Yes, You Can Toast Marshmallows in a Skillet

This is my most brilliant non-recipe ever. Here is the whole thing:

Ingredients: Marshmallows and chocolate. Graham cracker crumbs if you have them.

Instructions: Heat the skillet over medium, put marshmallows in an even layer, and allow them to toast, turning when the bottoms are golden. Toast marshmallows in a nonstick skillet, turning when bottoms are golden. Grate chocolate over top and sprinkle with crumbs.

I’m a genius! Not only did I figure this out, I told you all about it in just a one-minute read. You’re welcome. I love you too. Scroll down for details.

For the marshmallows, the holiday ones with a flat side work best. Pictured are some star-shaped marshmallows from July 4. For the skillet, just make sure it’s nonstick. No efficient kitchen should be without a nonstick skillet. The new ceramic non-stick skillets are pretty good, but I prefer the cheap kind. I think either would work for toasting marshmallows.

A microplane grater is one item that no efficient kitchen should be without. This grates chocolate, cheese, lemon zest and whatever else you want grated finely and quickly.

To serve, place in an attractive bowl and top with graham cracker crumbs, sprinkles, gold dust and caramel sauce. Or, if you’re like me and you discovered this method of toasting marshmallows because you were all alone on a rainy day, and had an emotional-eater craving, and found out that trying to toast a marshmallow over the open flame of your gas stove was only causing it to go up in flames and make you even sadder….just get your little silicone spatula (another item no efficient kitchen should be without) and eat immediately.

We are beginning to see why there aren’t more recipes on my blog.

Non-Recipe: Fancy Deviled Eggs

Why just color the shells when you can color the eggs themselves? The natural dyes in beet juice, red cabbage, and turmeric add lovely color. For the filling, get creative with avocado, corn, curry, red pepper and/or beets.

I had eight medium eggs, and these ingredients for the dye:

Beet juice (from some jarred beets I had in the fridge)

2 T turmeric

1/2 cup shredded red cabbage

I was doubtful myself when I saw this suggestion in Fresh Thyme’s free recipe mag. It did work! For blue dye, cook the red cabbage in a cup of water. It’s suggested to add a teaspoon of baking soda, but I omitted it and still got some good blue color. I placed the liquid along with the cabbage and two hard boiled, peeled eggs into a jar overnight.

The other dyes were even simpler – into another jar went the turmeric plus water to cover and three eggs, and three eggs went into the beet jar.

**You know how to hard boil an egg, right? Place in a saucepan with water to cover, bring to a boil for a minute, then cover, turn off the heat, and let them sit for 10-12 minutes.**

After halving the dyed eggs and putting the yolks into bowls, I got creative and you can too. I had:

1/2 avocado, juice of 1/2 lime, 1 tsp fajita seasoning, 2 t finely chopped green onion. That made the green filling.

1 cooked beet (from the same jar), 1 T chopped red pepper, 1 T hot sauce, T sour cream, 1 tsp berbere seasoning. That made the red filling (though it didn’t turn out as red as I would like – will have to experiment more with that one).

1/4 cup cooked corn, 2 T mayonnaise, 1 T mango salsa, 1/2 tsp curry seasoning. That was the yellow filling, my favorite.

My beet juice jar (there’s a little vinegar but that added a nice flavor), the leftover turmeric which I used for tea, and bowls for the curry corn, avocado and beet pepper fillings

I was as usual just kind of winging it. I mashed up the yolks and divided them more or less evenly. Deviled eggs are hard to mess up. If the filling’s not quite right, adding more mayo or sour cream usually fixes it. If it’s too bland, a little more seasoning or a little lemon juice will perk it up.

Blue egg with beet pepper filling, yellow turmeric egg with avocado filling, beet egg with curry corn filling

Top with paprika or Tajin. Or whatever you want.

Celebrate springtime with joy!

Quick Snack: Wintry Mix

I’d feel guilty if I called this a recipe. You need two things:

Air-popped popcorn

Yogurt covered almonds

Chop the almonds. You need about 10 almonds per 2 cups of popped corn, but use more than that. You deserve it.

Put the chopped yogurt almonds into a large skillet set to medium low, let the coating melt at bit and stir.

At this stage you could add coconut flakes, crispy rice or puffed wheat cereal, chopped pecans, or whatever you have. I made this during a sloppy April blizzard when I was unwilling to leave home to get any other ingredients, so the popcorn and yogurt almonds were all I had.

It was plenty. Let it cool, sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top, and enjoy. The end.

Wintry mix never lasts long. Happy spring!

Fast Eats: Thai Peanut Hummus

Unlike other blog recipes, mine will cut straight to the ingredient list, because you were going to scroll down to that anyway, right? Fast, as promised:

Ingredients
One can chickpeas
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup honey peanut butter
2 green onions (just the green part, snipped)
1/4 cup cooked sweet potato
1 heaping tablespoon chili garlic sauce (I used Lee Kum Kee)
1 heaping tablespoon shredded pickled ginger (you could use a smaller amount of fresh ginger. I like Ginger People grated ginger for convenience and blendability).

NOTE: All these measures are approximate, because you were going to approximate them anyway, right?*

When I have it in my blender cup, with the chickpeas and sweet potato on the bottom, it looks like this:

Blend away! I have a Braun hand blender that is over 20 years old and still works well for anything that doesn’t need the mega horsepower of the Vitamix. It’s a cinch to clean and store, so I use it a lot.

After tasting it, I ended up adding a little more of everything except chickpeas. The sweet potato could be omitted if you don’t have any, but I recommend making sweet potato one of your kitchen staples – they’re good in so many soups, dips, and chilis, can be cooked in the microwave in under five minutes, and you just sneaked in a nutritious vegetable. If you have an average liking to sweet tastes, be sure to either get the honey roasted peanut butter and the sweetened pickled ginger, or add some honey or agave.

*Most cooks don’t follow recipes to the letter. We know what we like and we add more of it; for example, hmm, this needs more salt and more garlic. Or maybe you want to swap out the chili garlic sauce for something like sriracha or another hot sauce because that’s what you have on hand and want to try it, or because you hate garlic. If you do hate garlic, I’m not sure you and I can be friends, but we can still swap recipes. As long as you don’t blame me if multiple unwise substitutions result in something inedible.

Enjoy! This was taste-tested this at a party, and again with co-workers, and it got good reviews. Serve with cucumber slices, baby carrots, red peppers, etc.