Brittle: The Easy Way

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.  That's what I'm doing with you vis a vis Peanut Brittle.

This is my grandmother's recipe for Peanut Brittle.  I'd like to change its name from "Microwave Peanut Brittle" to "I Know How You're Gonna Gain Those 10 Holiday Pounds This Year."

It probably shouldn't be this easy to make brittle.  But it is, so here we go:

1 c. sugar
1/2 c. kayro syrup
2 c. dry roasted unsalted peanuts
1 tsp butter (my butter was cold...I divided a Tbsp of butter into thirds and used one of the thirds)
1 tsp vanilla (I omitted this because I ran out of vanilla and have already done my grocery shopping this week)
1 tsp baking soda

Combine the sugar and syrup in a large, microwavable bowl and heat on high for 4 minutes.  Stir in peanuts and microwave 4 minutes more.  Add in butter and vanilla; microwave 2 minutes.  Stir in baking soda.  Pour on buttered baking dish (or if you have an obscene amount of Silpats/rubber baking mats, use one of those, as I did.) 

Holy peanuts, Batman!  This brittle is heavy on the peanuts and light on the brittle.  Which is ok by me.

Warning:  Your dentist is going to hate me

I bet you could decrease the amount of peanuts to get a more balanced peanut to brittle ratio.  Which I may try next time.  I'm glad I clipped all those Kayro syrup coupons...

Slow Cooker Beer Braised Pork Roast

My lack of posts doesn't mean that I've subjected Andrew to nights of takeout or just left him to fend for himself.  I've just been too busy to make up quippy blogs about our dinners.  But we've had some good ones, and I'm lazy, so I'll catch them for the blog the next time I make them.
What have I been so busy doing?  Well, those wedding photos weren't going to post themselves (I'm sure there's someone still trying to make it through the 500+ pictures I posted on Facebook.  But there are twice that on my Shutterfly share site.  You're welcome that I didn't invite you to view those.)  But really, the bulk of my blog posting dry spell was spent trying to change my last name.  And get a passport.  The federal building is a scary place, my friends.  I shall not want to go there again.
So back to tonight's dinner.  I pulled a pork roast out of the freezer this morning without quite knowing what I was going to do with it.  I consulted the internets and found a simple recipe for slow cooker pork.

1 pork roast (I think they recommended a 5 lb; I think mine was 2?  I didn't check...I was busy trying to peel that weird white jobby off the bottom of the frozen pork)
1 bottle beer (the original recipe said light beer.  Did they mean light colored beer or "less filling, tastes great" light beer?  I screwed them and used a stout beer.  Then I filled that same bottle with water and used that, too)
3 onions, roughly chopped
Some shakes of:
Salt
Pepper
Basil
Marjoram
(I'm never one to measure spices unless it really counts, like in baking...and even then...)

So, put all that stuff in a crockpot and cook it.  Mine went 6-7 hours on high, then I dropped it down to warm, cause it was done, but Andrew and his Biblical sidekick were still installing Shannon's furnace.

While I waited for the Mister to come home, I made homemade gravy.  Please, please, please, don't ever buy jarred gravy or gravy powder or any of that junk.  Gravy is so stupid easy to make.  It goes as follows:

1/4 c. fat drippings from the meat you've cooked (or the equivalent in butter (4 Tbsp), which is what I used today)
1/4 c. flour
2 c. liquid from the meat you've cooked (I did 1 c. of meat liquid and 1 c. water)

Melt your butter over medium heat in a saucepan.  Add the flour and stir (I used a whisk), cooking it for a minute or two.  Slowly add the liquid to the flour mixture and cook, stirring, until the gravy is thick and bubbling, then cook for 1 additional minute after that.  Salt and pepper as desired.
That's it.
After dinner, Andrew asked if we could have mashed potatoes again tomorrow night so he could have more of that gravy.
I saw him dip some of the pork right into the gravy boat (and by gravy boat, I mean Pyrex measuring cup.)
That boy liked him some gravy.
Should have brought him a cup of gravy on our first date instead of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies.  Would have taken less time.  And maybe we wouldn't have had a commercial break.
Anyhow, let's see the dinner picture:

I think Andrew was drinking from the gravy boat while I was taking this picture...

It was super delicious, and the leftovers have me dreaming of some sort of tourtiere (that may be fake French for pork pie), which I've never made, but would definitely try (minus the leftover broccoli.)

Try this and MAKE HOMEMADE GRAVY!