Eating Dinner With My Family

My husband picked this off of pinterest.  Our plan for lunches when we have family in town for a big dinner, is to have some meats, cheeses, olives, nuts, hummus, etc... to graze on rather than a proper lunch.  I made these for us to snack on through the family visits.  They are almost gone today, the 26th :).  I adore these nuts!  They are not too hard to make too, but they are sweet and spicy and totally addictive! Sugar-and-Spice Nuts 3/4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon kosher salt 1 tablespoon chile powder 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper 1 large egg white 2 cups raw cashews (9 ounces) 2 cups raw almonds (9 ounces) 1. Preheat the oven to 300°. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. In a small bowl, whisk the sugar with the salt, chile powder, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. In a large bowl, beat the egg white until frothy. Add the cashews, almonds and spiced sugar and toss. Spread out the nuts on the prepared...

This was an interesting recipe.  At first, it was an odd juxtaposition of flavors.  There as the almost fishy flavor of the seaweed, the nuttiness of the sesame seeds, and a surprisingly spiciness of the togarashi, which I had never used before and was why I made this particular recipe tonight.  I happened to have some on hand.  Why you may ask?  Well,  I was making the trek to the oriental grocery for Korean pepper paste, so of course I browsed a bit. I saw the togarashi and I knew I had seen it in one of the hundreds of to try recipes I have filed away, but I also knew that it was for a recipe I wanted to try and was only deterred by missing this ingredient, the one ingredient not available at my local Publix.  So, of course I bought it and then proceeded to try and remember what recipe I wanted to make that required the elusive togarashi.  Then it hit me, it was from an article in Food and Wine about s...

About a million years ago, I made this espresso coffeecake from cooking light.  It was from an article of theirs called 'One Bowl Cakes', and we loved it.  Fast forward to the present, and I find myself wanting a piece of it, but the recipe was lost in one of our many moves.  A quick search of Cooking Light found this recipe under their 'myrecipes' tab.  Is it identical?  I don't think so.  It used more than one bowl for one thing, but as to the actual ingredients, I have no clue.  It isn't like your typical crumbly coffee cake in texture. It is more spongy, but still pretty tasty. Coffee Coffeecake   1/3 Cup granulated sugar 4 1/2 Tsp instant espresso or 3 tablespoons instant coffee granules 1 1/2 Tsp ground cinnamon 1 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour 1/2 Cup granulated sugar 1 Tsp baking powder 1/2 Tsp baking soda 1/8 Tsp salt 1 Cup plain low-fat yogurt 2 1/2 Tbl stick margarine or butter melted 1 Tsp vanilla extract 1 large egg Cookin...

I have an absolute addiction to the Blue Diamond Wasabi and Soy almonds!  I could eat them until my eyes water, and then eat some more.  They are not the cheapest snack, especially when you eat them like I do.  I need to limit myself to the one ounce portion size recommended for heart health;).  So, when I saw that blue diamond had a recipe for wasabi almonds, I couldn't wait to try them out.  (my previous attempts to recreate them have never lived up to the original!)  The first thing I saw was that I had been seriously under portioning the wasabi powder.  This recipe called for 2 whole tablespoons!  I liked the fact it called for an egg white; I individually freeze egg whites whenever I need just a yolk.  I am always looking to thin out the bulging pantry and fridge/freezer.  When I reached the stir part in the baking, I noticed that the almonds were stuck in a giant chunk.  So when I "gently stirred" I actually beat the almo...