Baklava

I've been wanting to make baklava for sometime. My Great Aunt and Grandma made it, but I do not have their recipe, I wish I did! Authentic Greek women's recipe would be ideal. Anyway, I have been searching around on www.foodgawker.com for the perfect baklava recipe, and I couldn't find one with all the makings as I desire. So, as usual I took a little from a few recipes and tweaked it to make my own.

Here's what you will need:
2 boxes of phyllo dough thawed out overnight in the fridge.
1 can mixed nuts = 4 cups
about 2 cups shelled pistachios
2 cups of walnuts
(I use salted and it tastes awesome)
5 cups melted butter (I know....lol.. I didn't say this was diet baklava)
1 large thing of the Honey with the bear on it
2 cinnamon sticks
And 2 cups sugar for syrup and 2 cups for the nuts.

Ok! Now lets make the syrup!
Go ahead and make your syrup, so start out by pouring all of your honey about 2 cups into a big pot with 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. Throw in the 2 cinnamon sticks as well! Heat on medium for 10 min until sugar is completely dissolved, then boil for about 10 minutes. Being sure to stir, stir, stir!
Set that aside and let cool.

Now for the ensemble!
Chop all your nuts, by hand or food processor, I do a little bit of both. They should be small little pieces easy to chew. Add 2 cups of sugar to the chopped nuts, stir thoroughly.

Lay down a piece of phyllo dough on the bottom. Then lay pieces over that to cover the sides, I did one on each side. This is so that the sides are covered when you cut it and take it out of the pan and it stays together. Pretty much, make it like a bowl in your pan that you choose. Now douse that with melted butter!

Lay 10 more piece of phyllo dough down with melted butter spread across each sheet.
Add 2 cups of nuts spread out
Add 10 more sheets over that with melted butter spread across each sheet. Repeat this 3 more times so that you have 4 layers of nuts with 10 sheets of buttered phyllo dough in between.  The top layer of phyllo dough should be heavily buttered.
Now, with a serrated knife cut either the diamond shape or what I found easiest, was just a square shape. It is VERY important that you cut the baklava before you bake it.
After all the cutting.....
Put in the oven at 350 for 2 1/2 hours. with a pan of water underneath it.
Let it cool completely
Heat up your syrup until warm - pour all over Baklava. Let it sit for a day - then enjoy!! 

Fancy mix

So, I'm a little behind posting. Even though I don't have any subscribers yet! This blog is just a good source for me to get my recipes written down so I can look back at them, and not have to keep scribbled pieces of paper everywhere, besides I can't read my own handwriting half the time!

I was going to make our traditional chocolate covered pretzels, that my mom and I make every year. But, when I went to dip the pretzels into the melted chocolate I decided I didn't have the patience this year to make chocolate covered pretzels! So here is what I did - I had read a recipe a week earlier called "white trash mix" it had chex cereal, m&ms and white chocolate. I tweaked it. I also renamed it to FANCY MIX. It sounds more appetizing. And this is too good to be called "trash" ;)

• I used one package of baking chocolate (any brand) I did some regular chocolate and some white.

On medium to low heat I melt the chocolate in a metal pot. I don't do the double boiler when melting chocolate. I just sit there and watch it and stir, and stir. By all means, use a double boiler!
And once it is all melted and smooth, I let it cool for about 2 minutes.
Once it has cooled down for 2 minutes I add (straight into the pot with melted chocolate)

• 1 cup chex cereal
• 1 cup pretzels
• 1/2 cup m&m (regular)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter m&ms

stir it all together and lay out on wax paper. Let it sit until hardened (about 30 min)
Once it is hard break it apart and wah-la!

I also substituted the M&M's for toffee, reeses peanut butter cup minis, hersheys peppermint kisses (which is my fav) you can really do any candy in it. It is so easy to make and just about everyone loves it!