Lunch date....

Matt's Uncle Rich was in this week visiting from Florida, so we invited him for lunch today to meet Luke.  Coincidentally, a friend of his, Sr. Christine, was also in town, so we invited her, too.  It was nice to see them both, and Luke was an angel.  I wanted to make something light but delicious, so I searched through some old cookbooks and blogs and came up with the following menu...

Arugula Salad with Lemon-Parmesan Dressing

I added some shaved parmesan to this and it was FANTASTIC.  My sister-in-law topped pizza with a similar recipe a few months back, and it was amazing.  Try it.  Immediately.

Cream of Mango Soup

In an effort to make this a little healthier, I swapped out the sugar for Splenda.  Also, the mangos at the market didn't look quite ripe, so I found a bag of frozen mangos at Trader Joe's.  It actually cut out a lot of time with cutting the mangos myself, and I don't think it affected the flavor at all.  This was sweet and perfect.  In fact, Matt polished off the leftovers as soon as our guests left!  I tried to be fancy and swirl in a cream heart....

Cucumber Sandwhiches

This may be one of my favorite recipes.  I LOVE cucumber sandwhiches and stumbled upon this recipe a few years ago.  It is simple and delicious, and if it weren't for the fact that cream cheese and mayo are not the healthiest things in the world, I'd make this every day for lunch! 

Start by scoring a cucumber with a fork.

Then slice them into thin rounds and soak them in water and apple cider vinegar.



Then mix cream cheese, mayo, worcestershire sauce, onion salt, and garlic powder together and spread on whatever bread you like best.  I used a Canadian white bread from Trader Joe's.   The recipe doesn't call for this but I like to add a few shakes of dill weed, then layer on the cucumbers. 

Cut off the crusts then sprinkle with paprika, and you are ready to go.  Yum!

Lime Meltaways

For dessert, I wanted to put out some fruit and cookies to just keep it simple.  I flipped through my Martha Stewart Cookies Cookbook and found these little jems.  They sounded light and summery, and since its the unofficial last weekend of summer, I went for it.   These were suprisingly easy to make.

Something about fresh lime zest that screams summer to me!

No eggs in this recipe, so I felt free to try out the dough :)

Martha had the suggestion of using a roller to help roll out a log from the dough.  I thought she was nuts, but it did work...

After baking for about 13 minutes, you let them cool slightly then toss in confectioners sugar. 

These cookies are named perfectly.  They melt in your mouth! 

Something about a nicely set table that just makes me smile :)

Yet another snow day...

Insane amounts of snow...

I don't think anyone expected that we would get 16 inches of snow last night.  Craziness.  After shoveling out all morning, Matt FINALLY got to work around noon.  I, however, have the day off again!  I decided to flip through my Magnolia Bakery cookbook to find a good cookie recipe.  I never got to making Oatmeal Raisin cookies at Christmas since I was sick and didn't want to contaminate anyone.  So, when I found a recipe for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chip Cookies, I couldn't resist.  I love this cookbook because all of the recipes are simple and so fresh tasting.  The peanut butter chips add an unexpected twist to the traditional oatmeal cookies. 

The batch made just enough for me to keep some and take some over to my neighbors who helped us shovel out this morning.

The recipe called for 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract.  I used 1 tsp and added 1/2 tsp of vanilla bean paste instead.  If you look close, you can see the little bits of vanilla bean. 

I also decided to finally try out a Vanilla Extract making kit that I bought at HomeGoods a little while ago.   The kit basically came with a bottle and some vanilla beans in it....I could have probably just found a bottle I already had and bought some vanilla beans, but this was only $5 so I figured it was worth it.  I'm thinking that if this works out, I might make a few bottles at the end of the year for Christmas gifts. 

All you have to do is slice the beans in half, put them in the bottle and fill the bottel with Vodka.  They say to store it in a dark, cool place and shake daily for up to two months.  I've put mine in my hall pantry and will try to remember to shake it each day...somehow  I think I will forget a lot. 

Hope all of you on the East Coast are safe and warm today.   Enjoy your snow day!

Christmas Cookies!

Some quality baking time with the cousins...

I had a great plan to do lots of baking during my week off before Christmas.  I got off to a good start with cookie baking with my three cousins who live away at school.  Laura, Rachel, and Hilary came on Wednesday and helped me bake up some delicious Christmas cookies.  My plan was to continue baking more treats the next day, but inevitably, a cold decided to sneak attack me right before Christmas.  Not wanting to contaminate my family with my germs, I decided to put some of that baking on hold until I'm feeling better.  Matt's family is coming in this week to celebrate a late Christmas, so I'm hoping my symptoms subside enough for me to whip up some more holiday treats this week. 

Thank goodness for my cousins on Wednesday, though!  We made some great cookies that my family all enjoyed on Christmas Eve! 

Chocolate Mint Cookies

The girls insisted that this batter was delicious.  Due to the raw eggs, I was unable to try it out! 

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

This is a Hilary specialty.  She makes these every year for her family's Christmas party, and they are a huge hit.  They never last very long! 

Chocolate Chunk Macaroons

These were a new one this year.  I had coconut, so I thought I'd try out a Martha Stewart recipe.   I added the chocolate chunks instead of the traditional cherry.  They didn't turn out very pretty, but they were very chewy and yummy....

Snickerdoodles

Surprisingly, these are my favorite this year!  Very chewy and the perfect amount of cinnamon....

We also made chocolate chip cookies, which I didn't get a picture of.  Hilary jinxed the cookies by saying that hers have been turning out flat lately.  Well, of course ours turned out pretty flat!  But they were still chewy and delicious...just didn't get a picture.

We also made the dough for some sugar cookies, which is still sitting in my fridge.  Hopefully they will get made this week.  So much for my plans of lots of baking!

After the girls left, I whipped up some Gluten Free brownies for a co-worker of Matt's.  He has celiac disease, and I try to make him a baked good each year.  I made brownies from a Red Mill mix, but some day I'll work up the nerve to try a Gluten free recipe from scratch. (If anyone has a great recipe  I should try, please feel free to share!)   I made them in my mini muffin tins so that he'll have the perfect bite size snack.  I wrapped them up to go with the rest of his gift, and I think it turned out pretty cute....

Thanks for all of your help, Rachel, Laura and Hilary!  I had a great time with you that day.  Hope we can make it a new yearly tradition!

Fondue!

Book Club...

This month, we read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  I really enjoyed reading this book, but the group was split on whether they liked it or not.   If you like murder mysteries and can stomach some graphic descriptions of abuse, you will enjoy this book.  Despite a slow start, the book is a quick read. 

Anyway, onto baking.  I hosted book club this month, and I wanted to make something easy but different to enjoy.  The other week, I started to crave fondue, and I thought, "Duh.  Make fondue for book club!"  I made two cheese fondues (is that the plural of fondue?  Or is it like the word moose? Who knows...don't judge me) and one chocolate fondue.  The first of the cheese course was a spicy parmesan fondue and the second, a cheddar beer fondue.  I chopped up lots of bread, carrots and apples to dip.  YUM!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture.  Sorry :( 

The Chocolate Fondue was a simple chocolate fondue recipe from an article I ripped out of a Rachel Ray magazine.  I bought some rice crispy treats, strawberries and apricots and made some brownies, chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies for dipping. 

See those brownies in the corner of the first picture?  Those are actually Raspberry with Cabernet Wine Brownies.  Yep, you read that right.  What could be better than raspberry, chocolate, red wine and brownies?  My good friend, Patricia, bought me this mix for my birthday a month ago, and I've been saving them for book club.  She bought the mix at a craft fair that our employer was running.  (She got shushed at the craft fair for laughing too loud.  Clearly the person didn't know that this laugh is Patricia's trade mark).  I'd love to be able to hook you up with a website of wherever this brownie mix came from, but I could not find a website on the tag.  Have any of you seen this brand before or know where I could get a more of it?

The recipe called for only a cup of wine, so we drank the rest of the bottle during book club with these wine glasses that I found at HomeGoods a few weeks ago.  I couldn't resist.  I just found them way too cute.

Grammy's Chocolate Cookies

Happy Memorial Day!

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm on a cookie kick lately.  I've been wanting to try out some new recipes.  Today was no different.  We've been home from the beach since yesterday afternoon with no real plans for the day so I thought I'd try a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cookie Cookbook...Grammy's Chocolate Cookies.  These are delicious and simple to make.  The dough requires refrigeration for an hour, so don't make them if you are in a rush.  I thought I'd share the recipe with you, since I really thought they were delicious.  This recipe is a great "go-to" recipe since most bakers having all of the ingredients already in their pantry...

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Sanding sugar, for rollings

1. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine.  Reduce speed to low, and gradually add flour mixture; beat to combine.  Form dough into a flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about an hour.

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls (I used a 1 inch cookie scoop).  Roll each ball in sanding sugar.  Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper  (I used silpats), about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Bake until set, 10 to 12 minutes (I baked 9-10 since my cookies were smaller). 

These cookies are chewy and sweet.  As much as I'd like to eat a ton of them, they are so rich that one or two hit the spot.

I put them in my cookie jar, which I hope to use more often.  My dream is to be that mom who always has fresh baked cookies in her cookie jar.  Someday...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

An American Classic...

Who doesn't love a chocolate chip cookie?  Simple.  Delicious.  Enough said.  I, like most people, was using the recipe off of the back of the Nestle Tollhouse bag of chocolate chips.  Although they made for decent cookies, I was getting frustrated by the inconsistency of the batter.  Sometimes they were soft and chewy, but most of the time, they were crisp and spread out too much on the cookie sheet.  I decided to go for a new recipe.  Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Chip  cookie recipe.  I compared the two recipes, and Martha's called for the same total amount of sugars, but decreased the white sugar and increased the brown sugar.  After some reseach, it completely makes sense.  Brown sugar contains molasses, which is what gives a cookie its chewy texture.  They turned out FANTASTIC.  Perfectly chewy and delicious.  Martha's recipe also calls for course salt, which I thought was strange at first, but after tasting the cookies, I realized that it reallly cuts the sweetness and adds a nice taste.  This will now become my "go-to" chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Brownie Fail...and a few other things.

Another snow day...

Yet, not the most successful day of baking.  In the simplest of terms, I tried to use this...

to make brownies, but ended up with this...

and this...

So much for trying to be cute with brownies.  The bright side is that Matt loves to use brownie pieces in his ice cream.  Guess what we are having tonight instead of cute brownies?

I also made some Peanut Butter blossoms using some cookie dough I had made awhile ago and frozen.  Delish.  Can't go wrong with peanut butter cookies.

Finally, I attempted to make my own fondant for the first time.  I detest the way store bought fondant tastes, so I decided to try a homemade recipe.  Let me tell you, I will never use store bought again.  This fondant tastes just like buttercream icing, and it is simple to make.  I need the fondant for cupcakes I am making this week and thought that I could get a head start.  It  is not pretty right now, but hopefully I will be turning it into something special later this week.

Big Winner

I won!

This week, I was the lucky winner of the Foodie Blogroll Giveaway!  Considering I NEVER win anything, I was very excited.  Annie the Baker sent me 12 cookies, which included several of her delicious flavors...Semisweet Chocolate Chunk, Toffee Milk Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter with Mini Peanut Butter Cups, Oatmeal Double Chocolate Chip, and Doodle Snicker.  I have to tell you, THEY WERE DELICIOUS!  I have only sampled a piece of each one, as they are so rich that I knew I would not be able to eat one of each!  Annie describes her cookies as "chewy gooey mounds of decadent cookie goodness," and I could not agree more.  They almost taste like the heaven that is raw cookie dough.  If you are in California, you are lucky enough to be able to visit her at the Napa and Saint Helena Farmers Market; however, everyone else can buy her delectable treats at her store on Foodzie. 

Snow Day #3 of the Season

Snow Day =  Cookies!

Not much to say except, today I baked these...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Because of this...

I have never seen so much snow.  Today was the best day. Matt and I each took a couch in the living room, curled up in blankets, read, and watched the snow fall out the window.  When the snow started to slow down, we went outside.  Matt shoveled, I built a snowman! 

SNOW DAY!

Baking Cookies on a Snow Day

As I have posted previously, I like to bake cookies on snow days.  It was always a deal my brother and I had...he shoveled, I baked.  Luckily, my husband seems to like the same deal.  I made some chocolate chip cookies for us to enjoy and some sugar cookies to take to a Super Bowl party tomorrow evening.  Matt agreed to be my "artistic director" as I had no idea what the Saints or Cults uniforms looked like.  This was my first attempt at seriously decorating sugar cookies, so I guess they turned out ok.  I think I need some more practice on piping.  Judge for yourself.

Some goodies for us to enjoy today.

Are you ready for some football!?!?

Go Saints!

Go Colts!