You Deserve a Treat

To my two loyal readers, I regret that I have kept you waiting so long, and I have made you a treat to reward your patience. To all my other readers, hello! I'm not sure if you exist, but if you do, you also deserve a treat for simply being here.

This fudge and this butterscotch are two of my favorite ice cream toppings, which would make them perfect to write about as summer blazes on, but ironically, every time I set out to share these recipes it rains where I live. Harumph! The joke is on Mother Nature, though, because I love rain, and I am a firm believer that ice cream is good in all weather, so bring on the downpour (of both rain and fudge)!

Fudge Ingredients

Butterscotch Ingredients (similar, no?)

This fudge recipe is one my mom (hi, Mom!) has been making for several years, and I LOVE it. The recipe comes from a family friend, but my mom altered the preparation of it in a way that makes the texture super thick and fluffy. It’s deeply chocolaty and reminiscent of brownie batter. In fact, if you replaced the cream with eggs and flour, I bet it would bake up nicely. This fudge sauce is quick and easy to prepare and really turns a good bowl of ice cream into an amazing one. It’s also not too shabby with fresh berries or drizzled over pastries. You know, if you like that sort of thing.

Stirring in sugar...

corn syrup...

and cream

mmm....

The butterscotch recipe comes from smittenkitchen.com, aka my first love in the food blog world (and probably still my favorite). It is exceedingly simple to prepare and has a rich, delicious butterscotch-y flavor without requiring any fussy ingredients or any booze, as some butterscotch recipes suggest. It keeps well in the fridge and is awesome over ice cream (of course) as well as crepes, waffles, French toast, bread pudding, etc. Super yummy. Good to have around.

I didn't take as many pictures of the butterscotch because my stove (and elevation maybe?) makes it hard to keep it at a low boil, so I was whisking instead of photographing...

Fun Fact: What everyone calls “caramelization” is often actually Maillard browning. Caramelization and Maillard browning are two different things. Caramelization occurs when sugar is exposed to high temperatures and begins to break down and release delicious chemical compounds. Maillard browning occurs when both sugars and amino acids are exposed to high temperatures and the two compounds react with each other (and also produce delicious chemical compounds). Maillard browning is responsible for the golden crust on bread and the delicious seared exterior of a steak. Basically, if the “caramelized” food contains protein, it’s probably Maillard browning at play. Granted, the two processes are not remarkably different. In fact, one article I read called me a “pedantic hairsplitter” for even distinguishing the two. I guess I just wanted you all to be as pedantic as I am. You can go enjoy your ice cream with Maillard browning sauce now.

Fudge Sauce

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate

3 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup superfine sugar

Dash salt

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1/3 cup cream (or evaporated milk)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Carefully melt the butter and chocolate together in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and stir in the sugar, salt, and corn syrup. Stir in the cream, a drizzle at a time, until smooth and incorporated. Finally, stir in the vanilla. The fudge will be smooth and fluffy at this point. You may return it to the heat, if desired, to try to decrease the slight graininess from the sugar, but I like it best without reheating.

Butterscotch Sauce

Adapted slightly from smittenkitchen.com

4 tablespoons butter


½ cup dark brown sugar, packed

½ cup heavy cream


1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or more to taste

pinch of salt, or more to taste

Melt the butter, sugar, and cream together in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, whisking often, or constantly if it's really boil-y. (You can go longer than 5 minutes if you want a thicker butterscotch, but the butterscotch also thickens after it cools. It’s really not a terrible thing to learn by making this repeatedly and taste-testing.) Stir in the vanilla and pinch of salt. Taste a tiny bit (carefully! After cooling!), and add more vanilla and salt to taste. Let cool to good drizzling temperature, and serve.

Snack Series: Chocolate Granola Parfait

Presenting for your visual enjoyment: the Snack Series! These posts will be less along the lines of full-fledged recipes and more along the lines of flavor combinations I’ve been enjoying, links to other people’s recipes, and potentially disjointed rambling about life. If that doesn’t whet your appetite, then maybe this will!

This picture is my endorsement of any and all breakfasts that include yogurt, fruit butter (or jam or preserves), fresh fruit, and homemade granola. I especially recommend using:

•         Homemade Blueberry Butter, as found in this book
•         Chocolate Coconut Granola, as found on this beauty of a site
•         Liberal amounts of the aforementioned ingredients

April is now almost half over, and I have learned two important things this month. The first is that nature is just as keen on April Fool’s pranks as some people are.  On April 1, after a week of relatively balmy spring weather, I walked out to find ice on my windshield. This is the view from the inside: rather pretty, but still unwelcome.

 The second thing I learned is that if you’re going to pan-fry tofu, don’t do it in an iron skillet unless that skillet is really well seasoned (or in other words, non-stick). You know, unless you want your dinner to end up looking like crumbled dry wall. If you do, well, now you know how to achieve it.

Garlicky Cashew Chicken

After a long dearth of poultry-related posts on this site, I have now given you two chicken recipes in a row. Forgive my poorly synchronized variety, but I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm any longer. I first tried this recipe back in December, and it has been haunting me since.

I love the unique flavor profile of this dish: it has a sweet, salty, spicy, umami combination of flavors with ingredients that smack of both East Asian and South American cuisines. I can never decide whether I would rather have this with rice or as an exotic taco filling, and I end up eating the whole batch before I reach a conclusion.

The good stuff that goes in the food processor

The original recipe calls for thighs or drumsticks and suggests either grilling or broiling. For one reason or another, the thought of dark meat with the cashew coating didn’t appeal to me, so I used chicken tenders the first time, and I have never looked back. As I do not own a grill, broiling was the only way to go, and I am more than satisfied with that decision as well. The chicken tenders cook super fast in the broiler, and they get perfectly done in the time it takes the topping to brown. The final result is a crispy, browned coating on juicy, tender chicken. And given that this recipe is also quick and easy to prepare, I give it my wholehearted endorsement in every regard.  Go eat this now!

Fun Fact: Cashews are a good source of magnesium, a mineral that is essential to the function of more than 300 enzymes in the body. Magnesium is also involved in bone formation, muscle and nerve function, and blood pressure regulation.

Garlicky Cashew Chicken

Adapted from Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite

1 cup roasted cashews, salted or unsalted, with additional cashews for garnish

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish

¼ cup olive oil

4 large cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar*

2 limes – 1 for juice, 1 cut into wedges for garnish

1 or 2 jalapeños, using as many or as few seeds as desired

2 tablespoons water

Salt and pepper to taste

1½ lbs. chicken tenders

Combine the cashews, 2 tablespoons cilantro, olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, lime juice, jalapeño, and water in a food processor or mini food processor (I’m confident a blender would work here too, though it may require more pausing to scrape down the sides), and grind together until smooth. Add salt to taste.

Preheat the broiler. Line a baking sheet with foil, and spray or coat lightly with oil. Season the chicken tenders with salt and pepper, and arrange bottom-side-up on the oiled baking sheet. Drop a generous spoonful of the cashew sauce over each tender, and use a separate utensil to spread over the surface of the chicken (DO NOT TOUCH THE SAUCE SPOON TO THE CHICKEN – IF YOU HAVE EXTRA SAUCE, YOU WANT IT TO BE SANITARY FOR CONSUMPTION).

Broil chicken for 5 minutes, then flip each tender and repeat the sauce spreading process on the smooth top sides. Broil for about 5 more minutes, or until the coating is golden brown, and the chicken’s internal temperature is 165 degrees F.

Sprinkle additional chopped cashews and chopped cilantro over the top, and serve with lime wedges and extra sauce, if any.

This chicken is delicious on its own and would also make a great lettuce wrap filling. Leftover sauce would be delicious on rice or as a sandwich spread (I’m thinking a BLT…mmmm….)

*I accidentally misread this as 2 tablespoons the last time I made this. It was still delicious, and it made the sauce brown up nicely. It certainly doesn’t need this much sugar, though.

Chicken Paprikash

I’m still not sure how to pronounce it, but I sure know how to eat it! This dish comprises everything I love in a good chicken recipe: delicious, easy, interesting, and not soaked in a half gallon of oil. (I know that last attribute is really setting the bar high.)

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for close to half a year and finally got around to trying it last week. I then proceeded to make it again…and again…all in the same week. In my defense, I shared a lot of the goods, but the fact that I made this recipe 3 times in 7 days underscores how good it is.

I can summarize the recipe thusly: sauté onion, add paprika, add chicken and water, simmer for 1 hour, shred chicken, add sour cream and flour, season with salt and pepper. It’s really that easy, yet the flavor is rich and complex. The paprika, onion, chicken, and sour cream combine into a savory, creamy, warmly spiced (but not spicy) sauce; and the chicken is super tender from the long braise. It goes perfectly over a bowl of rice with a good book and a fuzzy blanket.

A couple notes on ingredients:

Chicken – the original recipe calls for bone-in thighs or chicken breasts, quartered. I have only tried this recipe with dark meat, as all my local grocers seem to be anti-bone-in chicken breasts. I imagine you could also try boneless, though. I have tried both thighs and drumsticks, and both tasted great. However, it was a pain in the derriere to get the skin off the drumsticks, and the sauce ended up way fattier than when I used thighs.

Paprika – you don’t need to use the fancy stuff, but it should be fresh. The original recipe asserts the more paprika the better. I agree and would add that you don’t want to be using old, pale, sad paprika. Feel free to buy the cheap-o brand, though. As long as it’s fresh, the end result will be really good.

Fun Fact: The dark parts of poultry are dark due to more myoglobin, which is an iron-containing protein in muscle. Ergo, the dark meat contains more iron than the light meat. This is a boon for iron-deficient, budget-conscious shoppers such as myself. If you want to maximize your iron absorption, eat it separately from calcium-rich foods because calcium and iron compete with each other.

Chicken Paprikash

From Food52.com

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large onion, diced

4 heaping tablespoons paprika

4 bone-in chicken thighs, with skin and excess fat trimmed away (or 2 chicken breasts or 5 drumsticks)

1¼ teaspoons salt

½ cup sour cream

1 spoonful (approximately 1 tablespoon) all-purpose flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a medium-large pot over medium heat, and sauté the onions until soft. Add the paprika, and continue to sauté, stirring very frequently, for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken to the pot, and sprinkle salt over. Stir everything together until the chicken is coated in the paprika.

Here is where I diverge from the recipe slightly: the original states to let the chicken brown slightly, but I forgot to do this the first time, and it still turned out great. Due to laziness, the most I have done is get the chicken slightly de-pinked. So, do what you want. Follow your instincts. Browning probably concentrates and enriches the flavors a bit.

Add 2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat, and simmer partially covered – I like to prop the lid with a wooden spoon – for 45-60 minutes until the chicken is cooked through (165 degrees Fahrenheit). Remove the chicken to shred it, and discard the bones. Whisk the sour cream and flour together, and stir into the paprikash broth. If the sauce is thinner than you want it, then boil it down to the desired consistency while the chicken is removed. Add the chicken back to the pot, and heat through. Serve over rice or with dumplings. Or both!

Mexican Black Beans

Every time I eat beans, I ask myself why I don’t eat them more often. For such a humble and inexpensive food, they’re surprisingly delicious, healthy, and substantial. They come in enough varieties and are used in enough world cuisines that I could eat them for a long time and not get bored. So if you, like me, are resolving to eat more beans this year, here is a great preparation to add to your repertoire.

These Mexican black beans are fantastic over Mexican rice, plain rice, on their own, or as a side. They’re nice and toasty from all the cumin and fresh from the cilantro and lime. You can keep this dish really easy and fast by using canned beans or you can make it cheap and folate-rich by using dried beans. These aren’t too shabby topped with shredded cheese either.

A note about using dried beans: don’t do what I did and try to be all “efficient” by using up the last bit of an old bag of beans along with some newer beans. Just don’t. Half of them will be all mushy while the others stubbornly refuse to soften. Stupid beans.

Some of the beans turned PURPLE after soaking!

 Fun Fact: Black beans are high in folate, containing about 32% the Recommended Daily Allowance in ½ cup boiled. (High-heat cooking destroys folate, so canned beans have less folate than boiled dried beans.) Folate is important for DNA synthesis, cell division, and the formation of hemoglobin.

Mexican Black Beans

Adapted precious little from epicurious.com

1 cup dried black beans (or 2 15-oz. cans)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 jalapeño chili, seeded and diced fine

heaping ½ teaspoon ground cumin (toasted and ground at home is preferable)

14.5 oz. can low-sodium chicken broth (or water + chicken soup base)

Juice of ½ lime, plus more to taste

3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus more to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

If using dried beans, sort, rinse, and soak overnight with 2 inches (or about 3 cups) of water covering the beans. After soaking, drain the beans, and cover with fresh water by about 2 inches. Boil for 1½ - 2 hours, until very tender.* Alternatively: cook beans in a slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours. Alternatively to the alternative: cook beans WITHOUT pre-soaking in a slow cooker for 3-5+ hours (I find the soak helps the texture, though).

*The cooking time will vary depending on the age of the beans, your elevation, the hardness of the water, etc.

With your cooked/canned beans ready, you can prepare the dish. Heat olive oil in a large-ish nonstick frying pan over med-high heat. Add minced garlic, jalapeño, and ground cumin, and sauté for about 30 seconds. Add cooked beans and chicken broth, and cook together for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. With a masher, crush as many beans as desired to get a chunky or smooth consistency. Continue to boil until the mixture has thickened as much as desired. Add lime juice, cilantro, salt, and pepper to taste.