Almond biscotti

Here's a recipe that I've made a few times already this year and didn't write it up until now. Good for snacking, potlucks, gift giving, etc. Not that healthy but better than what you can buy at the store.

The Foodening Blog - almond biscotti ready for eating

Ingredients

4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 c raw almonds (or unsalted roasted almonds)
4 eggs
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. organic cane sugar
1 c. unrefined coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp almond extract

Directions

1. Reserve 1/2 c flour. Sift dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, salt).

2. Whisk eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, sugar together

3. In skillet, toast raw almonds until the almonds have changed color (darker brown) but not so long that the almonds burn. Skip this step if using pre-roasted almonds.

4. Coarsely chop almonds and combine with 1/2 c. flour. Stir to combine.

5. On a normal day, the coconut oil will be solid. Heat the coconut oil in a small pan over low-medium heat until melted. Let cool to room temperature before adding to the dough.

6. Mix everything together.

Shaping and baking. The dough will spread somewhat during its first bake session, leave at least two inches between bars of dough. This is ok. After the first bake, simply use a sharp edged knife or pastry knife to separate the logs.

The Foodening Blog - biscotti dough after the first bake

Bake at 340 F for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven. Slice loaves diagonally into 3/4" to 1" pieces. Then place cut side up onto the baking tray.

Bake at 330 F for 10-15 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned.

A note on the coconut oil: Using unrefined coconut oil passes a coconut flavor to the cookies.

Crockpot: Smoked Ham Split Pea Soup

In today's age of healthier cuts of meat, finding smoked pork hocks at the grocery store is hard. Check with the butcher or at the meat counter of your local grocery store. The smoked pork is probably with the other frozen meat. One smoked hock is enough for a 3-qt batch of split pea soup. I picked up a frozen package of three smoked hocks from my local grocery store.

When rinsing the split peas, don't let them sit around and dry out in the colander. They'll stick together as one mass and you'll have to pry them off. Also, traditional pea soup has onions in it. If you can eat onions, add a diced yellow onion to the recipe. The salt in the broth or smoked meat should be enough for the batch of soup.

Ingredients

1.5 quarts chicken/vegetable/pork broth
1 lb or 2 cups of dried split green peas
1 smoked ham bone or smoked hock
3 organic carrots, diced
3 organic celery ribs, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Cook covered for 6 hours on LOW. Remove ham bone from the pot. The meat should come easily off the bone. Add the meat back to the pot. Discard the bone. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Easy Meatballs (for spaghetti)

If you don't like to get your hands dirty, this recipe is not for you. The binders in this recipe are bread crumbs, milk, and egg. If you are gluten-free or vegan, this recipe really isn't for you either. I don't have and am not willing to create a vegan "meat" ball recipe. Get your inner carnivore on because we're going to play with meat in this recipe.

I have seen all sorts of meat ratios for this recipe. Sure, you could probably combine equal amounts of ground pork and ground beef, heck toss in some lamb or veal as well; but by then the cost of the meat will exceed your entire spaghetti recipe and that's not good for anyone's food budget.

Note to future self: use lean ground beef. I used 80% meat/20% fat ground beef for this attempt, and well, the meatballs exuded a lot of oil when cooking. 

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef (93% lean should work)
1/2 c milk
1/2 c fine breadcrumbs
1/2 c Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 c fresh Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
1 large egg
1 tsp salt
1 garlic clove, minced
freshly ground black pepper

Easiest way is to add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix by hand. Stirring it together with a fork will only get you so far.

Use a tablespoon to scoop out some of the meat and form it into a ball with your hands. Set it on a plate and repeat until the plate is full.

Directions - in sauce

If you have just made a pot of spaghetti sauce, transfer some of the sauce sans meat to a skillet and add the meatballs in a single layer. Cook for about 20 minutes then transfer everything back to the pot that has the spaghetti sauce and simmer for an additional 10 minutes or so.

Directions - oven baked 

Preheat oven to 400F.

On a lipped baking tray, arrange meat balls in a single layer and bake for 25-30 minutes. Check on the meatballs to make sure they don't burn. If they burn, none of them will come off the tray without a spatula scraping them off.

Chuck all the cooked meat balls into the spaghetti sauce. Or set onto paper towels to drain the oil. Can also store these into a quart-size bag and freeze for later.

Yes, I really did two batches of meatballs, one cooked in a sauce and baked the other, then tossed both batches into the already-completed spaghetti sauce.

Coffee Liqueur

The difference between a liquor (e.g., vodka) and a liqueur, is that the latter is back-sweetened with fruit or sugar to bring the sugar content up to a minimum of 2.5% and the former is just a distilled beverage. That's the idea anyways. You should probably use a coffee bean of a coffee you really enjoy. This batch uses Stumptown's house blend whole bean coffee. It's recommended for extracts that 100% proof vodka be used, but I am using Kirkland vodka (80% proof) because that's all I have on hand. You can get 1-liter flip-top bottles from Bed Bath & Beyond or similar stores.

Day 1

Ingredients

2 c vodka
1/2 c ground coffee
1-2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean split in half

Grind enough coffee beans for 1/2 c ground coffee. In a large jar, combine coffee, 2 c vodka, and 1-2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 whole vanilla bean sliced in half). Secure lid on jar and refrigerate for 24 hours, shaking the jar occasionally.

Day 2

Ingredients

2 c brown sugar
4 c filtered water

Make the brown sugar syrup.

In a 2-quart pot, combine 2 c brown sugar and 4 c water. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the volume has reduced by half.

As the syrup cools, it'll thicken.

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Use a coffee filter to strain the infused vodka from the ground coffee. Compost the leftover coffee. Set aside. I used two filters for this step. A gold filter and a paper coffee filter set inside the gold filter.

Into a clean, sterilized bottle, fill with cooled brown sugar syrup and coffee-infused vodka.

Shake to combine.

Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Lemongrass Tea

The last time I saw someone get a gift of Adagio lemongrass tea, I thought that $12/8oz  + shipping is a lot to pay for something you can make yourself. Lemongrass tea is just the chopped up, dried form of the plant. It takes about a week (during autumn/winter) to dry at room temperature on trays. The fresh stalks are typically sold fresh in Asian grocery stores or supermarkets that also carry Asian cuisine ingredients. A bundle of 3-4 lemongrass stalks will cost about $1.60-$3.00, depending in where you shop.

The seafood market (ABC Seafood) in Portland is where I last picked up this culinary herb.  It is typically used to make the lemony part of Tom Yun soup (a hot & sour soup originating from Thailand/Laos). 

After processing the lemongrass stalks, it would be better to make the tea while the stalks are fresh rather than when they are dried if you want a more lemony taste to the tea. A hot cup of tea made from the dried, cut stalks tastes a lot like water that has been mixed with a light lemon essence. But, if a non-citrus lemony tea is what you want to relax with, lemongrass tea is also non-caffeinated.

TheFoodening Blog: lemongrass stalks, all chopped up
and ready to be dried for tea

After trimming the stalks of the rough, woody root part and the tops, peel off any of its 'leaves' that have dark spots on them. Use a sharp knife or kitchen shears to cut the stalks into 1/2" to 3/4" pieces. Use a sharp knife to quarter (vertically) each piece. This will help the lemongrass dry faster.

Don't try to chop these later in a food processor after they have dried. It does not work.