NYE Bean Dip

Here is a quick and ridiculously yummy dip for your parties tomorrow. Its pretty approximate, but the ratios of bean to cream cheese are accurate, and double easily

3/4 cup dry black beans ( equivalent two cans cooked )
Soak beans overnight
Put on low heat with about 3 cups of water
3 to 5 minced garlic cloves
Add a scant teaspoon of cinnamon
About 1/4 teaspoon of the hottest cayenne you can find
And a tablespoon of cumin

Cook for two hours on lowest heat. After two hours when beans are soft turn heat up to medium low and cook off remaining liquid. Stir in 12 oz of cream cheese. Put in ovenproof ceramic dish and heat when ready to serve.

TIPS
Using dried beans cut down on sodium, and stops the beans from going mushy. Adding salt when soaking the beans prevents the skins from splitting. Cutting out this step does however make this a 5 minute recipe

Marshmallow you Cute?!

Other titles considered:

It's a Marshmallow World
It's a Marshmallow Life
She's an out of this world Baking Marsh-ian!

You know I am at the end of the semester when my humor gets bad and my kitchen projects get GOOD!

This is a variation on a Food Network recipe that i opened in my browser nearly two weeks ago and have refused to close.

Since I knew i was in for three days of academic torture..

I allowed myself to make a recipe.
                                               Just one.

It was not allowed to involve the oven. 

Making Bailey's flavored marshmallows seemed an appropriate solution.

It was so much easier than I thought it would be, and I succeeded without a candy thermometer! ( risking the ruin of precious baking ingredients - nerve wracking!) Essentially what I did, was dump three packages of gelatin into my mixer with a half a cup of ice cold water. On the stove I heated water, corn syrup, sugar, and a pinch of salt, for exactly 7 minutes, on exactly medium heat, and hoped i pulled it off before the sugar started crystallizing.

AND I DID!

And then I turned Black Betty (wham-a-lam) on for her triumphant return, and slowly poured the hot sugary liquid in the mixer.

High speed, high steam!

After about 5 minutes  it stopped frothing and started foaming. Excellent.

The hardest part, is just letting it mix. For about 12 minutes. Patience is not one of my numerous virtues.

Oh wait, then I added Baileys instead of vanilla extract. Two glugs to be exact. Not as much as I wanted for sure.

Child friendly Marshmallows. Child friendly Marshmallows. Child friendly Marshmallows. Child friendly Marshmallows. *sigh

Eventually it became thick like meringue, and it got poured into a greased and dusted dish to set, and dusted on top a bit more. (cornstarch/icing sugar even mix. The cornstarch doesn't dissolve the way the sugar does and keeps them from getting sticky)

Then cut, rolled in more powder.

Here's a few hints for you

Don't refrigerate these if you don't want them to get sticky.

Much like fondant they will sweat a little bit if they chill too long.

Also if you want to scoop the marshmallow mix it into a piping bag and pipe a long tube onto dusted parchment paper, then you can let them set and cut the stripes into mini marshmallows.

Also, dust you pizza roller with the cornstarch and powdered sugar mixture

The initial process takes less than 10 minutes. I left the room while the mixer ran! However, the slicing and powdering takes a while.

The marshmallow brick needs at least 4 hours to set before you can handle it, so you can make these and cut later

I threw them in the bowl to dust, put the marshmallows in the sieve and shook the excess off.

Uhm, these may not make it into everyone's stockings. Hot chocolate with baileys marshmallows for paper writing reward? And not even boozy!! I think so.

do you sprout?

You should sprout

If you don't, what are you waiting for?

It costs you pennies, it's delicious, and far less risk of bacteria, because you cut down on packaging and shipping times.

This will be ready to eat sandwich sprouts in another day or so

And these are going in tomorrow night's dinner

All you do is pour water over them a few times a day, and it drains down through the trays.

VOILA!

Go forth and sprout!!