The Funky Kitchen

A month or so ago I won a giveaway from Aysegul over at New York’s Delight. The giveaway: pomegranate molasses! A pretty little box showed up at my house about a week ago and I received my lovely gift (thank you!).

For the giveaway, Aysegul asked for a comment on a recipe you would use pomegranate molasses in, or a recipe you would have liked for her to make. I had a recipe in mind, the haroset that Olga from Sassy Radish had made for Passover. Her haroset had a twist, the pomegranate molasses, and here I was with a brand spanking new bottle! It just had to be made! The pomegranate molasses added into the traditional mixture of apples, honey, nuts and cinnamon adds a level of tang and, for lack of a better word, a sassy element to the haroset.

Olga’s recipe calls for the haroset to be refrigerated overnight, but I tried some right after I mixed it all together and I think I liked it almost better in the moment than I did the next morning.  My preparation of haroset had pine nuts instead of walnuts, due to the Mister’s allergies, and having sat overnight they lost a lot of their textural contrast. So, if you are going to use a different kind of nuts, perhaps test the mixture every once in a while during refrigeration, so that it sits long enough for the flavors to marry but not so long that the nuts lose their texture.

Sassy Haroset

(adapted from Olga Massov’s Haroset, Sassy Radish March 2010)

2/3 C pine nuts

2 Tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 Tbsp honey

1 tsp cinnamon

3 gala apples, peeled, cored and finely diced

• Toast the pine nuts in a pan over high heat until fragrant (~2 minutes), moving the pan constantly to avoid uneven browning.
• In a bowl, whisk together pomegranate molasses, honey and cinnamon until the mixture is uniform.
• Add the still warm pine nuts to the bowl and toss to coat.
• Then, mix in the finely diced apple, also tossing to coat.
• Eat, or refrigerate for a few hours to give the flavors time to marry.

Next time, I think I might not add the pine nuts in until the morning after, letting the apples get happy in the sauce on their own and then adding the nuts so they retain their crunch. Also, I might not go through the trouble of peeling the apples, it’s not traditional but the peel is good for you and additional color would be nice.

Cheers, and thanks to Olga for giving me permission to use her recipe and Aysegul for the pomegranate molasses!

This weekend was crazy. The Mister and I went up to his cabin with some friends and had a lot of fun in the sun. Between the guitars, the beach and a nap or two, we found some time for meals.

What does one eat at the cabin? Whatever it is that’s coming off of the three barbecues. You heard it, three barbecues.

Which is all well to do, grilling is a great way to prepare and cook food, but up until this weekend I had never used a barbecue by myself before. Sure, I’d cooked on a grill before but always under the watchful eye of some other more experienced barbecue user. I didn’t know how to turn a barbecue on (thank you Mister for being patient and directing me) and it took a little bit of trial and error to get my cooking temperatures to where I wanted them to be, but I think I’ll make a barbecue expert yet.

And these, these lovely little skewers of smoky sweet savoriness, were the fruit of my labour. The interplay between the flavors and textures is what really makes them spectacular. The sweet of the peaches versus the salt of the bacon. Juiciness versus smokiness, crunch versus soft.

Bacon, Peach and Chicken Skewers

3 peaches

3 chicken breasts, cubed to bite sized pieces

~10 slices of bacon, cut in half

1/4 tsp black pepper

barbecue sauce, for brushing

• Soak your skewers if you are using wood ones, for at least half an hour (or else they will burn, like mine did).
• Remove the pits from the peaches, and cut each peach into eight pieces.
• Take half a slice of bacon, and wrap it around a piece of chicken.
• Thread it onto the skewer, positioned so that the bacon doesn’t come loose.
• Then thread on a peach piece.
• Repeat steps 3-5 until all of your pieces are threaded onto skewers (you should get 5 or 6).
• Sprinkle with pepper.
• Put your skewers on the grill over medium-high heat, turning once during cooking, brushing the skewers with barbecue sauce after turning.
• The skewers are done when the chicken is cooked through, the bacon is crispy and the peaches are grill marked.

Serve to friends on Royal Chinet, the finest of paper plates! Ha ha ha. I hope you all had a good weekend!

Mister’s family and I were up north in the lovely town of Swan River this weekend. Though the reason for our being there wasn’t a very happy one, it was a good couple of days because I got to see some of the places in Mister’s childhood that were pretty special in his upbringing. We went to his grandparents farm, the lake where he learned how to fish, and I got to meet some of his extended family members. Because of his having grown up out of province, and the trip to Swan being quite a drive, most of his childhood haunts are far away.  It was nice to take a walk down memory lane and learn about the things, people and places that have affected his growth into the man he is today.

These biscuits are his dad’s recipe (Hi Tom!) and Mister and his brothers ate them often while growing up. Normally he makes them round, as we did too, but I couldn’t resist a couple of hippopotamus shaped ones as well. A hippo shaped biscuit is just too irresistable a thought.

Tom’s Best Biscuits

(from Company’s Coming Muffins & More 1983, Best Cheese Biscuits)

2 Cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 Cup grated cheddar cheese

1/3 Cup cooking oil

3/4 Cup milk

• Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl.
• Add the grated cheese, stirring to coat.
• Add cooking oil and milk, stirring to form a soft dough.
• Turn dough out onto a board and knead gently 8-10 times. Note from Tom: Do not over-knead!
• Pat dough out to approximately one inch thick.
• Cut out your biscuits using a biscuit cutter, glass, or cookie cutter. Hurray for hippopotamus!
• Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, at least one inch apart to attain crisp sides.
• Bake in a 425° F oven until nicely browned (~15 minutes).

These biscuits are good with pretty much any spread I’m told, but we ate them with butter and honey.