Poppy Bars

I apologize for my absence the past few days. My grandfather passed away and I haven't been able to concentrate on my blog. This post is dedicated to him.

These are named in honor of my grandfather. We were at my other grandparent's house and needed an easy, preferably no-bake recipe to send to him in a care package. I consulted my email folder full of Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day newsletters. When I found these, I knew they would be perfect. They only have a few ingredients, and really, you can't go wrong with caramel and peanuts.


Caramel Peanut Bars (from marthastewart.com):
Makes about 16; possibly more or less depending on what size you cut them


Ingredients:


2-1/4 cup salted roasted peanuts
1 14oz bag chewy caramels (about 50 caramels)

1 cup mini marshmallows
1 tablespoon water
Butter or cooking spray for pan


Instructions:


Butter or spray an 8x8 inch pan and lay parchment paper inside, leaving overhang on two sides. Spray paper and place second sheet on top crosswise, creating overhang on all four sides. Combine caramels, marshmallows, and water in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Allow to melt, stirring to ensure it doesn't burn.

While caramels are melting, coarsely chop 1-1/4 cups of peanuts. Spread evenly over bottom of pan. Chop remaining 1 cup of peanuts; set aside.

When caramels and marshmallows are completely melted, pour mixture over peanuts in pan.

Sprinkle remaining 1 cup peanuts over top and pat down.

Allow to cool at room temperature for 2 hours or in a refrigerator for 45 minutes. Cut into bars. Or squares. Or trapezoids.

Of course, I had to try these to make sure they were deserving of being sent to my grandfather. And they were. Chewy, delicious, and peanuty, these no-bake treats are addicting. Seriously. After we sent off the majority in the care package, my mom and I kept cutting of bits of the leftover bars "just for a taste". I dread to think what would have happened had my brothers gotten their hands on these... Would they have found their way into their cereal?

Nutella

Nutella is the best thing since sliced bread. Nutella on sliced bread is indescribable.
Unfortunately, the store-bought kind is less than 13% nuts. I don't mean to bash Nutella, but really, Ferrero? It's supposed to be a hazelnut spread. The first two ingredients are sugar and palm oil.
But it's just. So. Good.
I resolved to find a recipe for homemade Nutella. The moment I got my hands on some hazelnuts and almonds, I began.

Nutella (from worldplates.wordpress.com)
Makes about 10 ounces, which isn't as much as you might think.

Ingredients:


3/4 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1/2 cup whole raw almonds
1/3 cup powdered sugar

How can something so delicious have so few ingredients?

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vegetable oil, chocolate milk, or Aunt Mona's Fudge Sauce

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread hazelnuts on one side of a baking pan and almonds on the other.

Toast for 12-15 minutes; until the hazelnut skins are almost black and you can smell the nuts. Stir nuts several times during toasting, keeping separate.

Allow nuts to cool on baking pan.

Sandwich hazelnuts in a clean dishtowel and rub off skins.

Remove as many remaining skins as you can with you fingers. Some skins will be embedded on the nut, and that's fine. Just be sure to get the majority.

Process nuts in a food processor until they turn into a nut butter. They go from a fine meal to the butter stage very quickly, so be sure to watch them.

The nuts can touch now.

Add sugar, cocoa powder, and vanilla and whirl until combined.

If mixture forms a ball around the blade or seems otherwise too thick, add a little of your liquid of choice. (Use chocolate milk or fudge sauce for a more chocolately spread; use oil for a more nutty spread.) Don't thin it up too much, though.

Store in fridge for up to 2 months.


This spread is addicting. I've put it on graham crackers, bread, and I may have dipped a spoon in there once or twice. Don't judge me.

How can you resist something so delicious-looking?

It tastes like hazelnuts with a hint (well, more than a hint) of chocolate. I used oil, but it would be more chocolaty with chocolate milk or fudge sauce. I didn't think of using the chocolate milk/sauce until after I made it. My brain can be annoying like that.
By my calculations, this spread is 80% nuts. 60% of the spread is hazelnuts alone. Take THAT, Ferrero! The texture is a little grainy because the food processor couldn't quite break down the nuts completely, but I'm sure that if you run it for a bit it would be smoother. Despite that, everyone in my family loved my homemade Nutella. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before my brothers start putting it into their cereal instead of peanut butter...

P.S. My mom and I just got a new ice cream maker. And my brother is getting his wisdom teeth out soon... That means LOTS of ice cream! Yay!

Simple Sauces Part 2–Raita

This is the second in a series of quick and easy sauces to jazz up any dish.

I had about a half-tub of leftover yogurt from the Bell Pepper Harissa Soup. Since we were having spicy sausages for dinner, I decided to make a nice yogurt sauce that I could douse my sausage in to hopefully prevent it from burning a hole in the roof of my mouth and causing irreparable damage to my larynx as it blazes a fiery trail down my esophagus.
So.
I consulted one of my favorite cookbooks, The Joy of Cooking. It has two recipes for raita, which is an Indian yogurt sauce specifically for spicy meats. Perfect! I chose the fruit one, mostly because we didn't have any of the stuff for the other one and conveniently had everything for this one. (The other is a cucumber/mint sauce.) It was actually good that I didn't have a choice, because they both sounded good–and they're both really easy to make.


Fruit Raita

Ingredients:


1 ripe banana, peach, or nectarine, finely chopped, or 1/2 cup fresh pineapple chunks
1 cup yogurt or 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped almonds or macadamia nuts

1 tablespoon golden raisins (optional)
Up to 4 tablespoons sugar or honey, depending on fruit
Pinch of ground nutmeg or ground cardamom


Procedure:


Chunky: Put fruit, yogurt, nuts, and raisins in bowl and stir. Add honey/sugar and spice to taste and stir to combine.

Honey

Smooth: Put fruit, yogurt, honey, and nuts in a blender and blend until smooth. Add honey and spice to taste and blend a little more.

Please accept this picture of an adorable puppy as my apology for there not being pictures of the smooth sauce.

Though I don't mind chunky sauces, I created a "Smooth Sauce" approach for those who do. I wouldn't recommend using raisins for a smooth sauce, though, because I don't know how well those would blend.
I really like this sauce. It cut down on my sausage's heat nicely.

Thankfully, it did not burn a fiery hole down my esophagus.

Though some might say that it's just yogurt with fruit chunks, I disagree. It has the consistency of yogurt, but it tastes like more than a sum of its parts. The fruit and honey make it a sweet, balanced sauce perfect for hot dishes. Also, it's hugely versatile. By my calculations, there are over 192 versions of this sauce that can be made just by using peach and macadamia nuts instead of almonds and nectarines and simple switches like that. And that doesn't factor in the veggie version at all!

I should have a raita party–traditional Indian cuisine with a bunch of tiny things of raita. Can anyone loan me some bowls?