When life gives you snow....make brownies!

My backyard looks like this today
So I made these

We are expecting 18-24 inches of snow this weekend. We are not expecting BeanieDaddy to make it home from work tonight. So, to get us through the afternoon and into tomorrow I decided to make brownies. Brownies seem to be the forgotten child of the chocolate dessert family. At least they are here. I'm more apt to do a cake, or cupcake or candy or something else. Brownies are usually an afterthought for some reason.

But I knew I had the ingredients on hand (at least I was pretty sure) and a page from my Southern Living Christmas Cookbook with a menu for a coffee and chocolate party has been taunting me for weeks. However, I had to make some alterations. The recipe calls for bittersweet baking chocolate and I had semisweet. After doing a little investigation, I learned that you can add unsweetened cocoa to the semisweet chocolate and you would have something closer to bittersweet. Also, the recipe calls for 2 cups of semisweet chocolate morsels. I have had a bag of raspberry chocolate morsels in the pantry waiting for a home so I used them instead. The result: pure heaven. It turned into one of those desserts that is so yummy but a little too rich to eat too much at one time. The hope is that these will last a while.

Here is the full recipe with my changes.

Dark Chocolate Brownies
Adapted from 2008 Southern Living Christmas Cookbook
1 cup butter
8 ounces bittersweet baking chocolate squares
2 cups raspberry chocolate morsels, divided
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts, toasted
1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt

Microwave butter, bittersweet chocolate, and 1 cup morsels in a 4-quart bowl at high 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until chocolate is melted, stirring mixture every 30 seconds. Whisk in sugar, eggs and vanilla.

Toss together walnuts, 1 Tbs flour, and remaining 1 cup of morsels. Stir remaining four and salt into sugar mixture. Stir in walnut mixture. Spread batter into a greased 13- x 9-inch pan.

Bake at 350-degrees for 30-40 minutes or until edges begin to pull away from pan (a wooden pick inserted in center will not come out clean). Cool on a wire rack.

In addition to the brownies, I made this pulled pork marinade recipe from The Naptime Chef. I doubled the recipe and added 1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper and a little more than a pinch of red pepper flakes to give it a little more of a kick. And wow did it add kick. The smell of the pork roast cooking in the crock pot all day is amazing. I think this will be my go-to marinade/barbecue recipe from now on. Too bad Dad won't be home tonight, but there will be plenty when he returns.

Christmas Dinner Revisited

I have to say that one of the highlights to Christmas dinner was our first course, Cream of Curried Peanut Soup. It was simply scrumptious and I have been craving it ever since we had it. It was super easy to make. In fact, I made it a day ahead of time and simply warmed it up just before serving. I had never had peanut soup and questioned if I would like it. Again, completely surprised by the outcome and will most certainly make it again. Plus, I wasn't alone in liking it. Everyone enjoyed it, even my mom who tends to be a bit picky.

Sleepless

It's nearly 1 a.m. and I can't sleep because Christmas is two-and-a-half weeks away and I haven't finalized my dinner menu. Crazy, huh? I have been lying in bed the past hour with my head spinning. I figure that the only way to calm it down is to come here and type out my thoughts.

Last year I was inspired by an episode of Food Network host Nigella Lawson. Her entire menu for a holiday menu looked scrumptious and I swore that was what I was going to make for Christmas dinner. It is still my plan, for the most part but I feel that I need to add more. My mother gave me the latest edition of Southern Living's Christmas Cookbook and it has a couple of recipes in it that I plan to use as well. So, in order for me to get my head straight and feel better about a dinner that is more than two weeks away, here's my menu, or at least my menu at this point in time.

• Cream of Curried Peanut Soup

• some sort of salad with pomegranate or cranberry in it to give me something "red"

• Ginger Glazed Ham

• Spiced Peaches

• Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese (I actually made this last year and it was delish) OR

• Sweet Potato Casserole (can I have both?)

• Garlic Green Beans (my own recipe)

• Yeast Rolls (not homemade since we have a fabulous Mennonite community here and they make better bread than I could ever dream of making)

• Individual Fudge Cakes

My dilemma: for some reason this doesn't seem like enough. Maybe there needs to be another vegetable or I'm thinking too much of dressing that normally accompanies a turkey dinner. Maybe some broccoli spears? That is something my grandmother always had for Christmas dinner, with her fabulous cheese sauce, which I have yet to master.

Obviously there isn't much that I can do about this tonight. It's 1:01 a.m. and I really need to try to sleep. Hopefully getting all of this down will help - for now.

'Tis the Season to be Popping

Beanie Dad and I put together our little gifts to his directors tonight: Party Popcorn.

I had planned to make this for his staff just to give them a break from all of the cookies and candy you typically get during the holidays. I did a trial run for our mom's club cookie exchange last week since the cookies I planned to make were a bust (the recipe said it would make 52 and I only got 32 and I had to make 6 dozen).

I found the cute popcorn containers in Target's dollar section, which I think makes a super cute presentation.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup of popcorn
2 tablespoons of oil for popping
1/2 stick of butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons paprika
4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons kosher salt

Pop your popcorn on the stove top.
Melt butter and spices
Pour butter mixture over popcorn
Place popcorn in a brown paper bag and shake
Enjoy!

Pardon the Interruption

I know that it's been a couple of weeks since my last post and it's not that there's been nothing exciting to share. Things have been busy thanks to the Christmas rush and my taking on a writing assignment. However, I have been keeping notes (aka: traditional written journal) and will return later this week to put it all here (probably Thursday since Beanie Dad will be working).

In the meantime, I would like to share the newest addition to my holiday cookie collection. I made these this afternoon and they are absolutely fabulous. I got it from my coveted December issue of Real Simple magazine: Ginger Chocolate-Chip Bars. They are simply divine, super easy to make and the ginger puts a fun twist on traditional chocolate chip bars. I tried four new recipes this year and this is the only one that will make it through to next year and beyond.

Twisted Pumpkin

Kappa Prep had posted a yummy looking Martha Stewart recipe a couple of weeks ago and I made it for dinner last night - penne pasta with creamy pumpkin sauce. Yum! The only strange thing was getting past the idea that the sauce wouldn't taste like pumpkin spice like I'm used to having in a pie or pumpkin bread. You know how your brain is used to something being one way but it isn't so it takes a bit for you to get used to the new thing? That's what it was like with this recipe. Still, it was a success and something that will be made again.

The deviation that I made from the recipe was not garnishing it with the toasted rosemary. A couple of reviewers didn't care for it so I passed on it, too. I did toast/fry it as the recipe says just to have the flavor, but tossed it out.

C is for Crazy

Do you ever have those moments where you think that you have a good idea but the more you think about it the worse it is but then it's too late? That's what I am faced with this week. Several weeks ago I thought it would be a great idea to host a small group of kids from the mom's group to paint Halloween cookies. The idea came after one of my good friends reminded me that her fabulous family cookbook that she gave me after I got married included a few little fun stuff to do with kids. One was to make paintbrush cookies.

If we were still in our nice house in Big City, Texas, I probably wouldn't be fretting about it. But we are in a town home, we just don't have the space that we used to have and I'm freaking out a bit. Heck, we're living on three levels and don't even have gates to block the stairs (JillyBean has been amazing and doesn't seem to want to go up or down without us. I'm wondering if the curiosity isn't there because she's not shut out). Anyway, I had set a limit on six kids, which seemed doable until I began to imagine how all of this would work out. Have I mentioned that I'm freaking out a bit about this?

I am sure that it will work out; at least that's what I have to keep telling myself. We do have an eat-in kitchen so we will be able to use the kitchen table and not the dining room table. I also thought that I would bring Bean's little table and chairs up from the study and put it in the kitchen. Hopefully I can contain the activity enough that it will work out fine and all of the stress will be for nothing...

Even if it doesn't work I'll be left with some yummy cookies. I'm using my sugar cookie recipe and my friend's painting recipe. Beanie Dad says that I should just buy the pre-made stuff to save the hassle but that wouldn't be any fun.

Here's the best sugar cookie recipe EVER. What makes it so good is the inclusion of cream cheese and almond extract.

1 cup butter, softened
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1/2 t almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder

In a large mixer bowl combine butter and cream cheese. Beat until well combined. Add sugar; beat until fluffy. add egg, vanilla, and almond extract and beat well.

In a medium bowl stir together flour and baking powder. Add flour mixture to cream cheese mixture; beat until well mixed. Divide dough in half. Cover and chill in the refrigerator about 1 1/2 hours or until dough is easy to handle.

On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut with desired cookie cutters. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until done. Remove to wire racks; cool.

*Since we'll be painting the cookies that will be done before baking them.
**Adapted from Treasury of Christmas Recipes, a recipe book that I 've had since college