Chocolate Crisps

There is an endless number of no bake bars recipes using dry cereals.  Some of them involve minimal cooking but all are easy enough to make that they are the ideal beginner's recipe.  Cereal bars tend to have few ingredients, most of them common pantry items as well.  They are the ideal treat for school lunches and yet are a favourite dessert item at many functions. 

Chocolate crisps takes advatage of the classical pairing of chocolate with peanut butter.  They are a delectible change from plain rice krispies squares and every bit as easy to make.  These squares are sure to become a family favourite!

Chocolate Crisps
source: modified from Jean Paré, 150 Delicious Squares (1981), Pp. 10

¾ c honey
1 c peanut butter
1 c semisweet chocolate chips
1 c salted peanuts
3 c rice krispies cereal

Mix cereal and peanuts together in mixing bowl.  Combine honey and peanut butter in sauce pan.  Melt over low heat.  Bring to a boil.  Remove from heat.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Stir until melted.  Pour the chocolate mixture over the cereal mix.  Stir to coat.  Press mixture into a greased 9 x 9 - inch baking dish.  Chill in the refrigerator until firm.  Cut into squares.

Banana Nut Cheerios Energy Bars

We have never been much in the way of dry cereals for breakfast.  In fact I can't remember when we had dry cereal for breakfast.  When I use dry cereal it tends to be as an ingredient in baking, cereal or no-bake bars and snack mixes.  Cereal bars are easy to make, no muss, no fuss and no bake treats ideal for tucking into lunches, after school snacks, and entertaining.   I'm always on the lookout for another cereal bar recipe. 

A few days ago I was browsing the recipes  when I came across a recipe for Banana Nut Cheerios Energy Bars I knew I just had to try.  I usually have plain Cheerios in the pantry but not the flavoured ones so I bought a box of the Banana Nut Cheerios specifically to try these bars.  I made two substitutions to the recipe.  Rather than use a nonstick cooking spray which I don't use to begin with I greased the baking dish with a little butter.  I used a dried fruit medley trail mix in place of the dried cranberries.  This is a mix I got from Bulk Barn that consists of raisins, currents, cranberries, papaya and dates.

The recipe gave a yield of eighteen 1" x 2"  mouthwatering bars.  This is a definite keeper recipe!  Not only are they easy and quick to make the bars are delicious.  At the same time there is room for a bit of tweaking.  I think the bars would be quite tasty with flaked coconut added and you can certainly substitute the dry fruit added as I did.  The almonds and sunflower seeds add a nice crunch while providing extra protein.  Aside of lunches and snacks these bars would be excellent for carrying along when hiking the trails!

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies

Easy snacks are always welcomed. Even though we don't eat a lot of them, squares always fit the bill. Squares are easy to make, low cost and they just fit that sweet tooth. They are ideal for parties, get togethers, birthday parties and school bake sales.

Peanut Butter Rice Krispie

Rice krispie squares are just one of those tried and true recipes. They are easy to make and everyone likes them. I came across this spin on rice krispie squares that paired peanut butter with chocolate. Now you can't get much better than chocolate with peanut butter so I just had to make a batch of these. These are definite keepers :)

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies
modified from: Jean Paré, Company's Coming 150 Delicious Squares, Edmonton, Alberta. 1981. Pp. 9.

⅔ c sweeetened condensed milk
¼ c peanut butter
¼ c light corn syrup
½ c brown sugar
4 c rice cereal

½ c chocolate chips
2 tbsp peanut butter

Place the rice cereal in a large mixing bowl. Combine the first 4 ingredients in saucepan. Cook until well mixed and thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Pour over the rice cereal and mix well. Pour the mixture into a greased 9" x 9" baking dish.

Melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter. Pour over the cereal mixture, spreading evenly. Place in refrigerator until well chilled. Cut into squares.

Scotch Teas

The Christmas holiday season is definitely one of my busiest baking times of the year. I love taking home baked goods as a hostess gift. I always have an abundance of cookies for our own entertaining and for sharing with the kids. Now this could mean baking every day for the first couple of weeks of December or it can mean taking one or two short cuts. By short cuts I mean using a few recipes that only 5 ingredients or less and they are fairly common ingredients. I also use a couple of no bake cookie recipes. The beauty of these types of recipes aside of the fact the cookies/bars taste great is they take almost no time to make, something that is very much appreciated during the busy holiday season.

Scotch Teas

I discovered these lovely, easy to make bars when our kids were quite young. They have been a family favourite ever since. They have a wonderful rich, nutty and buttery flavour that is always a hit on any cookie tray. I find it best cutting the squares just out of the oven. If you allow to cool to much they get a bit too hard to cut. The original recipe says it makes 2 dozen but the best yield I've achieved from this recipe is 18. Don't cut them too big as these really are rich so a small piece goes a long way.

Scotch Teas
source: Better Homes and Gardens, Cookies and Candies, 1966. New York: Pp. 31

½ c butter
1 c brown sugar
2 c quick-cooking rolled oats
¼ tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder

Place the butter and brown sugar in a large sauce pan. Heat until butter melts. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into 8x8x2 - inch baking pan. Bake at 180ºC.350ºF for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly and cut into bars.

More on Key West Food

Today I was pouring through the 640 pictures taken during our Florida vacation. Surprisingly there are less pictures of the foods we ate that I thought. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the food at the last two places we ate at in Key West. In fairness we arrived in Key West just after 9 pm on January 15 (Tuesday) and left at 10 am January 17 (Thursday) so there really wasn't a lot of time so I was obviously caught up in the excitement of seeing as much as possible in a short period of time.

Sloppy Joe's Bar

Sloppy Joe's Bar is on the corner of Greene and Duval streets. It has been in business since 1933 and has the reputation of being Ernest Hemingway's favourite bar. Of this author's works I have only read Old Man and the Sea but seeing his house and visiting the bar he liked somehow seemed just right.

Sloppy Joe's is really a pleasant place with open walls to both streets. The bar has a relaxing atmosphere with live entertainment starting at noon. They offer a nice menu as well. We ordered a quesadilla to share as a snack since we had enjoyed a substantial breakfast at Cypress House. The quesadilla was quite large, folded in half and cut into three pieces. It came with spicy salsa sauce and sour cream. The filling was simply melted cheeses, onions and black beans. Now my husband wasn't very pleased at the prospect of black beans but he tried them and ate a few of them. I really enjoyed the black beans. [I'm already thinking of ways to serve black beans at home!]

While sightseeing we made several stops including the southernmost point of the United States. We bought Key West Scooter Hot Sauce, Jolly Roger Hot Sauce that promises to bleach your bones, and key lime juice. The nice thing is I can purchase these products online if we run out before we get back to the area.

Rum Barrel

After an afternoon of sight seeing on the scooter we headed back to Cypress House to park the scooter for the night. Then we headed to the Rum Barrel for dinner. To the right when you enter there is a small dining room where we ate. One thing that quickly becomes apparent is eating heavy foods in Key West is not as appealing as eating snackier types of foods but that is likely because we came from a cold climate so had a bit of wanting something different or it could be we were too tired to eat a larger meal. I ordered the Creole Gater Bites [sorry no picture] served with Creole honey mustard for dipping and a side salad. My husband ordered a Real Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich. The prices were more than reasonable.

The Philly Cheesesteak was quite large, filled with generous slices of thinly sliced beef and cheese served on a large bun. The garter bites were interesting and yes my husband even tried one. They came battered with the Creole honey mustard on the side in a dipping bowl. Be warned the honey mustard does have a bit of a nip to it. The alligator has a texture a little firmer and heavier than frog legs with a bit more chewy. It does not taste like chicken either! I would like to recreate this appetizer at home so will be looking for an online source for fresh or frozen alligator.

After dinner we moved to a table in the bar section under the Rum Barrel sign in front of the window closest to the meter except the windows were open that night. We settled in for the evening to listing to the live music of Jeff Clark's band. The band members and our mixologist autographed our daily specials menu. It was a nice way to spend our final night in Key West.

Weekend Home Canning

It was a weekend filled with cooking and canning. One of the grocery stores has whole pork shoulder picnic roasts on sale for $1 per pound. With four nice roasts tucked into the refrigerator, I decided to cook one for Saturday's dinner then can the other three. I also had two hampers of tomatoes and 8 lb of L-star apples to process. In total, I canned 4 - 500 ml apple butter, 12 - 500 ml salsa, 7 - L whole tomatoes, 4 - 250 ml tomato paste and 5 - 500 ml barbeque pork. This productive weekend left the house smelling wonderful while it added to my pantry stock!

Apple Butter Bars

The weekend started off with of course cooking. Friday I made Anna Olson's (host of Food Network's Sugar) Apple Butter Bars. One question that often comes up on the canning groups is "I canned this but now how do I use it?". I saw this segment and thought it would be interesting to try so I did.

I used the recipe as written except for substituting organic sugar, unbleached flour and sea salt. The bars were more of a cake texture but had a very lovely flavour. I'm going to modify the recipe a bit to use a larger pan for a thinner bar-like layer. Other than that, this recipe gets two thumbs up from our family. It is a wonderful way to use up a jar of homemade apple butter!

Roast Pork Dinner

Saturday's dinner was of course long cooked pork shoulder roast. I had ulterior motives as I wanted something easy to cook since I was canning tomatoes and I wanted to determine cooking time for the pork I wanted to can on Sunday. I poured Uncle Sam's BBQ Sauce (voted best 2006 Etobicoke ribfest) onto the roast then topped with sliced Spanish onions. The roast was cooked at 250ºF for five hours then increased to 350ºF for 1 hour in a clay baker. A side of calrose rice completed the meal.

The meat was melt in your mouth tender and moist but clearly for bulk cooking, I would need to modify the cooking method. I also thought cooking at a lower temperature over a longer period of time would work better for canning. After making careful notes in my cooking journal, I knew I was ready for canning barbeque pork the next day.

Whole Tomatoes & Salsa

Tomatoes are classified as heirlooms or hybrids and may or may not be organically grown. They are further divided into slicing (beefsteak, etc), cherry (grape, etc), plum (paste), pear-shaped and striped. The choice of variety will determine the outcome of homecanned tomato products. If the tomato is not meaty, it will mean more prep work and a longer cook time for some homecanned tomato products.

Two hampers of tomatoes were sitting in the kitchen Saturday morning. These were very meaty, very few seeds paste tomatoes. I decided on making salsa and another batch of whole tomatoes. I've made previous blog entries on both. This would be a higher prep work canning session using the boiling water canners. Salsa has more prep work so I worked on that first slipping the skins from the first hamper of tomatoes. The size of the batch meant running two canners as well. This is the first of four larger batches of salsa of varying degrees of heat that I will make this year. A smaller test batch is also planned for tweak besides heat.

The whole tomatoes were prepared as in the previous blog entry. Instead of pressure canning, I decided to use the boiling water bath canner. The main difference between the two processing methods is time. Processing for L (quarts) is 85 minutes for boiling water bath. The choice to use one method over another is purely preference and timing if you have both types of canners. If you do not have a pressure canner then the boiling water bath method is a must.

Before & After

Large pots and pans are essential when doing a lot of canning or bulk cooking. Over the years I have accumulated quite a few. A large square enamelware roasting pan was ideal for this test run. It held the three roasts comfortably so since I have another of similar size I know I can prepare six roasts for canning by also using the grill. The roasts were prepared using a method I've often used and know results in tender, juicy pork.

Method: I put three pork shoulder picnic roasts in a large roasting pan, sprinkled with a little garlic pepper then topped with Diana sauce (rib&chicken) and sliced Spanish onions. I slow cooked at 200F about 6 hrs then increased the temperature to 250F for about 2 hours. Then I carefully removed each roast, took off the fat and pulled into shreds. I strained the resulting sauce. What meat was left after DH helped himself as official taste tester and ferreted away a bowl for his lunch today was hot packed into 500 ml (pint) jars. I poured the sauce over the meat leaving 1 inch headspace. Processing was at 10 lb pressure 75 minutes.

It is very important to me that the food in the jars look as good as I know it will taste. The barbeque pork looked wonderful when it was first removed from the canner but as it cooled the fats congealed. I'm not overly impressed with the final appearance. This is one reason why I will be experimenting with different cooking methods. The other reason is I want to make a lower fat end product. Eliminating all of the fat would be impossible and I wouldn't want to as it does add flavour. Instead of using a strainer for the next batch, I'm going to use a gravy separator to remove more of the fat in the sauce.

I'm getting more roasts today and more daily until the sale ends. Now I know this works well, I'm going to be playing with cooking methods, rubs and sauces so each batch will be different. We will be able to decide which versions we like best then make larger batches of them.

Tomato Paste, Barbeque Pork, Apple Butter

When preparing long cooked foods for canning it is a better use of time to make more than one kind. I like to plan so I can run the boiling water bath canner back to back on one burner and the pressure canner on the other. This is how I canned on Sunday. Shown is tomato paste, canned barbeque pork and apple butter.

Homemade tomato paste has a nice robust flavour without any of the tininess of store bought. It isn't difficult to make just time consuming. My tomato paste is made using only paste tomatoes unlike some recipes that include other ingredients. A food mill is essential to get a smooth sauce that is reduced to paste over low heat.

Method: Wash the tomatoes and cut in half. Bring to a boil in a large stock pot, reduce heat and simmer slowly for an hour. Run the mixture through a food mill. Return the sauce to the stock pot and continue slowly cooking until mixture mounds on a spoon, about 2 1/2 hours. I like letting the sauce reduce on the grill in a roasting pan as the larger surface area decreases the reduction time. Ladle into hot, sterilized jars. Wipe rims and adjust two piece lids. Process in boiling water bath canner for 45 minutes.
Yield: Yield depends on the amount of tomatoes and how meaty they are. About 11 kg (16 lb) will yield about 9 - 250 ml (1/2 pint) jars.

Apple Butter
8 lb L-star apples (or similar tart apples)
2 c water
8 c organic sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves

Wash and cut the apples into quarters. Place in a large stock pot with 2 c water. Slowly bring to a boil while stirring to prevent burning. Run the apples through a food mill. Return the sauce to the stock pot or crockpot. Set the temperature to low and allow to slowly simmer and reduce. When the butter is thick, ladle into hot sterilized jars leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rim and adjust two-piece lids. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath canner.
Yield - about 8 pints