Caramel Apples for Halloween

Autumn.

Halloween.

A successful marriage of tradition with a child-like fascination with making yourself sick on candy.

Pretending you're an adult because you rolled the caramel apple in roasted pumpkin seeds, or Mediterranean fine salt.

You're not fooling anyone.

And by 'you,' I mean me.

(smooches)

This autumn, celebrate by going outdoors. Every Halloween season, we go to a local farm.

Pumpkins, hay rides, corn mazes.

John Deere tractor tricycles, farm animals, hay bale playground.

It's pretty awesome.

And just plain pretty, too.

This Halloween, revel in the little things.

Like sixty degree temperatures, candy corn, and getting caramel on everything.

And I mean, everything.

You can clean it up in November.

(That's when I plan to.)

Caramel Apples

8-9 small crisp apples (I used jonathans, I think)
lollipop sticks (or use wooden throwaway chopsticks, a la The Pioneer Woman)
14 oz. bag of real caramel pieces, unwrapped
4 pats of butter (approx 4 TBSPs)
1/8 cup of water
Additional toppings: mini chocolate chips, chopped almonds, roasted pumpkin seeds, fine sea salt

Core the stems from each apple with a sharp paring knife; insert lollipop sticks firmly.
Pan spray a glass bowl (large enough to fit over a sauce pot) and spray a sheet of parchment paper; place the parchment paper on a sheet pan.
Heat a pot of water to boil; place the glass bowl over the boiling water and fill with caramels.

Here's where it gets tricky: you have got to be patient. It takes almost 45 minutes to get caramel fully melted and creamy. Occasionally stir the caramel with a wooden spoon. Even when you think it's melted, it's not. BUT, when you do get a pretty decent sauce-like consistency, add two pats of butter and allow to melt completely; stir the butter into the caramel. Add the other two pats and repeat; after the butter is completely incorporated into the melted caramel, add the water to even out the texture and stir.

Dip each apple into the caramel, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Roll the apple in the toppings, if using (except of course, the salt- just sprinkle the salt lightly over the caramel). Place each caramel apple on the parchment paper. When all apples are coated, refrigerate the apples on the sheet pan overnight. The next day, the apples will pull easily from the sheet. Place the apples into cupcake wrappers or wrap in plastic. Happy Halloween!

Huevos Motulenos

Man, there is just something about putting a fried egg on food that just... just..

totally does it for me.

I went to a Guatamalan restaurant with friends for lunch this week. I did not order the Motulenos, my friend did.

And how I envied her.

A little background: Heuvos Motulenos is a Yucatan-inspired dish of black beans, fried eggs and some sort of spicy salsa-ish sauce.

Chips are optional.

After our little lunch date, I made this for breakfast the following morning. I added the peppers and blue corn chips for color and, because I wanted to feel less put-out about not ordering Motulenos the day before.

It felt festive.

Luckily, I also had some tomatillo salsa in the fridge. If you follow my twitter feed, you may have noticed I claimed to not like tomatillo salsa.

I now stand corrected: I did not like tomatillo salsa, until I made Huevos Montulenos.

I'm allowed to change my mind, after all.

This dish encompasses a lot of my favorite kinds of food: Latin-inspired, spicy, crunchy, fried eggs on top (of anything).

It's kind of a mantra I've developed, and I honestly can't say it's disappointed me yet.

Huevos Montulenos

Red and green bell pepper rings, one of each
2 large eggs
1 can seasoned black beans, partially drained
1 packet of taco seasoning (because I had it in the pantry; probably not terribly necessary)
tomatillo salsa or other salsa picante
blue corn tortilla chips
optional: fresh avocado slices, sausage or ham

Heat the black beans in a pot on medium-low, add in the seasonings. Lay a circle of tortilla chips on a plate, add a heaping of black beans in the center. Spray a frying pan with pan spray and set on medium heat. Add the bell peppers,turning the rings over once. Carefully, crack an egg into each pepper ring (I found it easier to crack the egg into a small cup, then pour the cup into the ring) and fry the eggs for a minute or two, then flip. Remove eggs to the serving plate, gently place over the beans. Drizzle with tomatillo salsa. Let your own mantra begin.

Grilled Lobster Tails

A few weeks ago, my husband and I shared our sixth wedding anniversary. Rather than go out, we bought a few lobster tails (at $5 a piece!) and fired up the grill.

Have you ever grilled lobster tails? It was our first time.

Do a little research, make a little butter, and bam! Grilled lobster tails.

So easy.

The hardest part about grilling lobster tails is splitting the tails evenly.

Seriously, those suckers do not want to do it prettily.

The easiest way is to snip through the shell in a straight line down the tail with kitchen shears, then cleave the tail in two with a french chef knife. Then you just brush the tails with lemon and clarified butter.

Once you get a pretty good fire going on the grill, the tails will cook in less than six minutes, if they are smallish-sized.



My husband, the Grillmaster



And that's about it! A perfectly grilled lobster tail, for less than the price of a house salad at a restaurant. And a fabulous anniversary to boot.

 So. Freaking. Delicious.

Grilled Lobster Tails



4-5 small lobster tails, either fresh or thawed out

Clarified Butter for dipping (see recipe)

Lemon Butter marinade (made with clarified butter, see recipe)

Salt & Pepper

Lemons

To make clarified butter:

Melt 2 sticks of butter on medium-low heat, watch it carefully to make sure it does not burn. As the butter foams, use a spoon to scoop away the butter foam and discard. After ten minutes or so, the butter should be golden and clear. Remove from heat and divide evenly. Use one half to make the marinade, keep the other half warm for dipping.

Lemon Butter marinade

Fire up the grill. Or have your husband do it. Split the lobster tails lengthwise and place on a sheet pan. Take one half of the clarified butter and squeeze lemons into the butter; mix well. Brush the butter on the lobster flesh, reserving a little for brushing the tails once they are on the grill. Season the tails with salt and pepper.

To grill lobster tails:

Place tails, flesh-side down, on the hot grill. Allow to cook for 4-5 minutes, then flip over and cook shell-side down for an additional 3 minutes, or until the shell turns that signature lobster-red color. Remove from grill, serve immediately with warm clarified butter and fresh lemon halves.

S'mores Brownies

Have you noticed how many s'mores-inspired desserts there are out there in the blogosphere?

A freakin' ton, that's how many.

I guess it's not hard to understand why.

I mean, they're s'mores.

But here's my secret:

I don't like desserts.

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

Well, except that I'm pretty sure I've admitted this in a previous post. But I'm also too lazy to figure out in which post I divulged this secret, so let's both pretend that you're just finding out now.

I know a lot of people say, "Oh, I don't like desserts."

And then they find some decadent, ridiculous baked slice of heaven that makes them do a complete one-eighty.

But that didn't happen.

Don't get me wrong: these s'mores brownies were fabulous.

To die for.

Delicious, even.

But I'm still not a dessert gal.

Even with the cakes, cookies and pie recipes I've posted, I have yet to find a dessert which truly converts me.

It doesn't stop me from baking though, and my family is not complaining about having to eat my share.

 I mean, I did have one brownie.

But just for research and proper blogging reflection.

(No really!)

S'mores Brownies

adapted from "Mmm-mmm Brownies" at Allrecipes.com

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• graham crackers
• marshmallow fluff
• 
  
• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Generously pan spray an 8x8 (or other small, square-shaped) baking pan. Layer graham crackers on the bottom of the pan; break the crackers if necessary to fit into the pan. In a bowl, mix the oil, sugar and vanilla, blend well. Add the eggs and mix until well blended and creamy. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until you have a smooth consistency and there are no lumps. Pour brownie batter over the graham crackers, then spoon generous amounts of marshmallow fluff in three (or four) straight lines across the batter. The fluff will spread out during baking. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a pierced fork comes out clean. For Pete's sake, let the brownies cool completely before attempting to cut and serve (which is obviously NOT how I did it).