Fat and Crafty.com

That you can make potato chips in the microwave?

From Food

This is not my idea.  This came 28 Cooks blog where she brilliantly shared the idea with all out there in blog land. 

I’ll be honest I’m not much of a chip eater.  When given a bag of chips with a meal I usually opt to leave them unopened or pawn them off on someone else.  (Usually for their cookie, but you knew that already right?)  I was intrigued with the idea of making chips in a fat free or low fat  manner and being able to season them as I please.   

I bascially followed Fiber’s recipe , slicing a potote thin on my V-Slicer then sliding into the microwave on a plate covered with wax paper. A few moments later I had crispy brown chips to my satisfaction.
I made custom chips for dinner for everyone that night.  The only drawback is that its not a quick proccess. If I was to do chips like that again, I’d just start them in a hot oven and bake them until crispy.

But imagine making these at work. A quick snack for you 10 minute break, and you’re the star of the office. Warm crispy chips salted and flavored just as you like. All you need is parchment, a sharp knife and a potato.

Yum.

like watching Nigella Lawson. She has a no nonsense cooking style with a dedication to tasty foods  done right. Or at least done right most of the time.  Her recent episode of Nigella Feasts  had her making Chocolate and Peanut Granola and    left my jaw on the floor in shock and horror.  4 kinds of sugar culminating in 700 calories per serving of granola. Sure its got oats and those are good for you, but who needs sugar, honey , applesauce, , and malt syrup? It was closer to a brittle with oats thrown in.

I’m a granola maker, and a granola  eater. Nothing is tastier then granola with  yogurt and a little fresh fruit.  Make a bowl of Oatmeal and add a little granola on top for crunch.  A handful of granola as an afternoon snack.  even with milk as a breakfast cereal.

This is how we make granola at home.

From Food

Seattlejo’s granola

4 cups Oats
2 cups oat bran
1/2 cup toasted pepitas
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup of honey, maple syrup or sugar syrup. **
1 tbls salt

Sesonsings if you wish.  (cinnamon, cloves, whatever you wish)

Mix all together, bake in a 350 oven until toasty brown. stir occasionaly throughout and dont let it burn.

Take out of the oven, put into a bowl and add dried fruit to taste. I added 2-3 cups, a mixture of apricots, cranberries and  golden raisins in one, and then just cranberries and raisins in the other.

Calorie profile? After running it through Big Oven I came up with 300 calories per half cup serving. It’s not low on the calories or on the sugar, but it sure is tasty

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** Sugar syrup. Using the sugar syrup in my granola last night was just reusing ingrediants i already on hand. I’d reduced the cooking liquid from our  chai spiced vanilla poached pears to serve wth them, and had more then a little left over.  So I added a cup to our  granola last night.

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Ramen is not health food. It’s got too much fat too much sodium and not enough of anything else.
And its delightful . Of course we are talking about those deep fried ramen bricks with the sodium packets that you sprinkle into the simmering water.   I’m not much of a ramen eater Usually the Ramen is left up to Jasmine our resident 14 year old.
She swoons over it downing 2 packages of it a day when she’s on summer break, or out of school.

This Ramen is  a little different through.

From Food

This Ramen  was sent to me from Patrick, he who gifted me with the fantastic chocolate chip cereal.  i was sceptical at first. It’s just ramen right?I

When you open the package it becomes clear that it is different instead of just noodle brick, and spice packet you have the following.

T

The little white and brown packet is  a seasoning oil, and the sesoning packet is actually two kinds of seasoning, one a standard seasoning the other a chile powder. (go easy on the chili powder its really spicy) IndoMie has a pretty solid cult following, folks insist  it is the BEST RAMEN Ever .
Don’t just trust  my word for it.  There are Wikipedia entries. Blog Entries  and even sites reviewing it.

From Food

I cooked  the ramen like normal, adding the seasonings and slurped away. it took me back to a time when i used to eat ramen. A better
quality and tastier then the Top Ramen I used to  rely on. 

This had flavor and depth, and spice to go along with the salt.  At one point i was thinking of ways to enhance ramen. Imagine retail freezer bags of "ramen veggies" Asianesqe veggies frozen in small amount of broth to enhance your ramen experiene. Perhaps even small bits of tofu.  Of course i tired ramen very quickly and moved on.

But now there is a tasty ramen I’ll actually eat.  i cant wait to explore the other flavors that have been gifted on me.

So my coworker’s house burned down this weekend.
I’d seen it on the news and posted about it earlier.
He’s got some  pictures up and a blog about it here

There is a benefit on Thursday at Dantes, and there is a Paypal button on the blog itself.

I’m going to donate what I can, and see if I can do a small fundraising project. They don’t need
stuff, just gift cards etc. They basically lost everything.

I havent done a lot of cooking from my mom’s cookbooks.  The recipes are like old friends that I visit occasionally. "Arent you looking nice today" I say, then I go cook something else.
This weekend I was missing  home though and decided to make Mom’s Pumpkin Cookies.  You see pumpkin cookies, apple slices and pumpkin slices always graced our kitchen during November/December.
Pumpkin slices and apple slices we simply a full cookie sheet used to make a pie. In our family that much was neccesary to satisfy the sweet tooths.

Pumpkin cookies on the other hand were fluffy cookies with pumpkin and chocolate chips scatter throughout. Tasty little treats.  Want the recipe?

Peggy’s Pumpkin Cookies
1 C Margarine **
3. C sugar
2 eggs
2 C Canned Pumpkin
2 tsp Vanilla
5 C Flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
2 C Chocolate Chips
1 C Nuts

Cream Butter and Sugar until light and fluffy
Beat in egg, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix and stir flour, baking powder, baking soda salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Mix Well ,  Add nuts and chocolate chips.
Bake at 350 until  done.
Cool on wire racks.

Yum.

** Yes Mom used margarine. A number of the recipes in her cookbooks call for it. I used butter yesterday and couldnt tell the difference.  I think the only one  that may need margarine is the melting moments.

It is possible to eat yogurt with a fork.