If You Ignore It Long Enough, It Will Go Away! (Also A Fruit Salsa Recipe)

I've heard that quote many times in my life.  And I keep expecting it in many situations to actually work, but it's just not working.  THIS will not go away!

What's a gal to do?  Well, I've now told myself that I cannot bake anything else until this is taken care of!  Sigh!  I don't want to do it.  Every time I walk in there I just shriek and turn around and walk out.  THIS is not a toy room, this is Taylor's room!  He sleeps in that little crib bed (he's almost 5!) that Sam is standing on (Surprise, Sam is standing up on something!)  And I will point out there is a nice clean spot, a path to Taylor's bed all the way to the doorway where I'm standing. 

Kevin has been out of town for four days.  I have been home with the boys, no, wait, I took all four of them to the store on Monday.  I actually cleaned the whole house (except T's room) as we had company come yesterday.  Michelle and Peter Stewart came through town on their way out west and stayed a night at our house.  It was so fun to have them here! (We miss you guys living in Lawrence!)  I invited everyone who knew them to come over for goodies and visit.  We had a good house full of kids and parents.  It was fun.  THIS is what I'd rather be doing----

I've been doing a lot of baking and there's just something about it that I really enjoy.  So the spread of goodies was fun and there's a lot left over!  On Monday I made the dough for these little puppies---

That's right, it's the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie!  I wanted to make them small and see how they turned out.  This is only about half the cookies that the full recipe made as each one was about 5/8 oz. of dough.   I chilled the dough for 24 hours.  They were/are SO good!  There's something about these, well, I'm sure it's a combo of the chocolate disks (I just chop up bars of chocolate) and I really think the cake flour/bread flour is something else, too, besides the chilling of the dough.  Right now (because who knows, another great/better one might just come around), but right now, these are my favorite chocolate chip cookie.  I don't even sprinkle mine with a little salt as the author of the article in the Times suggests.  I think the recipe made about 6 dozen of the little guys.  I love them and am proud to say I only ate one as it was slightly warm from the oven.  Now they are mostly gone and the rest are in the freezer.  LOVE THESE! 

So, after all the cookie talk, I'll post a quick recipe for some really good fruit salsa and try to get to work on that bedroom!

I've been making this fruit salsa for a few years now and every time I do I try to remember why I wait so long to make it again.  It is so yummy.  And I just discovered it is really yummy to scoop up with graham crackers or graham sticks.  I found the recipe here at Allrecipes.  It is called Annie's Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips.  You can make your own cinnamon chips by cutting flour tortillas and spraying them with a little cooking spray then sprinkling them with cinnamon/sugar and baking for a short time. I tried using the low carb whole grain tortillas and they just weren't as good.  The flour tortillas are good, but I really like the graham crackers.  The recipe calls for fresh fruit, but I have always used thawed frozen berries.  Here is how I made it.

1 16 oz. bag frozen mixed berries, thawed and bigger pieces chopped smaller

3 small Golden apples (you really could use any apple you'd like, peeled and chopped into smalls chunks

2 kiwi, peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons Smucker's Strawberry Simply Fruit Spread

2 tablespoons sugar (can be omitted, which I would do next time)

1 tablespoon brown sugar (also can be omitted)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Chop all fruit into small pieces, mix together, add sugar, fruit spread and lemon juice, gently stir to combine.  Refrigerate.  Serve with homemade cinnamon tortilla chips and/or graham crackers.  This would also be good served over a small dish of fat free/low fat vanilla ice cream or with yogurt and some graham crackers broken up sprinkled on top. 

Mine has made A LOT of liquid/juice, which is also why I'd omit the sugar next time.  You cannot tell in the picture, because the picture was taken right after it was made.  You can also substitute really any fruit you'd like, peaches would be good.  A yummy, nutritious treat!

Better go start tackling that room!

Baking and Boys, What Else?

Kevin is out of town, finally got the boys in bed.  We'll see what I can get done!  Still having fun trying out lots of different recipes and falling back on some favorites. 

First of all, I've got a new "kitchen helper".  (She says with a big sigh!)  Sam has figured out how to move a dining chair to pretty much wherever he wants.  His parking place of choice is usually at the kitchen sink.  Now this wouldn't be such a big deal, but I've now got to make sure I know where he is and what he's doing at all times, AND I have to keep all dangerous things (like knives) out of his reach!  Let's just say the last two days he's been driving me crazy!  He will even fall off the chair, be hurt (just a little) and get right back up.  I've tried putting him in his crib for a timeout when he keeps doing it at times that I can't have him doing it.  That sure makes him mad!  But he just comes out and does it again.  Sigh!  If he's not climbing in the kitchen, he's climbing on the couches and reaching light switches.  I've thought maybe if I just try not to make a big deal of it and ignore him (when the situation permits), that maybe he'll get bored of it faster and stop doing it.  We'll see.  We've already had to remove the lamp and books from the end table between the couches.  But I'm not sure how clean I can keep the kitchen counters.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time until he actually climbs from the chair onto the counters.  Oh boy!  None of the other boys were climbers.  This is all new and well, let's just say really FUN for me!  And need I even mention the ice and water dispenser to the fridge!  It is actually pretty funny when the water comes down and gets him right in the face when he doesn't have the cup positioned correctly!

We made a fun breakfast the other day.  I'm LOVING homemade oatmeal lately, so here's my latest.  I usually just love piling whatever fruit we have on it.  It is so yummy.  You can get some great oatmeal ideas from a great health food blogger at www.katheats.com.  Love this gal!

Scott is the only one who will eat oatmeal, but the boys had already had breakfast, so I just made them some silly fruit faces.  They loved them!

We have color coded plates, Purple Parker, Taylor loves frogs, so his is green and Scott is blue.  We have several plates that are colored to remember whose plate is whose, it's especially helpful at dinner.  Oh and here's my lunch from that same day.  Nothing like having your food stare at you while you eat!  I loved the fresh strawberries on the peanut butter bread.  That's the way to go instead of jam or jelly!

Recipes and yummy things!

I bought a box of All Bran to make bran muffins.  The box is TOO much to make THAT many muffins, so I needed to find some other things to do with the bran.  Low and behold, www.allbran.com has lots of recipes.  So I made these Raspberry Streusel Bars.  I followed the recipe exactly.  They are very low in fat and are good, but seem a little dry, not bad though.  I would bake them a little less time next time and would use an All Fruit Preserves, which since these are pretty healthy with bran and whole wheat flour, I wish I would have done so, but didn't think about it until it was too late, so I used Smucker's Raspberry Preserves--great tasting, but the number two ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.  Real healthy people, I should write to the company.  Now and then I do that kind of thing, just with suggestions or compliment or complaints and will get coupons in the mail for doing so!  Anyway, I like the bars and used up one whole cup of All Bran.  Only about six or so cups to go!

Next up--Lemon Nut Cookies courtesy of Giada De Laurentis from the Food Network.  Here's the recipe.  I did everything according to the recipe, but only made half the batch.  This half recipe probably made a good three dozen cookies.  I think I made mine a little smaller than Giada, she says do 1 1/2 inch balls, but I did about 1 inch.  She also rolled them in powdered sugar after they baked and were still warm, but after I did a few and didn't feel like doing that anymore, I turned the powdered sugar into a quick glaze by just adding a teaspoon or two of lemon juice to the sugar.  I mixed it up well and put it in a snack size sandwich bag, snipped off a tiny corner and drizzled the icing over the cookies.  I liked them better this way.  But both ways are great.  These are crisp little nutty lemony bites that melt in your mouth.

  

I know, you're thinking, "Wow, she did this all in one day!"  No, these are all over the span of this last week, I just can't post things daily!  That being said, up next is an amazing brownie (again)!

Anna, at Cookie Madness, made another brownie the same day I was about to make some brownies to give away.  She was interested in seeing if someone else liked them as much as she did, so I made these One Bowl Cocoa Brownies.  The only thing I did different was instead of using 3/4 cup cocoa powder, I used 1/4 cup regular cocoa powder and 1/2 cup Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder.  I also added about 3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips to the batter.  I actually haven't liked how strong things have been when I've used the dark cocoa, but these brownies were very good since I used some of both kinds.  The nice thing about this recipe using cocoa instead of melted chocolate is that it is cheaper and still a GREAT brownie.  I will use this recipe time and again, I'm sure.  (Thanks, Anna.)

These brownies were made in a 9x13 baking pan and I cut them into 35 squares.  You can cut them any size you wish.  I'm going to make the cookie dough brownies again and use this recipe. 

Can't pass up telling you about these bad boys that I made again.  It's a good thing I gave them all away.  They are too tempting and SO good.  Butterfinger Blondies from www.recipegirl.com. 

And finally, I may have found what I consider to be right up there with the darn best oatmeal raisin cookies yet.  These come from the same lady whose cookies I love that are Chock Full of Chocolate Chip Cookies from her book, The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook.  Another book I have of Elinor Klivans is Cookies, Brownies, & Bars and these Oatmeal-Raisin Crisps are superb!  I halved the recipe and here it is as I made it:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder (slightly less than 1/2 t.)

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In medium size bowl, combine flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Set aside.  In bowl of mixer, cream butter and sugars together until well combined.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well.  Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula.  Add flour mixture and beat on low speed just until incorporated.  Stir in the oats and raisins (I do this by hand, so not to over mix the dough). 

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets.  (I made mine about 1 inch balls and this made about 4 dozen cookies-that's half a recipe.)  Bake 9 minutes or until golden brown.  Elinor's cookies look dark and crispy, but I didn't bake mine quite as long as I wanted crisp chewy cookies.  Let cookies cool on baking sheets for five minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.  These were great still just slightly warm!

And now it's late and I must get to bed!  Goodnight!

Haircut?

Kevin thinks Sam's hair is getting way too long!  But it curls up so nicely.  I still just love it.  It is so fun sometimes in the morning. 

Delicious Pecan Pie Cupcakes

These little mini-muffin size guys may not be the most pretty treat, but darn it all, they are melt-in-your-mouth crispy, buttery, pecan-ishly delicious!  Another thing I love about this is that there are only five ingredients.  If you love pecan pie (and Mom, yes you would love these!), these are for you!

I got the recipe for these on www.recipezaar.com.  Here is the recipe as I made it.

Pecan Pie Cupcakes

2/3 cup (10 T. plus 2/3 T. more) butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup all purpose flour (I used unbleached)

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped finely

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray the inside of mini muffin tins.  (This recipe made 27 cupcakes for me.)Combine the melted butter and the brown sugar until well incorporated.  Add eggs and mix until combined.  Add flour and again mix well.  Stir in pecans.  Drop spoonfuls into muffin tins about 3/4 full.  Bake for 14 minutes.  (I baked mine for 14 minutes, the recipe actually says 18 minutes.) 

Gooey Chocolate Coconut Bars

I got this recipe from a cookbook my parents gave me ten years ago called The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden.  It is big and heavy and has some great recipes in it and I love that there is a photo for every recipe.  I may even start doing my own weekday baking of something from this book (like Tuesday's With Dorie, but just on my own).  So-yesterday I made these really yummy bars.  They are so easy and so bad for you! ;)  Here's the recipe as I made it:

1/2 cup butter, melted (that seemed like a lot, I will probably try less next time as this is just a binder for the graham cracker crust)

6 oz. graham crackers, crushed

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

pinch of salt

1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 cup chopped pecans (Hilaire used walnuts, I gave pecans a try and love them)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter.  In bowl of food processor, pulse graham crackers until fine.  Add sugar (I would also probably just omit this as the crackers are sweet enough), melted butter and salt and pulse until all combined.  Press mixture evenly in the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan lined with tin foil. 

Sprinkle the coconut over the cookie base, then sprinkle over the chocolate chips.  Pour the condensed milk evenly over the chocolate.  Sprinkle the walnuts on top.  Bake for 25 minutes (I thought the bars were a little overdone even with 25 minutes, even though the recipe calls for 30 minutes baking).  Watch it after 20 minutes and take out of oven after it starts to brown.)  Allow bars to cool on wire rack until completely cooled, possibly even overnight.  Remove foil with bars from pan, put on cutting board and cut into bars.

 

If you love coconut and chocolate, these bars are for you!  I thought the graham crust was a little over baked and around the edges, but delicious!

Malted Milk and Peanut Butter Cookies (No, Not Together)

I've been baking cookies.  Surprise!

I have some malted milk that I've wanted to use more of, so I found two cookie recipes that use malted milk.  I loved one and really don't like the other.  Here's the ones that are really good.  These are a yummy crisp and chewy cookie.  I used milk chocolate chips in these, instead of malted milk balls (like Whoppers).  The milk chocolate was perfect.  I found the recipe at www.ichef.com.   I halved the recipe that I was using and it made about 3 dozen small-medium cookies.  I think these would be really good with a vanilla malt shake.  Yummmm.  

Malted Milk Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk (plan to then use the opened can of milk as I've done for another recipe)

1/4 cup plus 2 T. malted milk powder

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Mix together butter and sugars until combined.  Add egg, vanilla, condensed milk, and malted milk powder and mix well, but don't over mix.  Combine the flour, soda and salt in a small bowl, then add to wet ingredients and mix by hand just until incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment lined baking sheets.  Bake for 14 minutes for crispy cookies, or 12 minutes for chewy.  (Both ways are good!)

  

The other malted milk recipe I made baked the cookies at 350 and they seem to have almost burned as I only baked them for the exact time the recipe stated.  I only baked 12 cookies and I think I'm going to make a bar cookie with the rest or something and I really liked how the other malt cookies baked and they were baked at a lower temperature, so I'll probably try that.  I had some m&m's and threw a few of those in just to separate the two kinds of cookies, although that wasn't really necessary, as they baked completely different.  The m&m's do add a nice "crunch" like crushed Whoppers would have.  The recipe for these can be found here at a site I found called www.best-cookie-jar-recipes.com   I only made a half batch.  The cookies aren't horrible by any means, I just don't like the way they baked, they are puffier, but still crunchy.  They may be better just baking for less time than the recipe calls for.   

Updated:  I said I am going to bake the rest of these malt cookies in a bar and I did.  They still taste the same and baked the same, but now I'm done with them.

  

Now, on to peanut butter, because we just can't get enough of those, huh!  I have the Mrs. Field's Cookie Book.  I've had it for years and years and used to make cookies from it often, but haven't for quite some time.  I also recently received an email about a copy-cat version of Mrs. Field's Peanut Butter Cookies.  I was curious, so I looked in my book and it was the exact same recipe.  These cookies are soft and chewy, but mine look like they flattened much more than the picture in Mrs. Field's book.  I added some extra flour after baking the first dozen.  Here is the recipe as I made it.

Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 large eggs (I used 1 egg and 2 tablespoons Egg Beaters w/touch of yolk)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy Natural)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt with whisk.  Set aside.  Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars until well combined.  Add egg and vanilla until blended.  So not to over mix, add the dry ingredients and stir with spoon.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment lined baking sheet.  Press a crisscross pattern on each cookie with a fork.  It is a bit sticky, so it works well to dip the fork in sugar first.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Cool a few minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. 

I think these cookies would be good for using as sandwich cookies with a creamy peanut butter filling and will try that next.

  

Updated:  I went ahead and made up a quick filling and made these into sandwich cookies.  They are GOOD!  They are soft and I think next time the cookies should be baked a little longer to make them a bit more crispy and firm.  I didn't even really measure as I made the filling, but here's close to what I did.

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons milk (add a little more depending on desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients together and beat with electric mixer for 3-5 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.  Spread some on cookies and put them together. 

More Buttermilk Cookies

I made these for the 4th of July, they were good and yesterday I decided to make them again, mostly to use up some remaining buttermilk I had.  Again, I followed a recipe that I found here at Allrecipes.  The only thing I did different was add one tablespoon fresh lemon juice to the cookie dough when adding the buttermilk.  Last time I made them I'd made the icing slightly lemony and we really liked it, so I decided to bump up the lemon a little more.  But I must say that these cookies are great without it.  I actually kind of like the buttermilk flavor and adding the lemon takes that a way a bit, you just taste more lemon than buttermilk.  Still, either way, they are good.  These are a soft, cakey cookie.  The recipe on Allrecipes has a frosting that you could make and then the cookies are sprinkled with chopped nuts.  I have yet to try them that way as I really like this glaze I made and drizzle over the top, then sprinkle them with colorful sprinkles.  The kids love them that way, too!  We're talking sprinkles here.  I wouldn't doubt if sometimes my boys dream about sprinkles.  They especially love it when I let them have the sprinkle container and they get to do it themselves.  Here is what I used to make the glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons softened butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

2-3 tablespoons milk (water would work fine)

Mix all together until smooth and drizzles easily from spoon.  I put mine in a pastry bag with a small round tip and pipe it onto the cookies.  Then sprinkles the cookies with colorful candy sprinkles. 

I've been trying to make cookies small and made a few of these to see how they would work really small.  I love seeing plates full of lots of little cookies.  These worked great and I will make more smaller ones next time.  You could color the icing glaze to match different occasions or use sprinkles for specific holidays. 

"Taylor's" Easy Brownies

I've been making such ooey and gooey brownies, well, okay, twice.  But Taylor does not even like nuts added to brownies.  He wants them plain (and boring), so after I made the two recently with the cookie additions, he begged for just plain brownies.  About the same time, Anna at Cookie Madness made these One Pan Brownies.  Perfect.  Taylor will love them!  I followed the recipe that she got from the Food Network from Sara Moulton exactly.  The brownies were easy and all made in the same pan that the chocolate is melted in.  Spread dough in an 8 inch pan lined with foil and sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  I baked these for about 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center came out clean.

You'd think Taylor would be super happy, but after giving some of these away and Daddy eating quite a few of them, he only got two in two days and wasn't very happy when I informed him that they were all gone.  They are good and fudgey, not cakey and super simple.  A great go-to quick brownie, instead of using those boxed mixes!  Taylor thanks you for finding this one, Anna!

Can You Say "Whoa!" Brownies!

I made some more ooey and gooey brownies. 

These are my take on Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies.  I put balls of cookie dough that had been frozen in the brownie batter after the brownie batter was put in the pan.  Then baked them.  After the brownies cooled I spread a cookie dough on top, the dough is okay to eat because it does not have eggs.  I need to tell you that I was in a hurry when I made these, and I used a boxed brownie mix that I'd found on sale.  I have never tried this brand of brownie before, so I bought them.  It is Ghirardelli Ultimate Fudge Brownie Mix.  Talk about an amazing, rich, dense brownie.  Sorry to say, but Betty Crocker and Pillsbury boxed mixes have nothing on these!  (I still keep a small stock of brownie mixes in storage for times when I'm in a quick pinch and you can't beat those Betty Crocker or Pillsbury boxes being on sale for $.99 from time to time!)  For the frozen cookie dough balls, I used the dough I'd made the other day when I made the Nestle Toll House recipe. 

For the "dough" that was spread on top of the brownies, I'd found a recipe on Recipezaar that I used, but changed slightly.  Here is what I did:

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoon granulated sugar

2 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix together the butter and sugars until fluffy and combined well.  Add milk and vanilla and mix well.  Stir in flour until combines.  Add chocolate chips, stir to combine. 

After brownies are cooled, spread cookie dough on top evenly.  These were made in an 8x8 pan that was lined with foiled and sprayed lightly with cooking spray. 

I then frosted the brownies with a fudge icing mixture that came with the Ghirardelli mix.  I thought they cut beautifully and tasted great.  A little slice goes a long way!  If you are a cookie dough lover, which I must admit I am, these are for you.  I tasted these, but have committed myself to not eating another bite.  Any takers?  Come get them! ;)