Pecan Brittle Bars {Recipe}

I don't know what I was thinking when I signed on to the International Blogger Cookie Exchange 2011. My family eats sweets slowly; cookies, brownies and the like often become stale before we eat a whole batch. I am so grinch-like that I don't even have a Christmas cookie tradition. But I did sign up and receive a recipe for pecan chocolate bar cookies from Diana of Cookerati.

I made the cookies with a few adaptations. I halved the recipe to fit my baking pan and to prevent waste if they sat around too long. At Lil's suggestion, I increased the chocolate. The recipe below reflects the light brown sugar and white whole wheat flour used because that's what I had on hand.

The resulting bars are salty and sweet, rich and snappy. I have a hard time classifying these bars as cookies because the overriding crispy sweetness reminds me more of candy - good homemade candy. A small square is a filling dessert. I think the name Pecan Brittle Bars better reflects the taste and texture of this recipe.

I wasn't kidding that we don't eat cookies quickly; this batch is still going strong after four days. Brittle bars would definitely keep well for a mailed package.

I wish I could say that the recipe exchange changed me into the Christmas Cookie Queen but it didn't. I'm still a salty smoky gal. I do thank Diana for sharing a tasty recipe I will surely make again.

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Pecan Brittle Bars Adapted from Cookerati's adaptation from Fine Cooking Annual Cookbook, 2007

Makes: 12 2x2 inch squares Time: 30 minutes cooking, 15 minutes baking

1 1/2 cups raw pecans

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces 1 cup unbleached all-purpose or white whole wheat flour 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp table salt

1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I like Ghiradelli brand)

for the brittle: 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 2 1/2 tablespoons honey 1 tablespoon heavy cream or whole milk 1/4 tsp table salt

1) Position a rack in the center of the oven at 350 degrees F.

2) In a skillet over medium heat, roast pecans until just browned and nutty smelling. Remove from heat and pulse in food processor until finely chopped. Set aside.

3) Put butter in a food processor bowl (don't bother to wash from the pecans) along with flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.  Pulse until combined.

4) Scatter the dough into an 8x8 or 6x10 inch baking pan and press evenly over the bottom.

5) Bake the base until firm and lightly browned, approximately 20 minutes.

6) Remove from and sprinkle with chocolate chips.  Set pan aside but don’t turn off oven.

7) As the cookie base bakes, in a saucepan melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar, honey, cream and salt.  Simmer for a minute stirring occasionally.

8 ) Turn off the heat and stir in pecans.

9) Pour the mixture over the cookie base, spreading evenly.

10) Return to the oven and bake until the filling is bubbling throughout, about 12 – 15 minutes.

11) Let cool completely in the pan.

12) Cut carefully into squares. I found scoring the top with a butter knife and then pressing down for a second pass worked best.

13) Keeps, covered, for up to five days.

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Making a Meaningful Holiday {Friday Five}

Truthfully, I become a little kooky around the winter holidays. My perfectionist tendencies and the dark days put me on edge. Excess time on my hands because I'm not gardening and canning allows me to try to craft the perfect experience, cookies, gifts, and meals. But life isn't perfect. Rather than be disappointed when my plans don't work out, this year I am trying to focus on being fully present to enjoy the most meaningful parts of our holidays:

1) Columbus Holiday Events - I don't like crowds but do enjoy the decorated spaces around Columbus. This year Lil and I will go to the Nutcracker, Franklin Park Conservatory, Zoo Lights, and the train at the Main branch of the Columbus Metro Library. We're going during the day before school gets out, naturally.

2) Crafting - Lil is at the age where she can be occupied for hours with a few quality art supplies. We are hosting a friend once a week to make holiday crafts and I love watching what their hands create. The gingerbread ornaments pictured are Freddie Mercury and Lady Gaga, by the way. We like to think they would have been an awesome couple.

3) Solstice Sun Bread - I posted our sun bread recipe and book recommendation last year. I truly cannot wait to welcome the sun's return and make this bread again in a few weeks.

4) Mailing Cards - As much as I often occupy a virtual world and disdain waste, I cannot resist paper mail. We printed postcards with Zazzle this year. Next week will be filled with writing messages and hopefully receiving cards in exchange. When we complete a few homemade gifts, we will send holiday packages to our friends in Japan too.

5) Xmas Eve Dinner - Other holiday meals are hosted by my elders so I claimed Xmas Eve as ours. We decorate the table with linens and crystal, shine Alex's inherited silver, and cook a luxurious meal of goose, mushroom pie, popovers, cranberry sauce and more. This meal is something I look forward to amidst the more materialistic aspect of the holidays.

What do you do to stay sane in December?

Lenten Rose in December {Wordless Wednesday}

This little hellebore from our deadly garden is blooming about four months ahead of time. Perhaps it has the religious holiday seasons mixed up, as hellebore typically blooms when Lent begins, not during Advent.

Sweetheart, Sweet Heart {Charcutepalooza}

My final Charcutepalooza post, on the topic of showing off, takes the form of two family stories.

Origins of the Sweetheart

Once upon a time in 13th century Europe, lived Devorguilla of Galloway. Devorguilla was a woman of substance (i.e. wealthy land owner) whose parents arranged her marriage to John de Baliol.

Read more of the Baliol family history on Tom Baillieul's website if you wish - it's pretty fascinating stuff!  Tom, Alex's father, also painted and graciously allowed me to use the Devorguilla/John de Baliol crest on the right.

When John died in 1269, Devorguilla embalmed his heart and enshrined in a decorative ivory box to accompany her everywhere. Legend has it that Devorguilla had this heart seated at the opposite head of her dinner table and donated John's portion of the meal to the hungry.

History shows that Devorguilla likely coined the term 'sweetheart' through her dedication to John even after his death. In 1290, she was buried with John's heart at a Cistercian monastery she founded with the name 'Sweetheart Abbey'.

Consumption of the Sweet Heart

703 years after the death of Devorguilla, her descendant Alex Baillieul was born. Alex grew to be an adventurous traveler and cook proud of his Balliol heritage.

Alex's wife Rachel embarked on a year long charcuterie project in 2011, the culmination of which was to be a dish or meal that showed off four styles of meat curing. At the same time as the final Charcutepalooza project assignment, Rachel and Alex intended to attend a CMH Dinner Club with the theme 'show your roots'.

Rachel could think of no 'roots' story better than that of Devorguilla. She knew that she and Alex had to create an edible sweet heart.

Rachel bought a beef heart from Blues Creek Meats. She, Alex, and Lil examined the anatomy, identifying the aorta and chambers while marveling at the mass of the muscle.

Noticing very little fat (or inedible bits), the curing plan became clear: the heart would be cooked slowly in goose and bacon fat. A recipe on From Belly to Bacon confirmed that confit is an appropriate technique for this unusual cut of meat.

When tender, 12 hours after cooking, Alex cooled the heart in the fat. To serve it, he sliced the muscle into thin pieces and seared them in a hot pan. Rachel prepared a rosemary honey drizzle to garnish the sweet heart.

Rachel and Alex ultimately were unable to attend the CMH dinner club. Instead they served sweet heart, fermented Spanish-style chorizo, duck prosciutto, squirrel rilletes, homemade cornichons, and sour cherry preserves on a charcuterie platter for Thanksgiving with extended family, retelling the story of Devorguilla.

Adventurous diners were surprised at the luxurious heart. It was beefy and rich with melt-in-your-mouth texture. Lil declared it "better than hamburger". Devorguilla's namesake, the big hound Devie, heartily approved of the dish, complaining only that she did not get more pieces as treats.

Sweet heart, a dish honoring an ancient relative with the ancient art of charcuterie, was the perfect ending to a year of cured meat.

Final Relfections

I, Rachel, entered the Charcutepalooza challenge with a fair amount of meat curing experience. Any fears of raw meat, botulism, icky meat casings, and expensive investments had already been overcome at the beginning of 2011. Instead, I took on Charcutepalooza as a lens through which to explore food writing and expose more people to the dark secrets of the meat hanging in my basement.

I attempted to record each challenge in a unique way - I told fiction, humor and non-fiction stories, shared new and interpreted recipes, showed off charcuterie in pictures and video, and opined on marriage, meat sourcing, squirrel and vegetarianism. Some of these posts were quite a stretch for my skills and patience but I advanced to spread the love of cured meat.

There is a fabulous trip to France awaiting one of the Charcutepalooza participants. I do not envy Cathy and Kim who must judge the entries. Fortunately, I feel like a winner already because this challenge has strengthened my confidence as a writer and home cook. It even convinced my family that heart is a sweeeeeeet meat.

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Sweet Heart (Beef Heart Confit with Rosemary Honey) Makes: 50+ appetizer servings Time: 12 hours cooking, 48 hours infusion for honey

1/2 cup local lightly-flavored honey 1 stalk fresh rosemary

1 beef heart (4-5 pounds of meat) salt 2-3 quarts of goose, pork, or duck lard (we used a mix of all three)

1. Fold rosemary stalk to fit into the bottom of a half pint jar. 2. Cover rosemary with honey. Put a lid on the jar and set aside at room temperature for 2 or more days, until infusion reaches your desired taste. 3. Salt beef heavily inside and outside of the heart cavity. Chop into large pieces as necessary to fit in an oven-safe pan or pot. 4. Liquefy lard by heating it on the stove top. 5. Pour fat over the heart until all parts of the meat are covered. 6. Place in a 200 degree oven for 12 hours until meat is tender. 7. Cool the heart while submerged in fat. Under refrigeration, the heart keeps indefinitely. 8. For service, remove heart from fat by reheating on the stove top and straining off the fat when it is liquefied. (Fat may be reserved for future use.) 9. Slice the heart into pieces 1/8 inch thick. 10. Heat a cast iron skillet over high heat. Quickly sear heart slices and place on a bed of arugula or other lettuce on a platter. Drizzle with rosemary honey.

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Holiday 2011 Gift Guide

Need a gift for a person who appreciates the provenance of presents? Here are eleven fun, unique ideas from central Ohio:

1) Little Alouette makes the most beautiful baby gifts, period. This holiday they offer personalized teethers, rocking horses, and a stunning nativity set.

2) I picked up a Zeroz Wallet for myself this fall and I am totally in love with the ultra-simple, sleek, handmade-in-Columbus design. It seems unreasonable that someone could improve on something as basic as a wallet, but Zeroz has done it.

3) A week ago, Tulane Road Pottery delivered an invitation to their holiday open house. We walked all of four blocks to the backyard studio and admired the earthy, architectural ceramic ware. A Tulane Road handmade plate, bowl, mug or piggy bank would make a handsome gift.

4) Thurns Meat Samplers - This year Thurn's Speciality Meats, 530 Greenlawn Ave., is offering gift packs for the holiday season, all under $20.00. Your choice of bacon, smoked sausage, jerky, or party sampler will include meats vacuum packed for easy transportation and packaged in a gift bag.

5) Did you know that central Ohio is home to a nationally recognized handcrafted stoneware manufacturer? Hartstone Pottery in Zanesville creates freezer-microwave-dishwasher-oven-safe dishes from USA clay and adds lead-free hand-painted details. I use my tall mug for coffee or tea every day. Visit their location for factory tours and a complete store or shop online with 30% off through next Friday.

6) If don't receive a pair of foodie earrings from Sweet Stella Designs this xmas, I'm buying them for myself. Amy makes miniature confections out of polymer clay that look almost good enough to eat. Find a Sweet Stella dessert accoutrement at What the Rock?! and Wholly Craft, or the MAC Holiday Sale, see below.

7) Igloo Letterpress and The Hills Market collaborated to make a touching, limited edition, Hand that Feeds You poster. Pick yours up at either location for just $25.

8 ) For the sweets lover, grab a Sassafras Bakery Gift Package of handmade from-scratch cookies, brownies, or bars. AJ will be serving up her holiday menu through December 23 for pickup in Worthington or Gahanna or you can pick up individual treats at Bexley Coffee Shop, Market 65, or The Hills Market.

9) Anyone who loves dining out in Columbus needs Nick Decker's book, Breakfast with Nick. In it, he profiles breakfast joints and places that serve coffee and eats all day.

10) Family and friends who appreciate fine drinks will certainly enjoy the best of central Ohio's spirits. I suggest Watershed Gin, Brothers Drake Apple Pie Mead, or OYO Whiskey.

11) For the person who has everything, try a gift certificate to North Market, Franklin Park Conservatory,or Columbus Food Adventures or a gift basket from Celebrate Local or Hills Market. If you are feeling charitable instead of material, try a donation to Local Matters, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, the Mid-Ohio Food Bank or Slow Food Columbus.

What local gifts are you giving this year?

Backyard December 3, 2011 {What's Growing}

Who says a late autumn garden is dull and brown?

Ours is hanging on to some color with rainbow swiss chard and greens, some of which self seeded when I neglected to pull the flowering mustard green plants. Austra the Australorp chicken regrew her jet-black feathers after molting and her comb is starting to redden up. On yesterday's unseasonably warm evening, the sunset was full of bright hues too.

Surely the color will fade or be covered with white snow soon. In the meantime, I am enjoying every bit of intensity.

What's growing in your neck of the woods?

A Six Year Old Makes Lardo & Rat Creature Quiche {Charcutepalooza}

The eleventh Charcutepalooza challenge is curing. Alex and I have cured and dried many meats including saucisson sec, fermented chorizo, and coppa. I asked my daughter Lillian to complete this challenge with me. She's been around hanging meat for most of her life. Curing requires minimal skill and can be left for days at a time, perfect for the distractable mind of a six year old. Watch how Lil cures lardo:

While the lardo cured and dried, our family began reading Columbus-native Jeff Smith's iconic juvenile comic series Bone. One character in the book, an adversarial rat creature, is so mesmerized by quiche that he wants to cook the protagonist Bones into quiche, dreams about quiche, and even argues so adamantly about quiche that the Bones repeatedly escape capture. For the rest of the series, the Bones call the quiche-loving, negligent soldiers 'stupid, stupid rat creatures'.

As Lil says in the video, she doesn't like lardo raw but loves it cooked like bacon. We cooked some salted, dried back fat into a quiche that a Lil' rat creature might like - no green stuff or spice. We arranged a few strips of lardo into a star pattern on the center, another recurring theme in Bone.

Alas, our lardo-making daughter did not like the quiche. Alex and I, however, think the the stupid rat creatures were right on: quiche is a great way to enjoy cured meat.

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Stupid Rat Creature Quiche Makes: 6 Time: 20 minutes preparation, 40-50 minutes baking

4 ounces lardo, diced, plus several slices for garnish if desired 5 eggs, beaten 3/4 cup whole milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 10 grinds fresh black pepper 1 cup shredded cheddar single pie crust (my recipe here)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 2. Cook lardo in a skillet until lightly browned, drain fat. 3. In a mixing bowl, beat together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. 4. Line a 9-inch quiche or pie pan with crust. Tuck under edges and finish with a fork or fingers. 5. Scatter lardo and cheese on the bottom of the crust. 6. Pour egg mix over the top. 7. Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes or until top is browned. 8. Cut into six slices and serve.

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This post is a part of the year-long Charcutepalooza challenge. Read below for our other meat-curing adventures and reflections.

Modern Mistletoe: Meat, Marriage, & Duck Prosciutto Pizza Waste Not, Want Not Squirrel Rillettes English Pork Pie Photojournal Almost All-Ohio Mouselline How to Make Hot Dogs Like a Girl Mint Lamb Sausage Inspired by Jorgensen Farms Taco Truck Chorizo Sopito Red’s Canadian Bacon or Why I Had to Kill a Pig To Eat Meat Again The Story of the Rachel Salt Cure Old and New Cider Syrup Bacon

Added to Simple Lives Thursday.

The Lenghtiest Homegrown Staple: Dry Beans

Have you ever made homegrown dried beans?

It's a lengthy and annoying process, in my opinion. I do it every year because I just can't stand to waste.

Here's how it goes:

I try to pick fresh green beans I grow every few days. We like the little sweet ones.

Beans are prolific. The bright green leave camouflage the slender green sickles. I miss many that then grow too big for us to enjoy fresh.

What's a lazy girl to do? Leave them on the vine, growing until they are full of fat beans. I leave them there while they whither. I don't pick until the leaves themselves have withered and I'm tired of looking at the whole mess.

Finally, after a few days without rain, I pick all the pods. I dry them further outside (where sometimes I forget to bring them in and they mold, see the dragon tongue yield on right) or in the house in a big bowl.

Weeks later, or when I can't stand the big bowl sitting around any more, I harvest the beans by hand. I crack each papery husk and remove the dry beans inside. It takes an hour or more to select the edible from the inedible. I leave them in open topped containers, stirring occasionally, to be sure the beans are truly dry before pantry storage.

The metal bowl above was filled to overflowing with bean pods and look at the tiny yield: a half pint jar of Kentucky pole beans, a half pint jar of another bean, and a scant few tablespoons of dragon tongues beans (left to right in top picture).

Harvesting homegrown dry beans, a timely process, makes me appreciate how inexpensive they are at the store. Freshly dried beans have fantastic texture and I will enjoy my tiny quantity. I just can't see trying to grow them for dry storage in any quantity without processing equipment.