bunch of celerey is pretty divorced from the huge heads we are used to seeing at the grocery. That's probably just as well, since 50% of the household doesn't care for it.

Kale

Rhubarb I was all excited to make the crisp I made with the first batch of this we got way back in week 1, but the newsletter included a recipe for an apple and rhubarb crisp which I think we'll try. It has crystalized ginger in it, so it has to be good.

Banana and Anaheim Peppers We like spicy food, but don't have a lot of recipes that call for hot peppers. We may roast em? Time to hit the web for recipes...

CSA Week 5

We are offically at the midpoint of the CSA, and overall we are very pleased with how it's gone. We did passably well with the last share, and considering we had no kitchen I think that's pretty awesome. I did try the grilled potato recipe, and we've been very happy with it. It's pretty easy (cut, oil, season the potatoes; direct grill em sixish minutes a cut side and then indirect grill em on the skin side for six more) and makes a pretty good fry. We also grilled all that glorious corn. Everything else was either eaten in salads or is still sitting in our fridge.

After this weekend, we should have most of a kitchen again, so things'll be basically back to normal, cooking-wise.

Carrots

Parsley Yay. It's more parsley. We currently have two bunches in the fridge (this one and last share's more dapper curly leaf one) so I may have to look up a recipe for chimichurri (I think that's the name) which is a parsley puree one puts on meats.

Romano Beans

Orange and Yellow Slicing Tomatoes In the past when I have had non-red tomatoes, they have always tasted a little stale or underripe to me. Turns out, they were stale or underripe because these suckers taste great. Not the same as a red tomato, but definitely full of flavor.

A huge whopping Leek Which I guess we'll put in soup, maybe?

Globe Eggplant which is destined for becoming dip (in the form of Baba Ganouj).

Muskmellon I am a recent convert to mellons other than water, and this was my first time trying the musk. It's mellony, but less so than a cantelope. It's a gateway mellon -- You start with this and next thing you know you're robbing liquor stores to cover your honeydew habit.

Green Peppers are soon to be stuffed with jasmine rice and other goodies.

Button Mushrooms

Red Onions