Butter a small baking sheet. Spread pecans in a single layer. Heat butter and brown sugar to boiling in a heavy saucepan, stirring constantly for 7 minutes (note – you MUST stir quickly and constantly or it will easily burn and don’t shorten the amount of boiling time). Immediately spread mixture over pecans on baking sheet. It cools quickly, so get is spread – you might have time to help it cover, but use the back of spoon – it’s too hot to handle. Sprinkle chocolate chips over hot mixture and quickly cover with a plate or tin foil. Let melt, then using that spoon, spread melted chips in an even layer. Refrigerate until firm. Break toffee into pieces.
Tip – clean up your pot as soon as possible or the toffee really sticks.
So cold outside right now, i just set outside to cool vs refrigerating. It’s amazing how hot the stone pan got with the toffee so i set it up on a baking rack.Pops out easily and breaks nicely into pieces. Ready to eat!
Experience the Holidays: Traditional English Toffee! So often we have those cherished childhood memories of homemade candy and cookies that accompanied holiday celebrations. They stick with us for life. I can remember being in eighth grade and determined to replicate a batch of my mother’s English Toffee. I waited for her to go into town and then pulled out her secret recipe. You know, the ones scratched on a 3.5”x5” card. More often than not, they showed a list of ingredients with instructions that simply said, “Bake at 350° for 30 minutes”. Let’s face it, that’s pretty vague compared to what we explain nowadays. As you can imagine, I melted the butter along with the brown sugar and stirred. And stirred. And stirred. So how come it wasn’t turning into this crisp crunchy texture of rich golden butter that fueled my addiction? What could I possibly be doing wrong? There…
Here’s my throw together recipe – adjust yours to taste and preference.
3 cups spiralized or sliced zucchini
1/4 cup thinly sliced onion
1/4 cup flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
Sea salt
butter or olive oil
On low to medium heat saute onions and zucchini in butter or olive oil until desired softness, sprinkle in flour and stir to thicken, then add eggs and stir to mix. Add salt and mozzarella and cheddar. Stir until blended, then top with Parmesan – turn off heat and cover. Once the Parmesan is slightly melted, serve it up.
Now, to jazz this up by adding protein and calories, i would cook up some sliced beef sausage or home made beef sausage, then in the same pan, continue with this recipe.
Simple, easy, delicious!
Easy stovetop preparation. Add beef or lamb sausage for a hardier meal.
Sausage can be expensive to buy, but it’s easy to make at home with a bit of effort and time. However, you may find that if you have lean sausage, it will be more difficult to break into small pieces. I usually cook it, then chop it in a food mill if i want small pieces like i use as pizza toppings.
1 lb ground beef or lamb
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground or leaf sage
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Thaw out the ground beef or lamb, then thoroughly mix in the spices. It is best to allow this to meld at least 24 hours. Typically, i make a couple pounds at a time, then freeze it back up in 1/2 lb packages. Then just thaw out as much as needed.
Simple ingredients, simple recipe. Very tasty – this recipe makes a mild sausage. Adjust ingredients as desired.
Breakfast can be simple and cheap. Most of us eat too much anyway, so why not save money and cut back on food? Best choice is to eat unadulterated, local, healthy in small portions.
Depending on how hungry i am:
1-2 okras
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1-2 eggs
Salt and pepper to tasted
On very low heat, saute 1 or 2 sliced okra in 1/2 teaspoon olive oil.
After okra softened, add 1 or 2 eggs, salt if you like, and mix it all together. Cover and let set to desired doneness.
Ready to eat or ready to flip – your call. Shut off the heat and cover – remember cast iron holds heat a long time and will continue to cook long time after the burner or oven is turned off.
With mostly freshly picked home grown vegetables, I assembled Israeli Salad sans the peppers (my plants were started too late), then spruced it up a bit with sliced hard cooked eggs from my dear Welsummer ladies. Had some mushrooms that needed using, so sliced a couple of those as well to add.
Have at last found a milk producer from whom i can get real milk again. However, they don’t do butter, so skim off the cream from the jugs i purchase and shake it for butter. Shaking separates the butter from the buttermilk. Perfect for buttermilk biscuits.
BUTTERMILK BISCUITS
Ingredients:
2 cups Sunrise Mills Flour (or other all purpose)
1 tablespoon baking powder
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
5 tablespoons chilled butter
1 cup buttermilk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425˚F. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Using a pastry blender or I just use my fingers, cut the butter into the flour mixture until coarse crumbs form.
Add the buttermilk, tossing with a fork until a dough forms.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gather into a disk. Knead lightly a few times just until smooth.
Pat the dough to ¾ inch thick. Using a biscuit cutter or a glass dipped in flour, cut out biscuits. Place the biscuits 2 inches apart on a pan or cast iron skillet. Gather dough trimmings and pat to ¾ inch and cut out more biscuits.
Bake the biscuits until golden 12-15 minutes. Serve hot.
NOTE: to produce flaky biscuits, take care not to over handle the dough.
Best light and flaky biscuits i’ve ever made. Enjoying the home churned (shaken) butter and Rafter 7S Sandhill Cowboy’s Jelly from The Whistle Stop in Bassett, Nebraska.
