Here’s another recipe to add to the “goes great with beer or wine”: Spicy Cheddar and Sea Salt Crackers. Lots of kick with the jalapenoes and chili powder to boot. I used a very shart cheddar, so they are crazy flavorful. Sure, I made them all cute and pretty by using a flower cookie cutter, but a recular circle or square (or even just cutting irregular pieces with a pizza cutter would work.
May 2017
I was recently given a bottle of smoked maple syrup. Yes, I was skeptical as well, especially when I opened the bottle and it was really, really smokey. Hickory and Oak, but smoke, smoke, smoke. I thought long and hard about what I should experiment with, and ultimately, I think that it would go great simply poured over some BBQ ribs, but I thought that I would actually try it in a sweet application, so I came up with this recipe for blondies. And you know what? It worked and they are actually very good. The smoke flavor (and admittedly, I only used a few tablespoons) is really tempered by the toffee and maple and instead of it tasking like smoke, it simply has a deep, almost earthy thing going on. Really quite nice. Also, if you don’t want do the whole “smoke” thing, this recipe works just as well with regular maple syrup.