A Substitute for Pine Nuts? Plus New Kitchen Gadgets

In a previous post I lamented about the shortage of pine nuts. Well, I decided to try something as a substitute. Sunflower Nuts. I used to eat these all the time as a snack when I was in high school, but I got sick of them after a while and stopped eating them. I decided it was time to revisit them. I'm glad I did, because I found out that I love them all over again. Only this time, instead of eating them straight, I've been putting them in dishes. The dishes that I used to put pine nuts in. They are terrific in my favorite quinoa recipe (Lemony Quinoa) and in my own Tuna Pasta recipe. I discovered they are a wonderful addition to salads as well (Deliciously Sweet Salad is pictured).

I'm so happy! Of course sunflower nuts will never be as good as pine nuts, but they are a very good substitute. Not only are they ten times cheaper than pine nuts, they are very nutritious as well. Sunflower nuts (or hulled sunflower seeds) are a good source of protein and "good" fats, such as poly- and mono-unsaturated fatty acids. They also contain Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant, and B vitamins. I buy mine roasted and unsalted and store them in the fridge.


I don't have to give up pine nuts just yet either. A very good friend of mine knows how much I love them and picked some up for me the last time she went to Trader Joe's. The nearest Trader Joe's is almost an hour away, and I have yet to visit one. I think I'll save these for my pesto sauce, the most favorite recipe that I make with pine nuts. Thanks M!

This weekend my husband I went to the kitchen store in the mall and I picked up some more kitchen gadgets. My old cookie scoop broke, so I picked out a couple of new ones to replace it. I couldn't decide which one to get, so I got both! I also got a potato scrubber in the shape of a potato and a "garliczoom." The garliczoom has a blade inside that spins as you roll it on the counter top and chops the garlic. I'm hoping this will eliminate the "garlic fingers" I tend to get when chopping garlic. Seriously, will anything get rid of the smell of garlic on your hands? I've tried rubbing them on stainless steel, lemon juice.......

Spring Cleaning

I'm like a squirrel, stockpiling nuts and berries for the winter. Only I hoard things like chicken breasts and chocolate chips.

I have a tendency to buy things in mass when they go on sale. Especially things that can normally be spendy. I like to scope out all the grocery ads and wait until things like chicken breasts, frozen pizzas, and salmon are on sale, then buy as much as my freezer will hold. This results in a very packed freezer! I have heard that your freezer runs more efficiently when it is full, so I guess my stockpiling is good for the pocketbook in more than one way. I also like to use coupons, and I get emailed coupons for Nestle baking chips, so I end up with lots of different kinds of chocolate chips. I recently discovered Aldi, which is new to our city in the last year. They have awesome deals on frozen seafood, like salmon and tilapia.

I realized that I have way too much stuff in my freezer and pantry and decided to start clearing it out. Not throwing it away, mind you, but cooking it. I've been on a whirlwind of cooking chicken, cookies, you name it, to use it all up. I found some really good recipes in the process.

It all started with a half bag of Valentine's Day M&Ms and a half bag of chocoate chips (why do I always have a half bag of chocolate chips?). I decided cookies were in order and leftover M&Ms and chocolate chips would be perfect to add to Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies. This was two weeks after Valentine's day, but my husband's co-workers didn't seem to mind. They gobbled them up!

Next was using up some of that chicken. Chicken, chicken, chicken......Heather's Best Ever Baked Chicken and Crispy Herb Baked Chicken had been sitting in my recipe box forever, so I finally tried those as well.

Then I found a random box of barley. I have absolutely no idea why I bought it or what recipe I was planning on using it for, but it expired in only a few days. Mushroom barley soup is a pretty classic recipe, but I've never made it before, so I tried Very Easy Mushroom Barley Soup.

A bag of Nestle Mint and Dark Chocolate Chips was the perfect addition to Chewy Brownie Cookies. These are officially my favorite chocoloate chocolate chip cookies now. They are just fabulous.

Half a box of phyllo dough buried in the freezer was just the right amount to make Wrapped Salmon.

Whew! And I'm not done yet! I've still got more ingredients and recipes before I'm done with my spring cleaning. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

I've been cooking a lot lately, but haven't felt much like writing. I just thought I would check in and let you know I'm still here and I am planning on more food posts in the near future. For now, here's a photo of some shamrock cookies I made. It is a recipe called Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies. I'd heard of sugar cookies made with cream cheese, and I love cream cheese, so I thought I'd try the top-rated recipe for them at allrecipes. They came out great. My husband took some to work and everyone raved. I think it was the almond extract that gave them that 'little something extra.'

Sarah McLachlan and Friends Concert

I feel really blessed to live so close to Minneapolis and its wonderful music scene. My sister and I have been going to concerts for the past five or six years now. It's become a tradition with us. We drive to the Mall of America and then take the Light Rail to downtown Minneapolis. There are a ton of great small venues there and we have seen some great acts. We've seen Sia, Holly Brook and Duncan Shiek, Mandy Moore (yes, Mandy Moore, I love her Wild Hope album), Regina Spektor, Missy Higgins, A Fine Frenzy, and last night we saw Sarah McLachlan.

Sarah McLachlan is my most favorite artist ever. I have been a fan of hers for the past 15 years or more. I first fell in love with her song "Possession" in high school, and then my husband introduced me to the rest of her music when we started dating. Her music holds a lot of memories of that time in our lives. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is the soundtrack to our love story. We were lucky to get to see her in concert back when we were in college. She played at Stephen's Auditorium on the Iowa State campus.

Sarah has had two albums out since I saw her last and she's mostly been playing in large stadiums. I've been to a few concerts at stadiums and don't care for them much. So when my sister (also a huge fan) found out she was playing at the Orpheum Theatre, which is relatively small compared to an arena, we knew we had to go. We were not disappointed. It was a great concert. Instead of having an opening act, she had Butterfly Boucher and Melissa McClelland as her back-up singers. Butterfly and Melissa are singer/songwriters in their own right and so they played several of their own songs throughout the performance, with Sarah singing back-up for them.

Sarah McLachlan is a true entertainer and impeccable performer. Her voice was crisp, clear and angelic. She sang energetically in all 25 songs, plus 2 encore songs, and seemed to be having the best time. The highlights for me were "Stupid," "To Feel Love" (Butterfly), "Answer," and "World on Fire" from the first set. From the second set we were treated to "Segovia" (Melissa) "Forgiveness," "Hold On" and "Sweet Surrender," which I've never heard sound better than the way they performed it last night.

Throughout the evening Sarah answered questions from the audience and gave humorous and enlightening answers. We got to hear about how she likes to dance naked to Michael Jackson with her little girls and how her song "Angel" is about heroin addiction. She even poked fun at her ASPCA commercials (which were very successful at raising money by the way).

Sarah commented how she gets "so much joy from singing sad songs." Well, I get so much joy listening to sad songs, especially from her. For some strange reason, the beautiful sadness of her music makes me happy. At the end of the show she thanked "everyone for supporting live music." Oh, my sister and I intend on continuing to support live music! With such great performances at our fingertips, how can we not?

I read online that the Orpheum doesn't allow cameras, so I didn't bring mine. But when we got there, they said cameras were allowed, but NO flashes or videos. So of course, throughout the whole performance I was just itching for my camera. (Is that a sign of a true photographer? Itching to take photos?) My sister was able to take a couple of photos with her iPhone, which I have shared with you here. Here's a link to a great photo taken of the concert by a Star Tribune photographer.

And of course, what concert isn't complete without a t-shirt?

Strawberry Cake Balls

So there's this recipe on allrecipes.com that has been nagging me ever since I became a member. It's been saying, "Dianne, come on, make me, I know you want to......" It looks really tedious and time consuming, but it also looks really fun and delicious. It's Cake Balls.

The main reason I haven't tried the recipe yet is that I really don't like dipping things in chocolate. I find it rather wearisome. I always get a big blob of chocolate on the bottom, I can't get the chocolate very smooth, it's time consuming, and on and on and on..... The only things I can think of having made dipped in chocolate in the past few years are Easy Oreo Truffles and Maple Cream Bonbons. Both times I got very frustrated and while they turned out fine, I still had to whine about it.

The other reason I haven't made the Cake Balls was that I was waiting for the right occasion. My niece's 2nd birthday party seemed like a good time to try them out. I decided to make strawberry cake balls, because they are pink and I like pink because I'm a girl. The pink was also very appropriate for a little girl's birthday party.

First you bake a cake (from a mix), then you basically destroy it by crumbling it up and mixing it with a (store-bought) tub of frosting. I let the strawberry cake cool for 30 minutes, then scooped it out of the cake pan into my mixer bowl. I blobbed in the tub of strawberry frosting and turned on the mixer until it was all evenly combined. I refrigerated the mixture overnight. Then I scooped it out using my small cookie scoop and rolled them into balls. I put them on a cookie sheet and into the freezer they went for 1 hour.

Then came the hard part, the dipping. I dipped half of them in semi-sweet chocolate and half in vanilla almond bark. I just melted the chocolate and bark in the microwave. I found what worked best was placing the ball in the melted chocolate, using a spoon to cover the ball with the chocolate, then lifting it up with a fork, and scraping the excess chocolate off the bottom with a spoon. I then used the spoon to push the ball onto waxed paper and to smooth out the chocolate if needed. To make the pink drizzle, I simply melted vanilla almond bark, added red food color and squeezed from a baggie with the corner snipped off.


I really surprised myself at how beautiful they turned out. Maybe it was the practice from those other two recipes I made? I don't know, but it wasn't as hard as I remember. I think I might make these again. Gasp! The creative juices are already flowing with what other flavor and color combinations I can make. I hope the dipping part will only get easier from here on out!

I Love Pancakes!

Yesterday, March 1, was "National Pancake Day." (Who declares these things anyways?) Pancakes are one of my all-time favorite foods. Not only do I love the taste, but they hold special memories for me. Growing up, every Saturday morning my dad made pancakes. After making them week after week, he has become an expert. He knows just how thick the batter should be and exactly when to flip them. He's tried different mixes and finally settled on Hungry Jack's Extra Light and Fluffy as being the best mix. They are delicious.

I remember when I was a freshman in college and I was feeling a little homesick. I woke up in my loft bed above my student desk on a Saturday morning and I swear I could smell my dad cooking pancakes. No, I don't think I had developed a super-power sense of smell that could detect scents 100 miles away, but I do think my longing for home kicked my imagination into overdrive.

Now I love to make pancakes, but because of the calories involved, I can't make them every week, as much as I would like to. I love to try different recipes from scratch, the most recent being Fluffy Pancakes from allrecipes.com (pictured). It's an amazing recipe and I was suprised that they are so good with such basic ingredients. Basic ingredients is also what I love the most about the recipe. I always have the ingredients in my pantry and fridge, so I can make them whenever I have a craving. I also enjoy making whole-grain pancakes and adding cinnamon. The maple syrup and cinnamon combination is amazing.

There is a Bisquick commercial playing right now where a lady sings about blueberry pancakes and I've had the song stuck in my head the past few days (which is annoying, because it's not a good song at all). Every once in a while I just blurt out a line from the song. My husband keeps asking when I'm going to make these blueberry pancakes I keep singing about. Oh I don't know.... I just like torturing him singing the song.... moo ha ha.....

"There's just one thing I love any time of day-haay.......blueberry paa-haan-cakes.....so good....."