Category Archives: Recipes

For the Love of Cousins

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I bear witness. There is something about cousins.

Something great.

Something that takes an ordinary, plastic dump truck (now stuffed with a cousin in a cat mask)…

And turns it into a derby…

That empties its customers on the corner.

And then.

Sometimes…a cousin in the back of your truck…

Isn’t just a cousin…in the back of your truck…

But a confidante on the stairs.

A forever-friend.

Which may just be the best thing about cousins.

The freedom to be yourself.

And the security that comes from being loved.

Joyce Sullivan liked this post

Caramel Corn: A Re-mix

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Some of the best caramel corn I’ve ever tasted was in Ketchikan, Alaska this past summer by a little shop that used organic ingredients. The stuff wasn’t made with preservatives to allow it to sit in plastic on a shelf for six weeks, and we took that seriously, chowing our five dollar bag in the span of two blocks.

I don’t have the little shop’s recipe to share. But I have our own, which disappears just as quickly from our counter whenever it’s made.

Most recently, though, I cut back on the ingredients in the caramel coating by 25%. Where I’d originally used 1 cup of brown sugar, I now use 3/4 cup, etc. What I realized when I did this is that NOBODY noticed. Nobody.

Not a soul.

So…it’s this modified recipe that I want to share with you–the one with less sugar and less honey–the one that isn’t compromised in quality or taste because it has less in it–the one that nobody will notice is 25% better for them.

Here’s what we need: an air popper, popcorn, brown sugar, honey, butter, baking soda and vanilla.

For the caramel coating we need butter. Just 6 tablespoons. Which we’ll melt in a sauce pan with…

3/4 cup of brown sugar…

And 3 tablespoons of honey. The honey in this recipe takes the place of corn syrup–and both sweetens the popcorn and allows it to get crunchy after it bakes.

We want to stir our butter, brown sugar and honey occasionally, but while it’s melting…

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We’ve got our air popper plugged in with 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels…

And we’ve set our oven to 300 degrees.

I’ve got a special bowl for popcorn–a bowl with holes–like a sieve. And so while the popcorn blasts out of the popper..

I’ll bang the bottom of the bowl on the counter to get rid of as many of these flaky, miserable popcorn pieces as will come out. If all you have is a regular bowl, still tap it a few times on the counter because what you’re trying to do is get the unpopped kernels and extra flaky pieces to sift themselves to the bottom of the bowl.

Then this is important…we want to transfer our popped corn–in handfuls–from our original bowl to another large bowl…

So that none of this ends up in our final product.

Here’s our butter, brown sugar and honey all melted.

At this point, we want to add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and stir it nonstop…

Until it looks like the foam of a rootbeer float. About a minute or two.

Then we’ll remove it from the heat, add 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla, stir it in…

And pour it over our popcorn.

We want to scrape every last ooze out with a spatula…

And then fold the caramel coating gently under, over and around the whole bowl of popcorn. Over and over…until there’s a little something on every piece.

It’ll look like a lot, but we want to pour the whole bowl of caramel corn onto a cookie sheet and set it on a middle or lower rack in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

When it’s done, it’ll look like this.

And it’ll be gooey.

Which is why we’ll push it onto the counter with a pancake flipper and let it cool for ten minutes. Or five, if it’s all we can stand.

In those ten minutes, the caramel does something sciency and hardens.

And becomes beautiful.

And turns into the treat you can’t just sample.

Enjoy this, friends!

Caramel Corn

Equipment: air popper, 2 large bowls

Ingredients:

12 cups popped corn*

6 Tablespoons butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 Tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon (or less) vanilla

Directions: Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Pop corn in air popper while simultaneously melting butter, brown sugar and honey in a small pan. Transfer popped corn by handfuls into another large bowl, being careful to scoop only popcorn and not dead kernels.

When oven is heated and sugar mixture is melted and boiling along the edges, remove sugar mixture from heat and add baking soda stirring until it ‘foams’. Add vanilla. Stir to combine.

Pour sugar mixture over popped corn, folding and stirring with a spatula until corn is completely coated. Spread onto a baking sheet and bake on a lower rack of the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Cool caramel corn on the counter for ten minutes, allowing it to harden. In those ten minutes, wash pan and cookie sheet in warm water, as they’ll crust to concrete shortly thereafter. Store what caramel corn isn’t devoured in an air-tight container.

*1/2 cup popcorn kernels makes 12 cups popped corn

Kari Morris liked this post

Homemade Mounds/Almond Joy Bars

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Oh, friend…if you like coconut even a smidge, then you know that something divine happens when coconut gets sweetened and then bathed in dark chocolate.

The heavens open up and sing. GLOOOORRRY!

When we gave up store bought candy and stuff in wrappers years ago, I didn’t stop loving the taste of coconut and chocolate. I just resigned myself that since it only came in a candy bar, I was better off without it.

Two months ago, I found Carrie Vitt’s website, Deliciously Organic, and on it her recipe for homemade Almond Joy candy bars. I could hardly stand it. And I had to–at that moment–grab two kids and hunt down unsweetened coconut at the nearest store. What I love about Carrie’s recipe is that it’s simple–mix this with that, then dump on this. It’s pure–it has four ingredients.

And it’s fantastic.

You don’t need much. Just these: unsweetened coconut, organic maple syrup, organic coconut oil, DARK chocolate and the optional almonds.

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First thing…we need 2 cups of unsweetened coconut poured it into our food processor.

If you’ve ever tasted unsweetened coconut, you’ve probably not mentioned it. It doesn’t taste like much–not even coconut.

To the coconut we’ll add 1/3 cup of good quality maple syrup.

Then we’ll lid the food processor and let these spin until they’re thoroughly combined–which might mean stopping once to push down the sides with a spatula.

What happens here is amazing.

Coconut that once tasted like air now tastes like–get this– coconut. Sweet and rich.

On the stove, we’re going to create a double boiler by heating a pan of water and then placing a glass bowl inside..

This is where we’ll melt our 1 tablespoon of coconut oil with our dark chocolate.

Like so.

Now, while the two are melting…

We need to form our coconut into mounds.

This works best for me when I get enough coconut on a soup spoon and push it against the side of the food processor.

Then with the palm of my left hand, I press it into the spoon until it really clumps together.

Then I slide it carefully off the spoon–hoping it doesn’t crumble– and onto my cookie sheet. I’ve put my coconut mounds on a baking mat, but wax paper or parchment paper or even a bare dinner plate would work, as we’re not baking these.

When we’re done, they’ll look something like this.

This is the time now to press an almond into the top of each, if an almond would make your heart sing.

Almonds don’t do a thing for me, so mine are bare.

Now, I doubt our coconut mounds will flop if we don’t allow them to freeze for a few..

BUT…if we can, we want to put our mounds into the freezer for five minutes or so to firm up. It just makes putting our chocolate on them a bit easier.

All right…chocolate’s ready. Coconut mounds are ready.

I’m ready.

The idea is to get chocolate on these guys however we can.

I hold mine and spoon chocolate over the top and then place them back on the cookie sheet.

And I don’t even bother with the bottoms.

When they’re all coated, I freeze them for another five minutes before serving. Or I forget that step altogether and behold the glory immediately.

Savor these, friends. One at a time.

If you’re curious about the 15 ingredients in the Hershey’s Mounds candy bars, you can Click here.

Homemade Mounds/Almond Joy Bars

Equipment: food processor, sauce pan, glass bowl, baking sheet, freezer

Ingredients:

2 cups unsweetened coconut

1/3 cup organic maple syrup

1 Tablespoon coconut oil

4-6 ounces dark chocolate

Optional: almonds

Directions: In a food processor combine coconut and maple syrup. Scrape sides as necessary. Using a soup spoon, form mounds of coconut, pressing the coconut into the spoon with your palm. Slide finished mounds onto a baking sheet. Press an almond into the top of each mound, if desired. Allow to cool in freezer for five minutes.

Heat water in a sauce pan on the stove. Place a small glass bowl in the sauce pan to create a double boiler. Melt coconut oil and chocolate in the glass bowl.

Remove coconut mounds from freezer. Use spoon to coat mounds with chocolate. Freeze again for five minutes, unless it proves very necessary to try one immediately.

Store extras in lidded container in the freezer.

DrTroy Munson, Kari Morris liked this post

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Breakfast Cookie

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The first Thursday in January we scrambled into the van, leaving a trail of pajamas, unused hair brushes and snow boots scattered in our wake. My daughter had a piano lesson in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes away and, by golly, we were gonna make it. Both kids sat buckled with rooster-tail hair slicked to their faces and sleep crumbs dangling from their eyelashes. If breakfast had crossed their mind, they probably knew it wouldn’t be eggs. Or oatmeal.

Breakfast would be…a gulp of air.

Except I remembered. Remembered that two days earlier I’d made oatmeal peanut butter breakfast cookies. And there they were–our giant cookies, puffed up like pillows–huddled in tupperware on the kitchen counter and as easy to swipe as the keys in my hand.

Breakfast would be…uncompromised. Mostly.

You see…

We wouldn’t be licking the frosting off a maple bar or an apple fritter or cramming in a Poptart on the run. Nor would we be spooning in Fruitloops or sucking down a juice box with a straw or whatever else passes people’s inspection for breakfast. We would be enjoying–savoring, really–our homemade oatmeal peanut butter breakfast cookies–cookies that make our taste buds dance, and give us energy to mentally and physically function.

It’s why I love these things. In an emergency. Or on purpose.

We call them breakfast cookies. But, friend, they can meet the need whenever.

Here’s what it takes to put them together: peanut butter, butter, white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking soda, oatmeal and walnuts.

I start with the peanut butter. One and a half cups. And it never looks pretty going in.

To that we add a stick of melted butter. And then give it a good mix.

To the same bowl, we’ll add 1/2 cup of brown sugar…

And 1/2 cup of white sugar. And then turn the mixer on again.

If you’ve got a Winnie the Pooh bowl dating back to the birth of your first child, pull that out and crack in 3 eggs. Then study Winnie–this is how we’ll look holding a cookie in twenty minutes.

Let’s give the eggs a stir.

Then add 2 teaspoons of vanilla…

And 2 teaspoons of baking soda. And mix it up again.

Then it’s the walnuts we need. Anywhere between 1 1/2 to 2 cups of them chopped fairly fine. Chop them any way you like. I’m gonna use the food processor, though. It just does a far faster job than I ever have hunched over the cutting board.

Before we do anything with the nuts, let’s measure out the oats. We need 4 cups.

Now, if it’s important to you, use gluten free oats. There is no flour of any kind in these cookies, so they’re mostly gluten free, but the type of oats you use will distinguish them even more.

Because I had them, I’m using gluten free oats.

So here are our four cups of oats.

And onto these we can pour our chopped walnuts.

Now…all this…

Is going to mix with all this…

Until–oh-my-goodness– it starts to look like this.

We need to take a sec to set the oven to 325 degrees.

And then we need to grab a spoon for quality control *wink.

Now depending on the size of breakfast cookie we want and the amount of dough we consume, we can make roughly 20 cookies.

Here they are before the oven.

And here they are ten minutes later.

Enjoy these, friends. Every last crumb.

And share them with those you love!

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Breakfast Cookies

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter melted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons baking soda

4 cups old fashioned oats (gluten free, if you’d like)

1 1/2 to 2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix together, peanut butter, melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Beat in eggs, vanilla and baking soda. Add oats and nuts a little at a time. Bake at 325 degrees for ten minutes. Find that you’re smiling like Winnie the Pooh.

Kari Morris liked this post

Oatmeal-Carrot-Raisin Breakfast Cookie

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Years ago–like ten–I first made these cookies.

I think it was the carrot factor that drew me in. And the cloves. I’m a sucker for cloves.

They were also a favorite of my husband’s who never put in cookie requests except for these and who has since wondered why in the last four years these cookies have drifted off the rotation and been replaced with things he doesn’t care for–like things with peanut butter.

Two weeks ago, it was a combination of coincidences–we needed new ideas for breakfast that didn’t include cereal or anything from a box, and two friends sent e-mails asking if I still had the recipe for those cookies with carrots in ‘em.

It was when I tasted the dough again that I realized how much I’ve missed these. And how cool–maybe that’s not the right word–it would be to have these for breakfast.

Here’s what we need: butter, an egg, brown sugar, white sugar, carrots, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, baking powder, oats, flour (all-purpose and whole wheat), raisins, and walnuts. Vanilla and flour–eek–still in the cupboard

What sets this recipe apart is the carrots. Or at least that’s what people remember. No one asks for the oatmeal cookie recipe with raisins in it or the one with cloves.

It’s always the carrots.

So let’s start there.

For those of you holding your breath, we don’t really need this pile of carrots. Just two or three.

So without peeling them, we need to finely shred them until we’ve got a cup.

If there ends up being a cup and a half, that’s okay, too.

We need 3/4 cup of butter. Softened or melted.

And we need nuts.

There was a time that I hand-chopped everything. Feel free.

Having used the food processor since, I only marvel at my Pioneer days.

We need 2 cups of oatmeal.

And since we’ll add the oatmeal at the same time as the nuts and raisins, we can just dump them into the same bowl.

For the flour…we can fiddle with the combinations.

If white flour is all we’ve got, then white flour it is. But if we’ve got white plus whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour, we can split the two. Like a cup of white and 3/4 cup of whole wheat.

So…here we go.

To our butter, we need to add half of the flour and beat it thoroughly.

Then the 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

And the 1/3 of white.

When we’ve got those combined, we add our egg.

And the vanilla.

And this pretty quartet: baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves.

And then the last of the flour.

If I didn’t know the dough got better in another minute, I’d sneak some now.

About this time we can set our oven to 375 degrees.

And then we can add in the goodies: the oats, the carrots, the nuts, the raisins, which we can stir together slowly with the mixer or by hand…

Until it all looks like this and tastes like…

Like happiness.

Depending on our vision for a breakfast cookie, we can shape our dough into buttons or bicycle wheels.

And then bake them for ten minutes.

Enjoy these, friends. For breakfast. For lunch. For whenever.

Here’s the recipe.

Oatmeal-Carrot-Raisin Cookies

3/4 cup Butter

1 3/4 cup flour (half whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour, half all-purpose flour)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup finely shredded carrots (1 1/2 cups works, too)

3/4 cup raisins

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Beat the butter until softened. Add half of the flour. Then add the brown sugar, sugar, egg, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and beat thoroughly. Beat in the remaining flour.

Stir or mix in slowly the carrots, oats, raisins and walnuts.

Spread cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets in whatever flattened size you want.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Look forward to breakfast!

Homemade Refried Beans

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There’s a little jingle about beans. Not that we have to sing it here.

Unless…

Unless you’re singing it now.

It’s just that there’s some truth in that tootin’ part. Also known as bean gas. Something we’ve smelled around here. And something we like to smell as little as possible.

The thing is I’ve bought refried beans in a can for years because–shamefully–I thought that’s just where you got ‘em–from the store, in the can. I knew the can beans held no resemblance to the refried beans on my plate from Los Pinos in appearance or taste. But I figured Mexican restaurants just had their bean secrets.

Through a collaboration of this recipe from Lisa at 100 Days of Real Food and a few suggestionss from friends who also makes their own beans, our family finally has a recipe for refried beans that tastes amazing.

It starts with beans.

2 cups of dry pinto beans.

And a bowl big enough to cover them with twice as much water.

The water temperature we soak the beans in and the length of time we soak the beans is important. We want warm water (100-140 degrees) and we want a soaking time of at least 18 hours.

What happens is the beans absorb a lot of the water, which begins the fermentation process. Why that’s important is because fermentation breaks down phytic acid, which is in foods like beans, nuts and grains, and which is hard on our digestive system.

Why breaking down phytic acid matters is because when it’s broken down, it becomes an absorbable form of phosphorous, which is needed for most biochemical processes in the body, such as cell growth and the conversion of food into energy for every action we do.

When phytic acid isn’t broken down through fermentation, it becomes that gas in our gut that either can or can’t find an escape route.

These are my beans the next morning. They’ve absorbed most of the water. The best thing for me to do now, is to rinse them and then fill my bowl with warm water again and let them soak for several more hours.

Once my beans have soaked at least 18 hours, I’ll rinse them a final time…

And put them in a crock pot.

We want to cover the beans with water by about 2 inches.

Then these are the goodies that give the flavor.

Garlic. Jalapeno. Onion. Salt. Pepper. And cumin (which…is still in the cupboard).

We opt for 2-3 garlic cloves, 1/2 a large onion, 1 to 2 slices of jalapeno (depending on whether kids are eating these or not), 1 teaspoon salt (to start), 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper (again, depending on whether kids are eating these or not).

We toss it all in there. Put the lid on. And plug it in on medium high.

Here’s a lookie, six hours later. The beans have absorbed even more water.

But are they done?

I like to squish a bean or two against the inside of the crock pot with a spoon to tell. If they mash easily, then they’re done. If not, I put the lid back on and give ‘em more time.

Here they are having just been stirred.

And here, I’ve drained most of the liquid off but kept in the onion and garlic. Occasionally I keep the jalapeno, too. But our kids sometimes spend more time sucking on ice cubes than they do eating beans, so I pluck the green pieces.

Then a stick blender makes this easy.

I blend it all in–beans, a little liquid still in the bottom, onions and garlic.

Until it looks like this.

Add salt to taste.

And sometimes a little more.

Then serve it to happy kids…the same ones who don’t ask quite as often to eat at a Mexican restaurant.

Recipe for Homemade Refried Beans

1. Cover 2 cups of pinto beans with warm water. Soak 18-36 hours. Change water at least once.

2. Rinse beans a final time and place in crock pot with…

1/2 large onion

1 to 2 slices jalapeno

2 to 3 garlic cloves peeled

1 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Pepper

A few shakes of Cumin

3. Let cook for 6-8 hours in the crock pot.

4. Drain off as much of the liquid as desired, picking out jalapeno as well.

5. Mash beans, garlic, and onions with a stick blender until smooth.

6. Salt to taste.

7. Realize your homemade beans taste better than any restaurant’s!

DrTroy Munson liked this post

Spinach With a Straw

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No fault of the spinach, but it’s been a few years since I could buy the stuff again.

Like five.

And not that anyone wants to chit chat about food poisoning, or bring up images of someone gagging over the toilet, so I won’t go there. Much. But that’s what happened. And I’m certain it wasn’t the spinach. But it came up too.

I’ll stop now.

Because that’s not the point.

And maybe there is none…except to say I like the stuff now–the spinach– and so do my kids…that is, when we ‘eat’ it like this.

We call it ‘drinking a salad’.

We start with spinach.

A whole bunch of it.

Like three handfuls.

And then we start throwing in the other stuff with little regard to order. Today we’ve got a banana, a quarter piece of apple, a wad of grapes, a tomato and a bunch of frozen raspberry pieces that look like raw ground beef, but aren’t.

And…we’ve got the apple cider.

Which is really the thing that makes this work. If we didn’t have cider, we’d be digging in the freezer for some sort of juice concentrate and scooping in a couple of tablespoons.

Because you know, they do that. The Vita-Mix people. And it’s subtle.

I used to absorb the Vita-Mix demonstrations, hanging on every ingredient they threw in their pitcher, so I could duplicate the thing at home in mine. Only I always missed something…the taste was always off.

Until I watched more closely and saw the spoon or so of juice concentrate added quickly while they were talking about healthy living or the nutrition in a carrot.

Here at our house, as long as we’ve got apple cider, we use that.

Here’s a look at the loaded pitcher.

Pretty, eh?

And again with a few ice cubes on top.

Here’s what happens when we flip the switch.

It looks like we’re going to gulp down fresh lawn clippings.

Until it looks instead like we’re actually going to guzzle mud.

But nevermind that.

Because as freaky as this may look, it tastes like berries.

And has been tested six times on kids who won’t spear a spinach leaf with a fork…

But will seriously…

drain a glass of spinach with a straw.

Here’s some ideas, if you get the gumption to try your own Spinach Smoothie.

Start with these: Spinach, banana, apple cider (they’re the foundation).

And then add what you have from the fridge or freezer: pineapple, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, tomatoes, carrots, avocado. Not all of them at once. But any combination.

Remember, too, your ‘smoothie’ will taste like whatever you add that has the strongest flavor. Like pineapple. Or raspberries.

And if you’re weirded out by adding a tomato or a carrot, trust me here, they have such little flavor, that they’re easily overpowered by anything else.

Enjoy.

Chrystale Carmen Files, DrTroy Munson liked this post

Caramel Corn

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I don’t know what it is about caramel corn that makes me forget that there’s such thing as a portion. Or that I can save some for later.

But uh,

I love this stuff. By the handful.

And because it’s simple and can be made from set-up to clean-up in thirty minutes–even with two kids ‘helping’–I tend to favor making it. At least lately.

So here’s the stuff we need: popcorn, butter, brown sugar, honey, baking soda, and vanilla.

And here are the things that make the process easier: an air popper, a couple of big bowls and a spatula.

Already I’ve got my air popper filled to the line inside with popcorn. If I wanted to measure it out, it’d be a 1/2 cup of kernels.

And I’ve got a big bowl set to catch the stuff when it flies out of the machine.

Not that it matters even a tiny bit–unless preference counts–but I always catch the corn in this yellow sieve-like bowl. The little, yellow, flaky things that fall off the popcorn and get stuck in my gums or onto my tonsils just fall onto the counter. I like that.

So even before the kernels start bouncing around, I set the oven to 300 degrees. Or 310 degrees. Just nothing higher.

Then while the popcorn is bursting into the bowl…

I’ve got the butter, brown sugar and honey melting on the stove with an over-zealous stirer.

Here are those flaky popcorn shell pieces. Ech.

Now to spare everyone’s teeth–or just my own–from needing emergency dental work, we transfer the popcorn from one big bowl to the next.

That way when we get to the bottom of the first bowl, we can toss what we don’t need–which is usually a few half-popped pieces of corn and a bunch of dead kernels. Nothing anyone wants in his caramel corn.

When the butter, brown sugar and honey have melted and begun to boil along the edges, I turn the burner off and add a tiny bit of baking soda and a speck of vanilla. I end up with a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and as much or less of vanilla.

Then, when the oven is ready, I pour the sugar mixture over the popcorn and start folding the two over and over each other with my spatula.

No likey dry popcorn.

Eventually-despite the unhelpfulness of this picture–the popcorn oozes with brown sugar and butter.

About this time I thank myself. It just seems right.

And then I stuff the whole bowl full onto a single baking sheet and slide it into the oven on one of the lower racks for ten minutes.

I don’t bother it. Or babysit it. Or poke it. Or worry that’s burning.

Because it’s just fine.

And now when I pull it from the oven, the stuff still looks and feels gooey. Which it should–for just a bit.

I push it off the pan with a metal spatula right onto a clean counter and wait another ten minutes for it to harden and get a crunchy coat.

At this time I also smack away small hands that think I’m not looking.

Now the humidity does strange stuff to caramel corn, like wilts it. So after it cools and hardens, I put it in an air tight container. If it makes it that far.

What I love about this recipe is that it works for us. Where another recipe may call for corn syrup, we use honey. And I guess that just makes me happy.

If you get a chance to make caramel corn, may you enjoy it as much as we do!

Here’s the recipe:

12 cups popped corn*

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 cup brown sugar

5 Tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon (or less) vanilla

Directions: Preheat oven to 310 degrees. Pop corn in air popper while simultaneously melting butter, brown sugar and honey in a small pan. Transfer popped corn by handfuls into another large bowl, being careful to scoop only popcorn and not dead kernels.

When oven is heated and sugar mixture is melted and boiling along the edges, remove sugar mixture from heat and add baking soda and vanilla. Stir to combine.

Pour sugar mixture over popped corn, folding and stirring with a spatula until corn is completely coated. Spread onto a baking sheet and bake on a lower rack of the oven for ten minutes.

Cool caramel corn on the counter for ten minutes, allowing it to harden. Store what isn’t devoured in an air-tight container.

*1/2 cup popcorn kernels makes 12 cups popped corn

What the Kale?

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Five years ago we didn’t know what CSA stood for in the farming community. Or what it meant to buy a share from a local organic farmer. We just knew we wanted to eat better.

Like lettuce and stuff.

Which was when we bought a share at Terry’s Berries and learned somewhere on their website that CSA stood for community supported agriculture. Which really means that there’s a relationship between the grower and the buyer. Or the farmer and families coming to pick up produce.

Both need each other.

An organic farm like Terry’s Berries plans their crops according to the number of shares that are bought. Then they plant, water, pray for rain to come, pray for rain to stop, and harvest the produce. All the hard stuff. Those families who buy a share–a designated portion of the harvest (enough to feed a family of four)– come to the farm once a week and pick up the produce harvested that day.

Like carrots, potatoes, beets, bok choy, onions, strawberries, squash, leeks, apples, and other leafy surprises.

Now the perk or the downside, depending on your perspective of the glass, is that you get to try a bunch of vegetables–things you may never have picked up at Fred Meyer because you haven’t heard of ‘em. We’d never bought purple potatoes or leeks, but we loved ‘em. Others, like kale and fava beans, we knew we should eat, but we didn’t know how to get ‘em down.

That was then.

We joined a CSA closer to us this summer–Little Eorthe Farm in Orting, and in June and July we stared at the kale on our counter. Gobs of kale.

Ech, we thought…who eats this stuff?

About that time, Carrie, Little Eorthe’s owner, scratched out a recipe for kale on a piece of paper and gave it to my husband. I ignored it for a month. Kale shmale.

Until, well…it seemed we ought to try it.

All I’ll say is we laughed the laugh of disbelief. Maybe you will, too.

Here’s what you need: kale, olive oil, salt and an oven set to 350 degrees.

I started with a wad of kale straight from the farm.

What I did was pull the spine out from the rest of the leaf. Just hung on and yanked.

Then tossed the spines.

Then I put the leaves in a bowl and mixed them with my hands in olive oil. A tablespoon or two.

From there I set the kale on a cookie sheet, such that each leaf had its own space. And then I twisted salt all over them…

and placed them in the oven at 350 degrees for ten minutes…OR…until every piece was crispy.

Here they are ten minutes later…

looking dead. But they should.

And here’s the laughable part. They taste like chips.

Chips.

I don’t get it.

I don’t know what happens in that oven.

I just know even my kids will even eat crunchy kale when it comes out.

Here’s the recipe for the daring:

I bunch of kale de-spined

1 to 2 Tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Directions: Pull the spines off of the kale until only the leaves remain. Mix the leaves in olive oil and spread them single file on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until crisp. About 10 minutes. Try not to freak out that you’re eating kale and actually enjoying it.

Michele Schillberg, Kari Morris, Jennifer Singh, Celina Cadena Lindsly, Jennifer Starns liked this post

Potato Chip Cookies

9 Replies

Fall quarter of my second year of college I shimmied out on a limb. As in I gave a demonstration speech on how to make potato chip cookies.

I stood sweating in front of the biased jury, friends of mine four minutes earlier who now sat with arms crossed in undersized chairs daring me to put a potato chip in a cookie.

They had no idea.

Six minutes later… having chowed the evidence to crumbs, there sat a grinning group of believers.

Potato chips.

They shook their heads in disbelief.

Who’d a thunk?

So…how ’bout you? You ready?

What we need isn’t much. Five things. And if we’ve got the chips, we’re practically there.

Here’s the run down: butter, sugar, flour, vanilla and chips (any plain kind we want).

I started with the butter–a whole cup–and melted it in a pan. I only melted mine because it came straight from the fridge. Room temp. butter works just fine.

With the butter in the mixer, I added 1/2 cup of sugar and then let the stuff spin around together. It’s still soupy from the melted butter. But the flour takes care of that.

Here I added the flour. Two cups.

And then I added the vanilla. One teaspoon.

And then I pulled out my chips.

Now, I don’t know the whole reason why the chips work. Part of it’s faith. Part of it’s what my mom mentioned years ago. Because of the chips, the cookies need no additional soda or salt or anything. They just do what they’re supposed to.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

Well, the recipe calls for 3/4 cup crushed potato chips. And how they get crushed, I suppose, is a personal prerogative. I favor the rolling pin/ziploc bag method, as it takes ten seconds.

And since there’s no real way to measure the chips until they’re crushed, I just throw in a couple of handfuls.

I ended up with a whole cup of crushed chips. And because that extra 1/4 cup hardly matters, I shrugged and dumped ‘em all in.

After the chips are stirred in, the dough should be soft. Fluffy, even.

Perfect for sampling.

I did.

Now…since the goal is cookies…ahem…I formed the dough into tablespoon-like balls.

At this point, my mom always dipped a fork in sugar and pressed the dough down–twice. North-south. East-west.

I did that for half the cookies. It seemed the right thing to do.

And then because it suddenly struck me to try something different, I simply pressed the other dough balls down with my fingers and sprinkled a smattering of sugar on top. Liberating.

Then I baked these guys at 350 degrees for eleven minutes.

I also put the rest of the dough aside for my husband who put his bid in for the stuff the moment he saw we had chips.

But now there’s these.

Buttery.

Decadent.

Perfectly sweet potato chip cookies.

I slid one right from the pan and hovered over the sink. That’s legal here.

Such goodness from a simple cookie made with a handful of chips.

I’m tellin’ ya…if you like sugar cookies or butter cookies, or cookies at all, then the potato chip cookie just might be your cookie. Surprise yourself.

Here’s the recipe:

1 cup butter (two sticks) softened or melted

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup crushed potato chips

Combine all ingredients in order listed. Resist eating all the dough. Form dough into tablespoon sized balls. Press cookies down with a fork dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes 2 1/2 dozen. They freeze like champs.

Natanya Slaughter liked this post

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Category Archives: Recipes

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Caramel Corn: A Re-mix

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What the Kale?

Potato Chip Cookies