Sweet Pickled Eggs

My husband loves pickled eggs, but he does not like beets or eggs pickled in beet juice.  So I found this recipe from Allrecipes and he loves it.

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I end up with 10 eggs and lots of onions rings (from 1 large onion).  The onions are the best part.  I make it easy on myself for the brine and just dump all the ingredients in a pan and bring to simmer until the sugar dissolves.  I don’t make a brine bag.  Then I dump the entire brine mixture into the jar over the eggs and onions.  I stick a label on top with a date 2 weeks from the day I make them so we know when it’s eating time.

Drunken Cherries and Brownies

This process started back in August when I bought some cherries on sale at Meijer.  I pitted them, added them to pint jars, and covered with vodka.  I made one jar of peaches with brandy.  Then the waiting began.  I gave away most of these at Christmas and saved the peaches and one pint of cherries for me.

Today, I finally made a recipe using the cherries.

Dark Chocolate-Cherry Brownies

1 stick butter, more for pan and parchment paper6 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped 2 large eggs ¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup dark brown sugar, packed½ cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla ½ cup all-purpose flour ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 cup drunken cherries, drained*

Butter a 8×8-inch baking pan and line with buttered parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt 1 stick butter and chocolate together. Cool slightly. In a large bowl, whisk eggs until frothy. Whisk in salt, both sugars and vanilla. Add the chocolate mixture to the bowl, stir to combine. Sift in the flour and cocoa, fold together until barely combined. Fold in the cherries. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until shiny and beginning to crack on top. Cool in pan on rack.  (*I saved the leftover cherry juice in the same jar and will use that for another purpose, another day – do not pitch it!  What you left is cherry liqueur and can be used in candy and other goodies.)

I turned the brownies out onto a pan (wish I had a square, flat serving dish!) and topped them with some leftover ganache I had from another baking project.

So yummy and moist.  I think the next time I might halve my cherries because one cherry is a big bite by itself.  The cherries do have a strong alcohol flavor – so eat responsibly! Remember, the secret is to get your fruit on sale in the summer and make these up for Christmas presents.  Pass them on to friends (very good friends) along with a couple recipes, such as the one above.

Pasta Fagioli in the Crockpot

This recipe claims to be “just like Olive Garden”. The recipe I found on the Internet made a big batch – I cut the recipe in half and the measurements are approximate. The half batch cooks up nicely in my large crockpot.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
1 small onion, diced
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup sliced celery
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (16 ounce) can white kidney beans, drained
1 (16 ounce) can red kidney beans, drained
1 (14.5 ounce) can beef broth
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp black pepper
3 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp tabasco sauce
10 ounces spaghetti sauce (or a small jar)
8 ounce small pasta

Throw everything into the crockpot – except the pasta.  Mix it up.

Cook on low 7-8 hours or high 4-5 hours.  Add the pasta the last 3o minutes.  Here is the pasta I used – I never even heard of it before, but found a Meijer brand on a $1 sale week.

And it turns out awesome.

Some things that make this an easy dish for me to make is that I brown and freeze hamburger in 1 pound batches, I cut up and freeze carrots and celery in 1 cup batches when they are on sale, and I used frozen diced onions.  So it is really a matter of just defrosting items and throwing it all together.  Sometimes I have red kidney beans made and frozen as well.  I can cook it while I’m at work and add the pasta 30 minutes before dinner.  Yum – sooooo good.