Stacey Makes It

I've been making a few rice puddings, but this is the first one that came out the way I wanted to eat it.  I know it doesn't really seem like a rice pudding (if you want it to be thick and more pudding-y, use some sort of glutinous rice like sushi rice as a replacement in this recipe - that works really well for super thick rice puddings). This recipe is actually sort of soupy. Stacey's Brown Rice Pudding Ingredients: 1/2c short grain brown rice, organic 2c whole milk, organic 1c water 1/2 tsp cardamom 2 tsp vanilla bean paste 1/4 tsp salt 1/4c peanuts (optional) 1/4c golden raisins (optional) 4-qt stockpot with tight fitting lid Put all the ingredients except for the peanuts and raisins into the stockpot and bring it to a boil with the lid off.  Once it comes to a boil, put the lid on and let it simmer over low heat for 50 minutes.  If you're going to put in the raisins and peanuts, you can do it now.  Put the lid back on and continue to let simmer an...

I think most people don't recognize there is a difference between buttercrunch and toffee.  I blame See's.  See's Victoria Toffee is actually buttercrunch, at least, according to  Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner , which says that toffee has to have milk proteins in it.  As a result, "real" toffee sticks to your teeth, which is why I love buttercrunch.  It's crunchy, sweet, and rich, but doesn't hurt my old lady sensitive teeth.  I started with a recipe from the book, scaled it back a bit, and then added nuts to the buttercrunch portion.  The book recipe says to put the nuts on the chocolate, but I thought it would give the nuts a better chance at staying crunchy if they were inside the candy. Stacey's Chocolate Nutty Buttercrunch Ingredients : 2 sticks (8 oz) salted butter, organic 1c sugar, organic 1.5 oz water 2 tsp vanilla bean paste ~1.5c mix of raw (untoasted) peanuts and pepitos (pumpkin s...

To balance out the dark chocolate hearts in my Valentine's Day box, I opted for milk chocolate hearts.  Yes, cliché. Stacey's Milk Chocolate Peanut Hearts Ingredients : 24 oz Guittard 38% milk chocolate couverture 8 oz roasted, unsalted peanuts Heart Molds First, I chopped up the peanuts to make sure they were ready to go once my chocolate was tempered. Then I tempered my milk chocolate.  Milk chocolate is tempered in the same way as dark chocolate except working temperature is about 86F instead of 90F.  However, I'm putting these into molds, so it's better if it's more liquidy anyway.   As I stirred the chocolate, I left the spoon that I'd be using to fill the molds as well as the peanuts in the microwave, WITHOUT turning it on of course.  Just to keep them warmer than room temperature that way the chocolate won't cool as fast once I put the peanuts in, or set on the spoon as quickly.  I spooned in the tempered chocolate and peanuts and j...