Caramelized Rosemary Walnuts

Sticky, salty, spicy, sweet walnuts.

I hate buying packaged snacks, yet I take that easy path more than I'd like to admit. Even with all the cooking we do around here, I still forget just how simple it is to throw something together at home. There are a million recipes for toasted nuts, but I wanted to use agave instead of the sugar you find in most caramelized versions. Plus, I had a very specific flavor in mind - a balance of cayenne kick, agave sweetness, buttery goodness, and salty crunch. I whipped up many batches of these nuts before I got the taste I was craving. Here's the recipe.


INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2  cups shelled walnut halves
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
• 2 generous tablespoons dark agave nectar
• pinch of cayenne (approximately 1/8 teaspoon)
• freshly ground sea salt

Preheat oven to 375. Place walnuts on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for approximately 7-10 minutes. Walnuts should be fully roasted.

While walnuts are cooking, melt butter in a sauce pan. Add cayenne and rosemary leaves. Let steep for a minute or two. Add dark agave nectar. Stir and continue gently cooking for another minute or so. When walnuts are toasted, immediately add them to the saucepan and thoroughly coat with butter mixture. Let everything bubble together for another minute. Then spread walnuts on a sheet of parchment.  Grind sea salt over the tops of the nuts so that the salt will stick. Cool and serve.

Note: You can also serve these nuts with many delicious cheeses or add some to a salad with butter lettuce, pear, and Gorgonzola. Today, I tossed some caramelized walnuts into my morning bowl of Greek yogurt along with some sliced peach. Yum.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

Rhubarb. Strawberries. Hazelnuts.

I am seeing a theme in my recent dessert cravings: first, Rhubarb Compote; then, Hazelnut Cake with strawberries; and now Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble with hazelnuts in the topping. Eating seasonally means you figure out endless ways to work with certain ingredients that are abundant at the moment. We indulge in these just-ripe treasures until we can eat no more.

Lucero Strawberries are such a treat to see at the farmer's market after the long rainy months. P went wild and bought a flat for brunch with our friends Shana, Tony, Cleo, and Judah. After the eight of us stuffed our faces with the sweet berries, we had enough left over to make this crumble and some tasty strawberry preserves with thyme and lemon. (I'll share that recipe with you next week.)

When it comes to crisps and crumbles, I am usually a purist. I stay away from oats and nuts in the topping. However, the strawberry rhubarb crumble recipe from this month's Bon Appetit drew me in. The unexpected crunch of hazelnut is delectable. I'm a convert.


INGREDIENTS 
 adapted from Tamsen Day Lewis's recipe in Bon Appetit, May 2010

• 3/4 cups flour (GF Folks, I suggest Pamela's Bread and Flour Blend)
• 2/3 cup vanilla sugar (see notes)
• large pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup light agave nectar
• 6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 chunks
• 1/2 cup oats ( GF folks, try Bob's Red Mill)
• 1/2 cup hazelnuts
• 4 cups strawberries
• 12 ounces rhubarb
• vanilla ice cream or heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400. Place hazelnuts on a baking sheet in hot oven for about 10 minutes until nuts are lightly toasted and the skins are blistered. Remove from oven and put nuts in a dish towel. Rub to remove skins. Then coarsely chop and set aside.

Turn oven down to 375. Lightly butter 11x7 baking dish.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, vanilla sugar, and salt. Add butter and use your fingertips to integrate the ingredients. When the mixture is sticking together in clumps, add the oats and chopped hazelnuts. Cover and chill.

Trim and slice rhubarb. Cut strawberries in half. Place in the baking dish. Pour agave over the top of strawberries and rhubarb. Gently toss together.

Distribute topping over the strawberries and rhubarb. Bake for 45 minutes until fruit is bubbling and top is a golden brown.

Let cool for 15 minutes and the fruit juices will thicken.  You can't go wrong with a warm serving of crumble with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you have leftovers, eat some for breakfast with heavy cream poured over the top. Go ahead, it's good.

Pear Jam with Cinnamon and Red Wine

It's Paul here. Log-in woes have me writing from E's account, but this is my latest jam post, the second pear recipe stemming from the bounty of fall and the beautiful coastal town of Bolinas. The pear base for this jam came from some gnarled old trees in Bolinas, and the red wine is from the town's most famous wine maker, Sean Thackrey. This one is his red blend called Pleiades. It is delicious and balanced: a great wine for drinking. The jam from this recipe is so flavorful, with a gorgeous, deep red color.

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 pounds ripe, but still firm pears
• 3 cups agave nectar or 4 1/4 cup of sugar
• Juice from one small lemon
• 1 1/4 cups red wine
• 1 cinnamon stick

Peel the pears, remove the stems, halve them, core them, and cut each half into slices. In your jamming pot, combine the pears, agave or sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Bring to a simmer, then pour the scrumptiousness into a bowl. Cover with parchment paper and put into the refrigerator overnight.

Next day, bring the jam to a boil, while you sterilize your jars and lids. Skim the surface of the jam to remove the foam. Bubbles are not a problem, you just want to get rid of the foam. Add the red wine and return the jam to a boil and continue cooking at a boil for about 10 minutes, stirring gently. Skim as you go, as necessary. After 10 minutes of cooking, gently lift out the pear slices and cinnamon stick. Divide the pear slices into your jars. Boil the syrup for about 5 minutes. Finally, fill the jars with the syrup and seal.

As you can see, we have already tried the jam on waffles. We did not get the picture, but substituting yogurt or creme fraiche for butter with the waffles and jam is an amazing variation on this theme. Sooo good.

This recipe is from Christina Ferber's wonderful book of jam recipes, Mes Confitures.

Pear Jam with Ginger

My mother-in-law lives out by the beach, and she has a neighbor with a very happy pear tree. "You should come out and pick some pears, you guys. They are delicious." So she kept telling us for few weeks. Free pears, picked ourselves... sounds like another jamming opportunity. Out we go, with my copy of Christine Ferber's jam book, and a box full of half-pint jars and lids. With the pears safely in hand, it was time to chose some recipes. I decided to make two different jams, and I will share the first today.


Ingredients

2 3/4 pounds pears
1 3/4 cups agave nectar (or 2 3/4 cups of sugar)
7 oz local honey (I used some made by hard-working Sacramento Delta bees)
Juice of one small Meyer lemon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
2 teaspoons pectin (I use Pomona's Universal)
2-3 tablespoons sugar (to use as a mixer for the pectin powder)



Prepare the pears by peeling, coring, and removing their stems. To core them, I sliced them into quarters and quickly cut out the core, seeds and all. Next slice each quarter thinly, against the grain, making short rather than long slices. In your cooking pot, combine the pears, agave, honey, lemon juice, and grated ginger. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Turn off the heat and pour the sweet goodness into a bowl. Cover with parchment paper and put in the refrigerator overnight.
Next day, pour the mixture back into your cooking pot, and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the pectin, mixed with a few tablespoons of sugar, to keep it from staying chunky in the jam. Bring your jam back to a boil and cook it on high heat for about 5 minutes. Remember, you want the jam to reach 221 degrees to insure a nice set. Feel free to skim off any unsightly foam from the top of the jam. If you do, return the jam to a boil before carefully pouring the jam into your jars. This recipe should produce about 3 pints of jam.
As you can see from the photo above, we are enjoying the jam with warm biscuits (gluten-free, of course) right out of the oven.

Plum Jam

Here's my latest jam recipe:
Wild Bolinas Golden Plums with Meyer Lemons, Wild-flower honey, and Agave.
First, slice two lemons finely and stew them with 1/3 cup of agave and 1 cup of water, until the slices start to look translucent, about 5 minutes. Into the same pot add about two and a half lbs of plums, whole. You can use any plums, I would guess. I just like to collect them from around the neighborhood for free. With the plums add 4 oz of honey and 3 1/2 cups of agave, along with the juice from one lemon. Bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes then put the whole concoction into a glass or ceramic bowl and refrigerate overnight (covered with parchment paper).
Following day, remove the pits; huge pain, but it must be done. Next, bring your jam to a boil (get it up to 220 degrees); skim off any froth. Now, put the jam into jars. For all the preparation of the jars-boiling, baking, sterilizing-just check your grandma's cook books. I'll post the instructions for that another time.
You should get about 6 or 7 half-pint jars of jam.
Delicious.