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7 March
S’more Babies Recipe (Smurds)
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S’more Babies Recipe (Smurds)

WOW! It’s been a crazy couple of months, and I’m glad to finally be posting another recipe. As some of you know I work a full-time job and I also run a freelance web design business, which I absolutely love, and I’m also creating two recipes a month for BettyCrocker.com and Pillsbury.com. You’ll be seeing some of those recipes show up on their sites in the near future.

With that busy schedule I’m feeling awesome that I finally had a chance to post here again, and I’m extra excited that today’s dessert is both incredibly easy and super delicious!

I have to admit though that now that I have a small window of free time, I’m having a hard time resisting the urge to turn on Doctor Who (Season 6 is now on Netflix!!) and zone out for a while. I’m typically petrified of aliens and the paranormal, but man, I’m loving that show. I think it’s helping me overcome my fear that an alien is going to find me and possess my body or eat me. Considering my recent diet, I’m sure I’d taste like a spoonful of sugar, just what a hungry alien needs to polish off a well-rounded meal.
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Filed Under: Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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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The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.

I’ve gotta’ say, Halloween is a dangerous holiday. It’s too easy to buy candy long before October 31st; it’s even easier to justify buying it early when you say to yourself, “Oh, I’ll stick it in the top cupboard and save it until then…”

Yeah right.

I don’t know of anybody who has ever successfully done that. Before too long, it just starts gnawing away at you because you know it’s there… eat me, eat me, eat me… *sigh* … Two years ago I bought my Halloween candy on October 31st, Halloween Day. I went to the store to find nearly empty shelves and ended up coming back with the stuff nobody wants: stale pumpkin peeps, Sunmaid raisins, and a mini-size candybar mix. Mini size. Really? Halloween is about packing in the goodies, not skimping on treats that you don’t even have to chew before swallowing.

So this year I decided to–yep, you guessed it–buy my goodies early. I bought them two weeks ago during a “weak moment” on aisle 5. Needless to say, I’m going to have to buy more. Dangit. At least there is one huge benefit to buying your Halloween candy early; besides having to buy and eat twice the amount of candy for Halloween, you get the best of the best. No stale pumpkin peeps for me this year.

So this year I’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best Halloween candies (I cheated and added more than one candy to some numbers), that if I had to buy twice this month, I wouldn’t complain.

In no particular order, behold the list…
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Filed Under: Kitchen Sink, Lists (Top 10 & Such) Tagged With: , ,
by · 3 Delicious Comments

An Awesome Gift + Where I’ve Been

Hey folks, I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post. Wow! In blogging terms, 1 month or longer between posts is equivalent to shooting myself in the foot.

But before we get into that, and above all else, I wanted to send a grateful shout out to Maren, my friend from Seevetal, Germany (near Hamburg). Over Christmas Maren sent me a really really awesome Christmas package full of German delight!
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Filed Under: Chris in Real Life, Everything Else Tagged With: , ,
31 December
2nd Annual QA Christmas Candy Party
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2nd Annual QA Christmas Candy Party

Excuse me for a second while I fill you in on the my latest happenings and not-so-adventurous adventures, then we’ll get to the real stuff.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to sit and down and work on The Cooking Dish, which is unfortunate because I have some delicious foods I’ve been wanting to post. Unexpectedly, however, I now have 4 to 5 days to work on it, if I’m up to it. For the past two weeks I’ve been fighting off a cough and intermittent fevers, and I finally thought I was getting better… BUT I woke up last night at 2:00 a.m. with a sever chest pain which kept me up for the rest of the night. Straight away this morning I contacted the family doctor and after a visit to the office left with a note saying, “stay home from work, you’ve got bronchitis and other junk” and some prescriptions to fill. Oh joy. I’m personally not a fan of involuntarily taking time off from work, but I don’t want to infect my co-workers either (you guys can thank me later–when I get back to the office).

So, without going into many more details, I’m stuck here at home and at the same time, trying to keep my distance from my overly-cute kids so they don’t get sick. That’s nearly impossible.

Well, thanks for listening to the rant… on with the show.

As of last year (2008), we started a new tradition in my department at work: The Annual QA CCP (Quality Assurance Christmas Candy Party). Although next year, we’re thinking of taking on a P at the beginning so it’ll be the QA PCCP (Pajama Christmas Candy Party).

Since my mom has been teaching my siblings and I how to make Christmas candy since we were only little squirts (just tall enough to burn our fingers on the stove top), and my brother and I work in the same department, there’s twice the trouble-making at the CCP. These CCPs have usually lasted an exhausting 6+ hours, but they’re always loads of fun.
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Filed Under: Holidays, Kitchen Sink Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
22 October
How to Make Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies
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How to Make Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies

I’m not sure how they’ve done it, but somehow the Girl Scout organization has developed a bunch of extraordinarily delicious cookies–I’m a huge fan of the Thin Mints and Somoas®–and maybe it’s just me, but it seems that you can only buy them once a year. If you miss the opportunity, you’re hosed. I have a really hard time saying no to their cookies and about anybody else who comes around selling brownies, cookies, and treats. When I hear a knock at the door, I’m always afraid it’s going to be an elementary kid with those big puppy dog eyes looking up at me saying, “Hey mister, would you like to buy some cookies?” Ahhh! I’ve resisted the temptation to buy cookies and brownies from kids knocking at my door only once before… or at least I thought about it once. Yeah, that’s it. I’m sure there’s got to be some sort of self-help classes for adults like me who can’t say no to strangers.

Well for those of you who are Girl Scout Cookie addicts like myself, your once-a-year wait is over. The other day while reading an article at BakingBites.com, I stumbled across a recipe to make homemade Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints. A few days later around 9:00 p.m. I decided to make the thin mints. I should have read the entire recipe first because they take a while to make and I was up pretty late, but it was worth it. The cookies are a pretty darn good replication of the original Girl Scout Thin Mints.
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Filed Under: Desserts, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,
17 August
Smore Recipe: Have Smore then Have Smore
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Smore Recipe: Have Smore then Have Smore

I hope it’s not too late in the summer for a post about smores (or s’mores). It’s hard to imagine a campfire outing without the crunchy, gooey goodness of a soft marshmallow and melted chocolate surrounded by a crunchy graham cracker. Gotta’ love it. I’m not sure who invented smores, but to whoever you are, you’re a hero in my book. The art of smore making has been passed down from generation to generation, but somehow the art missed my family. Good thing it’s not too hard to figure out, and I’ve been practicing it since I was 3 years old, not kidding. The hardest part is getting the marshmallow to that perfect golden-brown stage. It requires patience, young grasshopper. Here are a few instructions and tips from my book.
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Filed Under: Recipes, Snacks Tagged With: , ,