Home-made herb & spice bar nuts

If we fancy a pre-dinner drink (or perhaps drinks if we’re ushering in the weekend), we love to accompany them with a few tasty snacks of some kind. This recipe for herb & spice bar nuts, which recently caught my eye online, looked absolutely perfect. I’ve just given it a go… and it turned out to be a very good decision. I achieved a great outcome for relatively little effort.

For my version of the recipe, I used 100 grams each of hazelnuts, cashews, walnut halves, pecans and whole almonds. That said, if you want to give it a try, feel free to substitute whatever nuts you prefer or happen to have in your store cupboard; for instance: peanuts, Brazils and macadamias. If 500 grams feels like too large a portion for your needs, it’s really easy to just halve the recipe.

They were gorgeous – and incredibly moreish! In fact, these flavoured nuts would make a great snack to include on a party buffet table or as bar snacks; they really suit being eaten with beer, wine, whisky or a martini or two.

Click here or on the image below to save the recipe to Pinterest

Home-made herb & spice bar nuts

2020-08-05 17:40:02

Serves 6

Ingredients

500g/18oz unsalted mixed nuts (e.g. peeled peanuts, cashews, brazils, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans or whole unpeeled almonds)
2tbsp coarsely chopped fresh rosemary (from two 8cm/3-inch sprigs)
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2tsp Muscovado sugar
2tsp salt
1tbsp unsalted butter, melted

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350ºF/Gas mark 4
Toss the nuts in a large bowl to combine and spread them out on a baking sheet
Toast them in the oven until they become light golden-brown, about 10 minutes
In a large bowl, combine the rosemary, cayenne, muscovado sugar, salt and melted butter.
Thoroughly toss the toasted nuts in the spiced butter and serve warm

By Nigella

Adapted from Nigella Bites

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Mixed nut toffee brittle

We’ve had a whirlwind week; we had visitors come to stay and are currently spending a couple of nights at Justin’s mum’s. I realised that the weekly Cakes & Bakes post would be due and I hadn’t yet made anything.

Seeing as Justin’s mum (aka Granny Glittens) regularly says how much she likes my peanut brittle, I took the hint and made some mixed nut toffee brittle.

Rather than plain peanut, I found a bag of ‘Best’ mixed nuts in the supermarket and bulked them up with a bag of cashews that I already had in the store cupboard. In the mix were pecans, hazelnuts, Brazils and Carmel and Marcona almonds.

Apparently the latter are:

The ‘Queen of Almonds,’… imported from Spain. They are shorter, rounder, softer, and sweeter than the California variety.

If you’re using large nuts like Brazils or whole walnuts, it’s a good idea to chop them into 3 or so pieces to make them a better size for gobbling up!

Click here to save my recipe to Pinterest

Mixed nut toffee brittle

2019-06-19 08:59:40

Prep Time

5 min

Cook Time

10 min

Total Time

15 min

Prep Time

5 min

Cook Time

10 min

Total Time

15 min

Ingredients

500g/17½oz caster sugar
3tbs water
50g/2oz butter
250g/9oz roasted mixed nuts
2tsp bicarbonate of soda

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Instructions

Line a large, shallow baking tray with greaseproof/parchment paper. You can grease the tray lightly to make the paper stick to it
Pour the sugar into a large, heavy-bottomed sauce or frying pan
Turn the stove on to a medium-low heat, add the water and stir for about 30 seconds until the sugar has turned to a thick syrup
Stop stirring!
Bring to the boil (still without stirring) allowing it to simmer for 5 minutes or, if you're using a candy thermometer, bring up to the hard crack stage of 146-154°C/295-309°F. You'll see the consistency go from grainy to smooth and shiny.
As soon as you get to this point, turn off the heat and stir in the butter quickly
Add the nuts and stir those in quickly
Add the bicarbonate of soda, again, stirring in quickly
Pour the boiling mixture carefully on to the prepared baking tray and allow it to cool for about half an hour
Break it up into pieces using a toffee hammer or the butt end of a kitchen knife
Store in an airtight container lined with greaseproof paper

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Healthy nutty granola

I have a guilty pleasure; almost every, single night I have a small bowl of granola! I go through so much of the stuff that I thought I should try making my own healthy nutty granola.

Another reason that I wanted to prepare my own is that I know exactly what would be going into it. In general, shop-bought granola is full of sugar, palm oil and all sorts of additives and preservatives. It’s probably cheaper to make my own, as well; I usually have all the necessary ingredients in the cupboard anyway.

Using a base of oats, you can add any combo of nuts, seeds and/or dried fruit. For my first attempt, I used chopped cashews, chopped almonds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, poppy seeds and cacao nibs.

Likewise, other great additions would be dried fruit such as raisins, sultanas, cranberries, goji berries, roughly chopped apricots, figs, mango and/or apple rings.

For sweetness, I used honey and dessicated coconut; you could substitute maple syrup for the former to make it a vegan option. The coconut oil is added to help it clump together to form tasty clusters.

Click here to save my recipe to Pinterest

Healthy nutty granola

2019-06-11 13:52:19

Cook Time

30 min

Cook Time

30 min

Ingredients

250g oats
75g chopped cashews
50g chopped almonds
25g hemp seeds
25g chia seeds
25g poppy seeds
25g cacao nibs
½tsp ground cinnamon
150g honey
75g coconut oil
25g dessicated coconut

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas mark 2
Combine all the dry ingredients except for the dessicated coconut
Warm/melt the honey and coconut oil (a couple of 10-second bursts in the microwave should do it) and stir together
Pour the honey/coconut oil liquid over the dry mixture and combine
Lay the mixture out evenly on to a large baking sheet or two smaller ones
Cook for 20 minutes, mixing and tossing after 10 minutes to ensure even browning
Sprinkle over the dessicated coconut and cook for a further 10 minutes
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet(s). If you like a chunky granola, press the mixture down using the back of a serving spoon - break it up after it has completely cooled
Once completely cool, decant the granola into an airtight, lidded container

Vegan option

Swap the honey for maple syrup

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Nutty treacle tart

This week, I realised that we have lots of bags of nuts coming to their use by date. I think we were given most of them as Christmas presents last year – and, more than likely, we’ll be receiving even more in a few weeks time.

I needed to use them pronto and I’d seen a nut-filled Nigella recipe a week ago that looked tasty. She calls it pecan-plus pie; an Anglicised version of the American pecan pie. I didn’t have any pecans in my nut hoard, so I’ve rechristened mine, nutty treacle tart.

I wasn’t too sure about the pastry case when I was making it; plain flour, vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. It looked very oily when the dough came together and was being pressed into the flan dish. I needn’t have worried though, it turned out perfectly fine – crumbly and biscuity.

The treacle sauce is sweet and unctuous but not sickly. One thing I’d do if making this nutty treacle tart again, however, is roughly chop the larger nuts. The Brazils were a bit large when trying to cut the tart into slices and also when spooning bits into my mouth!

Nigella’s instructions are to bake the tart for 40 minutes at 180ºC. After spending that length of time in the oven, my tart was still quite liquid and (thanks to my clear glass flan dish) I could see the pastry still had a ‘soggy bottom’. I’d suggest upping the oven temperature a bit or cooking it for a little longer… or both; just keep checking on in it as it bakes.

Serve it (I prefer it cold) with a dollop of whipped cream or crème fraîche.

Click here to pin the recipe to Pinterest

Nutty treacle tart

2018-11-28 15:36:42

Serves 12

Cook Time

45 min

Cook Time

45 min

Ingredients

225g/8oz plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
125g/oz vegetable oil
60ml/2fl oz full fat milk
150g/5¼oz golden syrup
100g/3½oz soft butter
200g/7oz soft light brown sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
350g/12⅓oz mixed nuts
3 large eggs

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Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350ºF/gas mark 4
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, oil and milk to form a rough dough
Tip it out into a 25cm /10" diameter flan dish, and press the dough evenly into the base and up the
sides of the dish, slightly coming up over the top if possible. Put it into the freezer
Melt the golden syrup, butter and brown sugar over a lowish heat in a saucepan
Add the vanilla, stir, then take off the heat and allow it to stand and cool for 10 minutes
Remove the pastry-lined flan dish from the freezer, and arrange the mixed nuts on it
Whisk the eggs into the slightly cooled syrup until it looks like a caramel mixture, then pour it over the nuts
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the filling has set and the pastry is golden brown
Allow to cool completely before slicing and serving

By Nigella Lawson

Adapted from Nigella Christmas

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/