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2 January
Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies Recipe
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Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies Recipe

This year I plan to focus on more meal-oriented recipes, but before I do, I’m going to start out with a dessert recipe that really steals your attention: Caramel Comatose Thunder Brownies (made with real canned thunder!—kidding). If desserts were people, this one would be Chuck Norris.

Here are a few things Chuck Norris and these “brownies” have in common:

  • You don’t find them, they find you.
  • Both can kill you with a simple stare.
  • Under their ‘beard’ lies another fist.
  • They’re both rugged at first, but are sweet once you get to know them (or so they say).
  • And so on and so forth…

In other words, make sure you’re wearing your big boy pants before digging in. On a more serious note, this dessert was born from my curiosity to play with opposites.

I wanted something that was chewy but crunchy, sweet but salty. After throwing a few ideas around and creating a few sketches, I decided on a brownie mixture that included caramel, extra chocolate, pretzels, and marshmallows.
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12 December
Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe
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Holiday Squares (Sunshine Bars) Recipe

I blinked once and the Christmas season was here; I blinked twice and now it’s almost over. I’m considering holding my eyes open with toothpicks à la Odysseus so I won’t blink again. Not really, but maybe I should because it would be a shame for Christmas to pass without sharing at least a few more Christmas recipes with you. (Read about Christmas Lollipop Cookies.)

The Christmas treats I’m sharing today are some of my favorites for many reasons:

  • They are festive and come out of the oven dressed to party.
  • They’re extremely easy to make.
  • The masses love them. So do the non-masses.
  • You can take them to work and your co-workers will love you.
  • They make your house smell divine.
  • They can tell the future, and so much more!

I should warn you though. They also have an identity crisis, and I’m afraid it confuses the children. After eating these, my kids have been known to say some pretty odd things. Check these doozies out.
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Filed Under: Desserts, Holidays, Kitchen Sink, Recipes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Christmas Lollipop Cookies Recipe

General Mills always seems to be up to something fun, and earlier this month they invited a few bloggers to create a fun holiday-themed cookie recipe using a Pillsbury cookie dough roll. With the chance of the recipe being on Pillsbury.com (Update: This recipe and the other bloggers’ submissions are now on Pillsbury.com. Follow the link to check out all the delicious goodness!), I couldn’t resist and decided to participate. We could choose to use any of the following Pillsbury cookie doughs: sugar, gingerbread, chocolate chip, peanut butter, or peppermint.

Being the sugar cookie addict that I am, I naturally opted to use the sugar cookie dough. Sugar cookies have long been a holiday tradition at my house, one that I hope my kids continue and pass down to their own families someday.

As part of our cookie submission, General Mills also asked us to make it kid friendly so that moms (or dads!) can make it at home with their kids. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you already know that I love cooking with my little girls. They’re especially fond of any recipe that lets them play with dough.

This particular Christmas cookie idea combines two of my children’s favorite things. The first is making dough snakes. My kids jump at the chance to make them, and believe me, we can play that game for hours. The second is suckers. Their love for suckers nearly surpasses my own for sugar cookies.
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Orange & Apple Cinnamon Biscuits Recipe

Today’s recipe is a partner to my last recipe post, Butterscotch Biscuits. If you haven’t tried those, you should. In fact, I would almost say try those first and then come back to these. I’d love to know how you feel they compare. This biscuit variation requires a smidgen more work and cooking time, but I love the extra orange, apple, and cinnamon flavors mixed in. In all honesty though, both are heavenly.

Okay, I explained in my last biscuits post how my kids go nuts when they find out we’re having these for breakfast. However, something I didn’t mention—and should have—is how kids love to help prepare this recipe. There’s some small knife work involved when dicing the apple, but other than that, kids can help with nearly every part from mixing the dough to slicing the rounds (with a dull dough cutter). If you haven’t tried cooking with your kids, I think you should give it a shot. We’ve had some great (and messy) times in the kitchen together.

The areas where my kids enjoy helping out the most is sprinkling the flour on the cupboard and spreading the butter, sugar, and apples onto the biscuit dough. They’re also pros at putting all the ingredients into the bowl. I maintain that the memories we create are worth the messes we make.

Now on to the biscuits.
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Butterscotch Biscuits Recipe

Do you remember as a kid waking up in the mornings to the smell of your favorite breakfast cooking? I sure do, and I still love it. Smelling the sweet breakfast aromas early in the morning is one of life’s great pleasures, one that almost instantly puts the entire family in a good mood.

Growing up in my family, there were a couple smells that almost always had us kids instantly bounding up the stairs: the quintessential breakfast of pancakes served with eggs and bacon and then the irresistible smell of butterscotch biscuits. Yes, I said that right… butterscotch biscuits,and today I’m going to share that biscuit recipe with you. But first, a quick peek into how awesome these biscuits are. These are not your typical biscuit, my friend.

Luckily (read: holy flipping cow, I’m incredibly lucky), my kids are not picky eaters. I’m not sure if it’s because I will eat nearly anything—with the exception of tuna loaf—and they’re just following my example, or if it’s because they know they’ll go without if they don’t eat what’s prepared. Maybe they’re really not my kids, but aliens from another planet… maybe, just maybe that’s it. (By the way, after they realized mom and dad were serious they always choose to eat what’s prepared.)
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Book Review: Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

I’m on a book craze right now and can’t stop stuffing my face with awesome literature. I recently finished reading An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward and immediately after finishing, I picked up Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman which I quickly devoured in each spare minute that I had. In my opinion, Ratio should be required reading for anybody who cooks in the kitchen.

On Goodreads, I gave this book a 5-star rating. It’s awesome. Really.

The purpose behind Ratio is to enlighten and teach the home cook about the fundamentals of cooking in the kitchen. Sounds boring, I know, but the concept of ratios is simply fascinating. It’s not as if cooking with ratios is a super-duper, ultra-guarded secret (because it’s not), but interesting enough, it’s not well known among home cooks. Knowing ratios gives you the power to ditch the recipes, grow some wings, and fly! It won’t be long before you’re creating recipes of your own. In fact, using his custard ratios, I created a tasty (and interesting) vanilla peach custard. I’ll post the recipe once I refine it a bit. It was my first ever attempt at custard, but I could do it thanks to being taught simple custard ratios.

Let’s explore some of the fascinating aspects of Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio.
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How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (with Glaze!)

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe, and I think it’s high time I do so again.

Contrary to popular belief I’ve actually been doing a lot of cooking lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much cooking that I’ve accumulated a gazillion and a half recipes to share with you. Some I’ve found online, others I’ve created from the depths of my inner self–and that can get pretty scary.

Some of the recipes I’ve found are from other blogs that I follow, and today’s lemon bread recipe is an adaptation from the ever popular and addicting blog called Cookie Madness, written by Anna.

I’ve made this lemon bread a few times and this last time around I added the poppy seeds, which I absolutely love–and it’s not because they supposedly make you test positive for doping. Is that even true?

A few tips when making this bread:

  1. Do not pack your flour. You want your flour to be loose so that the bread isn’t overly dense.
  2. Although bread is super delicious right out of the oven, I prefer this bread after it’s cooled down and the flavors have had a chance to mix together.
  3. I’ve tried this bread plain and also topped with a lemon glaze, a chocolate glaze, and a regular glaze. I prefer the lemon glaze.

Alright, that’s enough mumbo jumbo for one post. Let’s get baking. As always, there’s a printable recipe at the bottom of this post. The pictures in this post are a combination of the different times I’ve made this recipe.
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Video: How to Make No-Knead Bread

It’s snowing like crazy right now, which for some reason instantly put me in the mood to bake some great fresh bread. I love the aroma of fresh bread and biting through a crispy crust when it’s fresh out of the oven. Mmmmm. But alas, I’m still working on access to my old pictures (…click here if you must know…), and I’m at work on lunch break. So instead, I’ve been searching for an excellent bread-making video to post on The Cooking Dish (and to break this non-recipe dry spell). I came across this YouTube video posted by the New York Times featuring the Sullivan Street Bakery’s head baker, Jim Lahey, who apparently can make a mean loaf of bread. I’d love to spend a day in his bakery learning to bake.

Jim uses 5 basic ingredients to whip up a simple loaf of bread with amazing taste. He says, “[It's] a truly minimalist breadmaking technique that allows people to make excellent bread at home with very little effort. The method is surprisingly simple — I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.”
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Making Biscuits & Country Gravy with Maggie

One of the best parts of cooking is sharing the experience with someone else, and that’s especially enjoyable when it’s my little daughter, Maggie (who also goes by Maggalicious or Magzilla depending on her mood):

She really loves cooking with daddy and I enjoy cooking with her, even though it usually turns our kitchen into a disaster. But in the end it’s all worth it, and we both enjoy spending the time together. This past weekend Maggalicious and I decided to make biscuits and gravy. So for today’s post, I figured I’d her instruct you through how to make this easy biscuit recipe and country sausage gravy. The biscuit recipe I use is one from my mom, and I call them “Mom’s Increda-Biscuits.” Honestly, they’re down-right irresistible and so easy to make. This is actually two different recipes on one post (biscuits + country sausage gravy), so this time around there are two printable recipes available at the end of this post. Don’t forget to print them both out.
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December Giveaway: Cookie Cutters

Now that I’ve completed The Ultimate Kitchen Gifts List, I figured I would give away one item from it. One of my favorite Christmas activities is making sugar cookies, so in honor of my favorite activity, I’m giving away Fred’s ABC (Already Been Chewed) Cookie Cutters. These cookie cutters are supposed to help people stay away from your cookies… but to me, a broken or ABC cookie is an invitation to snitch. To each their own, I suppose. However, if you looove cookies and your kids absolutely demand you leave some for Santa, making Santa’s cookies with these will almost guarantee there’ll be some left for you on Christmas morning.

This contest will run through Friday sometime (December 11th), and then I’ll ship them a.s.a.p to the random lucky winner.
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