A Bloggable Feast: Books 2 Eat (Part 2; our recipes)

While Barb and I spent many hours preparing pretzels and dips for Books 2 Eat on the weekend it took place, it was really the tip of the iceberg, as there was a lot of practice before hand, and ideas tossed around. Much pretzel-eating was enjoyed by our husbands and kids. (And for us it was usually dinner as well on our practice days). The pretzel recipe I used can be found here: soft pretzels. Since there are a lot of recipes, which I found online, that were used for this event, I am just going to provide the online links, since it will make this post super-long otherwise.

Adding a melted butter and egg wash to make the pretzels
super golden

While I still want to make my caramel-filled prezels, inspired by my post on fleur de sel and salted caramel, the caramel needed to be softer as a dip than this recipe. I used a recipe for soft caramel, found here: soft caramel recipe., although I did undercook it the first time (in practice, so it was more like a thick sauce). You get a lot of caramel from this recipe, so I divided it into two, and attempted to make maple syrup caramel, and although I added a whole cup of maple syrup, ended up only slightly tasting of maple syrup, and just altering the flavour. I cooked it too long, so it was not soft enough to use
for our pretzels. To the second half, I added 1/3 cup of very strong coffee and 1/3 cup of Kahlua, to make coffee caramel, and I loved it. It was slightly harder, and needed to be rewarmed slightly (thank you kool-a-tron), so it did make it onto our display table. I have a weird fascination with bubbles, especially with food (for instance, I love the light pink bubbles in raspberry gingerale.... they just look so happy). However, my all-time favourite are candy-making bubbles, and this began when I was a teenager and made taffy, the golden bubbles were just so beautiful. I am (just because I can) including two photos of my caramel bubbles. :) Aren't they pretty? (Okay, okay, I am slightly weird about food sometimes, this just makes me happy). I was looking through an old file full of things I wrote way back when, all kinds of stuff, and I found this poem I wrote. Too funny. There is a second verse, but clearly I was straining for a rhyme, and abandoning reality.

There is a bubble
floating on the air
Merrily cavorting
around here and there.

So, I'll just interject, and say that Barb and I have a lot of fun when we're cooking, and we love to smell and taste as we go along (of course), and we also love a drink (we were PRACTICING, ok)?? Barb has been in a Fresca state of mind lately, and decided that adding vodka to it would only make it better and more refreshing, so she created the Refreshka, which I am holding. And who does not love the smell of fresh basil. You're right. No one (does not love the smell of fresh basil, which means everyone does love the smell of fresh basil), see Barb savouring the aroma of fresh basil:

....ooh, we're both wearing blue too, totally not planned....

Okay, moving on. We had made a black olive tapenade (which you can find here: olive tapenade)
I'll include this recipe here though, since we made a few alterations, and here are the ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 4 ounce jar sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup Kalamata olives
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup capers
1 1/2 tsp Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Place all ingredients in a food processor. Add 2 - 3 tablespoons of the oil (we used olive, although the recipe originally called for the reserved oil from sun-dried tomatoes, but we preferred to use really good olive oil). Process until desired consistency is reached. Olive tapenade should be coarse with some chunks, not smooth and creamy. For the event, we doubled the recipe, using one cup of Kalamata, and one cup of pitted black olives, but I think it tasted slightly inferior to our trial recipe which just had Kalamata olives, but we worried that it might be too salty (not for me of course, but anyway).

black olive tapenade in the front, green
olive and red pepper in the back :); photo
by Barb Rowlandson

We decided last minute to make a second tapenade, using green olives, and since we just winged it, I decided to make it with greek flavours, and it was a much different flavour, and our favourite one too. Here's what we used (half the recipe if you like)

Red Pepper and Green Olive Tapenade

2 jars of green manzanilla-stuffed olives
1 jar of red peppers
2 cups of feta cheese
2 tablespoons of dried oregano
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

Blend in a food processor until, ummm, blended well :)

My final home-made creation was spicy chocolate sauce, although it cooled down into more of a pate. I have always loved spicy chocolate (The Elegant Gourmet has a great hot pepper chocolate), and decided to add minced hot red peppers and cinnamon to a very simple recipe which I found at about.com).

It's so simple, I'll include it here also.

Spicy Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-4 hot peppers, minced
1 t. cinnamon

Preparation:

In a small saucepan over low heat, heat chocolate chips and whipping cream, stirring constantly. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until chocolate is melted and sauce is smooth. Stir in vanilla.
Serve over dessert or ice cream
Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

I cooked it quite a bit longer, at least fifteen minutes, on moderate heat, to make sure the pepper flavour would concentrate a little more (although it was still not as peppery as my first attempt, where I used a different recipe using sugar that remained granular after setting, despite the long cooking time), so I would definitely put four hot peppers in this one next time, only two were used for the event, but I love things hot! This was the dip I heard the most about during the show, and a regular customer at my store, a lovely lady who cooks for the Hero Centre, told me that everyone loved our pretzels, so that was nice to hear.
Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

Mrs. McGarrigle's Mustards (in Mordor);
photo by Barb Rowlandson

Barb's Aunt Janet is the proprietess of a lovely shop in Merrickville, Mrs. McGarrigle's Fine Food, which is jampacked with gourmet foods, freshly-baked breads, and a mouthwatering selection of cheeses. On our drive home from Boston two years ago, we stopped in and grabbed some food for a picnic lunch, and we had Brie that was so rich, it was almost butter. It was transcendental, a culinary excursion to an alternate plane of existence. My mouth is watering as I think about it. SOOOOO good.

Janet is also the creator of the award-winning whole-grain mustards, Mrs. McGarrigle's Fine Mustards, and they are available in many, many delicious flavours. Mustard is, of course, the traditional condiment associated with soft pretzels, and we brought five varieties For Books 2 Eat: Balsamic & Cracked Pepper, Hot Whiskey, British Beer, Canadian Maple, and Red Wine & Garlic.

Janet also organizes culinary excursions to Italy, where Barb and I are heading near the end of April, first to spend four or five days in Florence, then on to Amelia, in Umbria, to stay at the Palazzo Venturelli. SO excited, I can hardly stand it.

We used the Hobbit preference for six meals a day to display our sauces;