In My Kitchen June 2018

You may have noticed I missed last months In My Kitchen post. Sometimes it’s not always possible to keep up and now it’s June. On recent travels and first time in America, visiting kitchen shops was a must. Browsing around you realize the amount of kitchen stuff you already have but that little voice keeps on nudging…  “you can’t leave without something”.  So I listened… lol… I’m so weak.

In My Kitchen…

No doubt like me you’ve come across a packet of hard brown sugar in your store cupboard. I bought a terra-cotta brown sugar saver hoping to banish hard brown sugar forever. Well, it doesn’t last forever , you still need to soak the terra-cotta disk (if you remember to do this) once it dries out or you’ll find it has the opposite effect, drying out the brown sugar and making it hard. Apparently you can also use them to keep cookies soft or crisp depending on whether you soak the disk or not.  Do you use brown sugar savers for anything else other than sugar? Or do you find them gimmicky?

Who buys square egg shapers, well I did… for those square pieces of bread. They work perfectly but the secret is to place them on a hot pan, let them heat up for about 20 seconds, then break the egg into them otherwise a little egg white leaks from under the rim. Rolling eyes from the family when they saw them :)… guess I’ll be the only one using them.

Spent an enjoyable couple of hours at the New Orleans Cooking School. Gumbo, jambalaya and pecan pralines were on the menu, all very tasty in their own right but did find the pecan praline too sweet for my liking. Of course a touristy cooking school is not without a kitchen shop… hence the roux spoon and spice jar. My daughter and husband were waiting for me inside the shop and managed a look around before I did,  my daughter told her Dad, “bet Mum buy’s the roux spoon”… how right she was. 

While in New Orleans visited the famous Cafe Du Monde and had the most wonderful beignet heavily dusted with powdered sugar… don’t normally by packet cakes/doughnut mixes but thought I’d try these at home and see how they turn out. 

Visited a quaint little tea/spice shop in Galveston and bought this lovely handcrafted measuring spoon. The salted caramel sugar… haven’t used it yet. 

Fancy kitchen jewelry,  who wouldn’t love these pretty set of measuring spoons… one item that won’t see the dishwasher.

Love baking my sister in-laws Basbousa recipe, a traditional middle eastern sweet made with semolina, plan on sharing the recipe soon. “What’s the scoop”… well I finally got one.

Some cookbook inspiration and making more use of cocoa nibs with recipes, infusing them in olive oil along with whole chillies and chilli flakes. I’ve already posted this recipe and it looks great drizzled over the hummus recipe. 

And of course…  those pick-me-up coffee breaks in my kitchen, sometimes with a little coffee art… stencils make it so easy. 

The “In My Kitchen” monthly theme host is Sherry, from sherryspickings.blogspot.ie If you would like to know what’s cooking or see some kitchen treasures, head over to Sherry’s blog and check out all the other IMK participants.