Treats from the Tipsy Turtle

Halloween has never been a huge deal in our family, even when the kids were small. They dressed up for the first few years because really, they had no choice, but after that, their interest was pretty limited. For Layla and Aiden, Halloween has consisted of dressing up and joining the throng at Windward Mall; yet another thing that the pandemic has put a halt to. Neither of the kids are candy eaters but Aiden (and Layla's parents) are fond of cookies. I wasn't in the mood to deal with decorating cookies but I did want them to be a little fun--I decided to play with using cookie cutters on chocolate chip cookie dough. Here's today's cast--the recipe called for mini chocolate chips, which I didn't have. I used the regular-sized ones and crossed my fingers that they wouldn't interfere with the shaping later on. Butter was creamed with brown, and a bit of white, sugar. The flour and salt were whisked together. The recipe specified a room temperature egg yolk so I se...

 I think my favorite "food group" is appetizers in the shape of dips and spreads. Whenever we have a gathering, I find I am hard-pressed not to fill up on these before the main dishes get served. Eating the leftover dips from a party the night before is one of my favorite breakfasts. Yup, I said it. Here's a spin on hummus that I have made a few times and really enjoy! Here's today's cast--the recipe calls for green curry paste but I have not been able to find it so I substitute red curry powder. Thinly sliced garlic was heated in the coconut oil until they became fragrant and translucent. Less than a minute, really. I grated fresh ginger.   Roughly chopped the Thai basil. And did the same with the lemongrass. Make sure you remove the woody outside bits; they really aren't digestible. Unless you're a goat or something. This is a great "throw it all in the blender" recipe--the seasonings are added to the garbanzo beans, chopped jalapeño, sweet Tha...

So the Great British Bake-Off started up again a few weeks ago and I have been looking forward to the new episode that gets released every Friday. I'm very glad that this season is better from a bakers and baking standpoint; last season I didn't feel connected to any of the bakers and if they got eliminated, I didn't really care. There's a couple this year that I am at least finding interesting. Anyway, that is my long-winded way of saying I felt compelled to look at Paul Hollywood's recipe books to find something to bake. This recipe is his mum's and it is super-simple. It also involves golden syrup, which I happened to have gotten a couple of months ago and forgotten about. Soooo... Here's today's cast! Five ingredients for cookies--doesn't get much better than this! Butter, sugar and syrup are melted together on medium heat.  They melded nicely into a smooth and creamy mixture. I took the pot off of the heat and let it cool a bit. I didn't hav...

 I have been wanting to try this recipe from Nadiya Hussain since it was featured on her Netflix series.   Here's today's cast. Most of the ingredients are spices along with corn starch and salt. I combined them in a bowl to make a dry rub. Boneless, skinless chicken thighs were cut in half and drizzled with avocado oil. Then the spice mixture was added. Nicely coated and it smelled so good! The chicken pieces were pressed flat into loaf pans--I had doubled the recipe so I used two pans. The chicken baked at 350F for 40 minutes. Because the chicken was skinless, there was very little fat released; I had expected that the chicken's juices would further moisten the dry rub but it actually had not. The top surface wasn't dry or gritty, it was just not wet. I didn't have cayenne pepper so I substituted chipotle. It still packed quite a punch. In addition, I don't know if I made a mistake when I was measuring the salt but I thought it was a bit too salty--especially ...

There are certain dishes I have a hard time resisting and my friend L's corn relish salsa is one of them. It's such a simple recipe and there's nothing out of the ordinary about it but if you give some to me with a bag of tortilla chips, well, I may share. Maybe. Here's today's cast--the recipe calls for red onion but I had a Maui onion I needed to use. The recipe also calls for canned corn but I had some on the cob so I used that instead. Canned blackeye peas are not always easy to find. I had to use the frozen variety today. I rinsed it in a colander to thaw it and I'm glad I did. There were several little twigs that got left behind in the processing. If anyone knows how to get corn off the cob without making a total mess, let me know. You should see what ended up on the floor, on the counter... I didn't feel like hauling out the Cuisinart today. It was a good day to chop. Since the chilies were already diced, I just worked on the onion and red bell pepper...