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What To Make A Fireman For Breakfast: Beer Waffles with Amber Ale Caramel Sauce

Firefighters are a rare beast. The perfect combination of rugged bravery and compassion driven sensitivity.  A sports watching, beer drinking guys-guy, who is also the first in line to pull a shivering puppy from a frozen river and then make a batch of tender homemade scones.

So what do you do if you find yourself on the daylight side of a fantastic evening, eye to eye with one these hungry beasts?

Make waffles.

Not just any waffles, beer waffles. With beer caramel sauce.

Somehow, it seems to be a rule that every fire house has at least two resident fire fighting chefs, ready for a culinary battle at all times. Making it a near certainty that the beast you woke up with is used to eating, or cooking, great food on a regular basis. Your average breakfast just won’t do.

And keep a healthy stock of Fireman’s Brew handy. Not only is it made by real life Firefighters, they even donate a portion of their profits to causes that support families of fallen Firefighters. Craft beer with a cause.

Great beer and a warm fuzzy feeling. Fireman sold separately.

Beer Waffles with Amber Ale Caramel Sauce

What To Make A Fireman For Breakfast: Beer Waffles with Amber Ale Caramel Sauce

Ingredients
  

Waffles:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup butter melted
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 12 oz Blonde Ale or Pilsner such as Firemans Blonde Lager

Caramel Sauce:

  • 12 oz Amber Ale such as Firemans Amber Ale
  • 2 cups brown sugar packed
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 tbs butter

Instructions
 

  • Make the caramel sauce: Add the beer to a pot over high heat and bring to a strong boil, reducing the beer to about 1 cup, about 6-10 minutes.
  • Remove from heat and add the brown sugar, stir until dissolved. Add a thermometer with a clip to the side of you pan, submerging the tip in the liquid, but making sure it does not hit the bottom of the pan.
  • Boil, without stirring (swirl the pan occasionally to redistribute the caramel sauce), until the temperature reaches between 230 degrees. Remove from heat and stir until the bubbling subsides. Add the cream, vanilla and butter, stir to combine. Allow to cool.
  • Make the waffles:
  • Heat your waffle iron according to manufacture directions.
  • In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. In another bowl, stir together the butter, milk and egg yolks, in a third bowl add the egg whites and a pinch of salt.
  • Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the milk mixture. Stir to combine. Add the Pilsner (there will be significant bubbling) stir until just combined, a few lumps are to be expected.
  • Whip the egg whites until light and fluffy and tripled in volume. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, whip until well combined. Stir the egg whites into the waffle batter.
  • Using the waffle iron, cook waffles according to manufacture directions (make sure to use butter flavored cooking spray, if called for).
  • Serve waffles topped with caramel sauce.

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Food & Wine Pairing: Prosciutto Truffle Salad with Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir

Welcome back to wine week! To get caught up, make sure and read yesterdays post:

How To Pair Food and Wine 

Rule one: Acid needs acid

I loved (LOVED!!) this recipe and pairingI am much more of a red wine person and learning about versatile red, with a higher acidity and lower tannin level than most reds, I am able to serve a red wine as a stand in where most people would typically put a white. Because, remember, pairing is more about acid and tannin levels than white versus red. 

I CAN have a red wine with white meat!! As long as I can pick the right one. 

The wine in this pairing is Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir, 2009

I really liked this wine, and I loved that I am now able to pair a red wine with white meat if I so desire. Still maybe a bit to tannin heavy for a light, white fish, but works perfect with pork or possibly a chicken dish. AND It’s UNDER $10!! I love that. I love that I can serve a beautiful wine, paired perfectly with my beautiful salad, and no one will ever know that I so incredibly affordable. 

This was a recipe that I followed the closest. And I loved it so much I made it twice in the same week. It is easy, full of flavor and has a fancy boldness that is perfect for a dinner party. 

It has a super easy homemade dressing that you mix right in the salad bowl. 

Printable: salad-recipe 

I only made a few minor changes to this recipe:

  • Since I had truffle oil on hand from when I made this, I used it in place of the olive oil. 
  • Instead of rubbing the bowl and the bread with garlic, I used a microplane to grate it to a paste and spread it on the bread, and just added the garlic paste to the dressing
  • I grilled the bread slices on my grill pan and served them on the side
  • I added chopped tomatoes 
I really hope you love this salad as much as I did, its simple, fresh and delicious. 
Seek out the wine if you can, and remember that it is a red that you can pair with high acid dishes if you are one of those people who doesn’t particularly fall in love with whites. 
More food and wine parings coming this week. Stay tuned!
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How To: Pair Wine and Food

A few weeks ago I got an email from a wonder man I had met at IFBC in November. He works withDon Sebastiani & Son's Wine Company, and asked if he could send over a shipment of wine along with perfectly paired recipes.

First, who says no to that?

Secondly, I realized how little I actually know about food and wine parring. This was more than an opportunity for free wine, this was an opportunity for a free education.

Learning not just how to pair wine, but why. What the flavors do to each other and how the wrong pairing can change the dish you took so much time making. 

I spent a week with these wines, cooking and pairing. Some of the recipes I followed nearly exactly (a very rare occurrence in my life) and some I changed completely while still keeping the integrity of the pairing. By the end of the week I was able to see that wine is not just something to drink with your meal, but wine functions as an additional ingredient to your dish. 

Wine changes the way your food tastes. This can be a great thing, making the flavors more intense, brighter and more delicious. This can also be a terrible thing, making the spicy flavors hotter than you want, bringing out flavors you never intended to highlight. What you drink with your meal alters the experience you have, knowing how to do it correctly gives you the control. 

After I knew the basics of food and wine pairing, I began to see not only the importance of it but how easy it can be. I was already pairing food and drinks without realizing it, wanting a cup of coffee with my chocolate cake and a lemony iced tea with my Caesar salad. The principals are the same. 

This week I’ll be posting the food and wine pairings, as well as why these foods are paired. Each of the dishes featured in the photos in this post will be discussed. Stick around and we will all get a crash course in food and wine pairings, but first, here are the Rules:

Rule one: Acid needs acid

Any food with a high acid level, or something you just want to squeeze a lemon onto, is perfect match for high acid wine. If you are serving Chicken Picatta, or pasta with tomato sauce, opt for a Barolo, Sauvignon Blanc or Chianti. Serving a high acid wine with a meal like this, and you will bring out the citrus notes of your food. 

 

Rule Two: Tannins Need Fat 

First of all, what IS a tannin? Tannins are the astringent component in red wine that give it structure. This is what can cause that bitter, pucker feeling in the back of your throat. This needs fat for balance, fat will soften the tannins and bring a smoother feel. Serve a bold Cabernet with a nice fatty piece of Prime Rib. 

 

Rule Three: Fish Goes with Acid, Not With Tannins

We have all heard the old rule of: White Wine for White Meat, Red Wine for Red Meat. The reason for that is acid and tannins, not color. If you are serving fish, think of the wine like a you would a squeeze of lemon on top (high acid wine) rather than a sprinkle of cheese (tannin heavy red wine).  

 

Rule Four: Pair Wine With Dominant Flavor, Not Necessarily The Meat

This is another reason to ignore the old rule White for White, Red for Red. Just because you have pork on your plate, doesn’t mean that is the flavor that will stick around. Is that pork being served in a robust red sauce? Or is that beef being served with a creamy lemon sauce? If the sauce on your plate is the dominant flavor, pair to that, not the meat.


Rule Five: Spice Needs Sugar

This is the best example of wine paring going awry. Serving a super spicy dish with a high alcohol, tannin heavy wine with will set your guests on fire. Two great elements producing a catastrophe combination when mixed.  Alcohol intensifies the heat. If however, you cooked a dish that is much more mellow that you have intended, pair with one of those high tannin, high alcohol wines to crank up the heat. But, for the most part, you want to stick with a sweeter, low alcohol wine. Even if you don’t like sweeter wines, you will be surprised at how those sugars are altered with introduction of the heat. Try a Gewürztraminer or a Riesling.

Rule Six: Sweet Needs Sweeter

You want the wine to be sweeter than the dessert. Even if you are not drawn to the sweeter wines, taking a sip of a rich, sweet port before, and after, a bit of a dense fudgy cake completely transforms the flavors of both elements.

Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

Balance. That’s my resolution. One word. 

I think a lot of resolutions come down to that, finding a balance by remembering the things that you have allowed to unbalance in your life. 

Most problems in life come down to too much, or not enough, of one thing or another. This is where I am, right at this moment. 

I care too much about what others think about me, my blog and my recipes. I worry too much about how many Twitter followers or Facebook likes I get. I’m much too hard on myself about not being further along in my quest to work full time in the world of food. I am much too self-deprecating too often. 

I don’t allow myself enough space and time to grow and learn. I don’t give myself enough credit for my accomplishments. 

In the name of balance:

I am grateful. I am a hard worker. I am a fast learner. I push myself. (That is the start of my resolution, balance the bad thoughts with good ones.)

More than anything I want to teach these things to my Daughter. This thing called "balance" that we all find so hard.

My promise to my little girl, just a year and a half into her life, is this: 

I will try as hard as I can to show you how to love yourself, by loving myself. The world will teach you enough self-loathing, I will not model it for you. I will be the example of how to push yourself towards your goals, while still enjoying your life. And while every little girl in the world, at some point, will say, "I wanna be like my Momma!" I promise to try and be worthy of that statement. I will do my best to teach you how to put your self-worth into your SELF not into others. How to be in a relationship, not defined by it. How to set a goal and reach it, while still giving space to fail and get back up. 

Cinnamon Rolls where my resolution two year ago, when I was pregnant. I called my sister in a pregnancy induced semi-panic over Christmas Traditions. We didn’t have any Holiday traditions growing up and I wanted, no, NEEDED to have some for my own family. Where do I start? What do I do?? My sister, who has always been a strong force in  my life, as well as a great example of balance, reminded me that my fetal child had no current need for holiday pageantry and I had time for decision making. I told her that I wanted to make cinnamon rolls from scratch on Christmas Morning. She said that was a great place to start.

A few weeks later, on my birthday, a Cinnamon Roll pan from King Arthur Flour showed up at my house. I cried. I decided right then that my Holiday Traditions would revolve around being together as a family, like a Traditional Christmas Morning breakfast with Cinnamon Rolls. I resolved to spend more time with people I love. 

For the rest of my life, I’ll be making these on Christmas Morning. Sometimes resolutions do stick with you. 

This is food Networks attempt to re-create the carefully guarded secret recipe of Cinnabon’s Cinnamon Rolls. It’s amazing, which is why this is the recipe that I have decided to use as my Christmas Tradition and not attempting to create my own, although slight alterations have been made. 

Almost Famous Cinnamon Rolls

(Adapted from The Food Network)

For the Dough:

  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 1/4-ounce packet active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup plus 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the bowl
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more if needed
  • 1/4 cup Dry Milk
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

For the Filling:

  • All-purpose flour, for dusting
  • 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

For the Glaze:

  • 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Make the dough: Warm the milk in a medium saucepan over low heat until it reaches about 100 (you can also use the microwave, and test every 20 seconds. I keep a digital people thermometer from the drug store in the kitchen to use when I heat up liquid to proof yeast. It’s cheap and accurate). Remove from the heat and sprinkle in the yeast and 1/4 teaspoon sugar (don’t stir). Set aside until foamy, 5 minutes. Whisk in the melted butter, egg yolk and vanilla.

Whisk the flour, the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, dry milk, the salt and nutmeg in the bowl of a stand mixer. Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture. Mix on low speed with the dough hook until thick and slightly sticky. Knead on medium speed until the dough gathers around the hook, 6 minutes. (Add up to 2 more tablespoons flour if necessary.)

Remove the dough and shape into a ball. Butter the mixer bowl and return the dough to the bowl, turning to coat with butter (those are the Food Network instructions, I use a large glass bowl that I spray with butter flavored cooking spray). Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 1 hour 15 minutes.

Roll out the dough, fill and cut into buns (see instructions below). Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking pan; place the buns cut-side down in the pan, leaving space between each. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 40 minutes. If you are making this the night before, this is a good place to stop. Instead of allow to rise until double in size on your counter top, place the buns in a cold fridge. It should take about 6-8 hours for the second rise to happen in a cold fridge, instead of 40 minutes at room temp. 

Preheat the oven to 325.

Bake the buns until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Cool in the pan 15 minutes. Meanwhile, make the glaze: Sift the confectioners' sugar into a bowl, then whisk in the cream and melted butter. Transfer the buns to a rack and spoon the glaze on top while still warm.

How to Form Cinnamon Buns

1. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 12-by-14-inch rectangle with the longer side facing you.

2. Spread with the softened butter, leaving a 1/2-inch border on the far long edge. Mix the sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over the butter.

3. Brush the unbuttered far edge with water. Roll the dough away from you into a tight cylinder and press on the long edge to seal.

4. Cut the cylinder with a sharp knife to make 6-9 equal-size buns.

Panko Shortbread With Salted Ponzu Caramel: Recipe Inspired by Iron Chef

I watch The Next Iron Chef like it’s the Olympics. Once the battle is announced, I immediately start to formulate a recipe in my head. It’s my delusional way of participating.

At the end of an episode a few weeks ago, two chefs, Geoffrey Zakarain and Anne Burrell were asked to make a dessert out of Kikkoman Panko Bread Crumbs and Ponzu Sauce.

I immediately yelled out "Ponzu Caramel Sauce!!"

Mr. Fits gave me a strange sideways glance.

Anne Burrell, then, proceeded to MAKE a Ponzu caramel sauce. Which put a smug smile on my face. Until she lost.

In her defense, the judges loved her dish and Zakarain went on to win the tittle of Next Iron Chef. Although my personal favorite was Elizabeth Faulker, I do believe that Chef Zakarian was the perfect choice. His very first battle as an Iron Chef on Christmas Day earned him a PERFECT score.

Sigh.

Back to that Kikkoman battle:

The next day I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of a dessert with Panko and Ponzu. Of course the recipes battled on Next Iron Chef aren’t written down, I have no idea how she made her gorgeous caramel, so I just had to leave it to my own devices to come up with one.

While this is rolling around in my head, I get an email from a lovely and adorable PR girl from Kikkoman whom I had met at IFBC in November. She wanted to know if she could send over a box of Kikkoman goodies for me to play with. Ummm…Yes. Yes you can.

She even included a Kikkoman rubber ducky for Tater. Although I still can’t figure out why he is wearing a sombrero.

(I talked a little a few weeks ago about the whole Blogger/PR relationship and it is pretty awesome.)

So it was fate. I would be making a dessert out of Panko and Ponzu.

Here is what I came up with:

Battle Kikkoman!!!


Panko Shortbread with Salted Ponzu Caramel Bars

Panko Shortbread:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup Kikkoman Panko

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

12 tbs butter


Ponzu Caramel Sauce:

1/2 cups sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1 tbs Ponzu Sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1 stick of butter

1/4 tsp course sea salt


Line the bottom of an 11 x 7 inch baking dish with parchment paper, allowing the paper to go up and over the edges of the pan.

In a food processor, combine flour, brown sugar, Panko and salt, pulse to combine. Add the butter and process until combined, about 1 minute. Press the shortbread into the bottom of the baking dish in one even layer. Chill in the refirgerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350. Bake for 20 minutes or until a light golden brown color. Allow to cool.

In a large pot over medium high heat, combine the sugar, corn syrup and ponzu sauce (mixture will bubble to a large volume during cooking). Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to boil, without stirring, until the mixture reaches 230 degrees, about 5 minutes. While the caramel is cooking, do not stir, but swirl the pan every 30 seconds to redistribute the caramel sauce evenly. Once 230 degrees is reached, add the butter a few cubes at a time and stir, allowing the mixture to return to 230 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in the cream, adding slowly.

Pour the caramel over the shortbread and refrigerate for 4 hours, top with sea salt. Remove from pan using the parchment paper and cut into squares.

Chocolate Peppermint Souffle Cake With Candy Cane Whipped Cream

You didn’t think that I could make this delicious whipped goodness and not come up with a fabulous cake to go with it, did you?

But, I have to admit that I’m not a fan of mint, because of what I will always referr to as The Moroccan Mint Experience. While travel through Middle Atlas a few years ago with my sister…we…we’ll it’s hard to explain. But as a result, I no longer like mint. 

Although my favorite part of the devolution of mint in my life, is Mohammed 

He lives in a cave in a mountain town called B’Halil.

He made me mint tea in his cave. And when someone as wonderful and welcoming as Mohammad takes time to welcome you into his cave and heat up water over an open flame and make you tea out of brown water and mint leaves YOU DRINK IT!!

And I am so grateful to him for the tea. Although he has nothing to do my my distaste for mint tea, he is my favorite memory of my journey towards no longer liking it. 

For some reason, however, Candy Canes are exempt for my I Hate Mint rule. Can’t really say why. 

Even if you hate mint, or if you love it so much you want to take a long soak in big bathtub full of Junior Mints, I hope you like this cake. I did. 

Chocolate Peppermint Soufflé Cake With Candy Cane Whipped Cream

1/2 tsp natural peppermint extract

1 cup unsalted butter

7oz high quality 60% chocolate

5 eggs, room temperature, separated

1/3 cup plus 3 tbs sugar

1 tbs all purpose flour

1 tsp kosher or sea salt

2 tbs cocoa powder

Serve with:

Candy Cane Whipped Cream 

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small pot, add the butter and peppermint extract, stir over medium heat until the butter has melted, don’t allow to boil. Remove from heat.

In the top of a double broiler (or a metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water) add the chocolate and the peppermint butter. Stir over medium-low heat until the chocolate is melted and combined with the butter. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

 In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg yolks and 1/3 cup of sugar. Mix on high until well combined and light and frothy. Turn off the mixer, and add the flour, salt and the cocoa powder. Mix until just combined. Add the chocolate mixture and beat again until the chocolate is incorporated into the egg yolk mixture. 

In a separate bowl, add the egg whites and 1 tbs sugar. Beat with an electric mixer on high until soft peaks form. Add the remaining two tbs sugar and beat again until shiny and stiff peaks form. 

Remove bowl of the stand mixer that contains the chocolate batter. Put one third of the egg whites into the chocolate batter, and gently stir until barely combined. Add half the remaining egg whites and stir again. Add the remaining egg whites and stir until just combined. 

 Line the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan with a round of parchment paper. Spray the sides with butter flavored cooking spray.

Pour the batter into the spring form pan in one even layer.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until the top is dry and slightly cracked.

Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes, the top will deflate slightly.

 Remove from the spring form pan, allow to cool to room temperature.

Make the whipped cream.

Serve the cake topped with whipped cream.

Printable:Chocolate Peppermint Soufflé Cake

Printable: Candy Cane Whipped Cream

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IPA Sweet Potato Mash

IPA’s make difficult cooking subjects. The bitterness is high maintenance. But then a beer comes along that is just so worth the effort of figutring out how to work those flavors into my food.

Like Le Freak, by Green Flash Brewing out of San Diego.

It’s a non traditional American IPA meets Belgium style IPA. Not your run of the mill hoppy beer. I love this. LOVED it so much, I drank it mid-morning as I was cooking up this little dish for you all. And, it turns out, sweet potatoes are an amazing vessel for hops. Or maybe the other way around.

IPA Sweet Potato Mash

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped (about 4 cups)

2 tbs butter, chopped into cubes

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup pecans

1/2 cup Green Flash by Le Freak

Preheat oven to 400.

Place your chopped yams in a large loaf pan, sprinkle the top with cubes of butter. Drizzle with the maple syrup, then the beer and then top with the brown sugar.

Bake, uncovered at 400 for about 40 minutes or until the yams are fork tender. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a bit. Drain off most of the liquid (leaving about 2 tbs in the bottom of the pan). Sprinkle with nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt then mash with a potato masher until creamy, add the pecans and stir.

Serve warm.

Homemade Bourbon Cherry Cordials & A Bourbon Cocktail Recipe

I’m SO excited about this post! Mr. Fit’s first recipe. It’s a bourbon cocktail recipe, he’s so good at cocktail makin'. I’ll share that with you all at the end.

First, these super fun chocolates that make a perfect last minute hostess gift. Or a fun addition to your holiday dessert tray.

Nothing like soaking fruit in liquor to help you get through the holidays!

While my cherries where soaking in bourbon, the three of us headed over to Travel Town to take a few shots of Tater.

I’m trying to challenge myself to get better at photography by taking pictures of non-edible things like humans. Even though she’s so cute I wanna bite her little cheeks!

Even though I am way too hard on myself, I think it is really important for me to take steps towards bettering myself in a lot of different ways. If I want to be a better photographer, it isn’t just going to all of the sudden happen one day. I have to work on it, read, study, shoot, and re-shoot. And I get to take pictures of Tater, and she is pretty stinkin' cute.

When we got back, and I had finished the cordials, I had a 1/2 cup of perfectly good bourbon and nothing to do with it. I hate to waste perfectly delicious booze, so I gave it to Mr. Fits and he wrote up a recipe for us all.

Use good bourbon for this recipe. You taste it, and you want it to taste good. My recommendation is Buffalo Trace. It’s a beautiful, artisan bourbon and it’s affordable. Shocking, I know. It is one of those magical products that is loved by bourbons snobs and inexpensive enough to go out and buy. Don’t tell those Buffalo Trace people that they could probably double the price and I would still buy it. It’s the only bourbon I actually like to drink.

Bourbon Soaked Cherry Cordials

30 fresh, sweet cherries (like Bing, don’t use sour or pie cherries)

1/2 cup Buffalo Trace Bourbon

2 cups dark chocolate (60%-70%)

Pit all thirty cherries and place then in one tight layer on the bottom of a loaf pan. Pour the bourbon on top of the cherries and toss to coat.

You want the cherries to be sitting in the bourbon, about half way covered.

Allow to soak for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature, tossing to redistribute the bourbon every 20-30 minutes.

Remove from the liquid with a slotted spoon and place cherries on a plate covered with 3-4 paper towels. Allow to drain and dry for about 10 minutes. Reserve the bourbon for the below cocktail recipe.

Place chocolate in the top or a double boiler. If you don’t have one (and to be honest, I don’t even have one) add water to the bottom of a pot, then place a metal bowl over the pot (this is what I do). Make sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water, very important. I have also heard that you can place the metal bowl on an electric heating pad, but I have never tried it.

Place the chocolate in the bowl, set heat to medium-low. Stir constantly. Use a food thermometer to measure the temperature. You want it to be between 90 and 93 degrees. This is so your chocolate gets that beautiful shine to it and has that crisp snap when you bite into it. If you heat it too much or too little, it won’t have that. 

Once the right temperature is reached, remove the bowl from the heat. Add the cherries in batches (about 8-10 at a time) roll them around in the bowl and remove with a spoon.

Place on wax paper to dry. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve. 

NOW that cocktail recipe I promised you. He even wrote it down for me, I love his handwriting:

Sunday Bourbon Fits

2 oz Cherry Infused Bourbon (from the above recipe)

1 tsp Grenadine

1 tsp Powdered Sugar

1 oz Lemon Juice 

1 Orange Slices (plus 1 additional for garnish)

1 Cherry (for garnish)

(makes one cocktail)

In a shaker half full of ice, add bourbon, grenadine, sugar and lemon juice, stir to combine. Add one orange slice, replace shaker cap, and shake well. Pour into an Old Fashion glass. Garnish with one orange slice and a cherry. 

Candy Cane Whipped Cream & The Importance of Fundamentals


Tater walked at 6 months. Bullshit, right? Actually, it’s true. Although you fully have the right to be skeptical because most babies are barley holding their heads up and don’t even have the concept of standing yet.

For those of you who haven’t been through the: "Watching your offspring launch themselves from one object to another, resulting in scary bruises and traumatic screams" phase of your life, here is what typical babies do:

5-6 months: Can probably roll over in both directions

6-7 months: Tries to get up on knees in crawling position

7-8 months: Makes first attempt at crawling

8-9 months: Starts to crawl, possible attempts at pulling self up on furniture

10-11 months: Pulls self up onto furniture, possibly takes steps while holding furniture

11-12 months: Takes first steps

12-14 months: Becomes a full times walker

Not so much in our house.

Tater literally tried to run before she ever crawled. Here is a video on You Tube of Tater taking steps at six months:

Tater Taking Steps At 6 Months

Just past her first Thanksgiving, not even 8 months old yet, she was walking around like she owned the joint. Watch this video of Tater Walking:

Tater Walking

(And please ignore my, "Talking to my infant" voice. Or better yet, turn the sound off. Yikes!)

THIS baby, whom I was still buying 3 month clothes for was walking all over the place in a way that made strangers gasp and pull out their video phones:

Was I proud? Of course. But I was also worried. Not to mention the fact that my 6 month old had denied me at least HALF of her baby-hood by deciding to become a toddler half a year early.

More than anything else, I have a little glimpse into the developing psyche of my tiny daughter. She is fiercely independent, motivated, headstrong, and completely refusing to learn things in a traditional fashion.

"Crawling? That won’t get me anywhere. I want to walk, so why don’t I just do that instead of wasting my time on the floor?"

Of course, I’m pretty sure I know where she gets that from, Mr. Fits and I were both "Non-Traditional" learners and in spite of the fact that we both score shockingly high on IQ tests, we struggled in school. A lot. Both of us spent our entire childhoods thinking we where stupid because our brains processed information differently and that tended to earn us lower marks on standardized tests.

I felt this way when I threw myself into photography. I wanted to be good at it from the beginning, so frustrated with myself for not being able to produce the images that I saw seasoned veterans shooting. Why didn’t I get it?! What was wrong with me?! I needed to understand the basics, let myself learn a little at a time, before I would be where I wanted to be. And, to be honest, I still get frustrated with myself for not being a better photographer, even though I have only had my DSLR for about 7 months.

Will Tater struggle to run before she can crawl in every area of her life?

Although the world is changing, and other learning styles are being foster, I still worry about her. Fundamentals are important. You have to learn the basics in order to have an anchor for the rest of the information.

Cooking is no exception. No one has ever just walked into a kitchen and made a perfect souffle without first learning how to cream butter and sugar, read a recipe, or sift flour.

Even if you have mastered some pretty complicated recipes, going back to the basics will only improve your cooking.

My favorite fundemental is whipped cream. Something our Grandmother made without a thought was replaced by a blue and white tub full of chemicals that we find in the freezer section. Whipped cream is easy to make and so impressive. Especially when you flavor it with candy canes.


Candy Cane Whipped Cream

4 standard size candy canes, unwrapped

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup powdered sugar

You will also need:

A piece of parchment paper, about 2 feet long

A mesh strainer

a large ziplock type bag

a candy cane pounder of some sort: rolling pin, frying pan, rubber mallet

Place your unwrapped candy canes in the zip lock bag. Place the zip lock bag on top of the parchment paper and smash the candy canes with your rolling pin until they have mostly turned to powder. 

Position your mesh strainer over your parchment paper. Pour the contents of your candy cane bag into the strainer.

Sift until the candy cane powder is on the paper and candy cane chunks are in the strainer. Save the chucks to add to your favorite cookie, chocolate cake or brownie recipe. 

form the paper into a funnel to pour the powder into a small cup. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer add your chilled heavy cream, powdered sugar and 2 tbs of the candy cane powder. You can add more powder for a more intense candy cane flavor or save the rest for another recipe. 

Whip on high until stiff peaks form. About 4 minutes. 


Printable: Candy Cane Whipped Cream

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Easy Homemade Chocolate Raspberry Mousse pie

 Sometimes you make a mistake and it ends up being a really great thing. I wish I had a wise true life story about a mistake gone right, but I don’t. Not at the moment. 

But this pie is a mistake gone right. I was trying to make chocolate whipped cream, but I wanted something more intense than cocoa powder. So I tried to melt some chocolate in heavey cream, and then chill it. 

When I came back the next day, and it was one solid mass. The I tried to whip it (Into shape!) and it turned into this creamy non-whipped cream type of dense mousse. So I made a crust for it and a chocolate raspberry topping and it’s now a pie. Or it was a pie until I ate it. 

It’s not a propper mousse, its a working-mom-still-wants-to-cook-from-scratch type of mousse.

I like it.

Super easy, fancy, still made from scratch, and impressive. Win, Win, Win.

Easy Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Pie

Filling:

2 cups heavy cream

2 3oz bars of semi-sweet chocolate

Crust:

2 cups chocolate wafer cookies (or chocolate teddy grahams or chocolate graham crackers)

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tbs brown sugar

Topping:

2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries

2oz 60% dark chocolate 

1/3 cup sugar



In a large pot, add the cream and the chocolate. Stir over medium-low heat until all of the chocolate has melted and it resembles chocolate milk. Add to the bowl of a stand mixer and place the bowl in the refrigerator. Cover and chill until set, at least 6 hours. Filling can be made up to 2 days ahead of time. 

Pre-heat oven to 350. 

Put the chocolate wafer cookies, or chocolate graham crackers (NOT chocolate covered) into a food processor and process until crumbled. Add the sugars and the butter and process until it looks like wet sand. Add a bit more butter if it’s too dry. Press into a 9 inch pie pan. Press hard, using a measuring cup, a flat bottom coffee cup or anything you can to make sure and pack it into the pan really well. This will keep it from crumbling when you cut it into slices. 

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 or until firm. Allow to cool. 

Place the bowl of chilled chocolate cream on to the stand mixer and beat on high for 3-5 minutes or until fluffy. At this point, you can taste to see if you want it sweeter. I tend to favor less sweet desserts, and if you like yours supper sweet, add 1/4 cup sugar and beat until its incorporated into the mousse.

Add the chocolate mousse to the pie crust and spread out evenly, place in the fridge to chill. 

In a pot over medium-high heat, add the topping ingredients. Stir until the raspberries and chocolate has melted, the raspberries have broken down, and the mixture has thickened. This will take longer if you are using frozen raspberries because the water content is higher. About 8-12 minutes. Pour the mixture over the mousse and chill until set, about 30 minutes. 

Shrimp with Pomegranate Sriracha Cocktail Sauce

My very first giveaway is over. I wanna do it again. It was so fun to read all the comments and have brand new visitors to my blog. I just wish I had 141 more of those beautiful cheese domes to give away! But congratulations to Dee!

Now I am going to expect fancy cheese if I ever stop by your house.

And a big huge smooch and a Thank You to Ile De France for the fabulous prize.

Here is another recipe for all that Holiday entertaining that you all will be doing. PACKED with good stuff like anti-oxidants and almost no fat. One of those treats that is actually fairly low in calories, gives you a dose of fruit and veggies AND makes you feel like you are spoiling yourself by eating a special treat. A way to indulge without added pounds.

Shrimp With Pomegranate Sriracha Cocktail Sauce

2/3 cup pomegranate seeds

2/3 cup tomato paste

1 tsp Sriracha

2 tsp cream style horseradish

1 tbs worcestershire sauce

2 large cloves of garlic, minces (about 1 tbs)

1 tsp lemon juice

24 large shrimp, shelled & deveined, cooked & cooled, tails on

in a food processor, combine the first 7 ingredients.  Process utill completely combined and smooth. Push sauce through a fine mesh strainer to remove the pomegranate seeds.

Serve chilled with shrimp.

Roquefort, Cherry & Bacon Wontons, Plus A Giveaway!


This is my first giveaway! I’m so excited, because as you have read over my recent posts, Christmas is about giving to others. AND I get to give to YOU, so maybe that makes me a selfish, Christmas Spirit hoarder. I’m fine with that.

I was contacted by Ile de France a few weeks ago, and they wanted to give YOU somethings. Making me so excited to be the middle man in this little transaction.


Let me back up and tell you all a little about how the blogger/product-company relationships work. I had no idea about any of this when I jumped head first into the blog world 6 months ago, but it really is a fun perk. You start a blog, you write about food, people read it, your traffic grows and then product companies and PR people email you and want to send you stuff! For free! There isn’t any catch. They want you love their products and write recipes for them, but there is no obligation. I have even seen bloggers write BAD reviews of products, which is not my style. A PR girl once told me, "Advertisers PAY for space, PR people PRAY for space." They just send it and hope. 

I have companies write me all the time and ask if they can send products to me. I am always so excited, and proud that they found my little blog worthy of the shipping charges, but I have some rules about this:

  •  I only accept products that I like, or think I will like.
  • I never take a product that I would never write about. For instance, even though I may from time to time have a package of  pre-made food in my house, I would never write a recipe about a box of Mac N Cheese (for instance) so I would never accept that from a company who offerend. Even if I knew I was going out of town and Mr. Fits would use it. To me, it’s unethical to accept it knowing I would never write about it.
  • Even if I accept something that I hope to love and write about, I never feel obligated to do so. My integrity as a blogger and your respect means more to me than a box of chocolate or a vat of olive oil. I will never say that I love I product unless I do. If I mention a product it’s because I really do like it. 
 Ile de France contacted me and I was glad to accept their Roquefort Cheese, because I have used it and do really like it. Although I like to buy my fancy shmancy cheese from local artisan cheese stores, I also like to give my readers all over the US (and the world) options that are easy for them. Ile De France is sold in the grocery store, and still schmancy enough to fool cheese snobs. AND they wanted to give you this beautiful gift that is perfect for your New Years Party:


Four beautiful cheeses, a fabulous cheese dome, and a cheese knife.

Won’t you look fancy as the owner and operator of a cheese dome. It’s so grown up.

I don’t even have one, but I love and admire them at parties. As if you have reached a whole new level of entertaining if you have an entire centerpiece dedicated to cheese. This one is beautiful, and one of those things that you would never really buy for yourself, but would end up using every time you have people over. What did you ever do before your cheese dome?!

All you have to do to enter is to comment on this post, and make sure and leave your email address in the comment form (not in the actual comment). I’ll use a random number generator to choose the winner and then contact you by email for your address. And those nice people from Ile de France will send it over to you.

Contest is open as soon as this post goes up and ends December 14th at High Noon (PST). So comment quick! Only a few days! Everyone in your house can enter, just have them all write separate comments with separate email addresses. 


The winner will be announced Wednesday afternoon on my Facebook page. "Like" the page to receive the announcement in your feed. 

 

And now, here is what I did with that wonderful, smelly, tangy Rouquefort that those nice people form Ile de France sent me:


Rouquefort, Dried Cherry & Bacon Wontons
12-14 wonton or gyoza wrapers(you can buy them in most major grocery stores, usually by the Tofu)
1/3 cup dried cherries
1 3.5 oz package of Ile De France Cheese (Roquefort, Blue OR even my favorite of all: Goat Cheese)
3 strips of bacon, cooked, and chopped into bacon bits
1/4 cup water
3 tbs olive oil

Lay the wonton wrappers on a flat surface.
Top with 3-4 dried cherries, then top with 1 tsp cheese, sprinkle with about 1/2 tsp bacon. 

Moisten the edges of the wrapper with water.
Fold the wrapper in half and secure the edges well with your fingers.
Repeat for all wrappers.
Heat the oil oil in a large pan until hot but not smoking. Working in batches (making sure not to over crowd the pan) cook the wontons on each side until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from the pan and allow to cool and drain on a paper towel. Serve warm.

Congrats to Dee, Number 55! She is our winner!

Thank you SO much to everyone who entered. Wish I had 141 more to give out. 


Breakfast Galette

I was giving Tater a bath tonight and thinking about how much I love bath time. Thinking, "It’s the little things.."

Little things? I thought about all the things that we always refer to as the "Little things," warm bed, hot bath, clean clothes. Sure they’re little, If you HAVE them.

If you don’t have them they are huge gigantic things. The biggest things ever.

I wonder how many women all over the world would love nothing more than to give their babies a warm bath, with lots of soap, and then put them to sleep in a clean warm bed. Then I felt like crap for calling it a "little thing," when I what I should have thought was "A thing I have never thought to appreciate because I have always had it and am taking it for granted almost every day- thing."

Why do we have it so backwards? We call water and soap a SMALL thing, and what gets that label of BIG are things like yachts and fancy cars, exotic vacationing.

We are wrong.

You can live your entire life NOT having a yacht and be perfectly happy, it never even occurring to you how incredibly yacht-less you are. Try to do that with water and soap.

Having a baby has turned me into a big weeping mess. It used to take quite a bit to make me cry. I’d hide my dry eyes at weddings, feel like a freak for NOT crying when I watched a show about a baby being born, or when I heard a story that didn’t end well. My internal reaction was more along the lines of, "Am I supposed to cry? When’s lunch?"

Now, I cry over everything. I can’t even watch Undercover Boss without mascara stained cheeks an hour later. And don’t even let me think about Extreme Home Makeover. Mr Fits is the same way, he spent the 20 years previous to Taters birth without one tear and now, when I write the lyrics to Loudon Wainwright’s song, Daughter on his Fathers Day card…

About 4 weeks after Tater was born I read about a charity that gave clean birthing supplies and a new, warm outfit to women in third world countries. About four lines in a side bar and I was a mess. My own birth story, 17 hours of unmedicated natural labor, was still blissfully fresh in my mind. I was so happy that I was able to do it the way I had planed, it never occurred to me that the "lucky" part had nothing to do with my birth plan. I had TEN baby outfits packed in my hospital bag, and there were women out there that didn’t even have ONE! Giving birth with dirty supplies and nothing to put the baby in??!! Ugh. I sobbed. "Little things" my ass.

They way I see it, most of us do have the Big Things. That pair of shoes you can’t afford, the fancy car you will probably never drive, that gorgeous leather sofa: all small things. When you are 80 years old, and you look back on your life, you won’t even remember them.

But what you will remember is the time you spent with your family. And for me, the luxury of Saturday Morning Family Breakfast is a HUGE thing, because I would miss it. I would ache for it if I ever live a life where I can’t do that for my family. But right now, I am grateful and happy to have all the Big Things, and one of those is breakfast.

Breakfast Galette

Crust:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

6 tbs of butter

6 tbs shortening

1/3 cup ice cold water

Filling:

1/2 a large red bell pepper, chopped (about 1/3 cup)

1/2 cup fresh, chopped spinach

1/4 cup  crumbled breakfast sausage, raw, removed from casing (about 4 links)

Safest Choice eggs, yolks and whites sperated

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

In a food processor, combine 1 1/3 cup flour, salt, sugar, then add the butter and shortening, process until well combined. Add the remaining flour and process again until combined. Transfer to a bowl and add the water with a wooden spoon (don’t add the water while the dough is in the food processor or your dough will be brittle and cracker-like). If the dough isn’t moist enough, you can add more water, a tsp at a time until the consistency is right. Form dough into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. I like to make the dough the night before, it takes about 10 minutes to throw this together, so it’s easy to do the night before.

Preheat your oven to 375.

Once the dough is chilled, roll into a “rustic” circle. The great thing about a Galette is that an odd shape looks charming, don’t worry about making it too perfect. Transfer to a baking sheet, or a pizza stone, covered with parchment paper.

Top the center with the spinach, bell peppers and sausage.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg whites, salt and pepper. Pour into the center, over the filling (you my need another pair of hands for this) immediately fold up the edges, covering some of the filling but leaving the center open. Sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the whites are set.

Add the yolks to the center, bake again for 3-5 minutes. You still want the yolks to be runny. I just found out about Safest Choice Eggs, they’re pasteurized which removes the risk of salmonella poisoning. One less thing to worry about.

Cut into 4-6 pieces. Serve warm.

Printable version: Breakfast Galette 

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Chocolate Stout Cake With Porter Ganache & Beer Brown Sugar Buttercream

I’m going to start this post by telling you that I am biased. That being said and out of the way:

The West Coast of the United States has the best beer in the world. At least, it has the highest concentration of fantastic craft breweries.

I used two old favorites for this post. Black Butte Porter, from Descutes Brewery and Chocolate Stout from one of my favorites Breweries, Bison.

Of course there are other fantastic beers all over the world, and all over this fantastic beer loving country of ours, but the West Coast is like a Mecca. There are just so many all up and down the coast.

Now if someone will just organize a Beer Tour, we can all take 6 months out of our lives to travel up and down the Pacific Coast and drink ourselves silly with incredible craft beer. You get on that, I’m waiting.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Beer Brown Sugar Butter Cream Filling & Porter Ganache

Chocolate Stout Cake with Beer Brown Sugar Butter Cream Filling & Porter Ganache

Ingredients
  

For the Cake:

  • 3 cup flour
  • 1 tbs baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 sticks 16 tbs unsalted butter
  • 2 cup sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cup 2 3.5 oz bars 72% dark chocolate, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cup Chocolate Stout
  • 1 cup of brewed coffee cooled

For The Filling (Buttercream):

  • 1/2 cup beer
  • 1/2 cup of brown sugar
  • 12 tbs of butter softened
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup powdered sugar

For The Ganache:

  • 2 cups of dark chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cups of Blake Butte Porter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream

Instructions
 

Cake:

  • Preheat the oven to 350.
  • Combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and the cocoa powder in a bowl and whisk until well combined.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer add the butter and sugar and beat until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg, scraping the bottom of the bowl between additions.
  • In a microwave safe bowl, add the 72% chocolate. Microwave for 30 seconds, remove and stir. Repeat until the chocolate is melted.
  • Add the melted chocolate to the sugar/egg mixture and blend well. While the mixer is on a medium-low setting, add the stout and then the coffee, continue to combine until well mixed, then add the flour mixture a little at a time until well combined.
  • Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans. Bake for between 25 and 35 minutes (for cupcakes about 18 minutes) or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Filling:

  • Place the beer in a microwave safe bowl, heat on high until very hot, add the brown sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Allow to cool to room temperature.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter (must be softened to room temperature or it will not work), salt and powdered sugar, beat until combined. Add the brown sugar mixture and mix slowly until mostly combined, then turn the mixer on high and then whip until the frosting is fluffy and well combined.

Ganache:

  • Place chocolate chips in a heat safe bowl. In a pot on the stove, add the heavy cream and the beer and cook over medium heat until hot and bubbly, stirring frequently, about 5-8 minutes. Pour the cream/beer over the chocolate chips and stir until well combined. Place in the fridge and allow to cool until slightly below room temperature.
  • Assembly:
  • Place the first layer of your cake on a a cake plate. Top with your brown sugar butter cream. Add the second cake layer. Pour the warm ganache over the top and allow it to run down the sides. Spread with a knife if necessary.

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Salted Caramel Pecan Linzer Cookies

I’m reading What Alice Forgot. It’s about a woman who has no memory of the past ten years of her life. She thinks she is a blissfully in-love newly wed, pregnant with her first child when she is really a mother of three going through a nasty divorce. And she isn’t proud of the type of woman she has become: "a point-making hussy who went to the gym and upset her beloved sister and hosted cocktail parties…" 

It got me thinking. What would the 2001 version of myself think of the 2011 me? Would she be proud? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t think of myself as a point-making hussy. So that’s a win.

What would surprise me? What would disappoint me?

I’m pretty sure I would be shocked that I make Linzer cookies and have a food blog. Ten years ago I was just trying to figure out how to cook, skipping steps and trying to cheat recipes.

Am I going to be proud of the 2021 version? That older model with the inevitably fancier techno-gadgets and an 11 year old daughter? What would she tell me? What would I remind her?

She: "Even though you want to kick people in the shins when they tell you to "enjoy the baby years, they go by fast!" They are right. ENJOY chasing your naked toddler around the house before bath time because that will end"

Me: "Don’t forget how much work it took you to get where you are an appreciate it."

Who knows what else.

Where do you want to be in 2021? Or even the end of 2012?

What is stopping you? Make yourself proud, that 2001 version, the 2008, 2010 version. 2021 is going to come whether you like it or not. Where do you want to be?

Think about those goals you have neglected, like books on a dusty shelf. Those ones you would be embarrassed to have to answer to 2006 for not having even attempted.

They seem overwhelming, but you don’t have to do it all right now, just take a step. One today, one tomorrow. Order a catalogue from a college that has the major you have been thinking about. Start a business plan for that small business you want to start. Or just buy the domain name (about $10 at godaddy.com) for inspiration.

Leave that boyfriend that treats you like crap.

Take that photography class because you know that photo is in your blood you just have to figure out what aperture means.

Take on a part-time job so you can save for that trip to Europe that you are always talking about.

Actually volunteer.

Be the person you wanted to be ten years ago.

It takes work, but it’s worth it. If was easy it wouldn’t make anyone proud.

Linzer cookies are a sign of progress in my life, I never would have tried this ten years ago. And the look so fancy!

Salted Caramel Pecan Linzer Cookies

Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) of Butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

Filling:

4 tbs butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

4 tbs light corn syrup (like Karo)

2/3 cup chopped pecans

2 tbs heavy cream, brought to room temperature

1/4 tsp kosher or sea salt plus 1/8 tsp salt, divided

Plus 1/4 cup powdered sugar for topping, if desired

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat until well combined. In another bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt, mix with a fork until combined. Add the flour to the stand mixer and mix until the flour is just incorporated into the butter mixture.

Form into a disk and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour. It is important that the sugar cookie dough is cold or the cookies will spread too much during making.

Preheat oven to 350.

Once the dough is chilled, roll out and cut into 2 1/2 inch circles. Use a small cookie cutter to cut out a small window in the middle of just half of the cookies.

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just barely start to brown. It will probably look as if they need another minute or too, but cookies continue to bake once they are out of the oven and you don’t want these to be too crispy.

Allow to cool. Top the window cookies with powdered sugar, if desired.

In a large sauce pan over medium high heat, combine butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently until the sugar has dissolved.  Allow to boil, without stirring, for about 5-7 minutes or until the sauce has turned an amber color. Remove from heat, stir in the pecans, vanilla and the cream and stir until combined. Allow to cool until thickened, but not hardened.

You don’t want to make the caramel sauce too far in advance because it will harden in the pan once cooled, making it impossible to add to your cookies.

Add about 1 tsp of the caramel mixture to the middle of the solid cookies (the ones without the cookie cutter windows) be very careful not to touch hot caramel, it will burn the crap out of your fingers. Use two spoons to get it into place without needing to touch it. Top immediately with a cookie with a cookie cutter window. Sprinkle a few grains of salt in the window. I used a super fancy large grain salt my sister bought me for my birthday. Yes, I am now the sort of person who gets excited to receive a box of super fancy salts from all over the world as a present. Take that 2001.

Allow to chill in the fridge until the caramel has set, about 30 minutes.

Santa Hat Cookies & Why I Hate Santa

I guess HATE is too strong, but I don’t like Santa.

Except maybe this Santa. He’s awesome:

(Photo taken by my brother-in-law, and Hawks fan, Austin Metz)

It all started years ago when I was working at a group home with teenage foster and probation kids in South Central Los Angeles. I know, the white girl from the farm, in South Central.

I loved it.

I was able to see these kids as more than just Gang Members with horrible parents, but human children with potential, talent, hearts and brains. Being raised by grown-up damaged children.

It changed me.

I was teased, laughed at, listen to, and trusted.

I’ve posted so many serious posts lately, I’m no going to go into great detail about that first year, the first christmas. The kids who, at 16 years old, received their first Christmas presents of their lives, or how none of the parents came to our "Holiday Party."

But I will tell you this: Nearly every kid had a story about thinking he was bad because Santa didn’t bring him presents. After all, that’s the story, right? "Santa brings presents to good boys and girls. Bad kids don’t get any."

Or knowing that Santa wasn’t real because the Christmas after he turned 5 he sat in the living room, all alone on Christmas morning with no presents because Mom was on a bender and never came home.

This probably doesn’t apply to you. You will probably never have a Christmas when your kids don’t have presents. Hopefully.

But this year, more kids than ever won’t have presents. And the last thing I would want is for my daughter to carry that message with her to the kids at school who didn’t get presents, for her to think the reason those less fortunate kids didn’t get any gifts during the holidays was because they were bad. 

And I would never want ANY kid to think that the reason he didn’t get presents was because he’s bad.

We don’t need this.

Even though I don’t like the message that comes along with Santa (and I won’t even go into my fear of Mall Santas and their inherent creepiness) Santa is still an iconic symbol of Christmas. He is a great decoration. Which is why I made these Santa Hat Cookies.

I even have one Santa decoration at my house. Just one. I bought it in Paris a few years ago because I really wanted a Christmas Ornament from France and this was all I could find in September.

Links to donate to those in need, if you want:

Toys For Tots

Salvation Army

Angle Tree

Donation Town

These Cookies are pretty adorable, and really easy to make.

Santa Hat Cookies

Sugar Cookie Base:

1 cup (2 sticks) of Butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 package of cream cheese (8 oz) softened

1 stick of butter, 1/2 cup, room temperature (very important)

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup powdered sugar

Hat:

24 large strawberries, stem and leaves cut off


In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat until well combined. In another bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt, mix with a fork until combined. Add the flour to the stand mixer and mix until the flour is just incorporated into the butter mixture.

Form into a disk and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour. It is important that the sugar cookie dough is cold or the cookies will spread too much during making.

Preheat oven to 350.

Once the dough is chilled, roll out and cut into 2 inch circles (or just larger than the base of your strawberries).

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just barely start to brown. It will probably look as if they need another minute or too, but cookies continue to bake once they are out of the oven and you don’t want these to be too crispy.

Allow to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese on high for about 2 minutes. Add your room temperature butter and mix until combined. Add the vanilla and beat again until combined. Turn the mixer off and add the powdered sugar, return mixer to a low speed and mix until the sugar is incorporated into the cream cheese.  Add the frosting to a piping bag. If you don’t have a piping bag, add to a large, heavy duty, zip lock bag and cut about 1cm off the bottom corner of the zip lock bag, this can be used as a make-shift piping bag.

Pipe a dime sized amount onto the cut end of the strawberry and place in the middle of your sugar cookie.

Pipe the frosting around the base of the strawberry, as well as a pea sized amount on the tip of the berry to resemble Santa’s Hat.


Baked Apple Rings: Healthy Indulgence

Another healthy post! We have to have ways to indulge and still enjoy. Of course, after I made these little 35 calorie rings of goodness, I smothered them in caramel sauce. Not quite as healthy. I had some leftover from Thanksgiving, so it was more like recycling. 

These are also a great treat for kids.

Or, a great dessert to bring to a party so that you will keep your grubby little hands off the chocolate tray, but still have somethings to snack on. 

Only 35 calories each. And even if you eat an entire apple, all by yourself, it’s only 160 calories. But you should probably stop there. Just sayin'

Baked Apple Rings

5 medium sized fuji apples, peeled cored and cut into 1/2 inch slices

1/3 cup flour 

1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup skim milk

1 large egg

1/2 tsp real vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400. 

In a bowl combine the flour, Panko, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, stir with a fork until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, egg and vanilla extract with a fork until well combined.  

Spray a baking sheet with butter flavored cooking spray. 

Place one of the apple rings in the milk mixture and into the flour mixture. Turn the ring over, coat well with the flour mixture. Place on the baking sheet. Repeat for all slices. 

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Turn the rings over and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve warm. 

World AIDS Day & ATrue Story Of AIDS In An Elementary School

The Oldest Soul in the School Yard

In 1985 AIDS had formed the perfect storm of mass hysteria. A catastrophic cocktail of ignorance, death and wild-rumors-routinely-reported-as-fact on the Nightly news had whipped the world in to a wide eyed, froth mouth frenzy. We were all going to die, it was air born now, right? It was piped into the water supply by the communists, wasn’t it? It’s the bubonic plague of this generation and will surely swallow up one third of civilization. As I entered the second grade, the loud cries of the public were largely muted by my bubble of Care Bears and Fraggle Rock, until AIDS walked into my elementary school in the form of a five year old boy named Ryan Thomas.

Photo of Ryan and his Father, (from www.aclu-sc.org)

The youngest of three boys, Ryan had contracted the virus from a blood transfusion shortly after birth, arguably the worst time in history to do battle with the AIDS monster and what it had created in and around Santa Rosa Road Elementary school. His presence at the school had thrown the surrounding public and all of its housewives into a polo shirt clad lynch mob. They wanted him out. How dare a 5 year old want to go to kindergarten?! A line of station wagons pulled their kids out of school so fast only a trail of checkered Vans was left. “Mom, is it a vacation day? Why is the school so empty?” I asked from the back of our 12 passanger van as we pulled in to the lot on what I thought would be a typical fall morning. She threw the shifter bar on the steering column into park, swiveling around to look at us. “There is a Kindergarten boy named Ryan how has a disease. There isn’t a cure for it, so he will die. There are only a few ways to get it, like a blood transfusion, and that is how he got it.” She explained that we couldn’t get it from playing with Ryan, using the bathroom or drinking fountain after him and that it was OK to hug him. That morning I learned that the very thin and pale boy, Richard, who sat next to me in class, was Ryan’s big brother. Our teacher announced that Richard had a presentation for us and asked us to keep our minds and hearts opens, disregarding anything that we had heard before. Richard pushed his tiny frame out of his yellow metal desk and dragged the weight of the world to the front of the class. “I want to talk about AIDS, my brother has it.” The class was frozen on the words that came out of his burdened old soul. I’m sure I heard a lot of words spoken from the front of the class that year, but his were the only ones I remember. Later that day the playground was full of chatter about this grown-up topic. Debates about what Richard had said, what other teacher and parents said ("Better safe than sorry!") and who was right. My mom was right, Richard had reinforced that, and no one would sway my mind. That evening, my sister who didn’t have the gift of the Old Souls teaching lowered her fork to her diner plate, “Mom, the other kids moms are saying to leave Ryan alone, like we should be scared of him.” My mom hardly looked up from the highchair that currently had her attention, to speak the wisest sentence of 1985, “You should be much more afraid of ignorant housewives than of Ryan Thomas.”

Ryan Thomas died Thanksgiving Day, 1991 at the age of ten. 

I have no idea what happened to his family, or his brother Richard. But I would love for him to know how much his words impacted me. Helped me to stand up to fear and ignorance. Helped me to see through mass hysteria, right to the truth.

I almost didn’t post this. But this afternoon I read an article about a 13-year-old boy who was denied admission to school because he is HIV possitive. The world needs more Richard Thomas’s. 

Teach your kids how to be like him. I’m gonna do my best. 

Because this is a food blog:

In honor of Ryan, and kids everywhere with HIV and AIDS, here are 4 healthy treats. Perfect for all kids.



1. Vegan Brownies, full of healthy goodness and completely delicious.  This is a post from a blogger friend of mine, Chinmayie of Love Food Eat. She cooks amazing vegan and vegetarian food from her kitchen in India.  

2. Homemade Fruit Snacks. A fun way to eat a couple servings of fruit.

From All Day I Dream About Food 

3. Fruit Chips. A perfect replacement for those not so good for you potato chips.  

From Slow Food Chef

4. Veggie Muffins. Perfect to stick in the lunch box, or even an on-the-go breakfast! 

From Cook Republic