real life foodie adventures

Considering that, by the time this entry posts, I’ll be on the road somewhere between North Carolina and Arkansas, and that the whole goal of the last two to three weeks has been to eliminate items from my kitchen rather than add to them… I just couldn’t bring myself to go buy the things that I needed in order to participate in this month’s Daring Baker Challenge. Not only that, but I didn’t tackle the recipe at the beginning of the month like I should have - and next thing I knew, time had run out on me.

Alas, no Opera Cake for me. This is what I get for procrastinating. You’d think I’d learn, wouldn’t you?

The good news is that there are plenty of other awesome DB’ers out there who have made absolutely beautiful Opera Cakes (I know, because I’ve seen many a beautiful “sneak peek” photo come across our forum) - so get out there and look around!

Now… as a consolation prize, I give you my first successful attempt at caramels. You’ll remember that my first attempt didn’t yield a firm final product, but instead, an amazing caramel sauce.

But, since I still had enough heavy cream to give a second batch a try, I pulled out the other caramel recipe I’d been holding on to and gave it a shot. And, as with every Heidi Swanson recipe I’ve tried, it came out beautifully. The flavor combination of honey and espresso was absolutely amazing.

Oh… and? Just a tip. Once you’ve piled all of your caramels up to take a photo of them? Go ahead and unpile them… wrap them up individually, lay them out flat and separate them with parchment paper, do whatever… but don’t leave them piled up like that and throw them in the fridge promising yourself that you’ll get back to them in just a little while - they fuse to each other and you’ll have to chisel them apart. (NOT that I would know or anything.)

*The next few entries will be auto-posted while I make the transition to a new state, new job, and new life. Please forgive the lack of replies to comments and bear with me until I can get settled in.

Espresso Caramels
(adapted from 101 Cookbooks)
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup honey

In a medium, thick-bottomed saucepan heat the cream, butter, espresso powder, and salt until tiny bubbles start forming where the milk touches the pan - just before a simmer. Stir in the honey. Bring the mixture to a boil. Now reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for about 15-20 minutes minutes or until the mixture reaches 260F degrees - hard ball stage. Remove from heat.

Pour the caramel out on a slab or parchment-lined pan, let it cool completely before cutting into small pieces. Wrap & twist in parchment paper.

In either case keep the caramels in a cool place (or refrigerate) until completely set.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen nut caramels, or a couple dozen individual caramels (depending on the size).

Well… the house is almost packed - just a couple of closets and half the kitchen remain. Only a few more days until I hit the road, leaving my husband here to wrap things up, and turning the page to a new chapter in our life. Scary… exciting… hectic…

And, in the meantime, we continue to try to clear out the perishable items from the kitchen. I’d like to tell you that I’ve been all sorts of industrious… cooking up all kinds of dinners and whatnot. But, in actuality, we’ve been eating a lot of take out and, when I do get into the kitchen, it’s mostly to bring a little sweet relief into our lives.

I had some heavy cream hanging out in the fridge. Always the last one to the game, I decided I wanted to make caramels which, you may remember, was ALL the rage last Christmas. Yes… six months ago. Like I said, last one to the game.

My first attempt seemed to go well. Until, that is, my beautiful caramel didn’t set up properly. I tried coaxing it along by putting it into the fridge. Still liquidy. In retrospect, I suspect it was a temperature issue (and totally my fault). But, in the moment, I was pretty disappointed. After all, I had such plans!

But, this was not a failure. In fact, it was quite the happy accident. Seconds before I was ready to pour my liquid caramel back into the pan to try to heat it up to the correct temperature, I realized that my not-so-set-up-caramels were, instead, the tastiest caramel sauce I’d ever tasted. This stuff was just begging to be poured over something ooey gooey chocolatey. So, into the pantry I went… for my canister of Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate.

My brilliant solution? Brownies smothered in caramel sauce.

Lordy these were awesome.

The brownie recipe is from the back of the Ghirardelli can… and I promise you it doesn’t disappoint. The caramel (errr… caramel sauce) came from a recipe I found over at Dessert First. I’m sure the fact that the caramels didn’t set up was due to some error of my own because I’ve seen the recipe replicated on a few other food blogs. No worries, though… no matter which way you do it, you won’t be dissappointed!

Ghirardelli Award Winning Brownies
(slightly adapted)
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate
2/3 cup unsifted flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Using a spoon, stir eggs with sugar and vanilla; add butter. Mix in ground chocolate, flour, baking powder, and salt. Spread into a greased 8″ square pan. Bake 20-30 minutes, to desired consistency. Cool to room temp or refrigerate before cutting into squares.

Honey & Sea Salt Caramel Sauce
Adapted from Dessert First
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup honey
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

In a large saucepan (use at least a 3 quart saucepan, as the boiling caramel will increase in volume), combine the corn syrup, honey, sugar, and sea salt, and bring to a boil. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the cream in a small saucepan and warm on the stove until it is just at a simmer. Turn off the heat and cover the saucepan to keep the cream warm (you do not want to add cold cream to the hot caramel or it will seize up and harden.)

When the caramel has cooked for the allotted time, take it off the heat and add in the butter, stirring until it is melted and combined.

Add in the cream slowly - when you pour it in it will bubble up violently, so don’t add the cream all at once or it might overflow. When you have added all the cream, stir the mixture until combined.

Return the saucepan to the stove and cook on medium heat for another 3 minutes or so.

Pour the caramel into a heatproof container. Cool completely before slathering over your favorite brownie, ice cream, or cake.

Oh, wait… you’ve been wondering that, too, haven’t you?

Sorry for the abundance of radio silence lately, folks. Just when I thought life couldn’t get much more hectic… it did. The next 30-60 days are going to be positively insane. But, all for a good reason! We’ll be packing up and relocating to the Midwest!

We’re excited for the change of scenery, the change of pace, the change of jobs… leaving us generally excited even if we’re also positively overwhelmed with all that needs to be done between now and then (and we’re still not even sure when “then” is!).

Of course, along with an interstate move comes the need to begin clearing out all of the perishable items from the kitchen. There’s a fridge and freezer full of goods that just can’t make the trip with us. And so begins some really creative cooking! Stay tuned for other crazy and creative concoctions focused primarily on clearing out what’s already lingering in our kitchen without having to buy too many additional items to clutter up a kitchen that we’re supposed to be cleaning out.

So… here’s how it starts. There’s one lonely ball of pizza dough in the freezer. There’s a stray jar of giardiniera in the pantry. And there’s a half-used jar of pepperoncini in the fridge. I don’t know about you, but this screams muffaletta pizza to me! Throw in some green olives from my husband’s eternal refrigerator stash and cheese and deli meats that can be used later in the week for sandwiches and we’ve got what I call a winning combination! (By the way, I encourage you to take all sort of liberties with this one… use as much or as little of each of the elements as makes you happy and… if you’re unable to find some of the meats in your local grocery store, switch it up with regular salami, ham, or canadian bacon.)

Muffaletta Pizza
pizza dough (either homemade or storebought - pre-cooked should work fine, too)
2 cloves garlic
1 16 ounce jar giardiniera, drained
1/2 cup green olives, drained
1/2 cup pepperoncini, drained
6-8 slices capocollo ham
6-8 slices sopressata
6-8  slices provolone cheese
1/3 small red onion
olive oil

Place a pizza stone in your cold oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees F or according to your favorite recipe/package directions.

While the oven preheats, finely mince the garlic. Coarsely chop the giardiniera, olives, and pepperoncini. Thinly slice the onion and separate into rings. Set it all aside.

If using fresh pizza dough…when oven and pizza stone have pre-heated, press out dough, sprinkle stone lightly with cornmeal and slide on pizza dough. Cook for 5-6 minutes until crust is mostly cooked. Remove from oven.

If using pre-cooked dough… proceed directly to next step.

Drizzle crust with olive oil. Layer on garlic, meats, giardiniera, olives, pepperoncini, and red onion. Cover with provolone slices.

Return pizza to oven to cook until cheese is melted, bubbly and brown - another 7 or so minutes.