Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter?! This is a flavor combo favorite that I picked up from my Dad early on in life. When I saw this recipe, I thought duh, must try. They were amazing out of the oven and the next day, but they get dry quickly so you'll have to eat them quickly! Here's the goods:

Recipe:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Flavia's Flavors)

2c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 c smooth peanut butter (I used natural)
1/2c sugar
1/2c brown sugar
1 lg egg
1 t vanilla
1c semi-sweet chocolate chips

*This recipe requires chilling the dough for 2 hours+

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat until lightened in color and texture, about 2 minutes. In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg and vanilla then add it to the large bowl. Mix well to fully incorporate. Gradually add the flour mixture to the large bowl, scraping down sides as necessary. Do not over mix! Add in the chocolate chips and stir to distribute with a spatula.

Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat to 325F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove dough from refrigerator and allow dough to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Using a cookie scoop, distribute the dough onto the baking sheet. Cross hatch with a fork. bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are just slightly golden. Cool completely.


Enjoy the peanut butter chocolate goodness!

Chocolate Stout Cheesecake with Pretzel Crust

The same night I made the halibut I also needed a dessert. Oddly I had all the ingredients to try a chocolate stout cheesecake recipe I had been holding onto for awhile. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this since the chocolate stout cupcakes I make are very stout-flavored, but it was delicious. Not too sweet thanks to the beer, but very chocolaty. It could probably be a little better if I had bothered to go out and buy a chocolate stout, but I had Guinness in the fridge so I just used that. Here she is:

Recipe:
Chocolate Stout Cheesecake with Pretzel Crust (recipe from The Beeroness)

Crust:
4 graham crackers
1c pretzel rods (I used a hand full)
2T brown sugar
3T butter

Filling:
8oz dark chocolate (I used one Ghirardelli semisweet bar and a bittersweet bar)
1c chocolate stout (I used Guinness)
3 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 1/4c sugar
3 eggs
2T flour
1/3c cocoa powder
1/2t salt
1T espresso powder (just discovered that mine has formed a rock in the container so I skipped it)

Topping:
1c sour cream
1/4c powdered sugar
2T chocolate stout

In your oven, place one rack in the middle, with another rack immediately below. Preheat to 350F.

In a food processor (I used a blender), add the graham crackers, pretzel rods and brown sugar. Run until crumbs are all that remain. With the processor on, add butter and run until it is well mixed.

Coat the inside of a 9" spring form pan with butter (or Pam baking spray with flour). Pour the crust crumbs into the pan. Using the bottom of a flat, heavy glass, press the crumbs into a well packed crust. Bake for 10 minutes, allow to cool completely.

In a pot over medium heat, warm together beer and chocolate. Stir until melted, allow to cool.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating in between additions. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the bowl. Beat until well combined. Sprinkle the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and salt over the bowl. Stir until just combined.

Pour the batter over the crust. Place on the middle rack in the oven. Place a baking pan filled with water on the rack directly below. This will keep your cheesecake from cracking. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the center no longer shakes when you wiggle it.

Meanwhile, add the topping ingredients to a bowl and whisk until well combined. After cheesecake is baked, pour topping over it and return to oven for 8 minutes.

Allow to cool for at least 3 hours. Overnight in the refrigerator is best.

Enjoy!

Chuao Chocolate

I consider myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of chocolate, and by that I mean I eat a lot of chocolate. I have my favorite cocoas for baking with and my favorite melting chocolate and chocolate chips for different applications. But I think I may have found my new favorite chocolate bar for straight up eating: the Chuao Chocolate Firecracker bar. My former favorite was the Wonka bar made of milk chocolate and graham cracker chunks, which may seem strange but I love those suckers. This one has pop rocks, chipotle, and sea salt in dark chocolate. So yummy and exciting! Get you some!

This is the Signature Box, all of which are super yummy!

Enjoy!


*I am not being paid to say this. I in fact paid quite a good deal for these yummies, but they're worth it!

Dark Chocolate Cardamom Cookies

So, if you've ever seen my spice collection, you'd know that there are few I don't own. However, cardamom has escaped my cabinets for awhile now. I have been seeing it pop up in more and more recipes, though, so I decided to get me some and try it out. It's definitely an interesting taste. I would say it's like ginger mixed with cloves. Very pungent! I gave these cookies a try and I think I'd decrease the cardamom in the sugar coating by half next time. Otherwise, success!

Recipe:

Dark Chocolate Cardamom Cookies (from Vanilla Bean Blog via Foodie Crush magazine, pg 61)

2c flour

3/4c cocoa

1t baking soda

1/2t salt

2t cardamom +1t (or 1/2t which I will be doing next time) for rolling

2 sticks butter, softened

1c sugar +1c for rolling

1c dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2t vanilla

bittersweet/ semi-sweet chocolate chips/chunks

Preheat to 350F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, cardamom, and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Mix to combine. gradually add flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.

In a small bowl, mix together 1c sugar and 1/2t cardamom. Scoop a ball of dough with a cookie scoop and roll the ball in the cardamom/sugar mixture until ball is coated. Place on baking sheet and smoosh a little with your hand. sprinkle more of the cardamom/sugar mixture on top if desired.

Bake about 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheet.

Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Cookies with Caramel and Sea Salt

I used to have no interest in baking cookies. I didn't like having to always be hopping up and down to put sheet after sheet of cookies in the oven after mixing up the dough. Cupcakes seemed so much easier since, with a standard recipe, it's once in the oven and done. However, I have since taken to baking my cupcakes one tin at a time to thwart my crappy apartment oven's attempts to ruin my cupcakes by lack of circulation in the oven. I also started making my cookies really big so that there were fewer sheets of them to bake. I also realized that the frosting of the cupcakes requires a second go-around in the kitchen after everything is cool, whereas cookies are ready for the munching. Hence, I've been on a bit of a cookie kick. Here are the latest in this craze, my dark chocolate cookies with caramel bits and sea salt:

Sorry, no fancy pics, I made the and immediately took them to my friends' house to watch football. I have to say that they were really yummy, but the caramel bits were low quality and next time I will find some fancy caramel to use instead. Also, this recipe made very few cookies, double for any sort of larger gathering.

Recipe:
Dark Chocolate Cookies with Caramel Bits and Sea Salt (from Two Peas & Their Pod)

1 1/4c flour
1/4t baking soda
1/4t salt
5T butter
7T Hershey's Special Dark cocoa
2/3c sugar
1/3c brown sugar
1/3c yogurt (I used vanilla Greek yogurt because it's what I had)
1t vanilla
soft caramel, rolled into balls
sea salt

Preheat 350F. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Transfer to large mixing bowl. Add cocoa and sugars, mix well. Add yogurt and vanilla, stir until combined. Add flour mixture, stirring until moist. Wrap the chocolate dough balls around the caramel and place on baking sheet. Slightly flatten dough and sprinkle sea salt on top. Bake 7 minutes. cool completely.
Enjoy!

Pecan Pie-Stuffed Cookies

So these were pretty yummy. Everyone loved the pecan pie-stuffed cupcakes so much that I knew I had to try these. I can't say that they are better than the cupcakes but they're pretty tasty as far as cookies go. Just don't forget that the last batch is still in the oven and overcook the bu-jezus out of them.

Recipe:
Pecan Pie-Stuffed Cookies (from Bakers Royale)

Cookie
1 stick butter
1/2c brown sugar
1/2c powdered sugar
1 egg
1 1/2t vanilla
1t baking soda
1/4t salt
2c flour

Filling
1c pecans, toasted and chopped
4oz chocolate (65% cacao), melted
1T corn syrup
1/4c heavy cream
1/4t cinnamon

Preheat to 350F, line baking sheets with parchment. In a large bowl, cream butter, brown sugar, and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Add egg mixture to butter and mix to combine. Fold in flour. cover and chill dough for at least 45 minutes.

While dough is chilling, place pecans, melted chocolate, heavy cream, corn syrup, and cinnamon in a bowl and mix to combine.

To assemble cookies, scoop dough into hand, flatten, and fill center with pecan mixture. I pinched the edges over the filling and rolled the dough semi-smooth again. Place on parchment, seam side down. Bake 10 minutes. remove and allow cookies to rest 5 min on sheet before removing to cool on rack.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies Stuffed with Peanut Butter

These cookies are outta control. I made a batch without the peanut butter and they were crazy good too. Try this recipe today! For those of you who had mothers that were in charge of high school SGAs and baked Otis Spunkmeyer cookies as a fundraiser and you therefore ate cookies all the time in your childhood will find these cookies akin to the double chocolate chip cookies from Otis. Yum! Check em out:

Recipe
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies Stuffed with Peanut Butter (original from Lovin in the Oven)

Stuffing:
1c creamy peanut butter
1/2c sugar
1 egg

Cookies:
2 sticks butter, room temp
1c sugar
3/4c brown sugar
2 eggs
1T vanilla
1 3/4c flour
1t baking soda
1/2t salt
2c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1c cocoa (Hershey's special dark)

Stuffing:
Beat together all ingredients until smooth

Cookies:
Preheat to 350F. Beat butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, beat until smooth. Mix in the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder intil just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Assembly:
I flattened a tablespoon of cookie dough on a baking sheet. Then placed a rounded tablespoon of the peanut butter mixture on top. Finally, placed a large cookie scoop of dough on top and pressed the seam so no peanut butter was showing.

Bake ~15 minutes. If you are not adding the peanut butter stuffing then bake ~10 minutes. Cool completely.

Note* you can always swap out some of the semi-sweet chocolate chips with other chips or nuts/ dried fruit for a different taste!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Bar in Rice Village

I recently had a SoccerTots meeting to go to at Memorial Hermann Park, as well as a Groupon to The Chocolate Bar in Rice Village. Obviously I was to be rewarded for driving all the way downtown for a hot 2 hour meeting that involved standing the entire time. I arrived at the Chocolate Bar ready to get my sugar high on. There were so many different things to choose from, not to mention flavors, that it took me awhile to zero in on the perfect goodies. I finally decided that since it was so hot out I needed ice cream, and me being not one to pass up on cake I also got me a giant slice as well. Birthday party anyone? I chose root beer float ice cream, which ended up being super refreshing and just what I needed after my second sweat-fest of the day. My cake slice was the Night and Day cake, a giant 4 layer chocolate cake with chocolate chips encased in white icing topped off with chocolate ganche. This cake was fierce, yet a bit dry. Don't worry I didn't kill it in one sitting, but I did rock that cake in 2 hehe. If you are looking for a taste of something I also picked up a dark chocolate toffee bar that was amazing (sorry no pics, but you can imagine). If you need something sweet and are in Rice Village (they're open late!), I recommend swinging by the Chocolate Bar!





Let me know if you get something different and love it!

Chocomize

I recently received an amazing Chocomize chocolate bar from my sister to cheer me up about my car dying/ celebrate buying a new car. I LOVE this company and have been sending peeps their bars since I discovered them about a year ago. The bar Jesse made me had dried raspberries, pistachios, coffee, and rice crispies- and was extremely delicious! You have to check them out if you want to send a little hello to someone. The idea is that you pick a chocolate flavor (dark, milk, or white) and then add whatever flavors, nuts, candies, spices you want until your perfect chocolate confection is born. They often have edible messages around holidays like Valentine's day and Mother's Day. So, if you don't feel like counting on the Easter bunny this year, order yourself a Chocomize bar and get exactly what you want!




P.S. Sign up for their newsletter because they send out coupon codes for 10% off. I believe the last one was "springfever" but I'm not sure how long that will be working.

Sweet and Salty Cupcakes

I recently checked out Baked by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito from the library. I wasn't as intrigued by this cookbook as I was by their following book, which I bought, however one of the recipes I did try was the Sweet and Salty Cake. I decided I was going to make this confection into cupcakes. I won't say that it was a total flop, but the recipe didn't translate particularly well into cupcakes. If I remade these cupcakes, I'd probably start with my dark chocolate cupcakes, make a thicker caramel sauce-sans salt, sprinkle a layer of kosher salt between the caramel and ganache, and make semisweet ganache instead of bittersweet ganache (without adding any caramel to the ganache either). I'll probably re-try these babies in the future, but for now this is what I've got:


Recipe from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Butter Bars

I'm back into my 'to try' recipe pile and digging out any of the non-cupcake recipes that were neglected last month due to the 12 Days of Cupcakes. I found these Salted Caramel Butter Bars that looked relatively easy and delicious. I decided to add chocolate chips to one of the pans (I made two 8x8 pans instead of one 13x9 pan) and I think I'm in love with these chocolate chip salted caramel butter bars. I also found that I only used about 2/3 of the dough so the recipe has been altered accordingly. Here are my pics:






Recipe
Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Butter Bars (adapted from Cookies and Cups recipe):

Crust/Topping:
2 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2/3c sugar
1c powdered sugar
1T vanilla
2 2/3c flour

Filling:
4 (5.5oz) bags of Werther's chewy caramels, unwrapped
1/2c milk
1t vanilla
1T Kosher salt
1/4c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Crust/Topping:
Preheat to 325F. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add vanilla and beat until combined. Sift in flour and beat on low speed until a smooth soft dough forms. Press 1/2 of the dough into a greased 13"x9" (or two 8"x8" pans) to form the crust. Bake for about 20 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes. Chill other half of dough in refrigerator.

Filling:
In a microwave safe bowl, add the milk to the caramels. Heat at 30sec intervals, stirring in between, until caramels are completely melted. Pour the caramel over crust. Sprinkle Kosher salt on top of the caramel before in cools.

Topping:
Remove the remaining dough from the refrigerator and crumble on top of the caramel. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top as well. Bake until the filling is bubbly and topping is firm, about 15 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Enjoy!

Most delicious richness ever: Snickers Tart

I was invited to attend a Halloween carnival with my friend Stephanie this past weekend and there happened to be a dessert contest following for the 'young adults' of her church. Now, I love me some competition and Halloween AND baking so this was going to be money. The contest indicated that the dessert had to be Halloween-ish and I had this recipe from the last Martha Stewart Living that I was waiting for a reason to try. The dessert was called a Peanut, Caramel, and Chocolate Tart but I call it the Snickers-inspired Tart. This is not for the faint of heart, I can barely finish a sliver per sitting. It's uber decadent and somewhat time consuming. Here are some of my pictures of the final product (*note: they do not do it justice, see pictures from Martha's website):
Assembly Line of Ingredients:

The Mangled first slice (there were only plastic knives at the event):

Clean slice:




Snickers-Inspired Tart (from Martha Stewart Living)

Cookie Crust:
1 (9oz) box chocolate wafer cookies, finely ground (for this I bought a package of store brand oreos and scraped the cream off the center and blended the cookies in my blender)
1 T sugar
1/4t salt
1 stick butter, melted (perhaps less because my crust was rock hard)

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine cookie crumbs, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in butter. Press mixture into bottom and up the sides of a 9" springform pan. Bake until dry and firm, about 10 minutes. Cool completely.


Caramel Sauce:
1 1/4c sugar
1/4c water
1c heavy cream
1/3c creme fraiche (I used crema mexicana)
1c roasted salted peanuts

Heat sugar and water in a medium saucepan over med-high heat until a dark amber color (about 12 minutes). Carefully add heavy cream (it will bubble and hiss). Bring mixture to a boil and melt any caramel that seized when cream was added. Transfer to a medium bowl and stir in creme fraiche. Refrigerate until cool. I actually froze mine for about an hour to speed the process up. fold in peanuts.


Peanut Butter Mousse:
1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2c powdered sugar
1/2t salt
1 1/4c smooth peanut butter (I used reduced fat JIF)
1/2t vanilla
1c heavy cream

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until fluffy. Beat in salt. Add peanut butter and vanilla, beat until well combined. In a separate bowl, whisk heavy cream until medium stiffness peaks form. Fold whipped cream into peanut butter mixture in 3 additions, making sure whipped cream is fully incorporated for each addition.


**Here you should assemble the parts of the tart that you have. Pour the caramel into the crust and then carefully spread peanut butter mousse over the caramel, ensuring that the layers don't mix. You can also refrigerate the crust with the caramel sauce for 30 minutes to ensure no mixing of layers. After you add the peanut butter, refrigerate for 30 minutes.


Chocolate Ganache:
8oz semisweet chocolate
1c heavy cream

In small saucepan, bring heavy cream to a simmer over med-high heat. Remove from heat. Add chocolate to the cream and let sit for 1 minute. Whisk until completely combined. Pour ganache over peanut butter mousse layer. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Really involved process, but totally worth it! Enjoy!

P.S. I won a $10 gift card for winning the dessert contest!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Mud Hen Bars

So, I've been experimenting with the recipe to-try pile and I came across these mud hen bars, which I had never heard anything about. Apparently it's a blondie bottom with goodies int he middle, and a meringue top. The ones I tried were peanut butter flavored so the blondie bottom was a peanut butter blondie, the center consisted of semisweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, and the top was a brown sugar meringue. Here are some pictures of the finish product fresh out of the oven:



I must say, i think the meringue makes these obscenely sweet. If you have a fierce sweet tooth, these are for you! I would have preferred just the blondie bottom with perhaps the goodies mixed into the batter. Here is the recipe if you would like to experiment as well:

Peanut Butter Mud Hens (from Cookie Madness)

1/4c butter, softened
1/4c creamy peanut butter
1/4c sugar
3T + 1/2c brown sugar
1/4t vanilla
1 lg egg, divided
1/2c flour
1/4c chopped peanuts (I skipped these)
1/2c semisweet chocolate chips (I used my new Guittard chips!!!)
1/2c peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350F.
Beat together butter, peanut butter, sugar, 3T brown sugar, vanilla, and egg yolk. Add flour until just mixed. Stir in peanuts. Spread batter across bottom of grease 8" square pan.
Sprinkle chocolate chips and peanut butter chips evenly over batter.
Beat egg white until stiff peaks form. Bean in 1/2c brown sugar. Spread egg white mixture over chips and batter. Bake 25 minutes or until meringue is brown. Cool on wire rack for a few hours.

Mmmmm...Pumpkin!

My favorite season is easily Fall. With fall comes the leaves turning into a technicolor living masterpiece, the weather getting cool enough for jeans and maybe a sweatshirt but not yet singing your extremities with cold, and most importantly everything is pumpkin flavored. I looooooove pumpkin. I decided to get a jump start on the pumpkin and hope that maybe the Texas weather would follow my lead (fingers crossed!) My good friend Anders is leaving us for cooler weather and greener pastures in Seattle. So, since he will miss my fall baking this year, I baked chocolate pumpkin cupcakes for his going away party this past Saturday. They were pretty delicious but I think just full on pumpkin cupcakes with the chocolate chips would have been tastier (but then I'm a pumpkin-aholic). Here's a pic of one of these beauties:


I also made chocolate chunker cookies that I read about on The Cookie Scoop, but i forgot to take pictures of those. They were practically gone by the time I left the party, so I guess they were delicious. I'll post the recipe for these as well in case you want to try without first seeing pictures, be daring!

Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes (from The Cupcake Project)

1 1/2 c flour
1t cinnamon
2t pumpkin pie spice
1t baking soda
1/2t salt
1 1/2 c sugar
3/4c pumpkin puree (stock up now, it's already hard to find!)
2 lg eggs
1/2c vegetable oil
1/2c orange juice
4oz bittersweet chocolate, melted (I used 70% cocoa Ghirardelli)
1 1/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat to 350F

Whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Mix in the oil, orange juice, and melted chocolate. Slowly add the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips. fill cupcake foils 3/4 full, bake for 20-25 minutes.

Spiced Cream Cheese Icing

1 (8oz) brick cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1t vanilla
1T pumpkin pie spice
powdered sugar to preferred consistency

Beak cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add in vanilla and pumpkin pie spice to taste. Add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.


Chocolate Chunker Cookies (from The Cookie Scoop)

1/3c flour
1/4c cooca
1/2t salt
1/4t baking powder
3T unsalted butter
6oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 70% cocoa Ghirardelli)
1oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped (I skipped this)
2 lg eggs
2/3c sugar
1t vanilla
6oz semisweet chocolate chips
6oz white chocolate chips
anything else you wanna throw in, nuts, raisins, etc

Preheat to 350F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder.
Melt butter, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate, stirring frequently. In large bowl beat eggs and sugar on high speed until they are pale and foamy. Beat in vanilla. On low speed, add melted chocolate/butter mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure the mixture is homogeneous. On low speed mix in the dry ingredients. Dough should be thick and shiny. Stir in your chocolate chips and any other add-ins. Drop generous tablespoons onto baking sheet, about 1" apart. Bake 10-13 minutes. Let cookies cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Crazy Cupcake Duo

I haven't been doing much baking lately, probably because it's so hot I hate turning on the oven and making it hotter than hot. But, since it was my awesome friend Randi's bday this weekend I decided to pull out all the stops and try two new cupcakes. The first was a Chocolate peanut butter concoction with a Resse's cup at the bottom. I plopped the Reese's cup in the foil liner, poured in the chocolate cupcake batter and baked as usual. It was topped with delicious peanut butter buttercream icing and some cocoa for show (I'm being inspired by Cupcake Wars to get a little fancier with the presentation haha). The second cupcake was a chocolate cake with caramel injected after baking and topped with a cream cheese, chocolate espresso icing and finished with espresso sugar crystals. Here are some pics of the duo:



The overall consensus was that the peanut butter ones were awesome and the other ones were pretty good, but most preferred the peanut butter. I don't really have recipes for either one since I just made them up but the cakes were from Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe. The Peanut Butter Buttercream was made with about 1/2c peanut butter and a stick of butter and 1/4c of shortening. Then powdered sugar to whatever consistency you like. The Espresso icing was 1 brick of cream cheese, 1/2 stick of butter, 1t espresso ground, and 1/3c of cocoa. Once again, add powdered sugar to desired consistency. I used my Pampered Chef Icing gun to inject the caramel (I couldn't find dulche de leche so I just used caramel ice cream topping).

Comfort foods?

Now that it’s starting to be Summer I’ve started working on my “recipes I’d like to try” binder. It’s quite large and overflowing. Last night I made Congo Bars from a Bakerella recipe and Turkey Meatballs from a Real Simple Magazine recipe. I've never made meatballs before and I'm fairly certain I've never had meatballs before. Insanity, I know. But I stopped eating red meat in the 7th grade and my mom's spaghetti sauce always had the meat mixed in, not in meatball form. Anywho, both recipes turned out delicious. I changed a few things to my liking as always, so you can click on the links to see the original recipes or check out my versions below.




Congo Bars

Ingredients:
2 3/4c all purpose flour
2 1/2t baking powder
1/2t salt
2/3c butter, softened
1 lb. dark brown sugar
3 eggs
1t vanilla
12 ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven at 350F
Sift flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
Combine butter and sugar using a mixer until blended.
Add eggs, one at a time to sugar mixture, mixing on low in between each addition.
Add vanilla and mix.
Add flour and mix until combined.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.



Turkey Meatballs

Ingredients:
4T olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 (28oz) can tomato puree
1 (6oz) can tomato paste
1 T sugar
1t cayenne pepper
1T Italian seasoning
1/2c grated Parmesan
2T chopped fresh oregano, divided
S & P
1 large egg
1lb ground turkey
16 saltine crackers, finely crushed (about 3⁄4 cup)
12 ounces spaghetti (3⁄4 box)

Directions
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and half the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the tomato puree and paste, sugar, cayenne pepper, Italian seasoning, half the Parmesan, 1 tablespoon of the oregano, ½ teaspoon salt, and 1½ cups water. Simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, lightly beat the egg. Add the turkey, crackers, the remaining Parmesan, garlic, and oregano, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Shape the mixture into 12 meatballs (about 1½ inches each).
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook the meatballs, turning occasionally, until browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Add to the sauce and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, 25 to 30 minutes.
Cook the spaghetti (I used Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Spinach Spaghetti, gave it kind of a Christmas in May look haha) according to the package directions. Serve with the meatballs and sauce.

Give me a shout if you ever try any of the recipes I share here with you! enjoy!