Coconut Macaroons

These were really easy - especially with some extra chocolate sitting around from tempering.

I found a recipe here:

But I didn't have any condensed milk - so I found a substitution recipe here:

I cut both recipes in half and ended up with 34 macaroons. They took about 25 minutes in a 300 degree oven. After they cooled a bit, I drizzled some chocolate on them. I remelted the chocolate over an off-heat sauce pan pf of water that had just boiled. I brought the chocolate up to about 105 degrees - it wasn't really runny enough to drizzle - but I got it to work using the back of a spoon.

SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK (SUBSTITUTE)
1 c. instant non fat dry milk 2/3 c. sugar 1/3 c. boiling water 3 tbsp. melted butter Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Store in refrigerator. Equal to 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand milk.

Makes 90

• 2 large egg whites
• Pinch of salt
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 bags shredded sweetened coconut (14-ounces each)
• Ice cream, optional for Icearoons

Directions

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk egg whites and salt until frothy, about 2 minutes. Stir in condensed milk and vanilla. Using a rubber spatula, fold in coconut until well combined.
2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats. Using a teaspoon and your fingers, form macaroons into 1 1/4-inch mounds about 1 inch apart.
3. Bake until macaroons are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to a cooling rack; let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Tempering Chocolate

My plan was to temper chocolate and dip cream caramels in it. Tempering chocolate turns out to be a pain. I worked in it last night until past minute and failed in two attempts. I did more research today - and I think that last night I put the "seed chocolate" in at too high a temperature - and it melted before if could do any seeding. And then - I only took the temp. down to 88 - 91. THis was not cool enough according to other methods I read today.

So, now I am trying again - I remelted the chocolate from last night (over a double boilier - heat off - after simmering lightly) the melted chocolate got up to about 118 and is in the process of cooling to 80. I plan to ring it up to 89 using a bowl of warm water.

For cooling it, I transferred the melted chocolate into the bowl of a stand mixer, and stirring with the dough hook on the lowest setting - that way I don't have to stand there and stir it fo half an hour as it cools. Off to check the temp... 86.4 and cooling.

The tempering directions I am following now are here:

Double Boiler Tempering

Chop chocolate blocks into small pieces or use chocolate wafers.

Fill bottom of double boiler so the hot water does not touch the bottom of the upper pan. Do not let the water boil. Stir the chocolate while melting to ensure even heating. Try to avoid creating air bubbles. Heat chocolate to 120 F. to 122 F.

Replace the hot water with 70 F. water, no cooler. Stir until the chocolate cools to between 79 F. and 80 F. It may occasionally be necessary to add additional cool water to the bottom of the double boiler.

Now replace the 70 F. water with warm water (about 92 F. to 93 F.) and raise the temperature of the chocolate to between 88 F. and 89 F. for dark chocolate or 84 F. to 86 F. for milk chocolate or white cocoa butter coating (white chocolate). Maintain the appropriate temperature while dipping. If the chocolate exceeds 90 F., it will be necessary to repeat the tempering process.

---

The directions I used last night - which were good - but led me a bit astray about the "seed" method are here: At cookingforengineers.com - which also appears to be a good site.


When the chocolate got down to 80 degrees - I put it over a bowl of 95 degree water and brought it back up to 89. It was still pretty thick - too thick to use effectively - I tried a test strip on some parchment - and after three or four minutes it didn't look like it had tempered propoerly, it was still soft and bent rather than snapping. I added warmer water to the bowl under the chocolate and brought it up a bit more - slightly over 90. At this point, I decided to dip the caramels anyway.

Dipping took about an hour - I kept an eye on the temperature and replace the water in the bowl under the chocolate with warm / hot tap water every now and then. I used wooden skewers to dip the caramels - I think tongs or some other way of grabbing a caramel from two sides might work better. One problem with the caramels is that when they first came out of the freezer, they were too solid to stick a skewer in. After a while, they became too soft to stay on a skewer - so they had to go back in the freezer.

The chocolate must have been in temper - because in the morning, the caramels were shiny and the chocolate broke with a snap. I think I could have doen a better test for tempered-ness by dipping a spoon in the chocolate and putting it in the fridge for a few minutes. The first sign of success I noticed was the dough hook on the mixer - the chocolate it was covered with hardened to a shiny gloss and broke with a snap. Also, the chocolate I worked with stayed tempered for an hour with occasional reheating - sometimes the reheating went to 95 or 98 - this thinned the chocolate enough to work with and did not destroy the temper.

Cream caramels

I had a chocolate covered caramel with sea salt from Trader Joes -yum. I decided to try to make them. That was the easy part.

Caramel:

After searching awhile for recipes - I followed this recipe from chocolatedgourmand.com - an excellent site with lots of great pictures and tips.

I followed the recipe closely - using a silpat to line the pan that I spread the caramel in. (this is described somewhere in the site - and is worth finding and trying - it was simple) The caramel mixture took quite a while (25 min?) to come to the proper temperature - but it did, I poured it, wrapped it, left it, and it was perfect.

The next day I transferred the slab to a parchment covered cutting board, and put that in the freeze for 15 minutes. Then I cut (slowly - line by line) a grid pattern in the slab. Then I put it back in the freezer to mess with the chocolate (separate post - long story). The process of separating out individual chunks wasn't too hard after if messed with if to a while - it involved returning the slab to the freezer every now and then. Also, It took some trial and error to figure out that the best way to store the individual chunks was on anything, on parchment. They sagged when they warmed - but the resulting shape was cool. I had some on plates without parchment. These were too soft to move until I popped them in the freezer for awhile - then they came off with a bit of help from a paring knife to the bottom.


Classic Cream Caramels

2 cups light corn syrup
4 cups sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
4 cups whipping cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Some Safflower oil.

Oil the foil lined baking dish.
Using safflower oil and a paper towel, generously oil a 9x13 baking dish lined with foil. Don't skimp, trust me.

Heat sugar and corn syrup to boil then stop stirring and cook until 305° F.
Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently until it comes to a boil. Wash down sides several times with water using a pastry brush. Stop stirring and place a candy thermometer in pan and continue to boil over medium high heat. You are going to boil the sugar syrup mixture until it reaches 305° F (151° C), which will take about 10 minutes or so.

Heat cream over medium heat until simmering.
While you are waiting for the sugar mixture to heat you can heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently until simmering. Remove the hot cream from heat and set aside.

Add butter to sugar syrup. Slowly add the hot cream.
Once the sugar mixture has reached 305° F (151° C), reduce heat and slowly add the 1/4 cup of cubed butter. Slowly add the hot cream to the sugar mixture. I usually do this with a small ladle or measuring cup. Keep the mixture boiling while adding the cream, but beware of boil-over if you add the cream too quickly. The boiling mixture will rise rapidly after adding the cream. Let the mixture settle down before adding more cream. The game is to keep it boiling without letting it overflow.

Continue cooking caramel until it reaches target temperature.
Once the cream has all been added, continue stirring constantly until the mixture reaches 242-243° F (116°) for dipping or else 246-248° F (117° C) for wrapping. If you like your caramel harder, you can keep heating until you get to around 250° F. If you like your caramel soft, be careful not to make it too soft. Extra gooey caramel is hard to package or dip. The caramel will usually continue to heat a degree past when you remove it from heat.

Remove from heat and let cool 5 minutes. Add salt and vanilla.
Let sit 5 minutes before my favorite part: stirring in the salt and vanilla. If you love vanilla, then get ready for what you might call vanilla free-basing. Once you pour in the vanilla and salt, stir just until blended. As you stir the vanilla into the caramel, the vanilla bourbon will boil off and you can inhale intense vanilla smell.

Pour into oiled baking dish. Let sit overnight wrapped tightly.
Pour mixture into prepared baking pan. Cover well and let cool overnight. Once you are ready to dip or wrap, peel the foil off the caramel. This can be a major pain. I simply have to find a better way. They need to make a silpat lined baking pan. The gooier the caramel, the smaller the pieces of foil rip off. Oil a large plastic cutting board and place the caramel slab there. Slice into pieces and wrap or dip.

Dip or wrap as desired.
I typically prefer to make my dipped caramels more gooey than the wrapped caramels, but note that softer caramels are more difficult to work with and dip. Even firm caramels will succumb to gravity and sag after a few minutes. When dipping, slice only as much as you need from the main block to maintain rectangular shapes.

Quick Raita!

I made this as part of throwing together a no-effort meal featuring a can of some sort of Indian soupy dish with white rice. Searched for a recipe and found this one from epicurious:

Ingredients:

1 large unpeeled English hothouse cucumber, halved, seeded, coarsely grated
2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
1/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon plus pinch of cayenne pepper

Preparation:

Wrap grated cucumber in kitchen towel and squeeze dry. Whisk yogurt, mint, cumin, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper in medium bowl to blend. Add cucumbers and toss to coat. Season raita to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated.) Sprinkle raita with pinch of cayenne pepper and serve.


I changed a few things - I used
-2/3 of a leftover cucumber - peeled seeded and minced (no squeezing - the idea here was a quick simple meal).
-1 single serving of plain yogurt
-juice of the small half of a lemon
-about a T of frozen mint leaves - chopped up
- about 3/4 t cumin
-a pinch of cayenne - and then more to taste

whisk together and eat immediately

I will try it the epicurious way sometime - with towels and time and such - but this worked very well - especially going from thinking about it to eating it in about 5 minutes.

Braised Pork Roast

This recipe is from the Silver Spoon Italian Cookbook.

This recipe was easy to set up - I rolled the roast in rosemary leaves, tied, it browned, and then added onions, garlic, and wine, and then left it alone to simmer. The recipe called for 90 minutes of simmering - so I didn't check the temp. for amlonst an hour - and the temp. was up to 190. Whoops. Oh well. IT was still tasty and the juices made nice gravy. The texture was card boardy. Next time I will check the temp. much sooner - and I will use lower heat fo simmnering.

2.25 Lb. Pork Roast
rosemary leaves from 2 or 3 sprigs
6 T olive oil
2 T butter
.5 medium onion - chopped
1 clove garlic - crushed
3/4 c dry white wine
1 T dijon mustard
1 t white wine vinegar (I used red - because tha tis what I had)

press half of the rosemary needles into the roast
tie the rost with twine
heat 4 T of oil and the butter in a pan
brown the roast on all sides - turning with tongs
pour off the accumulated fat
add the onions and garlic and wine
lower heat and let simmer for 90 min. (check temp after 30 or so just in case

when roast is to temp. - remove and let sit for 10 minutes
ass mustard, rest of oil, and vinegar to pan juices (I also added 1 t corn starch dissolved in about 1/4 C wine - for thickening)
Slice roast in thick slices and serve with gravy

I served sweet potato disks with this - yum!

garlic chive and cous cous salad

I made this salad to go with lemon parsley stuffed chicken. I seemed strange - I just threw together stuff that I had as a way to use garlic chives leftover from trying to make pad thai. It worked better than I expected - I might even make it again.

half a bunch (about 30-40) garlic chives
1 C cous cous
1 1/4 C chicken stock
1/4 C crasins
1/4 C cashews (chopped if you feel like it)
1/4 C chopped cucumber
1 T balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. Olive Oil
1/5 tsp. sea salt

-Boil the chicken stock - turn off heat and add the cous cous - let sit for five minutes and fluff with a fork.
-Preheat a grill pan - spray with some oil and, when the pan is hot, put in the garlic chives - let them grill for about 3 minutes and then turn the chives over to grill the other side. Salt the chives. Remove them from the pan when they are grilled on both sides.
-Chop the grilled chives into 1' lenghts
- mix all ingredients together