Thursday, September 21, 2006

We opened the envelope, and...



...it's a girl!!!

2 comments:

mc said...

This is for Rachel
Chocolate Cricket Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 12-ounce chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup dry-roasted crickets
Preheat oven to 375. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In large bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla; beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture and insects, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded measuring teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

AES said...

A necessary addendum -

Dry Roasted Crickets

Spread a bunch of crickets out on a cookie sheet. You can substitute any edible insect you'd like. Bake at very low temperature for an hour or two....about 200 degrees until completely dry. You can test this by crushing the dryed insect with your fingers. If they do not seem completely dried out, roast them some more. However, be careful not to burn them as they taste terrible scorched! Let cool.

They have a nutty flavor and are very good eaten plain with a sprinkle of salt. They are also very tasty as a substitute for nuts in dessert recipes. Try them in your favorite cookie recipe. Dried insects can also be blended into a flour and added to bread flours to make lots of different recipes.

Notes:

1. Once insects die, their postmortem changes happen quickly making them unpalatable soon after they die...so you have to cook them alive like you do a lobster. If you collect your own crickets or buy them live from a supply house, you can put them in the refrigerator until you are ready to roast them...this will not kill them only slow their metabolism down (so don't worry about them crawling around the fridge!!). This also makes them easier to prepare as they are not tryong to crawl away from you while you arrange them on the cookie sheet. You can also buy frozen crickets from supply houses but they do not taste as good when cooked.

2. If you buy crickets from a supply house, they are usually wrapped in newspaper (or other paper). It is best to "purge" them to get the paper and ink out of their bodies. To do this, feed the crickets chucks of apples and/or potatoes for 24 hours before you cook them.