Mushrooms that make you drunk?

A while back, you may remember that JP was off Stateside on some business. It sucked for me, but totally worked out for a lot of my friends. And their bellies. Case in point, my Drunken Mushrooms. I sprung these babies on my friend Clubarella when he came over one night to laugh about our adventures over the weekend.

Now, I was so busy cooking these and chatting and drinking wine that I totally forgot about taking photos of me making them. But this is ok. This dish is as simple to make as popping open a bottle of wine. I swear. And anyways, it's the end result that you want. Just look at all that yumminess!

So glossy and juicy looking! And the wine you cook them in reduces to this amazing gravy-esque sauce that you will pour over everything on the plate. At least Clubarella and I did once I finished with these photos.

So I guess you are wondering how to make the wonderful little morsels, right? Let me tell you, you are going to be so surprised. So you start with a large sauce pan, over medium-high heat. Then, you take about 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil and about 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter and pop them in and let them come up to heat. Take a very small yellow onion and dice it up, and toss it into the pan and let it start to cook. Add in 2 large cloves of diced garlic, and mix it all around and cook until the onions turn translucent. 

Now for the main ingredient: the mushroom. I used Swiss Brown mushrooms, but you can use button mushrooms too. Or a mixture. It's really whatever. So, grab about a pound of mushrooms and toss them into the pan with the onions and garlic. Mix them around to get them all nice and coated. Helpful hint, make sure they are nice and clean first, no one likes mushroom dirt in their teeth during dinner.

So into the pan, you are going to pour 3/4 of a bottle of red wine (a nice Shiraz is a good choice here) and a liter of chicken stock (or veggie stock if you like). Then, into that, add about a tablespoon of dried oregano, a dash of dried rosemary and some salt and pepper. Then, let the whole thing simmer for about 2 hours.

Yes, two hours. Keep some extra liquid on hand (Wine, stock, water. It's all cool) in case the liquid gets too thick, you can just splash some more in there.

I know this dish takes a while, but it is totally worth it. You can have it as a side, or if you really want, have it as a main over some pasta or rice. That would be so delicious!

Hmmm... I might make pasta tonight...

xoxo
Craig

I thought Halloween was last month...

So normally for breakfast, I have a small bowl of muesli with some greek yoghurt and fresh berries of sorts. I love this brekkie so much; it is so simple and yummy. And I am pretty sure that it is healthy too.

Well, today... this morning I felt like eggs. Just some good old-fashioned eggs over easy. Nothing complicated, just tasty eggs...

It was too early for this though:

I mean seriously. What kind of freak chicken produced that weird two-yolk egg?

Tasted fine, though. 

xoxo

Craig

Chocolate. Sometimes it is just purely a necessity.

So you know how sometimes you just have those crap days? I mean, nothing really goes wrong, but then again, nothing goes right, either. Today was one of those days for me. I must have hurt myself at work at least half a dozen times by banging my knee on my desk. Then, I think I gave myself 4,782 papercuts. Then, when I finally, finally made it home, after missing my bus [twice], I realized that JP and I hadn't cleaned up since he returned from the States last week. 

I needed a run. In a very bad way. So what did I do? I decided to make chocolate bars. More importantly, I decided to make Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Crunchy Nut Sweet 'n' Salty Bars. Or whatever the heck she calls them. I saw them on TV, don't blame me on the name. Either way, it was the pick-me-up that I seriously needed this afternoon. Evening. See? I can't even tell time after the day I've had.

So, on to the bars. These things are ridiculously simple. You need about 900 grams of chocolate. I mixed 450g of dark with 450g of milk, cause that's what Nigella did on the TV. And I was past trying to branch out on my own. I just needed the chocolate. In my belly.

Break up the chocolate bars, and dump em in a sauce pan over the lowest of low heat settings. Burned chocolate is gross. Trust me, I know from experience. Ew.

So, to the slowly melting chocolate, add a hunk of butter. Unsalted, if you can. And by hunk, I mean about 3 tablespoons. I know it sounds like a lot, but lets be real here. You aren't going to make and eat these all the time. I mean, I'm sure that you could, but really, let's hope you have some sort of self control, right?

Back to the choc bars. To the very slowly melting chocolate and butter, add some golden syrup. Again, by some, I mean about 3 tablespoons.

Useful trick for not burning the chocolate while not using a double boiler? Just keep stirring. And stirring. Then stir some more. Oh, and the lowest setting of heat on your stove known to human kind. That helps heaps.

Once the chocolate is just melted, turn the heat off. That step is very important. Trust me, I know. Burned chocolate is gross. 

Now for the fun bits. All that chocolate that you just melted can be a bit boring if you just make a bar out of the melted chocolate bars. You need to add stuff! I opted for following Nigella's direction, and went with Kit Kats and salted peanuts. 3 Kit Kats, to be precise. This recipe is all about the 3's, can you tell?

Dump in the chopped Kit Kats, then add a very generous handful (or 2) of the salted peanuts.

Stir everything together. Side note, here. You really want to try this with the salted peanuts. Something about the salty and the sweet together is just awesome. Trust me. Unless you have a peanut allergy. Then you probably should not try that.

Dump the mixture into a disposable pan.

And spread it out. Then, into the fridge it goes to set.

You will want to let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Then, pull it out, and chop it up into whatever size bar you deem perfect.

Look at that goodness! Pile them high onto a plate, but be sure to keep them in the fridge. They may have a rather low melting point....

Want to know one of the best parts about making these after a crummy day? And I'm not talking about the fact that it only takes about 30 or so minutes to pull this off. The best part is 'cleaning' up after yourself. Nothing like a spatula full of melted chocolate to make you forget that you had a rough day. Or that you are supposed to be going for a run.

xoxo

Craig