In The Meantime, It's Pistachio Day

Josh and Colin have entered into a Wonderful Pistachio video contest. This means they brought home five million prop pistachios. After we put literally as many pistachios as would fit in our bodies into our bodies, we had leftover pistachios. And so today became: PISTACHIO DAY.

To celebrate, I ate more pistachios and made pistachio sweets two ways.

The first:
Pistachio and Raisin Caramel Cookies, via cooks.com (All photos courtesy of MYSELF, BECKY ABRAMS).

Here is the recipe:

1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 c. stone ground flour
3/4 c. oats (old-fashioned or quick cooking), uncooked
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. golden or dark raisins OR 6 oz. chocolate morsels
1/2 c. coarsely chopped nuts (pistachios, almonds, walnuts or pecans)

In large bowl with electric mixer, beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and egg.

Stir together flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Add to mixture and mix until blended. Add raisins and nuts mixing well.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to racks to cool. Makes approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies. (Freezes well.)

Here are more pictures:

Secondly:


Pistachio Cupcakes, via In Jennie's Kitchen.

The recipe:

Makes 12.
You need a very clean, dry bowl for beating egg whites, so I do that step first. They’ll be fine standing for a few minutes while you prepare the rest of the batter (and you don’t have to worry about cleaning the bowl twice).

1 cup flour
½ cup pistachios, very finely ground
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, pistachios, baking powder and salt; set aside. Stir extracts into the milk; set aside.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Carefully transfer to a bowl and set aside.

3. Add the butter and sugar to the mixing bowl; fit mixer with paddle attachment. Beat until mixture is fluffy. On low speed, gradually add flour mixture. Slowly pour in milk-extract combination, and beat until just mixed (at this point, the batter will be very thick – do not over beating or it will create a tough crumb).

4. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Evenly spoon batter into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Top with Pistachio Frosting.

PISTACHIO FROSTING (by ME, Becky Abrams!):
Mix confectioners sugar, ground pistachio, and cream together until desired consistency (start with 1 c. sugar : 1/3 c. ground pistachio : 1-2 Tbs. cream). Add ONE drop of green food coloring. Sprinkle top with ground pistachio.

Here are more pictures:

In closing, your honor, I didn't do any tv recapping today, but I certainly did honor Pistachio Day. And then I let you in on it, which is half the secret. What's the other half of the secret to blogging? Nice try. Great try, really. Even I don't know the other half. I would assume it has to do with html. I still think html is l33t speak for hotmail.

It's not, right?

pistachios!