Thursday’s dinner

On the menu this week

Another crazy but good week. We’re on the run each day to work, baby, trip to the hospital for Peter, clubs starting at school, two trips out of town…

There has been lots of eating but not a lot of blogging.

Find a few pictures below of the selections this week. In addition; we’ll be having upside down pizza, homemade hummous and pasta carbonnara. See previous blogs for the recipes.

Our big treat this week though will be a recipe that I saw on “The Best Thing I ever Ate” and had to seek out then. I must make a resolution NOT to watch this show.

Our grapes are also ready so thanks to neighbour Cindy we’ve got them picked and last night I made A LOT of grape jelly. No need for a fancy recipe. This is the only preserve that I made this year with certo and sugar. I’ll try it with naturally occurring pectin and honey next year but I was just happy to get it done at all this fall.

MUST do up the beets in the garden this weekend and make pesto from all of the basil and leftover rocket. Oh-and sleep at some point.

http://cuisinenie.blogspot.com/2010/07/sea-salt-caramel-brownies.html

Sea Salt Caramel Brownies

Sea Salt Caramel – adapted from Baked Cookbook

•1/2 cup heavy cream
•1 teaspoon sea salt
•1 cup sugar
•2 tablespoons light corn syrup
•1 teaspoon Vanilla
•1/4 cup sour cream
In a small saucepan, combine the cream and the salt. Simmer over very low heat until the salt is dissolved. set aside.

In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and corn syrup carefully. They will not combine well until the sugar begins to melt. Cook over high heat until an instant-read thermometer reads 350 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes. Without a thermometer, just pull the sugar off the heat when it is a medium goldish brown – it will continue to cook in the heat of the pan. Better to pull it too early than too late. Remove from the heat and let cool for one minute.

Add the cream mixture and the vanilla to the sugar mixture. Whisk in the sour cream. Let the caramel cool to room temp, then follow the brownie instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate any leftover caramel. it makes a great ice cream topping or tastes great straight out of the jar.

Brownies
Ingredients
•4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
•1/2 cup butter
•1 1/2 cups sugar
•2 teaspoons vanilla
•3 eggs
•1 cup all purpose flour
•pinch salt
•1/4 cup Chocolate Syrup
•half of the above caramel recipe
Preheat oven to 325F.

Melt Chocolate and butter in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

In a bowl, mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until well combined

Add flour, salt, chocolate syrup and chocolate mixture and blend well.

In a greased 8×8 pan, pour a little over half of the brownie batter and bake for 18 minutes. Remove from oven and pour in the caramel. On top of the caramel, add the rest of your brownie batter. If it doesn’t pour smoothly, just plop it in a swirl it around a little bit. Return to oven and bake for another 18-22 minutes. Brownies will still appear a little shaky, due to the caramel, but they will firm up once cooled. Do not overbake.

Enjoy with a nice glass of milk, or better yet – ice cream!

Roasted vegetable spread with vegetable chips. THIS is so easy and always tasty. Take some tinfoil and wrap; a bulb of garlic, two tomatoes, 1 eggplant and a couple of small zuchinni. Bake until the garlic and other veg are squishy. Toss all (squeeze out the garlic cloves-you don’t want the paper) in a food processor and pulse until dip-like but still chunky. Season with salt and pepper.

Baked ham (just coat with maple syrup and mustard powder) and that baecomes sandwiches for lunches as well as, pea soup base (see earlier post for recipe).