Green Tomato Chutney, a la BBC

Today was a super busy, but fulfilling day.  I started out having coffee with one of my neat-o cousins. She is in from out of town to spend time with her mom who is in the hospital.  We had a short visit, but it was lovely seeing her again!!

Next on the docket was raking leaves at a house where the lady was bed-ridden.  We have an annual event here in town called "Rake Up Boise" and Cody's class raked leaves for their November community service project.  It was fun, but hard work.  I LOVED the yard that we raked.  It was jam packed full of herbs, flowers, bushes, roses and ivy.  It reminded me a lot of English country gardens.

Then it was to the hospital to visit my Auntie who is recovering from an infection.  If you would keep her in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate and I know she would as well!  It was good to visit with her and another Aunt who had driven to town with my Uncle for a visit.

After stopping at Hancock's to purchase two Simplicity patterns that were $0.99 then to JoAnn's for some black hem tape, it was to home for making what I have affectionately dubbed "Cheese and Cracker Crack".  I blame my addiction to this glorious concoction on my fabulous friend Sarah Sargeant.  It is over the top aaaaaawesome!!!  

THE RECIPE:

BBC Green Tomato Chutney

Here are the changes made from the recipe as some of the things are a wee bit different here (according to Sarah)...

Dark brown sugar in place of muscovado sugar

Apple Cider vinegar with 2 tsp allspice in place of spiced pickling vinegar

Dark raisins in place of sultanas (or golden raisins which over here are sultanas)

Granny Smith apples in place of cooking apples

I also chopped the tomatoes instead of slicing them 

I ended up simmering the stuff for over 1 hour (about 90 minutes in all) and, because I have been filled with the fear of botulism (thank you USDA) I did a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

This stuff is so very addicting.  Yes, you can eat it right away, but it gets better with age.  Pair it with an extra sharp cheddar and water crackers for a most delicious treat!!  I am positive it would be delightful with an afternoon tea!!

The chutney cooks up dark and gets darker as it ages.

Oh my deliciousness!!  Cody, Colton and I devoured a half pint in minutes!!!  One really should take time to savor this treat, but the addiction is just too much!

Mmmmmmmmm....

And for cute's sake...

Kitty pictures!!

This is S'mores.  She is a wee little thing, found weeks ago at a job site on a burn pile.  The people who found her believe that Mama was killed and S'mores was left to find food for herself.  The people who have her have totally and completely spoiled her!  And with that sweet face, who can blame them?

A kitty selfie!  She was so funny watching herself on my phone!

I love this picture of her in the hood of her owner's hoodie.  That is where she stayed (or on his shoulder or up his sleeve) until someone swiped her away for some kitty time!!

I hope you had a most wonderful day and if you decide to make this chutney, you won't be disappointed!!

Blessings!

g

Christmas Season Macarons!

I really must apologize for writing so many posts on my new passion...French Macarons.  But as I said in previous posts, once my OCD bug bites me, it is hard to get over the itch.  To that end, yesterday and today I spent trying out two new recipes.  On Saturday, my Mama is co-hostessing a Christmas Tea at her house and I have volunteered to make some macs for her get together.

Three flavors that I associate with Christmas and Yule Time are Candy Canes, Hot Cocoa, and Eggnog.  Mmmmmm.....

Sitting by a fire, wrapped up in a blanket, reading a nice book and sipping hot chocolate with a candy cane in it while the snow falls gently to the ground is such a lovely image for me!  Therefore, I was ecstatic when I came across this on the internet...

Chocolate Macaron Recipe from The Messy Cook.  I followed the recipe pretty closely, the only deviation being adding a lot of powdered sugar to the filling as it was too runny.  I rolled them in crushed candy cane and took a bite!  

At my taste bud's first encounter, there was a most fabulous burst of peppermint party followed closely by a wonderful, velvety, chocolate, concoction oozing out from between the perfectly crunchy/chewy combination from the shell!  My tongue was under the impression that it had died and gone to pastry heaven and it did not care to return to normalcy!  Needless to say, I will be making this recipe many, many times.

For cuteness, I used the top cover of an antique Christmas Tree Topper to hold the chocolate macs.  What a fun way to package some for a gift!

These pictures were taken at 11:30 last night.  Yes, I actually went to the garage, dug out my Christmas dishes and brought them in for this photo shoot...oh ya...and I made hot cocoa!  Then drank it...

These are so incredibly beyond delicious!!!

Eggnog.  I wait all year for fall to arrive because it brings with it crisp air, beautiful leaves, cooler evenings, pumpkins, apples, canning, Halloween....

and

Eggnog!!!!

Oh I know I can make my own, but it just doesn't taste as good as the store bought stuff.  I usually have to hide it in the fridge or my children will drink the whole carton!!!  So, I was seriously thrilled when I found a recipe for Eggnog macs!!

South Beach has this recipe: Eggnog French Macarons

I made them today and the filling tastes like solid eggnog!!  Seriously!!!  Again, my tongue felt like it had died and gone to heaven!  I could not believe it!  It may have something to do with the fact that the recipe calls for actual eggnog in the ingredients list and nutmeg too.

Eggnog in a glass and Eggnog in a cookie!!  What more could you ask for?

It was a fun change sprinkling nutmet on top of the damp shells!

Mmmmmm....

Last year my Mama bought this reproduction candy tin for me.  I thought it would be fun to put the macs in it and take their picture!!

Wouldn't something like this make a fun gift for a teacher, neighbor or friend!!

Well, I hope if any of you plan on attempting these delicious cookies, try these recipes!  I believe you will not be sorry!!!

Blessings!

g

Blackberry Macarons!

Well, there is something to be said for my OCD...I usually don't rest until I get whatever I am working on right.  This included my making of French Macarons.  Out of the 4 batches Cody and I made Wednesday evening, only 50% of those cookies turned out remotely looking like they should.  Soooooo.....I came home after Thanksgiving dinner last night and did more research.  I learned some things that I am going to be sharing with those of you who wish to make these as well!

Today I made Blackberry Macarons.

As I felt that there would be no recipes for blackberry macs (I have chosen to shorten the word Macaron as I am rather lazy when it comes to writing....) so I googled raspberry macs and found this recipe...

The Cottage Diaries

I used the recipe for the cookies that I used for the Pumpkin Macs but omitted the pumpkin spice for these.

I totally forgot to photograph my meringue step, and for that I apologize (I made some chocolate macarons this evening, Sunday night, and was able to take pics of the meringue...) because the stiffness of the meringue is very important.  As Stephanie from The Joy of Baking demonstrates, after you have whipped the eggs and sugar to what you think is thick, take the whisk attachment off, stir the meringue and then pull it straight up.  If the tip of the meringue stands straight up, you have reached full stiffness.  If it flops over, keep whisking!

See that peak on the top of the meringue?  It is slightly bent over...this is not what you want...

Take the whisk attachment off of the Kitchenaid or whatever you are using, and use it to stir the meringue...then dip it straight up and down into the meringue and pull it out...

If your meringue looks like this, with the peak straight up and down, your meringue is ready!!

For these, I chose to dye the batter purple, totally forgetting that blackberries are not actually purple but a bright red...grrrrrr...actually the end product turned out ok as the contrast between the cookie and filling was quite lovely!

After you have folded your almond/sugar mixture into the mirangue and the batter falls smoothly off your spatula in a nice uninterrupted ribbon, spoon a little dallop of the batter onto a plate.  If it stays "puffy" like above and does not spread a bit,  you need to fold it a little more.  (I learned this little trick from Katherine from The Fashionble Past...)

After a few more folds, re-spoon a dallop of batter.  If it spreads out a bit like above, it is time to fill your pastry bag and start piping!!!

To avoid leakage while filling your pastry bag, twist the bag where it meets the tip and tuck it down into the tip.  This helped greatly.

My handy assistant from Wednesday was not around to hold my bag while I filled it today, so I improvised and stuck it in one of my tall glasses...excellent hands free holding!

I had my son use his compass to draw me some circles on a sheet of parchment.  They are a little over 1" in diameter.  I used this as a guide under the parchment.  Both of the videos I watched on making these cookies suggested this and let me tell you it helped!!!  The knives are there to hold down the parchment that is over the guide, it tends to curl.

Ok, a tip on the "resting" time.  See above how shiny the batter is?  These are freshly piped macs.

After resting 45 minutes (at my house...remember, different places will have different temps and humidity), the macs are now matte, not glossy.  It is time to put them in the oven!

I poked the side of one of the macs to show you how crusty the top of the cookie needs to be.  (Another tip from Stephanie of The Joy of Cooking!)

Huzzah!  Here we have a full tray of non cracked macs!!!  See those lovely legs!  This is what I so wanted to see!  I literally sat on the floor in front of the oven watching the cookies to make sure they didn't crack!

I discovered something today.  The first batch, I put two sheets of macs in the oven.  The macs from the top rack ended up not cooking totally on the bottom and ended up looking like the mac on the right.  The mac on the left was on the cookie sheet on the bottom rack.  This is what the mac needs to look like.  Note to self...one sheet of macs in the oven at a time!!!

Another thing I learned...the top cookie sheet produced a browned mac like the one on the right.  The one on the left was from the cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven.  The next batch, I only used one cookie sheet on the bottom rack and put an empty cookie sheet on the rack above.  For some reason, it protected the macs on the bottom from browning...most interesting.  I will be doing that from now on!

I hope my hints will help any of you who decide to make these fabulous macarons!!

Time for tea and macarons!

Blessings!

g

My First Attempt at Making French Macarons

Hello lovelies!  I hope that all of my American friends had a most blessed Thanksgiving today!  I had a very wonderful day with my family whom I am so very thankful for!  

I have decided that instead of making another blog for my various baking, cooking and canning adventures that I will, on occasion, share a recipe here!  I actually have three other blogs that I am horrible at keeping up!  So, I'm not going to add another blog to my list of failed blogs.  

For my first entry, I will share my French Macaron adventure!  I blame this adventure on three things:

1.  Katherine Caron-Greig from The Fashionable Past.  She was posting these pictures of macarons that she had been making to Facebook.  Every new post of these fabulous cookies caused me to be more excited than the last post!  I was so very inspired by her as she is a seamstress as well and she could do it!

2.  My Daddy is on a gluten free diet now and I wanted him to be able to enjoy a desert on Thanksgiving.  I chose Pumpkin Macarons so that he could have at least some semblance of pumpking pie on this day!

3.  My cheapness thriftiness..I have had macarons in the past at a pastry shop and paid $1.75 for one...and they didn't even tast that good.  But I love the looks of them!  There's just something very old fashioned about them that makes my Victorian heart happy!  If I can perfect the process, I am so going to be making them!!

So, I began researching Macarons on the internet.  I found some wonderful videos that really helped me out...

Beth's Foolprool French Macaron Recipe

Joy of Baking French Macaron Recipe

These helped me to understand visually how to go about making these cookies.  Then I searched for a recipe that I could make.

Pumpkin French Macarons

I did substitute pumpkin puree for the pumpkin butter and I had no oranges so I didn't add the orange zest.

Macaron Batter piped onto parchment papered cookie sheets resting for 30 minutes

I was very anxious to make these as I had heard how very finicky they can be.  It is a sort of exact science.  My son, Cody ran the meringue part of the process while I ran the dry ingredient part.

Here you can see that most of my cookies cracked.  This, according to the videos, is because I under folded the ingredients.

Cody and I spent 5 hours making 4 batches of cookies.  About half of those cookies turned out good enough to be called Macarons!  You can bet that I will be working a lot on these to get the the way they should look!

Our last batch.  Almost all of our cookies were perfect!!  Success!

Our finished Macarons!  They look perfect and tasted divine!  Just like a pumpkin pie!

 After putting together the last French Macaron cookie, I was filled with a most ridiculous sense of accomplishment!  Like I had just made Macarons for the Queen of England.  Funny, I know, but these little things are so finicky and hard to make that to actually have a bit of success was a bit heady!  I have started a Pinterest page full of different flavors....I can't wait to try one where I can use the blackberries I picked on my parent's farm this fall!  Mmmmm....

Be blessed my friends!  And Happy Thanksgiving!

g