Pomegranate Spoon-Whackin

In which we test for ourselves the Spoon Whackin' Method of de-seeding a pomegranate....


Pomegranate Spoon-Whackin - YouTube

Sarah's Oven Caramelized Onions

So I screwed up at the grocery store and bought too many onions and since these are the expensive organic onions I didn't want any to go to waste. I love caramelized onions, but don't usually have time to make them. This is an oven method that takes a couple of hours, but you can do other things while they're cooking and cook a whole lot at once.

I used:
3 lbs organic onions
2 T olive oil
2 T butter
some salt

You also need:
Deep lidded oven proof pan
Some kind of timer


Preheat the oven to 425˚


Cut up your onions like this:

I have a kitchen exhaust fan that sounds like a 747 and sucks the dust bunnies from the attic, so onion tears aren't an issue for me. If you don't have a kitchen fan, you might want to consider a pair of extremely practical and oh so fashionable Onion Goggles.

Heat up the oil and butter in a deep oven-proof pan with a lid (I use a cast iron dutch oven) then throw in the chopped onions and stir to coat with the oil. Sprinkle in some salt - I used about 1/2  teaspoon, but you can use more or none at all.

Put the lidded pan into the preheated oven. Yes mine looks like this. So much for getting the self-cleaning model.

Set the timer for 15 minutes.
You are going to stir the onions every 15 minutes for about 2 hours, so it's a good time to get stuff done around the house. Or watch movies on netflix.

They will go from looking like this:

To looking like this:

All done!

I put them into an ice cube tray to freeze in small portions for using in recipes, but I don't recommend you do this. They were really hard to get out after they froze. Next time I will probably just freeze  separate little mounds on a sheet of freezer paper

 Also a word of warning - this method will make your house smell like onions for days after. Best done on a nice day when you can open windows and when you aren't expecting company!

Sarah's Delicious Crispy Kale Chips

Ingredients:


A pile of curly kale (this is two bunches from the supermarket)










1-1/2 cups cashews











I dropped them on the floor when I was trying to take the picture











Cashews are expensive - wash them off and use them anyway

2 cloves garlic
(see previous post: Peeling Garlic in 10 Seconds)

Juice of 1 lemon

some salt






 

some olive oil

Wash the kale and remove the stems. Tear the leaves into large pieces and put in a large bowl.

The kale bones (throw these out.)

Put the cashews, lemon, garlic, and salt into a food processor and blend for a few seconds. Add enough olive oil to make a gloppy paste.

Mix the half of the cashew glop with half of the kale. Go ahead, just mush it around with your hands until the kale is evenly coated. (Save the other half for later)

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and spread the kale mix on them. Bake at 300˚ F for about 40 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. When done the kale should be crispy. Repeat for the remainder of glop and kale.








Store in a plastic container



















Feed to a hungry Morris Dancer just in from practice.

Cooking Tips That Really Work: Storing Tiny Seeds

I've started keeping chia and flax seeds in salad dressing cruets. It's easy to pour out the amount I want to use and the bottles look prettier than ratty plastic bags clipped with clothespins.

Cooking Tips That Really Work: Peel Garlic in 10 Seconds

I store the unused cloves in a glass jar in the fridge. They'll keep for quite a while.