With a candy thermometer

My candy thermometer and I have made a breakthrough! We've climbed to dizzying new heights of deliciousness in the field of candied mixed nuts. I'm doing a happy dance of elation in the living room right now. Really. This moment.

What did it take to change my recipe for salty-sticky Cracker Jack Peanuts into a crunchy-sweet cocktail of snack heaven? A few drops cinnamon leaf oil, more kosher salt, and stirring for another minute or two. Easy peasy.

It's an avalanche of delicious!

Don't get me wrong; my first attempt to make these nuts went well. The original recipe, which I found via Jeannette at everybodylikessandwiches, promised to envelop the peanuts in a sticky/sandy coating of candy goodness. However, I was so 'skeered of scorching the peanuts that I removed them from the stove much too early. My coating wound up soft, almost chewy, like brown sugar candy. If only I'd known what deliciousness was possible with more patience.

When you've been stirring for 8 to 10 minutes and a dark brown syrup begins to pool at the bottom of the saucepan, stay the course! Don't stop stirring until the candy coating looks sandy and dry. Remove the nuts from the heat, toss in kosher salt and another dash of cinnamon, and you've got some snacks that can't be beat.

By adding both cinnamon oil and ground cinnamon, the spiced flavor is locked into every bite. These taste just like those cones of roasted, candied almonds you'd buy from a street vendor in New York or at a county fair. I should have packed another jar for my flight to Cleveland last week...


New and Improved! Candied Mixed Nuts
makes 3 cups

• 1 cup roasted peanuts
• 1 cup roasted/salted cashew halves
• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1 1/2 cups unrefined cane sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 5 Tb. water
  
• 4 - 5 drops cinnamon leaf oil
• 2 - 3 drops red food dye
• 2 Tb. ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp. kosher salt

In a large saucepan, stir together peanuts, almonds, cashews, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract, dye and water. Heat everything over medium-high heat until everything looks sandy, about 8 to 10 minutes. The temperature of the peanut goop should reach near 220 degrees, if you've got a candy thermometer handy. Take heart and keep stirring.

Soon, you will have a dark golden pool of liquid forming below the peanuts. This is good! Once the peanuts have reached a nice golden-red color, remove them from heat and turn the peanuts out onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle the cinnamon and salt onto the peanuts, stirring everything around a little until the peanuts are in a single layer. Let the nuts cool, then store in an air-tight container for up to two weeks. Like they'll last that long.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Sweet & Spicy Curried Nut Mix
Cracker Jack Peanuts
Tree's Granola

Oh, fudge

The kitchen and I spent some quality time together today.

I rolled out of bed this morning just itching to stretch my legs with a walk, perhaps to new Gaia Java** down the street. I looked out the bedroom window. Instead of finding sunshine, gray clouds belched rain everywhere. So I cozied up in the kitchen.

We shared the afternoon with my Pete Seeger records and two dozing kitties, and I think the time was well spent. I managed to cook a casserole, some candied nuts, and cranberry-walnut fudge before the storm knocked out our electricity for a few hours. Springtime in Portland!


Until recently, I thought all fudge tasted like those giant, sugary chunks of candy sold in small-town florist shops. Did your hometown flower/ gift shop have a case of truffles and fudge by the front counter? Somewhere near the displays of greeting cards and Yankee Candles? I remember those cases often touted exotic fudge varieties like walnut, peanut butter, maple or mint-chocolate swirl.

A kind lady behind the counter would offer me a sample. Why yes! I will try a piece of the German Chocolate! I'd pop the sample in my mouth, expecting a dense flavor blast of chocolate and coconut. Instead, the sugary brick dissolved on my tongue like chocolate-flavored sand. Yuck.

My friend Brianna recently gave me a stack of old Light & Tasty magazines to browse. I've been marking them full of stick notes all weekend. Taste of Home, a magazine I remember to which my mother subscribed, also published Light & Tasty. Reader-submitted recipes fill each magazine. Plus, the cooks offer delightful, endearing comments on each dish. A favorite: "We often take them (cranberry turkey wraps) to the local stock show and eat them in the stands!"

That's where I found this cranberry-walnut fudge. If you like chewy fudge, the kind that the word "fudgey" is meant to describe, this is your recipe. Delia of Deer Park, Washington, submitted it to Light & Tasty. She says that though the fudge seems decadent, each bite is filled with tons of "fabulous, guilt-free flavor."


Cranberry-walnut fudge
from the 2007 December/January edition of Light & Tasty
makes 1 1/3 pounds

• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup or agave nectar
  
• 1/4 cup low-fat evaporated milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries

Line a 9" square pan with foil. Coat the foil with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

Combine chocolate chips and the syrup in a heavy saucepan. Melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring often until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove the saucepan from heat and stir in the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Beat with a wooden spoon until thickened and glossy, about five minutes.

Stir in the cranberries and walnuts. Spread the fudge into the prepared pan, decorating the top with a few more cranberries, if desired. Refrigerate until firm, about an hour.

Use the foil to lift the fudge from the pan. For easy, tear-free cutting, fill a tall glass with hot water and set a sharp knife in the glass. Cut the fudge into 1" squared with the knife. Rinse the knife in the hot water between each cut. Store the fudge in an air-tight container in the fridge.

If you liked this recipe, you might also enjoy:

Chocolate champagne truffles
Midnight brownies
Thinish Mint Cookies

**In SW Portland gossip, the shadowy café has closed! Gaia Java has taken its place. It's a much more welcoming shop.

Can it: indigo jam in the interim

Hello from a brand-new apartment! In pursuit of great rent, my husband and I packed our tiny home and moved...one block away from our old digs. We're now happy residents of The Barbur Fiefdom. Or The Infinite Wilderness of Barbur Woods. We haven't settled on our place's new nickname just yet.

Did you know that it is as annoying to move one block as it is to move across town? I know that now. Thank goodness Raymond and I own a truck and are blessed with kind neighbors who helped with the heavy furniture. (Seriously, Brian. You are a hero for helping move our 90s projection-screen TV. We owe you popcorn chicken.)

Now that I've discovered the clever place where I hid the camera for "safe-keeping," I'll begin taking photos of our new home. You'll love the kitchen. There's a window right next to the stove which I hope will illuminate future blog posts with real, honest-to-goodness sunlight. Sunlight!

Taken on our patio last summer. Remember summer?

In the interim, I'd like to share some indigo jam with you. It's a hybrid of blueberry jam and grape jelly, keeping grape's juicy flavor and blueberry's silken texture while abandoning seeds and that jiggly jam texture I find annoying. While tinkering with the recipe, I threw in some summer blackberries to deepen the flavors and cinnamon to give a faint spiced scent.

So far, I've given away three jars of this jam and received three stellar reviews from the recipients. Erin says the cinnamon reminded her of Christmas. Luci says it tasted "great." I think Indigo Jam tastes like the color indigo might. But Amanda captured its effect the best: "Indigo Jam is the shit."

We're down to one jar in the pantry. Must. Make. More....now.

Indigo Jam
makes about 6 1/2-pint jars

• 2 1/2 cups champagne grapes (or another small, tart variety), washed and removed from the stem
• 2 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries, washed
• 1 cup blackberries, washed
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups cane sugar
• juice of 1 lemon
  
• 1 cup water or dry champagne
  
• 1 packet fruit pectin gelling powder
• 2 - 3 Tb. ground cinnamon

Some beginning notes:

If you plan to can the jam after making it, as I did, you'll want to read a guide on how to do it properly. I always find canning/preserving wisdom over at pickyourown.org. Before I even prepped the fruit, I sterilized my canning jars and rings in the dishwasher and set a half-filled stock pot of water to boil on the stove top. You can also sterilize canning jars by boiling in hot water for 10 minutes.

You can also do what I call "fridge canning," or storing the jam in sterilized jars in the fridge. Because the jam has not been boiled and processed in a sealed canning jar, you'll have to keep it in the fridge (or freezer) to preserve it. I think it's easiest to prep for canning while you're cooking the jam; after a quick hot water bath for canning, the jam's finished and preserved.

Prepare the jam:
Wash all of the fruit and strain excess water through a colander. Pick out any stem pieces, wrinkled or mushy fruit. Pour the grapes, blueberries, and blackberries into a large cooking pot. Cook over medium heat until the blueberries and grapes start to burst and break down.

Remove the fruit from heat and (carefully) mash the heck out of it with a potato masher. Strain the thick, pulpy fruit mess through a mesh-wire strainer and into a large bowl. I used the back of a large spoon to get the fruit pulp and skin through but leave the seeds behind. Work in small batches until all of the fruit is strained and the bitter grape seeds are filtered out. (It's OK to leave the blackberry seeds. They give the jam more character.) Return the fruit mash to the cooking pot and stir in lemon juice, cinnamon and water/champagne.

Put a spoon in a small measuring cup filled with cold water. Place the measuring cup in the fridge.

Mix together 1/4 cup sugar with the pectin packet. Stir this into the fruit mash and bring everything to a full, rolling boil on the stove. Stir in the rest of the sugar and bring the jam back to a rolling boil for one full minute.

Remember that spoon? Test the jam's "done-ness" by scooping a 1/2 spoonful of jam into the spoon. Let it cool to room temperature. If the jam is firm enough for your liking, great. If not, add another spoon-full of pectin to the jam and bring it back to a boil. Repeat until your jam is jiggly, not tough or runny.

Fill each jam jar to within a 1/4" of the top. Wipe up any jam spills, place a lid on top and tighten the jar ring. You're ready to a) refrigerate this jam or b) heat process it!

If you're processing them....

Place the jars in that stock pot of hot water at least 1" apart. Make sure they're submerged beneath at least 2" of water. Let them sit in the boiling water bath for 5 - 7 minutes. Carefully remove each jar with a pair of canning tongs and let it sit, without touching or bumping another jar, on a counter at room temperature until the lid seal "pops" flat. This could take as little as an hour or overnight. If, after a night, the lid pops back up, you can call that jar "fridge jam" or reprocess the jam in a clean jar with a new lid seal.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Candied citrus slices
Drunken berry cobbler
Strawberry-rhubarb tart