The Chronicles of Turkish Delight

When I was a kid, there were two different kinds of people- those who liked Harry Potter and those who liked The Chronicles of Narnia. Although I belonged more to the former, I have to admit that the food in The Chronicles of Narnia looks really, REALLY good. One of the most famous treats from the series is Turkish delight. Shoot, there's even an entire chapter dedicated to it! In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Edmund and the White Witch share a bite together...

"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating," said the White Witch presently. "What would you like best to eat?"

"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.

The White Witch let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious.

Believe it or not, Turkish delight is actually a real dessert that has been around since the 1700's. There are about a million ways to make Turkish Delight, but I thought we'd go for a simple, microwavable version!

What you'll need:
2 1/2 cups of cold water
3/4 cup cornstarch, plus 1/2 cup for dusting candy squares
3 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tbsp. pure lemon extract
2 drops red or pink liquid food coloring
Cooking spray, or cooking oil (light taste, like canola) for greasing pan
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Instructions:
1. Pour the water into a 4-quart glass bowl. Whisk in the 3/4 cup cornstarch 1/4 cup at a time until dissolved.
2. Microwave mixture for 2 minutes; whisk smooth.
3. Add sugar and corn syrup. Heat for 5 minutes in microwave.
4. Heat for an additional 5 minutes and whisk in lemon juice and food coloring.5. Grease the 8x8 or loaf pan with cooking spray or oil and pour in candy batter. Let candy set up at room temperature until firm enough to handle. This may take several hours - mine set up in about two.
6. Cut candy with a sharp knife or scissors into even squares. You can do this in the pan or turn the block of candy out on a cutting board dusted with cornstarch.
7. In a bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.

I didn't even know you could make such an awesome dessert in the microwave! It sure beats having to slave over the oven for a full blown cake. The best part about this recipe is that it makes about fifty pieces of candy- more than enough to keep you satisfied for a long while!
 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Delicious

I'm not the type of person who usually cries while reading or watching a sad story. My mother on the other hand, rates sad movies or chick flicks by the amount of tissues she went through. Being a chick who doesn't tend to cry at movies is bad for two reasons 1) people think you're some sort of psychopath and 2) when you DO cry at a movie it is intense.

One of the very few movies/books I've felt that emotionally connected to is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The story stars a nine year old boy named Oskar whose father died in the 9/11 attacks. While mourning his loss, Oskar finds a key that belonged to he father and adventures out to discover what it opens. I made the terrible mistake of watching the movie (before reading the book) while on a six hour flight from San Francisco to Orlando.

Between the absolutely gut wrenching, tear jerking moments there are glimmers of hope, vitality, naïvety, and love from Oskar. One of my favorite moments is when he first begins his key adventure and packs himself a basket full of essentials to take. “I put together a special field kit with some of the things I was going to need, like a Magnum flashlight, ChapStick, some fig newtons, plastic bags for important evidence and litter, my cell phone…” I find it absolutely endearing (and hilarious) that a nine year old believed that he could sustain himself on fig newtons alone.

On that note, I thought we'd make some.

What you'll need:

Fig Spread-
1 cup of dried figs
⅓ cup sugar
1½ cups water
Dough-
115g room temperature butter
½ cup white sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla essence
1½ cups plain flour

Instructions:

1. In a medium saucepan, place in the dried figs and cover with water. Let soak overnight.
2. The next day, pour in the sugar, bring to a simmer. 

3. Let it simmer until the the fig has become soft and breaks apart into a goopy paste.
4. Mix together the dough ingredients, wrap and chill for one hour.
5. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, and cut strips 5cm thick.
6. Scoop a tsp of fig paste onto one end of the dough strip and roll.
7. Bake for 10-15 minutes until starting to golden around the edges.

These fig newtons are so ooey gooey and delicious! Now you can cry your eyes out and enjoy a scrumptious treat while watching an incredibly powerful movie. Can you say "comfort food"?

LOTR: Lembas Bread

If you’ve ever tried to watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back, you know that you need to be prepared with some serious snacks to make it through. And if the famous elven lembas bread can sustain Frodo and Sam through the wastelands of Mordor, then it should be able to keep you going through all 9.3 hours of the movies. 11.4 if you do the extended editions. Might want to make a second batch for that.

What you'll need:

3 eggs

1 cups honey

3 kumquats, whole (can substitute orange zest and a bit of juice if desired)

2 teaspoon orange flower or rose water (optional)

3 ounces chopped almonds or macadamia nuts (fruits of the Mallorn tree)

¼ cup melted butter

2 ¼ cup flour (barley flour of you want to be really accurate)

½ teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Put the eggs, butter, honey, kumquats, rose or orange flower water, and nuts in a food processor or blender. 

2. Blend on high for 2-4 minutes. 

3. Add 1 cup of the flour. 

4. Blend for a minute or two. 

5. Put mixture into a bowl and add the remaining flour and the salt. Whisk or stir until well blended. 

6. Bake a small amount of dough at a time on a pizzelle or iron about 15 seconds or until lightly brown, for a flat bread like texture. 

7. Wrap in a leaf and tie with a string!

They say one bite is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man, but feel free to come back for seconds! ...trust me, you'll want to! This stuff is slightly fluffy, but still fulfilling. I think it would be a great addition to a cup of soup or chile! This is by far one of my most requested recipes, because hey, who doesn't like The Lord of the Rings?! It's simple enough that LOTR fans of all ages can help make it, but also delicious enough that everyone will enjoy the finished product. 

RuneScape 3.14 Recipe

Happy Pi Day, everyone! This is one of my favorite insignificant holidays because 1) it alludes to food and 2) it's nerdy and kind of quirky... just like many works of fiction. To celebrate let's bake a delicious pie!

This specific recipe is from a book within one of my all time favorite MMORPGs (a type of online game), RuneScape. Seriously, let's take a moment to relive the early 2000s when online gaming was just becoming popular... it was so glitchy, overpopulated, and overall amazing. I loved this game as a kid! Between RuneScape and Neopets, I was hooked on the computer for hours everyday.

Now I know RuneScape is primarily a game, but there are novels within it and there have been books written about it. One of the books within the game is a pie book that you can purchase for five gold coins from Romily Weaklax. The book contains nine recipes, one of them being a "Redberry Pie". I thought it would be fun to recreate this recipe with raspberries.

What you'll need:
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
9-inch basic flaky piecrust, parbaked
1/3 cup raspberry jam
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Whisk together buttermilk, sugar, butter, flour, egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt.
2. Pour the mixture into the piecrust and bake until the center is set but still slightly wobbly, 40 to 50 minutes. 

3. Let cool, then chill until firm, 4 to 5 hours.
4. Top with raspberry jam and toasted sliced almonds before serving.

This super simple recipe create the perfect dessert for any geeky Pi Day parties you may be attending.   After all, this year is particularly special! At 9:26 and 53 seconds, both a.m. and p.m., pi will be represented to 10 digits: 3.141592653. Set your alarms, bake this pie, and have a very mathematical day!

The Hunger Games: Let's Eat Katniss

If The Hunger Games were real, I would lose... mostly because I like food way too much. Luckily, we live in a world where we can simply watch The Hunger Games at home while eating a delicious meal. On that note, let's eat Katniss.


No, I'm not talking about Jennifer Lawrence's character, Katniss. There's actually a type of small plant root called katniss that is roasted or served in stews. I thought it would be a nice addition to a common potato salad because it has an earthy, raw taste to it that goes really well with heavy carb foods.

Here's what you'll need:

2 cups fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise (about 10 ounces) 2 cups small red potatoes, quartered (about 10 ounces) 
2 cups small blue potatoes, halved lengthwise (about 10 ounces) 
2 cups katniss roots
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion 
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill 
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives 
3 hard-cooked large eggs, finely chopped 
1/4 cup red wine vinegar 
2 tablespoons olive oil 
1 1/4 teaspoons salt 
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
1 garlic clove, minced

Instructions:

1. Place fingerling, katniss, and red potatoes in a saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil. 

2. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes or until tender. 

3. Drain; cool slightly. Place potatoes in a large bowl.

4. Place blue potatoes in a saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil. 

5. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes or until tender. 

6. Drain; cool slightly. 

7. Add blue potatoes, onion, parsley, dill, chives, and eggs to bowl; toss gently.

8. Combine vinegar and remaining ingredients. 

9. Pour over potato mixture; toss gently to combine. 

10. Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

This is going to be a perfect recipe for all those picnics you're going to have once the weather clears up. I know I'm looking forward to it! 

Share a photo of your picnic on our Facebook and you may be featured in an upcoming article!

To Cook a Mockingbird

This week on our Facebook page, we asked our viewers who their favorite, commonly overlooked fiction character is. My favorite response comes from Cara Cooley who simply said "Scout Finch". I wouldn't exactly call Scout an overlooked character... after all she is the narrator for Harper Lee's hit novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but I will admit that I never thought about basing a recipe off of her. Here goes nothing!

With Cara's comment swirling around in my head, I reflected on some of my favorite passages from the book. One of them is this little ditty from chapter 3, pages 31-32:

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. “I missed you today,” she said. 

What the heck is crackling bread? Think of the most delicious, thick piece of cornbread you've ever had and then add pork rinds to it! I think the idea is the rinds crackle as you're cooking and eating them. It's a traditional Southern dish that was cheap to make, and more importantly, Scout's favorite snack. Let's get to cooking!

What you'll need:
9 ounces (2 cups) cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
12 ounces buttermilk
1 large egg
1 cup pork rinds (or crispy bacon pieces)
1 tablespoon lard, butter or bacon drippings

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 450°F.
2. Put the tablespoon of fat into the skillet and put the skillet in the oven to heat.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bow.
4. Whisk the buttermilk and egg together in another bowl, then combine the wet and dry ingredients, whisking just until combined.

5. Whisk in the pork rinds.
6. Remove the pan from the oven and pour in the batter, it will sizzle appealingly.
7. Turn the heat down to 350 and return the pan to the oven. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes.
8. When baked, flip the bread out of the pan so the crispy crust faces up.
9. Slice into wedges and serve, with a drizzle of honey if desired.

This recipe is not only delicious, but also just in time for the news that Harper Lee is going to write a second novel! One can only hope that it will include mentions of food that are just as yummy as this!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Getting Drunk

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. That’s not only true, it’s also a direct quote from the book. And besides being full of whales falling from the sky along with bowls of petunias, it also features what it claims to be the best drink in existence: The Pangalactic Gargle Blaster. According to the guide itself, drinking the PGB results in a feeling similar to having your brain smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. Fortunately for those of us adventurous enough to try it, there’s an official recipe:

Take the juice from one bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit.
Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V
Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture
Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it
Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract
Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger
Sprinkle Zamphuor
Add an olive


Unfortunately, mixing that recipe is illegal on planet Earth. So we’ll go with a slightly less exotic version...





What you'll need:
1 part Everclear (or any other strong grain alcohol such as Bourbon, Moonshine, or Vodka)
1 part Bitter Lemon (or plain Tonic Water)
1 part Bombay Sapphire Gin (or other gin)
1 part Yukon Jack Perma-Frost Schnapps (or other mint schnapps, or white crème de menthe)
Enough blue food coloring to make the mixture a very light sky blue
Sugar cubes
Cinnamon extract
Yellow food coloring
Angostura Bitters
Olives

Instructions:
1. Mix the first five ingredients and chill.
2. Take a sugar cube and let it absorb 1 milliliter of cinnamon extract and 1 drop of yellow food coloring.
3. Place three ice cubes in a glass and pour the chilled liquid mixture over these.
4. Drop in the sugar cube and stir to dissolve.
5. Sprinkle the Angostura Bitters in the drink, and add an olive.
6. Drink, drank, drunk.

I wish this recipe didn't need so many ingredients, but I think it's totally worth it in the end.

After drinking this yummy drink (seriously, it's so good) you'll feel just as silly and random as the movie!