Margarita Almonds Anyone?

As I wrote in an early post my son Nate started an almond business in April. A month or so later he was able to buy a commercial smoker and I brought it back with me. My son thought that I could smoke almonds for his business.
At first I just smoked almonds which sold well at the farmers markets but people started asking why we didn’t make flavored almonds. I wasn’t sure how to make flavored almonds or which flavors to even make. After looking at several books and articles on-line I had a couple of ideas and then Nate had tried some flavors with roasting.
I started out adding some olive oil, sea salt and pepper to a bowl then adding almonds, and after mixing them then smoking them. After many experiments I found that adding lots more salt and pepper is much better.
After that first batch of almonds I came up with the idea of soaking almonds in Key Lime juice then smoking them. Now I’ve expanded the smoked almonds to include: those with white wine, red wine, port, dark beer, pale ale, garlic, garlic and salt, and a “Margarita” Style using tequila, Key Lime juice and salt.

Tomorrow morning is the farmers market that I work for my son so I’ve been getting the almonds together. Our customers will be asking for their smoked almonds that they depend on us providing.

37 Years and Counting

Yesterday was our 37th wedding anniversary, hard to believe that it has been that long but it does seem like forever in another way. But actually we did get married on a Saturday night.

We’d wanted to go away for a change and had thought that a place with a campground nearby would be perfect. We had some great Iron Horse Champagne and BV Cab that we wanted to drink with our dinner but didn’t want to drive anywhere after drinking.

Looking at our finances over the weekend I found that we really didn’t have enough money to do much extra. With starting up the cookie company recently all of our extra funds have gone to the start up costs, hence we were going to need to stay around here and make the best of it.

I took an inventory of what we had on hand: fresh brussel sprouts with fresh lemons and butter, celery and the makings for Celery Soup a la Julia Child and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and some instant vanilla pudding.

Visiting the local butcher was my next step. I was thinking about smoking a nice piece of meat as without an oven that works the smoking was the next best way to cook. The butcher suggested a N.Y loin roast and I had him apply a garlic rub.

So I smoked our meat, made the other dishes, got out the silver, lit the candles while Dale poured our champagne. Ah, a wonderful dinner with the man I love.

An Experimental Casserole Gone Awry

I’d been reading tweets this afternoon about food. One person I follow posted links to several recipes for casseroles and I sure got hungry. Unfortunately, all of the recipes called for pasta or flour so it was time to start experimenting.
I decided that I’d make a tuna with veges in a sauce to go over cooked potatoes. I started with canned tuna in olive oil, draining the oil into my saucepan. I then sautéed some onion in the oil. I wasn’t sure of what to use to thicken the sauce so decided to try using almond meal. I added the almond meal and it seemed to work well.
I added some milk and mixed as I would have using flour but the sauce didn’t really thicken. It didn’t do anything bad but wasn’t that great. I then added the tuna and mixed it up, again it wasn’t really thickening but it tasted good.
I had bought cheese at the farmers market, a cheddar cheese and a smoked cheddar cheese. I cut chunks off each and then started shredding the cheese into the sauce. After the cheese was added I started to stir and one of the cheeses immediately started separating into little lumps leaving the sauce looking like water. I added the veges and then served it forth.
Dale and I spooned the watery sauce over cooked potatoes that we mashed up on our plates. Fortunately, the sauce stuff was absorbed into the potatoes so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least it tasted good.
Not one of the better meals but then again that happens sometimes when experimenting.

Made the Newspaper

At Sunday’s farmers market I was working alone as Dale was working at his nursing job and the Silva girls were not able to help out. A man came along carrying his camera; he looked like a news person. This is nothing new as journalism students regularly take photos of us for one assignment or another.

This man introduced himself as David Karp, writer for the food section of the L.A. Times. He’d met Nate at the Thousand Oaks market but was covering the Santa Clarita market this time. He wanted to feature our products in his article.

During our interview Bekki arrived with Christabel and Zaya in tow so he snapped photos of them as well. I wish that he would have put their photos in as they are the ones who can really sell for the business. Everyone loves these darling girls.

The article is in the Times on-line but I think it might be in next week’s actual paper.

This is so great for Nate and his Fat Uncle Farms. He has worked so hard to make this business work and we are so happy for him. It wasn’t that long ago that we would try to go on Dale’s days off and whenever I could otherwise, just to help out. Now he is truly on his way and we are so proud of him.