Yesterday turned into experimentation day in my kitchen. After a long, hot day Saturday helping my mom with a yard sale in Alleghany County, I was ready for a relaxing Sunday puttering around the stove — and, as it turned out, the grill.

While rummaging around the refrigerator for random produce to throw into my scrambled eggs (artichokes, tomato, banana pepper), I saw the bag of green peanuts I bought at Global Foods in Blacksburg last week. They still looked okay, so I set them to boil in a big pot of water and dumped in an unhealthy amount of salt.

Those of you who read the blog regularly know this made the second time I attempted to make boiled peanuts as tasty as the ones at roadside stands. Well, by golly, I did it this time! They took on the trademark dark, chocolate color and the wonderful, briny flavor. Now all I need to do to perfect them is cut back a little on the salt next time and boil them or let them set about one more hour.

The key truly was to just boil the living crap out of them for hours on end. We finally ate them at 4 p.m.

Success number two came in the form of a cannellini bean paste for bruschetta. I’d had something similar at a restaurant at the Biltmore in Asheville and have been meaning to try and duplicate it ever since.

Read more »