Making Christmas!

We've been busy making lots of sweet treats for the holidays! In an attempt to save some money this holdiday season in preparation for the arrival of our little one, we decided to make tubs of homemade goodies.
You might remember the marshmallows we made last year. They were so good & easy that we made two batches this year. The first batch was mint like last year but we scaled back from 1 1/2 tbsp of peppermint extract to just 3/4 tbsp. The results were a huge improvement! The second batch was vanilla for which I kept the original recommended 1 1/2 tbsp and, again, I think this is a little too much.
Paula Deen's Marshmallow Recipe

Next I made caramels. First and LAST time! They were delicious but a pain in the butt! I used this recipe from Taste of Home. Here's why I won't be making them again even though they were heavenly:

1. They took FOREVER! My aching preggo back stood at the stove for 2 hours before the caramel finally reached hard ball stage. It seemed the more I stirred, the more the molten sugar refused to get any hotter but if I paused in stirring it threatened to boil over and/or burn to the bottom. Maybe my stove just stinks. 
2. They took forever! Then I foolishly thought they would be firm enough to hold their own shape once cut. No such luck.After the caramel cooled I cut it up and piled it into my gift tubs. The next day I returned to find a giant gooey blob. So... cut again and the Mr and I spent the better part of an hour cutting little wax paper squares and individually wrapping each little caramel. 
3. They are pricey. Obviously this is also true of the marshmallows we made but the marshmallows have the virtues of being quick, easy, and infinitely better than store bought. Of these qualities, the caramels were only marginally better than store bought and so in my opinion, not worth the time and expense. 

The last item in our holiday goody bins were gingersnaps made with Mr's grandmother's recipe. They rock! Everyone we watched open a bin immediately went for one of the cookies first. 

Cherry-Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Recipe time! Mr. & I finally have a weekend to ourselves and we are preparing in case we need to bunker down for the upcoming "Frankenstorm" (the weather folks are saying that a cold front from the west is going to collide with hurricane Sandy from the east to bring us snow all next week). So of course cookies are a must. Hey, oatmeal and dried fruit are healthy right???
Here's the recipe based on Food Network Magazine's Mix & Match chocolate chip cookies.

Cherry-Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients: 1/2 c softened butter or margarine
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla (I was going to try 1/2 vanilla and 1/2 almond extract but didn't have the almond on hand)
1 c flour
1 c oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix ins: 3/4 c chocolate chips
1/3 c chopped dried cherries

Directions 
Beat butter and sugars until fluffy, beat in egg and vanilla.
In a separate bowl stir together remaining ingredients up to mix ins then beat this dry mixture into the wet.
Stir in mix ins until combined.
Refrigerate batter for about 30 minutes until it's cold and a little more firm.
Scoop onto cookie sheets and bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes.

Sunday Night Baking

Tonight we've been baking up a storm! I found a recipe for Chai Spiced Sugar Cookies on Thurday that I've been dying to try ever since. Tonight I finally got around to making them and they are as yummy as I'd hoped!

Holiday Goodies!

Hello again! Sorry to go on such a long hiatus but I finally found my first job after graduation! Anyway, this post is about all the fun holiday goodies I've been making. We tried some new things this year that I'm really excited to share.

Pumpkin-Bottom Cupcakes

My husband and I spent the afternoon trying out an experimental fall treat.
What I wanted:

• Pumpkin for fall flavor
• Cream cheese, what goes better with pumpkin?

What I didn't want:

• Mess
• Something too heavy

My solution was to attempt to combine a pumpkin bar recipe with black-bottom cupcakes. So is "Pumpkin-Bottom Cupcakes" a good name?

Tangy Raspberry Ice Cream

1 cup Raspberries
1/2 cup sliced Strawberries
1/2 cup and 1 tbs Sugar
2 tbs Lemon juice
3/4 cup Sour cream
1 cup Heavy whipping cream

Combine berries, sugar and lemon juice in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat stirring for about 3 minutes. Puree in a blender until smooth then pulse in the cream. Chill then follow instructions for your ice cream machine.

Easter

This Easter was our first holiday spent with just the two of us and I gotta say it was nice. Quiet and full of great food! Everything was too yummy to stick around long enough for pictures but here's a few recipes.

Easter Menu:
Deviled Eggs
Cucumbers in cider vinegar
Polish Sausage (boiled then fried with olive oil and onion

Sweet Tooth

The weather is finally warming up and this key lime pie was perfect and easy!

NUTritious Chocolate

I made these little chocolates today as a treat.
Microwave a handful of chocolate chips until melted (go for dark, pleanty of antioxidents!) About 1 min stirring at 30s should be good.
Meanwhile chop dried fruit and nuts into small pieces, you want lots! 2-3 good handfuls per handful of chocolate. There should be just enough chocolate to coat and hold the ingredients together, not to be the main body of the mixture.
Now mix it all together and plop in spoonfuls onto foil then chill. Done and delicious!
 I made walnut-apricot and cranberry-almond but you can really use any combination you like. I just used what I had on hand but I imagine apple-pecan would be great too and lots more... I won't go on forever, just raid your pantry and be creative.

Making these reminded me of a favorite snack I thought I'd share. Try blending a banana with a generous splash of milk and a spoonful of nutella. Because the banana thickens the mixture, it's almost like you're drinking a chocolate milkshake.

Just When I Thought it was Safe to Relax

So our production of The Crucible is finally/already over. It's amazing how something I started at the end of November (rehersals starting Jan 17) feels like it was so long when really we worked so quickly to open on Feb 17th! Anyway, it was a fantastic experience but I'm relieved to have one less thing on my plate to worry about.
Saturday I got to do some cooking. With all the long nights of performances and loads of homework, we've been slacking and spending way too much on takeout. I made lentil soup, starting with a recipe from Good Eats 2 and then tweaking it with what I had in my kitchen and came up with this:
Dice: 2-3 carrots, 1/2 onion, 1/2 red bell pepper and cook in large pot w/ 1 tbs olive oil and salt over med high heat until onion is translucent. Add 4 cups chicken broth, 1-2 cups water, 1/2 lb lentils (rinsed and sorted), 3 tbs tomato puree. Corriander, cumin, celery seed, and fresh ground pepper to taste. Bring to boil then simmer covered for 45 mins. Puree in batches and serve.

I've been craving cookies and got the idea for these yummy creations.
Chocolate-Cranberry-Walnut Chunk Cookies 
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp molassas
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, dried cranberries
Enough milk to bring dough together.
Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes
I started with a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe and tweaked it. Adding the milk made the cookies very soft and moist. I highly recommend Alton Brown's cook books for anyone else who likes to experiement with recipes. He gives lots of great information about why certain ingredients are used in recipes and how they effect the end result. For example, his section on chocolate chip cookies talks about how the white to brown sugar ration effects crunchiness (more white = crispier cookies).

 Last recipe... Stephen is sick and running a fever so I made chicken soup for dinner tonight.
Dice: 3 carrots, 1/2 onion, 2 celery stalks Cook over med-high heat in soup pot with olive oil and garlic salt until onion is translucent. Push vegetables to one side and lightly brown 1 diced chicken breast seasoned with garlic and herbs (I used Sauer's Garlic Herb Salt grinder). Add 4 cups chicken broth, 2 cups water, 1 bay leaf, a generous handful each frozen green beans, corn, and chopped spinach (or whatever other vegetables you like and have around or fresh works too, frozen is just what I keep around). Bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer covered for 30-45 min or until chicken is completely cooked and broth has a good flavor. Add 1 1/2 cups left over pasta (rotini, shells, macaroni or something similar) about 5-10 minutes before serving and remove bay leaf.

Raspberry & Chocolate

We've got company coming for the next two weeks for my birthday and to see the play my husband and I are working on. I decided that as part of cleaning and getting ready my girls needed a bath. These are Agnes and Gertrude, my two guniea pigs. Gerty (the brown one) was nervous at first but soon they were both happy, clean, and smelling of raspberries.
Next it was time to get ready for Valentine's day tomorrow. We were going to cook dinner tomorrow, had our menu all planned... then the grocery prices kept adding up and we thought, why spend tons of time and money on fancy food? We decided Valentine's day should be about spending time together not money so we put back all the pricey stuff and traded them in for our favorite (unhealthy) snacks. Tomorrow's game plan: pizza, junk food, movies and a fort in our living room. And of course these homemade chocolate covered strawberries!