Menu for Hope IV

For the fourth year running Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim is organizing the food bloggers to raise money for a worthy cause. Menu for Hope raised US$62,925.12 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry in 2006. This year Menu for Hope is working in conjunction again with the UN World Food Programme to support the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa.

This program was selected because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive but it also keeps them in school, learning skills to feed themselves in the future. It's also a model program in local procurement - buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there.

Full detail is available on Chez Pim.



Here's How to Participate in A Menu for Hope

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from the Menu for Hope at Chez Pim.

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form. You must write in how many tickets per prize, and use the prize code. (Each $10 you donate will buy one raffle ticket toward any prize. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02.)

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so they could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow them to see your email address so that they can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone. Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday Jaunary 9 for the results of the raffle.

And the winner is...

A few weeks back I asked for your help to Name this thing I made. Well the votes are tallied and the winner is: Nutter Scotch Haystacks!

Thanks to all those who voted and commented!

Also, I've noticed that there are a good number of people looking for recipes using chow mein noodles. Using this as a base, I have a couple of variations you can try.

• Replace the butterscotch chips with peanut butter chips and then drizzle with melted chocolate or top with marshmallows.
• Replace the butterscotch chips and peanut butter with 1-1/2 cups of chocolate chips and 2/3 cup of coconut.

Name this thing I made

The holidays are coming up and I am starting to plan what I'm making for gifts. I won't repeat exactly the same stuff as last year, I want to do a few new things. One item I plan on doing is chocolate covered nut clusters. First, I wanted a test batch to play around with. Work out things like how am I going to drop them, onto what, does that fit into the fridge, etc. Things I don't want to figure out the day of while trying to bake a batch of cookies too. Plus I wanted to try out different flavors and textures. I know chocolate and nuts go together but what else could work. Growing up I remember seeing these sea urchin-like things on cookie and candy platters. You know what I'm talking about, the dried chow mein noodles covered in chocolate and dropped in a spiny cluster. After randomly perusing one of my cookbooks, I ran across a recipe for something similar using butterscotch chips and peanut butter. They called them Butterscotch Haystacks. I know peanut butter is popular with the people regularly test my creations (Lorrie's coworkers) so I modified the recipe so the focus was the peanut butter.

???
based on the Butterscotch Haystack Recipe on page 444 of the The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook

Makes about 36 pieces

3/4 cup (4 1/2 oz) butterscotch chips
3/4 cup (7 1/8 oz) smooth peanut butter
4 1/2 cups (7 7/8 oz) dried chow mein noodles (make sure you have ones that are in decent condition)

First place sheets of wax paper on two 9x13 inch cookie sheets or similar low sided pans. Then combine the butterscotch chips and peanut butter in a large saucepan. Place over low heat. You don't need to drag the double boiler out for this if you stir regularly. Once the mixture is smooth and the color is consistent throughout, carefully add the chow mein noodles. Stir until the noodles are fully covered. A gentle hand is needed because the harder you stir, the more snaps and cracks you will hear. Breaking the chow mein noodles is bad. Nobody wants to eat a chunky, bumpy, peanut butter noodle ball. Nobody. Use two spoons to form the noodle pile, for lack of a better term, and place on the wax paper. Pop these into the refrigerator until they're set and then store in an airtight container.

Biting into one of these gave a definite crunch, which I liked. I hate biting into chocolate-coated pretzels rods and oops, no crunch. Stale. A thorough coating prevents this. The peanut butter taste was dominate, but good. The butterscotch made its presence known in the aftertaste and seemed to add a richness to the peanut butter.

Once they were done and packed, it was time to name them. I was still stuck in the Northwoods theme from the muffins so my initial attempt was 'Peanut Butterscotch Beaver Dams'. See how the 'Peanut Butter' and 'Butterscotch' were combined in a little word flow, nice right? But this seemed very long and I wanted a name that didn't take longer to say than it did to actually eat one. Lorrie and I batted around ideas but nothing stuck.

Lorrie took them to work the next day and held a contest: Name This Treat. She gave them some choices and let them vote. So that's what I am going to do here as well.

Here are your choices:

• Beaver Dams


• Nutter Dams


• Candy Dams


• Nutter Scotchies


• Nutter Scotch Pixies


• Nutter Scotch Haystacks


• Nutterscotch Stacks


• Nutter Nests


• P&L Pullaparts

So vote early and often in the comments. If you have a different suggestion, that's fine too.