Peanut Brittle

When I was a young man, I happened to run my motorcycle into the side of a car one day, and so it was that my jaw was broken in two places. I woke up in the middle of the street instantly convinced that I had taken a nap, and I was late for work. I struggled to get up, but strong hands held me down, and a kind voice said, "It's OK, just lie still. The ambulance will be here in a few minutes."

I didn't feel any pain at first, and the only memory of the accident was like a dream. There were a few milliseconds of panic as I tried to stop my bike from hitting the old station wagon that had materialized in front of me, and then the lights blew out. By the time we had arrived at the emergency room, I had all the pain I needed to convince me that this was real. "It's a good thing you were wearing that helmet," the patrolman told me as he wheeled me in. "Otherwise you'd be headed for the morgue."

I could tell my jaw was broken, and my right wrist as well. It's tough to speak with a broken jaw, and I tried in vain to tell the orderly about my wrist. Eventually he got the message, but I didn't. He had to show me the X-ray of my wrist before I accepted the fact that it wasn't broken after all.

Having managed to scrawl a signature on a release form, they whisked me off to la-la land to repair the damage. I woke up in the night with a stomach full of my own blood. Only vampires can digest blood, I found out, and I was as sick as a billy goat that had eaten a suitcase full of old razor blades.

By the time I'd been in the ward for a few days, the full extent of the damage had been made known to me. The only part of my body that didn't hurt like hell was the cheeks of my butt. The nurses took care of that omission.

As I lay in the hospital with my jaws wired together, hurting all over, able to eat only soup through a straw, who should come to visit but my old buddy Carl?

He came bearing a gift, no less. Through clenched teeth I Said, " Thanks Carl, you didn't have to do this." He smiled and Said, "Oh yes I did." He giggled a little. Knowing Carl, I should have smelled two week old salmon right then.

I took the proffered box, removed the colorful wrapping, and lifted the lid. Sure enough, sweet Ol' Carl had brought me a box of peanut brittle. It took a few seconds before the full significance of the situation came to me. My gratitude turned to a mixture of anger, disappointment and hilarity. I hurt too much to laugh. He actually enjoyed it when I called him a nasty name, which implied his mother was registered with the AKC. Not only canine, but unwashed as well.

I've been had many times in my life, but never to compare with that.

I eventually got to eat the peanut brittle, and it was first class stuff. Many years later I found a recipe for microwave peanut brittle. It was so easy to make and the results were so good. I remembered his kindness and gave him a box in return. "You ain't no friend of mine if you don't give me a copy of the recipe," he said, after sampling my wares. So help me, I gave him the recipe just as I found it. Despite many attempts, he was never able to make it himself. Even so, I never felt like I'd gotten even.

Here is the recipe. Pay no attention to Carl's horror stories about epoxy-like mixtures that will freeze up the garbage disposal so bad that dynamite won't break it loose. It's just God's way of punishing him until He can think up something more appropriate.

CARL's MICROWAVE PEANUT BRITTLE

Butter two 9-inch plates and set them aside. Pour the peanuts, sugar, corn syrup and salt into a 1 quart glass container (I use a Pyrex™ measuring cup). Cook for 4 minutes in a microwave oven on high. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon; return it to the oven and cook for 4 more minutes on high. Add butter, stir, and cook for 2 more minutes on high. Add the baking soda and vanilla and stir quickly. This will make it foamy. Pour and spoon it out onto the plates, and allow a few minutes to cool, then lift up the edges with a table knife and pull it to make it thin. Keep lifting and pulling until it's hardened; don't let it sit or it'll stick to the plate.

While you're waiting for it to cool, put the glass container and the spoon under hot running water, and they should come clean quite fast. I can crank out a batch about every 15 or 20 minutes. You may want to adjust the cooking time slightly depending on your individual microwave oven.

The result is light and crunchy and can be eaten even by people who have teeth that self-destruct like mine - and Carl's.

 Return to The Greenhorn's recipes

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

Copyright © 1998 by Greenhorn Publications