SpiderFarmer

I mentioned this recipe on my twitter feed, and a couple of people asked for the recipe, so here it is: Chicken Satay so easy your 7 year old can do a lot of it.

It’s important to note here that we deviated from the traditional Thai recipe and methodology. This is a kid-friendly recipe, which dramatically cuts down on the “hot” and ramps up the peanut. Kids have so many more tastebuds than adults that they taste things more dramatically. Also, traditionally, the chicken is skewered and grilled, with the sauce served on the side, whereas I pan sauteed everything in one pan. We served it on a bed of jasmine rice, which complimented it very nicely.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken (we used breasts, traditional recipe uses thigh)
• 1/2 tsp hot chili powder (more or less to taste)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp veggie oil
• 1 sweet onion (we used purple)
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 tbsp extra crunchy peanut butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cumin (ground)
• 1 tsp coriander (ground)
• 5 tbsp water
• (fresh lemongrass if you’ve got it…but don’t kill yourself trying to find it if you don’t live near an Asian market.)

Directions:

(If making rice; start it first, it’ll take longer than the rest of the prep.)

Dice your onions, and garlic, then cut your chicken into 1 or 2″ cubes.  (For sanitary reasons, do the chicken last.)

Heat your oil (I used olive) and sweat the onions and garlic.  (Don’t get them brown (caramelized), just soften them up. Remove them with a slotted spoon, and toss in your chicken to brown, stirring as needed to keep them from sticking or burning.

While the chicken is cooking, combine everything else and wisk until smooth.

When the chicken is fully cooked, reduce heat to a simmer.  Add onion mix back to the pan.  Pour on the sauce, heat until bubbly and slightly reduced.

Serve, and sprinkle with chopped fresh lemongrass (if available).

Voilà, you are done! Easy Americanized Chicken Satay.

Creep out everyone at your Halloween party with witches finger cookies. You can use any shortbread cookie recipe, but here’s one for you to use if you prefer.

Witches Finger Cookie Recipe

Yield: 5 dozen

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup Butter, softened
• 1 Egg
• 1 tsp Almond extract
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 2/3 cups Flour
• 1 tsp Salt
• 3/4 cup whole Almonds, blanched
• 2 squares of melting chocolate, or chocolate bark

Combine the sugar, egg, butter, almond extract, and vanilla in a bowl. Mix in the flour, and salt. Cover and refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes, or until it’s firm.

When you’re ready to shape the cookies, only take out a small portion of the dough at a time. Shape the cookies into fingers by rolling and working with your hands. Score the top of the cookie with a knife or spatula to make it look like the wrinkles in your knuckle. Press an imprint into the tip of the cookie with your finger to make a spot for the almond finger nail. Press an almond into the tip of each finger to look like a fingernail.

Placed on a cooking sheet lightly coated with no-stick cooking spray and bake at 325` for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are a very light golden brown. Let the cookies cool on a drying rack.

Use melting chocolate to go around the outside of the almond nail, giving a ghoulish appearance. Just melt the chocolate, put it in an icing piping bag, and cut a very small hole in the tip. Then pipe around the nail.

If you use red melting chocolate the look will be even more dramatic, you can also make small drops of chocolate blood, or chocolate cuts on the cookies if you really want to gross out your guests.

Image via stock.xpert, recipe from Linette, recorded here because stuff on the intarwebs tends to go poof in the night, and I didn’t want to lose this recipe.  It’s great fun.

Carrot Bread

This experiment turned out so well!

Ingredients:

• 2.25 tsp dry yeast (1 cake yeast)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3.5 cups bread flour (500 grams)
• .5 pound grated carrots (250 grams)
• 1 tablespoon melted butter (cooled to room temp)

Directions:

Sprinkle the yeast, then the sugar into .5 cup of water and let proof for 10 minutes.  Stir to dissolve.

Mix the flour and the salt in a large bowl.  Make a well in the center and pour in the dissolved yeast, then add carrots, then add butter.  Mix in the flour from the sides of the well.

Add water, as needed to form a moist (sticky) dough.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Flour your hands, and knead for 10 minutes.  This dough is super sticky, and you may need to add a tablespoon of flour now and then to hands and surface, but try to not add very much, to avoid a dense bread. The dough will still be sticky at the end of your kneading time…that’s ok.

Put the dough in a lightly buttered/greased bowl and cover with a linen towel.  Let it rise until doubled in size…about 1.5 hours.  Punch down, and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

Shape the dough into a round loaf and place on either a floured baking tray or a parchment lined baking tray.  Cover with a linen towel and let proof until doubled in size…about 45 minutes.

It should look like this:

Carrot bread dough - 2nd rise

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven (200 degree C).  Steam is optional, but I think it made the crust nicer.  You can add steam either by adding icecubes in a baking pan below the bread, or do what I do, which is to spritz the oven (careful to avoid electrical elements) right after I put the bread in.

Bread should be golden and hollow sounding when tapped underneath.

Cool on an elevated wire rack.

Enjoy!

So, I’ve been working on some new recipes, trying to find the perfect thing for dessert for a big party.  Something that goes with the Sumatra Caviar.  However, the cookies, while wonderful, aren’t the texture I needed.  That said, these are some pretty amazing cookies, so I thought I’d share the recipe.

Ingredients and Preparation instructions behind the cut.

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This is a fantastic summer soup. It’s one of the rare soups that good served hot or cold. While cold soups have never made much inroad in American cuisine, it’s a worthwhile experiment during the dog days of summer.

Ingredients and directions behind the cut.

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