How to Make a Great Salad with Candied Pecans

I had been hankering for a wonderful, mouth-watering salad for ages. I finally collected all the ingredients at the same time, and found the perfect salad dressing recipe to go with it. Sadly, this was last September, and I'm only just thinking to blog about it. Sigh.

I collected a bunch of fresh baby spinach, some dried cranberries (fresh and chewy), and then I cubed some feta cheese. To heck with the low-fat kind, I figured; I was looking for some serious flavor here.

Next came the really time-consuming part. I'd heard about how to make basic candied pecans, and though it sounded labor-intensive, I was finally up for it.

First, you make a simple syrup (I believe I used 2:1 parts sugar to water) and cook it on the stove at a low heat until it is smooth. 

Next, put a baking sheet lined with wax paper underneath a cookie cooling rack. Throw all the pecans into the simple syrup, and then set them out in a single layer on the cooling rack. This can get really messy--hence the lined baking sheet underneath. 

Then comes the "fun" part--wait until the syrup has dried on the pecans and is no longer dripping. The pecans should be very sticky but not actually wet at this point. I'm not really sure how long it takes for the pecans to dry, but plan on checking on them after a couple of hours.

After they've completely dried, re-dip them in the simple syrup and repeat laying them out and letting them dry. Finally, pour them all back into the simple syrup and let them completely dry for a third time. A word of caution: at this point, you may be tempted to skip either the second or third times of dipping the nuts and letting them dry, but resist the impulse! The nuts will be so much richer in flavor if they have all three coatings on them.

Okay, so after the pecans have finished drying for the third time, preheat your oven to no more than 350 degrees, lay out a cookie sheet with foil on it, and place the pecans in a single layer on the sheet. Put them in the oven and don't go anywhere! 

As soon as the nuts become aromatic (or, if you've got a cold, after someone else says they can smell them), remove them from the oven. This will take anywhere between 5 and 10-ish minutes, maybe a bit longer.

Allow the nuts to cool completely, and store in an airtight container if you're not using them immediately (but they don't store indefinitely, so use them up!).

Next, mix up the recipe for this killer lemon vinaigrette (courtesy of Cooks.com):

Lemon Vinaigrette

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp. Dijon-style mustard
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 1/4 tsp. freshly grated lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Pinch freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp. sugar

Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, vinegar and mustard. Whisk in oil. Add lemon zest, salt, pepper, and sugar. (Or, just throw everything into a cruet and shake it up!) Makes 3/4 cup.

So now you've got fresh baby spinach, chunks of feta cheese, candied pecan halves, dried cranberries, and a luscious lemon vinaigrette to go over it. Toss the ingredients together and pour your homemade vinaigrette over the top. Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day Recipes

My life seems to move in themes. One month, my focus is school. Sometimes all I can concentrate on is starting a business. And so it goes with writing, sewing, service projects, genealogy, losing weight, and heaven-knows-what-else at the moment. As I was pondering this yesterday, I realized that I hadn't had a cooking theme in a while. I thought to myself, "Well, you're just not in the mood to cook right now."

Ironically, later last night, Mom reminded me that she needed cookies for a St. Patrick's Day work party. And so I found myself baking, despite my earlier internal insistence that cooking was not (pardon the pun) the order of the day.

It was my first time making macaroons, i.e., whipping egg whites. Thanks to the new KitchenAid stand mixer we got for Christmas, getting the egg whites to form stiff peaks was not nearly as challenging as I'd thought it would be; at high speed, they took less than two minutes to form. As I've recently googled, though, it is possible to overbeat egg whites, just as it's possible to overbeat whipping cream (but instead of making butter, as whipping cream does, overmixing eggs will just yield a liquidy mess). After folding in the coconut, I added some green food coloring to the mixture. Then each individual cookie was topped with some green decorating sugar. The first batch came out a tad too well-done for my liking, but the second batch was better.

Fast forward to this afternoon, when I decided it would be brilliant to pull off a St.-Patrick's-Day-themed dinner. Several hours of work later, we dined on raisin-less Irish soda bread (unbelievably moist and delicious), and corned beef and cabbage (an amazing stew-ish classic of our family's). Inevitably, kneading the bread dough led to a sticky cutting board and hands, and a portion of the stew was unusable after burning to the bottom of the pot, but that just adds to the charm of cooking, don't you think?

The modified recipes are listed below, with bonus commentary. Enjoy them year-round (though admittedly, making red, white, and blue macaroons might not work so well).

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Yield: 6-8 servings

2 cans (12 oz.) corned beef (the leaner, the better)

1 medium head cabbage

4 pounds potatoes (about 5-6 gargantuan-sized ones)

lots of water

salt and pepper to taste

Peel and roughly cube potatoes (this will likely take a while, so keep peeled/chopped potatoes in a large pot half-full of cold water until you're finished to keep them from browning). Strain potatoes in a colander and return them to the pot. Wash the head of cabbage and remove outer leaves. Quarter cabbage, then roughly chop into chunks, adding cabbage to pot (don't worry about making the chunks small, since the cabbage will wilt and shrink down a lot). Open cans of corned beef and remove any visible fat. Break up the beef using a fork and/or clean hands.

Add about 1 to 1-1/2 quarts (4-6 cups) water into the pot, cover with lid, and cook over medium to medium-high heat for 30-45 minutes, or until potatoes are tender (or mushy, if desired) and cabbage is cooked. Stir frequently and add more water, if necessary, to keep stew from sticking to bottom of the pot. Add more water, if a more soupy consistency is desired, or less, for a thicker consistency.

Note: Thick stew freezes well.

Irish Soda Bread (photo courtesy Taste of Home)

Yield: 1 loaf (8 servings)

1 package (1/4 oz.) active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water (110° to 115°)

3 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 cup warm buttermilk (110° to 115°)

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3-1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup golden raisins, optional (or regular raisins, or currants, or even chocolate chips)

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add 1 tablespoon sugar; let stand for 5 minutes. Beat in the buttermilk, butter, salt, baking soda, 1 cup flour, and remaining sugar until smooth. Stir in raisins and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (try not to use too much, as more will likely be needed while kneading).

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes (dough will probably be sticky after a few minutes, so sparingly add more flour as needed). Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover (if using plastic wrap, be sure to grease it before putting on top of bowl) and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead for 2 minutes. Shape into a round loaf. Place on a greased baking sheet. With a sharp knife, cut a 1/4-in.-deep cross on top of loaf. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 350° for 30 (up to 35) minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to cool on a wire rack. Cut into 8 wedges, and if possible, serve while still warm.

Note: Warmed buttermilk will appear curdled. Also, for a substitute to buttermilk, use 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice plus enough milk to equal one cup.

Coconut Macaroons

Yield: 3-4 dozen

6 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

2 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 package (14-16 ounces) flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350°. Beat egg whites until foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar. Beat until egg mixture stands up in stiff peaks. Do not overbeat. Sift powdered sugar and flour together. (Don't skip the sifting step, or you'll end up with powdery lumps in your cookies.) Fold into egg mixture; add extracts and coconut. Drop on greased cookie sheet and bake, checking after about 22 minutes.