I am so excited that it’s friday! I got all Christmasy on you today and made these waffles with a vanilla chestnut cream to go top.

I’ve been working on developing a good sourdough bread recipe for a while now but I haven’t quite found the recipe yet. I plan to share it with you when I do, but for now you will just have to settle with these really yummy waffles.

I don’t know that I will ever go back to making waffles without sourdough. The natural yeast adds a fluffiness to them and the sour is similar to buttermilk but better.

If you are unfamiliar with how sourdough is made than you should really look into it because it’s really cool. Did you know that there is wild yeast in your house? or that you can catch said yeast? Weird right? Sourdough starter is a science. Some starters have been around for generations and have been passed down from generation to generation and shared among friends.

Well, since you probably don’t have a bff with sourdough starter to share you can make it yourself and it only takes a little bit of your time. You simply feed it each day or week and it can be adapted to how much you need to use. I’d explain all of this but I think this article does a much better job than I would and besides, we need to get to those waffles! Maybe I’ll write my own piece about sourdough when I get even more familiar with it.

So, on to this vanilla chestnut cream. We had this big chestnut tree near the house we lived in last fall and I got really familiar with ways to use the chestnuts. I also froze some because I knew I would want some around Christmas for a recipe like this. I explained more about them in this post (just look passed the really bad pics). You can use regular chestnut puree for this or roasted chestnut puree. I recommend roasted if you can find fresh chestnuts.

  Okay, this will probably be my last post on chestnuts. At least one specifically for the purpose of using chestnuts. Although, I can’t promise that I won’t slip them in sometimes.  I am getting into the habit of making something one day and reusing it the next. Like, today I am posting a recipe for crepes that includes the pesto that I made yesterday. I told you, passion for pesto.

I made chestnut flour out of my last batch of chestnuts the other day and I wanted to use it in something. Apparently chestnut flour is very common in many European countries and makes really good pastries. My plan was to make crepes with all chestnut flour so they would be gluten-free but I didn’t have enough.  My homemade flour was a little courser than commercial would be I think but that was probably because I didn’t dry my chestnuts long enough. So make sure that if you try making chestnut flour you dry your nuts well (Think rocks).

 I decided to do a little foraging and get some chestnuts from the trees across the street for more flour, but when I got there I saw that there were a bunch of people who totally stole my idea and beat me there. I really don’t like crowds and awkward situations so I skipped it and used some all-purpose flour. This probably worked out better because my chestnut flour was probably too coarse to use it by itself.

These crepes turned out pretty good all things considered, nutty and slightly sweet. Also, they can still be made gluten-free if you just trade all-purpose flour for your favorite GF flour or more nut flour.

 

I have a passion for pesto. I love the combination of flavors.  The bold flavors of basil and garlic with a mild nuttiness.  I have been wanting to make it for a while since we have lived here but I just hadn’t found the right ingredients. Traditionally it is made from pine nuts but I have never seen them here except for the Mapuche Piñónes.  The Mapuche are the native American indians that were the predominant inhabitants of Chile until the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s which started a lot of European immigration to the country. Now there are people of many different nationalities living here. In the area I live in there are Germans, French, North Americans and many other cultures mixed with the natives.  Anyway, these pine nuts are different from the pine nuts that are usually added to pesto and pasta dishes. They differ from pine nuts much like chestnuts differ from other nuts. They are described better here.   Some recipes for pesto replace pine nuts with walnuts or other nuts and you can easily do that with this recipe. Because I am doing this series on chestnuts, I decided to do a combo of chestnuts and Piñónes. I love the result. The chestnuts give it a mild sweetness and thickness that you don’t have in most pestos.

This is the third post in my chestnut series. I have been brainstorming what other delicious foods I could add them to.

We have a few varieties of apples growing around this property and they vary from really tart yellow crab apples that you would not want to eat, to red delicious and my favorite pink ladies.

These trees are not quite mature but some of them produce pretty good apples. I have even been able to use the sour ones in some recipes.

My little 5-year-old sister loves to go out in our backyard to collect big armfuls of apples for her always-growing apple collection.

  With so many apples and chestnuts it was obvious that I had to make something with both and a warm pastry sounded just perfect for a harvest time treat.

  Of course what goes better with apples and nuts at harvest time than caramel, or…..salted caramel? Even better!

The nuttiness of the chestnuts with the sweet apples and salted caramel make this recipe so Yummy!

 

 If you don’t have chestnuts or don’t like them you can easily sub in a different nut or leave the nuts out all together.   Either way, this recipe is great to serve for breakfast or dessert and it is also great for sharing. Although, you may not want to share too much.

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This is my second post in my series of chestnut recipes. I decided to go with a risotto recipe with mushrooms because it sounded so good to go with all my roasted chestnuts.

Risotto is not a really difficult dish but is does require more time than some people are willing to spend. I think every minute is worth it. With each cup of broth you infuse the rice with more and more flavor as you stir. I like using brown rice because it is healthier than white rice and I like the texture it gives to the risotto.

This recipe is perfect for serving as a side or you can add chicken and serve as a main course. You can’t skip the vino blanco (white wine). It gives a subtle intensity to the risotto that makes all the difference in the flavor.