It's asparagus season !!

This last weekend our house guests brought us this bag full of freshly picked asparagus from their family farm.
There is nothing that quite expresses spring like fresh asparagus !! I still prefer it lightly roasted best of all.

Here's my post from a couple of years ago, that gives you my VERY simple recipe.

Go forth and eat lots of asparagus while it is in season !!

Crazy Pecan Toffee

Over the holidays in December my dear friend and fellow foodie, Mita, gave me a bag of her homemade confections as a holiday gift. Genna and I immediately scarfed most of the bag. Once I came up for air I asked about recipes...there were two different amazing preparations.
I have already posted about the dark chocolate bark, it's rich and studded with dried fruit & nuts !!

The other treat tasted of brown sugar, dark chocolate, salty pecans and a delightful crunch, but when I read the recipe from Mita's post, I just couldn't believe one of the ingredients...pretzels ?? Really ?? I have never been a fan of chocolate covered pretzels, in fact I would rather avoid most pretzels altogether.
Being the inquisitive and experimental cook that I am, I had to try making this version of toffee.
Mita touted it as a very simple recipe. She has tried to make my almond toffee (which uses a candy thermometer) with varying success.

She doesn't use just any pretzel, she recommended using this pretzel chip from Trader Joe's.
They are flat and very crunchy. When I gave my sister a sample of this toffee, between large bites, she mentioned that I could make some for her using her favorite Wheat Thins, that just might work too.

I can't quite call this stuff pretzel toffee so I have renamed it, Crazy Pecan Toffee.

Crazy Pecan Toffee

Ingredients

1 cup salted butter
1 cup brown sugar 
2 cups* TJ's pretzel slims or other salty cracker
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup chopped pecans
sea salt

*Enough to cover the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch pan with only slight overlapping.

1) Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cover the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with foil, then cooking spray.

2) Cover the pan with a layer of pretzels or crackers.

3) Begin to melt the butter, then add the brown sugar and stir to combine. Once it starts to bubble, cook over medium high heat for 2 minutes.

4) Pour the caramel mixture over the pretzels trying to cover them as much as you can. Don't worry too much as once they are in the oven it will spread more.

5) Put the baking pan into the oven for 10 minutes.

6) Once it's out of the oven, let it sit for 1 minute, then gently cover with the 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips. Most the recipes I looked at claimed that 5 minutes on the hot toffee would melt the chocolate enough to spread it. I never found that to be true. Instead I turn off the oven and put the toffee with the chocolate on top, back in the cooling oven for 5 minutes. Then the chips melt enough to spread. Or you can melt them in the microwave instead.

7) Top with 1 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, carefully press the nuts into the soft chocolate.

8) Measure 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt into you hand, carefully sprinkle it on the toffee.

9) Allow to cool, break into chunks and then try not to eat all of it in one sitting !!

Note: A lot of the other recipes I looked at used a pan twice the size with the same amount of butter, sugar and chocolate. They also used mini pretzels. I like the fact that this is a thicker toffee with the pretzels becoming unrecognizable. These other recipes baked it for half the time at at higher temperature. Here is one of the recipes in case you want to try it.

Vegan Feast

I just saw that it has been 10 days since my last post...life has happened. I found out last Thursday I had to find a new place for my almost 98 year old father to live, long story. The happy ending is that yesterday I moved him into a new abode with lovely blooming gardens.

Now I have time to post about this great vegan feast I made for my favorite vegans. Most of it you may recognize from past posts but reminders are good, right ??

I did try a new appetizer, roasted chickpeas. To give them some zing I added fresh lime juice which worked well but meant that the next day they were soggy. I will work on this recipe before I post it.

My fresh spring rolls are one of my dinner party stars. I stuffed them this time with grated carrots, avocado, baked tofu, fresh cilantro and kolhrabi.

The spring rolls are a great excuse to have lots of fun dipping sauces.

From left to right: soy citrus dipping sauce, pear ginger chutney, peanut sauce and homemade yogurt.

All of these sauce were a nice complement to the main course of stuffed flatbread, as well.

,

I made the  spinach, pea and potato filling up the day before and used whole wheat tortillas instead of making my own. This helped to simplify the dinner prep.

To end the meal I made my new favorite orange cake, which happens to be vegan.

We were all very happy and sated after this feast !!

Making your own body scrubs.

In keeping with my goal to post more body product recipes, here is the body scrub recipe I use.
It should not be used on your face it's too abrasive for that sensitive skin.

Use in the bath or shower, rubbing the scrub all over your body then rinsing. Your skin will feel smooth and soft, use once every week to two weeks.

This recipe is embarrassingly simple, you can make your own in 2 minutes with ingredients already in your kitchen !

I used to teach workshops in making your own bath and body products. Here's information from the handout.

" The skin is one of the largest organs in the body; it protects us from the environment and regulates our body temperature. Body scrubs help to exfoliate or remove dead skin cells and impurities from the skin; this allows the skin to retain more moisture and for new skin to appear. Body scrubs also help to stimulate circulation. "


You can make your scrubs either with salt or sugar. Don't use fancy organic sugar or any salt with large crystals, your scrub will be too abrasive. As for which to choose, it's personal preference, salt can sting if you have any scratches or open wounds but other than that they are very similar.

Use an inexpensive olive oil not the fancy extra virgin kind.
You can use other kinds of oils like sweet almond oil, avocado oil, apricot kernel oil etc... if you prefer and have access to those.

You can keep your scrub unscented or use a small about of essential oil or extract.

Here is the basic recipe.

Ingredients
Yields 1 cup.

1 cup sea salt or regular white sugar
1/3 olive oil
10 drops essential oil or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla or lemon extra (optional)

1) In a measuring cup mix the olive oil and essential oil or extract if desired.

2) Place the sugar or salt into a small bowl.

The color in this scrub comes from the orange essential oil.

3) Add the olive oil and mix well. 

4)  Store in a container. You should use it with 3 to 4 months or refrigerate part of it. There are no preservatives so the oil will go rancid eventually. 

You can experiment with adding a teaspoon or so of other ingredients to your scrubs such as ground dried herbs, cosmetic clay, baking soda, almond meal, and ground oatmeal. Mix your dry ingredients together before adding the oil. Just be aware that with “food” ingredients your shelf life is shorter and may need to be refrigerated.

I love this French rose clay.

 It makes the scrubs a nice color and the clay is good for your skin as well.