Homemade Marshmallows

Another sweet treat I pumped out over the holiday was a crap ton of marshmallows. A friend of mine has made marshmallows before and I’ve always wanted to make them, I just never put the effort and time towards it. I finally mustard up the courage to make the marshmallows. I was armed with two recipes. They were both fairly similar, just two very minor differences. The first recipe I used was from How Sweet Eats. She made bourbon marshmallows a while back and of COURSE I had to get on that train. The second recipe was from Alton Brown. Traditional homemade marshmallows.

Both required gelatin, white sugar, corn syrup, ice cold water, confectioners sugar and patience.  How Sweet’s halved the water quantity, making it half water and half bourbon.  She also used egg whites.

The above picture was gelatin and melted sugars doing their thing.

This is where the two recipes differ. How Sweets says to add whipped egg whites into this. This is also where I made a HUGE, MESSY MISTAKE.  I didn’t read the recipe thoroughly. I had to remove the soft marshmallow blob from the mixing bowl and whisk, whip up my egg whites and combine everything. Don’t do this. Please. The mallow started to harden and it was a mess. I got it everywhere. It was a PITA to clean up surfaces I couldn’t soak in a sink full of hot water. Also, whipping the egg whites back into this mess was also painful to watch. If you choose How Sweets recipe, arm yourself with a second mixing bowl or whip your whites before the mallow. Learn from my mistakes.

Alton doesn’t use egg whites. Point for Alton, one bowl mess! He uses the same amount of ingredients as How Sweets, so you can easily sub in your bourbon.

Once your mallow is whipped to perfection, dump it into a well greased and dusted pan to set for at least three hours. I let mine sit overnight.

Once the pan of marshmallows has firmed up, transfer it to a cutting board and cut into whatever size marshmallows you desire. Dust all freshly cut sides of the marshmallows with confectioners sugar so they don’t stick to everything. Also dust your knife/kitchen shears to make it easy. I went with a smaller size to go along with a homemade hot chocolate mix.

The egg whites in How Sweet’s recipe made the marshmallows lighter and airy, but it wasn’t a needed step. It caused more of a messy headache than anything. I wish I took a photo of the mess but I’m pretty sure I got marshmallow goo all over my phone and didn’t want to get more on it. They still tasted delish, but you can achieve a great marshmallow with Alton’s recipe. I’m giving Alton the win on this round.

I got great reviews on the marshmallows. They didn’t melt too fast into coffee or hot chocolate, leaving you with a nice treat at the end of your drink. Yay!

Gingerbread Biscotti

The holidays came and went. More like flew by! I made a MESS in the kitchen over the holidays. The best mess had to be gingerbread biscotti from Smitten Kitchen. The smell of baking biscotti swirling through the house made me smile. It smelled warm, inviting and freaking delicious. I’ve never made biscotti before. The thought of baking something twice made it seem hard and labor intensive. How wrong I was!

The ingredient list was not a million miles long and was fairly reasonable. I had all of the spices in the pantry, and everything else was a staple. I’m serious. I bet $5 you can make biscotti now. It’s that simple!

The “forming logs” part was a bit tricky for me, I admit. Only because I had no idea what I was doing. Also, I may have accidentally left out one cup of flour to the batter and had no idea how logs could be form with that mushy mess.  Luckily, I realized my mistake and added the cup back in.  Saved!

Egg wash was next for the logs and into the oven they went for about 25 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack for another 20-25 minutes and cut into slices on an angle. Dip the biscotti in a cinnamon/sugar mixture and back in the oven they go, about 12-14 minutes per side. I let my baking time go a little longer than SK’s. I might have crammed too many on my baking sheet, and also, no oven is the same. Adjust the second bake to your liking! Once the second bake is done, transfer to a wire rack and cool.

I wish smell-o-vision was a thing. They smelled amazing and tasted great (or at least I thought they did!). Not too dry, but not soft. I am no longer afraid of biscotti and can’t WAIT to make more.

I mean, c’mon. YUM!

Palets de Dames, Lille Style

A new cookbook from Dorie Greenspan has helped get the blogging lava flowing for me again.  Not posting since February? Yes. I’ll admit, life got in the way.  A trip to Europe happened (which warranted a blog post that didn’t happen), moving twice happened.  So, you know, life.  I didn’t stop cooking all together, but I wasn’t terribly adventurous. Still, a simple meal is something to rant and rave about.

So how about these cookies?

Baking Chez Moi released Tuesday, October 28. This is such a gorgeous book and I know it will produce gorgeous and tasty things.  The French Friday’s with Dorie group is still in full swing – finding duck and kumquats for this week didn’t happen so I might do a make up – but with the new book, Tuesday’s with Dorie is back.  The first recipe up is Palets de Dames, a butter cookie, best with tea or coffee.

I made the dough and thought there wouldn’t be enough.  As she states in her recipe, you’re to only use about two teaspoons of dough for each cookie.  After some batter loss and cookies that were sized too big,  i ended up pumping out 32. Not bad for a yield of 40.

I let the dough chill overnight and the batter still baked up well.  I set my convection oven at 400F and the cookies were perfect at 7 minutes.  The icing was not as pretty as the book but I thought it looked OK for a first timer.

These were perfect with my morning coffee.  Yum!

It feels good to be back (again!)

Kale Pizza

Kale + pizza = best thing ever.

Kelly over at Just a Taste knows how to get my attention.  She posted this recipe last month and I about jumped out of my seat when I saw it.  I’ve been thinking about kale and how to use it other than just making chips.  My first chip experience was a disaster and haven’t tried it since.  But this?  This I had to have.

I like to use my cast iron pan for pizzas.  Whether it’s a pre-made or homemade crust, using the cast iron pan is the way I roll.

Slap some mozz on that crust.

Cook up some bacon and reserve the fat.  Toss in some chopped up kale with the bacon and it’s fat and coat it well.

Dump that on top of the mozz, add some sliced red onion and anything else you fancy.

Bake and enjoy.  I drizzled some balsamic glaze on top as soon as I pulled this out of the oven.  This might be one of the best ways to sneak kale into your food.  Man was this AMAZING.  If you’re not the kale type, I think spinach will sub well here.

Go check out the full recipe over at Just a Taste. I’ve made a few things from Kelly’s blog and they’ve all turned out delicious.  You can’t go wrong with her blog! And make some kale pizza!

Fried “Rice”

I finally bought a wok.

This is pretty exciting and intimidating at the same time.

I’ve never owned any fancy kind of cookware.  Granted, I bought it at Marshall’s for $10, but I still bought a wok.

I let it sit on the kitchen counter for a few days, price sticker still on it.  I’d look at it and think, “Do I really this?” I mean, it was only $10 but … do I need ANOTHER cooking vessel?  (Brad’s answer – No) But it’s a wok! Shouldn’t every kitchen have one? Sure!  After a couple of days I finally took the sticker off and threw the receipt away.  No turning back now!

I let it sit for a few more days.  I’d stare at it and think, “What am I going to make?”

Yes. I seriously asked that.

I’ve never made fried rice.  I love ordering it.  But I’ve NEVER made it.  So fried rice is the first thing up in the wok.  But not just any fried rice.  I’ve had my eye on this recipe from Rosie the Londoner.  She has a guilt free egg fried “rice” recipe that sounds amazing. And since it’s a new year, might as well be healthy (just to start eating delicious trash later).

Bust out that wok I know you all have tucked behind all of your pots and pans and preheat that sucker.  No oil just yet.

The “rice” is not just rice, though.  Cauliflower, friends.  Cauliflower.  You take that cauliflower and zip it through your food processor with the grate attachment.  Chop up some onions and garlic as well (but don’t mix them together).

Once the wok is hot, drizzle some oil (not olive oil, something with a higher smoking point so you don’t fill your kitchen with burn) down the sides of the wok and toss in your onions and garlic.  Cook for a few minutes or until they start smelling delish.

Toss in your shrimp if they’re raw.  If they’re cooked, skip this step and add them in last to warm them up.  Cook your shrimpies until just cooked – they’ll stay in the pan so you don’t want to over cook them.

Dump in your “rice” and stir, stir, stir! After a few minutes, drizzle in some soy sauce and continue to stir.

I also added in a little bit of rice vinegar. Once everything is incorporated, make a little well in the center of your wok and crack an egg.

Let the egg cook a little bit until the white starts to set and then break the yolk.  Stir that around a little bit and then stir the whole thing again. Once the egg is cooked, remove from heat and serve.  That’s it! So simple!

It doesn’t look glamorous but man is it tasty.  And not bad for you at all.  Serve it with some sweet chili sauce or sriracha, depending on how you like your heat.  Don’t forget the cilantro! Because that makes anything delicious.  Experiment with your proteins.  Chicken, steak, tofu.  Add more veggies – snow peas, shredded carrots, peppers.  You really can’t go wrong with this basic fried “rice” recipe.

Now I want to stir fry EVERYTHING.  This wok is fun!