The Funky Kitchen

Nuts and bolts are one of my favorite holiday snacks. In a season where sugary treats are fairly ubiquitous (think: fudge, cookies, candy canes) nuts and bolts are a nice savory refuge from the tables full of dainties. Not that I don’t have a case of dainty love to boot, but nuts and bolts are the thing to munch between butter tarts.

I like them so much that every holiday season I wonder why I don’t make nuts and bolts all year, but somehow it does not happen until you start thinking about Christmas trees again. Maybe this can be one of my New Year’s resolutions: make nuts and bolts more often!

Anyway, to make nuts and bolts you need a great big roaster. I borrowed one from Mr’s mum, because none of mine are voluminous enough to hold all of the nuts and bolts. If you don’t have a great big roaster, you could also use multiple smaller roasters, but then you’ll have to do more stirring.

Nuts and Bolts

(recipe a combination from my Mum and Mr’s Mum)

4 Cups Shreddies

4 Cups Cheerios

4 Cups Crispix

3 Cups Pretzels

3 Cups Cheezies, the crunchy kind

2 Cups salted peanuts

2 Cups Cheese Nips

2 Cups Cheese Bits

1 Cup butter

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp celery salt

2 tsp paprika

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 250° F.
• Add the first 8 ingredients to your large roaster. You want enough room left in the roaster to be able to mix the nuts and bolts.
• Melt the butter. Mix into it the Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, celery salt and paprika. This is your seasoning mix.
• Drizzle the sauce over top of the dry ingredients, stirring so that an even coating is achieved.
• Put the roaster into the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
• Allow to cool, then enjoy!

Normally I would shy away from recipes involving a lot of pre-made, open the box and use it products. But it wouldn’t be Christmas for me without these tasty munchies. Merry Christmas!

Everyone seems to have their favorite part of nuts and bolts; my favorite part is the Shreddies, Mr’s are the Crispix. Neither of us are fans of the pretzels, but we’ve got family who really love them so I couldn’t skip out. Nuts and bolts are kind of like a family in a way; you may all be slightly different, but you come from the same bowl.

When you put your cookies out for Santa, don’t forget a couple of carrots for his reindeer!

This time last year: Lemon Roasted Potatoes

Deviled eggs make me want to party. This is probably because of where I tend to consume them; a particular Auntie of mine always has deviled eggs at parties, and so they make me think of gatherings, birthdays and holidays. She makes a mean deviled egg, too.

Why are they called deviled eggs? My reading tells me that a ‘deviled’ food tends to refer to a food spiced with the hot seasonings cayenne or mustard. Also, the concept of the deviled egg has apparently been around for quite a while.

In making these, I learned a thing or two about myself, first that if you are impatient and do not let the eggs cool entirely, the shells will not peel off very easily, and second that I am rather impatient. Luckily, after I made a mess of the first few, I figured out it would be best if I just waited. It really does make a great difference.

I don't own a piping bag. I just use a resealable bag and cut off one of the corners. You can control how much comes out by how much you cut off, and you don't need to wash it when you're done.

Deviled Eggs

12 eggs

1/3 Cup mayonnaise

2 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp fresh dill, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

paprika, for dusting

Directions

Hard boil the eggs (not sure how to do that? Check here). Let them cool completely; keeping them immersed in cold water for a while helps the process along swimmingly. Gently remove the shells, preserving the hard boiled egg’s roundness, and discard. Using a knife, cut each egg into halves longitudinally, so that the halves are symmetrical. Scoop out the beautiful yolks into a bowl, and set the whites aside. To the bowl with the yolks, add the mayonnaise, mustard, salt and dill, and mash until everything is smooth and combined. Scoop the yolk mixture into a piping bag, or a resealable plastic bag with the tip of one corner cut off (no one will be able to tell the difference), and pipe the yolk into the wells left in the whites. Sprinkle with paprika, and serve. Keep refrigerated if not serving immediately.

They certainly did taste like a party! Some were casualties to my impatient peeling of the shells and some became casualties of freezing, the fridge seems to be set too cold, but the ones that made it to the table? Fantastic.

Mr. says: deviled eggs are delicious, and that they aren’t so difficult that a person shouldn’t make them.

I am not anti-snack.

Especially at this time of year, studying for and writing final exams, I am very pro-snack. I’ve been too busy reading to get around to cooking much of anything, and a little nibble here and there helps to curb the boredom of reading about nucleic acid synthesis for days on end. Sometimes you don’t want to stop and eat a large meal that will take away from precious time with the textbooks.

A girl cannot subsist on Hint of Lime Tostitos and salsa alone, though, so I made myself a new snack.

Roasted chickpeas are one of my favorite snacks, and the recipe is a standard from the way back then days of high school and veganism. It is as simple as taking a can of chickpeas, seasonings of your choice and a drizzle of olive oil, and letting them roast away in the oven. When they are done you have a lovely, healthy, crunchy snack that is oh so edible on its own, but also goes well on salads or in pasta sauces.

With roasted chickpeas you can go as simple or complex as you want; roasting them with only salt as seasoning, or roasting them with combinations of flavors. This time, I made one of my favorite seasoning combinations, but feel free to make it your own and experiment.

On the topic of chickpeas: they are high in protein, calcium, folate and magnesium, among other things. Research by Pittway, Robertson and Ball suggests that chickpeas also aid in lowering cholesterol. Not only are roasted chickpeas a tasty snack, but they are good for you. That made teenage vegan Dana happy, but it should make the anti-snackers out in the world happy too!

Everyone wins! Hurray for snacking! Vive le goûter!

Roasted Chickpeas

(adapted from Roasted Chichers in Robin Robertson’s Vegan Planet)

1-18 oz can of chickpeas

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp lemon pepper

1 tsp dill

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp paprika

• Set oven to 375° F.
• Open the can of chickpeas, empty it into a colander, and rinse thoroughly. The water the chickpeas are packed in has all kinds of dissolved solids in it and doesn’t taste very good, nor does it have a nice texture. I rinse until the chickpeas shine in the light, when they come out of the can they will be rather matte.
• Place the rinsed chickpeas in a resealable bag, and add olive oil, stirring to coat.
• Add lemon pepper, dill, garlic powder and paprika to the bag.
• Seal the bag, and shake until the seasonings are evenly distributed among the chickpeas.

• Pour the seasoned chickpeas onto a baking sheet, and shake the sheet until the chickpeas are in a single layer.
• Place the baking sheet in the hot oven, and bake until the chickpeas are browned and crunchy (~25 minutes). Stir the chickpeas about halfway through cooking, to help prevent sticking.

The mister agrees that roasted chickpeas are a tasty snack!