Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: nuts

Showing posts with label nuts. Show all posts

Saturday, March 4, 2023

"LET'S GO NUTS" ALMOND CRACKERS #RECIPE from PEG COCHRAN/ MARGARET LOUDON

Let's Go Nuts Almond Crackers

This was my first attempt to make crackers of any kind. I was drawn to the recipe by the inclusion of almond flour. I'd bought a bag to make a specific cake recipe and wanted to use up more of it. Also, hubby bought a GIANT bag of walnuts at Sam's Club--the size bag you can only get at Sam's or Costco. I didn't have flax seed meal so I eliminated it and the crackers didn't suffer. This recipe came from Allrecipes.com and the comments indicated that bakers added their own touches--pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, herbs and seasonings, pepper flakes. Go wild! These were really good and we couldn't stop eating them! They're perfect for a low carb diet and go well with cheese or other spreads.

Ingredients:

1 cup almond flour

2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts

1 ½ teaspoons flax seed meal

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons water

1 ½ teaspoons olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix almond flour, walnuts, flax seed meal (if using) and salt in a bowl until combined.

Add water and olive oil. Mix until dough is moistened and holds together.

Place dough on baking sheet. Place a second piece of parchment paper over dough.

Roll dough into a rectangle—approximately 1/16 inch thick.

Remove top piece of parchment paper.

Cut dough into 1-inch squares using a pizza cutter. You can neaten up sides if desired by cutting edges in a straight line, adding that dough to the top or bottom and reroll. Do not separate pieces!

Bake in the preheated oven until outside edges of dough are browned, about 15 minutes.

Cool crackers on the baking sheet; break into squares.

Treat yourself to some armchair travel to England with my

Open Book Series!

Coming August 1

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

When murder taints writer-in-residence Penelope Parish’s charming British bookshop, she must follow the clues to catch a killer before tempers boil over.

Penelope Parish thought she’d turned the page on her amateur sleuthing days but when the owner of Upper Chumley-on-Stokes’ proposed first high-end gourmet shop is poisoned, the American novelist starts to wonder if she and her quaint British town are in for another rewrite. It turns out that not everyone was a fan of Simeon Foster’s farm-sourced charcuterie and imported pastries—many of the locals were outraged by the potential new competition.

With a full menu of suspects on her hands, this just might be Penelope’s toughest case yet. Luckily, her friends at the Open Book are there to help with every twist of the poisoned pen.

Monday, December 20, 2021

Chocolate Candy #Recipe by Maya Corrigan

These bite-size candies take almost no time to make and have only three ingredients: chocolate, dried cranberries, and pecans. They're perfect as hostess gifts or for guests who drop by on short notice. The cranberries make them a holiday treat, but they make great snacks all year round. You can substitute other dried fruit like raisins and any type of nuts.

Ingredients

8 ounces (1 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks (milk chocolate also works)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Instructions

Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper and set it aside

Put the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Heat the chocolate at half power for 30 seconds and stir it.

Heat the chocolate again at half power for 30 seconds and stir. Repeat until the chocolate is smooth. If it's close to being totally melted, heat it for only 15 seconds before stirring.

Chocolate beginning to melt

Final melted stage

Combine the nut pieces and cranberries in a bowl. Stir them into the melted chocolate, coating them well.

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper-lined baking sheet.

Fruit and nuts mixed with chocolate

Chocolate dropped by spoonfuls on paper

Chill in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardens before serving.

You can store the mounds in an airtight container at room temperature or in the freezer until you're ready to serve them.

Makes approximately 24 chocolates.

This recipe appears in Gingerdead Man, the 7th Five-Ingredient Mystery.

Though I make these treats for emergency use as gifts or for guests, I love reaching into the fridge or freezer to snack on them.

What kind of snacks do you keep around during the holidays?

🎄

Just in time for the holidays the Gingerdead Man e-book is 99 cents at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Google play, Apple Books.

During Bayport's Dickens of a Holiday festival, Val hosts a private tea party for the volunteers dressed as Dickens characters including Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past. A Santa who's more naughty than nice also comes to tea. An unexpected guest arrives, "shrouded in a deep black garment" like the eeriest Dickens ghost, and hands out gingerbread men with white icing skeleton bones. Though the creepy treat called a gingerdead man looks like a Halloween leftover, cookie addict Santa can't resist it. When the man in red turns blue, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch.

"A wonderfully seasonal cozy mystery" -- Criminal Element

"If you are looking to settle in with a well plotted cozy this Christmas, Gingerdead Man is for you. Grab a gingerbread man and some hot chocolate and enjoy." -- Mark Baker, Carstairs Considers

"Plenty of red herrings, mixed motives, and recipes for foodies make for a spirited holiday cozy." -- Kirkus Review

🎄

Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Visit her website for book news, easy recipes, mystery trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

A Writer's Snack: Maple-Cinnamon Glazed Almonds with Pink Salt by Cleo Coyle

If you live in New York City, you better like nuts. (It goes with the territory.)

These nuts are the kind you eat. They're deliciously addictive, and they'll make your kitchen smell like a Cinnabon store...

Cleo Coyle has a partner in

crime-writing—her husband.

Learn about their books

by clicking here and here.

Cleo Coyle's
Extra Crunchy
Maple-Cinnamon
Glazed Almonds
with Pink Salt

My husband remembers glazed nuts like these being cooked and served at his first ever "New York" party. That was over thirty years ago. "It was the first time I ever saw parchment paper," he said. (Spoken like a co-writer of culinary mysteries.) And, yes, you will need parchment paper to prevent the process from making a royal mess of your pan.

The basic recipe (using egg whites to bind seasonings to nuts before roasting) has been around for decades. My husband and I didn't invent it, but we did create this particular combination of ingredients. We think the coarseness of our sugar and salt choices (Sugar in the Raw and roughly ground Himalayan pink salt) gives extra crunchiness to the coating, which makes them especially satisfying. They're easy to stir together and roast, outrageously addictive, and you can change the seasonings to your own liking. Here's how we do it...

To download a free PDF of this
recipe that you can print,
save, or share, click here.

For the PDF, click here.

Maple-Cinnamon Glazed Almonds
by Cleo Coyle

Ingredients

1 egg white

1 teaspoon maple syrup

2 cups whole, raw, shelled almonds

3/4 cup Sugar in the Raw (aka Turbinado sugar)

1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground Himalayan pink salt

Directions: In a large mixing bowl, combine egg white and maple syrup and whisk well. Pour in the almonds and stir them gently until well coated with the egg white mixture. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together Sugar in the Raw (Turbinado sugar), cinnamon, and pink salt. Now taste the mix of seasonings. Is it too salty or sweet for you? Do you want a stronger cinnamon flavor? Adjust to your liking. Pour the final dry seasoning mixture over the wet nuts and gently fold until well coated. Dump the bowl's contents onto a baking sheet that's been lined with parchment paper. Spread the nuts out in a single layer. Bake at 300° F. for about 30 minutes. Using a spatula, gently flip the nuts and cook for another 10 minutes. This flipping ensures that any dampness on the underside of the nuts will be cooked. Nuts are done when the outside coating becomes crisp. Cool completely before storing in a plastic bag or airtight container, and...

To download
the free PDF,
click here
and...

Eat with joy!

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author of

The Coffeehouse Mysteries

Yes, this is me, Cleo (aka Alice).

Friend me on facebook here.

Follow me on twitter here.

Visit my online coffeehouse here.

The Coffeehouse Mysteries are bestselling

works of amateur sleuth fiction set in a landmark

Greenwich Village coffeehouse, and each of the

13 titles includes the added bonus of recipes.

GET A FREE
TITLE CHECKLIST
(with mini plot summaries)
by clicking here.

CoffeehouseMystery@gmail(dot)com

This will also enter you in my weekly
Free Coffee Drawings.
Every week, I give away a package of
premium coffee to a subscriber.

Good luck!

* * *

Now a National
Bestseller in Hardcover

Billionaire Blend:

A Coffeehouse Mystery

*Starred Review* -Kirkus

"Top Pick" -RT Book Reviews

"...a highly satisfying mystery."
-Publishers Weekly

See the book's
Recipe Guide
by clicking here.

***

Haunted Bookshop
Mysteries
Free Title Checklist,
with mini plot summaries,

click here.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

How to Make Wet Walnuts: Easy Maple-Walnut Caramel Topping for Ice Cream, Yogurt, Oatmeal, + More by Cleo Coyle

I'm making homemade
Wet Walnuts today!

My favorite breakfast lately has been a parfait of oatmeal, Greek yogurt, sliced banana, walnuts, and maple syrup. This combo is not only delicious, it's highly nutritious and recommended as a "probiotic-prebiotic" elixir.

And what is a P&P elixir? Well...

If you've seen a yogurt commercial lately, than you know that probiotics are the healthy bacteria that live in your gut. They're also found in fermented foods like good quality yogurts with live and active cultures.

Prebiotics are nondigestible carbohydrates, and they can be found in bananas, oatmeal, maple syrup, honey, and high-fiber foods.

When these two "P" foods (pro- and prebiotics) are paired in a single meal, they contribute to healthy digestion and immune function. They also have a "synergistic relationship, because prebiotics feed the probiotics," as registered dietitian Nancy Clark puts it. You can read more on this subject at the Mayo Clinic website, by clicking here.

Whether or not you join me in my P&P parfait, I hope you'll enjoy today's recipe. In my kitchen, this amazing topping is a marriage of convenience between the walnuts and the maple syrup that I use in my P&P parfait. I keep my Wet Walnuts in small jars in the fridge, where I can quickly dip in a spoon and drizzle them with joy.

(Truth) my husband (and partner in crime-writing) has no interest in my P&P parfaits, but he does absolutely love these Wet Walnuts spooned over vanilla Häagen-Dazs. So no matter how you serve them, I sincerely hope you will...

Eat with joy!

~ Cleo

To download this recipe
in a PDF document that

you can print, save,

or share, click here.

Cleo Coyle’s

Homemade Wet Walnuts

(Maple-Walnut Caramel Topping

for Ice Cream, Yogurt, Oatmeal, and More...)

Cleo Coyle, who is nuts
about nuts, is author of The
Coffeehouse Mysteries

Natural maple syrup is transformed during the cooking process of this recipe, and the resulting sauce tastes like caramel--but a caramel that's made without butter, cream, or refined white sugar. To learn more about maple syrup's nutritional and health benefits compared to white sugar, read my recent blog post on maple syrup (and tips on understanding its various grades) by clicking here.

TIP: Use the freshest walnuts you can find and you'll be happy with the result. I buy whole nuts, freshly shelled, from a local green grocer, and chop them myself. Sometimes I toast the nuts, sometimes not--so make that decision based on your own taste. According to LiveStrong.com, roasting nuts does not significantly damage their nutritional value. Read more here.

Adapted from the Vermont Maple Festival Cookbook (After experimenting with the original recipe, I altered the ingredients and amount of ingredients, and wrote up my own directions and variations, but the cookbook did inspire me!)

Makes about 1-1/2 cups

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup roughly chopped walnuts (*see my note below on toasting)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon hot tap water

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/8 teaspoon table salt)

1-1/2 cup pure maple syrup (**see my tips below on choosing)

1 teaspoon vanilla (***or see my other flavor options)

DIRECTIONS:

Step 1 - Prep Ingredients: In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch, hot tap water, and salt. Use a fork or small whisk and work the mixture until you see no lumps. Set aside. If you’d like to use toasted nuts in this recipe, then prepare the nuts now. (My directions on toasting nuts are at the end of this recipe).

Step 2 - Cook the sauce: During this step, the syrup will bubble up quite a bit, so be sure to use a large, heavy saucepan that allows enough room for the bubbling (see my photo below). Pour the syrup into the pan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. When the syrup bubbles up, turn the heat down, and simmer for one full minute while stirring continually. After a minute, stir in the cornstarch mixture that you prepared in the first step. Turn up the heat and bring to a boil again. Boil and stir for a full minute. Turn off the heat and take the pan off the hot burner.

Step 3 - Remove from heat and finish: For best results, make sure the sauce is well off the boil before you stir in the vanilla or rum or liqueurs. (You don’t want to boil off the flavoring.) Finally, stir in the chopped nuts. The syrup will thicken as it cools but should remain pourable right from the refrigerator. If chilled sauce becomes hard, simply re-heat in a pan or microwave and stir in a few teaspoons of water before returning to the storage container and the fridge.

Drizzle over ice cream, yogurt, oatmeal, pound cake, puddings, pancakes, waffles, even fruit pies (especially apple pie). The sauce can be stored in an air tight container or glass jar and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

NOTES:

*TOASTING NUTS: Spread the chopped walnuts on a single layer of a baking sheet and heat for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 F. Stir once about halfway through to prevent burning. Proceed with the recipe as written.

*PURE MAPLE SYRUP has one ingredient on the bottle--maple syrup. Do not use not "pancake syrup" or "maple-flavored table syrup" for this recipe; those products are artificial imitations of real maple syrup, which is made by boiling down maple tree sap. Look for Grade A, Medium or Dark Amber for this recipe. To learn more about maple grades, read my recent blog post on this subject by clicking here.

***FLAVOR OPTIONS: You can replace the vanilla with other options, including 1 tablespoon of dark rum; or 1 tablespoon of the following: Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur); Amaretto; or (if you can find it) Nocino (green walnut liqueur).

F o o d i e

P h o t o s