Now through October 16th, you can enter a nifty Halloween contest and win a print copy of Tempting Treats among other fun goodies from several authors participating in a big Halloween bash over at Kate Hill’s website. Here’s the link with all the details — have fun and good luck!

Currently reading: New Moon by Stephanie Meyer and Lord and Master by Rosemary Stevens

Tags: contests, currently reading

I consider myself something of a connoisseur when it comes to making basic desserts — meaning brownies and cookies. We’re not talking five-layer tiered cakes here! I use healthier ingredients and much less sugar than is considered the norm– and they’re still chock full of gooey goodness. I’ve had only positive feedback on my baking endeavors and have learned many ways of tweaking traditional recipes with little substitutions that yield big in the less sugar, less-horrible-for-you category without sacrificing taste or yumminess.

Occasionally, as with today’s post, I’ll talk about a certain grouping of common ingredient and detail which varieties I’ve found works best. (or is cheapest– hey, I have my priorities down straight)   Today we’re covering nuts. Future posts will cover sugar/sweeteners, flours and other baking staples.

When it comes to nuts, I typically keep several varieties on hand: walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews and Brazil nuts. At times I’ve also had macadamia nuts in the fridge. Why the fridge? Because we buy our baking ingredients in bulk and I want everything to last. I always store my nuts in the freezer or fridge. Good thing Mr. Lyons’ didn’t type that last sentence.

My favorite nuts in baked goods are, by far, WALNUTS and PECANS. I also make a delicious (& fart-inducing!) granola using those two plus almonds and sometimes cashews, which I’ll share at a later date. For now, let’s talk about some of the more obscure nuts and then we’ll come back to these.

Macadamia nuts, while they’re great in cookies, aren’t my favorite thing to bake with; they’re just too darn hard to chop and I don’t like encountering them whole when I bite into a chewy cookie. Just too much resistance. But they’re supposed to be really good for us — the right kind of fat — so I occasionally munch on them as a snack. The same goes for Brazil nuts… although, to be honest, I’m just not a big fan of the taste of these. So while I occasionally eat 2-3 for a healthy dose of the goodness they contain (they’re really high in selenium), I never bake with Brazil nuts either.

Almonds and cashews — definitely my favorite snacking nuts. Raw or dry roasted (we roast them ourselves because I don’t like the oils contained in the ones you can buy pre-roasted) are great ways to enjoy either of these. Sprinkled on salads or straight out of the jar. Other than granola, and one recipe I used to make a lot in the 90s where I sprinkled chopped cashews on top of the frosting over brownies, don’t think I’ve really cooked much with these.

Now for my favorite part — walnuts and pecans. We buy these (and almonds — sliced whenever possible, slivered is also yummy; whole if that’s the only way we can get them) usually from Sam’s Club in the 2 pound bags, two or three at a time. Store them in the freezer always. Not saying that’s what you have to do, simply sharing that’s how we do it. I pull them out whenever I’m ready for them — or to snack. If I dry roast a good amount, we’ll keep those in the pantry until they’re gone.

So what’s the main difference when it comes to using pecans or walnuts in recipes? If you’ve ever done a head to head comparison, assuming our taste buds are similar , notice the individual pecan has a slightly sweeter taste than an individual walnut. I use this as my deciding factor when determining which to use for what, although in all of my recipes I consider these 100% interchangeable. Sometimes, say…on a crust, if I want to use walnuts because I have more (depending on how expensive they are does determine what we sometimes have on hand because the price definitely changes throughout the year) I may sprinkle in a teaspoon or so of sugar to slightly sweeten it.

But when we’re talking inside brownies or cookies or cheesecake…I simply use whichever one strikes my fancy because I think they both taste great and I don’t think there’s a significantly appreciable difference between them when surrounded by flour, sugar and spices. When making things that call for a substantial amount of nuts, such as the aforementioned pie crust, I sometimes do a mixture of the two.

What about the BHT they preserve those walnuts with? Good question, given how I avoid chemicals like the plague. At times we purchase organic walnuts, but much like buying organic milk (which I prefer to do, but don’t always find cost efficient) I sometimes have to weigh the pocketbook with how I’m feeling vs. what the going price is on the grocery store shelf and make the right decision, which may change from time to time. [Glory be, I can be wordy. Now you guys know why my books take so long to come out...I take the time to eliminate unnecessary words on those!]

This is gone on twice as long as I expected — but I hope it’s been helpful for you!

Larissa, who is…Currently Reading: New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

Tags: currently reading, Snacks

Yummy pie crust time!  I started making nut crusts several years ago mainly because I was too lazy to go through the hassle of creating a traditional flaky pie crust with the specialty flours I use in baking. Can honestly say I haven’t missed those traditional crusts one lick. While I don’t necessarily try to avoid all gluten, I definitely feel better when I keep wheat out of my desserts.

This recipe is quick and easy. Works great whether you’re talking about a fruit pie — apple, pumpkin, etc. Also works wonderfully as a substitution for a Graham cracker crust in things such as Magic Cookie Bars. Simply adjust the amounts based on how large your baking dish is.

For a basic 8 x 8 square — or deep dish pie pan:

Combine the following ingredients directly into your baking dish and stir to mix –

3/4 + cup very finely chopped pecans (measure after chopping) NOTE-walnuts, or a combination of the two, would also work fine, but when I have them on hand I tend to use pecans because they’re slightly sweeter

1/8 to 1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional)

2-3 heaping tablespoons gluten/wheat-free baking mix (Pamela’s works wonders but is very expensive. I tend to use homemade stuff– recipe will be provided in a future post.)

Drizzle 1-2 tablespoons olive or safflower oil (I admit…I never measure anymore, just start pouring in a thin stream) over all of the other ingredients.

You’ll have an easily smooshable mixture you can easily press into the bottom of your pan and up the sides if you choose. If this is going to be for a pie filling that you don’t cook (such as puddings), you can bake this for 5-10 minutes at 350° and you’re good to go. For pies or other goodies that you’re going to bake, I simply pour the guts straight on top and bake as usual.

Next Friday? Details on nuts!

Currently Reading: Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind (I know…I’ve been reading this one a while. It’s a really long book so I cover 150 pages at a time then pause and read other stuff. Can’t wait for the television series Legend of the Seeker to be released on DVD!)

Just Finished: Lady in Green, one of Barbara Metzger’s older regencies.  Adored it! How often do you have a bald heroine?

Tags: currently reading, Desserts, Homemade staples

A quick apology for my sparse blogging of late. Having a few crazy goings-on at the Lyons’ household that I think are beginning to slowly settle down. We’ve racked up another five or six skunks, bringing our total trapped to somewhere around 20 or so in barely a month.

Speaking of month, it’s been just under a full one since I committed to switching keyboard layouts. While I definitely experienced some muscle strain in my hands and arms, holding them stiffly and having to consciously think about each key before using it — unlike when typing QWERTY, which I learned — gasp — over 20 years ago — I have not experienced any disconcerting nerve sensation or intense pain, so I consider changing layouts to DVORAK to be a step in the right direction and I plan to type only with it in the future.

Initially, for a week or so, I used both layouts because Mr. Lyons’ computer has the traditional one and neither of us wanted to hassle with changing them around. Author Maura Anderson learned I was attempting the switch and kindly e-mailed with a few suggestions, most specifically not attempting to go back and forth, but instead commiting fully to DVORAK. She also shared the tip of printing a DVORAK keyboard/reference sheet and keeping that with me whenever I’m on another computer — and informed me that it’s not difficult to toggle between keyboard layouts on other computers. Her advice has proved very helpful, as it’s only been since completely stopping any QWERTY typing that my learning on the new one has picked up.

Here’s a great example:

On August 27th, only one day into my new DVORAK typing, I decided to time myself on those two common phrases (shown below) on both the new layout, as well as the very familiar QWERTY one. This was to give me a baseline for future comparisons. Here’s what I discovered–

Typing QWERTY, my speeds were:

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. 14 seconds AND on The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. 9 seconds No typos or mistakes, either.

Typing those same sentences using DVORAK took me , respectively, 1 minute 16 seconds (with two mistakes) and on the fox sentence — 51 seconds and 4 mistakes.

Now keep in mind that I have not typed every day, nor even every other day necessarily. And when I do, I’m very careful not to overdo what my body can handle, which means probably typing somewhere between 1-3 paragraphs a day, if that, and it’s spread over a number of hours. But while I’m in bed at night, or occasionally while watching television, I’ll mentally run through the alphabet with my fingers pointing out where I know the DVORAK keys are. As of this moment, I can easily remember everything but those dratted X, J and Q keys, easily showing me which three I type least. But here’s the really cool part — for the first time since late August, I just typed those two sentences again and my typing speed and accuracy shows substantial improvement — 44 seconds on the first one with only one mistake — and I didn’t look at the keyboard once! 38 seconds on the Fox sentence, which, while it isn’t a huge improvement, I only had one mistake.

I’m confident that with time & more use I will eventually become just as fast — hopefully faster — as I was with the old standard keyboard. More importantly though, I can attest that typing is resulting in less pain which is the exact result I’d hoped for!

Currently reading: Most of what I posted last time and… Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, which both Alyssa and my sister have been bugging me to read forever! Though I did finish Nancy Butler’s Keeper of the Swans, one of the traditional Signet Regencies, and what a unique and touching story it is. I never knew baby swans were called cygnets…but it makes sense, doesn’t it, when one looks to the sky = Cygnus the Swan.

Tags: currently reading

Holy moly — it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Things around the Lyons’ household have been a mite crazy of late. We’re renaming Mr. Lyons — at least for the month of September–the Skunk Wrangler. Yep, he’s wrangled over 14 of the little varmints in the past eight or nine days. Caught two yesterday, and twice, he’s trapped three in one day! He’s wondering if we need to start giving their long fluffy tails a squirt of neon green spray paint, so we can tell if it’s the same ones returning over and over again (but animal activists, relax…we haven’t taken such drastic steps…yet).

On the writing front, in between skunk shoo-ings (which has become my responsibility… guiding them into the cage — have only been sprayed once!) I’ve been working on incorporating all my scene additions to Jonah and Suzy’s tale, the second in our Bottoms Up Western series. No easy feat, as I’ve dictated three files’ worth of new stuff.

I’m just about done with this endeavor and will update the word count meter on the right once it’s complete and I’m ready to move on to my next phase of composition…blending and smoothing everything together.

Currently Reading:

Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind

A Lady’s Pleasure by Renee Bernard

The Magician’s Way by William Whitecloud

Keeper of the Swans by Nancy Butler

(well check it out…my reading list reads much like my “works-in-progress” list!) Larissa

Tags: Bottoms Up, current project, currently reading