Snowman Cookies

A picture of these cookies is one of the first things I "repinned" on Pinterest when I first joined back in August. I knew they would make the perfect preschool snack this winter.  The recipe originally came from the blog My Pretty Purse.


Snowman Cookies


Ingredients:
2 (4 oz.) bars Nestle Premier White chocolate
1 tbsp shortening
12 Nutter Butter cookies
12 orange Tic Tacs, ⅓ cut off
36 mini M&Ms
Black decorator gel icing


Directions:
Break the white chocolate into small pieces and place in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl with the shortening.  Microwave on 70% power for 45 seconds.  Stir.  Microwave an additional 45 minutes if necessary.  Stir until smooth.


Dip cookies individually in melted chocolate using two forks to roll them around.  Use the forks to lift them out and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.


Once all the cookies have been dipped, place a cut-off Tic Tac on each one where the nose should be.  Then place 3 mini M&Ms on each one to make buttons.  Using a very light hand, draw eyes and a mouth on each cookie with the decorator icing.


Allow a couple of hours for them to set completely.  Even after setting, be careful with the eyes and mouth as the black icing may smudge.


Makes a dozen cookies.

Aren't they just the cutest things ever?  And they are incredibly easy to make.  I didn't have enough of the Nestle white chocolate to cover all the cookies I wanted to make, so I used some white melting candies for the remainder, but it didn't work as well.  It didn't coat it as smoothly, and I had trouble getting the black icing to stick to it.

I didn't change very much about the original recipe, except to specify quantities.  I used three mini M&Ms instead of two regular ones.  My snowmen only had brown, yellow, and blue buttons because I used the red and green M&Ms to make my candy covered chocolate dipped pretzel rods at Christmastime.

Apparently, there was a discussion in my daughter's class as they were eating these, whether they were cookies or candy.  Lena said, "I said they were cookies, but this other girl said they were candies."  I told her that they were both right, because they were cookies with candies on them.  She thought this was a genius answer and told me that she would be sure to relay this information to the other girl the next time she saw her.  I'm going to treasure these times she thinks my answers to her questions are genius, because I know it won't last forever!

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• Recipe Linky at Newlyweds
• Sweets for a Saturday at Sweet As Sugar Cookies

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Improv Challenge: Salmon with Lemon Cream Sauce

Today is reveal day for the Improv Cooking Challenge.  The premise of this challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

This month, the two assigned ingredients were lemons and sour cream.  I figured most people would be choosing baked goods or dessert of some sort, so I wanted to do something savory.  I love pairing lemon with salmon, and it's so easy to make a sauce out of sour cream, so this was kind of a no-brainer for me.

Salmon with Lemon Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

½ cup reduced-fat sour cream

½ tsp grated lemon zest

2½ tsp fresh lemon juice

½ tsp honey

¼ tsp fresh ginger, grated

Olive oil

4 salmon fillets

Salt

Dried dill, for garnish

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, and ginger.  Add olive oil to thin out to desired consistency.  Set aside.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil.  Season salmon lightly with salt and add to hot pan.  Cook until browned on one side, about 4 minutes.  Flip over and brown on other side.

Drizzle sauce over salmon fillets to serve.  Garnish with dill, if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

This makes for a very easy, but elegant-looking dish.  I served it over a bed of sauteed escarole.  

Come back on the third Thursday of February to see what I have made with carrots and ginger.

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Chocolate Banana Muffins

These are the muffins I made on Friday, which was a snow day here in Michigan.  They are very easy to put together and are the perfect weekend treat.  This recipe is directly from For the Love of Cooking. It was posted less than two weeks ago, but I couldn't wait to try it and then after I tasted it, I couldn't wait to share it with my readers.


Chocolate, Banana, and White Chocolate Chip Muffins


Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas
½ cup canola oil
¾ cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups of flour
¼ cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup white chocolate chips


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°.  Coat a muffin pan with baking spray.


Place the bananas in a large bowl; mash.  Add the oil, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla, stirring until well combined.


In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until just combined. Gently fold in the white chocolate chips.


Spoon the batter evenly into each muffin cup. 


Place into the oven and bake 22-25 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.


Let the muffins cool on a rack. 


Makes 12-14 muffins.

Amanda at Fake Ginger chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in May 2012.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

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Crazy Cooking Challenge: Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

It's time once again for the Crazy Cooking Challenge!  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to scour other blogs for the "ultimate" version of whatever that month's dish is.  The goal is to highlight and promote personal food blogs. This month's assigned dish was chicken noodle soup.  So we were to find the "ultimate chicken noodle soup" recipe, make it, and blog about it.

I found a recipe on Gina's Skinnytaste for Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup.  Even though her recipe called for turkey, I really liked the simplicity of it and it sounded just like what I had in mind.  So I started with that, and changed the turkey to chicken.  I felt like mixing things up a bit, so I made mini chicken meatballs instead of chunks of chicken breast.  I made mini meatballs for a soup I created last month, and they were so darn cute, I just had to make them again!  The only other thing I changed was to use spinach instead of the traditional celery.  I don't really like celery, but felt the soup still needed something green.  I've used spinach in soups before and I love it, so I went with that and it worked well.  Here's my adaptation.


Mini Chicken Meatball Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 cup carrots, sliced
¼ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. ground chicken
2 tbsp soft bread crumbs
½ tsp Italian seasoning (Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)
½ shallot, diced
¼ tsp salt
2 cups egg noodles
1 cup fresh spinach, torn

Directions:
Fill a large soup pot with chicken stock.  Add bay leaf, carrots, onion, and garlic and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. 

Meanwhile, combine the ground chicken, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, shallot, and salt.  Form into 1 tsp sized meatballs.  Add them to the soup pot one by one, so they don’t stick together.  Stir.  Increase heat to high and add egg noodles and spinach.  Cook until noodles are soft and spinach is wilted.  Taste for seasoning, adding salt if necessary.  Remove bay leaf.

Serve hot.

Makes 4 servings.

This soup was a big hit.  My 19-month-old gobbled down every little bit!  I love how simple it is and how easily and fairly quickly it can be thrown together.  Admittedly, chicken noodle soup isn't my favorite soup, mostly because I find it kind of "blah", but using mini meatballs takes it up a notch in the "interesting" department.  

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Spiced Hot Fudge Sauce

The fine people over at Marx Foods have issued another blogger challenge.  The challenge this time was to create a decadent chocolate recipe using one of the following ingredients: fennel pollen, dried Habanero chiles, dried Puya chiles, coconut sugar, granulated candy cap mushrooms, and vanilla beans.

My thoughts immediately gravitated toward the dried chiles.  I love a tiny little bit of heat in chocolate.  A few years ago, Haagen Dazs had a flavor of ice cream called Mayan Chocolate.  It didn't have any chiles in it, but it did have cinnamon, which I had never really had paired with chocolate before.  But having cinnamon in chocolate really opens the door to spicing chocolate up even more.  A year or so ago I made some "Mexican brownies" for a church dinner that involved adding chipotle powder and cinnamon to brownie batter.  So good.

So I knew I wanted to do a spicy chocolate thing, but what?  I tried to make fudge, but it was an epic failure (my second epic fudge failure in the last two months.  I'm pretty sure I am DONE trying to make fudge!).  Then I got the idea to make a spiced hot fudge sauce to go over ice cream and other desserts.  This one was an instant winner!

Spiced Hot Fudge Sauce


Ingredients:
2-3 dried Habanero chiles
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
⅓ cup cocoa
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter


Directions:
Remove the seeds and ribs from the chiles and crumble them into a spice or coffee grinder.  Grind until it becomes a fine powder.  Measure out ⅛ tsp – ¼ tsp, depending on how spicy you want the sauce to be.


In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, cinnamon, and chile powder.  Stir to remove any lumps.  Add milk and stir.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Boil until sauce has reached desired consistency, keeping in mind that the sauce will thicken a bit as it cools.  Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted.


Serve warm over ice cream, cheesecake, pound cake, and anything else you can think of!

It turned out so well and was super duper easy to make.  While it was really good with the ice cream, I had to really restrain myself not to just eat it all off the spoon!  And it's really easy to adjust to your heat preferences. I wanted some spice, but we don't like things too hot, so I used ⅛ tsp.  It was perfect for us.  If you use any more than that, you better like things HOT!

If you think this hot fudge sauce sounds good, please go over to the Marx Foods Blog and vote for it. My recipe is certainly the simplest one on the ballot, but complicated doesn't always mean tastier, right? :)

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Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls

It's Friday! How about some dessert?  These are some little treasures I made a while back.  I'm not sure why I haven't blogged about them yet, but it works out because today is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day!  So it's the perfect day to share this lovely recipe with you.  I got it from the blog Make Happy.


Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls


Ingredients:
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 tbsp butter, softened
2 tbsp brown sugar
⅛ tsp salt
1½ cups pretzels, crushed 
3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


Directions:
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper.


In a small bowl, combine peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, and salt. Stir until all ingredients are completely blended and smooth.  Add pretzel bits to peanut butter mixture and mix thoroughly.
Add powdered sugar and mix thoroughly. 


Take about a tablespoon of the peanut butter pretzel mixture into your fingers and gently pat it into a ball with your fingertips.  If the peanut butter starts sticking to your fingers, your fingers are too warm. Run your fingers under cold water for a minute to chill them, and begin rolling again.  Place the peanut butter balls onto the prepared baking sheet. Place it in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.


After the peanut butter balls have chilled, prepare the chocolate. Pour the chocolate chips into a small microwaveable bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds and stir. If needed, microwave for another 10 seconds and stir again. Continue until the chips are completely melted.


Place one peanut butter ball into the melted chocolate and gently roll it around with a fork until completely coated. Remove from the bowl with the fork and place back onto the waxed paper. Repeat for all other balls.  Once all the peanut butter balls are coated in chocolate, return the sheet to the refrigerator and chill another 30 minutes.


Makes approximately 18 balls.

Putting pretzels in desserts is really big right now, and after trying these, I can see why!  I've definitely had my share of chocolate covered peanut butter balls in my lifetime, but adding pretzels takes them to a whole new level!  I absolutely love the little bit of crunch and texture they give and then they've also got that salty/sweet thing going on too.  They're pretty perfect!

You can see that the chocolate is melting against my fingers in the pic above.  That's because I had to take about 30 blurry shots to get one good one!

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Improv Challenge: Cranberry Eggnog White Chocolate Chip Muffins

Today is reveal day for the Improv Cooking Challenge.  The premise of this challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

Last month, the challenge was pumpkin and cream cheese and I made those lovely Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls.  They were a big hit!  I'm probably even more excited about my recipe for this month's challenge ingredients: eggnog and cranberries.  I don't think I have ever cooked or baked with eggnog before.  It's not something I like to drink, but I don't mind the flavor, so I was eager to try it in a baked good.  And muffins are my go-to baked good of choice, which you already know if you are a regular reader.

I found this recipe for Eggnog Cranberry White Chocolate Muffins at Your Homebased Mom.  I was not familiar with Leigh Anne's blog, but she has some really tasty-looking stuff on there!  I thought these muffins sounded so delicious.  I made just a few minor adjustments.  Here's my amended recipe.


Cranberry Eggnog White Chocolate Chip Muffins


Ingredients:
2¼ cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
¾ cup eggnog
5 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp almond extract
1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 cup white chocolate chips
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, slightly softened


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375°.  Coat 18 muffin cups with baking spray.  


In a medium bowl, add together the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir to combine.  In a large bowl, add together the sugar, eggs, eggnog, oil, and almond extract.  Stir until well combined.   Add in the dry ingredients just until incorporated.  Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips.  Do not over mix.


Divide the batter among the 18 muffin cups.


For the streusel topping, combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter.  Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter or a fork until a coarse, crumbly mixture forms.  Sprinkle the mixture  on top of the muffin batter.


Bake for about 18-22 minutes, or a until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.


Makes 1½ dozen muffins.

I know this recipe pretty well by now, as I made it three times in about a month.  I made these muffins once, to try them out for the challenge, and they were so good that I made another batch to give to my sister when we went to her house for Thanksgiving, then I made them again for our fellowship/coffee time at church earlier this month.  They are not the easiest muffins to throw together; chopping the cranberries is quite tedious, but the end result is so much better than using dried cranberries.  I love the bright tartness they add to the muffins. They are the perfect balance to the sweetness of the other ingredients.  And I just love their vibrant red color.

As Leigh Anne says in her post, these muffins taste like Christmas!

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Gingerbread Muffins

I hope you're in the mood for muffins, because I've got two great recipes to share with you this week.  And guess what?  They're both Christmas-y muffin recipes.  I love cooking seasonal food.  Food doesn't get much more Christmas-y than gingerbread.  I pinned a Gingerbread Waffle recipe to Pinterest a long time ago and so far it has gotten 30 repins.  Unfortunately, I don't have a waffle-maker. :(  So what's the next best thing?  Gingerbread muffins!  This is a Betty Crocker recipe.

Gingerbread Muffins

Ingredients:

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup molasses

⅓ cup milk

⅓ cup vegetable oil

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground allspice

Raw sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°. Coat a 12 cup muffin tin with baking spray and set aside.

In large bowl, combine brown sugar, molasses, milk, oil, and egg.  In a another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice.  Gently stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients, until just combined, being careful not to over-stir. 

Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle each cup with a generous pinch of raw sugar.

Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

I changed almost nothing about this recipe.  It called for a white chocolate drizzle that I left off.  While it sounds good, they most certainly don't need it.  They are so great on their own. I think they're really good with a little smear of butter.

Now you know I am not much of a baker, so these muffins are as close to gingerbread men as I am going to get!

Come back on Thursday for another awesome Christmas muffin recipe.

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White Bean, Sausage, and Kale Soup

I recently cooked with a veggie I had never used before.  Kale.  I don't know why I had never used it before; I like leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard.  So when Grimmway Farms sent me a coupon for free produce, I thought it was high time to give kale a shot.  It's winter, so of course, my mind automatically went to soup.  Even though I had not had kale before, it just seemed like it would go well with beans and sausage.  Here's what I came up with.


White Bean, Sausage, and Kale Soup


Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
½ large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. bulk Italian sausage
2 cans white beans, one drained and rinsed, the other not
4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
6 cups red kale, chopped


Directions:
Heat oil in large soup pot over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and saute until onion begins to get soft.  Add sausage and break up into chunks.  Cook until sausage is  browned and cooked through.  Drain off grease.


Add beans, broth, and kale.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes or until kale is softened.


Makes 6 servings.

It worked really well.  I made this soup when my mom was visiting and she had never had kale before either.  She heard other people say that it was kind of bitter, so she was a tad skeptical.  But we were all pleasantly surprised that it wasn't bitter at all and had a lovely flavor.  Kale is much sturdier than spinach, and since my mom is not a fan of wilted spinach in soups, she liked it much better than if I had used spinach.  My husband loved it too and my 18 month old daughter gobbled it up!

I love having a wide variety of soups in my repertoire in the winter, so I am glad to have branched out and added a new veggie to the mix.  This is a nice, hearty soup for a cold winter day.

Kim at Everyday Mom chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in January 2013.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

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My First Guest Post

Today I am doing my first-ever guest post.  Mandy at Mandy's Recipe Box asked if I would be interested in doing one, so I took her up on the offer.



Mandy has a great blog.  If you aren't familiar with it, I encourage you to stop by and check it out.
The recipe I have posted over there is Slow Cooker Sesame Orange Chicken.  It's really easy and really tasty.  

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