Things to Make with Vegetable Stock: Mexican Rice

Tomatoes foreground and background

If you are a Vegetarian, or are MARRIED to one (as am I), vegetable stock is something that you are going to use like it’s going out of style. Anytime a recipe says to use chicken stock or water, you can use vegetable stock with excellent results. The batch of vegetable stock I illustrated making the other day, got used up quickly in making several different things: Mexican Rice, Minestrone, and Quinoa Salad.

The unifying theme to these three dishes (other than vegetable stock) is, of course, TOMATOES! It is tomato season again here in Central Texas. I would not have any tomatoes this year at all, because I STILL have not completed my concrete garden beds project (and by that I mean, not even ONE bed yet, and many are contemplated. But the first one is the hardest, right? After we make the first one, then it will be smooth sailing, right?) EXCEPT I tried an experiment this year, and planted four Early Girl tomato plants in big tubs in my greenhouse wayyyyy back in February (before you can safely plant outdoors.)

These 4 plants are very very happy, and are making tomatoes like nobody’s business. In the future I think I will give my greenhouse OVER to tomatoes in tubs, and not even plant any (or very few) in the garden itself. Because you really don’t get all that many (except for cherry tomatoes) because the growing season is so short.

GROWING SEASON SHORT YOU SAY? IN TEXAS? well, let me clarify: tomatoes won’t “set fruit” if it is warmer than 70 degrees overnight. But the “last frost” date is March 15th. Between March 15th and the end of sixty-degree weather overnight is a really short period of time! This year it was, because of unseasonably warm (global warming global warming) temperatures,  ten or eleven weeks. That really isn’t enough time to get many tomatoes. But by planting in FEBRUARY, I added four weeks to that, making it 14-15 weeks.

ANYWAY ! I have lotsa TOMATOES! I decided to do my recipe for Mexican Rice in the captions of the pictures, so here goes:

MEXICAN RICE

You will need:

2 fresh ripe tomatoes

one big white onion

2-4 jalapenos

2 cups rice, any kind will do (I use brown rice)

1/3 cup canola or other high-heat oil

4 big garlic cloves

2 cups (one pint jar) Vegetable stock

2 teaspoons salt

All the leaves off a bunch of cilantro, or a good-size piece broken off a block of Frozen Cilantro

2 green onions

2 SWEET red peppers

a bag of frozen organic corn, or three-four ears of fresh corn

Assemble all your ingredients before you begin. Peel and mince the garlic, and mince the chiles.

Adjust your oven rack to the middle position, and heat to 350. Coarsely chop the fresh tomatoes and the white onion, and place in your blender. Add the vegetable stock to the tomatoes and puree. Set aside. Take the two cups of rice, and rinse thoroughly under cold running water in a strainer until the water runs clear. Shake the rice vigorously to fling off any excess water.

Heat the oil in a big ol' Le Creuset dutch oven. When the oil is hot, add the rice and stir like crazy for about 7 minutes, until the rice is getting golden colored.

Reduce heat to medium, and add minced garlic and chiles. After a minute or two, stir in the pureed tomatoes, onion, and stock from the blender.

Dice the sweet red peppers

Add the salt, the cilantro, the corn, and the sweet red peppers. Increase the heat and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, stir well, put the lid on the dutch oven and place the whole thing in the oven. Bake for thirty minutes or so. If you use brown rice it will take longer.

Chop up both the white and the green parts of the green onions. Check the rice for doneness; when the liquid is all absorbed and the rice is fully cooked, pull it out of the oven and give it a good stir.

Add the chopped green onion, stir it up and it's DONE!

All ready for rice and bean tacos with fresh avocado

Vegetable Stock, plus My Invaluable Insights

Vegetable Bits ready for Simmering

So, I was reading a book, a cookbook I think it was (what else could it be? I mean, why would they talk about this if it wasn’t?), and the chef/author made the decisive, bold statement: “Some cooks use onion skins and celery leaves to make stock, and throw in anything that is in the vegetable bin. That is a travesty, make stock out of fresh perfect vegetables, not GARBAGE!”

For some reason it rubbed me that wrong way, this pronouncement. It just kind of bugged me. I understood what the cook meant; stock is important, and use good ingredients. But still…..and then it hit me: it is a totally rich person, first-world point of view, and an extreme one. People the world over who are stretching their food-dollars use everything EDIBLE they grow or buy; if there are parts of vegetables that Americans generally don’t use, it doesn’t make it GARBAGE. Things turn into GARBAGE when they start to go bad, to decompose. Just because you chop off the bottoms of your asparagus spears,  the ribs of your kale,  the skins of your onions, or the stems of your broccoli,. that doesn’t magically TURN those parts of the vegetable into “garbage”. You are just being an (probably somewhat spoiled) American, who doesn’t have to eat the tougher parts of the vegetable if they don’t want to.

In fact, you can make really superior vegetable stock out of this bits, for zero money. Using a rich vegetable stock to make rice, or soup, or other grains (like quinoa), makes your food tastier and more nutritious. Here is what I do:

Whenever I have really good leftover bits of vegetable, particularly onion skins and tops, leek tops, fennel tops, celery crowns and bases, and ribs of greens, as I am preparing the vegetables for cooking, I jam these usable bits into a gallon freezer bag. Over time, I eventually have several bags of this stuff (it helps that I have a garden, because you just end up with more tops and bottoms of things!). When I have enough that it is crowding the freezer, I put it all in a stockpot, with about a gallon of filtered water, and I simmer it for a few hours.

Bags of Frozen Vegetable Bits

When it’s done, I let it cool, strain the solids out, and freeze or immediately use the rich delicious stock that I get…FOR FREE!! And I know it is perfectly organic, because I grew the vegetables myself (well most of them.)

Interestingly, asparagus stems are great in stock, as are artichoke leaves. Beet greens: also wonderful, if you just can’t eat anymore of them as greens! The outer leaves of cabbage are also great.

One caveat: don’t salt it or season it, because you don’t know what you are going to use it for yet, and the salt can get overpowering as you reduce the stock. I simmer it “open pot” for the last hour of simmering, so that the stock will concentrate.

Anytime a recipe calls for “water or stock” you can safely use vegetable stock, because it is flavorful without being overpowering. Bean soups in particular love a nice vegetable stock, and I always use it in Spanish Rice too.

Three and a half pints of rich stock.

My Solution to Poor Soil and Bermuda Grass

CROSS SECTION OF MY SHITTY GARDEN SOIL! THAT IS A NORMAL SIZED WHEELBARROW; SO YOU CAN SEE I HAVE ABOUT 4 INCHES OF SOIL BEFORE THE IMPERMEABLE LAYER OF SOLID CALICHE

So, have I griped enough about my shitty soil and endless Bermuda Grass growing into the garden problems? GOOD. Because I finally decided to stop waiting to win the lottery and Do Something About It Now.

My dream previously had been to 1) win the lottery and then, 2) hire stonemasons to erect deep and wide brick garden beds, which I would then fill with good soil. And live happily ever after.

But THEN, one day Darden Smith showed me how he had erected raised planters with concrete in his yard. He said (and I quote) “It was cheap and easy!”

After mulling this over for a year, I decided to try it. Of course this involves DIGGING, which is not my strong suit, but David said he was willing to dig gigantic holes for me. For exercise!

Now HONESTLY how could I not proceed? Even though I know this is the hugest project EVER?

So: We built wooden concrete FORMS, and then David dug the hole. And dug some more. And then dug some MORE. Our neighbor Glen Turner, who is in his seventies and knows a lot about everything, pointed out to us that it needed to be dug SOME MORE. (If Glen were younger he would be doing this a LOT FASTER then we are! Because he just throws himself heart and soul into every project he does, and is always willing to help us too!)

Today we got the outer form into the hole, and levelled, and then discovered that I had made a MATH ERROR on the INNER form, so now we have to re-do the inner form (sheesh! PLUS, how E*M*B*A*R*R*A*S*S*I*N*G!!). We won’t be able to do that until Sunday….once the inner form is redone, THEN “all” we will need to do is BUY and MIX,  I think, twenty bags of concrete….which is an awful lot.

Depending on how macho we feel, we MIGHT have to hire some help for that part. I have never mixed concrete before, and though I am STRONG like OX, I might not be as useful as a professional laborer. On the other hand, our personal labor is FREE.

Giant wooden form: YES, this is how DEEP and HUGE these raised beds are going to be! Deep enough for NO BERMUDA GRASS ROOTS TO GET IN !!!

Batty Cakes with Lacy Aidges

Batty Cakes, seen here with Peach Creek Farm breakfast links and Confitura's Strawberry Vanilla Jam, which, by the way, is AWESOME.

My friend Jerry Brown gave me his mother’s old cookbook, called MARION BROWN’S SOUTHERN COOKBOOK. It is a really useful compendium of Southern cooking home recipes, and I use it frequently. It was published originally in 1951. In it is this recipe, which relies HEAVILY on Negro Dialect. Reading it now, it is really cringe-worthy; but also thought provoking as you will see:

(I quote:)

“For many years, until his death in 1929, Anthony Woodson, brilliant Kentucky wit, editor of the “Home Folks” column, was host at an annual celebration known as the “Batty Cake Brekfus”. This affair was sponsored by the paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, and was usually held on the opening day of the spring racing meet at historic Churchill Downs. Many celebrities were invited to talk and when the “speechifying” was over, they and other guests sat down to a “re-past” of “sawsidges, batty cakes with lacey aidges, ‘lasses, sputterin’ coffee, and fried apples, toothsome style”. Since this meal has become the model for many a Derby Breakfast and Sunday morning Brunch, here is the recipe for “batty cakes”. (The recipe follows.)

For me, the thought-provoking part is, here is this celebrated white guy, taking all the credit, literally, for the recipe and the event, when I absolutely guarantee you that the recipe originated with enslaved black people, and was COOKED by black people, every single year the event took place. Although the text (more or less) mocks the black dialect (even if fondly), the black people are disappeared. The lauded figure in the text  is the “brilliant Kentucky wit”, Anthony Woodson.

And everybody at the time, from probably 1900-1951, saw nothing strange or wrong about this. It was absolutely NORMAL. Just like it was normal for Elvis Presley to take Black Blues music and take the credit for it. White people have been appropriating Black culture and black achievement, even in the kitchen, and thinking it is perfectly fine to do so, for like, EVER, and we can only SEE it now. WAY, way after the fact.

Wow.

Okay, now let’s talk about ME ! I have been trying to eat a gluten-free diet for a week or two, because maybe it will improve my health, right? So I was looking for pancake recipes that have no wheat, and these “Batty Cakes” have none. So I made these, and honestly, they are DELICIOUS! GREAT RECIPE! I got my finely ground white cornmeal from Jim Richardson at Richardson Farms; the Richardson family sells at both the Sunset Valley and the Barton Creek Mall Farmers Markets.

The recipe says “makes enough for six people” but in my opinion, it only makes enough for four people. Unless you are counting very small children who might only eat one. The batty cakes are essentially silver dollar pancake sized if you follow the recipe, which says to drop them on the griddle with a tablespoon. (You WILL need to re-grease the pan from time to time as the recipe points out.)

1 cup white corn meal (water-ground if possible)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon soda

1 egg, well-beaten

1 1/4 cups rich buttermilk (This is not actually something you can BUY in America anymore; use regular cultured buttermilk, and add 3 tablespoons of melted butter to it.)

Sift dry ingredients. Slowly add well-beaten egg mixed with buttermilk, beating batter until very smooth. Drop by tablespoons onto a well-greased iron skillet (allow one teaspoon lard or butter for every four cakes). When brown on one side, turn with a pancake turner and brown on the other side. If batter gets too thick (and it has a tendency to do that), add a bit more milk. Serve with molasses or maple syrup. (From Dixie Dishes by Marion Flexnor, Louisville, Ky)

All Kinds Of Stuff Happened

PASTA

I am back now from having the flu and then never catching up. I don’t mean that I HAVE caught up; just that I have UNDERTAKEN the CATCHING UP task. My N*E*W idea is to post here every OTHER day. That seems doable, right?

The whole time I was gone, by which I mean, I was HERE but just not WRITING on HUNGERSAUCE, I was still EATING OUT at RESTAURANTS and GARDENING and COOKING and WRITING for the Chronicle and taking PHOTOGRAPHS. So I have quite a backlog lot to write about.

It SNOWED here and stayed frozen for three days, killing all the broccoli and cauliflower in my garden, despite heavy covering; but ONE broccoli plant lived, one that had no head on it. And then it MADE A HEAD of broccoli weeks later. Here is a pictutre:

I made pasta parmesan and broccoli out of this gigantic fresh broccoli head

La Patisserie by Luxe Sweets

A tower of Champagne, Macarons, and Chocolate Thingys

La Patisserie has been open for over a month, and tonight I went to their MEDIA BASH featuring FREE PASTRY. The shop is on Annie just off South First; right in MY NEIGHBORHOOD! (The address is 602 West Annie, and the phone number is 912-0033)

They are doing their FAMOUS Macarons, and also Pain au Chocolate, Croissants, Brioche, Eclairs, Cinnamon Buns, expresso drinks, and fancy cakes, and will be adding savory items such as PATES soon. They are even thinking about carrying (WAIT FOR IT!!)

BARRIE CULLINAN’S BREADS !!!!

I KNOW !!!!

OMG THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME !!!!

A sample of their upcoming PATE

It was explained to me as I stood there, gassing on and on in my loud voice, exactly how the new shop and the business Luxe Sweets are related and how both are still operating, but I really didn’t understand because I am an idiot. I THINK the bakery is owned and  run by a lady named Soraiya Nagree, who I met at the MEDIA BASH. But there is this other business named Luxe Sweets that she owns too, orsomething, I don’t know.

I got the vague impression that Luxe Sweets specializes in Macarons, which they make in these flavors:

Chocolate

La Patisserie will be using IMPORTED ITALIAN EXPRESSO

Vanilla
Caramel Fleur de Sel
Rose
Lavender
Pistachio
Cardamom Honey Orange
Espresso Chocolate
Gingerbread (seasonal)
Champagne (seasonal)
Peppermint (seasonal)
Saffron (seasonal)

I had some macarons and they were great: they are soft and chewy and flavorful, and are a sort of meringue cookie with filling. They ARE NOT MACAROONS.

I also had a coffee eclair and it was very nice, not too big (too big ones are a problem in my opinion) and they were filled with proper pastry cream (not whipped cream which is just WRONG) and I also had some lovely pate and a thing that I will call a CHEESE PUFF (not it’s real name.)

The building they are in is beautiful and old and clean and white, like a very tiny church. The windows have been filled in with glass brinks, and it is really really nice. All the walls and ceilings are bead-board, which I SO MUCH WISH were true of MY HOUSE !!!

I saw several of my AUSTIN FOOD CELEBRITIES there, oh, it is such a pleasure to be a KINGMAKER !! (I jest!) Addie Broyles was there and it was fun talking to her, also Rachel Feit who I seldom get to talk to. She is amazing!

I can’t wait to go there to have coffee and a pastry when I really want one. I know I have BEEFED about this BEFORE, but, FOR SOME REASON, it is hard to find a place that does both well. La Boite does, but I don’t want to go there when it’s cold out (they are kind of a trailer). Fair Bean will always have my heart for coffee, but in the pastry department, they get a ZERO. La Patisserie may become the place I want  to go!

Pastry case full of pastries that I APPROVE OF

Victorian Cooking: Dark Fruitcake

THE GLORIOUS FRUITCAKE

My Fruitcake Journey began many years ago, when I tried to make GRAPEFRUIT MARMALADE. I am one of those ODD people who really, really L*O*V*E*S Grapefruit (Texas RUBY RED Grapefruit, that is); I also became fond of Marmalade when I was touring with my rock band (and was starving and Marmalade was always available, because apparently it’s not popular with truckers).

I attempted  my own grapefruit marmalade, and it refused to gel. I tried again, and it refused to gel. I tried again.

I ended up with many pint jars, FULL PINTS, of, essentially, candied grapefruit peel floating in syrup. Now, I couldn’t just THROW IT  AWAY, could I? Of course not (partially because Brian liked eating it straight from the jar.) But the obvious SOLUTION was to make fruitcake, which calls for candied fruit peel, if you are making it right, the Victorian way!

So I made Fruitcake, using real dried fruit from Whole Foods and a recipe from a somewhat old cookbook called A Family Harvest by Jane Moss Snow. Although the cookbook is only SOMEWHAT old (1976), the recipe is 200 years old, a recipe passed down in the Moss family since the time of the Revolution. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION! The first year I made it, I followed the recipe religiously, because I wanted to know how it tasted 200 years ago. In later years, I played around with the dried fruits because why not use my favorites?

AMAZING DISCOVERY: FRUITCAKE IS AWESOME !! There is a reason that is was the most popular thing in Europe for a thousand years. WHen you make it right out of real ingredients, there is nothing better. It’s rich, really satisfying, bursting with FLAVOR !!!!! it keeps forever, and you feel GREAT after you eat it, unlike more sugary treats like CHRISTMAS COOKIES.

It has been many years since I used up ALL THOSE JARS of candied grapefruit peel (it took quite a few years actually), so this year I had to candy fruit peel on purpose. When candying fruit peel, ALWAYS use ORGANIC fruit, because with citrus fruits, they are assuming that you are not going to use the peel and regulate pesticides accordingly. In fact, it is a GREAT IDEA, if you want to limit your exposure to breast-cancer causing pesticides, to always buy organic lemons. because the rind usually ends up soaking in your glass.

My Jar of Candied Peel and my lame little scale that isn't even really for food

ANYWAY, I candied 2 oranges and one Meyer lemon, because my neighbor Glen Turner harvested a bucketful of oranges off of his “surprise” orange tree (he always thought it was a lime tree) and he gave me two, and I have quite a few Meyer Lemons on my potted tree.

Here is how you candy fruit peel: Peel the fruit, reserving the insides. Chop the peel up into the sizes you want. Boil the peel in water until tender and drain, discarding water. Repeat. The third time, juice the insides of the fruit, and boil the peel in fruit juice and sugar (about a cup of sugar) until it is transparent. (Okay, those directions are not terribly specific; you can just google it to get more specifics if you need more!)

TAKING THE TINFOIL OFF IS TRICKY!

I candied the orange and lemon peel the day before, to make life easier. I didn’t candy grapefruit peel, because I knew I was going to use grapefruit marmalade as my jelly (the recipe calls for jelly). If you plan to use a different type of jelly, I recommend grapefruit for your Candied Peel needs; it makes the best. It’s thicker. Grapefruit makes the most SUCCULENT candied fruit peel.

One big change I made to this recipe is that, I decided that I don’t like currants. For starters, the dried currants you buy in the store aren’t actually CURRANTS!!  They are GRAPES !!  That seems like a huge problem to me, since the original recipe would be mostly raisins and TINIER raisins. So I totally substituted dried apricots, which are probably the best dried fruit if you really get down to it. I mean, raisins are good, and I am a HUGE PRUNE FAN, but who doesn’t love dried apricots?

(Did you know that it colonial America they were called APRICOCKS??? This is TRUE !!!)

So, you can fool around with the dried fruit to suit your tastes, the main thing is you should use a total of fifty ounces of dried fruit.

Ready to go into the oven

MOSS FAMILY DARK FRUITCAKE

(Updated my me to reflect my personal preferences)

1/2 pound sugar

2 sticks butter

6 eggs

1/2 pound flour

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground cloves

1/2 pound raisins

1/2 pound dried apricots

6 oz dried pineapple

14 oz total of dried “red fruit”: cherries, dried strawberries, dried cranberries, and “razzcherries”

4 oz dried figs, stemmed and chopped

4 oz dates, pitted and chopped

4 oz prunes, chopped in quarters

2 oz crystallized ginger, chopped into bits

6 oz candied citrus peel (about a cup)

2 cups halved or slightly chopped pecans

1/4 cup brandy, port, or rum

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 pint strawberry preserves, grape jelly, or any jam or jelly you have too much of (preferably a strongly flavored one; I used Grapefruit Marmalade, as I mentioned above.)

The dried fruit, tossed with 1/2 cup of flour

1. Heat oven to 300˚

2. Line a tube pan with foil. This step is kinda hard. Do it the very best you can, so that the batter can’t seep out. I use an angel food pan, but a Bundt pan seems like it would be fine to me too

3. Grease the foil with butter; set aside.

4. Weigh and chop all your dried fruits into a big big bowl. Weigh the flour into a different bowl, and then scoop a half cup of flour out and sprinkle it all over the dried fruits. Toss the dried fruits around in the flour so that they are no longer sticking together at all.

5. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add the baking powder and spices to the REMAINING flour, and then mix it into the butter mixture.

6. Add the candied fruit peel to the butter mixture. Add the pecans. Add the brandy and vanilla and the jam. Beat lightly.

Dried Pineapple

7. Pour the batter OVER the fruit that is in the BIG BIG BOWL. Stir well to get it all mixed together nicely.

8. Pour into the foil-lined buttered tube pan. OMG the batter is so delicious. Place in over and bake for 2 1/2- 3 hours. The recipe says 4 hours, but in my oven that was WAY too long; I took it out at three hours and it was a little overdone at that!

This fruitcake is so good, I am asking myself, “Why don’t I make fruitcake ALL THE TIME? Why only at Christmas?” It took us only a WEEK to decimate the entire thing, with just two people!

Raisins and APRICOCKS in the BIG BIG BOWL

M & M Cookies

Look how nice the BLUE M & M's look against the Blue platter!

These are just the regular M & M cookies that we all know and love; they really can’t be improved upon, and no Xmas cookie tin is complete without them! One caveat: too much flour just RUINS these. Make sure you measure it loosely in the measuring cup and use a knife to scrape off any extra. If in doubt, measure scant.

M & M COOKIES

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoons salt (otherwise known as a PINCH)

12 ounce bag of M & M’s

Scooping the dough

1. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl

2. Put the butter in the mixer bowl, and beat until light. Add the sugars and beat some more. Add the egg and beat beat beat!

3. Add the vanilla

4. Add the flour mixture a little at a time, until just incorporated.

5. Add the M & M’s, mix VERY briefly !!

5. Scoop out onto cookie sheets and bake  8-10 minutes. They should still be a little soft.

I made a double batch because everyone LOVES these!

Chocolate Pistachio Crackletops

Chocolate Pistachio Crackletops

This is a VERY dark chocolate-y cookie, it is salty and almost bitter and REALLLY dark. It is kind of like a brownie-cookie. It is not even really made with cookie dough, it is more like a cookie BATTER.

4 Tablespoons butter

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (2 packages)

3 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon of Vanilla

1/3 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup shelled pistachios

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

The pistachios add a lovely salty note to the rich chocolate flavor

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. In a double boiler, melt the butter and chopped chocolate

2. stir well together and allow to cool completely

3. In your mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together on high for 4 minutes

4. Add the cooled chocolate/butter mixture (if it isn’t cooled it will cook the eggs!)

5. Add the vanilla

6. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together

7. Add to the chocolate mixture.

8. Add the chocolate chips

9. Spoon batter onto parchment paper in little globs

10. Bake 8-10 minutes

You can see how the dark chocolate offsets the more plain flavors

Peanut Butter Cookies

I only took one picture of these!

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

2  1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup extra crunchy JIF peanut butter

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup roasted peanuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350˚

2. Cream butter and add both sugars. Add peanut butter. Add both eggs, beating well after each, and  then add vanilla.

3. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.

4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture slowly. Do not overbeat.

5. Add the chopped peanuts.

6. Scoop onto parchment paper rather fall apart. Press with the traditional “fork” hashtag design. Bake 10-12 minutes (they should be a little brown at the edges)